Stuart Woods - Below the Belt

Stone and Lance Rode uptown in one of the Agency’s omnipresent black SUVs, with inch-thick windows and Kevlar body lining, and neither had anything to say to the other on the way.

The vehicle pulled into the underground garage at a large town house in the East Sixties, and only when the heavy door had closed behind them did the attendants open the car’s doors for them.

Shortly, they were seated in the spacious dining room, which used much of the available space to separate the tables, allowing the members to converse in normal tones without being overheard by their fellows.

“Did you know,” Lance said, flapping out his huge linen napkin and arranging it in his lap, “that this room is equipped with a kind of electronic noise canceling that makes it impossible to know what is being said at neighboring tables?”

“I did not,” Stone replied, wrestling to tame his own napkin.

“And that is why I may speak frankly to you in the midst of our peers, if such exist.”

Stone laughed and ordered the gazpacho and the lobster salad.

“The same,” Lance said to the waiter. “And a bottle of the Meursault.” Then, when the man had retreated from their own little cone of silence, Lance began. “I saw a documentary film this morning that explains the malicious Stuxnet computer virus, of which you have no doubt heard.”

“I’ve read about it in the Times .”

“It is called Zero Days ,” Lance said. “I recommend the film, so that I won’t have to explain it to you when next we meet. Suffice it to say that, after a thoroughgoing explanation of what it is and the almost unimaginable damage it could do to our moderately civilized world, if deployed in a cyberwar, it goes on to explain how very secret it has been kept by almost everyone who has any idea of its existence, because all of those people are so terrified by it.”

“Sounds like sci-fi,” Stone observed.

“It is sci-fi become hellishly real.”

“Why are you telling me about this? Does it have something to do with what is in Ed’s manuscript?”

“I am giving you an example of what the unintended consequences might be of making Ed’s personal knowledge and experience known. I have already told you how it could remove a person I consider to be an excellent President from public life, and preventing her brilliant mind from having any further effect on our history. What I’m telling you now is that there are almost certainly other things in that strong case you’re sitting on that could do untold damage to our government and, hence, to our lives.”

“Why are you so certain of that?”

“Because I already know much of what Ed knows. And I wouldn’t want what I know to become public knowledge. But there is something else to consider, as well.”

“And what is that?”

“There is a move afoot for a new, third party to make a run in the next presidential election.”

“I’ve heard something about that,” Stone said. “In fact, I made the acquaintance of their putative candidate a few days ago.”

Lance looked surprised, something Stone had never before seen happen.

“Good God, Lance, do you mean to tell me that I have learned something you don’t already know?”

“Certainly not. I’ve known about the new party and its candidate for weeks,” Lance said reprovingly. “What I didn’t know was that you knew. How, pray tell, did that come to be?”

“I was invited for a Penobscot Bay cruise on the brand-new yacht of Christian St. Clair,” Stone said. “And, incidentally, I believe there is mention of it on Facebook.”

“You were in the company of Whit Saltonstall and the Times editor and the Vanity Fair publisher?”

“They, all of them, abandoned ship when further guests boarded, to wit, Harold Ozick, Clint Holder, and, fresh from a wee-hours infomercial, one Nelson Knott. We shared dinner and breakfast before I, too, scrambled ashore.”

At that point, Senator Whitney Saltonstall entered the dining room, in the company of Dino Bacchetti. Lance and Stone raised their glasses, and Saltonstall gave them a little wave. Pointedly, perhaps, he did not come over to say hello.

“Where was I?” Lance said.

“You were being surprised that I knew something.”

“Oh, yes. It takes only a cursory tour of our current political situation to know what could happen. We have a strong President and a sadly weakened opposition, and what looks like plain sailing ahead. But consider this: What if, shortly before the Democratic Convention, the matter of the secret pardons became known? And who knows, there may be other things in that manuscript.”

“I see your point,” Stone said. “We would have to rely on Congress to keep us on a fairly even keel.”

“I also happen to know that these people are going to make a determined effort to go for majorities in both houses. They have already recruited several dozen candidates.”

“They couldn’t ever get majorities in both houses on such short notice.”

“They wouldn’t need majorities,” Lance pointed out. “They could very easily pick up a lot of Republican and even some Democratic votes on crucial issues.”

Stone thought about this. “Lance,” he said, “the only reason I can think of for why I was invited aboard St. Clair’s yacht is that he or some of his guests know that I have the strong case.”

“That’s very perceptive of you, Stone,” Lance said, a sneer in his voice. “Why the hell else would a multibillionaire you didn’t know invite you to meet two other multibillionaires you didn’t know? Do you think they might have a motive other than enjoying your company?”

“Thank you, Lance, I get your point.”

“May I also infer that right around this time, the two bogus FBI agents showed up at your house, and Ed Rawls’s house was burned to the ground?”

Stone sighed. “That is not an unreasonable inference to draw.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“Lance, do you think Will Lee knows about all this?”

“I’m certain of it,” Lance said. “I told him myself.”

“When?”

“A couple of weeks ago.”

“I think there’s something else I’d better tell you that you don’t know,” Stone said.

“I hope you’re wrong about that.”

“All right, Ed has a secret cellar reached by a tunnel from his house that contains his archives — a backup for everything he says in his manuscript.”

“Well, I had guessed that something like that existed, but I didn’t know where it was.”

“Before you do anything about that,” Stone said, “let me talk to Ed. It may be possible that he would do the right thing and allow the contents of the strong case and his archives to be destroyed.”

“That would be very nice,” Lance said. “Please put that to him.” Lance’s attention seemed to wander for a moment before he spoke. “Then all we would have to worry about is what’s in Ed Rawls’s head.”

Stone decided to walk home and declined a lift in Lance’s bulletproof boxcar. It was a lovely day and he meandered to Park Avenue and walked, admiring the tulips, downtown to his own neighborhood, then home, all the way rehashing the situation and deciding what was the right thing to do. As he let himself into the house via his office door, he made his judgment. Joan was not at her desk.

He sat down in his office and buzzed Ed Rawls’s room. No answer. He buzzed Fred.

“Yes, sir?”

“Have you seen Mr. Rawls this afternoon?”

“No, sir. I left the house for an hour or so to have a small repair done on the Bentley and returned only a few minutes ago.”

“Thank you, Fred.”