“What else did Stan tell you about me?”
“He told me of your former, ah, business connection. He told me about the explosion in Cairo, in which, he believes, you were complicit.”
“Ungrateful bastard,” Lance said. “I saved his life, you know. I was about to walk into the building when it blew, knocking me down, and I dragged him out of the ruins, unconscious, and got him to a hospital.”
“Did you think he was dead?”
“That’s what I was told the following day. Then, last year, he turned up at a dinner party in Paris, where I was also a guest. Quite a surprise, I can tell you.”
“I can imagine. Why does Hedger want you in jail?”
“He doesn’t want me in jail; he wants me dead. It would be easy to arrange, of course, if he could get me into a jail; then he could hire somebody to put a shiv in my liver.”
“Why wouldn’t it be easy to make you dead?”
“Because I know too much about him, and he doesn’t know who else I’ve told. For all he knows, there’s a neat little manuscript tied up with red ribbon, waiting in a safe-deposit box at my bank.”
“Is there?”
“Too bloody right there is.”
“Then it’s ironic that he wants you dead for the very same reasons he can’t afford to kill you.”
Lance grinned broadly, the first time Stone had ever seen him do so. “I like the paradox,” he said.
“Tell me some of what you know—not enough for Hedger to want me dead, of course. How does he operate?”
“Oh, Stan manages to use his official connections to arrange unofficial profits for himself.”
“Funny, that’s what he said about you.”
“I use every connection at my disposal,” Lance said readily. “The difference is, I waited until I had left our mutual employer to use them, whereas Stan is still employed and using his contacts to the hilt. There are rules about that.”
“But if you haven’t already made his activities known to his employer, why would you now?”
“That’s what worries Stan, apparently. Personally, I don’t give a shit what he does to make a buck, as long as it doesn’t endanger my own prospects. What Stan fears is that, in competing with him in business, I might turn him in, to get him out of the way. He could end up in prison if I did, you know. At the very least, he’d be bounced out of his job, and without any pension or benefits. He’s only a few years away from retirement, and he wants all that, in addition to the illicit wealth he’s accumulated over the years.”
“These activities have made him rich, then?”
“Not rich enough for Stan’s liking,” Lance replied. “I think he wants to live like a potentate when he retires.”
“Is there that much to be made?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me.”
“How much do you know about Stan?”
“I’ve learned that he was something of a wild man in the Company, at least in his youth, and that at least some of his superiors didn’t trust him.”
“That’s accurate information,” Lance said, “as far as it goes.”
“It’s about all I know, so far,” Stone said.
“All right, I’ll tell you about Stan.”
Stone leaned forward, eager to learn.
Chapter 26
LANCE CABOT GOT UP AND LED STONE into the library, then settled into a leather sofa, inviting Stone to join him.
“What about the ladies?” Stone asked.
“They’re in the drawing room nattering away,” Lance said. “If they want us, they’ll hunt us down.” He had brought the decanter with him, and he refreshed Stone’s port glass and his own.
Stone waited patiently for him to begin.
“Stanford Hedger got out of Yale in the early sixties,” he said, “and he went straight into the Company, having been recruited well before graduation by a professor who later recruited me. It was a good time to join up; he was just completing his training when the Cuban invasion came along—hadn’t had a posting yet, so he couldn’t be blamed for what happened at the Bay of Pigs. But a lot of his superiors were blamed, and a lot of them left the Company, leaving an unusual amount of room for early promotion. Stan was good at languages; he had French, Russian, German, and more than a smattering of Arabic. Later he came by Hebrew, which impressed the Israelis. He was still at the military language school in Monterey, California, when the Bay of Pigs invasion came to grief. It’s a wonderful school; they teach you things like perfect military German or Russian, the idea being that when they got ready to put somebody over a border, he’d blend in.