Unintended Consequences (23 page)

“That was wonderful,” Helga said. “Now what do we do?”

Stone turned the airplane around and pointed to a man leaning against a 1938 Ford station wagon. “That’s Seth, my caretaker. He’ll drive us to the house, and his wife, Mary, will give us our meals.”

Stone parked and set the brakes, then went through the engine shutdown checklist. Then he, Dino, and Seth transferred the luggage to the station wagon, and he introduced Seth to everyone.

They drove to the village of Dark Harbor, then to the house, which was situated on the little harbor, within sight of the small yacht club.

Mary greeted them and showed the guests to their rooms.

Stone grabbed a pair of binoculars and walked out onto the porch overlooking the harbor. He looked at every boat moored there, remembering that his friend Jim Hackett, the founder of Strategic Services, had been shot on this very porch on a calm day by a sniper eight hundred yards out on a boat. He saw nothing unusual, but still, he went back into the house to his study and got the keys to the secret room that the Agency had built and equipped for his cousin, Dick Stone. Dick had recently been appointed deputy director for operations when he was murdered. Lance Cabot succeeded him.

Dino came down the stairs and found him there. “I thought you’d be in here,” he said, looking at the half dozen weapons hanging on one wall. “What are you going to give me?”

“Can you still hit a man at a thousand yards with a good rifle?”

“I can.”

Stone took down a military sniper’s rifle with a large scope and silencer and handed it to him, along with a loaded magazine. “I’ve had a look at the harbor, and I didn’t see anything, but I think we need to keep our people off the porch.”

“You’re remembering what happened to Jim,” Dino said, sighting through the rifle and checking its condition.

“I certainly won’t forget that. He was sitting right in front of me when he was hit.”

Dino placed the rifle behind the living room curtain, while Stone found himself an assault rifle and did the same.

Everybody came down for drinks at five. Stone and Dino were one ahead of them.

49

S
tone was awakened in the wee hours by a small noise. He disentangled himself from Helga without waking her, grabbed a robe and a pistol, and padded slowly down the stairs. When he reached the living room he could see in the moonlight that the door to the back porch stood open. That had been the noise.

Silently, he checked that there was a round in the chamber, then he made his way across the living room, checking around him for company, until he came to the open door. He looked around the porch and carefully stepped outside. The chilly night air crept up his bare legs.

“You couldn’t sleep?” a voice asked.

Stone jerked in its direction, the pistol out in front of him.

“Relax, pal.” Dino was sitting in a corner of the porch, hidden in a shadow made by the moon, the sniper’s rifle across his lap.

“You scared the shit out of me,” Stone said.

“I got up to pee and thought I saw something in the harbor.” Dino got up, walked over, and handed Stone the binoculars. “See the buoy way out there? Check the third boat to the left of it.”

Stone stuffed the pistol in the pocket of his robe, took the binoculars, and trained them on the buoy for focus, then swung slowly to his left, to a third boat. “Looks like something fast, around forty feet. There’s a rubber dinghy aft, resting on a boarding platform.”

“It arrived ten minutes ago without lights. I thought that was odd.”

“You were right,” Stone said, “it is odd, a boat running in the dark without lights. It’s pretty bright out from the moon, maybe he just forgot to turn them on.”

“Maybe,” Dino said, “or maybe not. He used a very bright flashlight to pick up the mooring. I think there are two aboard.”

“I don’t see anybody on deck now.”

“Who knows we’re in Maine?” Dino asked.

“Only Joan. I didn’t tell anyone else. Except Stanley, when he dropped us at Teterboro. He was disturbed that we were going somewhere without him and his boys.”

“What’s Stanley’s last name?” Dino asked.

“I heard one of the other guards call him Manoff.”

“That’s Russian, isn’t it?”

“You’re a suspicious man, Dino.”

“I’m professionally suspicious, like you used to be.”

“You think I’m less suspicious than I used to be?”

“Yeah, since you left the department, you’re Sunny Jim.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“No, it’s not. Is Stanley Agency?”

“I think he’s one of a group of civilian security people that the Agency employs to guard their buildings and people. I doubt if he’s a Company officer.”

“Then who knows where his loyalties might lie?” Dino said. “And what effect an important sum of money might have on those loyalties?”

“You have a point,” Stone said, peering through the glasses. “I just caught a glimpse of a red light through one of the boat’s ports,” he said. “It came on for a second, then went out.”

“Some of those little lithium-powered flashlights have a red bulb. Red light doesn’t screw up a person’s night vision.”

“I can see ripples,” Stone said. “They’re moving around inside the boat.”

“So they didn’t just get in, all tired, and go right to bed.”

“I guess not.” Stone braced himself against a porch post to steady the binoculars. “Uh-oh,” he said.

“What?”

“They’re in the cockpit, two of them.”

Dino raised the rifle and peered through the scope at the boat. “And one of them has the moon glinting off his bald head,” he said. “And they’re launching the dinghy.”

Stone ran lightly upstairs, got his cell phone, and came back. He pressed a speed-dial number.

“Are you calling Stanley?” Dino asked.

“Nope.”

“Hello,” a sleepy woman’s voice said.

“Holly, it’s Stone.”

She was instantly awake. “What’s up?”

“We’re at the Maine house.”

“How did you lose Stanley?”

“We may not have lost him,” Stone said. “We said goodbye at Teterboro, and now there are two men on a fast boat in the harbor, one of whom is as bald as an egg.”

“I’ll call you back,” Holly said, then broke the connection.

“Did Holly send Stanley up here?” Dino asked.

“I don’t think so,” Stone said. He looked through the binoculars again. “They’re rowing in,” he said. “I think there’s an outboard on the dinghy, but they’re not using it.”

Dino braced his rifle against a porch post and looked through the scope again. “The bald guy is sitting in the stern, while his buddy does the rowing. And the bald guy seems to have a rifle slung across his body. I could take him out right now.”

“If you do that, it will turn out to be the commodore of the yacht club coming back from a midnight cruise.”

“Yeah, well.”

“Interesting, though—they don’t seem to be aiming for the yacht club dock. It’s more like they’re aiming for mine.”

“Why don’t we go down there and greet them?” Dino said.

50

S
tone ran back into the living room and retrieved the assault rifle he’d left behind the curtains, then he joined Dino on the front porch.

“Are they still coming?” he asked Dino.

“Yep. Let’s go.”

They ran lightly across the backyard, using trees and shrubbery to keep from being seen. At the head of the ramp to the dock, there were two tall evergreen shrubs, and they took up positions behind them. Soon, Stone could hear the sound of the dinghy’s oars and some unintelligible whispering. A couple of minutes later there was the sound of rubber squeaking against the dock, and Stone could see the dock move as the two men alit from the dinghy. They padded down the dock and started up the ramp. “There’s the house,” one of them said.

As they stepped onto the grass and walked past the evergreens, Dino said, in his best cop voice, “Freeze, NYPD.”

Stone thought the NYPD was superfluous, so he racked the slide on his weapon for emphasis.

They froze.

“Now, we’re going to do this very carefully so that nobody gets a bullet in the spine,” Dino said. “First, on your knees.”

The two men dropped to their knees.

“Hands on the back of your heads.”

The two men complied.

“Now behind your back.” Dino handed Stone a set of plastic tie cuffs and they secured both men. Dino lifted the assault rifle over the head of the bald one and looked at it. “Banana clip,” he said. “These guys are loaded for bear.”

Stone took a MAC-10 from the other man and tossed it away. “So, Stanley,” Stone said, “you must have missed me terribly.”

“Mr. Barrington?” Stanley said, sounding surprised. “What are you doing here?”

“That’s my line, Stanley.”

“I’m here to protect you,” Stanley said.

Dino raised a foot and kicked Stanley onto his face in the grass. “So you arrive here in the middle of the night and sneak up on the house? That’s how you protect him?”

“It’s my job,” Stanley said.

“Then why doesn’t Holly Barker know you’re here?” Stone asked.

“I didn’t tell her I was coming. We have a different command structure from the people at the station.”

“And who do you report to?” Stone asked.

“Carlton. He’s in charge of our unit.”

“And did Carlton tell you to come up here and sneak up on my house?”

“Not exactly,” Stanley said.

“How did you find us?”

“I checked the flight plan you filed with flight services. The address of the house was on the information sheet Carlton gave me.”

“Clever fellow,” Stone said. “Tell me, Stanley, are you Russian?”

“I’m first-generation American,” Stanley said.

“Where from?”

“Brighton Beach.”

“A hotbed of the Russian Mob, is Brighton Beach,” Stone said.

“I’m not Mob, I hate those guys.”

Stone’s cell phone vibrated in the pocket of his robe. “Yes?”

“It’s Holly. Stanley is on his way to you.”

“Oh, he’s arrived.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” she said.

“Funny, I’m not relieved.”

“Well, you should be. Stanley is our guard team’s best man. I just spoke to his commander, Carlton, and he dispatched Stanley when he learned you’d abandoned him at Teterboro.”

“I see,” Stone said.

“I hope to God you didn’t shoot him.”

“Not yet, but I’m thinking about it.”

“Stone, the man is doing what he was assigned to do, and you ought to be grateful to him, instead of just leaving him on the tarmac at the airport.”

“All right, I won’t shoot him. Sorry to get you up.” He ended the call. “Okay, Stanley, on your feet.”

The two men got up. “This is Lewis,” he said, nodding at his companion. “He’s a local asset, knows the territory.”

“How did you get here?”

“Once I found out where you were and got permission, I chartered a light plane at Teterboro and flew to Rockland. The rest of the team is assembling there.”

“How many men are we talking about?” Stone asked.

“Eight. They’re ready to chopper in here as soon as I call them on the radio.”

“Stanley,” Stone said, “call them on the radio and tell them to find a place to sleep. We’re not going to need them.”

“I can’t proceed on that basis,” Stanley said.

“Stanley, Dark Harbor is a small community. Everybody here knows everybody else, and strangers tend to stand out. Heavily armed strangers in riot gear rappelling from a helicopter
really
stand out, and we don’t want to frighten the summer folk. As you should have learned on the boat trip over, we’re isolated here, and quite safe. There is no way anyone could find us.”

“I found you pretty easily,” Stanley said.

“All right, I’ll give you that, but you had my file, didn’t you?”

“We were followed to Teterboro,” Stanley said. “We didn’t lose them until we passed through the security gate.”

That gave Stone pause.

“No reason why they couldn’t check your flight plan, just as I did, and I’ll bet you’re listed in the phone book up here. That’s how they found you in Connecticut.”

Stone winced. “All right, Stanley, we’ll talk about it in the morning. Right now, call your people and tell them to stand down and get some sleep. We’ll see how the cold light of day looks on this problem.”

Stanley called his people and told them to stand by and get some sleep.

“That’s the guest house over there,” Stone said. “You and Lewis go over there and get some sleep, too, which is what Dino and I plan to do.”

“I’m not comfortable with that,” Stanley said.

“Stanley, I’m losing my patience with you. You can take turns staying awake, if you like, but you need rest just like everybody else, and you’ll be useless tomorrow if you’re exhausted.”

“As you wish, Mr. Barrington. Lewis, I’ll take the first watch. I’ll wake you in four hours.”

“Right,” Lewis said.

“The back porch has a fine view of the harbor,” Stone said, pointing. “Take a rocking chair, and it’s okay if you doze off.”

“Good night, then,” Stanley said.

“And no helicopters, unless I say so,” Stone said.

Stone and Dino trudged back to the house and went to bed.

51

W
hen Stone awoke it was nearly ten o’clock, and Helga was not in bed. He showered and shaved and went down for breakfast. Helga and Marcel were sitting on the front porch, reading
The New York Times
, which had come over on the ferry earlier, and Dino was having breakfast in the kitchen.

“When did Stanley get here?” Helga asked, giving him a kiss.

“Very late last night,” Stone said.

“Were you expecting him?”

“I was not, but he came anyway. Is he up?”

“Yes, he and his friend are ‘patrolling the perimeter,’ as he put it.”

“It’s not much of a perimeter. It’s only a couple of acres. Were they armed?”

“To the teeth.”

“Oh, shit. I hope the neighbors haven’t spotted them.” He went in search of them and found Stanley marching along the property at the road.