Lucid Intervals (2010)

difference?”
    “The difference is, if you can prove that Hackett is Whitestone, you’re going to do something terrible to him, and Strategic Services would probably come crashing down without him to run it. Then where would I be?”
    “Not at Woodman and Weld.”
    “Exactly.”
    “If that happened,” Dino pointed out, “you could sell your hypothetical jet and live on the proceeds.”
    “Sell my hypothetical jet?” Stone asked. “Never!”
    Felicity managed a laugh.
    “You should do that more often,” Stone said. “You’ve been working too hard.”
    “No harder than usual.”
    “Who’s minding the store in London while you’re here?”
    “I have a very competent deputy who handles the administrative side. The rest I am doing from the office here.”
    “Don’t you ever have to make an appearance?” Dino asked.
    “Eventually,” Felicity replied. “It’s not as though I’m the prime minister or some other public figure. I don’t have to appear in the newspapers or on television every day or be interviewed by anyone.”
    “How much longer can I count on having you as my houseguest?” Stone asked.
    “At least until we get to the bottom of the Hackett/Whitestone riddle,” she replied.
    “Then I’ll have to work more slowly,” Stone said.

36
    S tone submitted to the tender ministrations of Ms. Ida Ann Dunn for the remainder of the week. Felicity was little seen and reported no further progress on substantiating the identity of James Hackett.
    On Friday afternoon Ida Ann closed the operator’s manual, switched off her projector and handed Stone a thick sheaf of papers. “Your final examination,” she said. “You have three hours.” She tucked the manual in one of her cases. “So you can’t cheat,” she said. “I’ll be back.”
    Ida Ann disappeared and came back in two and a half hours. “Are you done?” she asked as she walked into Stone’s office.
    “You said I have three hours,” Stone replied.
    “I didn’t say you had to take three hours.”
    “Give me a minute, all right?”
    “Take your time,” she sighed.
    Ten minutes later, Stone handed her the completed answer sheet. She placed a template over it and ran down the columns with a finger. “My, my,” she said.
    “That bad?”
    “That good. One hundred percent.”
    Stone sagged with relief, because he knew that if he had missed any answers he would have had to undergo a further lecture on the misses.
    Ida Ann tucked the answer sheet into her briefcase and offered her hand.
    Stone shook it.
    “Tomorrow morning at eight o’clock, please meet Mr. Dan Phelan, your flight instructor, at Jet Aviation at Teterboro Airport. And take along your logbook, license and medical certificate.”
    “But tomorrow’s Saturday,” Stone complained. “Don’t I get the weekend off?”
    “You do not,” she replied, and with a little wave over her shoulder she departed.
     
     
     
    THE FOLLOWING MORNING at eight, Stone walked into the pilot’s room at Jet Aviation and looked around. Various uniformed corporate crews sat around gazing blankly at CNN on a large television set. A man in a battered leather flight jacket, dark trousers and a white shirt stood up and walked over.
    “Stone Barrington? I’m Dan Phelan.” They shook hands.
    “I guessed.”
    “Let’s go sit down in a quiet corner for a few minutes.” They took a vacant table and two chairs. “Let me see your license, your medical certificate and your logbook.”
    Stone handed them over, and Phelan started with the license. “I understood you’ve been flying a JetProp,” he said. “How come you have a multiengine rating?”
    “I got it in anticipation of buying a Beech Baron twin, but then I changed my mind and bought a Malibu, and later had it converted.”
    “So the only twin time you have is your training for the rating? Six hours?”
    “That’s correct.”
    “Well, by the time you take your check ride for your Mustang-type rating, you’ll have a lot more.” He examined Stone’s medical certificate and handed it and the license back to him, then he began flipping through the logbook. “I see you’ve flown in and out of Teterboro a lot over the past few years.”
    “I’m based here,” Stone replied.
    “That will stand you in good stead,” Phelan said. “Teterboro is the busiest general aviation airport in the country; if you can handle an airplane here, you can handle it anywhere.” He handed Stone a sheaf of copies of New Jersey