But they never came. She must have been sufficiently fast that they had not seen her. Breathing deeply, she looked around. There was no sign of Abu Auda. She slowed, hooked her MP5K up under her flared skirt again, and stepped out onto the street. For a moment, excitement coursed through her as she saw Abu Auda again. He was approaching the cornerhellip;but police stationed there stopped him. Aching to capture and interrogate him herself, she watched as one of the officers examined his papers. But the inspection was only cursory: After all, a black man with Spanish papers could not be an Arab terrorist.
Randi rushed through the street’s yellow pools of lamplight, but they were already letting him pass. The police turned to stare at her, their faces grim. She was next. She did not mind their questions, because she had good fake ID. What concerned her was the delay of having to deal with them.
As she watched Abu Auda turn the corner and disappear, she thought quickly. And began to swing her hips. She swayed toward them in her best imitation of the fiery Carmen, heels clicking on the street rhythmically.
As she approached, their expressions grew interested. She smiled widely, spun on her toes, and flipped the back of her skirt at them just enough for a flash of panties but not enough to show the weapon that dangled in front. They grinned and whistled in salute, and she passed by, holding her breath, heart thudding against her ribs, until one demanded her phone number. With snapping eyes, she gave him a phony one.
As the others pounded him on the back in congratulations, she sauntered off and around the same corner that Abu Auda had taken. And stopped, gazing all around, searching the lamplight and shadows of the street for him. But he was nowhere in sight. She had gone through the checkpoint faster than he had, but not fast enough. Disappointed, she moved on, looking everywhere, until finally she reached the next intersection and was forced to believe she had been too slow, ormore likelyhe was already gone.
She hailed a taxi and told the driver to take her to the airport. Sitting back in the dim interior, she considered what she had learned: First, the black Crescent Shield leader from the Fulani tribe was named Abu Auda and he spoke Spanish and Arabic. Second, whatever the Crescent Shield planned to do were to be massive blows. Thirdand most worrisome was that it would happen soon. Very soon.
Chapter Nineteen
Paris, France Thursday, May 8
In the ultramodern Pompidou Hospital, Marty Zellerbach had been moved to a private room, where Legionnaires now guarded his door. Peter Howell pulled up a chair to Marty’s bed and said cheerfully, “Well, old friend, this is a fine mess you’ve gotten yourself into. Can’t leave you on your own for long, can I? That’s righthellip;Howell here. Peter Howell, who taught you all that you know about firearms. Oh, don’t try to deny it or claim weapons are vulgar and stupid. I know better.” Smiling to himself, he paused, rememberinghellip;.
It had been night, black night, in a large state park outside Syracuse, New York. He and Marty were trapped in his RV at the edge of the woods, surrounded by hired thugs whose gunfire had shot out all the windows. He threw Marty an assault rifle. “When I say point, just pull the trigger, my boy. Imagine the weapon’s simply a joystick.”
He could see Marty’s expression of distaste as he examined the rifle and grumbled to himself, “There are some things I never wanted to learn.” He gave a pained sigh. “Naturally, I understand this primitive machine. Child’s play.”
Marty was as good as his word. When Peter told him to fire, Marty nodded and squeezed the trigger. The weapon bucked hard, and Marty fought to keep his balance and to keep his eyes open. His barrage shredded leaves and pine needles, ripped bark, sawed through branches, and created so much havoc that their attackers had been momentarily stopped. Which was just what Peter had needed to slip away and go for help.
Peter liked to think of himself as a peaceful man, but the truth was, he enjoyed action. To his way of thinking, he was just an old English bulldog, who relished getting his fangs into something worthwhile. He leaned over the bed’s railing and told Marty, “Took to bloody combat like a duck to water, you did.” It was far from true, but it was the sort of annoying statement that always got a rise out of Marty.
Peter waited, hoping Marty’s eyes would snap open and he would say something insulting. When nothing happened, he turned to look back at Dr. Dubost, who was standing at the end of the bed, entering information into Marty’s computer chart. Peter raised his eyebrows questioningly.
“It’s a small relapse,” the doctor explained in French. “They’re to be expected.”
“They’ll diminish with time?”
“Oui.
All the signs are there. Now I’m off, monsieur, to see other patients. Please continue your conversation with Dr. Zellerbach, by all means. Your ebullience is charming, and it can’t but help.” Peter scowled. “Ebullience” did not strike him as an accurate description, but then the French were known to be slightly off kilter in their understanding of a lot of things. He said a polite adieu and turned back to Marty. “Alone at last,” he muttered, suddenly feeling tired and very worried.
He had dozed on the jet ride from Madrid, giving him more consecutive hours of sleep than he had on many assignments, but it was the worry itself that nagged him. He had been thinking about the Crescent Shield, that it appeared to be pan-Islamic. There was no shortage of countries in the Third World that hated the United States and, to a lesser extent, Britain, claiming great damage from their driving capitalism, that their brand of globalization ignored local customs and businesses and destroyed the environment, and that their cultural arrogance crushed sensible protest. He was reminded of that old died-in-the-wool Tory, Winston Churchill, who had explained blithelyand accurately that His Majesty’s government did not base its practices and policies on the whims of locals. Whether the Crescent Shield were fundamentalists or not religious at all seemed less worrisome to him than the poverty that gave rise to so much terrorism.
The voice that brought him out of his uneasy reverie was not Marty’s: “You couldn’t wait for me?”
Automatically, Peter grabbed for his gun and turned. And relaxed. It was Randi Russell, marching into the private room, the credentials she had shown the guard at the door still in her hand.
“To where, may I ask,” Peter admonished, “did you disappear?”
Randi put away her ID, and Peter met her in the middle of the room. She related what she had seen and done since they separated in Madrid. The sexy flamenco outfit she described was gone, and now she was dressed in serviceable twill slacks, a white button-down shirt, and a tailored black jacket. Her blond hair was pulled back into a stubby ponytail, and her brown eyes were worried as she told him, “I got to Barajas about ten minutes after the two of you had flown out.”
“You had Jon’s wind up a bit. The poor sod was anxious about you.”
At that, she grinned. “Was he now?”
“Save it for Jon, my girl,” Peter declared. “For me, I never doubted. You say Abu Auda was leading them?” He looked grim. “Possibly some Nigerian warlord is helping the Crescent Shield. It gets murkier with every new detail.”
“It sure does,” Randi agreed. “But the most vital piece of information I overheard was that whatever they’re planning is going to happen soon. Two days, at the most.”
“Then we’d best get a move on,” Peter told her. “Check in with your station chief yet?”
“Not before I saw Marty. Is he asleep?”
“Relapsed.” Peter sighed wearily. “With any luck, he’ll wake again soon. When he does, I shall be here in case he can tell us anything we haven’t learned.”
“Is this your chair?” She headed for the armchair he had moved next to Marty’s bed. “Mind if I use it?” She sat without waiting for an answer.
“Certainly,” he said. “Be my guest.”
She ignored the sarcasm and picked up Marty’s hand. It had a natural warmth that was reassuring. She leaned forward and kissed his pudgy cheek. “He looks good,” she told Peter. Then she said to Marty, “Hi, Marty. It’s Randi, and I just want you to know how great you look. As if you’re going to wake up any moment and say something wonderfully disagreeable to Peter.”
But Marty was silent, his jaw relaxed, his high forehead uncreased, as if he had never had an unpleasant experience. But that was far from the truth. After the Hades problem had been resolved, and Marty had returned to his solitary life in his bungalow hidden behind high hedges in Washington, he might have left bullets and terrifying escapes behind, but he still had to deal with the normal activities of everyday life. For someone with Asperger’s, they could be overwhelming. Which was why Marty had designed his home as a mini fortress.