Paris Match(103)

                     56


            Stone said to Lance, “Mind if I sit in on your conversation?”

            “Ordinarily, I wouldn’t mind,” Lance said, “but I think Mr. Majorov is likely to be more forthcoming if it’s just the two of us.” He strode over to Majorov, took him by the arm, and marched him up the airstair into the Gulfstream.

            “Well,” Holly said, “that was almost exciting.”

            “Don’t complain—nobody got hurt,” Stone said. They stood around for a few minutes watching Rick’s men go through the passengers’ pockets and luggage, and apparently not finding anything worth their attention.

            Then a white truck rolled into the hangar. Two men in white coveralls got out and produced a tire, a toolbox, and a tank of compressed nitrogen.

            “That was fast,” Stone said. “I once had to replace a tire and it took half a day.”

            “Gulfstreams get better service than Mustangs, I suppose,” Holly replied.

            The two mechanics went to work changing the tire. They jacked up the front of the airplane, removed the wheel, removed the tire from the wheel, then worked the new tire onto the rim. That done, they inflated it with nitrogen, bolted it onto the airplane, and departed in their truck.

            “Wow,” Stone said.

            Lance appeared in the doorway of the airplane and beckoned to Rick, who ran up the stairs and conferred with his boss. For a moment, he seemed to disagree with Lance, but Lance seemed to speak firmly to him, and he backed down. He started back down the stairs, but Lance stopped him with a word. Rick took something small from a pocket, handed it to Lance, then continued down the stairs. He had a few words with his men, and they began, rather haphazardly, repacking the passenger luggage, then reloading it, under the direction of one of the pilots.

            Then, to Stone’s astonishment, Rick’s men began cutting the plastic ties from the passengers’ wrists, and they all reboarded the aircraft.

            Lance reappeared without Majorov, came down the stairs and had a word with the pilot, who got on his phone, then handed Rick his pocketknife. Lance came over to Stone and Holly. “Let’s get out of here,” he said, and waved to the van’s driver, who drove into the hangar.

            The FBO’s tow tractor reappeared, hooked up to the aircraft, and began rolling it out of the hangar. Someone inside the airplane retracted the airstair and locked the door.

            “Lance, what’s going on?” Stone asked.

            “Into the van, both of you, if you please.”

            Stone and Holly climbed into the van. When Stone took a breath to protest, Holly squeezed his knee and shook her head.

            From outside came the sounds of jet engines spooling up; lights at the Gulfstream’s wingtips began to flash, and a red beacon at the top of the tail began to rotate. The airplane began to move toward a taxiway.

            “Lance,” Stone said, “where are Michel Chance and his gendarmes?”

            “Asleep in their beds, I should think,” Lance replied.

            The van stopped on a taxiway for a moment, then, with a very loud roar, the Gulfstream rolled past them down the runway and left the ground.

            Stone was angry. “What the hell just happened?”

            “What just happened,” Lance replied, “was that a solution to a very sticky problem was negotiated to the satisfaction of nearly everyone involved.”

            Stone was flabbergasted.

            “I think, Stone, that you and your business partners will not be hearing from or dealing with Yevgeny Majorov or his friends again, and they will make no attempt to enforce the agreement you signed. Oh, by the way, may I have that banker’s check for thirty million dollars that Jacques Chance gave you?”