“I never doubted it for a moment.”
She left again.
Stone got out his cell phone and called Marcel duBois. He was connected immediately.
“Hello, Stone.”
“Marcel,” Stone said, “I have just been compelled, under duress, to sign away my ownership in the Arrington hotels. Or at least, I think that’s what I signed—it was in French.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Stone, as I have just done the same thing, and under duress, as well.”
“Are you safe now?”
“I believe so.”
“Then call your attorney, explain things to him, and have him take every legal action to stop the sale. And don’t cash the check.”
“Stone,” Marcel said, “I don’t know if that is the right thing to do.”
“Marcel, right or wrong, it is the only thing to do.”
“They have made very serious threats.”
“Ignore them. I’ll call Mike Freeman and have you removed to a safe place at once.”
Marcel sighed. “All right, Stone, if you insist,” Marcel replied. “But I am very much afraid that you and I are out of the hotel business.”
“We’ll see about that,” Stone said.
52
Stone called Yves Carrier at the Paris Woodman & Weld office and explained what had happened. “I should tell you that I signed the papers ‘Steve Ballington.’”
Carrier laughed loudly. “Nevertheless, I will take immediate steps to stop any transfer of title to the company in every country in Europe. You should have the New York office stop transfer in the United States. Someone might not notice the discrepancy in the signatures.”
Stone hung up and called Bill Eggers, the managing partner in New York, and brought him up to date.
“I can’t imagine how they think they can get away with that,” Eggers said. “Whatever you do, don’t cash the check.”
“Right,” Stone said. He hung up and called Mike Freeman and asked him to reinforce Marcel’s security. “That’s twice they’ve gotten to Marcel,” he said. “You’ve got to move him.”
“I don’t have a safe house at my disposal,” Freeman said.
“Then bring him to me here,” Stone said. “There’s plenty of room. We’ll need more security, though. Jacques Chance has already gotten into the house.”
“I’ll send people at once. What’s the address?”
Stone gave it to him, then hung up the phone. He called Rick LaRose and told him what had happened.
“I don’t understand how Chance got past my people,” Rick said. “Hang on while I call them.”
Stone hung on impatiently.
Rick came back on the line. “No answer. Something’s wrong.”
“No kidding? What happened to the men who were supposed to be on the roof?”
“They weren’t due there for another hour.”
“Mike Freeman is sending people. See that yours don’t shoot his.” He hung up, then Holly called.
“Rick told me what happened. It’s partly my fault.”
“Which part?”
“I put a sleeping pill in your orange juice at breakfast. I was concerned about you, and I thought more sleep would help.”
“Thank you for your concern—the pill worked all too well.”
“I’ll be there as soon as possible,” she said. “Hang on a minute.” She covered the phone and spoke to someone. “Our two men on the gate were taken out with a dart gun. They’re still unconscious in a car outside your gate.”
“Great.”
“Rick has replacements on the way.”
“Mike Freeman is sending people, too. He’s having Marcel brought here. I’ll put him in one of the upstairs rooms.”
“Just hang on until everybody gets there. Be ready to shoot anybody who won’t identify himself properly.”
“I hope I can get out of this without killing somebody,” Stone said. “That could keep me in France for weeks, while it’s being investigated.”
“I hope that doesn’t happen, but it’s preferable to having you killed.”
“I’ll go along with that,” Stone said. He hung up and pulled his chair near the window and peeked past the curtain, so he could see into the mews, the pistol Rick had given him in his hand.
—
HOLLY ARRIVED half an hour later with reinforcements and oversaw the placement of her people. “They’re on the roof here and across the street. There are two men just inside the gates, and they’ll all be replaced in shifts.”
Mike Freeman arrived with Marcel duBois in tow, carrying a small suitcase, and Stone took him upstairs in the elevator and got him settled in, then he went back downstairs. Lance Cabot was seated before the fireplace.
“How the hell did you get to Paris so fast, Lance?”
“I never left,” Lance replied.
“So when I called you, you were in Paris?”
“My phone works everywhere, Stone.”
“Of course it does.”
“I’ve just come from a meeting with Prefect Chance.”
“Jacques?”
“His father, Michel. He is extremely embarrassed about the conduct of his son. He says he has not been able to find him or speak to him since the newspaper revelations of his selling out to the Russians. He is determined to see Jacques in prison.”
“The old man is not going to be of much use to you, is he? In the circumstances?”
“I hope I talked him out of resigning. We need someone we know in that office, until this business is resolved. The good news is, because of the revelations about Jacques in the papers, Yevgeny Majorov is now a fugitive in France. Michel has put his best people on the search for him.”
“What about Jacques? Is he a fugitive, too?”
“Yes, but not officially. Michel just wants him detained before he hurts someone. He was shocked at the news of Jacques’s visit with you today.”
“Not as shocked as I was,” Stone said.
“Well,” Mike said, “it seems that we have a virtual army on our side now. I hope the French police can prevent Majorov from leaving the country.”
“That’s more than my people can do,” Lance said. “We’re now in a situation where we have to rely on the French. I had hoped to avoid that.”
“I don’t want to avoid it,” Stone said. “I want Majorov and Jacques in custody.”
Marcel came into the room. “I was thinking, perhaps we should issue a statement to the press about what has happened—perhaps even hold a press conference.”
Lance shook his head. “It’s not a good idea for Stone’s name to appear in the press,” he said.
“I don’t mind, if it will help find Majorov,” Stone replied.
“You’re forgetting our election at home,” Lance said. “Your name has already been linked to Kate’s in the press once, she doesn’t need that happening again at this late date.”
“Of course, you’re right,” Stone said. “I guess I’m not thinking very clearly.”
“All you can do now, Stone, is just hunker down here until Majorov pops up somewhere, and the French can lay hands on him.”
Stone knew he was right, but he didn’t like it.
53
Stone woke with a jerk; he had been dreaming, but he couldn’t remember what, except that it was very important. He tried to go back to sleep to regain his dream, but an image popped into his head that kept him awake. It was something he had seen back in Los Angeles, at his son Peter’s hangar at Santa Monica Airport.
Stone sat up in bed. The image was of a Gulfstream jet, the one that Yuri Majorov, Yevgeny’s brother, had later died in. There was something unusual about it, something that made it different from other Gulfstreams, but he couldn’t get it straight in his mind. It was a symbol something like the old USSR crossed hammer and sickle, but not quite; something was different about it. He swung his feet onto the floor and sat on the edge of the bed, trying to re-create the scene in his mind. He was standing by the open hangar door when the Gulfstream taxied past him, headed for the terminal building. The symbol was painted on the engine nacelle, so it was directly in his line of sight as the airplane passed him. It was in red paint. What was more, he had seen it somewhere recently.