rammed an Arabian dagger into the heart of Matt Barker. Jimmy walked to the end of the parking lot. There was an obvious bloodstain on the wall and on the concrete surface of the area. They walked in through the rear door of the hotel and inquired if they were too late for breakfast. The manager smiled and said, “Go through to the dining room and we’ll fix you up.”
It was almost 11 A.M. when Jimmy ordered eggs, bacon, sausage, and toast. Jane settled for cereal, yogurt, and fresh fruit salad. They were sitting in companionable silence when Jimmy stood up and walked through to the hotel foyer and spoke to the manager.
“Sir, are you Mr. Jim Caborn?”
“That’s me.”
Jimmy offered his hand and said quietly, “I’m Lt. Commander Ramshawe, National Security Agency. Could you find time to join me in the dining room? There’s a couple of things I’d like to discuss.”
The hotel manager looked suitably impressed at the mention of America’s most secret intelligence agency. “Why, certainly, Commander. I’ll be right in.” Jimmy returned to Jane, and Caborn came in and pulled up a chair and sat with them. He was a naturally friendly man, and he poured himself a cup of coffee.
“I’ll get some fresh if we need it,” he said, and offered his own right hand to Jane Peacock with the practiced aplomb of all hotel managers. “Glad to meet you, ma’am,” he said.
She shook his hand and replied, in the unmistakable style of a true Australian, “G’day, Jim. Nice little place you’ve got here.”
The hotel manager grinned and said: “Now what would a high-ranking young officer from the National Security Agency be doing down here — as if I didn’t know. It’s Carla, isn’t it?”
“Of course it is,” replied Jimmy. “And I want you to answer my questions with great care.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his identification pass, which allowed him to enter, every day and any night, the innermost sanctum of the front line of America’s military security.
Jim Caborn gave it a cursory glance and handed it back. “I don’t need to see that,” he said. “If the hotel business teaches you one thing, it’s to spot genuine. I knew you were on the level, first time I saw you.”
“Did you feel that way about Carla Martin?” asked the commander.
“Well, she had an American passport and all the right references. But there was something about her — she was kind of a mystery. I never felt I knew one thing about her background.”
“Did you ever think she might be foreign?”
“Not consciously. But now you mention it, she did sometimes say things kind of strangely. You know, like a French person — fluent in English, but sometimes saying things not quite the way we would.”
Jimmy nodded. “I guess you never knew where she lived?”
“No. I never did. No one did. Still don’t.”
“Do you think she murdered Matt Barker?”
“Jesus, I’ve always found that darned near impossible to grasp. She was a very nice girl, educated, polite, and very efficient. But I guess you have to consider, she covered her tracks and vanished the night of the murder. Never been seen since.”
“You have no documents or records of her?”
“Hell, no. Either she or someone else cleaned out her file. We have absolutely nothing to show that she ever existed.”
“Very professional,” murmured Jimmy.
The manager looked at him quizzically. “Professional?” he said. “I’d say more like cunning.”
“We’re in different trades, mate,” replied Ramshawe.
They finished their coffee, paid the bill, and said their good-byes; but as Jimmy and Jane walked across the parking lot, she turned and said, “Jesus, Jim, there were a whole lot more questions I could have asked him.”
“I’m not trying to solve this murder,” he replied. “I’m trying to identify Miss Carla Martin, nothing else. I don’t give a flying fuck about Matt Barker or his death.”
“Well, where are we going now?”
“We’re going to the police station, mostly because I want to have a look at that dagger.”
They’d driven past Detective Segel’s office on the way to the hotel, and now they strolled through the warm summer morning, leaving the car parked behind the hotel.
Both of them wore light blue jeans and loafers. Jane had on a crisp white shirt, and Jimmy a dark blue short- sleeved polo shirt. His shock of floppy dark hair, which so irritated the crewcut Admiral Morris, blew in the light wind. As did Jane’s spectacular blonde mane, bleached all through her teenage years by the hot sun that warmed Sydney’s Bondi Beach. They were, by any standard, a striking couple.
When they reached the police station, Jane said she’d rather wander down to the wide river, and Jimmy walked alone to the duty officer’s desk. He asked to see Detective Joe Segel, whose name he had read in the newspaper as the man leading the murder inquiry.
His NSA identification dispensed with any waiting. Within one minute, Lieutenant Commander Ramshawe was shown into the office of Brockhurst’s top investigator. They exchanged greetings, but Jimmy was aware of the natural reserve all local law officers display in the presence of officials from the FBI, the CIA, or, even more sinister, the National Security Agency.
Detective Segel smiled. “And to what do we owe this great honor?” he asked.
“Oh, nothing much,” said Jimmy, cheerfully. “I was just trying to get a handle on this vanished Carla Martin. Tell the truth, we think she might be foreign, and we’d very much like to know precisely what she was up to, working here in this small Virginia town.”
“But what caused you to care so much, you drove personally all the way down here? Your card says you’re the assistant to the director.”
“Two things, Joe,” replied Jimmy, slipping easily into the naturally casual way of the Aussie. “One, Miss Martin apparently took a great amount of trouble removing every trace of identification at the hotel. I’m assuming the murder of Matt Barker was a sudden and bloody inconvenient occurrence, and merely hastened her departure. Like no one thinks she came down here just to murder Matt.
“Two, that dagger was Middle Eastern in origin, and America’s most important terrorist hunter, Admiral Arnold Morgan, just happens to have a mother-in-law who lives right here in this town. I guess a few hundred yards from where Carla Martin worked so anonymously. We don’t like the coincidence.”
“Stated like that, I’m not sure I do either,” replied Detective Segel. “I do, of course, know Emily Gallagher. And I have, of course, had a chat with her about Carla Martin. I’ve spoken to most people in the area, especially those who frequent the Estuary Hotel. But I’ll admit that it had not occurred to me that Mrs. Gallagher was the prime reason for Carla’s presence right here in Brockhurst.”
“Different mindset, old mate,” said Jimmy. “You’re trying to solve a murder. I’m looking at the possibility of a future attempt on the admiral’s life. Although I’ve kept that one to myself. And I sure as hell haven’t told the admiral!”
Detective Segel laughed. “Good idea,” he said. “Might make him nervous.”
“Not him,” said Jimmy. “He’d just laugh and say he wasn’t sufficiently important for that. But even he’d know that was pure bullshit.”
Detective Segel frowned. “You mean Carla Martin was here as a kind of jihadist outrider, trying to find out the future movements of Admiral Morgan and his wife?”
“I think she might have been. But first, could you and I have a look at the murder weapon?”
“It’s right here. let me give you a pair of rubber gloves to handle it with. The forensic guys might want to look at it again.”
Jimmy pulled on the gloves and removed the dagger from the plastic evidence bag. He pulled a small folding printmaker’s glass from his pocket, and he stared hard at the area where the blade joined the handle. And there he saw what he had come for. A small mark, perhaps a hieroglyphic, possibly Arabic writing, no more than a half inch long. It began with a shape like a small letter “a” with two dots above and below, then two curves like a “j” and then a “9,” finally a “w.”
Jimmy pulled a small white card from his pocket. It contained an alphabetical list of fourteen Middle Eastern countries, from Bahrain through Egypt, Iran, Iraq, and Jordan to Yemen. Next to the name of each country was the Arab translation. The markings on the dagger fitted precisely the country listed eleventh from the top, Syria.
“Well, Joe,” said the commander, “at least we know where the murder weapon was made.”
