to proceed. I'm surprised at you, Stone; you know better than this.'
'Okay, Tiff,' Stone said, 'I've done my civic duty. Now I'm going to attack the work on my desk and forget all about this.'
'What a good idea!' she said, laughing. 'Dinner?'
'I'm seeing somebody.'
'Who?'
'Oh, no, we're not going there. Bye-bye, Tiff.' Stone hung up. He felt that a burden had been lifted from his shoulders. Now he could attack the work on his desk.
Except that there was no work on his desk.
Joan buzzed him. 'Lance Cabot on one.'
Stone picked up. 'Good morning, Lance.'
'I'm afraid not,' Lance said. 'Pablo has disappeared.'
'Lance, there are eight men from Strategic Services guarding him; he can't disappear.'
'Nevertheless,' Lance said.
'How did this happen?'
'His wife wanted to go to the market in Washington, and Pablo went with her. They went into the market, followed by two of Mike Freeman's men, and then straight out the back door, and they disappeared.'
'You'd better check the airport at Newburgh,' Stone said. 'It sounds like Pablo has decided to run.'
'Holly is all over that and every other airport in the area,' Lance said. 'Run from what?'
'Well, Lance, your very good friend and colleague Moishe Aarons has been trying to find Pablo-God knows why-but Pablo found that disturbing. Somehow-and I'm not making any accusations-Mr. Aarons found out about your meetings with Pablo. How could that have happened?'
Lance was silent.
'Hello, hello? Can you think of any way that Aarons could have found out about those meetings?'
'I'm thinking,' Lance said.
'I'll just wait while you think,' Stone said, then sat there silently.
'All right,' Lance said finally, 'he may have inferred that from something I said to him.'
'Lance, we had a firm and very clear agreement that the existence of those meetings would be kept within a very tight circle of your people.'
'Yes, we did.'
'Did you intend that very tight circle to include the Mossad?'
'Of course not, Stone. It was just a slip of the tongue over lunch.'
'It must have been a very big slip of the tongue, since Aarons knew that the meetings took place at my house and that I was in touch with Pablo.'
'I have to go now,' Lance said. 'There are people waiting to see me.'
'Lance-' But Lance had hung up.
Stone looked up to see a man he didn't recognize standing in his doorway. He was tall, with a dark, heavy beard and black horn-rimmed glasses.
'Good morning, Stone.'
'Yes? Have we met?'
The man came across the room and sat down in the chair opposite Stone. 'My disguise is better than I thought.'
'Pablo?' Stone said with astonishment.
'Don't make me take the beard off; it took me too long to get it right. You were talking with Lance?'
'Yes, just now.'
'I heard you mention his name.'
'He called to tell me you had disappeared.'
'He's quite right, I have,' Pablo said.
'Why?'
'Moishe Aarons wants me either in a Mossad interrogation facility or dead, and I don't think he cares very much which.'
'Why do you think that?'
'Because early this morning I walked down to the lake-I take a walk every morning-and I saw a boat being driven by Moishe himself. I don't think he saw me, since I was partly behind a tree.'
'Oh, shit,' Stone said.
'Exactly,' Pablo replied.
FIFTY-EIGHT
Stone tried to think of what to do. 'Pablo, how did you get away from the Washington market?'
'One of my security people met us out back with a rental car and drove us here. He's gone, now, to return the car.'
'Then Lance will soon find out about the rental car. What happened to the other one?'
'My other security guard returned it to Newburgh.'
'Where do you want to go, Pablo?'
'To Switzerland.'
Stone shook his head. 'No, Aarons knows about that house; he told me so. I imagine he already has people there.'
Pablo thought about that. 'I have a friend who has a country house in the south of England. I have not been there for some years, so I have no noticeable connection to it.'
'You're sure that Aarons isn't aware of it?'
'I can't see how he would know about it,' Pablo said. 'As I said, I haven't been there for a long time, and Aarons's interest in me is very recent.'
'Where is your airplane?'
'At Gulfstream, in Georgia, having some avionics issues resolved.'
'How soon could you get it to the Northeast?'
'Tomorrow morning.'
'There's an airport near Washington called Oxford. It has a five-thousand-foot runway.'
'Wouldn't Lance's people be watching it?'
Stone shook his hand. 'They will check it today, but Lance doesn't have enough people around there to watch every airport. Anyway, since you have opted out of the surveillance he arranged, you have relieved him of the necessity to protect you. I've seen a G-Four take off from there, but probably not with full fuel.'
'I think we would need at least six thousand feet with full fuel.'
'Then have your people fly up from Georgia and land at Oxford but not refuel. That way, they won't even have to stop the engines. You can land at Gander, in Newfoundland, and top off there.'
'That seems a good plan,' Pablo said.
'Can you get in touch with your friend in England?'
'I'll call him now,' Pablo said. He produced a cell phone and made the call. A conversation in French ensued, then he hung up. 'All arranged,' he said. 'We can land at Blackbushe, in southern England, and he'll have us met.'
A woman came into Stone's office, and Pablo introduced his wife, a petite, beautiful woman about twenty years Pablo's junior.
'I'll drive you to Oxford tomorrow,' Stone said. 'You two can stay here tonight.'
'I think we'll be fine at our New York apartment,' Pablo said. 'I've never told anybody about it, and my security people will be there.'
Joan buzzed. 'A Mr. Aaron Beck to see you,' she said.
'Quick,' Stone said to the couple, 'out the back. You know the way through the garden, Pablo.'
