“Good evening,” she said, “I’m your captain, Suzanne Alley.” She was tall and quite beautiful. “We’ll have a nice tailwind tonight and clear weather. We should arrive at Blackbush at nine a.m., local time. Is there anything I can do for you?”
Stone resisted an affirmative reply. “Thank you, Suzanne. I don’t think so.”
“Nancy will take good care of you,” she replied. “Let her know if you’d like some dinner.” She returned to the cockpit and closed the door behind her.
Nancy returned. “Can I get you anything?” she asked.
“I’d like a glass of Champagne,” Felicity said, “and a telephone.”
“Certainly,” Nancy said, and she brought both.
Felicity was still on the phone when Stone went aft to the private cabin, removed his jacket, loosened his tie and quickly fell asleep on one of the compact beds.
59
A
s soon as the airplane rolled to a full stop and the engines were cut off, Nancy had the door open. Stone and Felicity, freshly showered and dressed, came forward to where Captain Suzanne Alley awaited them at the stairs. She handed Stone a card.
“Please call me when you know your return plans, and we’ll be ready,” she said.
Stone thanked her, and slipped the card into his pocket. He and Felicity descended to a waiting Bentley Arnage and were driven away.
“Do you want to tell me what you’re going to do?” Stone asked.
“No,” Felicity replied. “If I recount my plan to you, just hearing it might cause me to … What’s the American expression? Chicken out?”
“That’s it,” Stone said. “Come to think of it, I’d rather not know.”
As they approached the airport gate, Stone saw a television van with an antenna on top and two other cars waiting there, and they fell in behind the Bentley.
The driver lowered the glass partition and asked, “Excuse me, madam, to what address would you like to be driven?”
“To Number Ten Downing Street, please,” Felicity replied.
Stone looked at her askance, but she said nothing.
AT NUMBER TEN
the prime minister’s secretary knocked on the door of the Cabinet Room.
“Come!” a voice growled.
The man opened the door and stepped in. “Please excuse me, Prime Minister,” he said, “but we’ve had rather an odd report from Blackbush Airport.”
“What is it?”
“A Treasury officer, who was arriving there by aeroplane, called to say that he is certain that he saw Dame Felicity Devonshire alight from a jet and get into a chauffeured car.”
The PM’s eyebrows shot up. “And where did she go?”
“The man is following in his own car, and he says her car was met at the gate by several members of the media, and she seems to be headed for Whitehall, should arrive in about twenty minutes.”
“Call the foreign minister and the home secretary and tell them I want them here
now
and to use the rear entrance, through the garden.”
“Yes, Prime Minister.”
THE BENTLEY DROVE
past Buckingham Palace and down the Mall, through Admiralty Arch and past Trafalgar Square to Whitehall, where it came to a barrier at the entrance to Downing Street. Felicity put down her window and offered her identification to the policeman on guard there. “They’re with me,” she said, hooking a thumb in the direction of her media escort.
They pulled up in front of Number Ten, and another police officer opened the rear door.
“Just a moment,” Felicity said to Stone. “Let’s let our friends get into position.”
Half a minute later, cameras were pointed at the Bentley, and Felicity got out, signaling to Stone to follow. Lights were switched on.
“Dame Felicity,” a woman with a microphone said, “what is the occasion of your visit to Number Ten today?”
“I’m here at the invitation of the prime minister,” Felicity said, “and I’m sure he’ll tell me when I am inside.” She brushed past the cameras with Stone in tow and flashed her identification to the policeman guarding the front door. “The gentleman is with me,” she said. He rapped sharply on the door, and it was opened wide. The PM’s private secretary was waiting in the foyer.
“Good morning, Dame Felicity,” he said. “The prime minister is expecting you in the Cabinet Room.”
Felicity didn’t even slow down, and another minion barely got the door open for her in time. She swept into the Cabinet Room with Stone close behind. Three men sat at the long table, and they stood as she entered.
“Good morning, Prime Minister,” she said, ignoring the other two. “May I present Mr. Stone Barrington, of the New York law firm of Woodman and Weld, who is present as my legal adviser. And as my witness.”
The three faces fell a bit as Stone pulled out a chair for Felicity, then took one for himself.
“Prime Minister,” Felicity said, “would you prefer the foreign minister and the home secretary to be arrested in the garden, away from cameras, or here in the Cabinet Room?”
“Arrested?” the man on the left asked.
“Those are the alternatives,” she replied.
“Prime Minister,” the man said, “the home secretary and I insist on being present for this … conference.”
“All right,” the prime minister said, “what is the purpose of this meeting?”
Felicity managed a tight smile. “The purpose is for you to accept the resignations of these two …
gentlemen
,” she said.
“On what charge?” the foreign minister demanded.
Felicity ignored him. “These two persons, having failed to press me into their service, have taken it upon themselves to directly order the assassination of an American citizen, Mr. James Hackett, formerly a British subject and a member of the Paratroop Regiment, in the belief that he was responsible, some years ago, for the deaths of, respectively, their daughter and son.”
“Can you substantiate that?” the prime minister asked.
“Mr. Barrington, here, was in the company of Mr. Hackett at the moment of his death from a sniper’s bullet, having heard the whole story from Mr. Hackett. I am advised by the police of the state of Maine that, late last night, they arrested the assassin aboard a boat in the environs of Penobscot Bay and that he is helping them with their inquiries.”
The prime minister went pale. “I knew nothing of this!” he stammered. “Palmer? Prior? What have you to say?”
Prior was speechless, but Palmer didn’t miss a beat. “Prime Minister, Mr. Prior and I will have nothing to say until we have had an opportunity to avail ourselves of counsel.”
“Very well,” the PM said. “I want both your resignations on this table within the hour, and your resignations from Parliament to the speaker of the House before the day is out. Get out, both of you, and through the garden.”
The two men rose and left.
“Well, now, Felicity,” the PM said, “was it absolutely necessary to deal with this matter in this manner?”
“I’m sorry, Prime Minister,” she replied, “but since those two had also ordered my death, I thought it best to go to the top before they were successful. Would you like my resignation now?”
The PM threw his hands up. “No, no, of course not,” the man replied. “You are invaluable to me.”
“Then, if you will excuse me, Prime Minister, I will return to my offices. I’ve clearly been absent for too long.” She stood, and the prime minister leapt to his feet.
“Do you really expect me to have them arrested?” he asked.
“That has already been seen to, Prime Minister,” Felicity replied. “The director of the Metropolitan Police and his officers met them in the garden.”
The prime minister seemed to sag. “Good day to you, Dame Felicity, Mr. Barrington.”
Stone followed Felicity out of Number Ten and into the Bentley. She paused for a moment to advise the media to look to the PM for a statement, then got into the car and gave the driver another address.
Stone heaved a sigh of relief and mopped his brow.
A FEW MINUTES
later, with Felicity still on her phone, the car was waved through a pair of discreet iron gates and into a small turnaround and then stopped before a pair of large black doors. A man in a severely cut suit waited under a portico.
“Pop the boot, please,” Felicity said to the driver. Then she turned toward Stone. “Thank you so very much, Stone.”
“Are you going to be safe now?”
“Never safer,” she said. She kissed him and got out of the car while the man in the suit held the door. He closed it firmly behind her.
“Where to, Mr. Barrington?”
“The Connaught Hotel,” he said, digging out his cell phone and calling for a reservation. What the hell, he thought. He might as well visit his tailor and see some friends while he was here. Then he had another thought. He fished Captain Suzanne Alley’s card from his pocket and dialed the number. He didn’t see why he should spend his evening in London alone.
Anyway, if he went straight back to New York, he’d have to attend Herbie Fisher’s wedding.
ABOUT THE TITLE
I have cheerfully stolen the title of this book from a friend, the distinguished Atlanta attorney Robert Steed. Bob has published several collections of short humor, one of them called
Lucid Intervals.
After reading it, I told him I admired his title and would, one day, steal it.
“Feel free,” Bob replied. (As an attorney, he knew that a title cannot be copyrighted.)
The day has come. Just to confirm things, I called him at his law office, as I had heard that he might have died; his secretary told me he was on vacation in Mexico. Since this did not sound like a euphemism for dead, I left a message for him.
On his return from Mexico, Bob called, and I declared my intentions with regard to his title. “Send me a copy,” he said.
I have done so.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I am happy to hear from readers, but you should know that if you write to me in care of my publisher, three to six months will pass before I receive your letter, and when it finally arrives it will be one among many, and I will not be able to reply.
However, if you have access to the Internet, you may visit my website, at
www.stuartwoods.com
, where there is a button for sending me e-mail. So far, I have been able to reply to all my e-mail, and I will continue to try to do so.
If you send me an e-mail and do not receive a reply, it is probably because you are among an alarming number of people who have entered their e-mail address incorrectly in their mail software. I have many of my replies returned as undeliverable.
Remember: e-mail, reply; snail mail, no reply.
When you e-mail, please do not send attachments, as I never open these. They can take twenty minutes to download, and they often contain viruses.
Please do not place me on your mailing lists for funny stories, prayers, political causes, charitable fund-raising, petitions or sentimental claptrap. I get enough of that from people I already know. Generally speaking, when I get e-mail addressed to a large number of people, I immediately delete it without reading it.
Please do not send me your ideas for a book, as I have a policy of writing only what I myself invent. If you send me story ideas, I will immediately delete them without reading them. If you have a good idea for a book, write it yourself, but I will not be able to advise you on how to get it published. Buy a copy of
Writer’s Market
at any bookstore; that will tell you how.
Anyone with a request concerning events or appearances may e-mail it to me or send it to: Publicity Department, Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014.
Those ambitious folks who wish to buy film, dramatic, or television rights to my books should contact Matthew Snyder, Creative Artists Agency, 9830 Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills, CA 98212- 1825.
Those who wish to make offers for rights of a literary nature should contact Anne Sibbald, Janklow & Nesbit, 445 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10022. (Note: This is not an invitation for you to send her your manuscript or to solicit her to be your agent.)
If you want to know if I will be signing books in your city, please visit my website,
www.stuartwoods.com
, where the tour schedule will be published a month or so in advance. If you wish me to do a book signing in your locality, ask your favorite bookseller to contact his Penguin representative or the Penguin publicity department with the request.
If you find typographical or editorial errors in my book and feel an irresistible urge to tell someone, please write to Rachel Kahan at Penguin’s address above. Do not e-mail your discoveries to me, as I will already have learned about them from others.
A list of my published works appears in the front of this book and on my website. All the novels are still in print in paperback and can be found at or ordered from any bookstore. If you wish to obtain hardcover copies of earlier novels or of the two nonfiction books, a good used-book store or one of the online bookstores can help you find them. Otherwise, you will have to go to a great many garage sales.
A Holly Barker Novel
A Stone Barrington Novel
A Will Lee Novel
An Ed Eagle Novel
Table of Contents