Stone - 25 - Collateral Damage

Helene asked.
    “Oh, I don’t know, maybe. Mr. Freeman will be here—he loves your cooking.”
    Helene blushed.
    Stone went upstairs and sat in his study while Holly changed for dinner. At a quarter to seven, the front doorbell rang. He picked up the phone: “Yes?”
    “Hi, Stone, it’s Mike. I’m early, I know. Will you let these guys in the SUV know not to shoot me?”
    “Sure, Mike, I’ll buzz you in. I’m in the study.” Stone called the phone in the car and eased the minds of the two Agency security men.
    Mike made his way to the study, and Stone poured him a drink. “Have a seat, Mike. What’s up?”
    “I wanted to talk with you about something, and this seems like a good time.”
    “Sure.”
    “It occurs to me that, since Kate Lee has only a few months left in office, it might be good if we asked her to join the Strategic Services board.”
    “What a good idea!”
    “Do you think she’d consider it?”
    Holly spoke up from the doorway. “I think she’d jump at it.” She poured herself a drink, allowed Mike to peck her on the cheek, and sat down.
    “Why jump?” Mike asked.
    “I think she’s nervous about having enough to do when the president has left office. I know for a fact that she doesn’t want to spend a lot of time on his family cattle farm. She has a horror of anything agricultural.”
    “I hope you’re right,” Mike said.
    “And,” Holly continued, “it would give her an excuse to spend some time in New York. She likes it here, and so does her husband.”
    “Then I’ll broach the subject,” Mike said. “There’s something else: I had lunch with the AIC of the New York FBI office today, and we tiptoed around the subject of Jasmine Shazaz and her friends.”
    “Oh?” Holly asked. “Anything I should know about?”
    “Nothing specific, but he gave me the impression that he wasn’t much interested in cooperating with your people and the NYPD in the hunt. The Bureau has always been a credit hog, and I think they would prefer not to share it with anybody in this instance.”
    “Did he give you any indication of what his plan is?”
    “Only that they’re bringing in something like fifty more agents to work on it.”
    Stone spoke up. “I’ll bet they won’t be distributing flyers on the West Side.”
    “Anything else?” Holly asked.
    “Only that, in my opinion, the AIC would do anything he could think of to derail your efforts in his favor. Did you see the piece in The New York Times Magazine about the Bureau’s bumbling in intelligence matters over the years?”
    “I did. Bumbling seems to be a tradition at the Bureau.”
    The doorbell rang, and Stone picked up the phone. “Yes?”
    “This is Special Agent Carmichael with the Secret Service,” a male voice said. “The director will arrive in two minutes.”
    “Thank you,” Stone said. “I’ll be right down to meet her. Did you identify yourself to the two men in the black SUV?”
    “They insisted,” the man replied.
    Stone laughed and hung up. “She’s on her way. I’ll bring her here,” he said. “Sit tight.” He walked to the front door and arrived in time to see the car pull up outside. It had begun to drizzle, and the agent held an umbrella for her as she exited the car.
    She ran up the steps, came inside, and gave Stone a kiss on the cheek. “What a handsome house,” she said, looking around the living room.
    Stone hung up her raincoat. “Thank you. It was built by my great-aunt, my grandmother’s sister, and my father did all the woodwork and much of the furniture.”
    “He was very, very good,” she said.
    “Holly and Mike are in my study. Come this way.” He led her into the smaller room and, while she greeted Mike and Holly, poured her a bourbon.
    She flopped down on the sofa and took a sip of her drink. “This is fun already,” she said. “Will and I don’t get that many opportunities to dine in someone else’s home, unless it’s a grand occasion.”
    “You’re very welcome here,” Stone said. “I’m sorry the president couldn’t join us.”
    “He’s speaking to the Security Council at the U.N. tomorrow morning, so he’s on the way up from Washington now,” Kate replied. “He won’t be able to make dinner, but he said he might stop in for a drink later.”
    “That would be wonderful. Kate, before we go down for dinner, Mike would like to speak with you about something.”
    “Of course,” she said, taking another sip of her bourbon.
    “Mrs.