Stone embraced Holly and kissed her.

“Mmm,” she said, “you make me sorry I’m not staying the night.”

“Anytime,” Stone said. “What can I get you to drink?”

“I seem to recall vodka gimlets being constantly on hand.”

He poured her one and himself a Knob Creek, then he sat down beside her on the sofa. “So, what is Major Rattle running from?”

Holly took a deep breath and started. “While you were in England a few weeks ago, dealing with your own problems, like the destruction of your airplane, I—and especially Millie Martindale—were dealing with an entirely different kind of problem that you were not a party to.”

“I recall being asked to leave Felicity Devonshire’s dinner table, along with the ladies, so that Millie and Rattle could brief the prime minister and half his Cabinet on something important.”

“It certainly was something important. They were dealing with a group who were planning to simultaneously assassinate the prime minister and the president.”

“Good God!”

“I recall using those exact words when I learned about it.”

“Did the attempt take place? If it did, I certainly heard nothing about it.”

“It did, and it was rather brilliantly nipped in the bud in an operation that was conducted on both sides of the Atlantic, and it was kept very, very quiet. The problem began after the culprits were taken—diplomats in D.C. and London, a pair of them twins. They were declared persona non grata in both countries and shipped back to their home country—a tiny Arabian sultanate called Dahai—in one of the sultan’s fleet of jets, escorted by British and American jet fighters. Nearly all the way.”

“Nearly?”

“The fighter pilots were ordered to break off the escort once the jet was over the Arabian Sea. At that point, Lance Cabot took it upon himself to intervene.”

“Intervene how?”

“I was assigned by the president to investigate the incident, and I managed to get an admission out of Lance that he called the CIA station head in neighboring Yemen and suggested that he might prevail upon the head of an organization called Freedom for Dahai, who oppose the sultan, to station some men on the beach near the approach end of the runway, equipped with a Russian-made, shoulder-fired, laser-guided ground-to-air missile.”

“With what result?”

“The jet was blown out of the sky, a couple of miles out to sea, killing all aboard. Freedom for Dahai then issued a statement, claiming responsibility for the event.”

“Well, that was all neatly tied up, wasn’t it?”

“From Lance’s point of view, yes. He was doing what he believed the president would do, while giving her airtight deniability. From MI6’s point of view, however, things got messy fairly quickly.”

“How?”

“The twins aboard the jet were said to be the sons of the sultan by a member of his harem, and the third diplomat was the sultan’s nephew. Somebody in Dahai intelligence got wind of Ian Rattle’s involvement—he led the team that squelched the assassination attempt in London, extracted the twins, and shipped them back to Dahai. There were subsequently two attempts on Ian’s life in England—one in London and one at what was thought by MI6 to be a safe house in the country. Both narrowly failed, and Felicity thought it advisable that he be spirited out of the country and made to vanish, until they could track down the leak in MI6 and make England safe for him again. They smuggled him aboard a diplomatic flight out of an RAF base, and he landed at Dulles this morning. The Agency transferred him to my custody for the flight to Teterboro. Now here we are, and you can blame me.”

“Why would I do that?”

“I knew about the security upgrades to this house that the Agency undertook when you were experiencing difficulties with a Russian mob a while back, and it was my suggestion to the president that yours would be a perfect safe house.”

“I’m flattered that you thought of me, and, of course, I’m glad to have Ian as a guest for as long as this takes.”

“I knew you would be gracious, Stone, that’s the other reason I recommended you. MI6 is now going through an autoproctological examination more extensive than anything since they were trying to root out the Soviet mole Kim Philby in the late fifties and early sixties. In that instance, they knew who the culprit was, but they couldn’t prove it. In this case, they’re starting from scratch.”

“As I recall, the Philby effort ended badly.”

“Right. They were unable to get a confession and unable to produce other than circumstantial evidence against him, and he was cleared by a Foreign Office and parliamentary investigation. They satisfied their betters by booting him out of MI6. A decade later, after things had cooled off, the service took Philby on again as a freelancer in Beirut, where he remained until they got some more evidence. His best friend extracted a confession from him, then looked the other way, so that Philby could escape to Moscow, where he lived the last twenty years of his life as a celebrated nobody.”

“Has MI6’s investigation produced a suspect?”

“If so, they haven’t shared that information with me. Understandably, Dame Felicity is playing her cards very close to her lovely chest.”

“Is Millie in any danger in all this?”

“We don’t think so, but nevertheless, precautions have been taken. I thought of shipping her up here, too, but I’m not sure she would be entirely safe in your house.” Her lip curled a bit.

“That was a very unattractive smirk.”

“I should have said, safe from Ian Rattle.”

“Had they been an item when she was in London?”

“No. In fact, she had an FBI beau during the operation, and she continues to see him. However, Ian has a reputation as a ‘bit of a lad,’ as the Brits like to put it, so why complicate things by shutting them up here together?”

“I can see how that might complicate.”

“Which brings me to ask, whom have you paired him with for dinner this evening?”

“Her name is Caroline Woodhouse. She’s a graphic designer at an ad agency and very attractive. I have a feeling that she and Ian might find each other interesting.”

“Stone, forgive me for saying so, but it sounds as though you might be looking to turn Ms. Woodhouse’s attentions away from you.”

Stone was groping for a reply to that when the doorbell rang. “Ah, my guests,” he said, rising.

The group was too large for Stone’s study, so they had drinks in the living room. Fred poured the champagne and the drinks and by the time the last guests, Herbie Fisher and his beautiful new girlfriend, Heather, arrived the party had upshifted from cordiality to conviviality, though nobody was wearing a lamp shade yet.

At the stroke of eight o’clock, Fred rang the silver dinner gong that Stone had found at a shop in the King’s Road, London, some years before, and the guests began looking for their place cards. Stone had put Ian Rattle and Caroline at the far end of the table from where he sat with Holly on his right and Heather to his left. For insurance, in case Caroline did not find Ian sufficiently attractive, he had placed Herbie on her other side.

“What brings you to New York, Ian?” Bill Eggers asked.

“Oh, a bit of housekeeping at our UN embassy,” Ian replied smoothly. “Very boring, but periodically necessary.”