When they were done with this fun, back at the kennel his smooth little fox terrier stayed right at his heel as they went through another gate to the agility course.
Bright smiled as Stanley headed straight as an arrow for the jump bars without prompting. What a dog, Bright thought, as he watched him slalom through the weave poles and bolt over the teeter-totter for the tunnel. Pure white except for his half golden brown face, Stanley was handsome and active, smart and playful, curious and quite nimble and acute.
He wasn’t just the best fox terrier Bright had ever had, he thought watching him. He was the best fox terrier Bright had ever laid eyes on. His compact body was just compact enough, his long face just so.
Which was why he was really thinking of actually going for it and placing him at Westminster.
But should he really? Bright thought for the umpteenth time. Was it really time to try for the bigs? True, he had helped a friend’s Burmese mountain dog to score best in breed in Eukanuba last December. But Eukanuba was not Westminster, was it? Not by a long shot.
It was his wife’s family that had gotten him into dogs. The Everetts—descended from the famed Richard Everett, who founded Springfield, Massachusetts, in the early 1600s—had been dog people from the Mayflower times. His wife’s father, Edward, had actually won at Westminster with Coco, their pug, in the early eighties. Claudette was nine at the time, and she told him she never forgot that moment of pure elation. It was the jewel in the crown of the Everett family pride.
He watched Stanley give off a high-pitched bark as he shot into the tunnel like a rocket.
Then he closed his eyes, visualizing it. He and Stanley parading with the silver cup under the hot Madison Square Garden lights as her elderly father (whom he didn’t get along with and who had actually tried to drive Claudette away from him) ate crow.
Claudette, his tall thirty-nine-year-old still-smoking-hot swan of a wife, would simply swoon.
Why not? he thought to himself as Stanley barked again as he emerged from the tunnel’s other side.
“Why not dream the impossible dream?” Bright said.
After another half an hour, Bright put Stanley up and went in and took a shower. Ten minutes after that, he was in his robe rummaging around in the fridge. He tentatively sniffed at a catering tray of veal piccata from a twenty-first birthday party they had thrown for Claudette’s cousin, Georgina, the week before. Good thing too, it turned out, as deciding to stay in the country until his wife’s return he’d been basically living off it for the past three days. It was pretty slim pickings without Juanita around.
A tad sketchy, he thought as he clattered the tray onto the glowing white marble countertop.
“But beggars can’t be choosers,” he said with a sigh.
He’d just peeled back the cold foil when he got the call on his work phone.
“And we have liftoff,” said Bouthier.
“Is that right?”
“Well, just about. Gannon is on the plane. It’s about to take off.”
“Collateral?” Bright said.
“No collateral,” Bouthier said. “We lucked out. The kid and guide weren’t there. No witnesses. He was alone. He might have suffered a slight skull fracture and there’s some bruised ribs in the takedown. But all other vitals are fine.”
Bright nodded. He’d had problems with contractors in the past, but Bouthier apparently was as skilled a professional as advertised.
“Excellent work. Pass on my thanks to all involved.”
Bright hung up and plated some veal. The microwave hummed.
The Gannon file was quite the little hot potato. After the issue at the Chilean embassy in London, some said action should have been called for, but it had been nixed by someone for some reason. But then Gannon’s name came up again mixed in with the San Francisco airport abortion where a Pentagon artificial intelligence asset as well as a Senior Executive Service member had lost their lives.
This had set off even more alarm bells. An SES member’s death was the biggest of all no-no’s, completely unacceptable. Bright himself was SES. Which was why eventually he’d come up with a plan to deal with the troublesome former navy SEAL.
Bright smiled as he thought about what was now in store for the SEAL. It was going to be a surprise all right. One the troublesome impudent upstart wasn’t going to forget.
Oh, yes, Bright thought as the microwave started to beep. Things were working out swimmingly.
Several birds with one stone was what Mr. Bright was all about.