Stuart Woods_Stone Barrington 14

but he didn’t tell me not to ask, either.”
    â€œDon’t ask.”
    â€œOkay, sure.”
    â€œAnd what you’ve just told me is as much as you have for thinking Robertson is Barney Cox?”
    Pepper threw up his hands. “Lance told me to tell you what I know about him; that’s what I know and what I think. Oh, I forgot, he has a false identity, which is what Barney Cox would have, too. Anything else?”
    â€œTell me about Colonel Croft.”
    â€œAh, now there’s a piece of work. His real name is Maurice Benet, and he’s Haitian.”
    â€œThat explains the odd accent.”
    â€œIt explains a lot of things. When Benet was twenty, he was a captain in Papa Doc’s Tonton Macoutes. You know about them?”
    â€œThe Haitian secret police?”
    â€œThey were a happy band of murderers and torturers, whose main job was to scare the shit out of anybody who had a discouraging word to say about Papa Doc or his regime. They did this by kidnapping, torturing and murdering anybody who annoyed them, then delivering the mutilated corpse home to the family.”
    â€œHow did he end up in St. Marks?”
    â€œWhen Baby Doc’s regime fell, Benet and a cohort of his escaped the island with a large bundle of various currencies and island-hopped for a while, ending up here, in the happy arms of Sir Winston Sutherland. Sutherland found a place in the police force for him and his buddy, and he’s been clawing his way up ever since. He’s been a little more restrained than when he was in Haiti, but he’s matured, I guess. He still scares the shit out of people, though.”
    â€œHow did you identify him?”
    â€œI followed him into a bar and got his right index fingerprint off a bar glass. It’s confirmed; there’s no guessing about this guy.”
    â€œIs he wanted anywhere?”
    â€œSure, he’s wanted in Haiti, but that place is such a mess they probably wouldn’t know what to do if he turned up on a street corner in Port-au-Prince.”
    â€œHow’d you get hold of Robertson’s application for buying a house?”
    â€œI’ve been hacking into the government computers almost since I arrived here a year ago. I can find out just about anything you’d want to know, and a great deal you wouldn’t want to know.”
    â€œI want to know if Colonel Croft has any real interest in our party.”
    â€œIf you’re here, he’s interested. I hope to God you didn’t yank out those bugs on your phones, because if you did, he’s going to be all over you.”
    â€œI didn’t; they’re still in place; we’re just being careful what we say when we’re in the house.”
    â€œI hear you’ve been up to Irene Foster’s.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œShe’s probably bugged, too; did you say anything indiscreet there?”
    â€œCertainly not, and I don’t think she’s bugged, because when Stone Barrington happened to mention to the colonel he’d heard that casinos were going to start opening here, Croft got tense. We heard about that from Irene’s buddy Harry Pitts at her house, and if she had been bugged, Croft would already have known about our conversations there.”
    Pepper checked his watch. “I’ve got to get back,” he said. “If I stay any longer, my wife’s going to think I’m fucking you.”
    Holly laughed. “She sounds like a suspicious woman; she must have cause.”
    â€œLet’s not go into that.” He handed Holly a card. “That’s my satphone number; I’ve got one just like yours. Have you noticed that there’s a scrambler button on it?”
    â€œYes, but Lance hasn’t told me to use it.”
    â€œWhen you call me, use it. You can reach me any day at twelve-thirty P.M . for five minutes. No other time.”
    â€œGot it,” Holly said, tucking the card into her bra.
    â€œGive me a minute before you go back to the restaurant.” He got out of the car and returned to the dining room.
    Holly waited, then joined the others. Pepper was paying his check and leaving.
    â€œInteresting?” Stone asked.
    â€œI’ll tell you when we’re out of here,” she said.

24
    B ill Pepper and his wife, Annie, paid their check and left the inn.
    â€œSo, did you fuck her?” Annie asked.
    â€œI would have, if I’d had the time.”
    â€œI