Paris Match(75)

            “Yeah, well . . .”

            “I can just see Lance explaining it to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.”

            “Let’s hope that’s not necessary. Surely the Senate doesn’t want to hear about every fender bender in the CIA budget.”

            “I’m sure that’s the position he’ll take, should it come up. Are you going to need a ride back to New York?”

            “I’d like that very much, and Lance would like it, too. He’s advised me to decamp.”

            “I have to be back in New York for a big meeting the day after the opening, so we’re planning wheels up afterward, at one A.M. That do you?”

            “That do me fine, thanks. Is there room for Holly, should she want to decamp, too?”

            “Sure. Leave your packed bags in your suite, and someone will collect them and put them on the airplane. You may want a bag in the cabin so that you can change out of your evening clothes.”

            “We’ll mark one for that.”

            “If you see Lance, tell him there’s room for him, too.”

            “I’ll do that.”

            “Stone, it’s important for my security arrangements that neither you nor Marcel step outside the hotel at any time that evening, not even the courtyard where the cars arrive.”

            “I will cooperate.”

            “Something else: Marcel had sent invitations to the Chance family, and they R.S.V.P.’d this morning: the old man won’t be there, but Jacques and Mirabelle accepted.”

            “You astonish me.”

            “It astonished me, too. Part of my rethinking of the security arrangements is concerned with protecting you from Jacques.”

            “Do your arrangements involve a metal detector?”

            “Of course.”

            “Then I don’t think I’ll have anything to worry about.”

            “Nevertheless.”

            “Oh, all right.”

            “See you there.” Mike hung up.





                     41


            Holly breezed in a little after six. “Hey, there!” she said, giving him a wet kiss.

            “You’re late,” Stone said. “I was about to start without you.”

            “Then I would have had you liquidated, beating the Russians to it.”

            “Martini?”

            “How’d you guess? Hurry up!”

            Stone hurried, then handed her the chilled glass and poured himself a Knob Creek.

            Holly sank into the living room sofa and kicked off her shoes. Her skirt was up around her thighs, and Stone pretended not to notice.

            “I’m bushed,” Holly said.

            “That is not my recollection,” Stone replied.

            Holly laughed. “Touché,” she said.

            “I have a very good memory for these things.”

            “It remembers you, too,” she said.

            His hand drifted to her thigh.