"Oh, come on, Stockton . . ."

"Call me Stock-everybody does."

"Stock, tell me all the details, and I'm buying dinner. There's a very good restaurant right over there." She pointed across the bar.

Croft looked at Morales. "That's a pretty good offer, Chico. What do you think?"

"Sounds great, but no names."

"We'll see about that after a bottle of good wine," Pam said, waving at the headwaiter and holding up four fingers.

- BILLY WAITED UNTIL the last vestiges of the sunset had gone, then started his car. Then he turned it off again. A car's headlights were turning into the Grosvenors' driveway, and a moment later two other cars arrived. The front door of the house was opened, and half a dozen people were admitted.

Billy switched on the ignition and brought up the car's navigator. He pressed the button that showed him his position, then cranked the zoom knob until he had a large-scale map of the immediate area. It took only a moment to find what he was looking for. To his left, another road turned off the main highway, then intersected with yet another road that ran behind the Grosvenor property. He started the car again and pulled into the main road, then took two rights, keeping the house on his right. As he made the second right, he turned off the headlights and stopped at a wide place in the road.

Billy got out of the car, took off his tan windbreaker, and turned it inside out, making it black. He put on a black knitted cap, as well, then checked his little 9mm semiautomatic and returned it to its holster, then he closed the car door, climbed over a fence, and began walking toward the house.

As he did, he screwed a silencer into the barrel of his weapon.

By the time the first course arrived, the four had, by common consent, divided into two couples. Croft got Pam, Morales got Sherry, and everyone seemed happy with that.

The bottle of wine Pam had selected arrived and was poured, then glasses were clinked.

"Now," Pam said, taking a bite of her pte and leaning forward, "tell me everything."

Croft took a deep breath and started into Barbara Eagle's history of trying to murder her husband, while Pam listened avidly and Sherry and Chico mumbled to each other. When Croft had finished, Pam said, "Wow."

- BILLY BURNETT MOVED through some trees and plantings behind the house until he could see people entering a room at a rear corner and sitting down. Dinner, he supposed. He ran the last few yards to the house, broke through some bordering shrubs, and knelt down, listening. Nothing: no alarms, no footsteps, no dogs. He rolled down his knitted cap, which covered his face but left openings for eyes and mouth, then, carefully, he stood up and looked in the window.

Seven people were around a round table, and Barbara's back was toward Billy. He unzipped his fanny pack, took out a small battery-operated amplifier, plugged a cord into it, then he licked a suction cup, stuck it to the window, and put an earbud into one ear. They were, apparently, continuing a conversation begun in the living room over drinks.

- "I TELL YOU," Barbara was saying, "Ed Eagle has made my life hell for years. He's made at least four attempts on my life, then blamed me for trying to kill him. The latest you may have seen on TV. He hired someone to plant a bomb on his airplane, and the man cocked it up somehow and blew himself up, as well. Then, of course, he told the Los Angeles police that I had hired someone to kill him. Two LAPD detectives were here until an hour before you all arrived, questioning me."

"Why don't you sue Eagle?" one of the women asked.

"What for? I don't want or need his money, and, anyway, Ed is one of the best trial lawyers in the country. It would cost me millions, then nothing would happen."

"Why don't you go public, then?" the man asked.

"Jack, what do you mean by 'go public'?"

"Take the offensive-give a few, select interviews to the right members of the press, and turn the whole thing back on Eagle. Show him up for the villain he is, ruin his reputation, cost him clients. Maybe he'd get the message then."

"I never thought of that," Barbara said. "But I wouldn't have a clue how to go about it."

"A good friend of mine, Hugh Gordon, is the top publicist in the city," Jack said.

"But I'm not selling anything," Barbara replied. "I haven't written a book or anything like that."

"You're selling your story, nothing else. Of course, a book might come later. Hugh would know exactly how to handle this situation. He knows every important journalist on the West Coast, and a lot in New York, too. If you like, I'll have him call you tomorrow. You could discuss it with him and, if you feel it's the right thing to do, come up with a plan."

"Perhaps I should at least talk to him," Barbara said.

- BILLY HEARD a noise. He wasn't sure what it was, but it was enough for him to pocket his listening gear and sit very still, huddled next to the house, behind bushes. As he continued to listen, he heard soft footsteps approaching, and a powerful beam of light began flitting around the rear of the house. Billy curled into a ball, his head tucked against his knees, exposing only black to the approaching threat.

"I know you're here," a voice said. "You didn't count on our security system, did you? I'm armed, and unless you come out and identify yourself, I'm going to start firing randomly into the shrubbery."

Billy uncoiled, stood up, and saw a very large man-Blunt Instrument. He had read about him in his research: ex-NFL player, knee injury. Billy walked confidently toward him, and the man raised his pistol. Billy slowed, but continued, doing what his opponent had not expected, coming closer.

"Hold it right there," the man said.

Billy took one step closer to him and swung the edge of his left hand at the man's right wrist. The pistol flew out of the man's hand. He emitted a short cry of pain, then Billy kicked him, not too hard, in his right knee, and the man collapsed and held the knee.

"That's the correct knee, isn't it? If I encounter you again, I'll ruin it permanently for you. It will take you months to get over the surgery. And you would be wise not to mention this little tiff to your mistress."

Billy turned and walked toward his car, picking up the man's weapon along the way and tossing it as far as he could into the darkness. He looked back once and saw the man still lying on the ground, clutching his knee.

Stone and Ann were at lunch the following day, when Mike Freeman called. Stone spoke to him briefly, then hung up.

"The Strategic Services G650 will be ready for us tomorrow morning at ten," he said.

"Oh, good," Ann said. "And when I get back all hell will have broken loose, and it will remain loose until the election, then a different kind of hell will break loose, assuming Kate wins. Then, on January twentieth a special kind of hell will await me. Everyone who has ever held this job has said that it was the hardest work and the toughest job they ever had."

"You sound as though you're reconsidering," Stone said hopefully.

"On the contrary, I can't wait to get started," she said.

Stone laughed. "Kate is lucky to have you." The phone rang, and he picked it up. "Yes?"

"It's Billy."

"Hi there. Feeling better?"

"As good as new," Billy said, "but shortly, Ed Eagle is going to be feeling a lot worse."

"Oh, God," Stone said, "is there another attempt coming?"

"Not on his life-on his reputation."

"What do you mean?"

"Barbara is hiring a press agent in San Francisco named Hugh Gordon. I checked him out. He's among the two or three best publicists in the country, and he's arranging a series of interviews in which Barbara will insist that Eagle is trying to kill her. She's going to blindside him, and he'll never be able to catch up."

"Oh, shit! What should I tell him to do?"

"This is outside my area of expertise, but I should think the only thing he can do is beat her to the punch."

"Thanks, Billy. How did you find out about this?"

"Don't ask, and don't tell Eagle this came from me."

"All right." Stone thanked him again, hung up, and called Ed Eagle.

"Good morning, Mr. Barrington. I'm afraid Ed is in court this morning, but he should be breaking for lunch soon, and he'll call in for messages."

"Please ask Ed to call me first," Stone said. "It's extremely urgent that I talk to him at the earliest possible moment."

"I'll certainly do that, Mr. Barrington."

Stone hung up. "Who do you know in the New York press?" he asked Ann.

"Are you kidding? Everybody."

Stone explained the call he'd just had. "Who are the top people he should talk to?"

"In New York?"

"National."

"Well, the plum pick is 60 Minutes, but even if they want the story, it might take some time, at the very least, to get it on the air. I know the executive producer, and he owes me a favor. After that, the morning shows-Today, CBS This Morning, Good Morning America, CNN, and Morning Joe."

The phone rang. "Stone Barrington."

"Stone, it's Ed. Are you in some sort of trouble?"

"No, Ed, you are."

"Gee, I hadn't noticed."

"I've just received some information that you have to act on at once."

"What kind of information?"

"Barbara has decided, in lieu of killing you, to wage war on you through the media. She's hired a top publicist, and he's arranging press and TV interviews for her now. She's going to say that you've been trying to kill her and then blaming it on her."

"How the hell did you hear about this?"

"I can't reveal my source, but I can tell you that this is real, and you have to attack first."

"How'm I supposed to do that?"

"Hire your own publicist and beat her to the punch."

"Well, Susannah has a publicist, of course-all the Hollywood folks do. I could talk to him."

"Ann is here. She knows the executive producer of 60 Minutes, and she's willing to call him on your behalf. Tell your publicist that. You need to work out a plan with your guy both to punch and counterpunch. You've got to have an argument ready for every point she makes. And speaking as an attorney, you'd better be ready for a slander suit once she hears what you're doing. She can outspend you."

"Well, then, I'm going to have to let her throw the first punch," Ed said. "After that, I'll just be defending myself."

"That won't be enough, Ed, you're going to have to destroy her, burn her to the ground."

Ed was silent for a moment. "I can't say I relish that thought," he said.

"If you don't do it to her, she's going to do it to you. She'll ruin your practice. And, while she's at it, ruin your life."

"She's certainly capable of that."

"She's crazy, Ed, and you're going to have to be the sane, sensible one while she's making the wild allegations. You've got one important thing going for you: there's a record of the things she's done-her prison sentence as an accessory to murder, her theft of your money and escape to Mexico, the conviction down there of killing a policeman, her escape from a Mexican prison, and then the shooting at the Bel-Air. You're going to have to turn her acquittal into a miscarriage of justice."

"That's exactly what it was," Ed said. "I was astonished when she walked. I've also got the knife attack on me and the time I spent in the hospital on my side. Nobody has ever hurt Barbara."

"It's time to call Susannah's publicist, and you'd better get some cash together, because hiring a publicist and conducting this kind of campaign is going to cost as much as it would cost to hire you to defend somebody."

"I'd better get on it, then."

"Keep me posted?"

"Sure."

"I'll be back in New York tomorrow night." Stone hung up.

"I expect that call scared the shit out of Ed," Ann said. "It certainly would me."

"He's taking it seriously. Luckily, Susannah already has a publicist."

"Let me know when you want me to call 60 Minutes," Ann said.

- PAM HALE SAT in her cubicle at WSFO in San Francisco and read the transcript of Barbara Eagle's murder trial in Los Angeles. Her friend Sherry, the meteorologist, stopped by. "You've been intense all morning," she said. "What's up?"

"I'm just reading about this woman, Barbara Eagle-or rather, Grosvenor."

"Could you believe it when Chico told us her name? She's all over everywhere in this town."

"I'm just reading the transcript of her murder trial. She must have had one hell of a lawyer to get off." Pam's phone rang, and she picked it up. "Pam Hale, talk fast."

A man laughed. "Pam, it's Hugh Gordon. How are you?"

"Just great, Hugh. How do I rate a phone call from the Great Gordon?"

He laughed again.

"You've got to be pitching something."

"This is more in the nature of a public service," Gordon said. "An acquaintance of mine, a woman of unimpeachable character, a patron of the arts and a philanthropist, is being pursued by her ex-husband, who has made repeated attempts on her life."

"Gee, Hugh, that sounds just awful. Who is she?"

"Before I can tell you that, I want to know if you'll interview her for your weekend show."