Shoot First(Stone Barrington #45)(80)

“Beria?” Dino asked. “Not yet, but he’ll seek diplomatic shelter, and Stone just got him declared persona non grata by the State Department. He’ll be out of the country tomorrow for good.”

Meg fished her pistol out of her purse and handed it to Dino. “I guess I should give this to the cops.”

Dino pocketed the weapon.

“What about Owaki?” Meg asked Stone. “How did the hearing go?”

“Couldn’t have gone better,” Stone said. “He’s in jail pending trial, and that will be months. They’ve got him cold on a weapons charge, and the U.S. attorney will get him twenty years on that.”

“He’ll probably plead out and serve ten,” Dino said, “but the feds have grounds to get his citizenship revoked, and they’ll kick him out of the country permanently.”



* * *



—

BERIA ENTERED a key code to the front door of an anonymous East Side town house a couple of blocks from the Russian mission and let himself in. A guard was waiting and he was shown in immediately to see the duty officer.

Beria presented his diplomatic passport. “The ambassador called,” the officer said, dropping the passport into a drawer and closing it firmly. “The State Department has declared you persona non grata. You will be driven to your flat, where you will pack your bags, then to JFK Airport. You’re on an eleven PM flight to Moscow, where you will answer to a personnel board for your actions.”

“Owaki will take care of all that. I’ll be living in London or Paris in a week.”

“Mr. Owaki is in the Federal Detention Center, without bail, awaiting trial on certain weapons charges. I think you are more likely to be residing in some small town in Siberia, rather than London or Paris, for the remainder of your career.” He motioned to an aide. “Put him in a car and get him out of here.”



* * *



—

“I’M HUNGRY,” Meg said. “I never got lunch, and I’m dying for a drink.”

“I can do that,” Stone replied.





AUTHOR’S NOTE


I am happy to hear from readers, but you should know that if you write to me in care of my publisher, three to six months will pass before I receive your letter, and when it finally arrives it will be one among many, and I will not be able to reply.

However, if you have access to the Internet, you may visit my website at www.stuartwoods.com, where there is a button for sending me e-mail. So far, I have been able to reply to all my e-mail, and I will continue to try to do so.

If you send me an e-mail and do not receive a reply, it is probably because you are among an alarming number of people who have entered their e-mail address incorrectly in their mail software. I have many of my replies returned as undeliverable.

Remember: e-mail, reply; snail mail, no reply.

When you e-mail, please do not send attachments, as I never open them. They can take twenty minutes to download, and they often contain viruses.

Please do not place me on your mailing lists for funny stories, prayers, political causes, charitable fund-raising, petitions, or sentimental claptrap. I get enough of that from people I already know. Generally speaking, when I get e-mail addressed to a large number of people, I immediately delete it without reading it.

Please do not send me your ideas for a book, as I have a policy of writing only what I myself invent. If you send me story ideas, I will immediately delete them without reading them. If you have a good idea for a book, write it yourself, but I will not be able to advise you on how to get it published. Buy a copy of Writer’s Market at any bookstore; that will tell you how.

Anyone with a request concerning events or appearances may e-mail it to me or send it to: Publicity Department, Penguin Random House LLC, 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014.

Those ambitious folk who wish to buy film, dramatic, or television rights to my books should contact Matthew Snyder, Creative Artists Agency, 9830 Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills, CA 98212-1825.

Those who wish to make offers for rights of a literary nature should contact Anne Sibbald, Janklow & Nesbit, 445 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10022. (Note: This is not an invitation for you to send her your manuscript or to solicit her to be your agent.)

If you want to know if I will be signing books in your city, please visit my website, www.stuartwoods.com, where the tour schedule will be published a month or so in advance. If you wish me to do a book signing in your locality, ask your favorite bookseller to contact his Penguin representative or the Penguin publicity department with the request.

If you find typographical or editorial errors in my book and feel an irresistible urge to tell someone, please write to Sara Minnich at Penguin’s address above. Do not e-mail your discoveries to me, as I will already have learned about them from others.

A list of my published works appears in the front of this book and on my website. All the novels are still in print in paperback and can be found at or ordered from any bookstore. If you wish to obtain hardcover copies of earlier novels or of the two nonfiction books, a good used-book store or one of the online bookstores can help you find them. Otherwise, you will have to go to a great many garage sales.





Keep reading for an exciting preview of the next Stone Barrington novel, TURBULENCE.