“Qasim is full of hate,” Isolde said. “You aren’t.”
Jake Grafton had had enough. As he rose from his chair he said, “I’m getting there.”
Willie Varner showed up about nine that morning. I couldn’t believe it when I opened the door — he looked as if he’d been sleeping in alleys for about ten years. He even smelled. “Oh, Lord,” I said.
“Paid a guy twenty bucks for these,” Willie told me. “He thought I was crazy.”
“I think so, too.”
I took him to the den so Grafton could admire his transformation. After he oohed and aahed, the admiral gave Willie a little radio. The mike went on his clothes — I had to get close to pin it on — and the earpiece went in his left ear. There were no wires. The electronics that made this thing work were in a little box that went in one of Willie’s pockets.
We both talked on the radios a bit, just testing them; then Grafton gave Willie some spare batteries, which he pocketed, shook his hand, and said, “Good luck — and thanks.”
Willie nodded and left. I locked the door behind him and went back to the den. Grafton had two pump shotguns lying on the couch, so I took one and loaded it with five shells containing No. 4 buckshot while he loaded the other.
“I’m counting on you,” he said.
“Bet they don’t even come,” I replied brightly.
He just glanced at me, then went off to see his wife. I sat down in one of the chairs with a shotgun on my lap.
Crazy. He was nuts and his wife was nuts and so was I. All three of us crazy as bedbugs.
After Grafton and the women left for Connecticut, I sat at the kitchen table with Callie pretending to look at the morning paper. Mostly it was SOS, the Same Old Stuff. Jack Yocke’s column was about the upcoming fund-raiser next week at the Walden Hotel in New York. His column was about politics, which I scanned without much interest. Politics is like weather — everyone talks about it, but no one can do anything about it.
I remembered the Walden Hotel, which was an old place, renovated a few years ago, with a great corner bar, a body exchange for the hip and trendy, and windows, where you could get a libation and watch pedestrians stroll the avenue if there were no thirsty young things in sight. Apparently the hotel had a big ballroom, which I had never been in.
Callie went off to her bedroom to do some reading, and I wandered the living room and den, bored silly. Maybe I should resign from the Company, get on with my life. I was making big plans about what I’d do if I quit or got fired when the doorbell rang.
With my pistol in hand, I looked through the security hole. Robin Cloyd. Just who we needed!
I put the shooter away and opened the door. “Good morning,” she chirped, then marched right in, frizzy hair and all.
When I had the door bolted again, I turned around. “What do you want?” I asked without curiosity.
“The admiral sent me over to help you.”
My expression must have showed how unlikely I thought it was that she could be of any help whatsoever, so she kicked me in the balls.
That doubled me over. She kicked me again in the side, a pretty healthy lick, and I toppled onto the floor. Being a lean, mean, fighting machine, I had the good sense to stay there. Of course, I was down to about 10 percent effectiveness just then.
“Where’d you learn to do that?” I managed between gasps.
“I was an unarmed combat instructor in the Marines,” Cloyd said airily, “back in my wilder days.”
“Glad I didn’t know you then.”
She pulled a pistol from her purse, just so I could see it. “And I know how to use this.”
Callie had bolted from the bedroom to see what the rumpus was about, and now she and Robin helped me into a chair. Then Callie led Robin by the arm off to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee. “Jake said you were coming by. I’m so glad to see you.”
I waited about five minutes until the pain had eased to a dull throb before I headed for the bathroom to check for bruises. Man, was I sore!
Damn these women, anyway.
The mood was gloomy at the Winchester estate when Jake Grafton and the Petrou women arrived in midafternoon, even though the gauzy winter sun was brightly illuminating the room through the big picture windows. All the men were into the sauce, Grafton noted, which apparently had a good deal to do with it. Winchester said a perfunctory hello to the women, nodded at Grafton and poured himself another drink.
Winchester’s collie was lying on an empty chair when Grafton and the Petrou ladies came in. She leaped off the chair and came over with tail wagging to make friends. Jerry Hay Smith snarled at Grafton and ignored the women. Simon Cairnes just glowered at everyone from the sofa in front of the big television — he had CNBC on — and puffed on his cigar, almost as if he were daring someone to object to his smoking in the house.
Carrying a suitcase in each hand, Grafton led the women upstairs to locate a bedroom.
When he came back down, Winchester cornered him. “I want to know what the hell is going on.”
“Don’t we all?” Grafton tossed back.
“Seriously, what’s the damn government doing to catch those terrorist assholes? That sunuvabitch Qasim?”
“We’re working on it.”
“I’ll just bet.”
“Even while you sleep.”
“You’ll still be working on it even when we’re dead,” Smith called from behind the bar. He was apparently mixing martinis.
“We’re trapped like rats on a sinking ship,” Cairnes said nastily.
“The only bright spot is a well-stocked bar. When we get it drunk up, I’d just as soon go to prison — the company will be better.”
Grafton scrutinized each face. “Tell you what. If you three don’t behave yourself and act civil to the ladies, I’m going to pour all that liquor and wine down the sink.”
Cairnes pulled a revolver from his pocket and waved it around a little. “Just try it, sailor-boy.” He replaced the revolver in his pocket and turned his attention back to his brandy snifter.
“How do we know,” Smith called as he added olives to a glass, “that one of those Petrou women won’t poison us, like they did Jean Petrou?”
“And to think they volunteered to do the cooking,” Jake said grimly. He headed for Winchester’s private office to call Callie and the folks at Langley.
Khadr arrived that evening at JFK on a flight from Paris. Qasim was waiting outside the terminal when he wandered out pulling his suitcase. Qasim almost didn’t spot him amid the throng of people queuing up for taxis and piling into waiting cars and limos. When he did, Khadr was looking around exactly like a tourist on his first visit to America, which this was. That might be a problem, Qasim thought.
Eventually Khadr joined the taxi line. Qasim didn’t see anyone paying the least attention to him.
Finally Khadr’s turn came and he climbed into a taxi, which went trundling off into the night and was soon lost amid a sea of taillights.
Qasim went back into the parking garage and rode the elevator to the fourth deck, where his borrowed car was parked. He was waiting outside Grand Central Station when Khadr came out of the south entrance precisely at 9:00 p.m. He pulled up and got out to open the trunk. Khadr put his suitcase in and climbed into the passenger seat, and away they rolled.
“Any problems?” Qasim asked.
“I hate air travel,” Khadr said.
“Welcome to the United States.”
“That is what the pilot or flight attendant said when we landed.” Khadr flashed a mirthless grin. “That passport worked like a charm. They didn’t even search my suitcase.”
“Perhaps because they already searched it in Paris before you boarded the airplane.”
“Perhaps,” Khadr acknowledged.
“You saw the other suitcase in the trunk. We’ll stop at a filling station when we get to Brooklyn. Put your
