Stuart Woods - Dirty Work

"Whatever you want – being able to live your life without changing your identity every other day; being safe, with no one hunting you."

"Sometimes I think about that, but you don't understand what I'd be up against if I stopped this. There are other people who would not be pleased if I gave up my work."

"I can understand that, but they don't have the sort of facilities at their disposal that the intelligence services have. Granted, they may have large networks of people, but they don't have computers that scan your face every time you cross a border. You could disappear, find a haven where you could live a more normal life – whatever you'd like that to be."

She sighed. "You make it sound very attractive."

"Look, the people you've been working with are going to lose, eventually. They're being hunted, too, and that's not going to stop. They're going up against a group of big nations that have virtually unlimited resources, and they're going to be ground down. Even the countries that have been sheltering them are going to start pulling away, because the cost to them is going to be too great. Eventually, they're going to see that it's easier to do business with the Western powers than trying to destroy them. This is inevitable. When that happens, where do you want to be?"

"You have a point, but it's not going to happen tomorrow. And in the meantime, I'm quite enjoying myself."

"I don't believe that. I think you're getting tired, and if you're tired, you're going to start making mistakes. And you can't afford to make mistakes."

"I may meet with Sir Edward, under the right circumstances, and you're authorized to negotiate those for me. Tell him that if we do meet, it would be a very great mistake to make any move on me."

"I'll relay that."

"Call me when you have something like an agreement, in writing."

"Agreements like this don't get put into writing."

She sighed. "All right, do the best you can, but I want an immediate truce while we're negotiating."

"I'll tell him that."

She stood up, holding on to a bar to keep her balance. "You free for dinner this evening?" she asked.

"Not this evening or any evening," Stone replied. "It's dangerous to be around you."

"Well, if we can make it less dangerous with this deal, maybe later."

"Maybe later," Stone said. But he didn't mean it.

Stone went home and called Bob Cantor.

"Hey, Stone."

"Hey, Bob. Where's that nephew of yours?"

"Back running the photo processing equipment at the drugstore."

"What happened to his business plans in Saint Thomas?"

"The boy is – how shall I put it? – mercurial."

"You're a master of understatement."

"What's up?"

"I want my house swept every day for a week. Can you manage the time?"

"Every day? What have you gotten yourself into?"

"Never mind. I just don't want to be overheard while I'm doing it."

"It'd help if I knew what sort of surveillance you're worried about."

"Phones, rooms, the works."

"Who's the opposition?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"If it's some amateur, this is easy. If it's a pro, or a group of pros, it's going to be harder."

"It's a group of pros."

"I'll be there in an hour."

Cantor turned up and began by checking the phone system. After an hour he came into Stone's office, holding up something electronic-looking. "Your phones were bugged, big time," he said, "and this is very sophisticated stuff."

"How sophisticated?"

"They don't have to have a van parked outside your house. This probably has a range of a mile, maybe two. They can leave a voice-activated recorder running and listen to your conversations whenever they get around to it. This device wasn't bought at Radio Shack, or off the shelf anyplace else, come to that. This is custom-designed, custom-made, and it's not a one-off, either. Whoever did this has quality manufacturing at his disposal. Who are these people?"

"An intelligence service."

"Not ours, I hope. I don't want to mess with those people."

"It's foreign."

"How foreign? We're not talking about Arabs, are we?"

"They speak our language; let's leave it at that. Are the phones secure now?"

"Yep – at least, until I leave the house. There are other ways to do this, you know, if they can get access to underground phone company equipment."

"What about the rest of the house?"

"Give me a few minutes."

Cantor came back a while later. "I haven't picked up anything planted, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. These people could rent an apartment behind your house or across the street and pick up the vibrations from the glass in your windows."

"I have double glazing throughout the house."

"That'll help. Are you planning to have some important conversations in the house?"

"Maybe."

"Then let's go find places where you can defeat surveillance. I wouldn't use this office," he said, pointing at the view of the gardens. "Too easy for them. Let's go upstairs."

They walked around the house, looking at rooms. "The dining room's your best spot; no windows at all. The study is good, too, if you draw those velvet curtains. Your bedroom and the kitchen are not good."

"Okay, Bob, I get the picture. I need some more help."

"What kind?"

"I want you to round up three or four ex-cops and have them tail me."

"You afraid of some sort of personal attack?"

"No, I'm afraid of being tailed. I want your people to look out for other people following me."

"Gotcha," Cantor said, leafing through his address book. "You want to be wired to my watchers?"

"That would be good."

"When do you want to start?"

"I'm going to have a meeting here later. Right after that."

"What time is the meeting?"

"I have to arrange it, then I'll let you know. You start rounding up your guys."

"You've got my cell phone number. Call me."

"Will do." Cantor let himself out of the house.

Stone called Carpenter. "I want another meeting with Sir Edward."

"I'm not sure he has the time."

"What? Is he jerking me around?"

"Can you arrange the meeting with La Biche?"

"We can talk about that at the meeting."

"I'll see if he has the time."

"If he wants to get this done, tell him to find the time. We're meeting at my house, as soon as possible."

"He'll want to choose the spot."

"Then tell him to go fuck himself." Stone hung up.

The phone rang ten minutes later.

"Yes?"

"Five o'clock, at your house," she said.

"Just him," Stone replied.

"He wants me."

"I want you, too, when you're not killing people. Tell him I'll frisk him for a wire – you, too."

"He won't sit still for that."

"We're going to do this my way, or not at all," Stone said. "What's it going to be?"

She covered the phone and spoke to someone else, then came back. "See you at five," she said.

Stone hung up and called Bob Cantor. "The meeting's at five."

"That's going to be tough. How long will it last?"

"Half an hour to an hour is my best guess."

"I'll do the best I can."

Stone went to the dining room. He moved all the chairs back to the wall, except three, then he went to his desk, rummaged through a drawer, and came up with a small scanner. He replaced the batteries and put it into his pocket, then he sat down and called Marie-Therese's cell phone.

"Yes?"

"Call me from a pay phone," he said. "I've had my phones checked. They were bugged, but they're clean now."

"Ten minutes," she said, then hung up.

Stone waited as patiently as he could, then picked up the phone as soon as it rang. "That you?"

"It's me."

"I have a meeting with the English gentleman at five."

"Good."

"We have to talk about what you want, so I'll have something to negotiate about."