Turbulence (Stone Barrington #46)(31)
24
LANCE CABOT ANSWERED THE cell phone that he always answered. “Yes?”
“It’s Jaybird, they’re at his Paris house.”
“I rather thought they might be,” Lance replied. “I don’t think they’ll go any farther than that; you can go back to doing useful work.” He hung up.
* * *
—
KELLY, ANTICIPATING her newfound wealth, shopped widely, but judiciously, and had the goods shipped to her package-drop address in New York. Stone had the final fitting of a suit he had been measured for months before; plus, he bought some ties and a cashmere dressing gown, and had it all sent to his house in St. Germaine des Pres. They dined at another favorite of his, Lasserre, on the Avenue Franklin Roosevelt and fell into bed sated, except with each other.
“God,” she breathed, when they were recovering from a period of lovemaking, “I can’t remember the last time I took a vacation.”
“Without Lance looking over your shoulder?”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” she said. “Lance is very protective of his personal operatives, and I know he hated the message I left him, so he’ll have someone looking. He won’t suspect our destination, though, unless this house is wired and he’s listening in.”
“This house was once an Agency safe house, mostly used by Lance and his immediate entourage, but I had it stripped of all of that equipment after I bought it.”
“You bought the house from the Agency?”
“I suspect it was during a round of congressionally mandated budget cuts, and a house in a fashionable Paris neighborhood stuck out like a sore thumb on Lance’s list of properties.”
“Could we do that thing again, please?” she asked, reaching for him.
* * *
—
THEY LEFT PARIS at dawn, to avoid the rush hour traffic, and barreled south on the autoroute. He set the automatic driving feature to ninety miles an hour and let the car steer a bit and brake itself when something loomed ahead. It took him a while to trust the system, but soon he was letting it do most of the work for a hundred miles at a clip.
“Do you mind if we stay with my parents?” she asked. “I don’t want to be on the register of a hotel, and you’ll find their home comfortable.”
“Can I sleep with you?”
“Next door to my old room. There’s a connecting door, so you won’t have to tiptoe.”
* * *
—
THEY ARRIVED IN TIME for a drink and a very good dinner. Kelly’s father, Hank, and her mother, Sue, were good company, and Hank produced a bottle of very fine wine, which went very beautifully with Sue’s coq au vin. The following morning they drove into Zurich’s banking district and gave the car to a doorman at a discreet entrance to what had once been a large town house.
At the front desk, Kelly told the receptionist, “I would like to speak with the managing director, but I would not like to give my name. Would you please tell him that Mr. Dulles sent me?”
“He is with a client at the moment,” the woman said, “but I’m sure he will see you shortly.” She led them to a small sitting room and closed the door behind them.
“That’s so the client and we will not see each other when he leaves,” Kelly explained to Stone.
“What was that ‘Mr. Dulles’ thing?” Stone asked.
“His father worked for Allen Dulles, the first chief of the CIA, when he was OSS, based in Bern during World War II,” she said.
A few minutes later the receptionist returned. “The managing director will see you now,” she said.
They followed her down a hallway to a comfortable, but not huge, paneled office and closed the door behind them.
“Katrin,” the man behind the desk said, rising. “I knew it must be you.”
“Peter, may I introduce my friend and attorney, Stone Barrington, of New York? Stone, this is Peter Weiss, an old family friend.”
The two men shook hands, and Weiss showed them to a sofa at the end of the room and took a chair himself.
“It’s been what, eight, nine years?”
“Closer to ten,” she replied.
“Are you still employed by those awful people?”
“I am, but they’re not as awful as you think.”
“And why have you come to see me?”
“Peter,” she said, handing him the check from the Cyprus bank, “I wish to open an account that no one but you and I will ever know about. And Stone,” she added, “since he was kind enough to drive me from London.”
“The airlines and trains weren’t running?”
“We wished to be discreet.”
“Of course.” He examined the check. “I hope those people of yours didn’t print this.” He rubbed it between thumb and forefinger.
“They did not.”
“And it won’t bounce?”
“Do you know the bank?”
“Of course,” he replied.
“Then you know their checks don’t bounce.”
“Surely not, but in a transaction of this size, I have to call them.”
“Of course.”