Page 127 of Near Miss

“The Sarge isn’t going to wait long for me to come back before he decides to make a move on you anyway. What are you going to do?”

“I’m working on that,” Stone said.

“My suggestion,” Ed said, “work faster.”

Chapter 62

That afternoon, someone knocked on Stone’s office doorway. “Mr. Barrington, do you have a moment?”

Stone waved in the specialist Mike Freeman had sent to check out the desk clock.

“You were right to be concerned,” she said. “There are two bugs in the clock and one embedded in the packing material in the box.”

“I’d like to say I’m surprised.”

“Maybe this will do the trick. Whoever sent the clock wasn’t playing around. The bugs employ the latest tech and are not cheap. Their selling point is that they are undetectable. And to most scanners, they would be. Lucky for you, Strategic Services also uses the latest tech. But even then, I almost missed them.”

“I appreciate your efforts.”

“Would you like me to take them with me when I leave?”

Stone ignored the specialist’s question and asked one of his own. “What kind of range do the bugs have?”

“If you’re worried that they might pick up our conversation here from the shed outside, don’t be,” she said. “It’s nowhere near that sensitive. I would avoid having sensitive conversations in your garden, however.”

“That’s what I was hoping you’d say. Thank you. Let’s leave them in the shed for now. If I change my mind, I’ll call Mike.”

“Understood.” She left.

Joan popped in a moment later. “So?”

“So, be careful what you say in the garden,” he said. “And tell Carly, too.”

“Tell me what?” Carly asked from the doorway.

“To watch what you say.”

“You’ve already told me that, multiple times.”

“This time I mean when around the shed in the garden.”

“That’s oddly specific.”

Stone explained to her about the clock.

“Okay, that makes sense now,” Carly said. “But I don’t understand why you’re keeping it around.”

“Because it could provide us with an opportunity.”

“What kind of opportunity?”

Stone tapped his temple. “I’m working on that.”

“You should work faster.”

Before he could respond, Joan said, “Oh, I almost forgot,” and laid a white envelope on his desk, which had nothing written on the outside.

Stone leaned away from it, as if it were a snake. “Who is it from?”

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