“Stone, if we wanted to force you to cooperate, we could just let Casselli know where you are. He would kill or kidnap you and we would follow his people to the source and erase him. But that’s not how we deal with people we like and who are of value to us, as you have been on a number of occasions.”

“I had no idea the Agency was so fond of me,” Stone said wryly. “What do you want me to do?”

“Where is your old phone?”

Stone opened a drawer in the table next to him and handed Rick the phone.

“May I have your new phone?”

Stone removed it from its holster and handed it to him.

Rick removed the SIM card from the new phone and installed it in the old phone, then handed it to Stone. “Why don’t you check in with Joan, see how things are in New York?”

Stone called the number.

“Woodman & Weld,” Joan said.

“It’s Stone.”

“Are you safely in Paris?”

“I am. Thank you for alerting Marie of our arrival. How are things in New York?”

“Under control. Strangely, it gets easier to keep it that way when you leave town.”

“Dino and Viv are here for the weekend.”

“Good for them. You seem to be rambling, Stone, is there something I can do for you?”

“Hold on a minute.” Stone turned to Rick. “Is that long enough?”

“Give it another minute or two,” Rick said.

Stone went back to the phone. “Any interesting mail?”

“Nope.”

“Phone messages?”

“Nope.”

“Oh, I know what I wanted to ask you: Have we ever received a bill for taxes for the Paris house?”

She thought about that. “Nope.”

“Okay, then, call me if anything comes up. Oh, and if one phone doesn’t answer, try the other one.”

“Goodbye, Stone.” She hung up.

“That should do it,” Rick said. “Now, if Casselli’s people traced the call, they’ll get a marker on their map, but the marker won’t correspond to any known Paris address, which will confuse them. But I would imagine that they would have people in the neighborhood within the next twenty-four hours, looking for you.”

“And what happens when they find me?”

“We’ll bag and interrogate them for a few days.”

“Will Casselli know what’s happened to them?”

“No, he’ll just suddenly be out of touch, and he’ll send more people to find them, and when he does, we’ll bag and interrogate them.”

Stone thought for a moment. “Suppose I could get Casselli to come to Paris? Would that shorten the project?”

“How would you get him to do that?”

Stone’s cell phone rang. “I’ll bet that’s him now.”

“Go ahead, see what you can do.”

Stone pressed the button. “Hello?”

“Mr. Barrington?”

“Yes.”

“This is Leonardo Casselli.”

“Hello, Mr. Casselli, what can I do for you?”

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