was dark and nearly silent. He listened, frowning. Inside he could hear the soft sound of someone’s weeping.
Baghdad, Iraq The one commodity in Baghdad that was not in short supply or impossible to afford was petrol. As usual, traffic at five p.m. was congested on every major street of the ancient metropolis. Behind the wheel of his shiny Mercedes, Dr. Hussein Kamil was thinking bitterly of the shortages of anything that had to be imported or manufactured as he fought the sluggish river of cars and trucks toward the commercial center of the city. He was on a terrifying errand. His patients depended on the life-saving medicines that came from outside Iraq. So did his wealth, privileges, and the future of his family. His patients were among the country’s elite, and if he failed to find the antibiotics, tranquilizers, antidepressants, and all the other sophisticated Western pharmaceuticals they demanded, they would go somewhere else … or worse.
He did not know how the elegant Frenchwoman had discovered how he obtained his contraband pharmaceuticals. But she knew every name and place, every contact, every devious arrangement, every secret drop. If a syllable of it were ever to come to the ears of the government or the Republican Guard, they would kill him.
His throat dry with fear, he arrived at a soaring high-rise that had been constructed in happier times. He parked in the garage beneath and rode the elevator up to the headquarters of Tigris Export-Import, Ltd., Agricultural Chemicals. It was rumored to be one of the thousands of companies owned through fronts by the president and his family.
Nadia, the anxious secretary, was waiting to meet him, wringing her hands. “He just collapsed, Dr. Kamil. Without warning. One moment he was?”
“He’s still unconscious?”
“Yes. We’re so frightened.”
She led him at a trot past the cubicles of dozens of employees preparing in grim silence to go home for the day and into the large, quiet office of his patient, Nasser Faidhi, CEO and chairman. The view over the city and far out into the desert beyond the Tigris and Euphrates rivers was imposing. He took it in with a brief glance and rushed to Faidhi, who was lying on a leather couch, unconscious. He checked his vital signs.
Nadia whispered, “Is he going to die?”
Dr. Kamil had no idea how the Frenchwoman had created this medical crisis, but he knew she had, since she had told him he would get the call at precisely 4:45 p. m., and she had been right. He doubted Faidhi’s death was in her plan, because it would provoke an official investigation. The good news was that Faidhi’s heart beat strongly, his pulse was steady, and his color good. He was simply unconscious. Some kind of quick-acting but essentially harmless drug, Dr. Kamil guessed.
He told the secretary, “Not at all, but I’ll need to make some tests.”
He glanced at her. “I must undress him. You understand?”
Nadia flushed. “Of course, Doctor.”
“Thank you. And see that we’re not disturbed.”
“No one would dare.” She left the office. She would guard the door like a fire-eating beast.
The moment he was alone with the unconscious businessman, Dr. Kamil hurried to the wall of filing cabinets where he found the file the Frenchwoman had described: Flying Dragon Enterprises of Shanghai. Inside were four sheets of paper. Two were letters from the company’s Basra office, describing negotiations with a Yu Yongfu, president of Flying Dragon, con earning a cargo of agricultural implements, chemicals, electronics, and other goods to be delivered to the company on a ship named The Dowager Empress. The other two were Faidhi’s responses, containing instructions on the handling of the arrangements by the Basra office. There was nothing else.
Dr. Kamil’s heart pounded with joy. The invoice the Frenchwoman wanted either did not exist or was in the Basra office. He jammed the file back inside the drawer, closed it, and strode back to his patient.
Twenty minutes later, there was a low cough followed by a sigh from Faidhi. His eyelids fluttered. Dr. Kamil marched to the office door, opened it, and smiled to the distraught secretary, pacing outside.
“You may come in now, Nadia. He’s reviving and should be fine.”
“Allah be praised!” “Of course,” Kamil said solemnly, “I’ll need to examine him further, a complete checkup. Call my office and make an appointment for him.” He smiled again. There would be a fat fee and much gratitude. He would tell the Frenchwoman that if she wanted that invoice, she would have to go to Basra, where, of course, he could not go without arousing suspicion.
Everything had turned out well, just as he had expected.
Chapter Eight
A beautiful woman sat alone in the darkened living room, in the midst of heavy, museum-quality antique side pieces. She was curled up on a brown-leather Eames chair. Small and slender, she wore her shiny black hair pulled back in a simple ponytail. In one hand, she held a half-full brandy snifter. An uncorked bottle of Remy Martin cognac stood on the chrome-and-ebony table next to her. A large cat watched from a luxurious couch nearly half as long as the mammoth living room.
The woman gave no sign she saw Smith, the cat, or anything else. She was staring into space, a fragile presence dwarfed by her surroundings.
Smith scanned the room for a sign the woman was not alone. He saw and heard nothing. The house was eerily silent. He stepped carefully into the room, his Beretta still in both hands. The woman raised the snifter and drank it dry in a single gulp. She reached for the open bottle, poured it half full again, set the bottle down, and continued to stare ahead, her movements automatic, like a robot.
Smith walked closer, making no sound, the Beretta still up and ready.
Suddenly she was looking straight at him, and he realized he knew her from somewhere, had seen her before. At least her face, the high-necked Chinese dress she wore, the imperious expression … Of course, it was in the movies. Some Chinese movie. She was a film star. Yu Yongfu’s trophy wife? Whoever she was, she was staring straight into his face, seemingly oblivious to his pistol.
“You’re the American spy.” Her English was flawless, and it was a statement, not a question.
“Really?” “My husband told me.”
“Is Yu Yongfu here?”
She looked away, staring again into the distance. “My husband is dead.”
“Dead? How did he die? When?”
The woman turned to face him again and then did something odd. She looked at her watch. “Ten or perhaps fifteen minutes ago. How? He didn’t tell me. Possibly a pistol like the one you’re holding. Do all men love guns?”
Her matter-of-fact, emotionless voice, her morbid calm, chilled Smith.
Like a sharp wind blowing across a glacier.
“It was you,” she continued. “They feared you. Your presence. It would cause questions they didn’t want asked.”
“Who are ”?”
She drained her cognac again. “Those who required my husband to kill himself. For me and the children, they said. For the family.” She laughed. It was abrupt, like an explosion. A macabre sound more like a bark than a real laugh. There was no humor in it, only bitterness. “They took his life to save themselves. Not from danger, mind you. From possible danger.” Her smile at Smith was mocking. “And here you are, aren’t you? Looking for my husband, just as they said you would. They always know when there’s a threat to their interests.”
Smith seized on the acerbic mockery. “If you want to avenge him, help me bring them down. I need a document he had. It’ll expose them for the international criminals they are.”
She considered. There was speculation in her gaze. She searched his face as if to find some trick. Then she shrugged, picked up the bottle of Remy Martin, poured her snifter almost full, and gazed away.
“Upstairs,” she said woodenly. “In the safe in our bedroom.”
She did not look at him again. Instead, she sipped the brandy and studied the empty air above her head as if it were full of answers she could not quite read.
