“The director will be very pleased, Lance. I think you just got a leg up on replacing her.”
“That would be nice,” Lance said. “Good night.”
“Good night.”
—
Holly hung up, walked across the room, and whispered in Kate Lee’s ear. “It’s done,” she said. “A clean sweep in both New York and Dubai.”
“And the aftermath?”
“The bodies in New York are en route to our morgue for postmortem, our man in Dubai is clear.”
“You know,” Kate said, “I think that this is the most exciting night of my life that I’ll never be able to talk about. I’ll tell the president. You go thank everybody for me.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Holly said, and left the cottage.
60
Stone Barrington sat in the study of his cottage at The Arrington, a brandy snifter in his hand. Kelli Keane sat in the chair opposite him; there was a snifter in her hand, too.
“How are you feeling?” Stone asked.
“Much better, thanks. You’re going to ask me not to write about this, aren’t you?”
“I’m going to ask you not to breathe it to a living soul, magazine, news service, publisher, or TV news station for as long as you live. If you can’t accept that, then others will ask you, and less politely.”
Kelli held up a hand. “I know, I know. Can I ask some questions?”
“I don’t have all the answers,” Stone replied, “but I’ll do the best I can.”
“When did you—and those other people, the Secret Service and all—know about the nuclear thing?”
“Not until the moment you mentioned the trunk,” Stone said. “There had been some very slight indications that something was afoot, but not enough to alter what was happening here for the past couple of days. A thorough search for something as big as a trunk had been conducted, but it seems that the trunk was brought from an airport to The Arrington in a hotel vehicle and deposited in McCallister’s suite without the knowledge of the bell captain, who keeps a log of every piece of luggage brought into the hotel.”
“Did the explosion at Santa Monica Airport have anything to do with this?”
“Yes. There were indications of three bombs: one was found by Rifkin’s people in a liquor storage room yesterday. The chief bartender has been arrested in connection with that. A second was found by Mike Freeman in the Strategic Services security monitoring room, and one of his people arrested. The police found a car door at Santa Monica Airport, a hundred yards from the scene of the explosion, that had an Arrington logo painted on it. A hotel employee had checked out the car, and it’s thought that he detonated the third bomb, perhaps accidentally.”
“What happened to Hamish McCallister?”
“His flight was directed to land at Kennedy, ostensibly for refueling because of headwinds, but Hamish must have become suspicious, because he ran from the airplane to a waiting car driven by his brother. It’s my understanding that they escaped the airport but were caught nearby and didn’t survive the encounter. Something similar happened to the man who built the bombs.”
“So all the bad guys are dead?”
“All except the two who were arrested, Wynken and Nod.”
“And they’re in jail?”
“Sort of,” Stone said.
“What does that mean?”
“I believe they’re en route to a secure facility. And that’s all I know about this.”
“Just one more question,” she said. “What made you shoot at the device with Dino’s gun?”