Стюарт Вудс - Stealth

Thomas picked up the pen, holding it between two fingers with tissues.

Was he going to shoot poison at him? Bullets? Would it explode? Stone looked for the button to call the nurse, but it was on Thomas’s side of the bed.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Thomas said, seemingly uncertain of his next move.

Stone got hold of his visitor’s chair at the end of the bed and was pleased that it weighed much less than the table. He placed it on the bed, between him and Thomas, and held it, lion-tamer style. “I think your best bet is to make a run for it,” Stone said, hoping the man would take his advice.

Instead, Thomas got a grip on the end of the pen and held it before him, as if it were a knife.

There was a knock on the door. “Come in!” Stone yelled.

The door opened, and Felicity stood there, wearing a business suit with her handbag over her left arm.

“How good to see you, Felicity,” Stone said. “May I introduce you to the Earl of Chelsea, aka Wilfred Thomas? I believe you are armed. Would you shoot him, please?”

Felicity began digging into her handbag, and Stone picked up the chair and threw it at Thomas’s head, which connected, knocking him to the floor, sending his glasses flying, and putting his mustache genuinely askew.

“What’s taking you so long?” Stone asked Felicity. “The man has a poisoned pen!”

Felicity finally came up with a small, semiautomatic pistol and pointed it at Thomas. “Kindly stay where you are and do not move, Mr. Thomas,” she said. “And let go of the pen, or I’ll kill you where you stand. Or sit, as it were.”

Thomas looked carefully at her, then tossed the pen on the floor between them. It rolled a couple of times, leaving behind a thin trail of clear liquid.

Felicity reached into her bag again with the other hand and did something, Stone couldn’t see what. There were running footsteps from the hallway, and she stepped aside to let two large young men into the room. “Mind the pen,” she said, “it’s dangerous. But please take charge of the gentleman on the floor. Handcuff him and search him for other weapons, including pens.”

The two young men went to work and got Thomas out of the room, denuded of pens.

Felicity walked over to the Mont Blanc pen on the floor and looked down at it. “My word,” she said.

Stone and Lance sat in the Rose & Crown, near the gates of Windward Hall, consuming a lunch of sausages and Cornish pasties.

Lance washed down his food with a draught from his pint of Guinness. “Well, Stone,” he said, “I’m sorry you have had to go through two attempts on your life — no, three, isn’t it?”

“I’ve lost count,” Stone replied, sipping his pint of bitter.

“How are your wounds?” Lance asked.

“I can’t see my back, but it hurts. My arm, too. But Rose has found me a physiotherapist, who is moving into the house this afternoon, so I won’t have to go to the hospital for rehab.”

“Excellent,” Lance said. “By the way, this episode has had the salutary effect of silencing comment at the Agency on your appointment.”

“I’m not surprised there was comment,” Stone said. “Frankly, I thought it might blow up in your face.”

“Stone,” Lance replied reprovingly, “I’m too careful for that to happen.”

“I suppose you are.”

“Oh, I almost forgot.” He reached down, took a gift-wrapped package from a shopping bag and set it on the table. “This is for you, by way of my thanks.”

Stone regarded the package with suspicion. “Will this blow up in my face?”

“Not this time,” Lance said. “The earl is safely housed in one of MI-5’s secret places, where he is being interrogated. His diplomatic passport seems to have been misplaced.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Stone pulled the bow on the ribbon and tore open the package, revealing volumes one and two of The Short Oxford English Dictionary , beautifully bound by Wilfred Thomas. “I trust the bombs have been removed?”

“They have, but the spaces where they once lived remain. Who knows, you might one day wish to hide something in plain sight.”

“All the time,” Stone said.