Stuart Woods: Severe Clear

“The bodies in New York are en route to our morgue for postmortem, our man in Dubai is clear.”

“You know,” Kate said, “I think that this is the most exciting night of my life that I’ll never be able to talk about. I’ll tell the president. You go thank everybody for me.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Holly said, and left the cottage.

Stone Barrington sat in the study of his cottage at The Arrington, a brandy snifter in his hand. Kelli Keane sat in the chair opposite him; there was a snifter in her hand, too.

“How are you feeling?” Stone asked.

“Much better, thanks. You’re going to ask me not to write about this, aren’t you?”

“I’m going to ask you not to breathe it to a living soul, magazine, news service, publisher, or TV news station for as long as you live. If you can’t accept that, then others will ask you, and less politely.”

Kelli held up a hand. “I know, I know. Can I ask some questions?”

“I don’t have all the answers,” Stone replied, “but I’ll do the best I can.”

“When did you-and those other people, the Secret Service and all-know about the nuclear thing?”

“Not until the moment you mentioned the trunk,” Stone said. “There had been some very slight indications that something was afoot, but not enough to alter what was happening here for the past couple of days. A thorough search for something as big as a trunk had been conducted, but it seems that the trunk was brought from an airport to The Arrington in a hotel vehicle and deposited in McCallister’s suite without the knowledge of the bell captain, who keeps a log of every piece of luggage brought into the hotel.”

“Did the explosion at Santa Monica Airport have anything to do with this?”

“Yes. There were indications of three bombs: one was found by Rifkin’s people in a liquor storage room yesterday. The chief bartender has been arrested in connection with that. A second was found by Mike Freeman in the Strategic Services security monitoring room, and one of his people arrested. The police found a car door at Santa Monica Airport, a hundred yards from the scene of the explosion, that had an Arrington logo painted on it. A hotel employee had checked out the car, and it’s thought that he detonated the third bomb, perhaps accidentally.”

“What happened to Hamish McCallister?”

“His flight was directed to land at Kennedy, ostensibly for refueling because of headwinds, but Hamish must have become suspicious, because he ran from the airplane to a waiting car driven by his brother. It’s my understanding that they escaped the airport but were caught nearby and didn’t survive the encounter. Something similar happened to the man who built the bombs.”

“So all the bad guys are dead?”

“All except the two who were arrested, Wynken and Nod.”

“And they’re in jail?”

“Sort of,” Stone said.

“What does that mean?”

“I believe they’re en route to a secure facility. And that’s all I know about this.”

“Just one more question,” she said. “What made you shoot at the device with Dino’s gun?”

“I reasoned that if the clock would set off the device, maybe disabling it would stop it from going off.”

“And that worked?”

“While you were still… indisposed, I asked the bomb chief about that, and he said the chances were about fifty-fifty that it worked.”

“So you might have made it go off early?”

“Four seconds early. Fortunately, Mike Freeman arrived with a key from the bomb found in his surveillance room, and that worked, too.”

“All right,” she said, “I promise never to communicate what happened here to anybody, ever.”

“That would be best for you,” Stone said. “No one would corroborate your story. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, the presidents of the United States and Mexico had a highly successful conference, resulting in a comprehensive new security treaty between the two countries, and The Arrington had a hugely successful opening that went incredibly smoothly, without a single hiccup. The concert, too. Be sure and mention in your piece how much you enjoyed Immi Gotham’s encore with Hattie Patrick at the piano.”

The following morning, Stone sat in the jump seat of the Gulfstream 550 and watched the takeoff. Twenty minutes later they were at forty thousand feet, headed east with a hundred-knot tailwind.

Stone looked out through the windshield at the clearly etched landscape of the Mojave Desert, dead ahead. “Severe clear,” he heard the captain say. “I love that.”

I love that, too, Stone said to himself, then he got up and went back to join his friends for brunch and champagne. He took a seat next to Holly Barker.

“Congratulations on a successful opening,” she said. “I’m sure the hotel will do well.”

“Mort, the executive director, told me they’re sold out for months ahead,” Stone said. “I think that you and I can both take some pleasure in the fact that your people and mine did a fine job.”

“I saw the president and the first lady this morning, before they left for the airport,” she said, “and both of them expressed their extreme satisfaction with how things went. They asked me to thank you for your part in it.”

“Sometimes everything goes right,” Stone said.