“I reasoned that if the clock would set off the device, maybe disabling it would stop it from going off.”
“And that worked?”
“While you were still . . . indisposed, I asked the bomb chief about that, and he said the chances were about fifty-fifty that it worked.”
“So you might have made it go off early?”
“Four seconds early. Fortunately, Mike Freeman arrived with a key from the bomb found in his surveillance room, and that worked, too.”
“All right,” she said, “I promise never to communicate what happened here to anybody, ever.”
“That would be best for you,” Stone said. “No one would corroborate your story. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, the presidents of the United States and Mexico had a highly successful conference, resulting in a comprehensive new security treaty between the two countries, and The Arrington had a hugely successful opening that went incredibly smoothly, without a single hiccup. The concert, too. Be sure and mention in your piece how much you enjoyed Immi Gotham’s encore with Hattie Patrick at the piano.”
—
The following morning, Stone sat in the jump seat of the Gulfstream 550 and watched the takeoff. Twenty minutes later they were at forty thousand feet, headed east with a hundred-knot tailwind.
Stone looked out through the windshield at the clearly etched landscape of the Mojave Desert, dead ahead. “Severe clear,” he heard the captain say. “I love that.”
I love that, too, Stone said to himself, then he got up and went back to join his friends for brunch and champagne. He took a seat next to Holly Barker.
“Congratulations on a successful opening,” she said. “I’m sure the hotel will do well.”
“Mort, the executive director, told me they’re sold out for months ahead,” Stone said. “I think that you and I can both take some pleasure in the fact that your people and mine did a fine job.”
“I saw the president and the first lady this morning, before they left for the airport,” she said, “and both of them expressed their extreme satisfaction with how things went. They asked me to thank you for your part in it.”
“Sometimes everything goes right,” Stone said.