Stuart Woods - Shoot Him If He Runs

Stone laughed. “Then I must be careful not to do anything to excite his interest.”

“There is another possibility as to why you were bugged,” Sir Leslie said. “It is possible that, after Thomas built the cottages, all of them were bugged, on general principles. It’s the sort of thing our Colonel Croft would do.”

“So it’s possible that I and my friends are not targets of Colonel Croft?”

“You should not draw that conclusion. The fact that the cottages may already have been bugged would simply be a convenience for the Colonel.”

“I’m surprised Thomas has not mentioned Colonel Croft to me,” Stone said.

“Thomas is in a delicate position,” Sir Leslie said. “He is your friend, but he is a subject of the Colonel’s and Winston’s constant attention. So far, he has fared well under the new regime, but he is well aware that, should he cross Winston, he could find himself bereft. You must be careful not to put him in that position.”

“I’m glad you told me this, Leslie, because I would not wish to do anything to harm Thomas or his interests here.”

“Just be very careful of your conversations in the cottage.”

“I’ll do so. Tell me, Leslie, do you know of an Irene Foster?”

“Ah, the CIA lady, the queen of Black Mountain!”

“Exactly.”

“She is quite something,” Leslie said. “I believe I might be one of the few men on the island she hasn’t slept with.” He giggled.

“Surely she can’t be that bad.”

“I exaggerate, of course, but I know of four instances where gentlemen have succumbed to her tender mercies. At the moment, I believe, she has an in-house lover.”

“Yes, one Harry Pitts; they knew each other back in Virginia.”

“I wonder if Mr. Pitts is or was CIA, too?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Well, these intelligence people tend to stick close to their own kind, don’t they?”

“I think he is probably what he says he is, a retired building contractor.”

“Perhaps, perhaps not. Permit me my fantasies; they are all that is left for an old man.”

“Do you know of an Englishman named Robertson?”

“Ah, the retired Englishman; he is quite new to the island, and also a denizen of Black Mountain. I understand he was in the computer business in some fashion, back in the mother country.”

“Have you met him?”

“No; I meet so few people these days, but I hear a lot.”

“Have you heard anything that might make you think that Mr. Robertson is not exactly who he says he is?”

Sir Leslie grinned. “No, but I suspect everyone.”

Stone laughed. “Please excuse me, Leslie, but I must rejoin my friends; they will think I’ve been arrested.”

Sir Leslie stood. “Then you must see to it that their worst fears are not realized. And Stone, if you should run afoul of the Colonel, tell Thomas to call me; I’ll be happy to represent you.”

“Thank you, Leslie.” They shook hands, and Stone took his leave. As he went through the garden gate he looked back to see Sir Leslie back on his knees, digging in the soil.

Stone drove back to the inn and parked at the cottage, and he saw Holly and Genevieve stretched out on the beach, naked, a very pleasant sight. He liked Holly’s slimmer body. He went inside, undressed, grabbed a towel and joined them.

“Hey, there,” Holly said. “Where you been?”

“I made a stop at the airport, then I went to see my old colleague Sir Leslie Hewitt.”

“And?”

“And I gleaned some useful information. Where’s Dino?”

“He says the sun makes you old; he’s napping inside.”

“Have you spoken with Lance today?”

“Yes; nothing new.”

“You may need to call him again. I began thinking about how Teddy always has an escape route planned, and if he’s on the island how he might need an airplane to get out of here to where there are international connections. So I went out to the airport and had a talk with a fellow named Don Wells, who runs the FBO, and he showed me an old Cessna 140 that belongs to a recent arrival on the island, one who answers to the general description of Teddy Fay.”

“Who is he?”

“He calls himself Robertson, says he’s English, a retiree who was formerly in the computer business.”

Holly sat up. “I like it,” she said.

“And get this: he lives on Black Mountain, at number 56.”

“Irene is number 100, so I guess he’s halfway up?”

Dino came out of the cottage and joined them. “You woke me up,” he said accusingly.

“Sorry about that. It’s good that you’re here, anyway; we have something to talk about.” He brought Dino up to date on Robertson.

“He sounds good to me,” Dino said.

“Yeah, well, we need to have Lance have his London station check him out, and thoroughly. There’s something else, though.”

“What?” Holly asked.

“Leslie has identified who may have bugged our cottage; his name is Colonel Croyden Croft, and he runs a department called Internal Investigations, which is part of the Home Office, but he really works for Sir Winston Sutherland.”

“Why does Sir Leslie think he bugged our cottage?” Holly asked.

“Because that’s what he does. Leslie thinks he might even have bugged all the cottages when they were built, but that doesn’t take any heat off us.”

“Heat?”

“Leslie says that Sir Winston would welcome an opportunity to throw us all in jail for a while, then expel us from the island. Apparently, he holds a grudge against me from our previous courtroom encounters.”

“Well, thanks, Stone,” Dino said, “for pissing off the powers that be. That’s a great help.”

“My point is, we’ve got to be very careful to be no more than tourists while we’re here. And, of course, we have to be very careful what we say inside the cottage.”

“I’m glad we didn’t yank the bugs,” Holly said. “That would have really pissed them off.”

“I think you have to be careful, too, not to be seen using the satellite phone to call Lance. The sight of the thing by someone who reports to Colonel Croft might just give them the excuse they need to bust us.”

“Good point,” Holly said. “I think I’ll go behind the cottage and phone Lance now; I want to get him working on this Robertson guy. If we can identify him as Teddy, then we can get out of here before Sir Winston falls on us.”

“Go ahead.” He handed her a slip of paper. “This is the British registration number of his airplane.”

Holly picked up her towel, wrapped it around her sarong-style and grabbed her handbag. She went into the cottage, then out the back door into a fenced-in area where the gas bottle and the garbage cans were, then she dug the satphone out of her bag and called Lance’s direct line at Langley.

“Lance Cabot.”

“It’s Holly.”

“Your second call today; something new?”

She told him about Robertson and asked for a background check, then explained their situation with Sir Winston.

“For Christ’s sake, don’t get yourselves arrested,” Lance said. “If we had to bring pressure on the St. Marks government to get you out of there, we’d have to involve the State Department, and then questions might arise as to your presence there, and we wouldn’t want that.”

“I understand; we’ll be careful.”

“I don’t want you sniffing around this Robertson while I’m checking him out. It’s already late in London, so it’s going to be tomorrow before anything can be done. I’ll call the duty officer now and leave instructions so that they can get started first thing in the morning, while we’re still sleeping.”

“Great, but don’t call me, I’ll call you.”