by Stuart Woods
“Everybody’s ass looks good in riding pants—yours, too.”
“Enjoy your morning.”
“I will, don’t worry.”
Stone went down to the lower-level office and made his first conference call. When he had finished it occurred to him that Tirov might be abroad in the land, and he called Gala’s cell number. No reply. He made his second call, which didn’t take long, then he tried her phone again. Still no answer.
He tapped on the app that allowed him to track Tirov, and he got a green dot inside the hotel. Then, as he watched, the green dot moved outdoors. Shortly, it began to move faster. Tirov must be in a car, he thought.
As he watched, the yellow dot that was Gala’s phone approached the house along the river, then made a turn toward the wood on the property. Tirov’s green dot also headed in that direction.
Stone tried Gala’s number again, but still got no reply. Then the two dots both approached the wood and a moment later, stopped. They had converged. Stone watched, horrified. The two dots remained together. He picked up the phone and ordered his horse. “Now,” he said.
He changed hurriedly and ran down the stairs and out the front door, where the groom awaited, holding his usual gelding. He mounted quickly and galloped off toward the neighboring property. He took the stone wall at a dead run and headed for the wood. As he approached, a golf cart drove out of the wood toward the house, moving fast. There was one man aboard, and Stone couldn’t make out who at that distance. He slowed and rode into the wood.
Shortly, he came to a clearing and found Gala mounting her horse from a large rock. She started at the sight of him.
“Is everything all right?”
“Yes,” she said. “Did you finish your work?”
“I did, and as I approached, I saw someone ride away from the wood in a golf cart. Anybody we know?”
“It was Boris,” she said. “He saw me from a window at the hotel and gave chase, I guess you’d say.”
“And did he catch you?”
“He did. I stopped to pee in the woods, and when I came back he was there.”
“What was the tenor of your meeting?”
“Uncomfortable. He wanted to engage in conversation, but I wouldn’t talk to him. I led my horse away, looking for something to stand on to mount, and I heard his golf cart drive away. Then you turned up.”
“I tried to phone you, but you didn’t answer.”
She took her phone from her jacket pocket and looked at it. “It’s on mute,” she said. “I’m sorry about that.”
“No harm done. Are you ready to go back to the house?”
“I think I’ve had enough for one morning,” she said.
“Then I’ll ride back with you.”
“I’ll race you,” she said, and spurred her mount to a run.
They took the wall flying and were neck and neck when they reached the stables. The groom took the horses.
“Cool them down for a bit before you stable them,” Stone told the man, and they walked back to the house.
—
They lunched in the library, and Gala was uncharacteristically quiet.
“What would you like to do this afternoon?” Stone asked
“I think I’ll work for a while. I had an idea for a couple of scenes this morning, and I want to get them on paper. You?”
“There’s a book I want to start,” he replied. “I think I’d like an afternoon of reading. Take the office next to mine downstairs. There’s a printer there, if you need it.”
“All right.”
“Gala, you’ve been very quiet. Anything on your mind?”
“Nothing in particular,” she said. “I think I’ll go up to London tomorrow. The Chelsea Flower Show is on, and I have a friend who can get me a ticket. I’ll take the train up.”
“It should be a good day for it, no rain in the forecast. That means you should take an umbrella. You never know in this country.”
“That’s probably good advice,” she said.
Stone repaired to a wing chair with his book, and Gala went to work.
26
Stone had Gala driven to the station early the following morning. “Call me, and I’ll pick you up on the return trip,” he said to her. She kissed him and left.
A little later, Stone’s phone rang. “Hello?”
“Mr. Barrington, it’s Mr. Scott at the Beaulieu Arrington.”
“Good morning, Mr. Scott. Have you found an excuse to throw Boris Tirov out of your hotel?”
“I’m pleased to say that it wasn’t necessary. Mr. Tirov checked out five minutes ago of his own volition. A car came to get him. I thought you’d like to know.”
“I’m very pleased to hear it. Did you have any problems with him?”
“He sent a steak back to the kitchen, saying it was overcooked. Otherwise, he was just the usual guest.”
“Thank you for letting me know.”
—
Stone lunched alone in the library, which had become his favorite room. Geoffrey came in: “Mr. Barrington, Dame Felicity is on the phone for you.”
Stone picked it up. “Hello, there.”
“And a happy noon to you. My request for information on Mr. Tirov has produced unexpectedly rapid results.”
“That was pretty quick.”
“Turns out, it wasn’t very hard to get.”
“What did you find out?”
“There is a Viktor Petrov connection,” Felicity replied. “Turns out Tirov and President Petrov were classmates at the KGB Academy in Minsk, so they go way back.”
“I don’t know if that’s good news or bad.”
“Neither do I. This is raw data, unprocessed.”
“Go on.”
“The two young men served together for some years, then Petrov went into politics, and Tirov got a lucky break.”
“What sort of break?”
“He appeared in a documentary film about the KGB, and someone from the government film studio saw it and took an interest in him—offered him a significant part in a movie. He won some sort of acting award, and he appeared to have a career ahead as an actor. Acting, however, bored him, and he began writing and producing films. After some years of this he got an exit visa and left for Hollywood, taking a script with him that the Russian studio had paid him for. Word is, Petrov personally financed his move to the States and intervened to get him the necessary visas, both Russian and American. The rest, as they say in Hollywood, is history.”
“Any dirt?”
“It’s said that Petrov doesn’t have any friends that aren’t of use. While working in Russian films, Tirov arranged introductions for Petrov to beautiful and compliant young actresses, and the two did a lot of partying together. At the film studio, Tirov was known as Petrov’s pimp, and Petrov rewarded him by pushing him for important assignments.”
“Petrov’s Pimp. I like the alliteration.”
“It has a ring, doesn’t it? There’s more. On several occasions actresses at the studio who resisted Tirov’s charms suffered truncated careers, so his advances took on an air of casting couch or else.”
“Aha.”
“And on one occasion, a young woman who had resisted, but whose considerable ability as an actress rose above his ability to thwart her career, was found, afloat, in the River Neva.”
“That’s nasty.”
“Isn’t it? It’s interesting that her death was coincidental with Tirov’s rather sudden craving for greener pastures in the USA.”
“Do you know her name?”
“Elena Ivanov.”
“I know that actress,” Stone said. “Didn’t she appear in a Russian film that got an Academy Award nomination for best foreign film?”
“Yes, she did. The film was called, ironically, The River, and she received much att
ention. It was her first big part and her last appearance in a film.”
“What an interesting story,” Stone said.
“And it’s all verifiable from public sources should, say, a journalist take an interest in it. I have dispatched a written account to you by messenger. You’ll have it before the day is out. Oh, and one other thing. Ms. Ivanov was so famous in Russia by that time that even the government could not suppress the investigation into her death. Boris Tirov was the chief and only suspect in her death, and the Moscow police had obtained a warrant for his arrest. He got out of the country in a private jet owned by another friend and former classmate of Petrov. Tirov flew to Paris and waited there a few days while Petrov secured the appropriate visas, then he flew commercial directly to Los Angeles.”
“I don’t suppose that warrant is still outstanding?”
“Suffice it to say that Tirov has not returned to Russia since. Apparently, Petrov made no move to void the warrant. Elena Ivanov was too beautiful and too famous, and given the hullabaloo attending her death, he may have been glad to see the back of his old friend Boris.”
“My dear Felicity, I can’t thank you enough.”
“Of course you can. I’ll see you both this weekend.”
“Lovely idea.”
“And if further dirt comes my way, I’ll let you know.”
They both hung up.
—
An envelope arrived later in the afternoon, and Stone read the half-dozen pages inside. “I believe,” he said aloud to himself, “this is what they call in Hollywood, ‘dynamite.’”
—
Stone got into the Porsche, stuck Felicity’s envelope between his seat and the transmission tunnel, and met the 6:10 from Waterloo Station. Gala got into the Porsche with a huge bouquet of calla lilies but managed a kiss anyway.
Stone pulled out of the station, trying to think of the best way to tell her what he had learned about Tirov. “How was the flower show?”
“Oh, it was just brilliant! I don’t think I’ve ever had such a good time.”
“By the way, speaking of a good time, I spoke to Felicity and invited her for dinner this weekend.”
“Oh, that will be fun!”
“More fun than the flower show?”
She smiled. “After a fashion.”
“Gala,” he said, “changing the subject—do you think you know everything there is to know about Boris Tirov?”
“Probably, but if there’s anything I don’t know, I don’t want to know it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. I’m very tired of the subject, and I hope you won’t bring it up again.”
“Well . . .”
“And, Stone, I know very well that you’d like to get back at Boris for the trouble he’s caused us, but I hope you won’t do that. I hope you won’t even think of it.”
“I can’t promise I won’t think of it—that’s involuntary.”
“Then, if you must think about it, don’t tell me what you’re thinking, and if you do something, don’t tell me what you’re doing. If you’re planning to punch him in the nose again, I don’t want to watch or even hear about it. I would prefer to remain ignorant of anything to do with Boris.”
“So be it,” Stone said.
27
Stone didn’t sleep well. Boris Tirov occupied his mind and his imagination. Stone was not good at revenge, and he knew it, but this was different. Gala was no longer discussing the matter, so he had no one to argue with about it. He thought of calling Dino, but being of Sicilian descent, he would take the revenge option immediately.
Sometime after midnight his iPhone made the sound that indicated he was receiving an e-mail. He couldn’t sleep anyway, so he opened the e-mail; it was from Bob, his tech advisor:
Stone, I’ve made some enhancements to my tracking app. You can now replay up to 24 hours of the tracking of a subject. Useful to see where he went yesterday. Try it out.
Stone yawned and opened the app. He selected 24 hours from a menu and pressed the Play button. Boris’s green dot appeared, and Stone zoomed in to get a street location, which turned out to be Claridge’s Hotel. He scrolled through the hours as the green dot moved around the West End to several stops and came back to the hotel. Then an odd thing happened: Gala’s yellow dot appeared on the screen and became superimposed on the green dot. It was one PM yesterday, and Gala was at Claridge’s. The yellow dot remained there for more than an hour, then moved offscreen. Stone zoomed out and watched as the yellow dot traveled to the King’s Road, in Chelsea, location of the Chelsea Flower Show. At about three-thirty, the dot moved across London to Waterloo Station, then moved south toward Southampton, arriving at the station a little after six.
Stone switched off the phone. That was twice in twenty-four hours that Gala had been at the same location as Tirov. Stone didn’t like coincidences.
He got into a dressing gown and went down to the library, taking Felicity’s report on Tirov with him. It was ten hours earlier in L.A. He called the Bel-Air Arrington and asked for the restaurant manager.
“Yes, Mr. Barrington?”
“Do you remember a while back you told me that you had had Boris Tirov ejected from the restaurant and the property, because he had slugged a movie critic?”
“Yes, Mr. Barrington?”
“Who was the critic?”
“James Towbin, of the Los Angeles Times.”
“Do you happen to have a fax number for Mr. Towbin?”
“Let me check my computer. He has a charge account here, so I probably do. Ah, here it is. Would you like his home or office fax number?”
“Home, please.”
The man gave him the number. “Anything else I can do for you, Mr. Barrington?”
“No. Thanks for your help.” He hung up and went to the cupboard that housed the fax machine. He had set it up himself, and he remembered that he had not specified that his name or fax number appear on faxes sent, so a fax received would be anonymous. He faxed Felicity’s report to James Towbin.
He thought a bit longer, then he looked up the home fax number of his close friend Holly Barker, who was currently serving as national security advisor to Present Katharine Lee. He faxed her the report, adding a handwritten page: “I have been assured by my entirely reliable source that the information in this document is factual. Call me when you’ve read it.”
He went back to his chair and dozed for a while, then his iPhone rang. The calling number was blocked. “Hello?”
“It’s Holly. How are you?”
“Very well indeed, and you?”
“Working all the time, as usual. I think I can guess where this report came from. Well, all right, there’s a cryptic watermark in the paper that I recognize.”
“Would a newspaper journalist recognize the watermark?”
“Not unless he had had dealings with MI6. Has a journalist read it?”
“It has been faxed to one at the L.A. Times.”
“Which one?”
“James Towbin, the film critic.”
“Well, I expect that, if he has read it, he has passed it on to an editor for review.”
“Seems logical.”
“And why have I been gifted with this document?”
“It occurred to me that the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement might be interested to know that a person who had previously been issued a green card to live and work in the United States had an open warrant for his arrest on a charge of murder in his home country.”
“Just as a journalist would be interested to know that the person in question was close to Viktor Petrov?”
“Quite so.”
“The director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement was my dinner partner at a White House function last month. He gave me his card, which I have in my hand. It has half
a dozen numbers on it, one of which is his home fax number. May I ask, what is your interest in Mr. Tirov?”
Stone gave her a rundown of his various encounters with the Russian over the past days.
“Well, I must say, the man sounds like an undesirable alien to me.”
“I cannot but agree.”
“I’ll fire this off to the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and incidentally, it occurs to me that the director of the FBI might find it interesting reading, as well. Shall I fax it to him?”
“What a good thought!”
“Do you have any other enemies I can destroy for you this evening?”
“Not this evening.”
“Then I can only thank you for your noble and patriotic action in bringing this to the attention of your government.”
“I do what I can,” Stone said.
“When will you be headed this way?”
“Not in the foreseeable future. I’m in England. Do you have any plans for foreign travel?”
Holly sighed. “Would that I did. It would be good to see you.”
“We’ll manage that soon.”
“Well, I have my work to do, so I’ll say good night.”
“And good night to you, too, Holly. Sweet dreams.” They both hung up.
—
In the United States, in Los Angeles and Washington D.C., fax machines began to ring and be answered, followed shortly by an exchange of phone calls between high government officials. The national editor of a newspaper faxed a document to his editor in chief, who scrawled the words “Fact-check this to within an inch of its life” across the document and faxed it to another editor, who faxed it to his best fact-checker.
The following afternoon, at his desk, the editor looked up to see his fact-checker approaching. “This is good stuff,” she said, handing him the document. “And it’s supported by the public record. I had to pay a translator two hundred bucks to check the Moscow papers, though.”
“I won’t take it out of your pay,” the editor said. He picked up the phone and called James Towbin. “Jim,” he said, “your news item is pure gold. Would you like the deep personal satisfaction of publishing it under your byline?”