Stone Barrington 06-11

right software, too, and he didn’t have that, but by that time, I had his money and was gone. You got a very nice slice of those funds, too. What did you do with the money?”

    “I paid the taxes on it and invested the rest, as my accountant recommended.”
    “Good,” Lance said. “Just what I would have done.”
    “Lance, it worries me to think I did what you would have done.”
    Lance laughed. “You have nothing to worry about, Stone. You’re clean as a whistle.”
    “Does your agency know that I was paid the money?”
    “Of course. I had a little trouble convincing them, but after I had repeatedly pointed out how valuable you had been to us, they agreed.”
    “But I was supposed to be helping the British.”
    “Well, yes, but you were really helping us all the time.”
    “Did the British know this?”
    Lance pursed his lips. “Not exactly, but they do now. After all, I helped rid them of a man in their midst who was willing to sell their technology to anybody. Why do you care?”
    “As it happens, I’ve spent a good deal of time in the company of one of their people, a woman called Carpenter.”
    “Felicity Devonshire?” Lance laughed aloud.
    “I didn’t even know that was her name until a few months ago.”
    “She’s a piece of work, that girl. Did you know that, at this very moment, she’s being considered to replace Sir Edward Fieldstone as head of her service? If she gets the job, she’ll be the first woman to do so. She was prominently mentioned in the last Birthday Honours List, too. She’s now Dame Felicity.”
    “I didn’t know any of that,” Stone said. “We parted on less than the best terms.”
    “Pity,” Lance said. “She’s a remarkable woman. My people are rooting for her to get the job.”
    “Good for her. Now, why did you come to see me, Lance?”
    Lance chuckled. “I thought I might send some more business your way.”

6
    S TONE’S FIRST REACTION was to send Lance on his way, but, as it happened, things had been a little slow in the way of work, and a fresh injection of business could help his cash flow. “What are we talking about?” he asked.
    “Just a little legal work,” Lance replied, studying his well-manicured nails.
    “Look at me when you lie to me, Lance.”
    Lance looked up. “Why do you think I’m lying?”
    “Because you’ve never said anything to me that was the truth. Ever.”
    Lance shrugged. “Surely you understand that that was business. I was carrying out an assignment important to the national interest, and you were helping.”
    “Yes, but I didn’t know that.”
    “I wasn’t allowed to tell you, and it was important that you didn’t know. In fact, you never would have been involved at all, if I hadn’t been in a situation of, shall we say, temporarily interrupted cash flow. I needed your quarter of a million, which you very kindly supplied, and you made a very tidy profit from the arrangement. Where else could you have gotten a return of four hundred percent in less than thirty days?”
    “ Everybody was lying to me, especially Hedger.”
    “Hedger is dead. Did I mention that?”
    Stone took a quick breath. “No, you didn’t. Do I want to know how and why? I assume he didn’t keel over of a coronary.”
    “No, he was expertly stabbed by somebody who worked for you.”
    “What on earth are you talking about?” Stone demanded.
    “Remember those two retired British cops you hired to follow me around London and bug my house?”
    Stone hadn’t known that Lance knew about that, so he said nothing.
    “You’ll remember that Hedger’s people beat up one of them very badly, so badly that he later expired.”
    “Go on.”
    “Well, his mate took exception to that and held Hedger accountable. He knifed him in a mews a short walk from the Connaught, while you were still in London.”
    “I didn’t know,” Stone said.
    “Scotland Yard hushed it up, the knifer having been one of their own. Had an exemplary military record, too, killing people in the Special Air Services. That detective inspector, Throckmorton—unlikely name, isn’t it?—didn’t think a shady American spook’s life was worth a blip in the happy retirement of one of their former officers.”
    “And what did the Agency have to say about that?”
    “Almost nothing. Somebody gave Throckmorton a good lunch and received the details. They shook hands and went their separate ways. Hedger is now a star on the memorial in the lobby of the headquarters