Hot Pursuit (15 page)

AT SEVEN-THIRTY,
Stone and Pat went down to the large, ground-floor drawing room for a drink before dinner. The establishment didn’t offer Knob Creek, but they had Blanton’s, which Stone found almost indistinguishable from his favorite, but without the 100-proof kick. They had taken their first sip when, in the company of a young woman, Paul Reeves entered the room. Reeves spotted them immediately, as Stone did him, and walked over to where he and Pat were sitting.

“What a surprise,” Reeves said, not sounding surprised.

Stone didn’t rise until the woman joined him. “And what a coincidence,” he said, his words seasoned with sarcasm.

“May I introduce Ms. Smith,” Reeves said, indicating the woman, who was much younger than he and very alluring.

“Ms. Smith, this is Ms. Frank,” Stone said, and sat down.

“May we join you?” Reeves asked.

“Please excuse us,” Stone said, “but I’ve seen quite enough of you for one week.”

Reeves turned crimson. “If you’re implying that—”

“I’ve never liked coincidences,” Stone said, “and I like them even less now. I would be grateful if we could get through the remainder of our stay in this country without
accidentally
encountering you.”

Reeves would not be dismissed. “That’s the most outrageous thing I’ve ever heard,” he hissed. “And after you refused to render me any assistance in my encounter with the police.”

“Are you aware,” Stone said, “that the pilot with whom you crossed the Atlantic is a fugitive from American justice, the only suspect in a double murder?”

“That’s nonsense—Kevin Keyes wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“So you knew about his fleeing the country and resisted telling the police?”

“I knew it was you who sicced them onto me!”

“You made the mistake, when following me around, of having dinner two tables away from the commissioner of Metropolitan Police and the commissioner of police of New York City,” Stone said. “How’s
that
for a coincidence? I’m surprised you’re not in jail.”

Reeves turned on his heel, jerked the arm of his girlfriend, and went to the farthest corner of the drawing room.

Stone was approached by the dining room manager. “Forgive me, Mr. Barrington,” he said, “but were you disturbed by that other guest?”

“I was,” Stone said. “I noticed that you have two dining rooms. Would you kindly see that that gentleman and I are not seated in the same one for dinner?”

“Of course, and I extend our apologies for the interruption of your evening.”

Stone thanked the man, and he left.

“That’s the first time I’ve ever seen you angry,” Pat said.

“Stick around,” Stone said, “you may see more.”

“I don’t know what it is with that man,” Pat said.

Stone looked at her. “It has just occurred to me that Reeves may be following you, instead of me. Do you have some sort of history with him?”

“I told you, I took delivery of his airplane.”

“Was there something else?”

She sighed. “All right, he made a pass at me once—no, twice.”

“So, having been rebuffed, he’s in hot pursuit of you?”

“I suppose that might have something to do with all these ‘coincidences.’”

“The man is a stalker? And I flattered myself to think he was stalking me, when it was you all the time?”

“Stone, I don’t know. Now please calm down.”

Stone took a deep breath and let it out. “You’re right, I’m letting him get to me.”

“I should have told you about this earlier,” she said, “but I was embarrassed. Paul has been pursuing me, in his ham-handed way, for a month or more. He’s been calling my cell phone incessantly, and I had been in my new house for less than twenty-four hours when he was calling there.”

“So you have
two
stalkers on your trail?” Stone held up a placating hand. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make it sound like it’s your fault.”

“Maybe it is my fault,” Pat said, taking a swig from her drink.

“You know, I’ve dealt with some crazy ex-husbands and boyfriends before, but I don’t think I’ve ever encountered anything quite like this.”

“That makes two of us,” Pat said. “I moved to New York to lose both of them, and they found me in no time. I took this delivery job and flew across the Atlantic to get rid of them, and they beat me here.”

“I’m beginning to wish that I had brought a weapon,” Stone said.

“I’m glad you didn’t,” Pat said, “or Paul Reeves would be dead by now.”

WILL LEE GOT BACK
from his trip north, where he had spoken to the Oxford Union, and found Kate dressing for bed. He took her in his arms and held her for a moment. “You must be exhausted, after your day.”

“Oh, I am,” she said, leaning into him. “I think the worst of it was seeing the two agents who were wounded defending me. That’s the first time anybody has gone into harm’s way on my account.”

“There’ll be more before you’re done,” he said. “You have to get used to it.” He led her to the bed and tucked her in.

“How did your speech go?”

“Very well, though I started poorly. I was shaken by the attack this afternoon. I warmed up, though, and it got to be fun when they started asking questions.” He sat on the edge of the bed and took her hand, but she was already asleep.

—

MILLIE SWITCHED OFF
the TV in her room next to Holly’s suite at the Connaught. CNN was wall-to-wall on the attack on the president, and she was sick of hearing about it. Holly’s name was mentioned in the reports but she, herself, had been referred to only as a “staffer,” and that was all right with her. Her cell phone came alive. “Hello?”

“It’s Quentin.”

“How are you?”

“I’m perfectly fine, thanks, but how about you? I assume you were the staffer the news keeps referring to.”

“I’m just fine, thanks. It was over very quickly, so I didn’t have time to get too scared.”

“The news said the car was engulfed in flames.”

“That’s how it looked from the inside,” she said. “Kate was marvelous, though, very cool and unaffected. The exciting part was when we drove through the middle of the park in Grosvenor Square, when the driver took evasive action.”

“You’re calling her Kate, now?”

“That’s what Holly calls her in private, so I guess I do, too. Do you have anything new on Harold what’s-his-name?”

“Harold Charles St. John Malvern,” Quentin said. “The St. John is pronounced ‘sinjin.’”

“Sounds almost Arabic, doesn’t it?”

“The San Francisco office has located a woman who went out with him when he was at Berkeley, and she’ll be going into the office tomorrow with her lawyer for an interview.”

“Her
lawyer
?”

“Everybody lawyers up these days—it’s TV. Pisses me off.”

“Now, now, it’s everyone’s right to have an attorney present when questioned.”

“Yeah, but it’s a pain in the ass, especially when someone like this woman isn’t suspected of anything.”

“Oh, I managed to get a good word about you into a conversation with Kate.”

“No kidding? That will be the first time she’s ever heard my name.”

“It won’t be the last,” she said. “You can tell your boss she had good things to say about him.”

“What did she say?”

“She said he was considered for attorney general, and that he turned down head of criminal investigations at Justice.”

“I didn’t know either of those things.”

“She also said turning it down was a smart move, though I’m not sure why.”

“Because he can make more of a difference at the Bureau,” Quentin said. “He can actually stop terrorist acts, instead of just prosecuting them after they’ve happened.”

“She said she would think of him again another time. That sounds good.”

“It sure does.”

“Quentin, how many people at the Bureau are working on finding Harry Sinjin?”

“Fewer than a dozen, in three offices. We’re holding this very tight, as you asked us to do. We don’t need this to get into the papers or on TV, because he’ll disappear into the Middle East somewhere.”

“Speaking of the Middle East, I have something else that might help you. Have you ever heard of a country called Dahai?”

“Vaguely.”

“It’s a sultanate south of Saudi Arabia, between Yemen and Oman.”

“Oh, right, the sultan is one of the world’s richest men, on a par with the sultan of Brunei.”

“Did I tell you about the twins? I can’t remember.”

“No.”

“In addition to Sinjin, there were mysterious twin boys who were sent to Eton under false names. They were educated there, and when they left, they were whisked away to Dahai on the sultan’s airplane.”

“I’m sorry, but that sounds preposterous.”

“Well, I heard a report from the head of MI6 about it today.”

“
Directly
from the head of MI6?”

“From Dame Felicity Devonshire herself. Holly and the president and I had lunch with her today. She’s got agents tracking the boys. Apparently, they kept to themselves at Eton—no participation in sports or clubs. Their bills were paid from an account at Devin’s Bank, and the funds were traced to a Sheik Hari Mahmoud, who is close to the sultan. And this was around the time that Sinjin was in California.”

“Verrrry interesting. Lev will be excited to learn about that. Anything else to report?”

“Not for the moment.”

“Tell me, are you naked?”

“Near enough.”

“One hand is holding the phone—where’s your other hand?”

She laughed aloud. “Wherever I want it to be. Good night, Quen.” She hung up, still laughing.

STONE WAS GETTING
out of the shower when Pat walked into the room, her arms full of coats and rubber boots. She dumped them onto the bed. “I think the gum boots are the right size. I compared them to your shoes.”

“I’m sorry,” Stone said, “but you’re way ahead of me. What’s going on?”

“We’re going for a walk on Dartmoor—that’s the moor where we are.”

“I know that. I didn’t know you did.”

“I’ve been reading about it in the brochure. There are walking trails marked on their map, and we’re going to take a walk.”

“Okay, I’m up for a walk. Are we going to do it underwater?”

“I don’t know if you’ve heard about this,” she said, “but it sometimes rains in this country.”

Stone went to the windows and swept back the curtains, letting in a gray light. It was drizzling outside. “I believe you may be right,” he said.

“Get dressed, then.”

He looked at his watch. “Half past ten. What about lunch?”

“They’re packing one for us as we speak.”

—

THEY LEFT
the hotel, their lunch in a waterproof backpack worn by Stone, crossed a bridge over a fast-running river, and headed, according to their map, toward the heart of Dartmoor. Shortly, they had left behind the trees in the vicinity of Gidleigh Park and were on a rocky, green, treeless expanse of moor, a place where trees could not thrive because there was too little depth of soil to support them. Gorse grew, though: a hardy shrub sporting yellow flowers, and there was plenty of that about.

The ceiling was low—Stone reckoned a couple of hundred feet—and the mist cut the visibility down to half a mile or so. He was glad he wasn’t landing an airplane in the circumstances.

They walked until they began to get hungry, and they looked around for a place where their food would stay dry while they consumed it. They came upon a shed with a bench, which might have been placed there for hungry hikers on a damp day, and took possession of it.

There were smoked salmon sandwiches and potato salad in their pack, and a slightly chilled bottle of white wine, which had had the cork pulled far enough to remove by hand. Pat dug out two plastic glasses and some utensils, and they ate everything and drank most of the wine. There were a couple of slices of moist cake, too, and those went down well.

Then, when they had packed their trash and started to walk again, the moisture in the air turned from mist to drizzle to steady rain in a matter of about two minutes, and they reversed course. Stone found a tweed hat in the pocket of his Barbour jacket, and that kept most of the rain off his head. Pat found a plastic scarf that did much the same for her.

They were proceeding back up the path that had brought them there, which now sported a great many puddles, when one of the puddles exploded a few feet ahead of them. Stone stopped for a count of about one, then grabbed Pat’s arm and hustled her behind a large boulder.

“What are you doing?” she asked. “I’m sitting in a puddle.”

“Something just happened,” Stone said.

“I saw that puddle ahead. Is somebody throwing rocks at us?”

“I hate to put the worst possible slant on events,” Stone said, “but I think somebody is shooting at us.”

“Shooting what?”

“Bullets. Or, so far, a bullet.”

“I didn’t hear a gunshot.”

“Neither did I, and that especially worries me.” Stone got to one knee, took off his tweed hat, put it on a stick, and handed it to her. “I want you to slowly raise this hat on your side of the boulder to a point where it will look as if it’s on my head.”

Pat took the stick and slowly hoisted the hat, while Stone moved to the other side of the boulder. Something ricocheted off her side of the boulder and Stone stuck his head up on the other side and had a good look around. Then, at the extremity of his vision in the rain, perhaps a hundred yards away, he saw a dark figure running with something in his hands. “Man with rifle,” he muttered to himself.

“What did you say?”

“I said ‘man with rifle.’ I should have said ‘silenced rifle.’” He stood up.

“Are you crazy? Get down!”

“He’s not trying to kill us,” Stone said, “he’s trying to scare us. We were a good target on the trail the first time he fired, but he aimed three or four feet ahead of us, and he didn’t even shoot the hat off the stick. Anyway, the visibility is no more than a hundred yards or so, and if I can’t see him, he can’t see me. Let’s go.” He took his hat off the stick, wrung it out, put it on his head, and started walking.

“I’m staying behind you,” she said, following him.

“Good idea.”

They were a couple of hundred yards up the trail when he heard a vehicle start, maybe a Land Rover, then drive away until the engine noise faded into the downpour.

After another hour of walking the hotel hove into view, and they shed their coats and boots in the mudroom. Twenty minutes after that they were sharing a soak in a hot tub that was just large enough for two friendly people. Two brandy snifters floated near at hand.

“In a minute, we, the brandy, and the water will all be the same temperature,” Stone said, “and the brandy will go down easily.”

“And then we’ll drown,” she said.

“I’m not getting what’s going on here,” he said.

“Drowning?”

“No, getting shot at, being pursued but not caught. What do they want?”

“They?”

“I’m assuming that Reeves and Keyes are in this together. Is this just an elaborate practical joke, or do they want something? And if so, what? Do you have any idea at all?”

There was a long pause before she said, “No.”