Tal moved quickly across the room and picked up the phone on the desk. He was dressed all in black, from his shoes to the seaman's cap he wore on his head. He spoke a few curt words into the telephone, then hung up and turned toward me. 'Wrong number,' he said. 'Wouldn't you know? I'm sorry it woke you.' He paused, came closer. 'You look terrible. You must have been dreaming.'
'I feel better,' I said. My voice was weak but steady. I stood up and experienced a sudden wave of dizziness, but it passed. 'Where's the bathroom, and when do we go?'
Tal smiled. I thought he still looked pale. 'The bathroom's out the door to your left, and we leave soon. I was going to wake you up in half an hour. I've prepared some food.'
'Good. I can use something to eat.' In fact I was ravenously hungry, and I knew the hunger was the result of the long journey I'd taken during the night, from sickness to health, from nowhere to now.
I went into the bathroom and sponged myself off. There was a surprise waiting for me when I went back into the office; the surprise had pale eyes and a bald head.
'Jesus,' I said.
'Hello, Frederickson,' Lippitt replied softly.
I looked at Tal as I jerked a thumb in Lippitt's direction. 'What's he doing here?'
'An extra hand,' Tal said wryly.
'Do you object, Mongo?' Tal asked.
'Who, me? I'm just along for the ride.'
'You're the key to the plan,' Lippitt said tightly.
'It seems Mr. Lippitt has been industriously following me,' Tal said, an easy smile playing around the corners of his mouth. 'Since he seems to have come up with a similar plan, it seemed a good idea to pool our resources.'
Lippitt laughed; it was a sharp, harsh sound. 'What resources?'
'If you don't think this is going to work, why did you approach me in the first place?' I asked.
'Masochism, and the fact that I wanted you to start paying some dues.'
'I don't think so. The Fosters-or Mrs. Foster-is very important to you, Lippitt: so much so that you'd risk your own life, not to mention mine, to save her. Why?'
'It's none of your business,' Lippitt said simply.
'Do you have Rafferty?' I persisted.
Lippitt heaved a deep sigh. 'Rafferty's dead. I killed him. At least, I thought I did.'
I repeated his words. 'Thought you did?'
'You look like hell, Frederickson,' Lippitt said, his eyes suddenly cold. 'I'm beginning to wonder if this is such a good idea. You're going to get yourself killed, and I'm not as mad now as I was in the hospital.'
I stood up straight, 'Lippitt, I've never felt better in my life.' I looked at Tal. 'Where's the Secretary General?'
'In his own apartment, sleeping.'
'You mentioned something about food.'
Tal nodded. 'Steak, eggs, and coffee. We'll go over the plan in detail while we eat.'
18
The luminous dial on my watch read four fifteen as Tal pulled his car up to the curb a half block away from the consulate. The street was deserted except for an occasional taxi that sped past, ferrying the night people.
Tal and Lippitt immediately went to the locked glass door of the office building next to the consulate. I followed and waited in the shadows. Lippitt reached into his pocket and withdrew a length of stiff wire; within seconds he'd picked the lock. In a few minutes we were on top of the building and looking down on the roof of the consulate. Across the way, I could see the upside-down Ls of the ventilator shafts glinting in the moonlight. It was a good twenty-five feet across, with a downward angle of about thirty degrees. I would have to clear a two-foot parapet; if I missed, it was eighteen stories to the ground.
'Check your equipment,' Lippitt said curtly.
For the third time that evening I opened the canvas flight bag Tal had given me and checked its contents: a small acetylene torch with self-contained gas supply, a bottle of olive oil, flashlight, gun, magnet, and grenade-type incendiary bomb.
'Everything's here,' I said, zipping up the bag and rising.
'Once again,' Tal said. 'You'll keep track of the floors by counting the intersections of horizontal and vertical ducts. When you get to the third floor, you'll go to your
'Give me about forty minutes,' I said, flinging the canvas bag out into the darkness. It landed with a dull thud on the consulate roof. Before I could give myself time to think about it, I backed up a few paces, ran forward, and threw myself into the yawning, empty night between the buildings. Wind whistled in my ears as the parapet rushed up at me. I cleared it by no more than an inch, tucked and rolled when I hit the tarmac. Using my shoulders and upper back to absorb the force of my landing, I rolled a second time and came up on my feet.
Across the way, Tal and Lippitt gave me a thumbs-up sign, then melted back into the shadows. I picked up the canvas bag and walked to the ventilator shafts.
Both shafts were covered with steel grates. I took out the torch and went to work on the one on the right. The torch sputtered a few times, but finally cut through the bolts holding the grille in place. The shaft looked awfully narrow, and I was going to have to squirm down fifteen stories in it.
I smeared my body and clothes with olive oil, then clambered into the duct feet first, scraping the skin on my elbow. I rolled over on my stomach and, dragging the bag after me, worked my way over the angle of the L. Darkness closed over my head.
The duct sloped slightly, but it was still steep. At one point I began to slide too quickly; I flexed my shoulders and thighs and braked to a stop. The friction had burned through my shirt and pants, and my flesh throbbed. I manipulated the bottle over my head and poured more oil down over my body. I wondered how long the oil would last; if I got stuck, it would take a team of plumbers a week to get me out.
I reached the first horizontal section. Fourteen more floors to go; I lay in the wider section of the duct and panted. There was a slight draft coming down from the top; I waited until the sweat dried, then started down again.
It cost me a lot of pain, not a little anxiety, and a lot of skin when I ran out of oil on the eighth floor. But I made it to the intersection of ducts on the third floor. In the middle of the tenth section, I took out the torch and magnet. I was already considerably behind schedule, and it took ten minutes to get the torch working properly. The fact that I could barely breathe didn't help.
I adjusted the tiny blue-white flame of the torch and went to work on the metal. It quickly became a question of what would burn out first, the metal or me. Within moments the metal under my knees became red hot; I could smell my clothing burning, and I was breathing in quick, nervous gasps.
With about an inch to go, I removed the magnet from the bag, draped the attached leather thong around my neck, and placed the magnet in the center of the circle I'd circumscribed with the cutting flame. Then I cut the rest of the way through the metal and pulled the hot circle up and out.
I waited a few minutes for the metal to cool, then poked my head down through the hole in the duct. Tal and Lippitt had been right on target: my nose was a few inches away from a glowing EXIT sign. A well-lighted stairway led down and up from the landing. I dropped to the stairwell, dragging the canvas bag after me. I immediately took out the automatic, checked the full magazine, then crouched by the door to listen. When I heard nothing, I pushed through.
According to plan, I found myself at one end of a long, carpeted corridor. I had to plant the bomb at the
