by Stuart Woods
“I suppose this is what you would call the carrot or the stick,” Stone said.
“Be happy it is not the frying pan or the fire,” Jacques said. “It could easily have been so, were it not for Mirabelle’s persuasions.”
“Merci beaucoup, Mirabelle!” Stone called out, so that she could hear him in the kitchen.
“Sign the papers, dummy!” she called back.
“All right,” Stone said, “I’ll sign the papers. If you will be kind enough to untape me.”
“Of course,” Jacques said, rising and coming toward him with a pocketknife. “I should mention that there are two strong and dangerous men standing behind you, who would take it amiss if you did not behave properly.”
“I will be the soul of propriety,” Stone said.
Jacques cut through the tape holding both wrists, and Stone removed what remained and tossed it into the fireplace. He turned his head to see another man sitting at the desk with a stack of papers before him. “Here, please,” he said, indicating the chair next to him.
Stone got up, walked across the living room, and sat down at the desk. The man uncapped a Mont Blanc pen and handed it to him, then he riffled through a few pages of the stack. “Here,” he said, pointing to a blank space. Stone signed. “Here,” the man said at another page. Stone signed. This continued until Stone had signed a dozen times, then the man extracted an envelope from his inside coat pocket, produced a check, made out as Jacques had indicated, and a sheet of paper, where he indicated Stone was to sign once more. Stone signed.
The man returned the check to the envelope and handed it to Stone. “You may deposit it into your account at any bank in the world,” he said. He picked up the stack of papers, put it into his briefcase, and snapped it shut. He retrieved his pen, capped it, and placed it in an inside pocket. “My business is concluded here,” he said to no one in particular. “I bid you good day.” He left by the front door.
“Mr. Barrington,” Jacques said, “I wish to thank you for being compliant in these circumstances. It would have been unpleasant for me to watch someone of whom my sister is fond be subjected to great harm and, very likely, a painful death. Now my business is also concluded here, and I, too, wish you a good day.”
Jacques went into the kitchen and came back holding Mirabelle’s hand.
“I am so sorry for all of this, Stone,” Mirabelle said, then she was whisked out of the house by her brother. She came back a moment later. “I want you to know that these stupid rumors about Jacques and me are ridiculous lies!”
“I never doubted it for a moment.”
She left again.
Stone got out his cell phone and called Marcel duBois. He was connected immediately.
“Hello, Stone.”
“Marcel,” Stone said, “I have just been compelled, under duress, to sign away my ownership in the Arrington hotels. Or at least, I think that’s what I signed—it was in French.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Stone, as I have just done the same thing, and under duress, as well.”
“Are you safe now?”
“I believe so.”
“Then call your attorney, explain things to him, and have him take every legal action to stop the sale. And don’t cash the check.”
“Stone,” Marcel said, “I don’t know if that is the right thing to do.”
“Marcel, right or wrong, it is the only thing to do.”
“They have made very serious threats.”
“Ignore them. I’ll call Mike Freeman and have you removed to a safe place at once.”
Marcel sighed. “All right, Stone, if you insist,” Marcel replied. “But I am very much afraid that you and I are out of the hotel business.”
“We’ll see about that,” Stone said.
52
Stone called Yves Carrier at the Paris Woodman & Weld office and explained what had happened. “I should tell you that I signed the papers ‘Steve Ballington.’”
Carrier laughed loudly. “Nevertheless, I will take immediate steps to stop any transfer of title to the company in every country in Europe. You should have the New York office stop transfer in the United States. Someone might not notice the discrepancy in the signatures.”
Stone hung up and called Bill Eggers, the managing partner in New York, and brought him up to date.
“I can’t imagine how they think they can get away with that,” Eggers said. “Whatever you do, don’t cash the check.”
“Right,” Stone said. He hung up and called Mike Freeman and asked him to reinforce Marcel’s security. “That’s twice they’ve gotten to Marcel,” he said. “You’ve got to move him.”
“I don’t have a safe house at my disposal,” Freeman said.
“Then bring him to me here,” Stone said. “There’s plenty of room. We’ll need more security, though. Jacques Chance has already gotten into the house.”
“I’ll send people at once. What’s the address?”
Stone gave it to him, then hung up the phone. He called Rick LaRose and told him what had happened.
“I don’t understand how Chance got past my people,” Rick said. “Hang on while I call them.”
Stone hung on impatiently.
Rick came back on the line. “No answer. Something’s wrong.”
“No kidding? What happened to the men who were supposed to be on the roof?”
“They weren’t due there for another hour.”
“Mike Freeman is sending people. See that yours don’t shoot his.” He hung up, then Holly called.
“Rick told me what happened. It’s partly my fault.”
“Which part?”
“I put a sleeping pill in your orange juice at breakfast. I was concerned about you, and I thought more sleep would help.”
“Thank you for your concern—the pill worked all too well.”
“I’ll be there as soon as possible,” she said. “Hang on a minute.” She covered the phone and spoke to someone. “Our two men on the gate were taken out with a dart gun. They’re still unconscious in a car outside your gate.”
“Great.”
“Rick has replacements on the way.”
“Mike Freeman is sending people, too. He’s having Marcel brought here. I’ll put him in one of the upstairs rooms.”
“Just hang on until everybody gets there. Be ready to shoot anybody who won’t identify himself properly.”
“I hope I can get out of this without killing somebody,” Stone said. “That could keep me in France for weeks, while it’s being investigated.”
“I hope that doesn’t happen, but it’s preferable to having you killed.”
“I’ll go along with that,” Stone said. He hung up and pulled his chair near the window and peeked past the curtain, so he could see into the mews, the pistol Rick had given him in his hand.
—
HOLLY ARRIVED half an hour later with reinforcements and oversaw the placement of her people. “They’re on the roof here and across the street. There are two men just inside the gates, and they’ll all be replaced in shifts.”
Mike Freeman arrived with Marcel duBois in tow, carrying a small suitcase, and Stone took him upstairs in the elevator and got him settled in, then he went back downstairs. Lance Cabot was seated before the fireplace.
“How the hell did you get to Paris so fast, Lance?”
“I never left,” Lance replied.
“So when I called you, you were in Paris?”
“My phone works everywhere, Stone.”
“Of course it does.”
“I’ve just come from a meeting with Prefect Chance.”
“Jacques?”
“His father, Michel. He is extremely embarrassed about the conduct of his son. He says he has not been able to find him or speak to him since the newspaper revelations of his selling o
ut to the Russians. He is determined to see Jacques in prison.”
“The old man is not going to be of much use to you, is he? In the circumstances?”
“I hope I talked him out of resigning. We need someone we know in that office, until this business is resolved. The good news is, because of the revelations about Jacques in the papers, Yevgeny Majorov is now a fugitive in France. Michel has put his best people on the search for him.”
“What about Jacques? Is he a fugitive, too?”
“Yes, but not officially. Michel just wants him detained before he hurts someone. He was shocked at the news of Jacques’s visit with you today.”
“Not as shocked as I was,” Stone said.
“Well,” Mike said, “it seems that we have a virtual army on our side now. I hope the French police can prevent Majorov from leaving the country.”
“That’s more than my people can do,” Lance said. “We’re now in a situation where we have to rely on the French. I had hoped to avoid that.”
“I don’t want to avoid it,” Stone said. “I want Majorov and Jacques in custody.”
Marcel came into the room. “I was thinking, perhaps we should issue a statement to the press about what has happened—perhaps even hold a press conference.”
Lance shook his head. “It’s not a good idea for Stone’s name to appear in the press,” he said.
“I don’t mind, if it will help find Majorov,” Stone replied.
“You’re forgetting our election at home,” Lance said. “Your name has already been linked to Kate’s in the press once, she doesn’t need that happening again at this late date.”
“Of course, you’re right,” Stone said. “I guess I’m not thinking very clearly.”
“All you can do now, Stone, is just hunker down here until Majorov pops up somewhere, and the French can lay hands on him.”
Stone knew he was right, but he didn’t like it.
53
Stone woke with a jerk; he had been dreaming, but he couldn’t remember what, except that it was very important. He tried to go back to sleep to regain his dream, but an image popped into his head that kept him awake. It was something he had seen back in Los Angeles, at his son Peter’s hangar at Santa Monica Airport.
Stone sat up in bed. The image was of a Gulfstream jet, the one that Yuri Majorov, Yevgeny’s brother, had later died in. There was something unusual about it, something that made it different from other Gulfstreams, but he couldn’t get it straight in his mind. It was a symbol something like the old USSR crossed hammer and sickle, but not quite; something was different about it. He swung his feet onto the floor and sat on the edge of the bed, trying to re-create the scene in his mind. He was standing by the open hangar door when the Gulfstream taxied past him, headed for the terminal building. The symbol was painted on the engine nacelle, so it was directly in his line of sight as the airplane passed him. It was in red paint. What was more, he had seen it somewhere recently.
“What’s wrong?” Holly asked from the other side of the bed.
“I just remembered something,” Stone replied. “Lance said that his people couldn’t prevent Majorov from leaving the country.”
“That’s right, there aren’t enough of our personnel in Paris to cover the airports and the train stations.”
“If Majorov wants to leave the country, he won’t go by train—he’ll fly in his own jet.”
“There are an awful lot of those,” Holly said, “and I happen to possess the useless knowledge that there are fourteen airports in and around Paris.”
“He’ll be leaving on a Gulfstream 450.”
“There are a lot of those, too, and we don’t have a tail number. And they all seem to have a similar paint job.”
“Not this one,” Stone said. “It has a sort of takeoff on the Soviet hammer and sickle on the engine nacelle, but instead of a sickle crossed by a hammer, it’s a sickle crossed by a Kalashnikov assault rifle. I saw it at Santa Monica Airport, and again at Le Bourget when we arrived here. I had forgotten about it.”
Holly sat up. “We’ve got to call the Paris police,” she said.
“Bad idea,” Stone replied. “First of all, why would they listen to us? We’re Americans, and we can’t explain ourselves in French.”
“Lance can call Michel Chance, the prefect. His jurisdiction is the Île-de-France, which includes all fourteen airports.”
“He won’t be leaving from thirteen of those—he’ll be leaving from Le Bourget, where Charles Lindbergh landed after his flight across the Atlantic.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because when Charles de Gaulle Airport opened, Le Bourget became the airport of choice for corporate jets like the Gulfstreams. I just told you, I saw the Majorov jet when we landed there.”
“That’s right, we did. Let’s wake up Lance.”
“I’ve got a better idea—wake up Rick LaRose and tell him we’ll meet him at Le Bourget.”
“It’s a big airport, where are we going to look for the airplane?”
“At Landmark Aviation, where we landed. It was being hangared there.”
“Lance will kill me if I don’t wake him up,” Holly said.
“All right, get dressed and wake him. And when you call Rick, remember to tell him we’re leaving here for Le Bourget and to let his people outside the house know not to fire on us.”
“I’ll certainly remember that,” Holly said, getting into some jeans.
—
LANCE CAME downstairs dressed, but unshaven. “All right, Stone, tell me about this.”
“Didn’t Holly tell you?”
“You tell me.”
“I saw the airplane, first in Santa Monica, then I saw it at Le Bourget when we arrived on Mike Freeman’s Gulfstream. I just couldn’t remember where I had seen it before—now I do.”
Lance produced a cell phone and pressed a number. “Rick? We’re on. Stone says for us all to meet at Le Bourget, at Landmark Aviation.” He listened for a moment, then hung up. “All right,” he said, “let’s get going.”
Lance had, apparently, been on the phone before, because there was a Mercedes armored van waiting for them in the mews.
“How far is it to Le Bourget?” Holly asked.
“Seven miles,” Lance replied. “It seems like a lot farther in traffic, but there’s no traffic this time of the day. Driver, step on it—use the flashing lights if you have to, but no siren.”
Stone was pressed into his seat by the acceleration.
54
They didn’t bother with the Périphérique; they went straight north, through the heart of Paris. It astonished Stone how little traffic they saw along the way.
“Director,” the man in the front passenger seat called, “where at Le Bourget?”
Lance gave him directions to a security gate near Landmark Aviation. “Rick LaRose will meet us there.”
Ten minutes later they drew up at a security gate bearing a large sign in several languages, to the effect that admittance was available only to those with the proper credentials. At their appearance, the gate slid open, beeping loudly. Just inside, next to a small guardhouse, Rick stood waiting for them with half a dozen other men.
Lance slid open a door. “Rick, I assume you have the proper credentials for us to be admitted.”
“I do,” Rick replied. “A two-hundred-euro note satisfied that requirement.” He produced a map of the airport and a small flashlight. “Here’s Landmark,” he said, then pointed at a lighted ramp a quarter of a mile away. “There are several large hangars. I’ve sent some men to reconnoiter. They’ll call us.” He held up a small handheld radio.
“How long do we have to wait?” Lance said.
“Until they call us. The airplane could be in any of the Landmark hangars, or it could have already departed. That seems unlikely, however.
We checked with the tower, and no flight plan for a Gulfstream jet has been filed since sundown yesterday.”
“Check with the tower again,” Lance said.
Rick produced a cell phone, dialed a number, and, in excellent French, conducted a brief conversation, then hung up. “A Gulfstream 450 has filed for Saint Petersburg”—he consulted his watch—“departure in thirty-five minutes.”
“Can you see it on the Landmark ramp?” Lance asked.
Rick got a pair of binoculars and trained them on the FBO. As he did, a voice was heard from his radio. He listened. “That’s our guy,” he said. “An FBO employee tells him a Gulfstream is being pre-flighted by three pilots, a stewardess, and a maintenance crew in Hangar Two.” He pointed. “The doors are closed.”
“Tell your guy,” Lance said, “to find a way to observe—only observe—the interior of the hangar. I want to know if there are any passengers in the hangar or on the airplane, and I want to know if any vehicles bearing such persons arrive at the hangar.”
Rick transmitted the orders. “He’ll get back to us. Do you want us to go over there now?”
“Not until we know what we’re getting into,” Lance said. “I don’t want a firefight on French soil.” He turned around. “Stone, you’re a pilot—what’s the best way to temporarily disable a jet airplane without causing a fire or an explosion or much of a fuss?”
“Fire a round into the nosewheel,” Stone said. “It would take at least an hour, perhaps much longer, to replace it, even if they have a tire readily available.”
“An hour to change a tire?”
“It’s not a car,” Stone said, “it’s an airplane, and the mechanics who work on it have to follow strict procedures in the maintenance manual. It’s time-consuming.”
“Would the pilots start the engines in the hangar?”
“No, the thrust from those two big engines would likely blow out the back of the hangar. They’ll tow it onto the ramp with a tractor, and they’ll start the engines there.”