“Of course,” she replied, and left with the document.

Stone began to wonder if Mike’s background could stand a background check. Freeman was not who he said he was, and Stone was, perhaps, the only living person who knew that. Freeman was, in fact, British and a former member of MI6, from which he had been forced as part of a witch hunt against him some years ago. Jim Hackett had been killed because Mike’s enemies in the British government believed him to be the man they were hunting, when Mike Freeman was, in fact, that man.

“What brings you to New York, Lance, apart from visiting us?” Freeman asked.

“Nothing else,” Lance replied. “I had, in fact, intended to speak to James Hackett, but of course, his death intervened. Do you know who killed him?”

“We’re still working on that,” Freeman replied.

“Stone, how about you? You were with Hackett when he died, weren’t you?”

“Yes, but I’m unable to speak about it,” Stone replied. He did not want to tell Lance why not.

“Mmmmm,” Lance purred. “Client confidentiality?”

“Yes,” Stone replied, hoping his curiosity would stop there.

“You did some work for Felicity Devonshire at MI6 not very long ago, didn’t you?”

“If I had, I certainly couldn’t comment, could I?”

“No, I expect she asked you to sign the Official Secrets Act.”

The secretary reentered the room before Stone could reply and handed the form to Freeman, who looked it over, signed it, and handed it to Lance.

Lance looked it over, too. “May I use your fax machine?” he asked.

“Of course,” Mike replied. He led Lance over to a bookcase and opened a panel for him, revealing the machine. Lance pressed a couple of buttons and dialed a number. “Will it send both sides of the document?” he asked.

“Yes,” Freeman said, “if you select that option.”

Lance sent the document, then returned to his chair and put the form into his briefcase. “We’ll have a response shortly,” Lance said.

“Don’t you have to conduct an investigation?” Stone asked.

“Yes, but for the moment we will compare the information on the form electronically with what we already know about Mike, to be sure there are no discrepancies.”

This did not seem to worry Mike.

Lance’s cell phone rang. “Excuse me,” he said. He held the phone to his ear. “Yes?” He listened for a moment. “Thank you,” he said, and hung up. “Well, that’s done. Now we can proceed, I think.”

TEN

Lance leaned forward in his chair. “Mike, let me outline a not altogether hypothetical situation in which you might be very helpful to the Agency and to your adopted country.”

Freeman said nothing, just nodded.

“Let us say that there exists in a fairly large city of this country a financial institution which we have reason to believe has been funneling funds to an Al Qaeda subsidiary in Indonesia.”

Mike nodded again.

“This institution has a virtually foolproof safeguard against outside intrusions into its computer network.”