voice in the background, telling him, whispering
And yet…he longed for Laura. The memory of her touch and her laughter, and their love for each other, was as vivid that night as it had ever been. Ben Adnam would have cut off his right arm to have her just once more. And at 0004 he stepped through the doorway into the upstairs corridor, his desert knife clutched in his right hand.
One floor below him, Bill leaned against the wall, his rifle cocked, watching the two doors along the southern corridor. Ben saw him first, the glint of the barrels of the Lefever, which was not so much an advantage as a clarification. The Iraqi’s task was plain, he had to descend thirteen steps without being heard, at which point Bill Baldridge was his.
Downstairs he heard Laura yell, “Where do you keep the shells for this damned thing…?” Bill, standing not fifteen feet below Commander Adnam, shouted back “Cupboard by the back stairs…top shelf…right-hand side… leather box…”
Ben took three steps downward while Lieutenant Commander and Mrs. Baldridge communicated. And he pressed himself against the wall deep into the shadows of the upper staircase of the big, heavily timbered ranch house. He pressed on down three more steps. Bill took a pace forward, then another, peering down over the balustrade to the first floor. Then he stepped back into his original position.
Ben Adnam was just 7 feet away now, and suddenly, as if emerging from the dark tunnel of his own self-pity, all of his old sense of cold-blooded reason came flooding back. He wasn’t going to kill Baldridge. But he pounced noiselessly, with a menace that was guided by cool intent. And Lt. Commander Bill Baldridge felt the cold steel of the Iraqi’s wide desert knife pressed hard against the left-hand side of his throat.
“Good evening, Lieutenant Commander,” said a British voice. “I don’t need to tell you it would take me less than five-thousandths of a second to sever your jugular, do I?”
Bill Baldridge said nothing.
“But, actually, I do not intend to do that. Now, walk carefully and place your gun on that chair.”
They both moved four paces across the hall, close to the corridor that Bill had been guarding. He put the loaded shotgun down.
“Excellent,” replied Adnam. And, with a move that absolutely astonished Bill, he removed his big desert knife from Bill’s throat and placed it on the chair also, right next to the Lefever.
“There,” said Ben Adnam. “I have not, of course, come to kill you. I have come to claim your attention. Because I want to bargain for my life…I believe you know who I am, and I should like to think we can now talk on equal terms.”
As it turned out, that might have been possible twenty seconds earlier. But it was no longer possible. Because suddenly, jammed hard against the base of Commander Adnam’s skull, were the two cold rings of steel of the 29-inch barrels of a loaded 12-bore Purdey sporting gun that had once belonged to the Ninth Earl of Jedburgh.
“Hello, Ben,” said the soft voice he had traveled across the world to hear. “If you keep very still, I may not blow your head off. But if my husband tells me to do so, I shall not hesitate. I expect I’ll be given the Congressional Medal for my marksmanship.”
Ben Adnam froze. But he kept his composure. “Hello, Laura,” he said. “What a nice surprise. Are you sure you know how to use that thing?”
Bill Baldridge, whose childhood heroes had been local men like Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, the Dalton brothers, and Wild Bill Hickok, was amazed by the coolness of the conversation between the Scottish heiress and the Arab assassin.
He was, for a few seconds, speechless. Then he heard Laura say, “Ben, both my grandfather and I could hit a high pheasant flying downwind at 50 mph with this particular gun. I assure you, I am even better with a closer target.” And she shoved both barrels a little harder into the dark curly hair at the base of the skull of her former lover.
Bill, like the commander, by now believed she might actually do it. And he stepped forward to confiscate the knife and reclaim his own gun from the chair. But he took the greatest care to stay well clear of the front of Adnam’s face, just in case his wife got carried away.
Then he spoke for the first time. “Commander Adnam,” he said, “step through that door over there, turn left, and face the wall with your hands on your head. If he makes one move, Laura, kill him. Or I will.”
Ben walked forward slowly, Laura’s magnificent shotgun, bearing Purdey’s classic rose-and-scroll pattern engraving, still rammed against his head. Inside the office, Bill searched him carefully, warning Laura, “This man is lethal…he could kill the pair of us with his bare hands in under twenty seconds…keep that ole Purdey rock solid against his brain, and keep your finger on the trigger…twitching.”
“Don’t even think about the mess you’ll make,” said Laura to Ben. “I was going to have this carpet changed anyway, and the room’s being redecorated next month.”
Bill couldn’t help smiling, but the deadly nature of the game kept him focused. He moved behind his desk, keeping his own gun trained on Adnam, who was still standing, pressed against the wall. Bill held the weapon straight with one hand and pressed a button on the telephone with the other.
Then he picked up the receiver. “Ray…hi…yeah, sorry it’s so late…but we got a big problem right here…I want you to come over right now, dressed and armed…your shotgun…and some rope…round up McGaughey, and Razor…and make it quick.”
He turned off the burglar alarms, walked around, and stood next to Laura. No one spoke, no one moved for eight minutes, until, with a crash of the front door, the big, prairie-hard Ray Baldridge came clumping in, accompanied by the veteran herd manager, Skip McGaughey, and the ranch hand and groom, Razor Macey.
“Up here, guys!” yelled Bill. They heard the three men climb the stairs, walking along to the light in the office. Ray came in first, holding a shotgun and a lariat. McGaughey had a six-shooter in his belt, as did Razor.
“Hey, little brother, you got a visitor?”
“He’s a bit more than that…this is the bastard that killed Jack, sank the
The very mention of Bill and Ray’s brother, Captain Jack Baldridge, who had been Group Operations Officer in the lost U.S. aircraft carrier, four years previously, galvanized the Kansan cowboys.
Ray eased Laura away, took Ben by the back of the neck, kicked his feet from under him, and dropped expertly down on one knee, his other shin rammed into Commander Adnam’s throat as he lay prostrate.
Ray wrapped the rope tight around the Iraqi’s wrists behind his back, looped it around and through, and did the same to Ben’s ankles. Houdini himself would have been there for life. “He ain’t goin’ nowheres,” said Ray. “You want me to put a hot branding iron to him?”
“Not yet,” said Bill. “Depends a lot on how he behaves. Can you put him in that chair? I wanna talk to him.”
They manhandled Ben upward and sat him down, facing Bill. Laura stayed behind the chair, as if trying to avoid gazing upon the man she had once loved.
“What do you want, Ben Adnam?” said Bill. “What the hell do you want?”
Ben smiled. “I want you to get me in front of the President’s highest national security officer. I have much to say, and much to sell.”
“Are you kidding?” replied Bill. “They’ll put you in front of a firing squad in about twenty minutes. After the crimes you have committed. Not just against the U.S. But against humanity.”
“Maybe they will. But perhaps not. Do you know of anyone else who knows as much as I do — and who has also deliberately placed himself in your power?”
Bill Baldridge looked pensive. “No, offhand, I guess I don’t.”
And he picked up the telephone again and dialed the number of the main switchboard in the White House, where it was not yet 2:00 A.M. on the morning of Friday, April 14.
Everyone in the room heard Bill’s terse request. “Hello…this is Lieutenant Commander Bill Baldridge in Kansas…please connect me right now to the President’s national security advisor wherever he is…yes…correct… Admiral Morgan…Admiral Arnold Morgan…”
None of them noted the narrow smile on the face of Commander Adnam as the White House operator
