Dead in the Water

charged with my husband’s murder. Now I must place my faith in Stone Barrington and Sir Leslie Hewitt, who could not be here today, because he is working on my defense. I thank you all for coming here and hearing my story. I hope we will meet again in happier times. “She stepped back from the microphones to a hail of shouted questions.
    Stone quieted the group. “As I said earlier, Mrs. Manning will answer no questions. Now you may have thirty minutes to photograph her yacht, down at the marina.” He pointed to the boat, and most of the crowd sprinted across the lawn. Another clutch of reporters tried to approach Allison and were pushed back by police officers.
    Stone hustled Allison upstairs to his rented room. “We’ll wait them out here, then go back to the yacht,” he said. He walked to the window and looked out. The reporters were swarming over the dock, prevented from boarding the yacht by the police. Then his eye was caught by another sight in the parking lot. Sir Winston Sutherland was standing next to his chauffeured car, watching the reporters, an outraged expression on his face.
    Thomas was standing next to Stone. “I predict an explosion,” he said, grinning broadly.

Chapter
21
    S tone sat at the little table near the window and watched Sir Winston, who was speaking into a cellular phone. A few minutes later, a bright yellow school bus pulled into the parking lot, and the driver received some instructions from Sir Winston. Abruptly, the bus left the tarmac and started across the lawn toward the marina. When it stopped, a dozen police officers got down from the bus, one with a bullhorn.
    “Ladies and gentlemen,” the officer was saying, “a press conference by the Ministry of Justice will be held in ten minutes, and I have come to transport you there. Please board the bus immediately, as we are short of time.”
    Stone watched as the journalists crowded the entrance to the bus, ready to fight to get on, if necessary. Shortly the bus pulled away and, to Stone’s surprise,took the road not toward the capital, but toward the airport. “What the hell?” he muttered.
     
    There was a rap on the door and Thomas entered. Allison, who had been dozing on the bed, sat up on one elbow and looked at him.
    “What’s going on?” Stone asked.
    “Half a dozen cops are going through my rented rooms, taking suitcases and clothes belonging to those reporters.”
    “Sir Winston wouldn’t have the balls to arrest that many journalists, would he?”
    “I can’t see it happening,” Thomas replied, “but he’s taking them somewhere.”
    “Let’s drive out to the airport,” Stone said. “Allison, the coast is clear to the marina; you go back to the yacht and wait for me there.” Allison nodded and put her feet over the edge of the bed, rubbing her eyes.
    In Thomas’s Toyota they drove quickly along the airport road and turned through the gates. In the distance they could see two DC-3s sitting on the apron; one of them already had her engines running. The group of reporters stood in a hangar listening to a young man in a business suit. There was much shouting and shaking of fists going on.
    “We’d better not get too close to this,” Thomas said, stopping the car. A truck loaded with luggage moved past them toward one of the DC-3s.
    The reporters were now being herded onto the two airplanes by uniformed policemen; Stone noted that nobody was being beaten with the truncheons the policemencarried, but their body language told him that the cops were brooking no argument. The truck with the luggage pulled up and suitcases were thrown hurriedly into the luggage compartment of the airplanes.
    “Where’d the other airplane come from?” Stone asked.
    “It’s a government plane, used only by high officials.”
    “Where do you think they’re sending them?”
    “I can only hope that they won’t be flown out to sea, then chucked overboard,” Thomas murmured. “Look, one camera crew and a couple of others are still in the hangar.”
    The two airplanes were taxiing now, and in a few minutes they were both taking off and heading to the northwest.
    “Antigua, do you think?” Stone asked.
    Thomas shook his head. “Antigua’s due north; they’re flying northwest. St. Thomas is my guess; that’s the nearest U.S. airport; or maybe even to San Juan.”
    “That is the most high-handed thing I ever saw,” Stone said, grinning. “Those people are going to go absolutely nuts when they get back to