his officers met them in the garden.”
The prime minister seemed to sag. “Good day to you, Dame Felicity, Mr. Barrington.”
Stone followed Felicity out of Number Ten and into the Bentley. She paused for a moment to advise the media to look to the PM for a statement, then got into the car and gave the driver another address.
Stone heaved a sigh of relief and mopped his brow.
A FEW MINUTES later, with Felicity still on her phone, the car was waved through a pair of discreet iron gates and into a small turnaround and then stopped before a pair of large black doors. A man in a severely cut suit waited under a portico.
“Pop the boot, please,” Felicity said to the driver. Then she turned toward Stone. “Thank you so very much, Stone.”
“Are you going to be safe now?”
“Never safer,” she said. She kissed him and got out of the car while the man in the suit held the door. He closed it firmly behind her.
“Where to, Mr. Barrington?”
“The Connaught Hotel,” he said, digging out his cell phone and calling for a reservation. What the hell, he thought. He might as well visit his tailor and see some friends while he was here. Then he had another thought. He fished Captain Suzanne Alley’s card from his pocket and dialed the number. He didn’t see why he should spend his evening in London alone.
Anyway, if he went straight back to New York, he’d have to attend Herbie Fisher’s wedding.
ABOUT THE TITLE
I have cheerfully stolen the title of this book from a friend, the distinguished Atlanta attorney Robert Steed. Bob has published several collections of short humor, one of them called Lucid Intervals. After reading it, I told him I admired his title and would, one day, steal it.
“Feel free,” Bob replied. (As an attorney, he knew that a title cannot be copyrighted.)
The day has come. Just to confirm things, I called him at his law office, as I had heard that he might have died; his secretary told me he was on vacation in Mexico. Since this did not sound like a euphemism for dead, I left a message for him.
On his return from Mexico, Bob called, and I declared my intentions with regard to his title. “Send me a copy,” he said.
I have done so.
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 these. 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 Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014.
Those ambitious folks 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 Rachel Kahan 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.
Stuart Woods
