Touch of Magic

by M. Ruth Myers

  "I just tried both, sir. Neither answers."

  Oliver felt a wave of self-loathing hit him. He'd given Ellery this job because Ellery was as good as they came. Abraham packing Isaac off as a goddamn sacrifice.

  He'd chosen Max and Walker because they'd followed the surveillance of Yussuf's network closer than most. And because they'd both been eager, he thought bitterly. Walker because he was starting to pine for promotion to a desk job, and Max to redeem himself for that slight blunder in Atlanta -- or so he'd reasoned. Now it looked as though he'd sent Ellery right into a serpent's nest. Moreover, he'd endangered an innocent woman who'd agreed to be part of this because she possessed a basic sense of justice and responsibility that was starting to be in short supply these days.

  "Keep a good grip on those hounds!" he ordered as rifles were snatched up and the four of them sprinted out into the night accompanied by a pair of bomb-sniffing dogs.

  Knowing Ballieu was waiting on some sort of in-reverse time bomb, the dogs had seemed like a good precaution for when they reached wherever they were headed. Now, with no idea at all where that might be, Oliver wondered whether he and the three men with him had any chance in hell of helping William Ellery and Channing Stuart.

  * * *

  The moonlight jeered at her as Channing ripped up the narrow road in Ellery's car. The terrain looked unfamiliar coming at it in this direction instead of on horseback. From the moment she'd seen that watch in Ellery's room, her mind had seemed to be working on two levels. On one she'd forgotten she didn't have her Jeep. On the other she'd snatched up those keys from Ellery's room, and she'd known where his car was parked, so she hadn't lost time.

  If she and Ellery had been wrong about where the film was locked up, she had no chance at all. But she would play the chance she had. She wasn't going to let Ellery end up like Tony.

  A tear slid down her face. For too long she'd pretended freedom from loneliness. She'd pretended neither time nor desire for the primal bonding between male and female. Now she knew she'd been deceiving herself as easily and completely as she deceived an audience.

  Quelling the tightness in her throat, she fought the fear inside her until it was transmuted into -anger. She was not going to lose someone she cared for again!

  Automatically she tested her right hand. It felt normal. But then it had felt quite normal this morning when she'd dropped the coffee.

  There was no one but her to go against Ballieu and all he stood for, and against Max's deceit. She was a Stuart, called to give a single performance that would prove her worthy of her heritage.

  Ahead of her lights she saw a steep drive angling down. It would be the one to the clinic. She let her car glide past, let the engine die naturally, and got out.

  Thanks to her work in hydrology, she had passed the night in desolate places more than once, and she was generally unafraid. This time, however, she knew the darkness was less than neutral. Either Ballieu or Max -- or both -- must have lookouts posted somewhere out here. The act of swallowing was hard, yet came involuntarily.

  Up to this point sheer determination had blocked out every thought that might have restrained her. Now, analytically, she acknowledged she was into something over her head. It seemed to her a poor excuse for not moving forward. As cautiously as she could, and avoiding the drive, she began to climb.

  The .38 in her right hand felt unwieldy yet comforting. Her eyes tried to pierce the shadows. She moved from the shelter of boulder to boulder, the slowness of her progress making her want to gnash her teeth. At last she glimpsed the line of a roof and, a few moments later, an entire side of the former Desert View Clinic. It was three-storied, solid looking. There were bars at the windows. A faint light shone in an upper room.

  Swallowing again, Channing began to pick her way toward the side of the building, avoiding the main door. She paused, her senses scanning the darkness for movement or sound. All she could hear was the drumming of her own blood. Was its loudness an illusion, like something seen-yet-not-seen performed on stage, or would real sound be audible? She held her breath, then started forward again.

  Another endless flow of seconds, and then contours took form ahead of her, dismayingly identifiable. A swimming pool, with a high chain-link fence, abutted this end of the building. She gritted her teeth to keep from swearing aloud.

  Entry, if she could make it, might have to be over echoing concrete here. The back of the building would surely be guarded. No choice remained but to backtrack as carefully as she'd come, setting course for the opposite side.

  She did not see the shadow until it sprang. Brutal arms drove down to knock the gun from her hand. Channing reacted instinctively, slicing her elbow back and up into someone's belly, stepping sideways in a vain attempt to knock her attacker off-balance.

  But she was in the hands of a trained fighter. She was spun around, kicked in the groin, whirled again by the scruff of her neck. She glimpsed a face -- the sullen young woman with long black hair. Some species of long-nosed automatic rifle glinted in her hand. Channing almost froze. Instead she seized the woman's wrist and tried to slam it against the boulder at her back. A stronger arm resisted her own, and some part of the rifle smashed against the side of her head, momentarily dazing her.

  Channing staggered, aware the woman was behind her, aware she was losing. She tried to fight, but her whole right arm was wrenched up behind her, pinned there by the woman's left hand. Then, in the course of a second, Channing felt the barrel of the rifle plunge deep into the opening of her ear.

  Twenty-four

  "I would love to kill you, American woman!"

  The words hissed into Channing's left ear. The barrel of the rifle stabbed unrelentingly into the other. Its cold invasiveness created a terror of which Channing hadn't known she was capable. She couldn't force herself to open her eyes.

  "Ballieu was so sure you were harmless -- so sure you would do nothing without the man," the voice at her head continued. "I'm going to shove you into his teeth! I'm going to show him what a fool he is!"

  She gave Channing a vicious shove, and Channing stumbled. The woman twisted her arm still higher. Channing cried out.

  But the rifle was out of her ear now, merely pressed to her temple. Gasping, Channing allowed herself a single sideways glance at its menacing shape and the arm that was holding it.

  Her free hand stole to her waist. It closed on the hilt of her kunjar. She had to regain her breath. She had to remember she was a Stuart, faster and more sure with her hands than most members of the human race. She had to remember Tony. And Ellery.

  The training of her hands through her lifetime had made her almost ambidextrous. In a single lightning-quick move she brought the J-shaped knife free of its sheath and up. Its curved inner edge drove into the underside of her captor's forearm and jerked it upward. There was a sickening feel of blade against bone. A shriek from the woman behind her. The rifle sputtered bullets ineffectually as it fell to the ground.

  Channing spun, behind her attacker now. She jerked the woman's good arm up as hers had been jerked, and pinned the blood-wet inner curve of the kunjar tight against the woman's throat.

  "One move and your neck will feel worse than your arm," she said. In a flash she knew she was capable of what she was threatening. "Take me inside."

  The woman in front of her was keening, cursing in Arabic, trying to clutch her injured arm against her body. It wasn't spurting. An artery hadn't been severed. Recalling the maimed child who had died in her arms in Beirut, Channing found she almost wished her aim had been better.

  "You'll never get inside!" the woman spat.

  "Move!" Channing shoved her.

  They stumbled along like two members of a chain gang. When they reached the front door of the old clinic, the woman in front of her started to call out. Channing tightened the kunjar against her throat. The woman's words to whoever was inside were muted and terse.

  The door opened. Two men, one with a mustache, one with a beard, leveled ugly l
ittle rifles like their colleague had aimed at Channing.

  "Let her go," said the one with the mustache.

  He spoke slowly and with a thick accent. Channing shoved the woman free.

  "Sure. Just take me to Ballieu."

  That was all she had wanted. She was in. She was still alive. She could do what she'd been sent to do. If they'd killed Ellery, her switch of the film would be for him.

  The terrorist with the beard gestured toward the knife in her hand. She had no choice but to drop it. The men caught her on either side to drag her into a dim main hall.

  "I need a tourniquet!" The woman gasped.

  The sneer on the man with the beard made Channing fear she might never reach Ballieu.

  "There's something about that film Ballieu doesn't know," she said, addressing herself to the one with the mustache. "If you don't take me to him, he'll have your heads when he finds out!"

  They merely looked at her. Like carnivores, not people.

  "I have friends out there!" she said curtly.

  "She's lying!" said the woman who had attacked her. "There are no others."

  She had pulled off a scarf and was trying to tie it around her arm.

  The man with the beard caught Channing and began to push her up a flight of stairs.

  * * *

  Ellery had been drifting in and out of consciousness, but now he tried to maneuver his fingers up to the ropes he felt binding his wrists. He'd been dumped in a chair. He couldn't remember much that had happened since Max had jumped him there in the bungalow. He'd sensed something and turned an instant before Max's gun hit his skull, but the blow had dazed him.

  Max had worked him over pretty well after that. Or maybe it had been Ballieu. They'd wanted a hostage, or they would have killed him. Ballieu had been pissed about something -- that Max had jumped ahead of schedule and they were having to move out early. They must have been in this place several hours, waiting until they could open the safe.

  Fuzzily Ellery realized he wasn't making any progress with the ropes. His muscles were rubbery. His movements were uncoordinated. And he heard voices in the room with him. He wasn't alone.

  Abandoning his efforts, he tried to fix on his surroundings. He was in a large room, bare except for a desk and a couple of chairs. Ballieu stood behind the desk. Behind Ballieu, in the back wall, a huge vault large enough to step into stood half open.

  Ellery forced his sluggish eyes to focus. What was Ballieu doing? Just finishing a look at the film, it appeared, examining it with a loupe. As Ellery watched, Ballieu put the small magnifying glass away and very carefully deposited the film he was holding in a padded envelope.

  "A pleasure doing business with you, Ballieu."

  That was Max's voice.

  His field of clear vision enlarging, Ellery saw Max standing at one corner of the desk counting stacks of money into an attaché case. He flourished one bundle as if tipping a hat. It was evident from Ballieu's expression that Ballieu didn't like him.

  Son of a bitch, Ballieu and I have something in common, thought Ellery, his anger reviving him. Stinking Max. Wisecracking, good on the job -- and a turncoat.

  "Well, look who's joining the party," Max said, noticing him.

  Max's eyes were bright. Ellery knew there was no good humor in his needling now, only malice. Maybe it had always been there, underneath.

  "You know, Billy," Max said cheerfully, snapping the lid on the attaché case. "If you weren't such a straight arrow, I might have cut you in on this. We've always been good together. And it seems like such a shame, one man having all this money."

  "Yeah. I can see you're torn up," Ellery said. There was pain in his lungs -- as though he'd swallowed water somewhere along the line. He realized his clothes were soaked. "What did you do, Max, plan to jump those couriers or just stumble across them?"

  He hated to give Max credit for planning that well.

  Max sauntered toward him.

  "Hey, I'm not the criminal type. Opportunity knocked and I answered. I'd spent all afternoon in that stinking meeting listening to people say how good you were after I'd had my ass chewed. When I started to my car, there came the couriers ..."

  With childlike playfulness he made a gun with his fingers and pantomimed firing -- twice.

  "Seemed like a wise career move."

  Tense and straining for the first sound of the helicopter that was to come for them shortly, Henri Ballieu watched with increasing contempt the posturing of the American who had sold him the film. The man played. He was irresponsible. He had beaten his fellow agent beyond what was necessary, simply for his own satisfaction, then thrown him into the pool outside so he'd revive just to hear this crowing. The sort of personal indulgence that made a man prone to failure, Ballieu thought.

  There had been an interval at the start of this night when Ballieu himself hadn't been completely confident of success, despite his planning. Mildred Farrow had called, weeping, to say she'd sprained her ankle and couldn't keep their date. Just at the moment when he might need one, he'd been short a hostage. Almost immediately the phone had rung again, and the American turncoat announced tersely that he'd just taken care of his partner and was leaving for the bungalow -- ahead of schedule.

  Ballieu had been furious at the American's rashness, but things had gone smoothly enough. Now strength was pounding in him. An old vitality had returned, for he knew he stood on the brink of success. A helicopter had been hired in a nearby town with orders to fly in at a precise time as part of a movie being filmed at this location. With a gun to his head the pilot would not object to flying them across the border. Very little could go wrong at this point, yet relaxing too soon, gloating over one's victory, would be the sort of mistake made by the crooked American.

  The door opened unexpectedly. Ballieu whirled, catching up the automatic that lay on the desk beside him. His alertness quickened as he saw the Stuart woman shoved through the doorway by the two men who had arrived this afternoon to help him. Ballieu had left nothing to chance. He had thought it prudent to have men and weapons on hand in case he encountered American authorities once he had the film.

  "She was outside," said one of the men. "She had a knife. She attacked Khadija."

  Ballieu saw at their heels the sullen female who had opposed him at every step. Her arm dripped blood.

  "You were so sure she was harmless!" She sneered, her face contorted by rage and pain. "You were too soft to deal with her, Ballieu!"

  He saw the sneer give way to fear in the split second that he raised his pistol in her direction and fired. The arrogant little she-dog who had snapped at his heels fell with barely a whimper, shot through the throat.

  The act gave him satisfaction. He had proved how soft he was. Even to her.

  "She never would have survived the trip. She would have slowed us down," he said coldly, glancing down at her body.

  The gun in his hand shifted toward the Stuart woman. His gripped tightened. "And you, you work for the State Department!"

  The smile of the woman facing him was almost seductive in its challenge. "The State Department thinks so. Even him."

  She nodded toward the traitor, ignoring the man they'd taken hostage as completely as she ignored the body that had fallen. This was some tactic of hers. It had to be, Ballieu thought. Yet her boldness was a thing of art, a thing that he could admire, even knowing he'd end it.

  "You trust him, don't you, Ballieu?" Her words purred in her throat. She tilted her head back. "You'd better look at that film again."

  Ballieu felt a silken thread of doubt curl through him. The other agent, the one named Ellery, looked stunned and uncertain. Max, flushed with rage, began to move swiftly toward her.

  "What the hell -- ?"

  "Max is part of their plan," she said, cutting in, her eyes flicking toward him.

  The man tied in the chair tried to heave himself up.

  "Shut up, damn you!" Ellery shouted.

  Ballieu's gun swung toward Max Hopkins, halti
ng him in his tracks. The man's joviality was deserting him, Ballieu noted. With his guards picking up his unspoken order to keep the man in his place, Ballieu once again trained his automatic on the magicienne.

  "I thought you were an imposter, Ballieu," she was continuing, moving calmly and steadily closer to him, toward the front of the desk. "I just found out that isn't true. The State Department had been watching Yussuf for months. When they approached me and asked me to help them, I thought it was a trap."

  "Fascinating," said Ballieu.

  He was disappointed in her. He had thought her almost his equal. This fabrication of hers was as flimsy as paper. Yet her eyes had hardened.

  "You'll think 'fascinating' if you don't listen!" she snapped. "The film in that safe was a fake. There never was any film stolen."

  The traitor started to lunge at her.

  "You lying -- "

  A brief veering of Ballieu's gun both stopped and silenced him. The woman stopped, too, but she hadn't finished what she had to say.

  "Give me the film, Ballieu. I'll show you the flaw. I'll show you how they set it up so immigration officials can spot members of your group."

  "You'll burn for this!" threatened the man in the chair. One of Ballieu's guards was restraining him now.

  "This is crap! They're playacting -- both of them!" Max Hopkins said desperately.

  "Keep him quiet," said Ballieu.

  The guard with the beard brought his weapon up, aimed at the man who'd sold the film.

  Ballieu listened for the hélicoptère and was startled to find himself thinking in French. It was happening more of late. He wondered why. He found the pain in his belly less troubling too. It burned constantly now, but he was achieving a victory over it. As he would triumph over this flimsy attempt to deceive him.

  Raising the automatic, he pointed it directly at Channing Stuart's head. He motioned her forward.

  "All right," he said affably. With his free hand he reached into his jacket to bring out the film in its envelope. "Show me."