by Fritz Galt
Chapter 21
The next morning, Everett drove Darcy Quierrar to work.
Natalie’s boss had enjoyed bridge club at his house the previous evening, despite the fact that they were short a couple.
“Have you heard from Natalie yet?” he asked as they approached the embassy.
She hadn’t.
He decided not to tell her that Mick and Alec were missing, too.
“I’ll call you as soon as I hear from her,” Darcy promised, and skipped out of the MG, swinging her briefcase by her side.
He entered the CIA station and noticed that Suzy Kraft wasn’t there yet. He missed her disdainful greeting. Surely she wasn’t still mad at him. Twelve hours was enough time to get over his rude remarks.
No sooner had he entered his office and turned on his computer than Suzy’s phone rang.
He picked up the call. “Hello?”
“Everett? This is Tobias speaking.”
“Good morning. Did you find out anything about Mr. Slimane?”
“I’m not calling about him,” the inspector said gravely.
Everett’s stomach muscles tightened.
“This concerns a police matter. This morning our detectives found the body of one of your employees.”
“Oh God, no.”
His mind shot through the possibilities. Was it Mick or his brother? Was it Natalie Pierce?
“We have identified her as Susan Kraft.”
“Suzy?”
Everett looked through his office door at her empty chair. Was she struck by a car while on her date? No, he was only fooling himself. He should have trusted his instincts. It was Khalid Slimane.
“How did she die?”
“It was not a simple death,” Tobias continued. “She was murdered.”
Everett buried his face in his hands.
“Perhaps you should meet me at her apartment on Marktgasse,” Tobias suggested.
Trying to remain calm, Everett slipped out of the embassy and trotted the short distance to Marktgasse. Two policemen stood before Suzy’s building in their flat round hats and with polished leather belts over their jackets.
Everett showed them his Swiss identity booklet, and they allowed him in.
The crime scene was worse than he had imagined.
A forensics team had spread a silver-colored sheet over her shoulders and the lower portions of her body. Her ample, naked form was clearly outlined beneath. Her head was twisted awkwardly over the back of a pillow, her neck neatly broken.
Candles had melted down to her night stand. Indicators on the CD player still glowed.
“Looks like she died over eight hours ago,” Tobias said.
Everett sat heavily on the edge of the bed. “It’s all my fault. I should never have let her go on that date.”
Tobias was a big-boned man with bristly, graying hair and a gut the size of a soccer ball. He stood awkwardly, saying nothing.
Two teams of specialists dusted silvery powder over every fingerprint in the room.
“Find any clues?” Everett asked.
“Plenty of fingerprints. Do you have any idea who might have done this?”
He stared at a tree out the window. A slight breeze ruffled the dusty leaves. Damn the EEOs, the harassment charges and the racism. He should have followed his initial impulse to stop her.
He looked down at her blissful face. As a human being, he should have done everything in his power to prevent her from walking out that door.
“Does the name ‘Khalid Slimane’ ring a bell?” he finally said.
Tobias shook his head emphatically. “I had that character tailed all night. I can tell you with certainty, that this wasn’t Khalid Slimane. He was in his hotel room all last night.”
Everett’s eyes shot up. “Then who did this?”
Tobias shrugged.
“So, what about Slimane?” Everett asked.
“Not only is he alive, but he spent the night with someone you might know.”
Everett gave an involuntary shiver. “And who might that be?”
“She works for the American embassy. We believe her name is Natalie Pierce.”
Everett lowered his head into his hands. Things were going from bad to worse. Set aside the bed-hopping, she was cohabitating with a Polisario terrorist. “How can you be sure it was her?” he asked weakly.
“We reran the security tapes in the Hilton lobby in Geneva to verify that he returned to his room. And she came up on the screen with him. She willingly entered the lobby with him at nine p.m. And she has yet to leave.”
“Oh God,” he groaned. Along with Suzy, that made a total of two informants within the embassy. And one was dead.
The first vision to consume his thoughts was that of Ambassador Pistol and him flying back to Washington, economy class. The next image was of him as a disgraced, unemployed civilian hounded by reporters as he ran from the steps of his Alexandria townhouse to a waiting FBI van. And then he visualized the Senate investigation committee.
Drummed out of the Agency, he could no longer pay for a private school for his son. Perhaps he could share a room with his parents-in-law in their squalid flat in Asuncion. If the judge didn’t consider him a flight risk.
He sighed and ran a hand over Suzy’s crumpled sheets. “I’ll notify the embassy,” he said. “Then I’ll call her son.”
Chapter 22
“Care for a drink?” Sir Trevor O’Smythe asked Mick.
It was just after breakfast. How could the man be drinking so soon? Mick waved off the offer.
A large-screen TV glowed mutely in the corner of Trevor’s darkened study.
Trevor’s fine-boned fingers slipped a tape into the VCR.
The screen flickered briefly and grew dark.
Mick saw the nighttime backdrop of a sparkling city. In the foreground, a pinprick of light illuminated the lissome, unclad flank of a woman lying on her stomach.
Then the reading lamp beside her bed turned brighter. Drowsy, the woman turned her sleek form. A veil of dark hair shrouded her face.
“Is that you?” she murmured in a sleepy voice.
There was no response. A man sang in French on the radio.
At last a shadow emerged from behind the camera. “It’s me.”
The camera lens caught the taut muscles of a man’s iron shoulders, slender hips, naked legs and half-aroused cock.
“Turn it off,” Mick said. “I’m not into voyeurism.”
“Just watch.”
As the woman swung her slender legs down to the floor, he heard tiny jingles. Glittering sequins trailed from the waxing moons of her breasts down to her abdomen and then flared out to her thighs.
She smoothed the dress and tilted her head upward.
It was Natalie.
“Jesus Christ.”
She was dressed to kill.
Her speech sounded slurred. “What’re you doing?” she asked.
“May I join you?”
Swaying her wonderful frame to full effect, she approached the camera and slid a partition between herself and the camera open.
It was probably a two-way mirror.
In unobstructed clarity, he saw Natalie’s irresistible blue eyes and broad cheekbones.
The naked man reached for her bare arms. She paused, breathing heavily just inches from his face. All Mick could see was the bushy black hair on the crown of the man’s head. From that oblique angle, he appeared shaven and fairly young.
Her fine teeth spread like a string of pearls behind her glistening red lips.
Mick dug his fingers into the leather armrests. “That’s enough.”
“But there’s more,” Trevor said.
He didn’t want more. But he needed to watch, to sear the man, the city and the building into his memory.
He concentrated on the traffic on the busy street below. Few headlights were yellow. Most were colorless white. It probably wasn’t France.
The crooning in the background definitely wasn’t the sty
le of music that played on Swiss radio.
The picture jumped slightly, and Natalie’s arms drew around the man’s strong shoulders.
“Where is it?” she asked.
From the camera’s slightly askew angle, Mick watched his wife’s generous, half-exposed breasts compress against the man’s naked form. Her motion stopped for the briefest second. That second lasted for ten.
Trevor had paused the video.
With another flick of Trevor’s remote control, the image evaporated into blackness.
The study was darker than ever.
“It’s a message from our friend,” Trevor said. “I take it to mean that he’s still hard at work.”
“I didn’t see his face,” Mick said. “How can you be sure it’s him?”
“Well, Proteus sent me the video. Whether that was him or not is hard to tell. I assume that the woman was your wife.”
“That was Natalie.”
“Never having met Proteus face to face, I was hoping to see more of him. But what I did see was on prominent display.”
As Mick stared into the darkness, further blackened by seething rage, he could only see the final frame: the mass of female hair splayed across the man’s broad shoulders.
“I’d say your wife is looking splendid. Ravishing. And rather enjoying herself.”
Mick chose not to respond.
“I hope you don’t take it too badly, old chum. I thought this would shed some light on who our Proteus is.”
“No. It doesn’t help much.”
“He likes to drop hints of his activities. He faxed me several days ago that President Damon is coming to CERN, and that Proteus intends to assassinate him. If only I could get in touch with him, I would much rather have him obtain the substrate that Yashito is talking about.”
Mick reviewed what he knew of Proteus so far. He was becoming a force to be reckoned with. Proteus was trying to infiltrate CERN, may have had something to do with Alec’s disappearance, had discovered and seduced Natalie, and was now planning to assassinate the president at CERN. Mick didn’t even know the president was coming.
“He has extremely good sources,” Mick said at last.
“He uses his own informants, his own methods.”
News of the presidential visit to Switzerland hadn’t reached yesterday’s papers. And if it wasn’t released to the press, it would still be classified.
Was there an insider intentionally compromising Alec’s operation, or was the leak the result of indiscretion? In his mind, he reviewed the faces of the embassy staff who had access to such information. The last face he examined was that of his wife. Was she the leak?
He shook his head. “I’m afraid he’ll always be one step ahead of us.”
“That’s why I took the liberty of drawing him out,” Trevor said, and flicked on a light.
He opened the curtains with the click of a switch, and handed Mick the London Times.
The headline was already circled: “Young Bomb Maker Killed in Morocco.”
“You see, I’m forced to use indirect means to contact him,” Trevor said. “And maybe you can use him to reach your wife.”
That was cruel, and unnecessary.
“Feeling fairly powerless these days?” Trevor asked, as if reading his thoughts. “Here’s your wife, a high-flying diplomat, and then there’s you. Worthless to your country, helpless in your marriage and powerless to do anything about it.”
Mick felt his shoulders tense. Had Trevor never felt betrayed? Had he ever loved too much for his own good?
“I know you Americans have a real moral streak about marriage, a spirit of perfectibility. However, it’s not unusual for a married woman to stray, to take on several lovers. That’s certainly the custom around here.”
Mick studied Trevor’s raw-boned face. He didn’t need to make insinuations. The evidence was incriminating enough.
“I think I’ll have that drink,” Mick said at last.
“My God,” Natalie said, as bright morning sunlight awakened her in Khalid’s bed. She felt run over by a truck.
The fumes of two empty wine bottles wafted in her direction.
Her hands shot under the sheets. She still wore her sequined dress.
Everything else about her seemed missing.
Particularly her mind.
An unwanted warmth churned at the base of her throat, and a wave of nausea swept over her.
She dragged a naked leg over the edge of the bed and barely made it to the bathroom in time. The cold-water tap roaring beside her, she vomited dry air. When at last her back stopped lurching forward, her hands began to shake from the cold and exertion.
On all fours, she crawled back to the hotel bedroom.
On her way, she passed the small refrigerator. Food. She knelt down before it and jerked the door open. A small bag of potato chips lay on top of several rattling bottles.
There was no way to pull the package apart. She spotted a bottle cap lying on the carpet. She bent over the bag with the bottle cap in hand and began to scratch an opening in the top. Finally, she could reach inside and pull out a chip. The saltiness was refreshing.
She ate another.
Several chips later, she stopped.
Good Lord. Look at her.
Sunlight poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Lake Geneva was full of sailboats. It was a spectacular summer morning.
She felt like hell, but she had done her bit. Khalid hadn’t kicked her out of his life. Perhaps she had even gained his respect, although she doubted that.
“What’re you doing?” she had demanded the night before when Khalid had stood naked in the bathroom doorway, playing with a dimmer switch.
“May I join you?” he had asked simply.
She had responded by standing up, approaching him by the mirrored door and pulling the closet open to find him a robe.
His hand had caught her arm.
From several inches away, she had felt the heat rising from his hairy chest.
He didn’t move a muscle, except the one that mattered. She remembered allowing a surreal smile that, to a man in his position, probably came across as approval.
“You must have a bathrobe in here,” she had said. Surely he was prepared for female guests.
He had allowed her fingers to crawl over the clothes hangers until they reached a terry cloth robe.
“Here, put this on,” she had said. She felt cold as well. “You must have another one for me.”
By then her bare arm had reached far over his shoulder, down the closet rack.
“Where is it?” she had asked, her fingers continuing their crawl in his direction. She remembered her chest pressing up against his pectoral muscles.
She had only hesitated for a moment.
Then she felt the vibrating body of a video camera. “What’s this?” she had demanded. “What kind of stunt are you pulling?”
“I’m sorry,” he said in a deflated voice. He then pushed the door back further, revealing an eight-millimeter camera. “It’s an odd vice.”
His fingers had slid over the camera, clicked it off and turned the lens to face the other way.
Thank God she had exposed his little perversion in time. The awkward confession had changed his mood.
“Let’s have a drink,” he had said unhappily. He then donned the robe and led her to the wet bar.
She remembered shooting a glance at the hotel door. If she left him then, she would never be able to find out where her husband was. The damned answer lay somewhere in Khalid’s unbalanced mind.
“I’ll have a drink,” she had said.
And boy, did they drink.
So much for satisfying his lust. Was drinking that much better?
She looked at her slouched and weary body washed out by the sunlight. She had to resort to that final, age-old trick. The one that she despised more than any other game on earth: teasing, flirting and stringing a man along.
As she sluggishly pulled her shoes and purse tog
ether, she tried to remember if she had written down Anaïs’ phone number. She looked in her wallet and found it.
She dialed and waited. Finally, Anaïs’ recorded message came on.
She tried to remember the answering machine code that Anaïs had told her. It was either 1970 or 1971. Anaïs was young for the dangerous company she kept. She’d try the latter date. It worked. She heard gibberish as the tape recorder rewound before playing back its messages.
The squeaking stopped, a tone sounded and the first message played back. It was a man’s voice.
It took several seconds for her to recognize it. It took much longer to believe what she was hearing. It was Alec Pierce, sounding more alive than ever.
“Anaïs? It’s me.” His voice sounded strained in the recording. “I’ve left town for a few days. You can reach me at the following number: 1.43.26.98.64.”
She scrambled for a pen and notepad and wrote down the number. Then she waited a full minute for further messages. There were none.
Either Anaïs hadn’t heard the message, or she had reset the machine. Or perhaps she had heard the message and left it for Natalie to hear.
She tore several sheets from the pad of paper so as not to leave an imprint. She would call Alec from another phone.
Minutes later, as she used Khalid’s comb to tug at her hair, the telephone rang.
She closed her eyes. She wasn’t ready to talk to him.
As she drifted toward the phone, she pressed her arms across her belly, wondering if that young man had placed a spell on her. Had he turned her into an automaton?
She picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Natalie? This is Everett Hoyle.”
She fell to the floor with a crash.
“What the hell was that?” he asked.
“Sorry. It was just me.”
“We’ve been worried sick about you,” he said. “Where are Mick and Alec? It seems like you guys fell off the face of the earth.”
Her head spun. “I’m glad you called. I intended to phone you, too, but I can’t talk from here. I’ll call later this morning.”