Shoot First(Stone Barrington #45)(61)

“Because you are associated with one Meg Harmon.”

“Are you referring to the Harmon who is the rightful owner of the software of which you speak?”

“I am.”

“Well, since she is the rightful owner and you are only a thief, we have nothing further to talk about,” Stone said. “Except you can tell Mr. Owaki that if he wishes to speak to me not to send buffoons with messages. I’m in the Manhattan phone directory, if it still exists.”

Stone’s door suddenly opened, and four men filed into the room, each holding a handgun before him.

“Ah, gentlemen, welcome,” Stone said. “There is a handgun on the floor over there. Please unload it, give it to the uglier of these two gentlemen, and then escort them both to the street. I expect they have a large black Mercedes waiting for them.”

The four armed men followed Stone’s instructions explicitly.

“You will be hearing from me, Mr. Barrington!” Beria shouted, as he was frog-marched from the room.





46




Joan came into Stone’s office as he was inserting the little .45 back into its nest under his arm. “What the hell was that all about?” she asked. “You should excuse the expression.”

“Should those two return,” Stone said, “you have my permission to shoot them.” Joan kept a .45 of her own in her desk drawer.

“It would be my pleasure,” she replied. “I hate rudeness in a man.”

“Should you decide to do so, shoot first and think about it later,” Stone said. “And I wouldn’t be shocked if we received another such visit from a man named Owaki.”

“Selwyn Owaki?” Joan asked, as if he were someone she had met at a bar.

“How is it that you know that name?” Stone asked.

“I read the New York Post,” she said. “On occasion.”

“And from your deep research, what is your impression of Mr. Owaki?”

“That he has an enormous amount of money, none of it honestly earned, that he is personally responsible for roughly half of everyone on the planet who dies of a gunshot wound, that he eats innocent babies for breakfast.” She thought about it. “Have I left out anything?”

“A great deal,” Stone replied. “For instance, you failed to mention that he uses the Russians’ UN mission as sort of a branch office, which is the rock from under which our two recent visitors crawled, and that he derives a great deal of personal pleasure from the deaths of those whom he considers to be his enemies, which is pretty much everybody.”

“Why hasn’t someone killed him?”

“Because he makes that work almost impossibly difficult. He dwells in an aerie of a building he owns, not all that far from here, that no one can enter without a full body scan and considerable goosing of the private areas.”

“Doesn’t anybody know how to kill with their hands anymore?” she asked.

“Apparently not.”

“I don’t know what the world is coming to,” she said sadly. “In my day select people—secret agents, hired guns, Girl Scouts who expected to sell their cookies without getting raped—were taught to kill with a single thumb.”

“Were you a Girl Scout?” Stone asked.

“Of course. How do you think I know this stuff?”

“Go bolt the front door and guard it with your life,” Stone said, “and tell Fred to be on his guard.” He picked up the phone and called Dino.

“Now what?” Dino asked, sounding exasperated.

“Well, for a start, the Russian gorilla Ivanov has definitely not left the country.”

“And you know this how?”

“He just left my office in the company of Stanislav Beria and four of Mike Freeman’s finest.”

“Why was he in your office?”

“He was supposed to intimidate me into giving Beria what he wants.”

“Which is what?”

“A computer thumb drive containing all of Meg Harmon’s greatest hits.”

“The car without a driver?”

“Indeed.”

“And why does he think you have this thing?”

“Because I got it from Gino Bellini, shortly before he was dispatched by these same two gentlemen.”

“I would get rid of it, if I were you.”

“I have already returned it to its mother.”

“Then I would get her out of town.”

“I tried that once, remember?”

“I remember very well that your leaving town kept that awful thing from happening on my turf.”

“That’s your only concern, isn’t it? Moving it off your turf?”

“You guessed it, pal.”

“You’re not concerned about my personal safety?”

“That’s what Strategic Services is for. It’s not my job to provide you with a personal police force, though you often seem to think it is.”

“I’m hurt.”

“Well, I hope you’re ambulatory, so you can get your ass moving. You do remember who Beria works for, don’t you?”

“If I had forgotten, Beria and Ivanov were anxious to remind me.”

“Why didn’t you have Joan shoot them?”