Stuart Woods - Lucid Intervals

“Bring me where?”

“To the place we went where you worried about landing.”

“All right.”

“Are you armed?”

“I can be.”

“Good. Also, go into my dressing room and find my safe, behind a picture.” He gave her the combination. “Bring me the little.45, an extra magazine and a box of cartridges.”

“All right.”

“Any questions?”

“How long will we be there?”

“Not long, I hope.”

“I’m on my way,” she said. She hung up and buzzed her secretary. “Send Smith back in,” she said.

Smith returned and took his seat. She spent ten minutes going through the remainder of the files and then sent him back to his own office with a task to perform. As soon as the door closed she got her coat, took a pistol from her desk drawer, put it into her handbag and left her office by a rear door that opened into a stairway. Moments later, she was in a cab, looking over her shoulder.

STONE LOOKED FOR Dan Phelan’s number in his cell phone and then dialed it.

“Phelan.”

“Dan, it’s Stone Barrington. Where are you?”

“Hi, Stone. I’m at Teterboro. I just finished with a student.”

“I have a serious emergency, and there’s something I hope you can do for me.”

“Shoot.”

“Have you flown a JetProp?”

“A couple of times.”

“There’s a woman on her way to Jet Aviation now. Her name is Felicity Devonshire. She’s a tall redhead. Wait for her in the pilot’s lounge. While you’re waiting, file a flight plan for a little airport in Maine called Islesboro, identifier five-seven-bravo.”

“Yes.”

“The desk at Jet Aviation has a key. I’ll tell them to give it to you. While you’re waiting for Felicity, see that it’s refueled. Call me just before you start your engine. You have my cell number?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll meet her at the runway in Islesboro. You’ll have enough fuel for the round-trip.”

“Okay, got it.”

“Send me a bill.”

“Don’t worry.”

Stone hung up and called about the key, then he found the number for the Maine State Police in Augusta and called his old acquaintance, Captain Scott Smith.

“Hello, Stone. How are you?”

“Not well, Scott,” Stone said. “I’ve just witnessed a murder on Islesboro, the house next door to mine. Can you get a team out here?”

“Of course. Tell me about the murder.”

“Sniper, firing from a boat in the harbor, I’m pretty sure. Immediately after the shot, the boat motored slowly away.”

“Description?”

“Thirty, thirty-five feet, blue or black hull, white superstructure.”

“That describes hundreds if not thousands of boats in Maine.”

“It seemed to be headed east, but it could have gone anywhere. My guess is there’s an airplane waiting for the shooter somewhere, Rockland, maybe, or wherever else is close.”

“I’ll get an airplane over Penobscot Bay now to look for the boat, and we’ll cover the nearby airports. I’m going to chopper over there with my people. I have two men and a car on the island now on another case, so no need to meet us. I’ll be there in, say, an hour. Who’s the victim?”

“James Hackett, head of Strategic Services. Know the name?”

“Of course. I’ve heard him lecture on protection operations. How do you know him?”

“He was my client. I’ll meet you at the house. At some point I’ll have to go to the airport to meet a friend who’s flying up in my airplane.”

“How did you get there?”

“In Hackett’s airplane, a Cessna Mustang.”

“I’ll see you soon.” Smith hung up.

Stone got up off the porch floor for the first time. There was blood on his clothes. He called Felicity.

“Yes?”

“Where are you?”

“Just getting to your house. The coast seems to be clear.”

“Phelan is waiting for you at Teterboro. You’ll be here in two, maybe three hours. Don’t forget my weapon.”

“That’s the last thing I would forget,” she said. “I’m inside the house now and hurrying.”

“Keep hurrying.” He hung up and called Strategic Services and asked for Mike Freeman.

“Stone?”

“Mike, you know where Jim is, don’t you?”

“I can’t say.”

“I’m with him, and he’s dead. A sniper got him no more than ten minutes ago, and I’ve already called the state police. Can you get into a cab without being seen?”

“I’ll try.”

“My airplane is at Teterboro, where Jim kept his. Felicity Devonshire is being flown up here. If you get there in a hurry, you can come with her. She’ll be in the crew lounge with the pilot, whose name is Dan Phelan.”

“Will do.”

“Watch your ass-these people may not be finished.”

“Will certainly do.”

Stone called Felicity and told her to wait for Freeman; then he hung up and looked at Jim Hackett’s corpse. It shouldn’t have ended this way, he thought.

The state police had been there for an hour when Captain Scott Smith came out of the house and onto the porch, where Stone was waiting. Hackett’s body was being removed.

Smith held up a small, plastic bag with a slug in it. “This went through Hackett’s body, right past your head as you were rocking”-he pointed at the hole next to Stone’s chair-“through the exterior wall of the house and ended up imbedded in a plaster wall in the living room.”

“Wow.”

“It’s a 30-06, probably a special load, given the velocity and penetration. A pro’s weapon. Who do you think did this?”

“I don’t know,” Stone said. “Hackett had just begun to talk to me about his situation when he was hit. He was up here because he feared for his life.”

“Did he tell you whom he feared?”

“He didn’t have time,” Stone lied. His cell phone rang. “Excuse me. Yes?”

“It’s Dan Phelan. We’re rolling with two passengers.”

“Thanks, Dan.” He hung up. “I have a couple of guests arriving here by airplane in an hour or so; I’ll need to meet them at the airfield.”

Captain Smith nodded. “Might these people have anything to do with Hackett?”

“One of them, Mike Freeman, works with him, but I don’t think he knows anything about this. I talked with him before he got here.”

“Be sure you come back here; I’m not finished with you yet.”

“All right. We’ll go to my house, next door.”

“I’ll come over there when I’m finished here.” He looked Stone up and down. “You might want to change those clothes.”

“I’ll do that now,” Stone said, and then went upstairs. After he showered and changed, he called his caretaker and informed him of guests to come. He put his bloody clothes in the liner of the room’s wastebasket and then took it downstairs. “You want these clothes?” he asked Captain Smith.

“Thanks,” Smith said, taking the bag and handing it to a subordinate. “Log this,” he said. “Mark it ‘clothing of the witness.’ ”

“Have you had any luck finding the boat?” Stone asked.

“No, and no luck with an airplane out of place at any local airfield. If I were the killer, I’d have dumped the rifle in the bay, motored to a cove nearby and anchored for the night, maybe longer. We’re not going to find him, unless we get very, very lucky.”

Stone packed his bag and put it into Hackett’s car, then drove to the airfield. He preferred waiting there to waiting at the house, where he was only in the way. He sat in the car, numb, wondering how this had happened and if the fault somehow lay with him. He didn’t see his airplane until it whooshed in over the trees and settled onto the runway. Phelan taxied over to where he was parked and shut down the engine.