Fife-Simpson took a moment to reorient himself. It was dark outside, and still raining. “Yes, thank you. I’ll go right in.” He got unsteadily to his feet, and looked for the lavatory, then he went into a stall and threw up. He went to a sink and splashed water on his face, then regarded it in the mirror. He seemed to have aged since yesterday.

He went into the dining room and took a table alone, avoiding the common table where the unaccompanied dined.

As he picked at his steak and kidney pudding, clearheaded now, he began to look back on the past few months. He had put a foot wrong somewhere, and he tried to pinpoint when.

On consideration, he decided he should have stayed at Station Two. God knew it was not comfortable, but it was better than having nothing to do at MI-6 and a damn sight better than the Falklands. It was the gambit that got him made deputy director that had been his downfall, he reckoned. That and the business with the attack on the station and the wrecking of Dame Felicity’s goddamned Aston Martin. He should have smoothed that over and stayed where he was for at least another year, before he prodded Tim Barnes to promote and reassign him.

Then, he realized, there was something else: that fellow Barrington, who had lost control of the car. That was the precipitating factor of his slide. It had shone too much attention on him at the wrong time. He felt nothing but hostility for Dame Felicity, too.

He began to think: there must be a way to make the bastards pay.

34

Stone’s phone rang late in the day on Thursday. “Fifteen minutes,” Holly said, “and no fond embraces when I alight. They’ll be watching us.” He took the golf cart down to the strip and watched the skies. He didn’t see the Gulfstream until it turned for the final runway approach. It set down gently as if it and the strip were old friends. Holly was at the top of the airstair door when it dropped, and a steward followed her with her luggage.

They drove back to the house, with Holly making all the ooh and ahh noises appropriate to the landscape and the house. Geoffrey took charge of her luggage and, once inside the front door, they shared a warm embrace and a wet kiss.

“Do you want to freshen up?” he asked.

“I did that on the airplane,” she said. “It has wonderful facilities.”

He gave her a tour of the main floor, finishing up in the library.

“This is marvelous,” she said. “It’s like the big brother of your study in the New York house.”

He poured them each a Knob Creek, and they sat down before the fire. “Now,” he said, “tell me everything.”