The doors closed as she casually grimaced to herself; it was the expression of someone who may have forgotten something. Again casually, she opened her bag as if to check for the possibly missing item. She exhaled audibly, her face relaxed; the item was there. It was. Her gun. The elevator began its descent as she glanced at the stranger.
She froze! His eyes were two orbs of controlled white heat, and the short, neatly combed hair was light blond. He could be no one else!. The blond European… he was one of them! Khalehla lurched for the panel as she yanked out her automatic, dropping her bag and pressing the emergency button. Beyond the doors, the alarm sounded as the elevator jerked to a stop and the blond man stepped forward.
Khalehla fired, the explosion deafening in the tight enclosure, the bullet passing over the intense stranger’s head as it was meant to.
‘Stop where you are!’ she commanded. ‘If you know anything about me, you know my next shot will go right into your forehead.’
‘You are the Rashad woman,’ said the blond man, his speech accented, his voice strained.
‘I don’t know who you are, but I know what you are. Scum-rotten, that’s what you are! Evan was right. All these months, all the stories about him, the congressional committees, the coverage over the world. It was to set him up for a Palestinian kill! It was as simple as that!’
‘No, you are wrong, wrong,’ protested the European as the alarm bell outside kept up its abrasive ringing. ‘And you must not stop me now! A terrible thing is about to happen and I’ve been in touch with your people in Washington.’
“Who? Who in Washington?’
‘We don’t give names—’
‘Bullshit!’
‘Please, Miss Rashad! A man is getting away.’
‘Not you, Blondie—’
Where the blows came from and how they were delivered with such speed Khalehla would never know. For an instant there had been a blurring motion on her left, then a surging hand, as fast as any human hand she had ever seen, stung her right arm, followed by a counterclockwise twist of her right wrist, wrenching the weapon away. Where she might have expected her wrist to be broken it merely burned, as if briefly scalded by a splash of boiling water. The European stood in front of her holding the gun. ‘I did not mean to harm you,’ he said.
‘You’re very good, Scum-rotten, I’ll give you that.’
‘We are not enemies, Miss Rashad.’
‘Somehow I find that hard to believe.’ The elevator telephone rang from the box below the panel, its bell echoing off the four walls of the small enclosure. ‘You’re not getting out of here,’ added Khalehla.
‘Wait,’ said the blond man as the ringing persisted. ‘You saw Mrs. Vanvlanderen.’
‘She told you that. So what?’
‘She couldn’t have,’ broke in the European. ‘I’ve never met her but I have taped her. She had visitors later. They talked about you—she and two other men, one named Grinell.’
‘I never heard of him.’
‘They’re both traitors, enemies of your government, of your country, to be precise, as your country was conceived.’ The telephone kept up its insistent ringing.
‘Fast words, Mr. No Name.’
‘No more words!’ cried the blond man, reaching under his jacket and withdrawing a thin large black automatic. He flipped both weapons around, gripping the barrels, the handles extended towards Khalehla. ‘Here. Take them. Give me a chance, Miss Rashad!’
Astonished, Khalehla held the guns and looked into the eyes of the European. She had seen that plea in too many eyes before. It was not the look of a man afraid to die for a cause, but furious about the prospect of not living to pursue it. ‘All right,’ she said slowly. ‘I may or I may not. Turn around, your arms against the wall! Farther back, your weight on your hands!’ The telephone was now a steady, deafening ring as the field officer from Cairo expertly ran her fingers over the body of the blond man, concentrating on the armpits, the indented shell of his waist and his ankles. There were no weapons on him. ‘Stay there,’ she ordered as she reached down and pulled out the telephone from the box. ‘We couldn’t open the panel for the phone!’ she exclaimed.
‘Our engineer is on his way, madam. He was on his dinner break but we’ve just located him. We apologize profusely. However, our indicators show no fire or—’
‘I think we’re the ones to apologize,’ interrupted Khalehla. ‘It was all a mistake—my mistake. I pushed the wrong button. If you’ll just tell me how to make it work again, we’ll be fine.’
‘Oh? Yes, yes, of course,’ said the male voice, suppressing his irritation. ‘In the telephone box there’s a switch…’
The lobby doors opened and the European immediately spoke to the formally dressed manager who was waiting for them. ‘There is a business associate I was to meet here quite some time ago. I’m afraid I overslept—a long, trying flight from Paris. His name is Grinell, have you seen him?’
‘Mr. Grinell and the distraught Mrs. Vanvlanderen left a few minutes ago with their guests, sir. I assume it was a memorial service for her husband, a fine, fine gentleman.’
‘Yes, he, too, was an associate. We were to be at the service but we never got the address. Do you know it?’
‘Oh, no, sir.’
‘Would anybody? Would the doorman have heard any instructions to a taxi?’
‘Mr. Grinell has his own limousine—limousines, actually.’
‘Let’s go,’ said Khalehla quietly, taking the blond man’s arm. ‘You’re becoming a little obvious,’ she continued as they walked towards the front entrance.
‘I may have failed, which is far more important.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Milos. Just call me Milos.’
‘I want more than that. I’ve got the fire, remember?’
‘If we can reach an acceptable accommodation, I’ll tell you more.’
‘You’re going to tell me one hell of a lot more, Mr. Milos, and there won’t be any more of those fast manoeuvres of yours. Your gun is in my bag, and mine is under my coat aimed at your chest.’
‘What do we do now, Miss Supposedly Retired Central Intelligence Officer from Egypt?’
‘We eat, you nosy bastard. I’m starved, but I’ll pick up every morsel of food with my left hand. If you make a wrong move across the table, you’ll never be able to have children, and not just because you’re dead. Am I clear?’
‘You must be very good.’
‘Good enough, Mr. Milos, good enough. I’m half Arab and don’t you forget it.’
They sat opposite each other in a large circular booth selected by Khalehla in an Italian restaurant two blocks north of the hotel. Varak had detailed everything he had heard over the earphones from the Vanvlanderen suite. ‘I was shocked. I never thought for an instant that Andrew Vanvlanderen would act unilaterally.’
‘You mean without his wife putting “a bullet in his head” and calling one of the others to “deep six” him in Mexico?’
‘Exactly. She would have done it, you know. He was stupid.’
‘I disagree, he was very bright, considering his purpose. Everything that was done to and for Evan Kendrick led to a logical jaremat thaแr, Arabic for a vengeance kill. You provided that, Mr. Milos, starting with the first moment you met Frank Swann at the State Department.’
‘Never with that intention, I assure you. I never thought it was remotely possible.’
‘You were wrong.’
‘I was wrong.’
‘Let’s go back to that first moment—in fact, let’s go back over the whole damn thing!’
‘There’s nothing to go back over. I’ve said nothing of substance.’
‘But we know far more than you think. We just had to unravel the string, as my superior put it… A reluctant freshman congressman is manipulated on to important congressional committees, positions that others would sell their daughters for. Then because of mysteriously absentee chairmen, he’s on national television, which leads to more exposure, topped by the explosive, worldwide story about his covert actions in Oman, and ending up with the President awarding him the highest medal a civilian can get. The agenda is pretty clear, isn’t it?’
‘It was organized quite well, in my opinion.’
‘And now there’s about to be launched a national campaign to place him on the party ticket, in effect making him the next Vice President of the United States.’
‘You know about that?’
‘Yes, and it’s hardly a spontaneous act on the part of the body politic.’
‘I trust it will appear so.’
‘Where are you coming from?’ asked Khalehla, leaning over, picking at her veal dish with the left hand, her right out of sight under the table.
‘I must tell you, Miss Rashad, that it pains me to watch you eating so awkwardly. I’m not a threat to you and I won’t run.’
‘How can I be sure of either? That you’re not a threat and that you won’t run?’