Stuart Woods - Dirty Work

"Turn on the siren, Dino," Stone said.

Dino turned on the siren. "Not that it makes a hell of a lot of difference at this hour."

Twenty minutes later, as the bailiff was calling the State of New York v. Herbert Fisher, Stone walked into the courtroom with Herbie in tow. He turned over Herbie to Tony Levy.

"What's happening?" Levy whispered.

"Keep your mouth shut and let the ADA do the talking," Stone said.

"Mr. Levy," Judge Kaplan said, "I guess you want bail continued?"

Levy was about to open his mouth when the ADA, a short woman in a bad suit, spoke up. "Your Honor, this office is dropping all charges against Mr. Fisher at this time."

Kaplan looked at the young woman askance. "You're dropping murder two? What's going on here?"

"This office has learned that the victim died of other causes before Mr. Fisher, ah, intruded on the scene."

"Well, I never," Kaplan said.

"Neither did I, Judge," the ADA replied, "but our information is from a reliable source."

"Okay, Mr. Fisher, you're off the hook. Bail will be refunded."

"Thank you, Your Honor," Levy said. He walked Herbie back to the rear of the courtroom where Stone was waiting. "How did you pull that one off, Stone?" he asked.

"You don't want to know," Stone replied.

Levy pulled Stone aside. "I believe you owe me five big ones," he said.

"No, five is your fee for lying to a judge. You didn't have to do that. I'll send you a grand today." He grabbed Herbie and walked him out of the courtroom, leaving Levy to wonder what had just happened.

"Well," Herbie said, "I'm outta here."

"Yes, you are," Stone said. "And if you breathe a word of what Dino told the DA to anybody at all, including your mother, you're going to find yourself back in this courtroom."

"Jesus, I love this cloak-and-dagger stuff," Herbie said. "Tell me what happened in that apartment that night."

"Herbie," Stone said, "if I told you, I'd have to kill you."

"You gonna have some more work for me soon?" Herbie asked.

"No, Herbie, I'm not."

"Why not? This one worked out okay, didn't it?"

"No, Herbie, it didn't. You nearly went to prison, and you nearly cost me a quarter of a million dollars."

"But it worked out okay. Nobody got hurt."

"That's not what I call working out okay," Stone said, "and you'll never know how close you came to getting hurt by me."

"I'll give you a ring next week and see what you've got for me," Herbie said hopefully.

"Herbie, if I ever see or hear from you again, I'm going to have a word with the people who dealt with what happened in that apartment, and they're going to make sure that you never give anybody a ring again."

Herbie gulped. "You mean…"

Stone nodded gravely. "If I were you, I'd be on the next flight to Saint Thomas, and I'd never come back to New York."

Herbie backed away from him, nodding, then he turned and ran.

Stone hoped the kid could get to the airport without his help.

Marie-Therese was awakened at three in the afternoon by the housekeeper. She was in a safe house for a Middle Eastern intelligence service, in Hampstead, a north London suburb.

"He's here," the woman said.

"I'll be down in five minutes," M-T said. She took a quick shower and, her hair still wet, dressed in Ginger Harvey's good suit and went down to the dining room, which had been turned into an operations center. Abdul, as he was code-named, sat at a desk, reading his e-mail on a laptop computer. There were three other computers in the room, along with a high-frequency radio and two satellite phones. There was also equipment for encoding messages, plus a special recording device for creating short-burst transmissions that could be transmitted, then expanded by anyone who had the codes and proper equipment.

Abdul looked up from the laptop. "I take it you had to leave New York in a hurry?"

"I had to go before they called in the local authorities. There would have been too many people looking for me. I made sure they knew I left the country."

"And now?"

"And now I want to go back, preferably today. I need very good cover, and I hope you can help."

"You're in luck," Abdul said, "but you can't leave until tomorrow."

"How will I do it?"

"We are infiltrating a young couple into the States. They're married and have a young child." He went into a briefcase beside him and took out two passports, handing her one.

"We don't look at all alike," she said.

"I'll put your photograph into her passport now. She'll travel on the same flight with another passport. You'll carry the child and sit with the husband."

"I like it," M-T said, smiling. "They won't expect me back so soon, especially not with a child."

"Are you sure you want to go back now?"

M-T nodded. "Yes, I have unfinished business, and they won't be looking for me since they know I've left the country."

"You're very bold," Abdul said, smiling.

"Sometimes boldness works best."

Abdul handed her a package. "You'll need to dye your hair black before I take your new passport photo. Better get started. You'll find some women's clothes in a cupboard upstairs. Find something suitable."

"What time is my flight tomorrow?"

"Eleven a.m., British Airways. You'll arrive in New York around two, what with the time change. What else will you need? Weapons?"

M-T shook her head. "I couldn't carry them onto an airplane these days."

"It can be done," Abdul said, "but we prefer to save that for special occasions."

"I have sufficient resources in New York, but I could use a couple of passports."

"All right, but we'll have to send them via diplomatic pouch to our UN embassy. I'll give you a contact there."

"Good."

"How many people did you kill in New York?" Abdul asked.

"Three," she said. "Two of them were British intelligence. The other was merely for convenience."

Marie-Therese was back downstairs in half an hour to have her hair done by the woman of the house, then she was photographed for the new passports, two of them in wigs.

"It's good," she said when she saw the Polaroids.

Abdul went to work on the passport, deftly removing the old photograph and replacing it with that of M-T. When he was happy with his work he gave her the passport and a few sheets of paper. "This is the woman's background," he said. "It's completely legitimate. She was born in Cairo, studied economics in Paris and London. She's never been suspected of any involvement with us."

"What am I going to owe you for this, Abdul?" M-T asked.

Abdul smiled. "We have a man in our UN embassy in New York who has been talking to the CIA, taking their money. We'd like him eliminated in an obvious sort of way, then we'll blame the CIA for his murder. We'll furnish you with the sort of weapon the agency would use."

"Very good," M-T said.

"I'll have the other passports done before you leave. That should square us," Abdul said.

Stone arrived back at his house and entered through his outside office door. Joan was working at her desk.

"Welcome back, boss," she said. "What did you think of Harborview?"

"It was wonderful, what little I saw of it. I never slept in my bed, as it happened. The only sleep I got was on a small boat, and it wasn't comfortable."

"Did you get Herbie back?"

"I did. Herbie's off the hook, and so am I. Send Tony Levy another thousand dollars today, and send Bill Eggers a bill for my services and for the twenty-five thousand I paid to Irving Newman for Herbie's bail."

"Will do. By the way, your friend Felicity is upstairs, sacked out in your bed. She got here a couple of hours ago, with company: There's a man in your study and another in the garden, pretending to read a book."

"Swell. I need some sack time, myself, so hang on to my phone messages." He took the elevator upstairs, and as he stepped out of it he felt cold steel on the back of his neck. "I'm Barrington," he said.