The Short Forever (23 page)

48

AT TWELVE O’CLOCK, THE DOORBELL rang again. A man Stone had never seen before held out a set of car keys. “It’s the Jaguar S-type, parked along there, British Racing Green,” he said. “Here’s a car rental receipt from a firm in Knightsbridge; sign it here and here, and fill in your American driver’s license number. Ring Mason when you’re finished with the car and someone will collect it.”

“Thank you,” Stone said. The man left. Stone filled out the form, then turned to Dino. “You want a lift to Harrod’s? I’m going right past it.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Let’s go, then.” Stone put on his jacket, checked to be sure the pen was still in place, and led the way out the door, locking it behind him. Sarah had given them each a key.

“Here we are,” Stone said, climbing into the Jaguar and adjusting the seat.

Dino got into the passenger seat, and Stone pulled out of the parking place, went to the corner, and turned left.

“Isn’t there supposed to be a steering wheel over here?” Dino asked.

“Nope, it’s over here.”

“It’s very weird sitting here with no controls,” Dino said. “I keep wanting to put on the brakes.”

“Relax,” Stone said, negotiating Hyde Park Corner. “That’s the Duke of Wellington’s house over there,” he said, pointing, “and that’s Hyde Park behind it.”

“Got it,” Dino said.

They drove a couple of blocks through heavy traffic, and Stone pulled over in front of the department store. “Here’s Harrod’s,” he said.

Dino looked out at the line of store windows. “Which one?”

“The whole block,” Stone replied. “It’s the largest store in the world.”

“Jesus,” Dino said, “I’ll need a map.”

“Just wander, and ask somebody if you get lost.”

“Okay, pal; when will I see you?”

“I’ll come back to the house after lunch; if anybody calls and asks for me, except Sarah, you don’t know me.”

“I might be better off,” Dino said.

“Maybe, but you wouldn’t have nearly as much fun.”

Dino closed the door and walked into Harrod’s.

Stone drove on out Knightsbridge, which became the Cromwell Road, and soon he was on a four-lane highway, and soon after that, on the M4 motorway. Traffic was heavy, but he made good time. He got off the motorway at the prescribed exit and took the opportunity to check the traffic behind him. No one exited after him that he could see, and he felt tail-free, except for Mason’s van, which was nowhere to be seen.

He followed the signs to the village and the restaurant and parked the car. The Thames was before him, broad and slow-moving, with pretty houses on the other side. He went into the restaurant; it was precisely one o’clock. Lance was not there yet, and the maître d’ seated him outside on the terrace, under an elm tree. He ordered a kir royale and sipped it. Lance, he figured, was driving around the village to see if either he or Stone had a tail. Another fifteen minutes passed before he entered the restaurant.

Stone shook his hand. “A very elegant place,” he said.

“Wait until you taste the food.”

They had only desultory conversation until the food arrived, then Lance took a look around to be sure they were not being overheard. “I’m going to have to pat you down,” he said to Stone.

Stone laughed. “Don’t worry, I haven’t worn a wire in years, not since I was a cop.”

Lance got up, walked behind Stone and, on the pretense of pointing at something on the river, ran his hands expertly over Stone’s body, down to the crotch.

“Don’t have too much fun there,” Stone said.

“What’s this?” Lance asked, patting Stone’s jacket pocket.

Stone removed the pen and handed it to him.

Lance inspected it closely and unscrewed the cap.

Don’t try to unscrew the other end, Stone thought.

Lance didn’t; he returned the pen, and Stone put it back into his pocket.

“Now,” Lance said.

Stone leaned forward, as if to listen closely, putting his left hand on the table.

“I’m going to tell you everything I think you need to know.”

“If it’s everything
I
think I need to know, we’ll be fine.”

“There is a company west and south of here, in Wiltshire, a very secret company that makes very, very high-tech parts for the British military. We’re talking very specialized metallurgy, machine tools, incredibly tight tolerances, and computerized design. For the past year, a man who works there, making these parts, has managed to make a duplicate of one extremely important component.”

Stone interrupted. “Surely parts of that kind are stringently catalogued and accounted for.”

“This man has been working in this facility for nearly thirty years, and he has accumulated a reservoir of trust, which leads his employers and colleagues to give him wide latitude. He’s brilliant, and he’s crotchety, and nobody likes to piss him off, so they leave him pretty much to himself.”

“I see.”

“This gentleman is nearing retirement, and he feels that his pension plan and what he has managed to save are insufficient to keep him in the style to which he would like to become accustomed. You see, he has a little horse-betting habit, which, over the years, has taken its toll on his nest egg.”

“Do you mean to tell me that an important employee of a high-security facility could be betting the ponies and losing and not be noticed?”

“Apparently, he has been very discreet, and he has not been noticed,” Lance replied. “In any case, he has made it known to someone who knows someone I know that he has built this very special device, and that it is for sale. I have bid on it, and he has accepted my offer. All that remains to be done is to meet with him, retrieve the device, pay him half a million dollars in cash, and pass the device on to someone else.”

“It sounds too simple,” Stone said.

“Believe me when I tell you, there has been nothing simple about it. I have known about this for seven months, and it has taken nearly every day of that time to set this up—retrieval of the device, payment, shipping, and finally, collecting payment.”

“And with all that time to prepare, why do you suddenly need my money?”

“Because the investor who was to have provided it last week met with a fatal accident, and his funds are no longer forthcoming. You happened to arrive at a moment when you could be useful.”

“Why me?”

“Because you’re
here,
” Lance said emphatically. “The people to whom I’m to deliver the device are not the kind who take disappointment lightly; they get ugly quickly. I have given them a schedule, and they expect me to keep it.”

“Why don’t they deal directly with your man? Why do they need you?”

“Because they don’t know who he is or how he came by the device. Only I know that, just yours truly, and no one else. By the way,
you
are not going to know that, either. You will know only what I tell you, and if that’s not enough for you, then—”

“Then you’ll have to disappoint your buyers, won’t you?” Stone asked coldly.

That stopped Lance in his tracks. “I have another source for the funds, but it is a less attractive one, which will cost me too much in interest. If you don’t want into this, say so, and lunch is on me and we won’t meet again.”

Stone stared at him for a long moment. “What is the device? What does it do?”

“Please believe me, Stone, you
do not want
that information. In the unlikely event that this should go awry, you will be grateful for not knowing.”

Stone thought he had shown a sufficient amount of reluctance to be convincing. “When does the transaction take place?”

“Within the next forty-eight hours,” Lance replied, “after your funds are safely in a Swiss account.”

“Whose account?”

“Yours; I’ve brought the paperwork with me; you can instruct the bank not to proceed at any time you choose. But if you’re in, then the transfer has to be received in Zurich by the close of business tomorrow, which is noon in New York.”

Stone looked at his watch. “I can transfer the funds today. But first, when do I get paid, and how much?”

“We’re paying half a million dollars for the device, and I have negotiated a final sales price of two million, two. Your cut of that is one million dollars. I get more, because I set it up.”

“How and when will I be paid?”

“The device will be transported to a secure location, a bank in southern Europe, where the exchange will take place. The buyers’ funds will be transferred to your Zurich account and mine, in the appropriate amounts, before the device is handed over. It’s as foolproof as a transaction of this sort can be. I’ve done a number of them, I know. I much prefer doing business in the conference room of a bank, instead of in a back alley.”

“What about the arrangement you mentioned that will keep this transaction away from prying eyes, such as the Internal Revenue Service?”

“I also have the documentation for an account in the Cayman Islands. You sign both sets of documents—Swiss and Cayman—and I’ll fax them to the respective banks, along with a code word. You can then transfer from the Swiss Bank to the Cayman one with one phone call. Once it’s in the Cayman bank, you can draw on the account anywhere in the world—cash can be transferred to you, you can write checks, and you can have a credit card which is paid directly from the Cayman account. Thus, no transaction ever goes through an American bank, and you come to the attention of no one.”

“I like it,” Stone said. “Give me the documents.”

Lance produced a thick envelope from an inside pocket and showed Stone where to sign. “Write your code word—any combination of letters and numbers, up to twelve characters.”

“I don’t like the idea of your having the account numbers and the password,” Stone said.

“It’s the only way I can transfer your share of the funds to your account. Once I’ve done that, you can change the account number and the password.” Lance tore off a copy of each account application and handed them to Stone.

Stone put the papers into his pocket. “Where do I transfer my funds?”

“To your account in Zurich, which will be open in an hour; I’ll let you know where and when to send them from there.”

Stone stuck out his hand. “I’ll speak with my broker as soon as I get back to my hotel; I’ll have to fax him, too. The funds will be in Zurich before the day is over.” He glanced at his watch; he had three hours to get it done.

He and Lance parted at the restaurant door.

“I’ll call you on your cellphone tomorrow morning, with further instructions,” Lance said. “Make sure it’s turned on; from here on in, everything has to be done in a precise manner.”

“Good,” Stone said. Driving back to London, he wondered if he would have gone for this deal if he’d been on his own. Certainly not, he decided. Too risky.

49

STONE DROVE BACK TO LONDON AND Chester Street; as soon as he was in the house, he called Mason’s cellphone. No answer; he left a message. As an afterthought, he called Carpenter’s number.

“Yes?” She sounded harried.

“It’s Stone Barrington. Did you get it?”

“Hold on,” she said, and covered the phone, so that he could hear only muffled voices. She uncovered it in time for Stone to hear her say, “Find out why, and do it
now
.” There was real authority in the voice. She came back to Stone. “Are you in Chester Street now?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

Stone was going to ask what the hell was going on, but she had already hung up.

Dino let himself in through the front door; he was carrying two large Harrod’s shopping bags. “Hey,” he said.

“I take it you got Mary Ann something.”

“Yep; how’d your lunch go?”

“Just as it was supposed to, I think.”

“Good.” Dino stretched. “I think I’m going to take a nap.”

“It’s jet lag,” Stone said.

“I never get jet lag.”

“Whatever you say. You want me to wake you up later?”

“Not unless it gets to be dinnertime. Do we have any plans?”

“Not yet; I’ll call Sarah later.”

Stone read the papers for ten minutes, then the doorbell rang. He let Carpenter and Mason into the house.

“Come and sit down,” she said. “We have a lot to ask you.”

They all went into the drawing room and took seats.

“Did you get everything?” Stone asked.

“We got almost nothing,” Carpenter replied.

Mason seemed uncharacteristically quiet; usually, he did the talking.

“Your brand-new bug didn’t work?”

Now Mason spoke. “There was something in the neighborhood interfering with it,” he said petulantly. “As soon as you left the restaurant, we could clearly hear the sound of your car; it was just in the restaurant that it didn’t work. Must have been something in the walls.”

“We lunched outdoors,” Stone said. “It sounds as if Lance Cabot is smarter than you gave him credit for.”

“What do you mean?” Mason demanded.

“He searched me for a wire,” Stone replied, “which means he was suspicious. My guess is he had something in his car that would interfere with any radio transmissions in the immediate vicinity.”

“Shit,” Mason said, with disgust.

“Don’t worry about it,” Carpenter said. “We have Stone to tell us.” She turned to him. “Tell us.”

“Someone who works in what sounds like the factory of a defense contractor has made a duplicate of the device he builds every day. He’s going to sell it to Lance for half a million dollars in cash, and Lance is going to resell it to an unknown party for two million, two.”

“What details did he give you about the device?”

“The device is something that requires exotic metallurgy and special machine tools to make. It’s made to extremely tight tolerances. Sounds as though it’s small enough to carry around.”

“What else did he tell you about this man?”

“He has worked in the same facility for nearly thirty years and is about to retire. Apparently, he’s frittered away his savings on the ponies, and he wants to sell the device to make his retirement comfortable.”

“Ponies?” Mason asked, baffled. “Polo?”

“Horse racing,” Carpenter said to him sharply.

“This gives us nothing to go on,” Mason said. “There are factories and laboratories all over the country doing classified work. How are we going to find this man?”

“Lance said that the facility was very secret, and that it’s south and west of the restaurant, in Wiltshire,” Stone replied.

“Oh, Christ,” Carpenter said, turning pale.

“Eastover?” Mason asked.

“Shut up!” Carpenter said sharply.

Stone had the distinct impression that, for some reason, Carpenter was now in charge. Perhaps she had been from the beginning.

“What’s Eastover?” Stone asked.

“You don’t need to know,” Carpenter replied. She turned to Mason. “Listen to me very carefully: I want you to call someone in our tech department and have him call someone eminent in the related sciences that we know well. Have that person call the director at Eastover and tell him that someone is coming to see him for some advice on a technical matter. I don’t want the director to have any idea what’s going on, until you get there.”

“I understand.”

“When you arrive and are alone with the director, ask him who fits this description: long-time employee, highly classified work, a builder of devices rather than a designer, close to retirement. If he can’t come up with answers based on his own knowledge, have him call in his director of security to go through the personnel files, until you’ve identified the man. This must be done softly, softly, in such a way that does not create any alarm or gossip in the labs.” She turned to Stone. “When is the buy supposed to take place?”

“Within forty-eight hours of the time I transfer my funds to a Swiss account, which Cabot has already opened.”

Carpenter turned back to Mason. “We have forty-eight hours, probably less, to place our suspect under the most stringent surveillance—electronic, sonic, anything we can scrape up, but I don’t want any bodies anywhere near him or his residence, because if Cabot is as smart as he appears to be, that might alert him. Now, get on the phone.”

Mason whipped out a cellphone and walked into the dining room, pressing buttons.

Carpenter turned back to Stone. “When did you say you would transfer the funds?”

“Before the day was out.”

“Have you done it?”

“No.”

“Then you’d better get moving, hadn’t you?”

Stone went into the kitchen and used the phone there to call his broker in New York.

“Richardson.”

“Hank, it’s Stone Barrington.”

“Hi, Stone, what’s up? Got some more money for me?”

“No, I’m taking some out.”

“How come?”

“I can’t explain right now. How much have I got in my money market account?”

“Hang.” Stone could hear computer keys clicking. “Three hundred and ten thousand, give or take. The way the market is going, I’m getting ready to start investing it.”

Stone took out the document from the Swiss bank. “Got a pencil?”

“Yep.”

“I want you to transfer two hundred and fifty thousand to the following account number at the Charter Bank in Zurich.” He read the account number twice. “Got that?”

“I’ve got it. Listen, Stone, I can do as well for you as the Swiss, you know, probably better.”

“This is a short-term thing, Hank; I’ll have the money back in my account with you in a couple of days.”

“Is this ransom money, Stone? Has somebody been kidnapped?”

“No, nothing like that. Just do it, Hank.”

“I’m going to need written confirmation; can you fax me something?”

“In five minutes; go stand by the fax machine.” Stone hung up, then went upstairs to his room and opened his briefcase. He took out a sheet of his letterhead, wrote a letter of instructions, then took it down to James Cutler’s study and faxed it to Richardson. Then he went back into the drawing room.

Carpenter was on her cellphone, and she waved him to a seat. She ended the conversation, snapped the phone shut, and turned to Stone. “Did you get it done?”

“The money will be in Zurich within the hour.”

“Good. What are you supposed to do when it’s there?”

“Lance is to phone me on my cellphone tomorrow morning and tell me where to transfer it. I’m not going to do that, of course.”

“Why not?” she asked, alarmed.

“Are you kidding? It’s a quarter of a million dollars that I worked very hard for. You think I’m going to flush it down some cockamamy security operation I don’t really give a damn about?”

She looked miffed. “I quite understand; I’ll do something about getting hold of some funds tomorrow. Obviously, if we don’t transfer the money, Cabot isn’t going to go through with the buy.”

“He said that everything will have to be done at precise times from then on.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll get the money. And we’ll put someone on his house, to keep track of him.”

“I wouldn’t do that; he might spot your people, no matter how good they are. He’s been trained for that, you know.”

“Yes, you’re probably right,” she said.

“Why did you want me to think Mason was in charge?”

She smiled. “The less you know, the better.”

“Carpenter and Mason,” Stone said. “I’ll bet you have a colleague named Plumber.”

She laughed. “Let’s just stick with those names for the moment, shall we?”

“What are you doing for dinner, Carpenter?”

She blushed. “Maybe when this is over,” she said. She stood up. “Now I have to go find that money.” She walked into the dining room, dialing her cellphone.