Stone Barrington 06-11

suppose so, but not tonight.”
    “Will you bring it with you tomorrow evening? It’s important.”
    “Anything for you,” she said, and let her tongue play lightly over his ear.
    Stone didn’t complain.

37
    STONE WAS ALREADY AT AN ALCOVE table in the Connaught grill when Stanford Hedger arrived for lunch. Hedger sat down and ordered a pink gin, something Stone had never heard an American do.
    “What is a pink gin, anyway?”
    “Gin with a dash of Angostura bitters,” Hedger replied. “I doubt if you’d like it.”
    “I doubt it, too,” Stone replied, sipping his Chardonnay.
    “Did you enjoy your evening?” Hedger asked. “I saw you and Mrs. Carter dancing.”
    “Yes, thank you, and thank you, too, for the use of the ambassador’s car.”
    “Any time,” Hedger replied. “When the ambassador’s not using it, I use it myself, sometimes. Tell me, is it hard to dance with someone’s tongue in your ear?”
    “On the contrary,” Stone replied. “It helps.”
    Hedger laughed. “I never saw your little bald man, you know; are you sure he wasn’t a figment of your imagination?”
    “Isn’t his presence why you had me invited?”
    “Well, yes; but I fully expected to see him, if you did.”
    “Why did you think he’d be there?”

    “Just a hunch. Last night’s dinner, if you didn’t know, was for the foreign diplomatic corps. I reckoned if he was anybody important in an embassy, he’d be there.”
    “Good guess,” Stone replied. “And why did you think he’d be somebody important in an embassy?”
    “His accents, as you described them, one overlaid on the other. Eton is a very exclusive school, you know, and everybody who spends his youth there comes out with that accent, even the foreigners. Remember Abba Eban, the Israeli ambassador to the UN?”
    “Yes.”
    “Same accent.”
    “Now that you mention it.”
    Hedger looked at the menu. “I’ll have half a dozen oysters and the Dover sole,” he said to the waiter, “off the bone, and I’d prefer a female, if there’s one available.”
    “I’ll have the cold soup and the sole,” Stone said. “Should I order the female, too?”
    “If you enjoy roe,” Hedger replied.
    Stone nodded to the waiter.
    “And bring us a bottle of that lovely Sancerre,” Hedger said. He turned to Stone. “Now, what’s up? Why did you want to see me?”
    “Things have taken a rather ominous turn,” Stone said, “and I thought you might have some advice on how I should proceed.”
    “Tell me.”
    “I followed Lance Cabot yesterday from his house to an antiques market in Chelsea. Do you know his friends Ali and Sheila?”
    “Oh, yes; he met them when we were in Cairo. I believe they were complicit in the bombing of my safe house there.”

    “Turns out they had a shop in the market. Also turns out that I wasn’t the only one following Lance; so were the two men who abducted me and took me to the interrogation. They were in the same Daimler limousine.”
    “Did you make a note of the number plate?”
    “No,” Stone replied, a little embarrassed that he had not thought of that.
    “Next time you get the chance,” Hedger said. “It would help.”
    “Certainly. Anyway, the two men followed Lance into the building. I went inside and found Ali and Sheila’s shop, phoned Lance there, and told them to get out. I got them into a cab, and as we drove around the building, a bomb destroyed the shop.”
    Hedger’s considerable eyebrows went up. “Sounds like these people are getting serious.”
    “They’re not the only ones,” Stone said. “Lance called Erica and told her to get out of the house; then they went to the home of a friend, and I had a look around Lance’s house; got the keys from Monica, Erica’s sister.”
    “Oh, good,” Hedger said, obviously pleased. “I assumed you searched it thoroughly.”
    “I did. There was absolutely nothing that revealed anything about Lance or whatever business he’s conducting.”
    “I’m not really surprised,” Hedger said. “Lance is too smart to leave sensitive materials lying around.”
    “Then I had a look in the wine cellar, where I found a small office, concealed behind a couple of wine racks.” He gave Hedger a description of how he got in. “There was a desk, a computer, and filing cabinets, all secured. As I was trying to get into the computer, I heard someone entering the house; more than one person. I shut myself up in the office and waited for them to leave. After a few