by Stuart Woods
“Good night, Lance, Stone.”
Stone got his coat and followed Lance from the restaurant. They got into a black car.
“Now,” Lance said, “where did Arrington hear that I am connected with the Agency?”
“She didn’t hear it from me,” Stone said.
“Did Dino tell her?”
“She didn’t hear it from me,” Stone repeated.
“All right.”
“So what’s the emergency?” Stone asked.
“We’ve caught Billy Bob.”
“What? Where?”
“He was sitting outside your house in the red Hummer; he was armed with a silenced nine-millimeter handgun and two of the rather special grenades I told you about.”
“Outside my house?”
“That is correct. Stone, if you once again fail to follow an instruction of mine, I’ll have you inducted into the armed services with the rank of private, so that if you should ever ignore another order, I can have you court-martialed and sent to Leavenworth for a few years. We have a rather special little detention unit there.”
“All right, all right,” Stone said.
“And if I find you unarmed again until this is over, I will, I promise, shoot you in a particularly painful place.”
Stone slumped in his seat and wished he were at home in his bed.
35
LANCE BEGAN idly unscrewing the silencer from his little pistol.
“What is that, some CIA secret weapon?” Stone asked.
“Hardly,” Lance replied. “It’s a Keltec three-eighty, weighs ten ounces, loaded. Of course, our gunsmiths have done a little work on it, but it’s a wonderfully concealable weapon and very effective, if the range isn’t too great. I’ll send you one.”
“I don’t understand why you need me.”
“I want you to interrogate Billy Bob.”
“And why do you think he’ll talk to me more readily than to you?”
“He seems heavily invested in you; no one else has so captured his attention, so, even if he’s just angry with you, he’ll communicate.”
“I don’t see how this is going to work.”
“You’re going to be the good cop,” Lance explained. “After I’ve shouted at him or threatened him, you’re going to interrupt. Surely, you’ve done this a thousand times.”
“Very nearly,” Stone said. He had always played the good cop to Dino’s bad, when questioning suspects. “Where is Billy Bob?”
“In your garage,” Lance replied.
“What?”
“It was convenient to the scene of his capture.”
“How did you get into my house?”
Lance looked at him, almost with pity. “Really, Stone.”
Stone sat back and shut up.
“Now, here’s the way it’s going to go,” Lance said. “Two of my men are with Billy Bob now, two very . . . ah, capable gentlemen. They may have slapped him around a bit by the time we get there, depending on his attitude. They’re both rather short-tempered.”
“Dino and I never got to soften them up,” Stone said, half to himself. “Dino would have loved that.”
“We do not operate under the same strictures placed upon the NYPD,” Lance said, “or any other law-enforcement agency.”
Stone wondered how far Lance would take that. “And just how far would you take that?” he asked.
“As far as necessary,” Lance replied. “I hope it won’t be necessary to spill Billy Bob’s brains onto your garage floor. Incidentally, it’s good of you to have a two-car garage and only one car. Otherwise, we’d have to do this in your office.”
“Whatever I can do to help,” Stone said, sarcastically.
“Now you’re beginning to understand your position,” Lance said. “I did not recruit you simply for legal advice or for the people you know, or for the table you have at Elaine’s. I did so, because there are times I need someone like you, someone with a semipublic face, with gainful employment, who lives in full view of the world, or nearly so, and has some skills, no matter how rudimentary. It helps that you inadvertently made contact with and gained the attention of Billy Bob through other means.
“I recruited Dino, because there are times when I need the resources of a big-city police department without having to deal with its hierarchy.”
“Why did you recruit Holly Barker?”
“I need Holly for other, more operational reasons. She is considering a more permanent offer from us as we speak, though I think it might take a few weeks or months for her to gather the resolve to leave her present, quite pleasant circumstances and join us.”
They turned the corner onto Stone’s block and stopped in front of his house.
“Let’s go in through your office,” Lance said, using a key of his own, to Stone’s annoyance.
“I don’t recall our contract saying anything about your using my house at will for surreptitious interrogations.”
“There’s a part of your contract that reads ‘render all reasonable assistance,’ ” Lance suggested. He led the way through Stone’s office, into his basement, then into the garage. Billy Bob sat in his shirtsleeves, tied to an armless kitchen chair with a wicker seat, which Stone had stored in the garage because he didn’t need it, but it was too nice to throw away. Billy Bob’s hands were tied behind him. He glared at Stone but said nothing.
“Now, Harlan,” Lance said. “I know that may not be your name, but . . . oh what the hell, we’ll just call you Billy Bob. Stone is used to that.”
“Go fuck yourself,” Billy Bob replied, not unpleasantly.
“I can see this is going to be more fun than I had hoped,” Lance said. He turned toward his two men, who were leaning nonchalantly against the garage wall. “I would like for you two to cause Billy Bob, here, considerable pain, without marking him up too badly. I want him relatively bruise-free when we deliver him to Guantanamo, if possible. If not, then . . .”
“Sure thing,” one of the men said, pushing himself off the wall and striding toward Billy Bob, whose expression did not change.
“Hold it a minute, Lance,” Stone said. “Give me a few minutes alone with Billy Bob.”
“Oh, all right,” Lance said, as if it were against his better judgment. He beckoned to his two companions. “Come with me,” he said. At the door he turned back to Stone out of Billy Bob’s hearing. “Five minutes, Stone, and I want to know three things: One, who is his contact at the New Mexico weapons installation; two, where are the other thirty-four grenades he and Billy Bob stole; and three, the name, address and telephone number of the person to whom he intended to sell them.” Lance left, and Stone returned to the garage.
He leaned against his car. “So, you were going to kill me?”
“I still am,” Billy Bob said.
“Why? What did I ever do to you?”
“You inconvenienced me.”
“That hardly stacks up against your murdering that girl in my house and trying to blame me for it, then stealing fifty thousand dollars from me.”
“I was only getting started,” Billy Bob said.
“You’re in over your head, now, Billy Bob. Let me explain things to you: You’re not under arrest; you’re not going to be arraigned or allowed to see an attorney, except me; and when Lance’s two thugs are done with you, if there’s anything left, you’re going to find yourself in a cage at Gitmo with a lot of companions who speak only Arabic or Urdu, and nobody will ever know you’re there. You’ll spend the next few years being interrogated a couple of times a day, until they’ve milked you dry, and then you’ll disappear even from Cuba. Now, if you give me the information Lance wants, then maybe I can ameliorate those circumstances a bit, do some kind of a deal.”
“What, no jail time?” Billy Bob asked, contempt in his voice.
“That’s not impossible,” Stone said, “but let’s start with no torture, no death, and work from there, a bit of information at a time. If you’ll tell Lance everything—and I mean everything
he wants to know, then I’ll see that you walk out of here by morning. Then you can take your stolen money and disappear, and Lance won’t care. Only the police and the feds will be looking for you, and you don’t seem to have had too much trouble evading them, up to this point.”
“Oh, stop it,” Billy Bob said. “I’m going to get whatever I’m going to get, and there’s not a fucking thing you can do about it.”
“So, you absolutely refuse to tell me anything?”
“Only to stick your slick personality and your legal skills up your ass.”
“I’m really sorry to hear that, Billy Bob, and I wish they hadn’t chosen to do this in my garage. Have you ever tried getting bloodstains out of a concrete floor?” Stone walked slowly to the door and opened it. “Lance?”
Lance came back into the room with his two henchmen.
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to persuade him to talk to you,” Stone said.
Lance turned to the two men. “Strip him, and cut the cane seat out of that chair so his genitals will be exposed. I’m going to get some tools; I’ll be right back.” He motioned for Stone to follow him, then closed the door behind him and started up the stairs.
“Let’s see what being naked does to his self-confidence,” Lance said, as they emerged into the first floor of the house. He went to the bar in Stone’s study and poured them both a Knob Creek.
“You’re not really going to torture the guy, are you?”
“No? Stick around.”
“I don’t want any part of this,” Stone said.
Lance sipped his drink. “You’re too squeamish, Stone,” he said. “You wouldn’t mind what we did to him, if you didn’t know him, if he wasn’t in your house, would you?”
“I would, wherever you had him,” Stone replied. “I believe in the rule of law, even for Billy Bob. I’d be content to see him in prison for the rest of his life, and God knows, there’s enough evidence to put him there—two murders, that we know about, just for a start.”
“Oh, I’m not going to torture him, Stone, but a few minutes with that thought in Billy Bob’s mind might do wonders to loosen his tongue.”
There was a rattling noise from downstairs.
“What’s that?” Lance asked.
“That is the sound of my garage door opening.”
Lance set down his drink and started for the stairs. “What are those two fools doing? We don’t want people passing by looking into your garage, do we?”
As Stone followed him down the stairs, the rattling noise came again. “They’re closing the garage door,” he said.
Lance strode across the basement and flung open the inside door to the garage, which was in total darkness. “Where’s the fucking light switch?” he demanded, groping along the wall.
Stone found the switch, and the garage was, once again, flooded with flourescent light. One of Lance’s two men lay on his back, his throat gaping and blood pooling around him; the other sat on the floor, leaning against Stone’s car, clutching his chest and coughing blood down the front of his shirt. One of them couldn’t be helped, and Stone didn’t know what to do for the other.
Lance calmly flipped open his cell phone and pressed a single button. “This is a Mayday,” he said, slowly and clearly. I need paramedics and a cleaning crew now, at the Barrington residence, garage entrance.”
The man leaning against Stone’s car coughed once more and keeled over sideways, coming to rest with his head on the concrete floor and his eyes open.
“Hang on,” Lance said. “Scrub the paramedics; just send the cleaning crew.”
36
STONE SAT in his study with Lance. They were on their second Knob Creek.
“Don’t worry,” Lance said. “These fellows are very good; when they’re through, not even luminol will pick up the bloodstains.”
“That’s a great comfort,” Stone replied. He stared at Lance, who seemed perfectly calm, even a little bored. “I don’t understand you,” he said. “Two of your men are dead, and you’re just sitting there, calmly drinking bourbon.”
“What else is there for me to do?” Lance asked. “I’ve alerted my people to look for Billy Bob. I’m here now, only to see that the cleanup people do a good job, so you won’t think I left a mess.”
“The two dead guys are a mess.”
“They’ve been cleaned up, too.”
“What about their families? Shouldn’t you be contacting them?”
“They don’t have families,” Lance said, “and they didn’t seem to love anyone, except each other. It’s one of the reasons I chose them, along with their special-operations backgrounds.”
“So, they were trained killers?”
“Indeed.”
“It seems that Billy Bob was even better trained.”
“I’ve been pondering that,” Lance said. He must have had a knife they didn’t find when we picked him up. When they untied him to undress him, well . . .”
“So, where did Billy Bob get good enough to kill two of your former special ops guys with a knife?”
“He had the advantage of surprise.”
“There are only two ways somebody could do that—training or experience. Or both.”
“There’s always luck,” Lance said.
“You don’t believe that for a moment.”
“No, I don’t. We’re doing a records check on Harlan Wilson; if that’s his name, and if he was ever in some special unit, we’ll find out. We’re also questioning the driver of the Hummer and going over the car for fingerprints. One way or another, we’ll find out who he is and where he sprang from.”
“Let’s get back to you,” Stone said.
“Me?”
“Who the fuck are you, and how did you get to be this cold and hard?”
Lance shrugged. “I am who you know me to be. As you said, training, experience. Both, actually. And commitment. You lack commitment, Stone.”
“Commitment to what?”
“To anything.”
“I’m committed to the law and to . . .” Stone stopped.
“Yes? Finish that statement, please.”
“No, you tell me what you’re committed to.”
“I,” Lance said, “am committed to the preservation and success of my country and its way of life, and to the means my people have contrived to ensure that state of affairs.”
“Well, that’s succinct. Do you have no doubts about the means?”
“Not so far,” Lance said. “Perhaps one day I’ll run into a situation that might cause doubts. If so, I’ll deal with them as best I can.”
“Where do you draw the line? Murder? Mass murder?”
“The people who oppose us have no line,” Lance said. “Otherwise, the World Trade Center would still be standing and three thousand dead people would still be alive. We cannot fight this enemy with reservations and qualms. If we do that, they will win.”
“And how long must we do that? A year? A century?”
“For as long as it takes; forever, if necessary. Until we kill them or until they crawl back into their holes and pull the dirt in after them.”
“There are hundreds of millions of potential recruits for them, standing in line, waiting their turn.”
“They’ll tire of their sport, when they don’t win. Anyway, perhaps our leaders and diplomats will eventually find a solution someday. Until then, there is only me—and people like me—to stand between them and my country, between them and you.”
“And what about Billy Bob? Is he worth the effort you’re making, the price you’ve paid?”
“Billy Bob is one of an army of ants, and the only way to stop ants is to kill them all. He’s a particularly harmful ant, since he’s found a way to help that army use our own deadliest weapons against us. By the way, he took back the two grenades we found on him, so he has all thirty-six again. Do you want to see them used in Times Square on New Year’s Eve? Isn’t it worth whatever we have to do to Billy Bob to keep that from happening?”
”I wish I knew,” Stone said.
“And what are you willing to do to him, Stone, to keep him from killing you? That seems to be his most immediate plan.”
“Yes, he told me. I’m willing to kill him, if I have to, to keep him from killing me, but I’m not willing to torture him to death.”
“Would you be willing to torture him to death to keep him from causing the deaths of those thousands in Times Square?”
“I don’t know. I envy you your certitude, Lance; it relieves you of conscience or ethics. You’re like those religious fundamentalists who believe that they know all the answers.”
“Who knows?” Lance said. “Maybe they do.”
“People who believe they have all the answers are always wrong,” Stone said.
“I know my position may seem harsh, but I wouldn’t trade places with someone who can’t decide what his position is.”
A man Stone hadn’t seen before came up the stairs from the basement, carrying a wooden box, half the size of a briefcase. “They’re about done down there,” he said, “and they did a good job. You want to check?”
“Yes,” Lance said, standing up.
“And you asked me to bring this.” The man held out the box.
Lance took it and handed it to Stone. “This is for you.”
Stone opened the box and found a Keltec .380 pistol, a silencer, three loaded magazines, one in the gun and two in a pouch, and a small holster.
“This is my personal advice to you, Stone, off the record,” Lance said. “When you encounter Billy Bob again, shoot him twice in the head immediately. If you try to take him or reason with him or wound him, he’ll kill you. My people don’t want him dead, and that’s supposed to be what I want, but I’m fond of you, in my way, and I wouldn’t want to lose your life because you underestimated Billy Bob, as I have tonight.”
Lance went down the stairs, leaving Stone alone with his conscience.