“What would you like to do this afternoon?” Stone asked Holly.
Holly walked over to the window and looked out over Penobscot Bay. Stone’s dock was only yards away.
“Is that your little yacht?” she asked.
“Yes, it’s called a Concordia.”
“What I’d really love is a sail.”
“Then why don’t we have a sail?”
“If we tried, it would cause a kerfuffle with the Secret Service. They’d have to find a boat, then follow us.”
“Oh.”
“Stone, do you have a sail bag in the house?”
“Sure. In the garage, where the spares are.”
* * *
—
Fifteen minutes later, Stone left the house, a big sail bag over his shoulder. The Secret Service man at the rear of the house met him. “Going somewhere, Mr. Barrington?”
“Yes, I’m going to try out a new sail on my boat.”
“Where’s the president-elect?”
“She’s upstairs having a nap, and she doesn’t want to be disturbed.”
“Right, sir.” He returned to his post.
Stone reached the dock and stepped into the cockpit of the yacht, then unlocked the companionway hatch and opened it. He lowered the sail bag carefully below. “Okay, the coast is clear,” he said, “as long as you don’t come on deck just yet.”
The sail bag’s zipper opened, and Holly struggled out. “I’m good.”
“Just have a seat in the saloon. It’ll take me a few minutes to get underway. And if you will, go up forward and hand me the genoa. The bag is labeled.”
Holly found and handed the sail up to him. Stone bent it onto the forestay, then went aft and got the engine started. Shortly, they were motoring out of the harbor, past a line of mostly empty moorings.
“You can come up now,” Stone said, “but sit on the cockpit floor. Those guys have binoculars, and I don’t want them to spot you.”
Holly tossed up some cushions, then came up the companionway steps and crawled aft, making herself a comfortable perch in the cockpit.
Stone hoisted the main and the genoa, switched off the engine, and let the boat reach along in the light winds. Soon they turned the point and were in the bay proper, the house and the yacht club now out of sight.
“What a day for it!” Holly yelled. “I feel free again. I haven’t felt that way since the campaign started!”
“We’re not going to see a lot of traffic out here in November, but if we spot somebody, resume your seat on the cockpit floor,” Stone said.
The breeze picked up a little, and their speed increased.
4
They had been out for a good two hours when Stone felt a gust for the first time. He looked aft and saw low, dark clouds on the horizon. “Uh-oh,” he said.
“You didn’t get a forecast?” Holly asked. “Bad Stone!”
“I was too busy smuggling your ass onto the boat!” Stone came back. “Stand by to luff up!” He turned into the wind and the boat slowed. “Let’s get these big sails down, and put up a small jib. Find me one up forward.”
Holly sprang to it.
Stone cranked the main down and into the reefing boom and secured it, then freed the genoa halyard, while Holly came out the forward hatch with a jib and started pulling the genoa into the forepeak. Shortly, she had the small jib clipped onto the forestay and the halyard affixed to the sail, and Stone hauled on the halyard, which led aft to the cockpit for shorthanded sailing. He pulled in the jib sheet and winched it to the proper angle, then bore away toward home.
* * *
—
An hour later the sky had darkened, and big drops of scattered rain were falling on them. Stone sent Holly below for foul weather gear, and they suited up before the rain became steady.
“That’s the right sail for this,” Holly said.
“Yes, I think we can ride it all the way in.”
The wind was increasing, and whitecaps appeared on the dark water. “Twenty knots, by the Beaufort scale,” Stone said. Lightning flashed. Then they got a big gust, and the yacht heeled. “That’s thirty knots,” he said. The sea was choppy now, with waves of three or four feet. They pressed on, in rain and increasing fog.
“There!” Stone said, pointing at a boat. “That motor yacht is the outermost one on the mooring line.” Other boats and a lot of empty moorings began appearing. They were running down a sort of alley between the rows. “We’re right on course for my dock,” he said. “Tell me when you spot it.”
Holly went below, then her head popped up through the forward hatch. “Nothing yet!” she yelled. Then, a moment later: “Dock ho! Come five degrees to port.”
Stone made the slight turn, then saw the dock. He started the engine, then dropped the jib, and Holly climbed on deck, a mooring line in her hands.
Stone eased alongside the dock and stepped ashore with the stern line and made it fast, then he went back aboard and cut the engine.
Holly stuffed the jib into the forepeak, then went below and emerged into the cockpit. It was raining hard now, and the wind was up even more.
“I don’t think we’ll bother smuggling you into the house,” Stone said. “Nobody can see us in all this, anyway.” He got the cockpit a little neater, then locked the hatch and took Holly’s hand while she climbed onto the dock. He followed, and they began staggering toward the house, against the wind. Finally, its shape emerged from the gloom.
“Where’s our agent on the back door?” Holly asked.
“He’s taken shelter. Drowning isn’t one of their duties, is it?”
“Quite right.”
They shed their foul weather gear on the back porch and stuffed it into a locker to keep it from blowing away, while Stone unlocked the back door.
It was warmer inside, but the fire had died. Stone rebuilt it. Shortly, they were comforting themselves with bourbon and a blaze.
“I guess Dino and Viv got caught out, too. They must have taken shelter somewhere.” A moment later, the doorbell rang, and there was hammering on the door. “That’s them.” Stone went to let them in.
Dino and Viv stumbled into the house, soaking wet.
“Where the hell have you been?” Dino demanded.
“Holly and I went for a sail,” Stone replied.