Stealth (A Stone Barrington Novel, Band 51) - Softcover

Buch 51 von 68: Stone Barrington

Woods, Stuart

 
9780593083178: Stealth (A Stone Barrington Novel, Band 51)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0593083172 ISBN 13: 9780593083178
Verlag: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2020

Inhaltsangabe

Stone Barrington must trap a ruthless defector in this heart-stopping thriller from fan favorite Stuart Woods.

Stone Barrington is trying to enjoy some downtime at his English retreat when he's unceremoniously sent off to the remote reaches of the UK and into a deadly snare. As it turns out, this is only the first volley by a rival power, one that has its eyes set on disrupting the peace of the nation.

With the help of two brilliant and stunning women, Stone must leverage a new position of power to capture a villain with a lethal agenda. But the closer he comes to nabbing the culprit, the more he realizes there's a bigger plan at work, and a true mastermind who's a force to be reckoned with.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Stuart Woods is the author of more than eighty-five novels, including the #1 New York Times-bestselling Stone Barrington series. He is a native of Georgia and began his writing career in the advertising industry. Chiefs, his debut in 1981, won the Edgar Award. An avid sailor and pilot, Woods lives in Florida, Maine, and Connecticut.

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PROLOGUE
 
 
Stone Barrington woke earlier than he should have and was, for a moment, disoriented.  Sunlight was streaming through a two-inch gap in the drawn curtains of the room, and he never slept with curtains drawn.  Except in England.
He sat up in bed.  He was, indeed, in England, in the house called Windward Hall that he had owned for some years.  He had landed in the early evening in the Strategic Services Gulfstream 600, on which he had caught a ride from Teterboro, New Jersey.  The company jet was in England or Europe on almst a weekly basis, and the private runway on his land was long enough to accommodate it for landing and takeoff.  It was a convenient way to commute between his New York residence and his house in England.

He looked at the bedside clock: a little after six AM.  He fell back onto his pillow, tried for another hour of sleep and failed.  He had come alone to England, so there was no opportunity of an erotic nature to occupy him until the kitchen was open for business, and he was hungry.  He got out of bed and flung open the curtains in the room, then got back into bed with yesterday’s crossword puzzle which he had not finished.
He regretted not inviting a companion on this trip, but his mind turned to the beautiful woman whose country house was just across the Beaulieu River from his.  At that moment, his cellphone rang.  “Hello?”
“Good morning,” she said with a husky voice.  “I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“Good morning, Felicity; I wish you were here to wake me properly.”
“I’m nearly there, darling,” she replied, chuckling; just across the river.”
“Then come and have breakfast with me.”
“I’d like to have you for breakfast, but I have to be in London at 9:30 for an important meeting at the Foreign Ministry.”  Felicity was director of MI-6, the British foreign intelligence service, which came under the purview of the Foreign Minister.
“What a pity,” Stone said.
“Not to worry; I’ll be down tomorrow afternoon for the weekend.  Why don’t you host a dinner party?”
“Well, I didn’t bring any guests with me, so I guess it will just have to be the two of us.”
“Tell you what,” she said, “I will assemble the guests for  a table of, say, eight?”
“What a good idea; you’re better acquainted with the locals than I.”

“Consider it done; I’ll bring the place cards with me, so don’t bother about that.  Shall we say seven for eight?”  In British parlance, this meant dinner at eight, and show up at seven, if you’d like a drink first.
“Perfect.  I’ll get the cook to work on a menu and I’ll unearth some good bottles from the cellar.”
“I will look forward to it,” She said.
“And bring your toothbrush; we’ll make a weekend of it.”
“What a good idea!.”  She made a kissing noise and hung up.
Stone went back to his crossword, a happier man.
 
The following evening, dressed in his Royal Yacht Squadron mess kit - essentally, a tuxedo with a short, naval-style jacket and the appropriate insignia - inspected the beautifully set table in the small dining room, then went to the library, where drinks would be served.  It was about three minutes past seven when he heard the doorbell, and a couple of minutes later, Dame Felicity Devonshire entered the library, followed by three couples.  One, he recognized as Felicity’s boss, the foreign minister, Sir Oswald Towne and Lady Towne, AKA Dierdre;   another was a younger man in a proper naval mess kit, sporting quite a lot of braid, and his apparent wife; the third couple looked familiar.
“Stone,” Felicity said,   “Of course you know Sir Oswald and Lady Towne - Ozzie and Dierdre.”  They all shook hands.  “And this is Admiral Sir Timothy Barnes, and Lady Barnes, Tim and Kate.” More handshaking.  “Tim is the First Sea Lord,” Felicity added.  Hands were shaken.
Stone knew that that post was the Royal Navy equivalent of the American chief of naval operations.
“And,” Felicity said, “I don’t know if you’ve met the newly-elected commodore of the Royal Yacht Squadron, Derek Drummond, and his wife, Hildy.”  Drummond was also dressed in a Squadron mess kit, which should have been a clue.
“Congratulations on your election,” Stone said, shaking their hands.

“Thank you, Stone; it’s good to see an American member here.” the commodore replied.
 
“It’s good to be here,” Stone said.”
Geoffrey, the butler, served champagne and cocktails, and there was chat among the guests and their hosts.
“Do you have a place in the neighborhood?” Stone asked Tim Barnes.
“No, I had to come down from London for the launching of a new submarine; Ozzie and Dierdre were staying with Felicity, and she asked us to join them, so my barge brought us from Portsmouth to her dock on the Beaulieu.
“What does an admiral’s barge consist of these days?” Stone asked.
“A very comfortable Nelson motorboat of forty feet; it suitable for a weekend place.”
Felicity joined them.  “Tim has also just come from a visit to our Station Two, in the Scottish Highlands.  He was kind enough to give me a lift back in a naval aircraft.”
“Why does MI-6 have a station so far north?” Stone asked.
“Station Two is our training facility for new recruits to the service,” she said.  “I drove up there last week for my own inspection, but I was called back to London and had to leave my car there and fly back.”
“Is this the Aston Martin DB 11?”
“It is, and I miss it already.”
“How will you get it back from Scotland?”
“A good question; would you like to drive it back?”
“That’s a very tempting thought,” Stone said.  “I’ve never driven that car.”
The foreign minister joined them in time to hear that exchange.  “You look like a fit fellow,” he said to Stone.  You might enjoy a taste of the training up there.”

“Good idea,” Tim said.  “The place is run by an old chum of mine, a colonel in the Royal Marines.  “I’d be happy to give him a call and tell him not to be too hard on you.”
“Is this a sort of boot camp, then?” Stone asked, intrigued.
“The first two weeks are very much a boot camp,” Tim replied.  “Lots of hikes and runs, weapons training, hand to hand fighting, that sort of thing.  The next two months are all the secret stuff: codes; tradecraft, communications: all the James Bond stuff.”
“They’re in the first week of training now,” Felicity said.  “You could join them for the second week, then drive the car back.” She turned to the FM: “Stone is a consultant to our colleages at Langley, so he’s a family member, in a way.  He’s also been of help to us on occasion.”
“Then I don’t see why he shouldn’t have a bit of fun at our expense,” the FM said.  “Send me an authorization to sign - and, of course a release for his signature, absolving us from any liability for serious injury or an early death.”
“You make it sound like such fun,” Stone...

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Verlag
G.P. Putnam's Sons
Erscheinungsdatum
2020
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0593083172
ISBN 13 
9780593083178
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
368
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

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