Unintended Consequences

resting on a boarding platform.”
    “It arrived ten minutes ago without lights. I thought that was odd.”
    “You were right,” Stone said, “it is odd, a boat running in the dark without lights. It’s pretty bright out from the moon, maybe he just forgot to turn them on.”
    “Maybe,” Dino said, “or maybe not. He used a very bright flashlight to pick up the mooring. I think there are two aboard.”
    “I don’t see anybody on deck now.”
    “Who knows we’re in Maine?” Dino asked.
    “Only Joan. I didn’t tell anyone else. Except Stanley, when he dropped us at Teterboro. He was disturbed that we were going somewhere without him and his boys.”
    “What’s Stanley’s last name?” Dino asked.
    “I heard one of the other guards call him Manoff.”
    “That’s Russian, isn’t it?”
    “You’re a suspicious man, Dino.”
    “I’m professionally suspicious, like you used to be.”
    “You think I’m less suspicious than I used to be?”
    “Yeah, since you left the department, you’re Sunny Jim.”
    “That’s ridiculous.”
    “No, it’s not. Is Stanley Agency?”
    “I think he’s one of a group of civilian security people that the Agency employs to guard their buildings and people. I doubt if he’s a Company officer.”
    “Then who knows where his loyalties might lie?” Dino said. “And what effect an important sum of money might have on those loyalties?”
    “You have a point,” Stone said, peering through the glasses. “I just caught a glimpse of a red light through one of the boat’s ports,” he said. “It came on for a second, then went out.”
    “Some of those little lithium-powered flashlights have a red bulb. Red light doesn’t screw up a person’s night vision.”
    “I can see ripples,” Stone said. “They’re moving around inside the boat.”
    “So they didn’t just get in, all tired, and go right to bed.”
    “I guess not.” Stone braced himself against a porch post to steady the binoculars. “Uh-oh,” he said.
    “What?”
    “They’re in the cockpit, two of them.”
    Dino raised the rifle and peered through the scope at the boat. “And one of them has the moon glinting off his bald head,” he said. “And they’re launching the dinghy.”
    Stone ran lightly upstairs, got his cell phone, and came back. He pressed a speed-dial number.
    “Are you calling Stanley?” Dino asked.
    “Nope.”
    “Hello,” a sleepy woman’s voice said.
    “Holly, it’s Stone.”
    She was instantly awake. “What’s up?”
    “We’re at the Maine house.”
    “How did you lose Stanley?”
    “We may not have lost him,” Stone said. “We said goodbye at Teterboro, and now there are two men on a fast boat in the harbor, one of whom is as bald as an egg.”
    “I’ll call you back,” Holly said, then broke the connection.
    “Did Holly send Stanley up here?” Dino asked.
    “I don’t think so,” Stone said. He looked through the binoculars again. “They’re rowing in,” he said. “I think there’s an outboard on the dinghy, but they’re not using it.”
    Dino braced his rifle against a porch post and looked through the scope again. “The bald guy is sitting in the stern, while his buddy does the rowing. And the bald guy seems to have a rifle slung across his body. I could take him out right now.”
    “If you do that, it will turn out to be the commodore of the yacht club coming back from a midnight cruise.”
    “Yeah, well.”
    “Interesting, though—they don’t seem to be aiming for the yacht club dock. It’s more like they’re aiming for mine.”
    “Why don’t we go down there and greet them?” Dino said.

50
    S tone ran back into the living room and retrieved the assault rifle he’d left behind the curtains, then he joined Dino on the front porch.
    “Are they still coming?” he asked Dino.
    “Yep. Let’s go.”
    They ran lightly across the backyard, using trees and shrubbery to keep from being seen. At the head of the ramp to the dock, there were two tall evergreen shrubs, and they took up positions behind them. Soon, Stone could hear the sound of the dinghy’s oars and some unintelligible whispering. A couple of minutes later there was the sound of rubber squeaking against the dock, and Stone could see the dock move as the two men alit from the dinghy. They padded down the dock and started up the ramp. “There’s the house,” one of them said.
    As they stepped onto the grass and walked past the evergreens, Dino said, in his best cop