• • •

Nineteen minutes later, Holly walked into the room, undressing as she came. “I’ve still got my key,” she said. “Hope that’s okay.” She dived into bed and kissed him.

“It’s more than okay.”

“The Times is going to have to wait,” she said, climbing on top of him and kissing him wetly.

“We can always read the Times,” Stone said. “We can’t always do this.”

She eased him inside her. “It’s the nation’s fault,” she said, then sucked in a breath.

“That’s it,” Stone replied, sucking in his own breath as he went deep. “Blame the country for your absences.”

They both stopped talking and concentrated on the activity at hand. They both went off at exactly the same time as the bell on the dumbwaiter.

“I’ll play waitress,” Holly said, hopping off him and running for the tray.

Stone put her bed up to match his, and they dug in.

“Helene makes the most heavenly hollandaise sauce,” Holly said. “I’d ask her for the recipe, but I don’t intend to cook ever again. We have a very decent restaurant at the New York station, you know.” Holly was CIA station chief in New York. “You must come to lunch sometime.”

“Well, I do have the security clearance for it,” Stone replied. “Someday when neither Mike Freeman nor Bill Eggers is inviting me to his table at the Four Seasons, I’ll take you up on it. Do they serve Dover sole?”

“On occasion,” Holly said. “I never make requests, because I’d get blamed for ordering expensive food. It’s more like comfort food.”

“Dover sole is comfort food for me.”

“Yeah, but you’re a multi-zillionaire these days.”

“Not my fault,” Stone said. “I didn’t lift a finger to earn a penny of it.”

“What’s it like being that rich?”

“It’s a combination of a joy and a heavy burden. I’m Peter’s trustee, too, so I have to spend quite a bit of time husbanding money and getting it to reproduce.”

“What have you bought that you didn’t already have?”

“Let’s see. A car . . .”

“What kind of car?”

“I’ll show you later. And a house.”

“Where?”

Stone pointed to his right.

“How far?”

“Less than a stone’s throw.”

“You mean the house next door?”

“Right. Joan found out the people were selling. She had a look at it, found it newly renovated and decorated, and suggested I buy it and turn it into staff quarters.”

“Which means Joan is living next door?”

“Right. And Helene, and Frederic.”

“Who the hell is Frederic?”

“The butler.”

“You have a butler? Ye gods!”

“He was a gift, actually.”

“Somebody gave you a butler?”

“My French friend, Marcel duBois. For a year. After that, Fred and I negotiate, if we’re both happy. He’s a wonder, and he and Helene have formed an attachment and are sharing an apartment. Then there’s Joan’s apartment and a very nice guest duplex. Plus, we broke through the wall and enlarged the garage and the wine cellar.”

“So that’s all you bought?”

“Well, there is the new jet.”

Holly howled with laughter. “I knew it. I knew you’d go nuts!”

“I didn’t go nuts. I would have ordered the airplane anyway. It’s a new model from Cessna, a Citation M2, and a nice step up from the Mustang—faster, better range, a little larger. I gave the Mustang to Peter.”

“When do you take delivery?”

“End of September. I have to go to school for two weeks. Say, I get two training slots. You want to spend two weeks in Wichita with me, learning to fly it?” Holly already had an airplane of her own and a couple of thousand hours.

“God knows, I’ve got vacation time coming. Give me the dates and I’ll see what I can do. What girl could resist two weeks in Wichita?”

“I warn you, it’s going to be hard work. The simulator isn’t an airplane, it’s more like a computer game, I’m told.”

“It would be a vacation for me.”

Stone got up and put the tray back on the dumbwaiter and sent it downstairs, then he jumped back into bed. “This is a vacation for me,” he said, burying his face in her lap.

“Happy vacation,” she said, lying back.

14

Stone sucked in a breath and clenched his teeth as Holly took a curve on the Sawmill River Parkway. “Jeez, Holly, you hit a hundred and twenty for a second there, and I don’t think a CIA ID is going to get you out of being arrested by a state trooper.”

“What is this thing?” Holly asked, slowing down slightly.

“It’s a Blaise, a new French car made by my Parisian friend.”

“It’s like flying,” she said.

Stone wished for dual controls.

“I think I read about this in the Times, didn’t I? Doesn’t it cost something like four hundred grand?”

“Something like that, but I got a deal, less than two hundred and fifty thousand.”

“I’ve never driven anything like it. What’s the horsepower?”

“Six hundred,” Stone said, “and you’re using every one of them at the moment.” He was pressed back into his seat as she accelerated again. He put a hand on her arm. “Please, I don’t think my heart can take any more.”

“Oh, all right,” she said, touching the brakes and bringing it down to eighty. “What’s the speed limit out here, anyway?”

“Fifty-five.”

“That’s a crime, a beautiful drive like this!”

“Here’s an idea,” Stone said. “Why don’t you call a security alert and get the road closed for a couple of hours? Then you can come out here—without me—and become part of a large tree.”

“You’re such a wuss, Stone.”

“What’s a wuss? I’m confused.”

“Something between a nerd and a 1955 square.”

“I’m still confused.”

“Of course you are, that’s why you’re a wuss.”

• • •

They got back into Stone’s garage without killing anybody, but Stone still felt a little queasy.

“You want to watch the Lees on 60 Minutes?” Holly asked, handing him back the keys.

“Just as soon as I’ve had a bourbon and Alka-Seltzer.”

• • •

They ordered a pizza and ate it in bed, naked. Stone switched on the program and was surprised to see the Lees in comfortable armchairs, wearing sweaters and jeans. A fire crackled in the fireplace behind them. Lesley Stahl was doing the interviewing.

“First question,” Stahl said: “Why did you two want to do this live, instead of on tape?”

“Because this way we get to edit ourselves, instead of having you do it for us,” Will said, getting a laugh from Kate.

“I want the camera to pan around and give our viewers a look at the family quarters of the White House,” Stahl said, “because it’s so rarely seen.” The camera followed her orders, revealing cozy furniture, bookcases, and even a bar. “Does the bar get used often?” she asked.

“Not as often as Will would like,” Kate said, “but now that I’m a lady of leisure, I let him make me a martini before dinner.”

“I envy her out-of-workness,” Will said, “and I’m looking forward to experiencing that myself.”

“So that you can drink more martinis?” Stahl asked.

“I’m a Southerner, a bourbon drinker.”

“What’s your brand?”

“I won’t answer that until I’m a free man and can get paid for it. Let’s just say that I enjoy giving the state of Kentucky a little business now and then.”

“Let’s go back a couple of weeks and look at a bit of videotape from our New York affiliate,” Stahl said.

The shot was of Will leaving the Blue Note, claiming ignorance of whom Kate was dining with.

“Mrs. Lee, can you enlighten us? With whom were you dining?”

“If I told you, then he would know,” she said, pointing at Will.

“I’ve heard that it was a gathering of twenty prominent Americans,” Stahl said. “Come on, tell us who?”

“I can’t remember that many names,” Kate said. “Can’t a lady throw a party now and then?”