Below the Belt

by Stuart Woods

  “I have neither an agent nor a publisher,” Ed said.

  “Only an attorney,” Stone said.

  “And I am aware, Stone, that, with your wide acquaintance in New York, you are perfectly capable of representing Ed in his dealings with publishers.”

  “Quite so,” Stone replied.

  “Ed, our publishing policy has not changed. You may be aware that many manuscripts by former officers have been vetted and published.”

  “Sure,” Ed said, “with a lot of black lines drawn through blocks of text.”

  “What I hope is that, before you show a manuscript even to Stone, you will go through the text and draw those lines yourself.”

  “You mean, you don’t want me to just blurt out everything I know about the Agency?”

  “Certainly not, Ed, and you will know as well as anybody on our committee which passages require redacting.”

  “I think what you mean, Lance, is that you don’t want even your committee to know what’s in the unexpurgated version.”

  “That is so,” Lance said. “Information that is very sensitive has its way of spreading, and it spreads in proportion to the number of people who first possess it.”

  “Perhaps there are things that present-day officers need to know about what their predecessors got up to.”

  “We compartmentalize,” Lance said, “vertically as well as horizontally.”

  “Every organization has a history,” Ed said. “What’s wrong with that?”

  “We are not every organization,” Lance said firmly. “I think you are in a position to know that.”

  “Oh, I know it very well, but I believe that a system, even a secret one—especially a secret one—needs to be periodically purged in order to retain its long-term health.”

  “Even if so doing would damage people in high places who maintain friendly relations with the Agency?”

  Ed shrugged.

  “Even if the country is damaged by being deprived of the leadership of some of the best Americans alive?”

  “Are you saying that these people should not be held accountable for their actions?”

  “Certainly not. I believe the country is well served by knowing what their government has done—after sufficient time has passed for the damage to be put into perspective.”

  “You mean, fifty years after those people are dead? What about the generations between now and then? Are they to remain ignorant of what was done on their behalf?”

  “Lance,” Stone said, “can you be specific? Give us an example?”

  “Why, of course, Stone. May I remind you, as an example, of two events that you are well acquainted with—when an outgoing President, on the morning of the inaugural day of his successor, in, quite literally, the final hours of his service, secretly pardoned two dangerous criminals, one who had assassinated high officials of our democracy, the other who was the most notorious traitor to this country since, perhaps, Benedict Arnold? How, if these things became known, would they affect the political longevity of his successor?”

  “Will had very good reasons for his action, and we don’t know if Kate had any part in that,” Stone pointed out.

  “Right on both points, but what does that matter?” Lance demanded. “Her political opposition would immediately assume, perhaps dishonestly, that she did, and so would many members of the public at large, and she would be pilloried. Can you, in good conscience, allow that to happen?”

  “I am not in a position to make that judgment.”

  Lance pointed a finger at Ed Rawls. “He is! And you have taken it upon yourself to be his advisor.”

  “That is not my role in this matter,” Stone said firmly. “I have been asked by a person I respect to keep all that from happening by securing . . . whatever is in that package.”

  “And is it secure?” Lance asked. He pointed at Stone’s safe. “I know a dozen people who could unlock that in five minutes, and then it would be insecure.”

  “I expect you do,” Stone replied. “Is that your plan?”

  “And there is something else I haven’t mentioned,” Lance said, ignoring his question. “Even if what you have is destroyed, as Ed’s house was destroyed, there is still something I have heard about for years—the legendary memory of Ed Rawls, who, if he lives up to his reputation, could spew every fact in his head into a tape recorder, and then we would be back where we started.”

  There was a long silence, during which no one wished to speak.

  Then Ed Rawls said, “I think what Lance wants is to separate my head from the rest of my body.”

  With that, Ed got up and walked out of the room. “You two have lunch,” he said over his shoulder. “I’ll order in.”

  29

  STONE AND LANCE RODE UPTOWN in one of the Agency’s omnipresent black SUVs, with inch-thick windows and Kevlar body lining, and neither had anything to say to the other on the way.

  The vehicle pulled into the underground garage at a large town house in the East Sixties, and only when the heavy door had closed behind them did the attendants open the car’s doors for them.

  Shortly, they were seated in the spacious dining room, which used much of the available space to separate the tables, allowing the members to converse in normal tones without being overheard by their fellows.

  “Did you know,” Lance said, flapping out his huge linen napkin and arranging it in his lap, “that this room is equipped with a kind of electronic noise canceling that makes it impossible to know what is being said at neighboring tables?”

  “I did not,” Stone replied, wrestling to tame his own napkin.

  “And that is why I may speak frankly to you in the midst of our peers, if such exist.”

  Stone laughed and ordered the gazpacho and the lobster salad.

  “The same,” Lance said to the waiter. “And a bottle of the Meursault.” Then, when the man had retreated from their own little cone of silence, Lance began. “I saw a documentary film this morning that explains the malicious Stuxnet computer virus, of which you have no doubt heard.”

  “I’ve read about it in the Times.”

  “It is called Zero Days,” Lance said. “I recommend the film, so that I won’t have to explain it to you when next we meet. Suffice it to say that, after a thoroughgoing explanation of what it is and the almost unimaginable damage it could do to our moderately civilized world, if deployed in a cyberwar, it goes on to explain how very secret it has been kept by almost everyone who has any idea of its existence, because all of those people are so terrified by it.”

  “Sounds like sci-fi,” Stone observed.

  “It is sci-fi become hellishly real.”

  “Why are you telling me about this? Does it have something to do with what is in Ed’s manuscript?”

  “I am giving you an example of what the unintended consequences might be of making Ed’s personal knowledge and experience known. I have already told you how it could remove a person I consider to be an excellent President from public life, and preventing her brilliant mind from having any further effect on our history. What I’m telling you now is that there are almost certainly other things in that strong case you’re sitting on that could do untold damage to our government and, hence, to our lives.”

  “Why are you so certain of that?”

  “Because I already know much of what Ed knows. And I wouldn’t want what I know to become public knowledge. But there is something else to consider, as well.”

  “And what is that?”

  “There is a move afoot for a new, third party to make a run in the next presidential election.”

  “I’ve heard something about that,” Stone said. “In fact, I made the acquaintance of their putative candidate a few days ago.”

  Lance looked surprised, something Stone had never before seen happen.

  “Good God, Lance,
do you mean to tell me that I have learned something you don’t already know?”

  “Certainly not. I’ve known about the new party and its candidate for weeks,” Lance said reprovingly. “What I didn’t know was that you knew. How, pray tell, did that come to be?”

  “I was invited for a Penobscot Bay cruise on the brand-new yacht of Christian St. Clair,” Stone said. “And, incidentally, I believe there is mention of it on Facebook.”

  “You were in the company of Whit Saltonstall and the Times editor and the Vanity Fair publisher?”

  “They, all of them, abandoned ship when further guests boarded, to wit, Harold Ozick, Clint Holder, and, fresh from a wee-hours infomercial, one Nelson Knott. We shared dinner and breakfast before I, too, scrambled ashore.”

  At that point, Senator Whitney Saltonstall entered the dining room, in the company of Dino Bacchetti. Lance and Stone raised their glasses, and Saltonstall gave them a little wave. Pointedly, perhaps, he did not come over to say hello.

  “Where was I?” Lance said.

  “You were being surprised that I knew something.”

  “Oh, yes. It takes only a cursory tour of our current political situation to know what could happen. We have a strong President and a sadly weakened opposition, and what looks like plain sailing ahead. But consider this: What if, shortly before the Democratic Convention, the matter of the secret pardons became known? And who knows, there may be other things in that manuscript.”

  “I see your point,” Stone said. “We would have to rely on Congress to keep us on a fairly even keel.”

  “I also happen to know that these people are going to make a determined effort to go for majorities in both houses. They have already recruited several dozen candidates.”

  “They couldn’t ever get majorities in both houses on such short notice.”

  “They wouldn’t need majorities,” Lance pointed out. “They could very easily pick up a lot of Republican and even some Democratic votes on crucial issues.”

  Stone thought about this. “Lance,” he said, “the only reason I can think of for why I was invited aboard St. Clair’s yacht is that he or some of his guests know that I have the strong case.”

  “That’s very perceptive of you, Stone,” Lance said, a sneer in his voice. “Why the hell else would a multibillionaire you didn’t know invite you to meet two other multibillionaires you didn’t know? Do you think they might have a motive other than enjoying your company?”

  “Thank you, Lance, I get your point.”

  “May I also infer that right around this time, the two bogus FBI agents showed up at your house, and Ed Rawls’s house was burned to the ground?”

  Stone sighed. “That is not an unreasonable inference to draw.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  “Lance, do you think Will Lee knows about all this?”

  “I’m certain of it,” Lance said. “I told him myself.”

  “When?”

  “A couple of weeks ago.”

  “I think there’s something else I’d better tell you that you don’t know,” Stone said.

  “I hope you’re wrong about that.”

  “All right, Ed has a secret cellar reached by a tunnel from his house that contains his archives—a backup for everything he says in his manuscript.”

  “Well, I had guessed that something like that existed, but I didn’t know where it was.”

  “Before you do anything about that,” Stone said, “let me talk to Ed. It may be possible that he would do the right thing and allow the contents of the strong case and his archives to be destroyed.”

  “That would be very nice,” Lance said. “Please put that to him.” Lance’s attention seemed to wander for a moment before he spoke. “Then all we would have to worry about is what’s in Ed Rawls’s head.”

  30

  STONE DECIDED TO WALK HOME and declined a lift in Lance’s bulletproof boxcar. It was a lovely day and he meandered to Park Avenue and walked, admiring the tulips, downtown to his own neighborhood, then home, all the way rehashing the situation and deciding what was the right thing to do. As he let himself into the house via his office door, he made his judgment. Joan was not at her desk.

  He sat down in his office and buzzed Ed Rawls’s room. No answer. He buzzed Fred.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Have you seen Mr. Rawls this afternoon?”

  “No, sir. I left the house for an hour or so to have a small repair done on the Bentley and returned only a few minutes ago.”

  “Thank you, Fred.”

  He heard Joan come through the front door. He buzzed her. “Joan?”

  She picked up. “Yes?”

  “Do you know where Ed Rawls is?”

  “He had lunch in his room. After that, I went to the hairdresser’s, as is my weekly wont.”

  “Thank you.” Stone pressed the page button on his phone. “Ed, if you’re in the house, please pick up any telephone.”

  A phone was picked up, but not by Ed. “Stone?” Holly said.

  “Funny, you don’t sound like Ed Rawls.”

  “He’s not in. I stopped by his room to ask him something, but he didn’t respond to my knock.”

  “Thank you.” He hung up, and he had an awful feeling that Ed might have found the pressure too much and done something to himself. He got onto the elevator and went up to the guest floor, then knocked sharply on Ed’s door. “Ed? It’s Stone. You there?” No response, so with misgivings, he opened the door.

  The room was in perfect order, and there was a stack of empty Brooks Brothers boxes neatly piled at the foot of the bed. The small duffel he had loaned Ed was sitting on the bed. He checked the bathroom: in perfect order.

  Stone went back to his office, a knot in the pit of his stomach, and tapped in the combination to his safe. He spun the wheel and swung open the big door, checking the contents. The strong case was gone.

  He sat down heavily, got out his iPhone, and called Ed.

  “Good day,” his voice said. “The person you have called no longer exists, and this phone is in a dumpster somewhere. Kindly go fuck yourself.”

  Stone hung up the phone. The bottom seemed to have dropped out of his stomach. He went into his contacts list, found Lance’s cell number, and called it.

  No one answered; there was just a beep. “Lance, it’s Stone Barrington. Please call me at once.”

  He put the phone down and tried to think where Ed would go. His only home was a heap of ashes and rubble, so it was unlikely he would go there. Then where? He realized that he had never known Ed anywhere else but Islesboro. His phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “What is it, Stone? I’m in a hurry.”

  “Ed Rawls has flown the coop.”

  “Which coop?”

  “My coop. And the strong case is no longer in my safe. Tell me, is Ed one of those dozen people you know who could open it in ten minutes?”

  “Jesus H. Christ,” Lance said. “I thought we had this all sorted out.”

  “So did I, but apparently Ed disagrees.”

  “Do you have any idea where he could have gone?”

  “His only home is Islesboro, and that’s burned to a crisp, and I’ve no idea who or where his ex-wife is.”

  “I’ll call you back.” Lance hung up.

  Holly rapped on his office door and came in. “Did you find Ed?”

  Stone redialed Ed’s number and handed Holly the phone. She listened and handed it back to him. “What does this mean?”

  “He’s gone.”

  “That’s perfectly obvious. What does it mean?”

  “I had a long conversation with Lance over lunch, and he convinced me that this whole business with Ed is much worse than I had contemplated.”

  “In what way?”

  “Ed is, apparent
ly, now a danger to himself and others—in fact, a danger to pretty much everything we hold dear.”

  “Please bring me up to date on that.”

  Stone recounted his entire conversation with Lance. “I came home prepared to turn over the strong case, but that is as gone as Ed. He got into my safe.”

  “Oh, shit,” Holly said, flopping into a chair. “I’d better call Kate.”

  “Given your present status at the White House, I don’t think you could get through.” He called the White House and left a message for Will, adding “urgent” to it.

  “Where would he go?” she asked. “Islesboro doesn’t exist for him anymore.”

  “I was about to ask you the same question,” Stone said. “I have no fucking idea.”

  “The ex-wife,” she said.

  “I thought of that, but I don’t know who or where she is, or even if she’s still alive. I mentioned it to Lance, and I expect he’s looking into it.”

  “Does he have any money?”

  “I’ve no idea.”

  The phone rang, and Stone answered it.

  “It’s Lance. Ed’s ex-wife died five months ago, and apparently they hadn’t spoken in years. I’ve got people going through his personnel file, listing people that he might contact.”

  “Great.”

  “I’ll call you when I know more.” He hung up.

  Stone’s phone rang almost immediately. “Yes?”

  “Stone Barrington?”

  “Yes, who’s this?”

  “This is Marvin at the Steele Insurance Group’s claims department.”

  “Yes?”

  “I tried to reach Mr. Rawls but got a rather strange message on his phone.”

  “Yes?”

  “I thought perhaps you’d like to know that his claim has been approved, and I’ve wire-transferred half a million dollars to his bank account. That is the amount his home was insured for. If you could ask Mr. Rawls to send us a list of his furnishings with their replacement costs, we will process that claim separately. We thought he might like to have some cash now.”