Touch of Magic

by M. Ruth Myers

  "Unfortunately I'm not entirely sure I trust you."

  With a moue of false apology he released her. He was watching for her reaction. Channing kept her face impassive.

  "We're even, then, aren't we?" she said.

  She thought what passed through his eyes was anger. She stepped back and tossed her hair. If she made this too easy, Ballieu might grow suspicious. She tried to fathom a mind like his and couldn't. Just as she hadn't been able to reconcile what Yussuf had been in reality with the man she'd known, she thought.

  The recollection of Yussuf became, in a twisting way, an inspiration.

  "All right, lunch," she said. "But first I want Yussuf's tape back. It has sentimental value."

  Ellery would be starting in soon, judging by his pattern. He'd been out by the pool, playing shuffle-board while she and Serafin alternately splashed in the water and read in the smidgen of shade to be found. She hoped he might be alert enough to see what was happening and delay a little, maybe come in by another entrance.

  "Why don't we go to my room and get it now?" Ballieu suggested. "Perhaps you'll demonstrate the trick that's on it?"

  A trap had opened at her feet. She had to play this out with him, yet Ellery's warning never to go off alone with him closed down all the other functions of her brain. And Ballieu was smiling at her. He'd already said he didn't trust her. He was giving her rope. Considering the stakes they were playing for, and his experience, he'd undoubtedly started to catalog faces and details around him -- noticed Ellery. She was supposed to be the Dragon Lady, so she'd play the role.

  "My bodyguard wouldn’t like that," she said. Her vague and brazen smile echoed the same note of near flirtation he had struck. She saw him suck that fact in under the hoods of his eyes, and she felt clamminess creeping over her. Concentrate on the matter at hand. Her comeback had been a good one. Besides sounding in line with the part she was playing, it might give an inkling of how much he observed.

  "The brown-haired fellow you had breakfast with this morning," he said, taking a narrow brown cigarette from a case in his pocket and lighting it. It was a volley in some game they played, and Channing could swear he was enjoying it.

  "No. He's... an admirer." She willed a wider smile. "I see no reason to give up amusements just because I'm working, do you, Ballieu? Why don't you leave the tape at the front desk for me? If it's there when I come down, I'll have lunch with you."

  His eyes had narrowed, yet they were glittering with something like enjoyment.

  "A pledge of good faith," he said. "What time and where shall we meet?"

  Channing hoped Ballieu's watch was picking this all up and that Walker or Max would get the details to Ellery. She dared not try to find him herself.

  "Don't be late," she said when they'd made the arrangements. "I hate to wait."

  She walked toward the elevators.

  * * *

  Walker came out in Bermudas and a garish sun hat just as Ellery was about to leave his lounge chair to follow Channing. Shambling along, un-repentantly knock-kneed, Walker unwrapped a cigar. He tossed the crumpled cellophane aside, landing it neatly inside the spread pages of the newspaper Ellery had been reading. Ellery waited, looked down, and saw there was a note inside.

  So Ballieu had made an overture, he thought when he'd read it. This was the break they'd been waiting for, maybe. They'd sent in an amateur, and she'd turned the trick for them. Why the hell did his temples suddenly feel as if someone had threaded a ski pole between them?

  He was worried. Things were moving too easily. Or maybe they were moving exactly as they should when a plan went well. Maybe he was losing his perspective because of Channing.

  He couldn't let that happen. He wouldn't be any good to either one of them if he did. He wouldn't be any good to the department. He flipped a page of the paper and came face-to-face with a photograph of his brother, Reid, and two other senators.

  Jesus Christ, he thought angrily. Here he was up to his ass in proverbial alligators, and Reid was heading up Be Kind to Animals Week. Not literally, of course. It was some committee for preservation of historic buildings. All the same, it seemed characteristic of the parallel there'd always been between them.

  Reid overachieving without even drawing a breath; Ellery sweating whether he could even bring off a job. Reid walking in with no experience and being made editor of his college paper; Ellery spending three months on an essay for a contest and tying for fourth place. Reid could dazzle any woman he wanted. Probably even one as bright as Channing. But none of that mattered now, and he was a jerk to be thinking about it.

  Twenty minutes remained till Channing's appointment for lunch. A little under eleven hours till Ballieu's meeting tonight. When things started to break, they were going to move fast. Ellery threw the paper down, disgusted by his own doubts.

  Hell, yes, Reid. We're going to put this bastard away so you can keep making your trips to Gstaad every Christmas and going to Hong Kong on taxpayers' dollars without worrying about the plane blowing up. Channing's going to put her neck in the noose while you fuck your current secretary and your wife gets her hair done. I'm going to see she gets out in one piece. So she can go back to her life and I can go back to mine, and neither of us will think about each other once it's finished.

  Ellery's heels bruised the concrete as he strode toward the lodge.

  * * *

  By day the indoor dining room had deep blue tablecloths and a menu that ranged from nouvelle California to pseudo Mexican. Ballieu had arrived first and rose to pull out a chair for Channing as she sat down. She'd changed into a green summer dress with one of her white jackets. The doctored film was on her. She had carried it ever since it had come into her possession. There was no way of predicting when Ballieu might decide to move.

  "You found the tape?" Ballieu's solicitude sounded deliberately less than sincere. Again, as though they were playing a game, she thought.

  "And took an opportunity to play it on a recorder the management kindly furnished," Channing said, matching his tone. "I'd hate to think we couldn't trust each other."

  "Of course." He settled in across from her. She could feel them squaring off. "How charming to find you a woman of sentiment."

  He started to pour her wine, but she asked the bar waiter already descending upon them for iced tea instead. She'd been drinking a lot of it here, which maybe explained why her nerves were jumpy. But better on edge than too relaxed, she rationalized.

  Ballieu lounged back, his arm resting carelessly over the side of his chair.

  "How long did you work for the man you're replacing?" he asked.

  "Six years. Seven." Channing shrugged. "I'd known him all my life." There was always the possibility that Ballieu could check. If he did, she'd come up clean with this answer.

  "And I never heard a breath about you? Amazing." His tone was mild but perhaps deceptive. His eyes were missing nothing. The care with which he noted the shape of her hair, the measure of her shoulders, each element in her made Channing want to draw back.

  "I was a hidden asset." She forced her mouth into a teasing expression.

  A waiter came. They placed their orders.

  "You know" -- Ballieu rocked his wine in its glass and continued to watch her -- "there is something very intriguing about a woman willing to take the risks that you do. It hangs around her ... like a musk."

  The way he was looking at her made her queasy. There was something blunt and repelling in it. An appetite.

  Determination drove her, giving her a strange calm. Sitting here across from him was vindicating Yussuf in a way she couldn't quite explain.

  "My work is safer than yours," she said, sidestepping his compliment.

  "I've survived to an older age than you."

  He smiled.

  Before he could speak again, Channing saw the almost imperceptible quickening of his attention. He had noticed something over her right shoulder. Surely not Ellery. Surely Ellery wouldn't be that clumsy. Her pulse quicke
ned. She turned as casually as any other dining companion might and saw a girl with long black hair sitting down at one of the tables. She'd been watching them avidly.

  One of Ballieu's lady friends, jealous and keeping an eye on him? Channing wondered. She looked rather sulky. Whatever the situation, Ballieu didn't like it. He had frowned, but his face was smooth again.

  Then their plates arrived, and with very little conversation they ate. It was all a charade, Channing thought. She was watching Ballieu. He was watching her. It took all her willpower just to keep from looking each time his pale hands poised and his knife sliced down at his food.

  Am I a Stuart yet, Gramps? she thought silently, angrily. It takes more audacity to sit here with him than to pass a silk through a rope under someone's nose.

  "So do we do business?" she asked when he'd ordered coffee and she'd requested more tea. She was not as afraid of Ballieu as she'd been last night. She was holding her own.

  "I never rush a decision," he said. "And we've plenty of time."

  Damn. She was getting nothing out of him.

  "Tell me about your operation," he said, "How the connection was made with Marinka, for example."

  "We must have our secrets, just as you have yours."

  Her answer seemed to amuse him.

  "Ah, but we must trust each other, you said."

  He was watching something over her shoulder. Some activity on the part of the girl with the black hair, no doubt. A moment later the waiter arrived to serve Ballieu's coffee and bring her a second serving of tea.

  Channing frowned as she squeezed the lemon wedge from the side of the glass and pushed it down into the dark tea. Why had Ballieu wanted this meeting, and what should her next move be? She didn't dare force his hand.

  Ballieu seemed to be looking at her now, but she had an unsettling feeling his eyes watched something else too. Had someone else come in behind her? Dry-mouthed, wondering how they would end this interview, she raised the cold glass of tea to her lips.

  "Don't!"

  Ballieu's hand shot out, knocking the glass from her hand. The glass hit the carpeted floor and cracked into two parts, its shaved ice scattering.

  Drops of tea had splashed the arm of her jacket, spilling or bouncing back. Channing didn't know which.

  She sat, scarcely able to breathe. The movement by Ballieu had been little more than a blur, almost as fast as she could change a coin. And in the instant her brain had registered his hand darting at her, she'd thought he held a gun.

  "How clumsy of me," he said, passing her his napkin. "There was a crack in the glass. Very easy for germs to collect there. We wouldn't want you to fall sick."

  She stared at him, trembling inside. What had that move been about? Had there been something in her glass? Had he been intending to poison her and at the last minute changed his mind?

  "Perhaps you'll want to go and see to your jacket," he said. His eyes were hard.

  Channing nodded. She rose and started out almost blindly. Max sat at a table near the door. His ailment must be improving. Face thoroughly ashen, he jerked a look at her and then back at Ballieu.

  Ellery met her in the hall. He must have been inside the bar just off the dining room and seen it all, she realized. He caught her arm.

  "What the hell happened? What was that all about?" He looked almost as tense as she was. The pressure of his fingers hurt.

  "I don't know -- but he scares me!"

  The words rattled out in a gasp that sounded nothing like her own voice. Her doubled-up fist hit a button to summon an elevator.

  She was furious hearing herself, furious hearing her own admission. For she knew fear was exactly the reaction Henri Ballieu was counting on. He had won this round.

  Fourteen

  As she opened the door to her room, Ballieu slammed the insolent female who had been sent to help him into the wall. His fingers caught her throat as they might the loose skin on a kitten's neck.

  "You stupid idiot!" he said, snarling.

  Her eyes were filled with rage, not submission. She had come to her room directly from the restaurant, knowing he would follow. She caught his wrist in a soldier's grip. Her defiance hissed out in spite of his hold on her.

  "You ruined it -- she would be dead!"

  She twisted, bringing her shoulder up against him and almost breaking free. Once more Ballieu slammed her against the wall.

  "She'd be dead when we might need her! If anything goes wrong -- if the men try to stop us -- don't you realize her value as a pawn? What did you put in her tea when you stopped the waiter? Those splinters of glass you were so eager to try?"

  "Yes! And they'll soon be carting those Zionist brats off with belly pains too! No one would have suspected. I planned very well!"

  Ballieu shook his head with fury. He'd discarded his watch behind a picture frame as he got off the elevator to her floor and could speak freely.

  "You've done nothing well!"

  He wanted to kill her. But you didn't kill your own kind. Not unless they deserved it. His breath was coming in short gasps as he thought how she'd nearly destroyed all their chances when they were within a single day of putting their hands on the film. With her hotheadedness she could have come between him and the successful completion of this assignment. If she'd killed the Stuart woman, the other Americans would have been left no choice but to retaliate. He spun his young helper around and struck the side of her face.

  "Fool!" he repeated. "Daughter of dogs!"

  He started to tell her he'd see she never again received a job more important than polishing boots. Then, with the cold reason that had always given him mastery, he realized he still needed her. Tonight, especially. Ballieu changed tactics.

  "You're very talented, Khadija." His voice had become detached. Almost patient. That of teacher to student. "You could be quite valuable someday. Why do you not follow orders?"

  Her whole face sneered at him.

  "You think you can report me for this, don't you, Ballieu? But I'll report how you've lost your nerve. I'll report how there's something wrong with your belly!"

  By the time he felt her shifting, her foot drove in. Ballieu felt an explosion of white, blinding pain. She sprang free of his momentarily loosened fingers. He lunged, and she fell backward, taking him with her and flipping him over her. He rolled expertly, completing the somersault to land on his feet.

  Already she was crouched to receive his attack. They circled each other. Her hands were held open and loose, silent weapons that would not be heard outside this room with its air-conditioning and padded carpeting.

  "What's wrong, Ballieu? Can't you kill a woman?" Her words taunted him. "Is that why you sit down with her, talk with her, knowing any instant that she could betray you? Or are you sniffing after her the way you did that whore you hired?"

  Ballieu felt each muscle and nerve in his body tuning itself. The precision needed to kill or maim was flowing through him.

  "She's unimportant," he said. Because he needed this unstable female who thought to challenge him, and he would let her live. But he was closing in. "Untrained. It's the man with her who controls her. He tells her what to do. She'll be nothing without him. They'll allow us one kill if they think they can learn who the seller is. Not two. It would leave too bitter a taste in their mouths. Understand what I say."

  He wondered fleetingly why there was such a flush of triumph on Khadija's cheeks and why her eyes directed such hatred toward him.

  Khadija spit.

  "Excuses! You'll never get that film. You've gotten yourself in a hole and will never get out! You'll accomplish nothing!"

  He measured the distance. He couldn't strike her again; it would show. He had to leave her unblemished so she could mingle unnoticed with the hotel's guests. They continued to circle. His movement, when it came, was like lightning, cutting the edge of his hand up under her jaw, bringing the toe of his shoe hard into the sensitive spot between her legs.

  Ballieu had the satisfaction of
hearing her whine in pain. Immediately he pinned her against the hard surface of the desk. It had entered his mind, the display of dominance a woman like this would find most bitter -- the kind most likely to teach her her place. His hand caught at her skirt and thrust it up.

  One side of her face was bleeding in spite of his efforts to leave no signs. He'd thought to see fear. Instead there was only her all-consuming rage. With black hair sprawled around her, choking against the hand that pressed down on her throat, she laughed wildly.

  "Go ahead, Ballieu. Rape your own daughter. Or don't you even remember Saleha Adawi?"

  He wavered, stunned. It was a brilliant tactic.

  But no. She wasn't lying. With shock he recalled at last where he'd seen eyes like hers.

  "She thought you were a god," the girl continued. "Everyone thought you were a god. I got so sick of hearing it, I decided to see for myself!"

  Unwittingly he had released the pressure on her throat. Now, though he did not press, he doubled his caution.

  "So what?" he said coldly. "Men and women come together, they part."

  But her words had dazed him.

  He thought of Saleha Adawi. A very attractive woman. A long time ago. It suddenly seemed he could feel his life slipping from him, second by second, joining other things that were past. His anger increased as he realized his mind had wandered.

  "You discredit your brothers and sisters, taking this assignment out of personal selfishness," he said. "The individual counts for nothing in our cause -- only the cause itself. You're not fit to belong to your organization!"

  Beneath her sullenness she began to look frightened. Ballieu felt a quiver pass through him. Instinct told him to complete his act of violence, to break her once and for all, yet he was repelled by the news she'd flung in his face. A thought cast its shadow over his mind. Did he really want to satisfy himself with the American woman as this one suggested?