"Why did you recruit Holly Barker?"
"I need Holly for other, more operational reasons. She is considering a more permanent offer from us as we speak, though I think it might take a few weeks or months for her to gather the resolve to leave her present, quite pleasant circumstances and join us."
They turned the corner onto Stone's block and stopped in front of his house.
"Let's go in through your office," Lance said, using a key of his own, to Stone's annoyance.
"I don't recall our contract saying anything about your using my house at will for surreptitious interrogations."
"There's a part of your contract that reads 'render all reasonable assistance,'" Lance suggested. He led the way through Stone's office, into his basement, then into the garage. Billy Bob sat in his shirtsleeves, tied to an armless kitchen chair with a wicker seat, which Stone had stored in the garage because he didn't need it, but it was too nice to throw away. Billy Bob's hands were tied behind him. He glared at Stone but said nothing.
"Now, Harlan," Lance said. "I know that may not be your name, but… oh what the hell, we'll just call you Billy Bob. Stone is used to that."
"Go fuck yourself," Billy Bob replied, not unpleasantly.
"I can see this is going to be more fun than I had hoped," Lance said. He turned toward his two men, who were leaning nonchalantly against the garage wall. "I would like for you two to cause Billy Bob, here, considerable pain, without marking him up too badly. I want him relatively bruise-free when we deliver him to Guantanamo, if possible. If not, then…"
"Sure thing," one of the men said, pushing himself off the wall and striding toward Billy Bob, whose expression did not change.
"Hold it a minute, Lance," Stone said. "Give me a few minutes alone with Billy Bob."
"Oh, all right," Lance said, as if it were against his better judgment. He beckoned to his two companions. "Come with me," he said. At the door he turned back to Stone out of Billy Bob's hearing. "Five minutes, Stone, and I want to know three things: One, who is his contact at the New Mexico weapons installation; two, where are the other thirty-four grenades he and Billy Bob stole; and three, the name, address and telephone number of the person to whom he intended to sell them." Lance left, and Stone returned to the garage.
He leaned against his car. "So, you were going to kill me?"
"I still am," Billy Bob said.
"Why? What did I ever do to you?"
"You inconvenienced me."
"That hardly stacks up against your murdering that girl in my house and trying to blame me for it, then stealing fifty thousand dollars from me."
"I was only getting started," Billy Bob said.
"You're in over your head, now, Billy Bob. Let me explain things to you: You're not under arrest; you're not going to be arraigned or allowed to see an attorney, except me; and when Lance's two thugs are done with you, if there's anything left, you're going to find yourself in a cage at Gitmo with a lot of companions who speak only Arabic or Urdu, and nobody will ever know you're there. You'll spend the next few years being interrogated a couple of times a day, until they've milked you dry, and then you'll disappear even from Cuba. Now, if you give me the information Lance wants, then maybe I can ameliorate those circumstances a bit, do some kind of a deal."
"What, no jail time?" Billy Bob asked, contempt in his voice.
"That's not impossible," Stone said, "but let's start with no torture, no death, and work from there, a bit of information at a time. If you'll tell Lance everything-and I mean everything he wants to know, then I'll see that you walk out of here by morning. Then you can take your stolen money and disappear, and Lance won't care. Only the police and the feds will be looking for you, and you don't seem to have had too much trouble evading them, up to this point."
"Oh, stop it," Billy Bob said. "I'm going to get whatever I'm going to get, and there's not a fucking thing you can do about it."
"So, you absolutely refuse to tell me anything?"
"Only to stick your slick personality and your legal skills up your ass."
"I'm really sorry to hear that, Billy Bob, and I wish they hadn't chosen to do this in my garage. Have you ever tried getting bloodstains out of a concrete floor?" Stone walked slowly to the door and opened it. "Lance?"
Lance came back into the room with his two henchmen.
"I'm afraid you're going to have to persuade him to talk to you," Stone said.
Lance turned to the two men. "Strip him, and cut the cane seat out of that chair so his genitals will be exposed. I'm going to get some tools; I'll be right back." He motioned for Stone to follow him, then closed the door behind him and started up the stairs.
"Let's see what being naked does to his self-confidence," Lance said, as they emerged into the first floor of the house. He went to the bar in Stone's study and poured them both a Knob Creek.
"You're not really going to torture the guy, are you?"
"No? Stick around."
"I don't want any part of this," Stone said.
Lance sipped his drink. "You're too squeamish, Stone," he said. "You wouldn't mind what we did to him, if you didn't know him, if he wasn't in your house, would you?"
"I would, wherever you had him," Stone replied. "I believe in the rule of law, even for Billy Bob. I'd be content to see him in prison for the rest of his life, and God knows, there's enough evidence to put him there-two murders, that we know about, just for a start."
"Oh, I'm not going to torture him, Stone, but a few minutes with that thought in Billy Bob's mind might do wonders to loosen his tongue."
There was a rattling noise from downstairs.
"What's that?" Lance asked.
"That is the sound of my garage door opening."
Lance set down his drink and started for the stairs. "What are those two fools doing? We don't want people passing by looking into your garage, do we?"
As Stone followed him down the stairs, the rattling noise came again. "They're closing the garage door," he said.
Lance strode across the basement and flung open the inside door to the garage, which was in total darkness. "Where's the fucking light switch?" he demanded, groping along the wall.
Stone found the switch, and the garage was, once again, flooded with fluorescent light. One of Lance's two men lay on his back, his throat gaping and blood pooling around him; the other sat on the floor, leaning against Stone's car, clutching his chest and coughing blood down the front of his shirt. One of them couldn't be helped, and Stone didn't know what to do for the other.
Lance calmly flipped open his cell phone and pressed a single button. "This is a Mayday," he said, slowly and clearly. "I need paramedics and a cleaning crew now, at the Barrington residence, garage entrance."
The man leaning against Stone's car coughed once more and keeled over sideways, coming to rest with his head on the concrete floor and his eyes open.
"Hang on," Lance said. "Scrub the paramedics; just send the cleaning crew."
36
STONE SAT in his study with Lance. They were on their second Knob Creek.
"Don't worry," Lance said. "These fellows are very good; when they're through, not even luminol will pick up the bloodstains."
"That's a great comfort," Stone replied. He stared at Lance, who seemed perfectly calm, even a little bored. "I don't understand you," he said. "Two of your men are dead, and you're just sitting there, calmly drinking bourbon."
"What else is there for me to do?" Lance asked. "I've alerted my people to look for Billy Bob. I'm here now, only to see that the cleanup people do a good job, so you won't think I left a mess."
"The two dead guys are a mess."
"They've been cleaned up, too."
"What about their families? Shouldn't you be contacting them?"
"They don't have families," Lance said, "and they didn't seem to love anyone, except each other. It's one of the reasons I chose them, along with their special-operations backgrounds."