Lance took a seat and crossed his legs. He was casually dressed in a tweed jacket and tan trousers, looking for all the world like a resident of New York, out for a walk and a cup of coffee.
“Can I get you some coffee?” Stone asked.
“Thanks, but your secretary provided that, in spite of her suspicions.”
“What brings you to New York, Lance?”
“I live here now, a few blocks uptown.”
Stone’s jaw dropped. “Aren’t you a fugitive? Is that why you’re here, looking for a lawyer?”
Lance shook his head. “I’m not a fugitive, and I don’t need a lawyer, at least for myself.”
“For someone else?”
“Maybe, but not just yet.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m baffled by all this. I thought you were being sought by every intelligence agency and police department in Europe, not to mention your own former people.”
“They’re not former,” Lance said. He fished a wallet out of his pocket and handed it to Stone.
Stone found himself staring at a CIA ID card, complete with photograph. “How long have you had this back?”
“I always had it,” Lance said. “Let me explain. When Hedger hired you—”
“Hedger was CIA, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, he was, but he was led to believe that I had gone rogue. That’s why he was looking for me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s complicated. I was sent over there to . . . well, ostensibly to acquire a British invention, a piece of military hardware, you will recall, and sell it to a Middle Eastern country—Iraq, as it happens.”
“The CIA wanted you to steal British military hardware and sell it to Saddam Hussein?”
“Yes. Well, not really. You see, Hedger wanted the hardware, too, ostensibly for our nuclear weapons program. He really wanted it to help him regain the Agency’s high regard, in which he had formerly been held.”
“This is very confusing: The Agency had two agents trying to steal the hardware, working at cross-purposes?”
“Now you’ve got it.”
“And you were supposed to sell it to Saddam Hussein?”
“Yes, and I did, but not before it had been modified to make it useless. It needed the right software, too, and he didn’t have that, but by that time, I had his money and was gone. You got a very nice slice of those funds, too. What did you do with the money?”
“I paid the taxes on it and invested the rest, as my accountant recommended.”
“Good,” Lance said. “Just what I would have done.”
“Lance, it worries me to think I did what you would have done.”
Lance laughed. “You have nothing to worry about, Stone. You’re clean as a whistle.”
“Does your agency know that I was paid the money?”
“Of course. I had a little trouble convincing them, but after I had repeatedly pointed out how valuable you had been to us, they agreed.”
“But I was supposed to be helping the British.”