Strategic Moves

Table of Contents

 

 

 

FICTION

 

Santa Fe Edge
^§
Lucid Intervals
^†
Kisser
^†
Hothouse Orchid
^*
Loitering with Intent
^†
Mounting Fears
^‡
Hot Mahogany
^†
Santa Fe Dead
^§
Beverly Hills Dead
Shoot Him If He Runs
^†
Fresh Disasters
^†
Short Straw
^§
Dark Harbor
^†
Iron Orchid
^*
Two-Dollar Bill
^†
The Prince of Beverly Hills
Reckless Abandon
^†
Capital Crimes
^‡
Dirty Work
^†
Blood Orchid
^*
The Short Forever
^†
Orchid Blues
^*
Cold Paradise
^†
L.A. Dead
^†
The Run
^‡
Worst Fears Realized
^†
Orchid Beach*
Swimming to Catalina
^†
Dead in the Water
^†
Dirt
^†
Choke
Imperfect Strangers
Heat
Dead Eyes
L.A. Times
Santa Fe Rules
^§
New York Dead
^†
Palindrome
Grass Roots
^‡
White Cargo
Deep Lie
^‡
Under the Lake
Run Before the Wind
^‡
Chiefs
^‡

 

TRAVEL

 

A Romantic’s Guide to the Country
Inns of Britain and Ireland (1979)

 

MEMOIR

 

Blue Water, Green Skipper (1977)

 

 

* A Holly Barker Novel
† A Stone Barrington Novel
‡ A Will Lee Novel
§ An Ed Eagle Novel

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

Copyright © 2011 by Stuart Woods

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. Published simultaneously in Canada

 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Woods, Stuart.

Strategic moves / Stuart Woods.

p. cm.

eISBN : 978-1-101-48610-8

1. Barrington, Stone (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Private investigators—New York—Fiction. 3. Swindlers and swindling—Fiction. 4. Great Britain. MI6—Officials and employees—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3573.O642S

813’.54—dc22

 

 

 

 

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

 

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

This book is for Sandi Butchkiss.

Elaine’s, late.

Stone Barrington was uncharacteristically late in meeting his former partner at the NYPD, Lieutenant Dino Bacchetti, for dinner, and Dino was not alone at the table. Dino ran the detective bureau at the 19th Precinct. Stone’s other dinner partner, Bill Eggers, managing partner at the prestigious law firm of Woodman & Weld, pretty much ran Stone, who, working from his home office in Turtle Bay, handled cases and clients of Woodman & Weld that they did not wish to be seen to handle.

“You’re late,” Eggers said.

“I’m late for dinner with Dino,” Stone said, “but since I didn’t have a date with you, I prefer to think of myself as right on time for our meeting.”

Eggers managed a chuckle. “Fair enough,” he said. “I’m buying tonight.”

“For me, too?” Dino asked.

“For you, too, Dino,” Eggers replied.

A waiter set a Knob Creek on the rocks before Stone; the other two men already had glasses of brown whiskey before them. Stone raised his glass, but Eggers put a hand on his arm.

“No, I’ll do the toasting tonight,” he said, raising his own glass. “To Stone Barrington, who has earned more than a night out on my expense account.”

“Hear, hear,” Dino said.

“I’ll drink to that,” Stone offered, raising his glass and taking a pull from it. “Is there an occasion, Bill, or are you just feeling magnanimous?”

“A little of both,” Eggers said, taking an envelope from his pocket and handing it to Stone.

Stone saw, through a window in the envelope, his name, which indicated to him that it might be printed on a check. “Bill, have you taken to personally delivering payment of my bills to the firm?”

“Open it,” Eggers said.

Stone lifted the flap and pulled open the envelope far enough to see the amount of the check, which was one million dollars. His mouth worked, but no sound came out.

“Don’t bother to thank me,” Eggers said. “After all, you earned it, and may I say that this is the first annual bonus the firm has ever paid to an attorney who is ‘of counsel’?”

Stone recovered his voice. “Why, thank you, Bill, and please thank anyone else at the firm who had anything whatever to do with this.”

“This event is occurring because you were substantially responsible for bringing in Strategic Services as a new client, and they have turned out to be a very good client indeed. The death of Jim Hackett has increased their need for your counsel and ours.”

Jim Hackett had been the founder and sole owner of the firm, which served many corporations around the world in security matters of all sorts. He had been shot to death while in Stone’s company, on an island in Maine, by a sniper employed by two senior members of the British cabinet who believed Hackett to be someone else.

“Thank you again,” Stone said.

“I want you to know—and I realize I’m saying this in front of a witness—that if the growth of the Strategic Services account continues as I believe it will, then by this time next year I may very well be recommending you for a partnership at Woodman & Weld,” Eggers said.

Stone was once more dumbstruck. That this might happen had never, in his years of service to the firm, entered Stone’s mind. Furthermore, he knew that a partnership in Woodman & Weld would bring an annual income that would be a considerable multiple of the check in the envelope he held. Stone had always been an outsider at the firm, only occasionally visiting its offices and listed as “Of Counsel” only at the bottom of its letterhead.

“I will take your silence as evidence of shock,” Eggers said.

Stone nodded vigorously and downed half his drink while signaling for another.