The copter rose vertically, banked to the north, and climbed to a hundred feet or so, high enough to pass over the mast of any unsuspecting yacht that might be out for a cold-weather sail.

Stone watched Islesboro come into view, then the airstrip, and he wondered what sort of an offer Mike Freeman could not refuse.

SIXTEEN

Stone got back to the house in the late afternoon, hung up his heavy coat and took off his boots, then found Adele in the living room.

“I thought you had abandoned me,” Adele said, pouting.

“I’m very sorry. I got . . . swept up in a business thing and couldn’t get back until now.”

“A business thing? I thought nobody knew where we were.”

“A business associate happened to fly over the island and saw the airplane parked at the strip, and he insisted on a meeting. Can I get you something warming to drink?”

“I’ll try some of that bourbon you like,” she said.

Stone poured them both a Knob Creek and sat down. They clinked glasses and drank.

“Oh, someone named Mike Freeman called and asked that you call him as soon as possible.”

Stone sighed. “You’ll have to excuse me for a few minutes,” he said. “I’ll be back in time to pour your second drink.” He kissed her and let himself into Dick Stone’s secure office, then called Freeman’s cell.

“Hey, there,” Mike said. “Sorry to interrupt your weekend, but I need to run something by you.”

“Would this be the new offer Lance Cabot has made you?”

“How the hell did you know that?”

“Lance is up here on a nearby island, and he insisted on an impromptu meeting.”

“So he told you about his offer?”

“He told me only that it was one you can’t refuse.”

Mike chuckled. “Well, he’s right. Let me lay it out for you.”

“I’m listening.”

“Lance has a real mission to offer us this time: he wants us to extract a person from a location somewhere in Europe and return him to the U.S.”

“I’ll bet that’s not as simple as it sounds,” Stone said.

“Maybe not, but almost. In our last conversation with Lance he mentioned the C-17 cargo airplane we own, if you recall.”

“I remember; I hadn’t heard about that. What, exactly, is a C-17?”

“It’s a four-engine, jet cargo airplane, very large. It’s very good for us in some situations: we can load half a dozen armored vehicles on it and fly them to a protection mission just about anywhere in the world. It makes us look very good to our clients. The problem with the thing is it’s very expensive to own and operate. Jim got an opportunity to buy it on the cheap from an African nation that had figured out they couldn’t afford it. He formed an air charter corporation, Strategic Air Services, to own and operate it. The idea was that we would defray our costs by chartering it to businesses or countries that had large cargo requirements. Trouble is, what with the world economy in a slump, we’ve had few charterers, and the airplane just eats away at our bottom line.”