“He died in his sleep. Omar saw this man”—Fawaz’s arm shot out, his finger rigid, inches from Eide’s face —“throw away a bottle when he left the mosque. He fixed dinner. Hours later the sheikh died in bed.”
“What bottle?” Radwan asked.
Omar pulled it from his pocket and displayed it.
“That had eyewash in it,” Radwan said disgustedly. “I saw him use it.”
“Eyewash?”
“Medicine for the eyes,” Radwan said. He lifted his chin and made a pouring motion with his hands.
“It has no label,” Osama objected. The doubt was beginning to creep into his voice.
Eide shrugged. “It came off.”
“I say the bottle held poison,” Omar roared, loud enough to wake the sleepers on the floors above and below.
Eide held out his hand, took the bottle. He unscrewed the cap, sniffed the bottle, then licked the top. Ran his tongue around it. Then he tossed it at Omar. “And if I don’t die, then what?”
“But the bottle is empty,” Omar shouted. His eyes shot an appeal for help to Osama and Fawaz.
“How do you know the sheikh was poisoned?” one of Eide’s roommates asked.
“He was a healthy man. Healthy men don’t die in their sleep.”
“Sometimes they do,” Radwan said conversationally.
“Wash for the eyes…” Osama scrutined Eide’s face, then Radwan’s. “The sheikh is dead. He may have been murdered. If he was…” He faced the roommates. “No one leaves this room. We’ll be back.”
With that Osama pushed his way toward the door. Fawaz followed. Omar was last, still holding the bottle. He didn’t look at Eide or Radwan.
When the door closed, Eide looked around at the other three. “He was a great man, and the infidels feared him. Rightly so. They are right to be suspicious.”
“It is the will of Allah,” one of the roommates said, then headed for the bathroom.
In five minutes everyone was back in bed. That was when Radwan whispered, “If they go to a pharmacy and look at eyewash bottles, they will see none like that one.”
Eide looked at Radwan and Radwan looked at Eide.
“There are no pharmacies open at this hour.”
“The one on Regency Street might be.” “Wait,” Eide whispered.
He let fifteen minutes pass, fifteen slow, agonizing minutes, then they got slowly out of bed, as soundlessly as they could, and put their clothes back on again. Radwan went to the kitchen and took two paring knives from the drawer while Eide looked out the window at the fog that muzzled the streetlights and filled the space between the buildings. One knife Radwan handed to Eide, who put it in his coat pocket. They found their wallets, their cell phones. Carrying their shoes, they tiptoed toward the door, opened it as quietly as possible and went through, then pulled it shut.
They paused on the stairs and put on their shoes, then continued down the three stories to the street.
When they exited the building, they almost knocked Omar down. He was leaning on the stoop railing.
The collision was unexpected, but Omar’s reaction told both men precisely where they stood. Omar had been left to watch them. “Traitors,” he hissed and grabbed for Radwan.
Radwan slashed at Omar’s throat with his knife; blood gushed forth. Omar sank to the bricks of the stoop, holding his throat. He fumbled for his cell phone. Eide had already started to run, but he whirled and came back, grabbed the cell phone from Omar and kicked him in the face. Then he and Radwan ran into the fog.
After they had covered several blocks, they slowed to a walk and Eide used his cell phone to call Jake Grafton. While he was on the phone, out of the corner of his eye he saw movement. Fawaz and Osama came walking out of the fog toward them down a side street. Oh, bad break! Eide and Radwan sprinted for their lives.
The cell phone vibrating in my pocket woke me. I had been sleeping in the chair. Marisa was asleep on the couch, where I had placed her sometime during the night. I had covered her with my coat.
“Tommy,” Jake Grafton said when I answered, “Tom and Jerry need your help.” Since this was an unsecure line, Grafton was using code names. Tom was Eide Masmoudi and Jerry was Radwan Ali.
As he talked, I went to the window and looked out. The stoop light was glowing into thick fog. I looked at my watch; dawn was still an hour or so away.
After he hung up, I went over to the couch. Marisa’s eyes were open and she was looking at me. I bent down and whispered, so we wouldn’t wake Isolde in the bedroom.
“I have to go out. Going to take the limo and leave you two here. Don’t make any telephone calls, don’t go out, don’t answer the door. I’ll be back in a few hours, I hope.”
She nodded.
I put on my coat and covered her with hers. Her eyes stayed on me.
Her little Walther was a lump in the left pocket of my coat. I took it out, checked the safety and handed it to her. “Just in case,” I said.
She put the pistol in the pocket of her coat, then pulled the coat up around her chin. Those big brown eyes stared at me.
“He will try to kill you,” she whispered. “Or he will send a professional killer named Khadr. He has used him before. Khadr was probably the one who killed the people yesterday at our chateau, I think.”
I bent over and kissed her on the lips, then left. Made sure the door latched behind me.
If she poisons me one of these days, I am going to regret that kiss right up until the lights go out. Still, it tasted mighty good.
The holy warriors were right behind Eide and Radwan. They couldn’t see them, but they could hear their running feet whenever they paused for a few seconds, and they could hear them shouting at each other, checking alleys and side streets.
Radwan was breathing hard — and running slower. Eide’s years of recreational jogging had left him in much better shape.
“I can’t go much farther,” Radwan huffed at one point.
“Run or die,” Eide shot back.
They kept running.
The issue was decided at a major street. They darted across … and a speeding car loomed out of the fog. The driver slammed on his brakes and lay on his horn. Eide managed to avoid it, but the fender smacked Radwan’s left leg a horrible thump and spun him to the pavement. As the car screeched to a halt, Eide checked his friend, grabbed his arm, tried to pull him up.
Radwan moaned.
Now Eide saw. His left leg was broken. The thigh bone was snapped and the leg bent at a horrible angle.
“You can t carry me,’ Radwan said between clenched teeth. “Allah is with me. Save yourself.”
Eide grabbed Radwan and pulled him toward the car. Radwan wrapped his arms around Eide’s arm and pulled himself upright by sheer strength of will. Eide reached for the passenger door handle, which was locked, immobile.
“Hospital! Open the door,” he thundered at the driver, who was staring at him with a gaping mouth. He must have seemed a terrible apparition, a brown man sweating profusely, every muscle in his face and neck taut, trying to get into the car.
The driver floored the accelerator. Radwan lost his grip on Eide and fell to the street with a groan as the car roared away into the fog.
“Leave me,” Radwan implored. “Save yourself.”
Eide looked around desperately. He heard the running feet again. There was just no way. “We’ll meet again in Paradise,” he said.
“Go.” Radwan pushed at him.
Eide turned and ran.
Outside the cottage I paused by the car to listen and look. The air was chilly, at least twenty degrees colder than it had been yesterday evening when we arrived, so the fog was almost a solid. Dark, of course, in that hour before first light, and quiet. Every now and then I caught the distant low rumble of a jet running high, but nothing
