STONE HAD JOAN call Ed Rawls’s number every half hour, until she was done for the day. He was beginning to think that he was going to have to go to Virginia and check his house, but then he had a thought.

Holly had thought that Lance Cabot might be a candidate to run with Kate as her vice president. If so, that would explain why Lance was so interested in Rawls and the strong case. He called Lance and got him as he was about to leave his office at Langley.

“What is it, Stone?”

“There have been serious developments,” Stone said.

“Developments with what?”

“The contents of the strong case.”

“What developments?”

“For one, Ed Rawls, after living openly in his old house for a few days, is unreachable. He’s not answering his phone or responding to messages left, and I don’t have a cell phone number for him. He’s been using throwaways.”

“When did you last call him?”

“I’ve been calling him every half hour since midafternoon. The last time was ten minutes ago.”

“His place is sort of on my way home from work,” Lance said. “I’ll go by and check on him.”

“He has a car, an old Mercedes station wagon. Check his garage, too, will you?”

“All right.” Lance hung up.

Dino called again. “Any news on Rawls?”

“None. I just spoke to Lance Cabot, who has taken a great interest in the contents of the strong case. He’s going to drive by Ed’s house on his way home from work.”

“Why is Lance so interested? Does he want Kate to be reelected so much?”

“Kate gave Lance his job as director of central intelligence,” Stone pointed out, “and if loyalty weren’t enough to get him involved, there’s something else—Holly told me she thinks Kate might be considering him as a running mate.”

“Well, that would certainly get Lance interested. What’s your next move, if Ed Rawls can’t be found?”

“Ed printed two hundred copies of his manuscript and had them stored at a pack-and-ship place in D.C. He told me that if anything happened to him, to call them and tell them to mail the books. He said he has a mailing list of two hundred opinion makers. I guess that means newspapers and TV news people, columnists, and like that.”

“Have you done that?”

“I had them trucked up to me this afternoon. They’re locked in my wine cellar.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to have those books so close at hand,” Dino said.

“I know. If Ed can’t be located by morning, I’m going to see that the books are mailed.”

“You want me to send a couple of cops up there to sit on them until you can get them out of the house?”

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary.”