Free Paris Match by Stuart Woods Page A

it’s Stone.”
    “Morning. How was the dinner party?”
    “Eventful,” Stone said. “Rick, I think I’ve ID’d the corpse in Mirabelle Chance’s kitchen.”
    “Oh, yeah? Have you come over all psychic, Stone?”
    “Not yet. His name is John, no middle initial, Simpson, thirty-nine, U.S. Army master sergeant, maybe retired.”
    “Nah. If he had a service record, we’d have gotten a hit on his prints or DNA.”
    “Nevertheless.”
    “Nevertheless what?”
    “Nevertheless, that’s who the guy is.”
    “Where the fuck did you come up with that?” Rick demanded.
    “I have friends in high places.”
    “Ahah! We’re not talking about this on the phone. I’m coming over there.” Before Stone could respond, Rick had hung up.
    “Well,” Holly said, “I guess I’d better put on my knickers.”
    —
    HALF AN HOUR LATER there was a knock on the door, and Stone answered it. He and Holly had spent their time getting dressed and tidying the suite. Rick came in. “I knew you would be here,” he said to Holly.
    “Hi, Rick, how are you?” Holly asked. “How’re things in Paris? How’s the Paris station? How’re the wife and kids?”
    Rick went to the bar and found himself a bottle of fizzy water, then took a seat. “Things in Paris are just swell, the Paris station is a barrel of laughs, and you know I don’t have a wife and kids.”
    “Mistress and kids? After all, it’s Paris.”
    Rick ignored that. “What have you two been up to?”
    “You’d better tell him, spy to spy,” Stone said to Holly. “I might leave out something.”
    “All right,” Holly said, and she told him.
    Rick stared at them in wonder. “How long did all this take?”
    “I don’t know, eight or ten minutes,” Holly replied.
    “You just went online and conjured up a sequestered subject?”
    “Looks like the facial recognition software is some kind of back door to some sequestered records,” Holly said. “Anyway, we didn’t get his sequestered record, just his old service record.”
    “That should have been sequestered, too,” Rick said. “Somebody must have fucked up.”
    “Oh, that never happens at the Agency,” Holly said, restraining herself to a slight sneer.
    Rick sat, staring into his fizzy water.
    “What’s the matter, Rick? Are you seeing some sort of problem here?”
    “Come on, Rick,” Stone said, “cough it up.”
    “Cough what up?”
    “You’re the station chief, Rick. If this guy’s Agency, you would know all about him, wouldn’t you?”
    “I don’t know a fucking thing about him,” Rick said, “and I very much doubt that he’s Agency.”
    “So what was he doing in Mirabelle Chance’s kitchen?” Stone asked.
    Rick didn’t have an answer for that.
    “Why don’t you call Lance and ask him to retrieve the guy’s sequestered service record?” Stone asked innocently.
    “I’ll do that immediately after hell freezes over,” Rick said. He looked at Holly. “Can you imagine what kind of can of worms that could open?”
    “All hell could break loose,” Holly replied.
    “I imagine we’re going to run out of metaphors in a minute,” Stone said. “Not to mention clichés. What are we going to actually do ?”

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    R ick pointed a finger at Holly. “You call Lance,” he said.
    “Don’t point that thing at me,” Holly replied, “I’m just a visitor here. I’m on vacation, sort of.”
    “You started this.”
    “Nope. We’re on your turf, here, Rick. You’re new at this, but you’re going to have to learn what a station chief does.”
    Rick looked at his watch. “It’s six A.M. at Langley,” he said. “Lance won’t be in the office yet.”
    “The Lance I know gets in at seven,” Holly said.
    “I’ll e-mail him,” Rick said, getting out his phone.
    “Is that phone encrypted?”
    “It is.”
    “All right, e-mail him. He’ll get it when he arrives at his office, in an hour, or maybe he’ll get it at breakfast. I expect he’s used to getting e-mails at