Below the Belt

by Stuart Woods

  “Maybe sooner than I’d planned.”

  “You better be careful with Ed. He hasn’t fired at anybody yet, but he’s waved that shotgun around a couple of times when people turned up at his gate by mistake.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. What about the Old Farts? Are they still around?”

  “Ed’s the last man standing. The others kicked off—one, two, three. Heart attacks, strokes, you know. Of course, the first one was murdered.”

  “I remember.”

  “Come see us when you get in.”

  “Thanks, Jimmy.” They said goodbye and hung up.

  “Sounds like old age and loneliness have made Ed become a little unhinged,” Holly said.

  “Possibly. Sounds to me like Ed is feeling threatened.”

  “Paranoia?”

  “It’s not paranoia if somebody’s after you.”

  “So, are we going to abandon Santa Fe for Maine?”

  “Santa Fe is looking a little less hospitable than when we got here,” Stone said. “That strong case is attracting too much attention.”

  “Are you sure it’s not just paranoia?”

  “We’ve been followed, and someone broke into the house last night. What else has to happen before you start to feel a little paranoia?”

  “I guess that’s enough,” Holly said. “When do we leave?”

  “Get packed,” Stone said. “I have to repair that window, then we’re out of here. You know what I wish we’d done?”

  “What?”

  “Brought Bob with us.”

  “You mean the killer Labrador retriever?”

  “I mean the noisy dog.”

  —

  STONE CALLED JOAN and informed her of his change of location.

  “You sick of Santa Fe already?”

  “No, I just have a hankering for Maine. Pack up Bob’s things and ask Fred to meet me with him at the airport in Oxford, Connecticut.” He looked at his wristwatch. “In about six hours. Also, please call Seth and Mary and tell them we’ll be two for dinner this evening, then staying on for a while. Ask Seth to call the airport in Rockland and get me a ride to Islesboro and ask them if they have hangar space for the Citation for a week or so.” They went over some business for a few minutes, then he hung up. “I’d better go fix the window,” he said.

  —

  THEY TOOK OFF from Santa Fe with a stiff tailwind and made it to Oxford, Connecticut, in a little over three hours.

  “Why here?” Holly asked as they taxied in to the FBO.

  “Less hassle than in Teterboro, quicker in and out. Also, whoever has been interested in us could be tracking our flight on the Internet, so from here, we’ll fly VFR and set the transponder to twelve hundred. If they’re watching, they won’t be able to distinguish us from a lot of smaller airplanes.”

  “But we’ll have to stay under eighteen thousand feet.”

  “Right, but it’s less than an hour to Rockland.”

  As they approached the ramp, Fred came out of the building with Bob on a leash. Bob went nuts when he saw the airplane.

  Stone greeted them both and ordered enough fuel to get them to Rockland with reserves. They stowed Bob’s bag with his food and toys, then took off for Rockland under Visual Flight Rules without filing a flight plan.

  At Rockland, they put Stone’s airplane into a hangar and, at his insistence, locked it. “If anybody should ask, I’m not here, and you haven’t heard from me,” he told them.

  The three of them piled into a Cessna 182 and made the flight to the island of Islesboro in fifteen minutes, setting down on the fairly short landing strip. Seth was there to greet them in the 1938 Ford station wagon that belonged to the house.

  “Can’t say I’m surprised to see you,” Seth said, shaking their hands. “Nothing you’d do could surprise me.”

  Another fifteen minutes and they were at the house. Seth took their bags upstairs.

  “Anyone asking for me?” Stone asked when he came down.

  “Yup, Jimmy did, when I went to the store.”

  “So by suppertime everybody will know I’m here.”

  “I expect so,” Seth said. “That okay with you?”

  “Oh, sure. There are no secrets around here. Any phone calls?”

  “One. They hung up when I answered.”

  “Maybe that was Ed,” Stone said to Holly.

  “Or somebody else,” she said darkly.

  11

  DINNER WAS THE USUAL FIRST-NIGHTER: lobster bisque followed by lobster, shelled and tossed in butter.

  “You wouldn’t get this in Santa Fe,” Stone said to Holly. “I’m sorry to have yanked you out of the town so quickly.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m happy to be here.”

  Seth came in with the strong case. “This yours?” he asked, holding it up by the handcuff. “I found it in the car.”

  “Yes, I forgot that. Just leave it here by me,” Stone said.

  Seth, being a Mainer, liked to mind his own business and didn’t ask about the handcuff, just set the thing down where he was asked to and left.

  “What do you suppose Seth thinks about that?” Holly asked.

  “He can think whatever he wants to,” Stone said. “After all, nothing I do surprises him. He said so himself.”

  After dinner he went to the secret room maintained by his cousin Dick Stone, after whose murder Stone had come into his house. He unlocked it, revealing the small office. “The Agency computer is gone,” Stone said.

  “The Internet setup, too. Now you’re just an ordinary civilian who has to supply his own Wi-Fi.”

  “Already supplied,” Stone said. He opened Dick’s safe and tucked the strong case inside, then he closed it and unlocked the compartment that held Dick’s weapons. Gone were the fully automatic machine gun and the assault rifle. The riot gun and a couple of handguns were still there.

  “They took whatever was on the Agency’s inventory list,” Holly said.

  Stone handed her a 9mm semiautomatic pistol and a couple of loaded magazines. “So you won’t feel naked,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  “Nobody is coming in here,” Stone said. “This house was built to Agency specs, remember?”

  “I remember, and it gives me a warm feeling all over.”

  “I believe you said something about getting naked,” Stone said, locking the secret room and straightening the picture that hung on the door.

  “I believe it was you who mentioned naked, in reference to sidearms, but now that I think of it, I’m ready to get naked.”

  “Then let’s get upstairs,” Stone said, and on the way he armed the alarm system and checked the panel to be sure all the windows were secure.

  —

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING, as they were finishing breakfast in bed, Stone’s cell phone rang. The caller’s number was blocked.

  “You said to call you,” Ed Rawls said. “What’s up? Don’t waste my time.”

  “I’m coming to see you this morning, Ed, and Holly Barker is coming with me, and I don’t want a shotgun pointed at us. That concise enough for you?”

  “Yep.” Ed hung up.

  “You think he’s gone completely nuts?” Holly asked.

  “Jimmy Hotchkiss said they had ninety inches of snow up here this winter. What sort of effect would that have on you if you were alone and couldn’t see out the window for four or five months?”

  “It would make me glad to see people,” Holly said, “just like any normal human being.”

  “Ed was never that normal,” Stone said. “He was always a little tetchy about callers at his place.”

  “I’ll grant you that, but he knows us. Who can he trust if not you and me?”

  “Why don’t we stop arguing and go find out?”

  —r />
  WHEN THEY GOT to Ed Rawls’s gate, it swung open and the big log across the road swung back on its rollers, too. Once they were through, both returned to their original positions.

  “Did you see the camera?” Holly asked.

  “Yes. It wasn’t there last year.” As they came around a curve the cottage was revealed. Ed Rawls was standing on the front porch, a shotgun in his hand. They got out of the car.

  “Ed, I warned you about that shotgun,” Stone said.

  “It ain’t pointed at you, is it? Get your ass inside so I can lock everything down.” He opened the door for them and followed them in, then spent a long moment working several locks. The room looked as cozy and comfortable as ever, but the windows all had blackout curtains. “Siddown,” Ed said. “I’ve got lunch on the stove.”

  They sat down and waited while he rummaged in the kitchen, then came out pushing a cart that held three grilled ham and cheese sandwiches, a bottle of red wine, and a bottle of bourbon. “Help yourself,” he said. “Wine or whiskey?”

  “I guess a glass of wine,” Stone said.

  “Me too,” Holly echoed.

  Ed poured them all a glass, switched on the TV and Fox News came up, but he immediately changed to MSNBC, looking embarrassed. He watched the headlines in silence until they had finished eating, then he wheeled the cart back into the kitchen, refreshed their glasses, and sat down.

  “Okay,” he said, “what do you want?”

  Stone and Holly exchanged a glance.

  “Are you on some kind of medication, Ed?” Stone asked.

  “None of your business, but no.”

  “Then why are you so fucking hostile?”

  “You think this is hostile? This is my sunny disposition face.” He pointed at his chin.

  Holly burst out laughing, and Ed managed a small smile.

  “I guess you think I’m paranoid, or something.”

  “Or something,” Stone replied. “Is somebody out to get you?”

  “I think that’s a reasonable assumption, given the circumstances.”

  “What are the circumstances?”

  “Two pros with weapons arrived here a couple of weeks ago.”

  “And you’re still here. Where did they go?”

  “Into Penobscot Bay,” Ed replied. “Though the tides probably took ’em out into the Atlantic.”

  Stone sighed. “Who sent them to see you?”

  “I didn’t have time to ask.”

  “Domestic or foreign?” Holly asked.

  “One of ’em sounded like a Texan,” Ed replied. “The other one never had the opportunity to speak.”

  “Political or criminal?”

  “Most of the politicians I’ve known have been criminals.”

  “You owe your liberty to a politician,” Stone said.

  “One of two or three I’ve come across who are decent human beings.”

  “Are you including Joe Adams in that crowd?” Stone asked.

  “Yes, I am. And Kate, too. I’ve never blamed her for turning me in. I deserved it. That’s why I helped her—and Will, too.” He looked curious for a moment. “Why do you bring up Joe Adams?”

  “I spoke with him a few days ago,” Stone said.

  “Did he speak to you? I mean, did he make any sense?”

  “He made more sense than I expected him to.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  “When did you last see Joe?”

  Ed looked at him sharply. “That’s a loaded question.”

  “Then unload it for me.”

  “A while back,” he said.

  “How did that come about?”

  “He and Sue spend their summers in Maine, you know.”

  “I didn’t know,” Stone said. “Where?”

  “On Mount Desert Island, ’bout an hour’s drive from here, if you make the ferry.”

  “Did they invite you, or did you just show up?”

  “I made an appointment.”

  “What did you and Joe talk about?”

  “This and that. It was a short conversation.”

  “Did you leave something with Joe?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I’m sorry, Ed, but maybe doesn’t cut it. I need some answers.”

  “All right,” Ed said, “I’ve answered your questions, now it’s my turn.”

  “Okay, shoot—but I don’t mean that literally.”

  “What the fuck are you doing here, Stone?”

  “I live here, sometimes.”

  “Why this time?”

  “Because I need to know what you left with Joe.”

  “I left a case with him.”

  “I know that already. What was in the case?”

  “How the hell do you know that?”

  “You just told me.”

  “Don’t fuck with me, Stone. What do you know?”

  “Not as much as I want to know. What was in the case?”

  “Among other things, a manuscript.”

  “Fiction or nonfiction?”

  “Reality. Every word of it true.”

  “Anything in it that would cause somebody to send a pair of hit men to see you?”

  “I think you can assume that.”

  “Who’s involved in this?”

  “People in high places, with a great deal to lose.”

  “Are you talking about a conspiracy theory?”

  “I’m talking about a conspiracy—no theory involved.”

  “Does this have some effect on Kate’s reelection campaign?”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  “But it could?”

  “Only if I’m dead. Not even then.”

  “Well, Joe gave it to me.”

  Rawls stared at him, agape.

  12

  RAWLS CLOSED HIS MOUTH. “I don’t fucking believe you.”

  Stone shrugged. “It’s an Agency strong case, thick and heavy.”

  “It’s heavy because it’s wrapped in lead sheeting inside, so it can’t be X-rayed. You’d never get it through airport security.”

  “I brought it in my airplane. You don’t get X-rayed in an FBO.”

  “Why did Joe give it to you?”

  “I think because he’s known since he first got sick that he’s fading. Sue may have had something to do with his decision, too. Will asked me to go and get it from him and hang on to it.”

  “Where is it now?”

  “Locked in a safe at my house.”

  “Have you looked at what’s inside?”

  “Joe didn’t give me the key. I suppose you have it.”

  Rawls didn’t answer that.

  “Come on, Ed,” Holly said. “There will only be two keys, and normally the Agency would have one.”

  “This ain’t normal times,” Ed said.

  “All right,” Stone said, “suppose you get visited again, and your luck doesn’t hold. Who gets the case then?”

  Rawls looked away. “I guess you’re as good a bet as anybody, if Will wants you to have it.”

  “He gave me the key to the handcuff, but not the case.”

  “Then ask him for the other key.”

  “He doesn’t want to be contacted, unless it’s absolutely necessary. He has to go through third parties, and I think that makes him uncomfortable.”

  “He’s right to be uncomfortable,” Rawls said.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Do I have to draw you a picture?”

  “Please draw me a picture, Ed. I need to know what I’m dealing with. And who.”

  “I need to think about that.”

  “It seems that Will and Joe have already done the thinking for you, otherwise the case wouldn’t be in my safe.”
/>
  “Who knows you’re here?”

  “The short answer to that is Jimmy Hotchkiss.”

  “Hah! You mean everybody knows.”

  “Everybody on the island.”

  “Who off the island knows you’re here?”

  Stone shrugged. “I took some steps to avoid being seen headed here. The trail of bread crumbs stopped in Oxford, Connecticut.”

  “You mean you turned off your transponder there.”

  “I mean I stopped for fuel and left without filing a flight plan and squawking twelve hundred.”

  “That was a good idea, Stone,” Ed said with something that sounded nearly like admiration.

  “And he never even went to the Farm,” Holly said, referring to the Agency training school in Virginia. “If he had, maybe nobody would know he has the case.”

  “Who knows?” Rawls asked.

  “We were followed once in Santa Fe,” Stone said. “And that night, somebody broke into my house and tried to get into my safe. I spoke to Will after that, and he told me that someone had visited Joe when he was taking the sun in his garden, and Joe had thought he was speaking to me. Apparently, they discussed the case.”

  “Oh, shit,” Rawls said.

  “When I heard that, we decamped for here.”

  “Did you fly nonstop from Santa Fe to Oxford?”

  “Yes, and I filed a flight plan.”

  “They’re going to look here,” Ed said. “They’ll know you have a house on the island.”

  “Maybe,” Stone replied. “I expect they’ll be more careful next time, given what happened to the last people they sent.”

  “Where’s your airplane?”

  “Locked in a hangar at Rockland Airport. We were flown here in a little Cessna.”

  “That’s good. You’d better have another word with Jimmy and tell him to keep his mouth shut.”

  “Good idea.”

  “I want to show you something,” Ed said. “Something that only I know about.”

  “All right.”

  Ed went to a window facing the rear of the house and drew back the curtain. Stone followed him. “You see that rose garden there, with the concrete edge around it?”

  “Yes.”

  “When I bought this property there was another house on it, old and in disrepair. I tore it down. Where that rose garden is was a small swimming pool. I built a new bottom in it, two feet down and filled it in with dirt.” He paused and waited for Stone to catch up. “Get it?”