The Short Forever

                        “How could he do that?”

                        “Apparently, he had access to my account.”

                        Carpenter stared at him. “Did you sign the account application, then give it back to Lance?”

                        “Yes.”

                        “Then he simply added his own signature to the document. Did he know your code?”

                        “I wrote it on the form. How could I have been so stupid?”

                        “An expensive oversight,” Carpenter said.

                        “I could get the Hong Kong account number, and we could trace the funds,” Stone said.

                        Carpenter shook her head. “Remember the time difference; Cabot has had plenty of opportunity to retransfer the funds half a dozen times; he was probably at it all night. We’d never find it.”

                        “But your people will reimburse me?”

                        “I can’t make any promises; my management are likely to take a dim view of all this.”

                        “I worked very hard to earn that money,” Stone said, though he’d really made it in the market. “You can’t let them hang me out to dry.”

                        “If it were our funds he’d stolen, that would be one thing, but your funds are quite another.” She looked at her watch. “We have to get going,” she said.

                        “To where?”

                        “To Wiltshire; obviously, the timetable has been accelerated. I hope we’re not too late.”

                        Stone grabbed a tie and his suit jacket and they met downstairs.

                        “We’ll take your Jaguar,” Carpenter said. “But you can’t go,” she said to Dino.

                        “I go where he goes,” Dino replied.

                        Carpenter looked at Stone, who nodded. “Oh, all right. Let’s get out of here,” she said.

            Carpenter drove, fast and expertly.

                        Stone glanced at the speedometer, which was glued to a hundred and twenty miles an hour. “Aren’t you worried about being stopped by the police?”

                        “The number plate is a special one; they’ll know to leave us alone,” she replied. She fished her cellphone out of her bag and dialed a number, driving with one hand, making Stone nervous. “It’s Carpenter,” she said. “Cabot has bolted with Barrington’s money, we don’t know where. We have to assume that his timetable has changed. I’m on the way, and I’ll be there in an hour.” She punched off.

                        Stone called the Farm Street house again. Erica answered.

                        “Are you all right?” he asked.

                        “I’ve had three double espressos, but I’m still a little fuzzy around the edges.”

                        “Write down this number,” Stone said, and gave her his cellphone number. “If Lance should call, tell him I called and want to speak to him urgently. When he hangs up, you call me immediately.”

                        “What’s going on, Stone?” Erica asked.

                        “I’m not sure,” he said, “but don’t leave the house; stick by the phone.”

                        “All right,” she replied.

                        Stone hung up. “Should I call her back and have her check the office in the wine cellar?”

                        “Don’t bother,” Carpenter said. “It isn’t Cabot’s office.”

                        Stone looked at her. “Then whose is it?”

                        “It belongs to the owner of the house,” she said. “He’s one of ours.”

                        “Why would Lance rent a house from one of your people?”

                        “He doesn’t know. We’ve been keeping track of Cabot ever since he arrived in London last year. He was followed to an estate agent’s, where he was looking for houses to rent, and we, in effect, made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. The rent and the location were irresistible.”

                        “Who shot the two Israelis?”

                        “Not our people; maybe Stan Hedger.”

                        “Why?”

                        “He may have read them as a threat to Cabot, and he didn’t want anything to happen to Cabot, at least not yet.”

                        “This is way too complicated for me,” Stone said.

                        “Then don’t try to figure it out.”

                        “Makes perfect sense to me,” Dino chipped in from the backseat.

                        “What does?”

                        “The whole thing. Hedger hires you to look into Cabot because he’s afraid if he uses his own people Cabot will figure it out, because, having been one of them, he knows how they operate. Cabot researches you, figures you were telling the truth when you said you were no longer working for Hedger.”

                        “I did tell the truth,” Stone said. “Eventually.”

                        “Yeah. Once Cabot thinks you’re not working for Hedger, he figures you for a mark.”

                        “God knows, that’s true.”

                        “The Israelis obviously want whatever Cabot is buying, and so does Hedger.”

                        “But the American government already has access to this technology, doesn’t it?” Stone asked Carpenter.

                        Carpenter looked momentarily uncomfortable. “Not necessarily,” she said.

                        Dino continued. “Makes even more sense,” he said. “The Brits build this . . . thing . . . and they don’t share their little secret with the Americans, so Hedger and his people are pissed off.”

                        “But why me?” Stone asked.

                        “You’re not some unknown person,” Dino said. “You get your name in the papers now and then. That’s probably how you came to Hedger’s attention—that, or your old professor buddy down at NYU dropped your name on somebody he used to know.”

                        “And who would the professor be?” Carpenter asked.

                        “Samuel Bernard,” Stone replied. “He was one of my professors in law school.”

                        “That bloke is a bloody legend,” she said, wonder in her voice.

                        “I knew he had a lot of connections, but I didn’t know he qualified as a legend.”

                        “He was offered the directorship of central intelligence at one time; turned it down and went to NYU, but word is, he kept his hand in. Once you’ve been at that level in the agency, you don’t just get put out to pasture.” She whipped off the motorway, made a left, drove another half a mile, and turned onto a smaller road, keeping her speed at what Stone figured was about twenty miles an hour more than the car was capable of on that road.

                        Stone hung onto the door handle and tried not to look at the winding black tarmac rushing at him. Dino, on the other hand, seemed perfectly awake.

                        “Looks like everybody knows what’s going on here except you, Stone,” he said.

                        “Oh, I think you’ve explained it to him very well, Dino,” Carpenter said, whipping around a hairpin turn. “You missed your calling; you’re wasted as a policeman.”

                        “Don’t you believe it,” Dino replied. “I wouldn’t get mixed up in your business for anything. You can never trust anybody.”

                        “Not a bad policy,” she replied. “Is it any better on the NYPD?”

                        “Marginally,” Dino said.

                        “Where are we going?” Stone asked.

                        “Right up there,” Carpenter replied. They had emerged from a stand of trees onto an open, rolling plain with few trees. Ahead of them a mile or so, at a crossroads, was a three-story stone building, which got larger fast. Carpenter skidded into the parking lot, which was nearly full, and got out of the car. “Come on,” she said.

                        Stone saw two men on a ladder stringing a cable from a utility pole on the road to a corner of the building. He looked at the sign: THE BREWER’S ARMS, it read. He followed Carpenter inside.