Stuart Woods - Lucid Intervals

“So what happened?”

“Things became more complicated,” Hackett said.

They sat quietly for a moment while the housekeeper cleared away their lunch dishes. When she had finished, Stone asked, “Complicated? How?”

“Part of what I have to tell you was not directly known by Whitestone; he figured it out later.”

“Tell me.”

“Palmer’s daughter-Penelope-told Whitestone she wanted to have the child, that she would wait for him to get a divorce and marry her.”

“And how did Whitestone feel about that?”

“He was very willing, and he told her so in no uncertain terms.”

“Is that what happened?”

“Alas, no. Penelope was terribly frightened of what her father would do if he found out about her pregnancy, and, of course, she could hardly conceal it for long.”

“So she had an abortion?”

“Abortion was legal at the time, but she was afraid to go to a clinic, for fear that the gutter press would find out. She knew her father was planning a political career, and she was afraid the news would ruin his chances. He was going to run for a Conservative seat in the district where his country home was. It was a very conservative district-with a small C-you see.”

“So, what did she do?”

“She had a friend who was a medical student, and she confided in him. He had seen a D & C performed, and even though he had not performed one himself, he agreed to do the procedure. A bank holiday weekend was coming up, and they borrowed a country cottage outside Cambridge. He brought the necessary instruments and performed the abortion on Friday evening, then stayed with her through the night to be sure she was all right.

“The following morning, after she assured him that she was fine, he left her and went back to London to see his boyfriend-he was gay. As it turned out, he had perforated her uterus, and an infection ensued. She grew very ill, and he had not left her with an antibiotic-a stupid omission on his part.

“The boy returned on Sunday evening to find her in extremis. He took her to a casualty ward at the nearest hospital and told the physician there what had happened, but she died later that night. That incident is what informed Palmer’s hatred of Whitestone.”

“I can understand that,” Stone said, “but why is Prior involved?”

“The boy was thrown out of medical school and arrested and tried for manslaughter. He received a light sentence-two years-but, of course, his future as a physician was ruined. Then he was raped and murdered in prison.”

“Jesus.”

“Yes. I don’t believe I mentioned that the boy was Prior’s son.”

Stone hardly knew what to say.

“So,” Hackett added, “there were two bereaved and aggrieved fathers who blamed Whitestone for the loss of their children.”

“But he had no part in the girl’s decision to seek an abortion?”

“None whatever. He was as stricken as the two fathers. Palmer was his senior at MI-6, and influential. Whitestone left, unceremoniously, and disappeared.”

“Is that when Lord Wight came into the story?”

“Yes. Whitestone was a friend of Wight’s daughter, a painter, and had previously impressed Wight, who took him in, so to speak. Whitestone took to business very quickly, and the relationship turned out to be very profitable for both of them.”

“So why has all this come up twelve years later?”

“Because both Palmer and Prior were later elected to Parliament, and two years ago, with a Conservative victory in the election, both received cabinet posts, Foreign Office and Home Office. They have become the two most powerful cabinet secretaries in this government and, one might say, drunk with power. They were now able to use their positions to avenge the loss of those two young people.”

“But first,” Stone said, “they had to find Stanley Whitestone, and they enlisted Felicity Devonshire.”

“Yes,” Hackett said, “but it’s uncertain if she ever knew why.”

“She knew how serious they were, though,” Stone said, “and she did everything she could to stop them.”

“How did she, at last, stop it?” Hackett asked.

“I believe she threatened to give someone in the press the story, if it wasn’t stopped.”

“God, that was brave of her,” Hackett said.

“She risked being removed from her post,” Stone agreed.

“No, not that; if they’d sacked her she could still have talked to a reporter,” Hackett said. “My guess is, had they managed to kill Whitestone, they would have killed her, too.”

Hackett picked up the half-empty bottle of wine and his glass. “Come on, let’s finish this on the porch; it’s such a lovely day.”

Stone picked up his glass and followed him outside.

“Oh,” Hackett said, “given the favorable course of events, we can return to New York tomorrow morning. I’ll fly back with you.”

“Fine with me,” Stone said, taking a rocker and sipping his wine.

Hackett walked to the porch railing and leaned against it, facing Stone.

Stone looked past him out over the water. It was a perfectly windless day, so much so that the towering cumulus clouds were reflected on the water. The boats in the harbor floated with their mooring lines slack.

Hackett took a sip of his wine. “Something I’d like you to know, Stone: except for that business about the Whitestone grave in the Somersville churchyard, I never lied to you about anything.”

Stone was about to reply when there was a noise, a thud, and Hackett made a peculiar jerking motion. He looked down at his chest, surprised, where a hole the size of a golf ball had appeared, then he sank to his knees, dropping his wineglass, and fell forward onto his face. There was another hole, smaller and neater, in his back.

Stone hit the deck, which was splattered with Hackett’s blood. He waited for more shots, but none came. He felt Hackett’s neck for a pulse, but there was nothing.

With no wind, it was deathly quiet for a moment-then Stone heard an engine start in the distance and raised his head from the floor long enough to see a boat leaving the harbor, seemingly in no particular hurry.

Stone clawed at his cell phone.

Felicity was working in her temporary office on Sutton Place when her cell phone went off. “Excuse me,” she said to her agent, Smith, who sat across her desk with some files. “Yes?”

“It’s Stone. Are you alone?”

“No.”

“Get away from whomever you’re with, right now,” he said.

She took the phone away from her ear. “Smith, will you excuse me for a few minutes? I have a personal call to take.” She watched him until he had closed the door behind him and then went back to the phone. “What’s going on?” she asked.

“I’m in Maine. Hackett is dead.”

She was alarmed. “How?”

“Bullet through the chest-sniper.”

“Good God.”

“Hackett told me that if they got Whitestone, they’d go after you, too.”

“They?”

“Palmer and Prior. Now listen to me very carefully.”

“All right, I’m listening.”

“Can you get out of your building without being seen?”

“Probably,” she said.

“Do you have any cash?”

“A few hundred dollars and some pounds and euros.”

“I want you to do exactly as I say,” he said.

“Well, maybe. What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to leave your building without being seen, find a cab and go directly to my house. Make sure you’re not being followed. You can’t trust your own people, so be careful.”

“Why do you think I will be safe at your house?”

“You probably won’t be for long. I want you to pack a bag and leave the house by the rear door. Walk across the common garden; you’ll find a corner exit to the street, one block over. Take a cab to Teterboro, to Jet Aviation, and take a seat in the pilot’s lounge, not the passenger lounge. I’ll have a man named Dan Phelan meet you there and bring you to me.”