Stuart Woods - Lucid Intervals

“I’ll do better in the morning,” he said. “How’s the search for Hackett’s Paratroop Regiment records going?”

“Extremely slowly,” she replied. “If my documents people don’t find something soon, I’m going to have to pull them off the job.”

“How about the search for his fingerprints with the State Department?”

“Oh, we found those,” she said. “They’re the same as Hackett’s current prints.”

“I hate to let the air out of your balloon, Felicity,” Stone said, “but when Hackett came to this country twenty-five years ago, Whitestone was still working in your service, was he not? And he couldn’t be in two countries at once.”

“Don’t you think we’ve thought of that?” she asked. “It’s funny, but the more convinced I become that Whitestone is Hackett, the more convinced you are that he’s not. Could that be because he’s letting you fly his jet airplane? Could that be because you like him?”

“I do like him,” Stone confessed, “and I suppose that could mean I have a bias in his favor, but it doesn’t affect the facts of the situation, and you have a lot of facts that you just can’t reconcile.”

“Yes, we do,” she admitted, “but you don’t have any facts to support Hackett’s innocence.”

“Of course I do. Whitestone could simply not have worked for your service on a full-time basis while simultaneously establishing a fabulously successful business in this country. That is a fact.”

“No, it’s not; it’s a factoid.”

“What’s a factoid?”

“Something that seems to be true, but isn’t what it seems, like a humanoid in a sci-fi movie?”

“Well, I don’t know what else to do to help you. As it is, I’m spending all my time getting type-rated in an airplane I’m never going to be able to own or even fly, except with or for Jim Hackett. How is that helping you?”

“You’re gaining his confidence,” Felicity said, “and he’s paying you to do it. That sounds like a win-win situation to me.”

“Maybe for me, but not for you.”

“When you’ve earned his confidence it will be easier to poke holes in his legend.”

“When are you going to tell me why your people still care about Whitestone?”

“When I’m allowed to but not before,” she replied. “And I may never be allowed to.”

Stone pulled the covers up. “I can’t think about this anymore,” he said.

“See you in the morning,” she replied and switched off her bedside lamp.

THE NEXT DAY Stone and Dan Phelan were taking off from Teterboro with Stone at the controls, when Phelan pulled the left throttle back to idle and said, “You’ve just lost an engine; handle it.”

Stone applied right rudder and used the rudder trim to take the pressure of holding it off his leg.

“Very good,” Phelan said.

“The airplane doesn’t really handle any differently on one engine as long as the rudder is neutralized,” Stone said.

“That’s right; the airplane is very benign. Now let’s go fly some single-engine instrument approaches and missed approaches.”

AFTER THEY LANDED at Teterboro and secured the airplane, Phelan said, “You’re doing well, but you’re going to have to pay a lot more attention to your heading, airspeed and altitude when you’re hand-flying the airplane. Your FAA check ride will be to Air Transport Pilot standards, and that means plus or minus five degrees of heading, ten knots of airspeed and a hundred feet of altitude.”

Stone nodded wearily. “I know,” he said.

FOR THE FOLLOWING three days Phelan ordered Stone around the sky while he honed his skills in every phase of piloting the airplane. On the fourth day Stone arrived at Teterboro to find Dan Phelan talking with a tall, slim, red-haired man.

“Stone,” Phelan said, “let me introduce you to Craig Bird.”

Stone shook the man’s hand.

“Craig is an FAA examiner, and he will be conducting your check ride today.”

“Today?” Stone asked, astonished. He had not prepared himself mentally for this.

“Today,” Phelan said. “I’ll leave you two to get on with it.” He walked to the other side of the pilot’s lounge, picked up a newspaper and began to read it.

“Let’s sit over here,” Bird said, and they settled at a table. “I gather you weren’t expecting this, but Dan feels you’re ready, and we’ve already completed the paperwork for your check ride. You’ll probably do better for not having worried about it.”

“I hope so,” Stone said.

Craig Bird began asking him questions about the Mustang’s systems, and Stone supplied the correct answers that had been ground into his brain by Ida Ann Dunn. An hour later, Bird said, “All right, you seem to know the airplane well; let’s go fly it.”

Bird watched as Stone performed the thirty-minute preflight inspection that he had performed for every day of his training. Then they got into the airplane and closed the door.

Stone picked up his voluminous checklist and turned to the first page. Bird took it away from him. “We’re not going to use the checklist,” he said. “Don’t worry if you forget something, I’ll remind you. I’m not going to break your balls. I just want to know if you can fly this airplane well and safely.”

Stone worked his way across the instrument panel from left to right, putting them in their proper positions from memory, then started the engines.

THREE HOURS LATER Stone performed the best landing he had made during all his training. “Congratulations,” Craig Bird said, “you’re now single-pilot type-rated in the Cessna 510 Mustang.”

Back at Jet Aviation, Phelan greeted them in the pilot’s lounge. “How did it go?”

“He did just fine,” Bird replied. He got on his computer and produced a document that was Stone’s temporary license and type rating, pending receipt of his new license from the FAA. Bird shook his hand and left.

“I told you you’d do all right,” Phelan said. He handed Stone a key to the airplane. “Mr. Hackett asked me to congratulate you and give you this,” he said. “He said to use the airplane whenever you like. Just check the schedule with his secretary first.”

Stone drove home with his type rating and the key burning a hole in his pocket. He wanted to fly somewhere.

Stone arrived home, garaged his car and walked into his office to find Felicity and Joan sitting on the leather sofa, sipping tea. Felicity looked shaken.

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

Joan spoke up. “Felicity had an encounter with Dolce,” she said. “I was getting out of the Rolls,” Felicity said. “My driver was holding the door open for me, and suddenly this woman appeared out of nowhere with a knife in her hand. She swung it at my throat, but my driver got an arm in the way and took a bad cut on his forearm. Fortunately, the woman ran away.”

“Was he badly hurt?”

“We had the police and an ambulance, and he was taken to an emergency room. He’ll be back at work tomorrow morning.”

“And you… How are you?”

She held up her teacup. “Joan has kindly administered the cure-all for any British subject,” she said. “A nice cup of tea. I’m just fine.”

“Does Eduardo know about this?” Stone asked Joan.

“I called him as soon as it was over. He was shocked, of course, but he took it well. He said he would do everything possible to see that such an incident not happen again, but he advised you to leave the house for a few days while he takes care of it.”

“I can go back to the embassy,” Felicity said.

“I’ve got a better idea,” Stone replied. “What do you need to work besides a phone, a fax machine and a computer?”