Stone Barrington 06-11

breach of my instructions.”
    “Lance, your instructions are becoming a pain in the ass.”
    Lance reached under his arm and produced a very small semiautomatic pistol. Simultaneously, he took a small tube from his pocket and began screwing it into the barrel. The whole assembly was no more than six inches long. “Please don’t underestimate the power of this little weapon,” he said. “It can put an end to your life instantly, or, more appropriate to this occasion, destroy a knee, which will require a mechanical replacement, if you don’t bleed to death while waiting for the paramedics to arrive.”
    “No,” Stone said.
    Lance pointed the gun at Stone’s right knee and fired a round, making a soft pffft noise.
    Stone moved at the last second, and he felt something tug at his trouser leg. He looked down to see both an entry and an exit hole through the inside knee of his pants.
    “Hold still,” Lance said, taking aim again. “I wouldn’t want to hit the femoral artery.”
    “All right,” Stone said, holding his hands out before him. “That won’t be necessary; I’ll come with you.”
    “Thank you so much,” Lance said. “Now say your goodbyes, and we’ll be on our way.”
    Stone walked back into the restaurant and to his table. “Arrington,” he said, “I must apologize, but something urgent has come up, and I have to accompany Lance somewhere. I hope you’ll forgive me.”
    “If I must,” she replied.

    “Arrington,” Lance said, “I hope we’ll have an opportunity to renew our acquaintance at more length soon. Good night.”
    “Good night, Lance, Stone.”
    Stone got his coat and followed Lance from the restaurant. They got into a black car.
    “Now,” Lance said, “where did Arrington hear that I am connected with the Agency?”
    “She didn’t hear it from me,” Stone said.
    “Did Dino tell her?”
    “She didn’t hear it from me,” Stone repeated.
    “All right.”
    “So what’s the emergency?” Stone asked.
    “We’ve caught Billy Bob.”
    “What? Where?”
    “He was sitting outside your house in the red Hummer; he was armed with a silenced nine-millimeter handgun and two of the rather special grenades I told you about.”
    “Outside my house?”
    “That is correct. Stone, if you once again fail to follow an instruction of mine, I’ll have you inducted into the armed services with the rank of private, so that if you should ever ignore another order, I can have you court-martialed and sent to Leavenworth for a few years. We have a rather special little detention unit there.”
    “All right, all right,” Stone said.
    “And if I find you unarmed again until this is over, I will, I promise, shoot you in a particularly painful place.”
    Stone slumped in his seat and wished he were at home in his bed.

35
    LANCE BEGAN idly unscrewing the silencer from his little pistol.
    “What is that, some CIA secret weapon?” Stone asked.
    “Hardly,” Lance replied. “It’s a Keltec three-eighty, weighs ten ounces, loaded. Of course, our gunsmiths have done a little work on it, but it’s a wonderfully concealable weapon and very effective, if the range isn’t too great. I’ll send you one.”
    “I don’t understand why you need me.”
    “I want you to interrogate Billy Bob.”
    “And why do you think he’ll talk to me more readily than to you?”
    “He seems heavily invested in you; no one else has so captured his attention, so, even if he’s just angry with you, he’ll communicate.”
    “I don’t see how this is going to work.”
    “You’re going to be the good cop,” Lance explained. “After I’ve shouted at him or threatened him, you’re going to interrupt. Surely, you’ve done this a thousand times.”
    “Very nearly,” Stone said. He had always played the good cop to Dino’s bad, when questioning suspects. “Where is Billy Bob?”
    “In your garage,” Lance replied.
    “What?”
    “It was convenient to the scene of his capture.”
    “How did you get into my house?”
    Lance looked at him, almost with pity. “ Really, Stone.”

    Stone sat back and shut up.
    “Now, here’s the way it’s going to go,” Lance said. “Two of my men are with Billy Bob now, two very… ah, capable gentlemen. They may have slapped him around a bit by the time we get there, depending on his attitude. They’re both rather short-tempered.”
    “Dino and I never got to soften them up,” Stone said, half to himself. “Dino would have loved that.”
    “We do