Stone was stunned. This had snuck up on him. He had been expecting something less. “Are you going to arrest them?” he asked Lance.
“That decision will be made at a level above my pay grade,” Lance replied.
“Lance,” Stone responded, “you are the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. There is no one above your pay grade.”
“My betters reside in the halls of government—committee chairmen and the like.”
Stone knew that “the like” included President Katharine Lee, and probably would have included Holly Barker, if she were still employed by the government, instead of campaigning in Iowa.
“Do the people aboard that yacht have any idea that you know what you know about them?” Stone asked.
“I hope to learn that tonight, after they’ve had a few drinks. If they do know, they’ll be scooped up before dawn. If not, we may release them into the wild and allow them to go on doing their work, albeit through filters placed by us in their stream of knowledge.”
Stone was surprised. “You mean you’d leave Mac McIntosh at State?”
“Mac and Laura McIntosh came to see me the other day,” Lance said. “If the decision is made to replace Mac at State, then a candidate—already agreed upon by Kate and Holly, if she’s elected—will fill the job and remain in it after the inauguration. Mac and Laura, on the other hand, will be provided with a cushy, sealed-off corner of the Agency where they can ply their trade with carefully sanitized intelligence that they can pass on to their superiors.”
“And if Holly loses?”
“By that time the McIntoshes will already be working for us, thanks to your little improvisation over lunch with them at the Grill.”
“What about Betty?” Stone asked.
“Betty will be allowed to go on doing what she has been doing, but under constant surveillance. Recruiting is one of her tasks. She recruited Peter Grant and the McIntoshes. We’ll see that she has opportunities to choose among a group of carefully vetted people, who will pass information to her that she will, of course, pass on to the GRU.”
“False information.”
“Let’s call it freshly laundered and ironed,” Lance said.
“But then there’s Vanessa,” Stone pointed out.
“What about her?”
“What will you do with her?”
Lance gave a little shrug. “Nothing. She and Betty were never in cahoots, and are estranged. You will let her know that it’s best for both her and her mother to remain so. After all, Vanessa has a business to run, and she will give the chop to her mother quite soon, probably asking you, as her attorney, to wield the axe.”
“Fine by me,” Stone said.
“Vanessa is never to know what happens here during the next twenty-four hours. Is that clear? The ‘never’ part, I mean.”
“It’s clear. And what part do I play in what happens tonight?”
“Your part is to take Vanessa to bed and exhaust her, so that she does not wake until the sun is high. You will be assisted in your task by this.” Lance reached into the watch pocket of his trousers and produced a tiny, zipped plastic envelope containing two small pills. “One in her drink will dissolve quickly. And in about twenty minutes, she’ll want to sleep.”
“What’s the other one for?” Stone asked.
“That’s for if one doesn’t quite do the trick—or, if it does, you can have it for yourself.”
“What is it?”
“A small dose of a common prescription sleeping pill, nothing dramatic.”
Stone tucked the envelope into his own watch pocket.
“I think you should take the pill in any case, Stone,” Lance said. “It will suppress your curiosity about tonight’s activities.”
“You don’t want me to know what happens?”
“It’s more that you don’t need to know,” Lance said. “What you don’t know can’t hurt you.”
“When is all this going to happen?”
“I’d like you and your party tucked up and asleep by midnight,” Lance said.
“And where will you be?”
“On your upper deck, sheltered in your larger tender, listening and recording. Discourage anyone who makes a move to go up there. There’ll be a man ashore with a sniper’s rifle, to make sure I’m not disturbed.”
“I’ll see to it that no one disturbs you.”
Lance handed him another little envelope with two more pills inside. “For Dino and Viv. Insist, if you have to.”
“Will you join us for dinner?”
“If all goes smoothly, yes, but don’t count on me.”
Dinner was a big pot of paella, made with the group’s catch of shellfish. Lance turned up just as they were finishing drinks.
“Nothing to drink for me,” Lance said. “I’m too hungry to drink.”
They moved to the dining table and took the lid off the pot, flooding the night with a delicious smell. Everybody had seconds.
After dinner, they moved to the fantail for coffee and dessert, and Lance took the opportunity to pull Stone aside. “Don’t take your pill tonight. I’m going to need you. One of my lads got a bad oyster and is incapable.”
“No swimming,” Stone said.
“No swimming, but wear dark clothing, nothing white. Come up to the top deck as soon as Vanessa is sound asleep. You might give her both pills.”
Then they sat down for coffee and freshly baked carrot cake.
“Mmmm,” Lance said, tasting his. “Good for one’s night vision.” He winked at Stone.