by Stuart Woods
“I hope to God he’s right.”
“So do I.”
“Still, I’m sleeping with a gun.”
“Good idea.”
“Speaking of sleeping . . .”
“I’m right behind you.” Holly let Daisy in from her nightly run in the dunes, then led Stone upstairs. “Daisy, get in your bed,” she said, and the dog curled up where she had been told.
“Good,” Stone said, stroking her hair, “I don’t want anybody between us tonight, and I’m glad Ham’s out of the house, too.”
“I’m glad, if you’re glad,” she said, helping him shuck his shirt over his head.
Stone worked on her buttons and unhooked her bra. “Alone is good,” he said, kissing her breasts.
She pulled him to her and pushed down on his shoulders until he was on his knees, pulling off her clothing. “Ooooh, that’s the place,” she said, running her fingers through his hair.
He pushed her onto the bed, and she opened her legs. For the next few minutes he concentrated on making her happy, and the noises she was making confirmed her feelings.
She came with a series of cries and little convulsions, then she pulled Stone on top of her. “I want everything tonight,” she said.
Stone slipped inside her. “The works,” he said, kissing her ear as he moved slowly in and out.
“The works!” she cried and moved with him.
For the better part of an hour they explored each other with fingers and tongues. They changed positions and laughed at the intensity of their pleasure. Then they took turns coming and collapsed in each other’s arms.
“It occurs to me,” Stone panted, “that my heart must be in pretty good shape, because if it weren’t, I’d be dead right now. That’s the best stress test in the world.”
Holly rested her head on his shoulder and threw a leg over his. “Okay, the Arab assassins can shoot me now.”
“I hope not.”
“If they showed up right now, I wouldn’t be able to hold a gun. I can’t make a fist.”
“Then we’re both helpless.”
“We could rely on Daisy.”
“We’d have to.”
Stone suddenly thought of something. “I just had a troubling thought.”
“Not now, please.”
“If they don’t know we’re here, who ransacked your house a few days ago?”
“Don’t make me think about it now.” Her voice trailed off. “I’m going to sleep.”
“Oh, no. You have to answer that question. You’re not sleeping until I’m sleeping, and I can’t sleep thinking about that.”
“What was the question again?”
“Who broke into your house?”
“How the hell should I know?”
“Didn’t your police force investigate?”
“Yes, but they didn’t leave any prints.”
“Who do you think it was?”
“Are you saying it was Arab assassins?”
“It would certainly seem to be Trini-connected, wouldn’t it?”
“Trini’s a Florida boy. If he wanted my house broken into, he wouldn’t need Arab assassins, he’d just make a call to some of his homeboys.”
“Well, I’m relieved that it wasn’t Arab assassins.”
“I’m so glad.”
“Is the burglar alarm on?”
“No, but there’s a keypad right here by the bed.”
“Would you turn it on, please?”
With a groan, Holly rolled over and tapped in the code, then rolled back. “There you go.”
“Good. I think I can sleep now.”
“But I’m wide awake.”
“I’m sleepy.”
“Oh, no you don’t,” she said, taking his testicles in her hand and squeezing.
“Hey, I can’t sleep with you doing that.”
“That’s the idea.” She stopped squeezing and began lightly kneading instead.
“You don’t really think I can . . .”
“Sure you can.”
“It’s impossible after what we’ve just done.” “Then why is this working?” she asked, continuing. “Oh, God.”
Holly rolled on top of him and put him inside her. “In fact, it’s working very well indeed.”
“I can’t argue,” Stone said, arching his back. “But I’ll never be able to come again.”
“Wanna bet?” she asked.
34
WHEN STONE WOKE up he was lying on his side, and Holly was curled up with him, in the spoon position. Stone had a notion of starting something, but Daisy was staring at him intently from across the bed. She was difficult to ignore.
“You want to go out, girl?” he asked.
“No,” Holly replied sleepily.
“I wasn’t talking to you.”
He got out of bed and walked downstairs naked with Daisy. He opened the sliding door to the beach and left it open so that she could come back in.
Holly came down the stairs, getting into a robe. “I like you naked in my house,” she said.
“Why are you up?”
“It’s after eight, and I really ought to at least check in at the station before I come back and fuck your brains out.” She pinched him on the ass as she passed.
“So I have to wait?”
She made coffee and switched on the TV to CNN.
“In New York City last night,” a reporter was saying, “the FBI pulled off a major sting against a large terrorist organization. After setting up a bogus money-laundering apparatus, they lured the terrorists’ financial people to an address in Little Italy and, posing as members of the Mafia, videotaped their transaction, then arrested everybody. No names have been announced yet, but sources say that seven members of the as yet unnamed terrorist organization were arrested and more than ten million dollars in Euros and Swiss francs was confiscated.”
The scene switched to a group of smiling men at a microphone. “We’re very pleased about this,” a man was saying.
“Look, there’s Grant Early Harrison in the back row,” Holly said. “They’ve done it. I can go after Trini now.”
“I guess so,” Stone said. “Lance didn’t mention this last night.”
“I guess the FBI didn’t let him in on the timing. You ready to go back to New York?”
Stone shrugged. “Sure. I don’t know how much more of this sunshine and sea and clean air I can take, anyway. Can I have breakfast first?”
“Sure.” She went to work in the kitchen.
An hour later, Holly left the house in uniform. “I’ve got a couple of hours’ work at the station. You go ahead and file your flight plan. I’ll bring sandwiches for lunch on the airplane.”
“Are you going to call Ham?”
“I’m going to leave Daisy with him. I’ll tell him then.”
“Whatever you say.”
She left, and Stone phoned for a weather forecast, which was favorable, and filed a flight plan, then he called the airport and asked for the airplane to be refueled. Holly dropped Daisy off with Ham, who didn’t like her going back to New York without him.
“You call me if you need me,” he said.
“I will,” she replied, kissing him on the cheek.
With Holly in the copilot’s seat they climbed out of Vero Beach airport and headed north, by way of Ormond Beach and Charleston, South Carolina. Stone noted a nice, thirty-knot tailwind, so they made good time along the route.
They had just passed Charleston when the AirCell phone rang, and Stone answered it. “Hello?”
“Stone?”
“Yes.”
“It’s Eduardo. I hope you don’t mind my phoning you on the airplane. Your secretary gave me the number.”
“Not at all. It’s good to hear from you, Eduardo.”
“Where are you?”
“I’ve been in Florida for a couple of days, and I’m headed home now. I should land at Teterboro in about two and a half hours.”
“I have some information for you.”
“The business you and I discussed apparently took place last night.”
“Yes, I saw something about it on television this morning.”
“Your Mr. Rodriguez took part in the process, and when the arrests had been made, he left the scene in an FBI car. My, ah, acquaintances do not now know where he is. They haven’t heard from him at all.”
“Do they expect to hear from him?”
“Apparently so, but they didn’t expect him to leave with the FBI. They’re assuming he has either been arrested or is being questioned about some other matter.”
“I see. Thank you very much, Eduardo. I’m grateful for your assistance.”
“I’m glad I could be of service, and I hope the information I gave you is of some use.”
“I hope so, too.”
“Please come and have lunch again soon.”
“I will, and thank you again. Goodbye.” Stone punched off. “You heard that on your headset?” he asked Holly.
“Yes,” she said. “Maybe they’re holding him for me.”
“You think?”
“Can I use the phone?”
“Sure.” He handed it to her.
“How do I get information?”
“Dial four-one-one, just like on the ground.”
She did that and got the number of the FBI office in New York and was connected. “Special Agent Grant Harrison,” she said to the operator.
“Just a moment. I’ll see if he is in the office. Who’s calling, please?”
“Chief Holly Barker of the Orchid Beach, Florida, Police Department.”
Half a minute later, Grant came on the line. “Holly?”
“Yes, it’s me.”
“Where are you? What’s that noise?”
“I’m in an airplane between New York and Florida.”
“There’s good news: We made our bust last night.”
“I saw it on television this morning. Where’s Trini Rodriguez now?”
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.”
“Why not?”
“Trini has been given immunity from prosecution for his cooperation, and he’s back in the Witness Protection Program.”
Holly turned red. “Grant, you can’t give somebody immunity from multiple state murder charges.”
“He has immunity from all federal charges.”
“I have a warrant for his arrest on twelve counts of murder one, resulting from the bombing at the church.”
“I understand that, but I can’t tell you where he is.”
“So, by hiding him, you’re effectively giving him immunity from state charges?”
“I wouldn’t put it that way, but you can characterize it as you wish.”
“This really stinks, Grant.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, Holly. This operation was vital to national security, and we couldn’t have pulled it off without Trini’s help. Listen, I’m headed back to Miami later today. You want to get together this weekend?”
“No, I don’t. Not this weekend or ever again.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. I was hoping we could . . .”
“I’m afraid that, from now on, you’re going to have to do that to yourself,” she said, and hung up. She turned to Stone. “You heard?”
Stone nodded. “Not good.”
“What am I going to do now?”
“I’m thinking, I’m thinking.”
35
STONE AND HOLLY were already having a drink at Elaine’s when Lance arrived.
He settled himself at their table and ordered a drink. “So, how was sunny Florida?”
“Sunny,” Stone replied. “I don’t know how they stand it down there.”
“Yes, it’s a hard life. Holly, are you keeping the criminal elements of Orchid Beach in check?”
“Oh, that’s not hard. It’s mostly traffic and the occasional drug bust or burglary.”
“Aren’t you bored?”
“Funny you should mention that.”
“Oh, really?”
“I’ve told Stone I’m thinking about making a change. God knows, life is good down there, but it’s not very interesting.”
“Perhaps I can be of help,” Lance said. “Let me work on that.”
“Sure.”
Stone spoke up. “Actually, you can be of help on something else, Lance.”
Lance smiled. “Trini?”
“Right,” Holly said.
“I saw the news reports. When I heard that they’d taken Trini away in an FBI car I suspected they’d be hiding him. Is he back in the Witness Protection Program?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Have you spoken to anyone at the FBI?”
“Yes, but I’m never speaking to him again.”
“Holly, surely you know by now that the FBI is never going to stretch to help anybody in local law enforcement.”
“I knew that, but it’s been brought home to me afresh.”
“Perhaps your best move would be to humiliate the FBI into turning Trini over to you.”
“Humiliate them? That sounds like fun.”
“Of course, you’d be burning your bridges. They’d never return another phone call of yours.”
“Just tell me how to humiliate them.”
“I know a well-placed reporter at The New York Times. I’m sure he’d like a story about how the FBI is hiding a mass murderer, keeping him from being prosecuted. Would you like to meet the gentleman?”
Holly grinned and opened her mouth to speak, but Stone threw up a hand.
“Hang on,” he said.
“What?” Holly asked.
“This is a very big step.”
“Well, yeah, I guess it is.”
“I think you ought to give some thought to the consequences before you act on this. First of all, you’re going to enrage the FBI.”
“I’d like that,” she said.
“You might not. Suppose you need them on an important case. I mean, you still have to use their lab, their computer databases, their expertise. You might find all that suddenly unavailable to your department—not overtly, just in small ways. They might ‘misplace’ your lab samples, or your computer connection might suddenly go down.”
“Stone has a point, Holly,” Lance said. “If you go to the Times, it would be like a declaration of war on the FBI, and they could make things uncomfortable for you.”
“You still have to answer to your city council, don’t you?” Stone asked.
“Well, yes.”
“You wouldn’t want key members of the council to start getting phone calls from highly placed people at the FBI, complaining about you.”
“I guess not. Maybe I should just resign. That would fix all the problems you’ve brought up.”
“But then a whole new set of problems might arise,” Stone said. “God help you if you should ever get into some kind of trouble with the Feds.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Oh, I don’t know. You might be caught up a tree, so to speak, and need the Bureau’s help, or at least their inattention.” He waited to see if the penny would drop about the tree. It didn’t.
“What do you mean, ‘up a tree’?”
“Just a figure of speech, but a pertinent one.”
The penny dropped. “Oh,” she said.
Stone turned to Lance. “Isn’t there something else you might be able to do to help Holly locate Trini—something that could be accomplished without tossing a grenade into the Bureau?”
“I’d need more to go on than I have,” Lance said. “If I had Trini’s name in the Witness Protection Program, for instance.”
Holly sat up straight. “Robert Marshall.”
“What?”
“That’s Trini’s name in the Program. I got it from . . . a source.”
“And how long have you known this?”
“Since not long after I came to New York.”
Lance pulled out his cell phone and dia
led a three-digit number. “Robert Marshall,” he said. “New listing.” He took out a notebook and wrote down something, then hung up. He ripped the page off the notebook and handed it to Holly. “Eighty-eighth Street,” he said. “Two blocks east of here.”
“You’re kidding,” Holly said.
“Nope.”
“You’ve got a CIA thing that can give you that?”
“No, I called New York City information.”
“Four-one-one?”
“Exactly.”
Holly looked embarrassed. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“I don’t know, why didn’t you think of that?”
Stone began laughing. “All this time and trouble, and all we had to do was call information!”
“Well,” Holly said, standing up, “let’s go get him.”
“Not until I’ve had dinner,” Lance said, picking up a menu. “There are preparations to be made.”
They ordered dinner, then Lance got out his cell phone again. “Write this down,” he said when the phone was answered, and he read out the address. “I want a car and two men on the building now. Check the mailboxes for a Robert Marshall and figure out which apartment it is. Check the file on one Trini Rodriguez for a description. Call me back when you’ve got it nailed.” He closed the cell phone. “We don’t want to just go strolling in there, do we?”
“I guess not,” Holly said.
36
AS THE WAITER was taking away their dishes, Lance’s cell phone went off. “Yes?” He listened for a minute or so. “Right. Soon.” He hung up. “Your boy came home five minutes ago. So kind of him not to disturb our dinner.”
Stone waved to a waiter for a check and signed it.
“Is everybody armed?” Lance asked. “Or do I have to think of everything?”
Stone and Holly nodded.
“Do you have cuffs, Holly?”
“Yep, two pair.”
“Then shall we?” Lance pushed back from the table and led them outside to his car. “Take a left,” he said to the driver, “then a block and a half straight ahead. One of our cars is there.”
The driver did as he was told, and they came to a stop beside another black car. Lance rolled down a window and waved at the darkened windows. A man got out and got into the front seat of Lance’s car.
“Tell me,” Lance said.