behind him. As the prime minister entered the ballroom, a thousand people stood up and began to applaud. The noise was thunderous. It could easily cover the sound of a gunshot. The prime minister walked to the podium, basked in the warm reception. Gabriel slowly circled the ballroom, looking for Tariq.
Tariq left the Q train at the Broadway-Lafayette Street station and boarded an uptown Number 5 train. He got off at East Eighty-sixth Street and strolled from Lexington Avenue across town to Fifth Avenue, taking in the grand old apartment houses and brownstones. Then he walked uptown two blocks to Eighty-eighth Street. He stopped in front of an apartment house overlooking the park. An Elite Catering truck was double-parked on Eighty-eighth Street; white-jacketed waiters were carrying trays and food and cases of liquor through the service entrance. He looked at his watch. It wouldn’t be long now. He crossed Fifth Avenue, sat down on a bench in a patch of sunlight, and waited.
Jacqueline closed her eyes, tried to think. Tariq was going to use the resources and technology of the Office to lure Gabriel into a trap. She pictured him in his new disguise; even she barely recognized him, and they had been together every minute for the past eighteen hours. It would be difficult, if not impossible, for Gabriel to spot him. Tariq was right: he would hold every advantage. Gabriel would never see him coming.
The girl came into the room, a mug of tea in her hands, gun shoved down the front of her jeans. She paced slowly, looking at Jacqueline, drinking the tea. Then she sat on the edge of the bed. “Tell me something, Dominique. Did you make love to Tariq while you were in Montreal?”
Jacqueline stared back at the girl, wondering what possible relevance this question could have now. The girl lifted the bottom of Jacqueline’s blouse, exposing her abdomen, and poured the scalding tea over her skin.
The gag muffled Jacqueline’s scream. The girl tenderly blew air over the burned skin and covered it with Jacqueline’s blouse. Even the sensation of the light cotton lying on her flesh caused pain. She closed her eyes and felt hot tears running over her cheeks.
Leila said, “Let’s try again. Did you ever make love to Tariq?”
Jacqueline shook her head, eyes still closed.
“Too bad for you,” she said. “I hear he’s a wonderful lover. The girl in Paris told me everything in explicit detail. In a way I suppose she’s lucky Tariq killed her in the end. No man would have ever made love to her the way he did. Her love life would have been a series of disappointments.”
Jacqueline realized that she was never going to set foot outside this room alive. Leila was a psychopath who had no intention of allowing her to live. Indeed, she would probably take pleasure in Jacqueline’s death. No, she thought, if she were going to die, she would die on her own terms. She would die trying to save Gabriel.
But how?
She had to create an opportunity to get away. To do that she had to convince Leila to let her out of the bed.
Through her gag Jacqueline managed to mumble, “I have to go to the bathroom.”
“What did you say?”
Jacqueline repeated her words, more forcefully.
Leila said, “If you have to go, go.”
“Please,” said Jacqueline.
Leila set the empty mug on the floor and removed the gun from the waistband of her trousers. “Remember, we don’t need you for anything. If you try to get away I’ll shoot you in that beautiful face of yours. Do you understand me?”
Jacqueline nodded.
Leila unlocked the cuffs, starting with Jacqueline’s hands and ending with her feet.
“Stand up,” said Leila. “Slowly. And walk, slowly, into the bathroom with your hands behind your head.”
Jacqueline did as she was told. She entered the bathroom, turned around, started to close the door. Leila put her hand on it and aimed the gun at Jacqueline’s face. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Please,” said Jacqueline.
Leila looked around. The bathroom was windowless, no way out except the door. “Knock on the door when you’re finished, Dominique. Stay inside until I tell you to come out.”
Jacqueline lowered her jeans and sat down on the toilet. Now what? To have any chance of getting away she needed a weapon of some sort. Maybe she could hit her with the lid to the toilet tank. No, too big, too heavy. She looked around the bathroom: a shampoo bottle, a bar of soap, a can of shaving cream, a disposable razor, a nail file.
A nail file.
It was resting on the shelf above the sink, below the mirror: a metal nail file, rounded at one end, sharp at the other. Jacqueline remembered her self-defense course at the Academy. The simplest device could be turned into a lethal weapon if the attacker struck in the right place: the eyes, the ears, the throat. Carefully, she picked up the nail file and gripped it across her palm, so that about an inch of the blade protruded from the heel of her hand.
But can I really do this?
Jacqueline thought of what Tariq was going to do to Gabriel. She thought about what Leila was going to do to her. She raised her blouse and looked at the burned skin of her abdomen.
She stood up and knocked on the door.
“Open the door slowly and step out with your hands behind your head.”
Jacqueline concealed the nail file in the palm of her right hand, opened the door, and placed her hands behind her head. Then she walked out into the living room. Leila was there, pointing the gun at Jacqueline’s chest. “Back to the bedroom,” she said, motioning with the gun.
Jacqueline turned and walked to the bedroom, Leila trailing a pace behind her, the gun in her outstretched hands. Jacqueline stopped at the edge of the bed.
Leila said, “Lie down and attach the handcuff to your right wrist.”
Jacqueline hesitated.
Leila shouted, “Do it!”
Jacqueline whirled around. As she turned she used her thumb to press the blade of the nail file into view. Leila was caught completely off guard. Instead of shooting she instinctively raised her hands. Jacqueline was aiming for her ear canal, but Leila moved just enough so that the tip of the file tore into the flesh of her cheekbone.
It was a deep wound, and blood immediately began to spout from it. Leila howled in pain, the gun tumbled from her grasp.
Jacqueline resisted the natural impulse to grab for the gun and forced herself to stab the girl again. She drew back her arm and swung it in a wide arc. This time the blade struck Leila in the side of the neck.
Warm blood spurted onto Jacqueline’s hand.
She let go of the file. It was protruding from the side of Leila’s neck. Leila looked at Jacqueline, her gaze a peculiar mixture of pain, horror, and utter surprise, her hands clutching at the metal object in her neck.
Jacqueline reached down and picked up the fallen gun.
Leila pulled the nail file from the side of her neck and lunged toward Jacqueline with a killing rage in her eyes.
Jacqueline raised the gun and shot her through the heart.
FORTY-FOUR
New York City
Tariq stood up and crossed Fifth Avenue. He walked to the service entrance of the apartment house and picked up a case of champagne that was standing just inside the doorway. A man with an apron and heavily oiled black hair looked up. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Tariq shrugged, still holding the case of champagne. “My name is Emilio Gonzales.”
“So?”
“I was told to come here. I work for Elite Catering.”
“So how come I don’t know you?”
