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“No, I’m relieved that you’ve done a good job here, and I thank you. Felicity, you can curl up on the sofa with me, if you like,” Lance said by way of dismissal.
“Thank you, but there’s a tank waiting for me downstairs,” Felicity replied. “Holly, can I drop you and Stone anywhere?”
“Is there room in this vehicle?” Holly asked.
“Oh, dear, yes.”
“Then we’d be grateful for a lift to the Connaught.”
“Done.”
Lance hit the sofa, and the others left.
Stone and Holly got out of the armored Bentley at the Connaught and bade Felicity good-bye.
“Did Lance say we should go to a matinee?” Holly asked.
“Perhaps he meant that we should have a matinee,” Stone replied, ushering her quickly through the lobby.
“Good idea,” Holly replied.
Jasmine stood before an immigration officer at Kennedy Airport in New York and handed him her British passport, along with her most brilliant
smile.
The young man’s eyes lingered on her face, then flicked to the passport and back. “The purpose of your visit, Ms. Avery?”
“Pure pleasure,” Jasmine replied, turning her smile into a laugh.
He stamped the passport and handed it back to her. “Welcome to New York, Ms. Avery. I hope you enjoy your visit.”
“Oh, I will,” Jasmine said, accepting the passport and tucking it into her bag. She rolled her bag through customs, unimpeded, and emerged into a large hall where a group of livery drivers held up signs with their passengers’ names on them, one for Ms. Avery. She handed the handle of her case to the driver and walked alongside him.
“Good flight?”
“Perfectly normal,” Jasmine replied.
“Our people will be glad to see you.”
“And I, them,” she said.
She settled in the rear of the black Lincoln sedan and took a deep breath. She had slept remarkably well in first class and felt ready to greet the day.
Two changes of cars later she was set down at the curb in front of a pretty town house in the West Forties with geraniums growing in window boxes.
“Basement,” her driver said, then drove away.
She walked down a few steps, towing her case, then under the main stairs to a heavy door and rang the bell. She looked up into a surveillance camera and smiled.
A moment later the door opened and a fashionably dressed, middle-aged man in a business suit let her in. “Welcome to New York,” he said. “I am Habib.”
“Everybody’s Habib,” she said, then rolled her case into the apartment. It was bigger than she had thought it would be, with a large living room with a dining alcove. Habib took her case and rolled it to the rear of the apartment, showing her the bedroom.
“Do you need to sleep?” he asked.
“I need to blow up something,” she replied.
“I’ll be at the dining room table when you’re ready.”
