Paris Match

Stone turned to Holly. “What do we do if Lance gets to zero?”

“Duck,” Holly said.

“Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen—ru

A woman’s hand was stuck out the door, waving a handkerchief.

“Come along, now, Yevgeny, nobody’s going to shoot a woman waving a lace handkerchief. Let’s get them all out.”

One by one, people appeared and walked down the airstair, the men with their hands in the air. Finally, Yevgeny Majorov came out the door and followed them to the shiny white concrete floor of the hangar.

Rick’s men spilled into the hangar, weapons at the ready, and began securing the group’s hands with plastic ties.

Lance was making another phone call. “Prefect Chance, please,” he said. “I apologize for the hour. Just tell him it’s Lance Cabot on an urgent matter.” He covered the phone. “I think he must be asleep,” he said. “His wife sounded very grouchy.” He smiled. “Good morning, Michel. I’m terribly sorry to call at such an ungodly hour, but I have some very good news for you that just won’t wait for the sun to come up. I’m out at Le Bourget, and some of my people and I have detained Yevgeny Majorov, just as he was about to fly off to Saint Petersburg. You see? I told you it was good news, didn’t I? Well, I suppose we could deliver them all—there are about a dozen, including some air crew—to a police station of your choice, but I thought for appearance’s sake that you might want to run out here with a contingent of France’s finest and take them into custody. After all, we’re guests in your country, and we don’t want to presume upon your hospitality. Good, Michel. We’ll look forward to seeing you and your people in an hour or so. Au revoir.” Lance hung up. “Ah,” he said, “that was very satisfying.”

“It was satisfying to me, too,” Stone said.

Rick LaRose walked up, smiling. “All accounted for,” he said.

“Good, good,” Lance replied. “Prefect Chance and his merry men will be here fairly soon. In the meantime, why don’t you turn their pockets out and then have a look in their luggage. You never know what you might find.”

Rick turned to his work.

Lance put his hands on Stone’s and Holly’s shoulders. “Now, since we have a few minutes on our hands, why don’t I have a chat with Comrade Majorov?”

56

Stone said to Lance, “Mind if I sit in on your conversation?”

“Ordinarily, I wouldn’t mind,” Lance said, “but I think Mr. Majorov is likely to be more forthcoming if it’s just the two of us.” He strode over to Majorov, took him by the arm, and marched him up the airstair into the Gulfstream.

“Well,” Holly said, “that was almost exciting.”

“Don’t complain—nobody got hurt,” Stone said. They stood around for a few minutes watching Rick’s men go through the passengers’ pockets and luggage, and apparently not finding anything worth their attention.

Then a white truck rolled into the hangar. Two men in white coveralls got out and produced a tire, a toolbox, and a tank of compressed nitrogen.

“That was fast,” Stone said. “I once had to replace a tire and it took half a day.”

“Gulfstreams get better service than Mustangs, I suppose,” Holly replied.

The two mechanics went to work changing the tire. They jacked up the front of the airplane, removed the wheel, removed the tire from the wheel, then worked the new tire onto the rim. That done, they inflated it with nitrogen, bolted it onto the airplane, and departed in their truck.

“Wow,” Stone said.

Lance appeared in the doorway of the airplane and beckoned to Rick, who ran up the stairs and conferred with his boss. For a moment, he seemed to disagree with Lance, but Lance seemed to speak firmly to him, and he backed down. He started back down the stairs, but Lance stopped him with a word. Rick took something small from a pocket, handed it to Lance, then continued down the stairs. He had a few words with his men, and they began, rather haphazardly, repacking the passenger luggage, then reloading it, under the direction of one of the pilots.

Then, to Stone’s astonishment, Rick’s men began cutting the plastic ties from the passengers’ wrists, and they all reboarded the aircraft.

Lance reappeared without Majorov, came down the stairs and had a word with the pilot, who got on his phone, then handed Rick his pocketknife. Lance came over to Stone and Holly. “Let’s get out of here,” he said, and waved to the van’s driver, who drove into the hangar.

The FBO’s tow tractor reappeared, hooked up to the aircraft, and began rolling it out of the hangar. Someone inside the airplane retracted the airstair and locked the door.

“Lance, what’s going on?” Stone asked.

“Into the van, both of you, if you please.”

Stone and Holly climbed into the van. When Stone took a breath to protest, Holly squeezed his knee and shook her head.

From outside came the sounds of jet engines spooling up; lights at the Gulfstream’s wingtips began to flash, and a red beacon at the top of the tail began to rotate. The airplane began to move toward a taxiway.

“Lance,” Stone said, “where are Michel Chance and his gendarmes?”

“Asleep in their beds, I should think,” Lance replied.

The van stopped on a taxiway for a moment, then, with a very loud roar, the Gulfstream rolled past them down the runway and left the ground.

Stone was angry. “What the hell just happened?”

“What just happened,” Lance replied, “was that a solution to a very sticky problem was negotiated to the satisfaction of nearly everyone involved.”

Stone was flabbergasted.

“I think, Stone, that you and your business partners will not be hearing from or dealing with Yevgeny Majorov or his friends again, and they will make no attempt to enforce the agreement you signed. Oh, by the way, may I have that banker’s check for thirty million dollars that Jacques Chance gave you?”

Stone produced the check from an inside pocket and handed it to Lance, who deposited it in his own inside pocket. “There,” Lance said, making a dusting motion with his hands, “all done.” He smiled a little smile. “And we won’t be discussing these events again. With anyone, not even each other. A matter of national security, don’t you see?” Then he closed his eyes, sat back in his comfortable seat, and took another of his little naps.

—

STONE AND HOLLY were deposited back in the mews as the sun began to rise. There were no guards present at the gates or on the roof.

They went upstairs, undressed, and climbed back into bed.

“Can you tell me what happened out at Le Bourget?” Stone asked her.

“I should think it’s obvious,” Holly said. “Apparently, an accommodation was reached with Comrade Majorov.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. Why would Lance want an accommodation with Majorov?”

“Apparently, because it’s in Lance’s interest to do so. Apparently, it’s in your interest, too, since Majorov, apparently, won’t try to kill you anymore.”

“And no gendarmes showed up, so that wasn’t a real call that Lance made to Michel Chance?”

“Apparently not,” she replied.

“Why do you keep saying ‘apparently’?”

“Because all this is only speculation on my part,” Holly said. “But it makes sense, if Majorov is an asset of Lance’s—part-time, of course. Yevgeny does have a business to run. The good news is, he appears to be out of the hotel business.”

“If all Lance had to do to fix this was to call Majorov, why didn’t he call him a long time ago, instead of waiting until Majorov was trying to leave the country?”

“Apparently, because tonight he had leverage he didn’t have before. Majorov was desperate to leave the country, Lance had prevented that and he thought the gendarmes were on the way.”