by Fritz Galt
The green salad served and eaten, the Knöpfli dumplings quickly demolished, they awaited their entrée. He hadn’t yet apologized for the Roberta incident at the beach, but his wife appeared to be enjoying his company and didn’t seem to require a confession.
He glanced at the ornate wooden walls and high plaster ceiling of the former ballroom.
Maybe there was nothing to confess. Maybe it was just his guilt at work.
He studied the faces at the well-spaced tables around them. He didn’t recognize any friends who might distract his wife, and there were no exceptionally beautiful women to trigger her jealousy.
Why should she be jealous? He wasn’t guilty of anything.
He had to clear the air.
“Chica?” he said, and grasped her hand.
She lifted her eyes, then something behind him caught her attention.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Isn’t that Mick Pierce?”
He looked over his shoulder. Dressed in a smart business suit, Mick walked behind their waiter, who carried in two steaming dishes.
Everett dropped her hand.
Mick smiled at them and waited for the waiter to rearrange their silverware and set the plates before them.
The veal in wine sauce smelled delicious, and Everett couldn’t wait to dig in.
The waiter left, and Mick swung a chair toward their table. “Mind if I join you?”
Everett knew him well enough to dispense with formalities. “Sit down,” he said, and sliced a piece of meat.
Mick dragged up a well-upholstered chair and wedged between Everett and his wife.
“I just got off the train,” Mick said. “Sorry if I smell like air freshener. Do you have the passport and ID?”
Everett shoved them under the table.
Mick checked the photos and birth information. “They almost look real.”
“They are real, damn it,” Everett said, pointing a knife at Mick. “Cindy busted her butt for you this afternoon.”
“Tell Cindy I owe her one. Make it a bottle of wine.”
“You know you can’t sweet-talk her. Especially after taking advantage of her.”
“I know her pretty well,” Estrella said. “I can bake her daughter butterscotch brownies, if that’ll help.”
Everett stopped chewing and looked at his wife. What an incredible asset. With one simple idea, she could repair strained relations with their colleagues.
She could almost make him forget that he was angry with Mick. Almost.
“So, how did you enjoy your little interlude in Saas Fee, while the rest of us were worried sick—”
“I’m sorry if I seemed aloof.”
“—getting ready for the presidential visit,” he finished, and took another bite.
“I’ve been working on that,” Mick said cryptically.
Everett reached for his wine glass. “Would you mind telling me how you know about the president?”
“C’mon, Everett,” Estrella said. “Everyone knows.”
“Okay, okay.” He dropped his fork. “I give up.” What good was he without secrets? What kind of a spymaster was he anyway?
Then, as his hand fell to his side, he felt an envelope in his jacket pocket.
He cleared his throat. “We had your clothes and personal items picked up from the hotel in Montreux. We found this letter among them. It’s unopened.”
Mick looked at the slim white envelope with curiosity.
“It’s for Natalie from the ‘Women’s Clinic,’” Everett said.
“I can see that,” Mick said, his broad forehead suddenly creased in pain. “I’ll pass it along to her.”
Everett had momentarily lost interest in his food. “Can you tell me exactly what is going on between you two?”
His wife kicked him in the shin.
“Ouch.”
Mick’s gray eyes momentarily lit up with a smile. “I don’t mind the question, Estrella. But all the same, I’d rather not talk about it.”
Mick leaned his large, handsome head toward hers. Together, they looked like Latin American coconspirators.
Everett jabbed at a buttered green bean and shoved it in his mouth.
“Could you excuse us for a moment?” Mick requested of her. “I need to update your husband on some recent events.”
She nodded, and he turned to Everett.
“I’m leaving for Morocco tonight.”
Everett nearly choked. Just that afternoon, he had received the cable expressly forbidding post-to-post travel.
“I can’t authorize that,” he said, and wiped his mouth.
“Why not?”
“I received a new directive telling us not to reimburse employees for inter-post travel. Sorry.”
“Then I’ll pay out-of-pocket.”
“Mick, according to the cable, we’re supposed to stop all inter-agency business.”
“Who sent that cable?”
Everett scratched his head, trying to remember the acronym. “SATO. It’s some part of the Agency.”
Mick shook his head. “Never heard of them. Now hear me out.” He shot an uncomfortable look around the room, then resumed in a whisper. “A character named Proteus out of the Polisario Front was hired for commercial reasons to keep the U.S. out of CERN. He failed, and having a chip on his shoulder along with a beef against America, he has decided to assassinate the president.”
“Good Lord.”
Estrella’s face lost its healthy color.
“My job is to preempt him before he lodges a bullet in the president’s head.”
Everett was suddenly glad he hadn’t ordered embassy security to detain Mick that evening. Mick was doing great research. And Everett needed all assets in the field. But was Mick going too far? Wasn’t this a job for the Secret Service?
“I don’t want you taking a bullet for the president,” he said.
“I won’t. I’ll head off Proteus before it gets that far.”
“What do you plan to do?”
“I plan to fly down to Casablanca, and pass along to Proteus different instructions issued by the man who hired him.”
Everett had so many questions. So many things to say. “Is Natalie onto him, too?”
“I believe so. But I don’t know exactly where her loyalties lie at this point. She’s been up to something since my kidnapping.”
Estrella gasped. “Kidnapping?”
“It’s okay, Estrella,” Mick said. “I got free. Sort of.”
“Is Natalie in any danger?” she asked, her voice trembling.
“I don’t know,” Mick said. “But my gut reaction is that, in some way, she’s in control.” He stared pointedly at his boss.
Everett nodded. He understood the look. It meant, “Back off.” Natalie was hard at work on the problem. Give her room to operate.
“Is there any way we can help?” Estrella offered.
“Now Chica,” Everett said. “This is embassy business.”
Just then, the waiter approached with a telephone.
“Herr Hoyle?”
Everett sighed and signaled him. Why not set up the entire office there?
The waiter plugged the telephone cord into a nearby pillar.
On the first ring, Everett picked it up. “Yes?”
“Everett? It’s Tobias. I’m sorry to bother you, but we have your man. Our police have trapped him. Unfortunately, we can’t take him.”
“Take him where?”
“I mean nab him. He’s in a restricted zone where our police can’t operate. All I can do is wait.”
“What do you mean by ‘restricted zone?’”
“He’s hiding in the Reithalle.”
Oh, that kind of restricted zone. The former riding school had recently been converted into a law-free zone, where pushers and junkies could freely dispense and inject drugs. Because police weren’t allowed onto the premises, criminals hung out there and did their thing with impunity.
“You might want to come over
here,” Tobias said. “Our team has surrounded the building.”
“Okay. Hold on.” He cupped the receiver and turned to Mick. “We’ve got Suzy’s killer holed up at the Reithalle. Tobias Bürgi wants to know if we want to join the surveillance team.”
Mick stared at him. Then Everett noticed that Estrella’s jaw had nearly dropped to her plate.
“I’m sorry,” Everett said, turning to her. “People don’t know this yet, but Suzy Kraft was murdered last night. I suspect it has something to do with the case that Mick and Natalie are working on.”
Estrella reached into her purse and pulled out a handkerchief just in time to catch the flow of tears.
Everett dropped the telephone receiver on the table and reached out to comfort her. “This is what I’ve been working on, Chica. I know it’s distressing.”
“I don’t know about you,” she said at last, tucking her purse under her arm and standing up. “But I’ll go kill that bastard myself.” And she stomped off.
Everett stood up and looked at Mick.
“I’d love to help you,” Mick said. “But I’ve got a plane to catch.”
Once again, Mick was off on another road trip. If his scoring average weren’t so high, Everett would have him benched permanently.
“Just keep one thing in mind,” Everett said. “I can’t sanction this. You’re on your own.”
Then Everett spun around and ran through the restaurant after his wife.
So much for the perfect evening.
The last thing Everett needed to think about was horses, but suddenly there they were, on the top of his agenda.
Bern was a center for horses, but not the kind of barrel racing ‘hosses’ he liked. The Fédération Équestre Internationale was headquartered there. The organization governed international equestrian competition such as dressage, three-day eventing and show jumping. Rodeo didn’t enter in.
The esteemed Fédération would have a hard time handling the kind of crowd that appeared at the city’s former Riding Hall that night.
In the past, Bernese crowds had thrilled at the sight of horses hurdling the jumps made of rails and planks and bales of hay in the Reithalle’s courtyard. Smack in the middle of Switzerland’s capital city, just beside the railway tracks, rested a morsel of refined countryside.
Now the opposite was true.
The Reithalle had become a place where young people tried hard not to be Swiss.
Tobias’s police car was unmarked. Inside, the rotund inspector, Everett and Estrella rolled down Schützenmattstrasse with the engine and headlights turned off.
Several rotting trailers were soldered to the street with rust. In the courtyard, trash sat heaped like a fantastic sculpture. The building was derelict and desecrated by graffiti and vandalism. Disco lights swept across dusty windows, creating shadows of people milling about inside.
Tobias pointed out the undercover cops among the groups of youths smoking crack and marijuana on the dark street. “They’re watching the central door,” he said.
Everett turned for a better view of the front door. It looked like the youths had raided a secondhand clothing store. Drifting in and out of the entrance, they wore a mix of styles, from leather jackets emblazoned with swastikas to miniskirts, jewels and high heels.
“What’s inside?” Estrella asked.
“You don’t want to know,” Everett said.
Tobias was more specific. “Galleries. Theater. Café. We believe there’s a dance hall upstairs.”
They had parked beside a young woman who had set up a table to distribute clean needles. Beside her, young men sat cross-legged amidst waste paper and needle wrappers.
“Does Suzy’s killer know he’s under surveillance?” Everett asked.
“Hard to say,” Tobias said. “We hope he thinks he’s in the clear.”
Estrella shuddered and leaned back against Everett’s arm. “This is like watching a very bad movie,” she said.
Everett laughed. “It’s real, Chica. Believe it or not.”
“How can we just wait?” she said. “Is he in there or not?”
“Oh, ja,” Tobias said. “He’s in there, all right.”
Before Everett could comprehend what was happening, his wife had popped the car door open.
“Chica, we can’t go in there.”
“Why not?”
“It’s so—”
“You know what he looks like,” she said.
“I saw him from a distance on the Aare River.”
“Good. And you aren’t the police.”
“No.”
“Then let’s go in.”
He jumped out and trotted up the broken sidewalk after her, feeling extremely out of place.
Curiously, nobody seemed to notice them. In fact, his fine dinner clothes were as outrageous as any other garb at the Reithalle that night.
They walked in through the main doorway unchecked. There was no security, no bouncer, no ID check. The very lawlessness of the place was working to their advantage.
Suddenly a crowd rushed toward them. He pulled Estrella against the wall. The perspiring theatergoers pushed through the doorway and squeezed out of the building in a continuous mass.
He and Estrella waited beside a box where the audience had stuffed money for the play. Behind them, a hand-painted poster read, “The Last Temptation of Christ.”
He scanned the stream of faces. A curly black beard appeared at the back of the crowd.
A sudden chill overcame him. He remembered Suzy’s broken neck and the suspect jumping off his motorboat and scrambling through the grass that was strewn with sunbathers.
The man was heading for a restaurant, of sorts.
Everett had no time to be self-conscious. He had to act.
As the throng thinned out, they were left alone in the hallway.
“Head for the restaurant,” he said. “He’s in there.”
“He’ll spot us,” she said.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Who do I look for?”
The music was loud, so he cupped a hand and shouted in her ear. “He’s the one with the black beard. But be careful. He’s dangerous.”
The room reeked of stale cigarette smoke and smoldering reefers. Everett hadn’t smelled so many joints since dorm parties and afternoons on the Quad.
He studied the faces in the haze. The man sat alone at a table, a silhouette in black.
Disco music rocked the room and the inside of his head.
God, he was getting high.
Weird. He saw a glint of steel. The killer slowly drew a knife from his left boot.
Then a slim ivory form slipped across Everett’s field of vision. Estelle leaned on the suspect and dragged her lips across his face.
Cool. His wife’s slender fingers were gently prying the knife from the man’s gloved hand.
She held the knife by its tip, between two fingers and away from her body. The man’s lips curved in amusement.
Fascinated, Everett watched his wife transform from a homespun pickpocket into a tigress. “Vayate,” she cried out, reversing her grip on the knife and threatening the man. “Get out of here.”
The man’s amused twinkle turned to curiosity. His large, tapered frame didn’t budge.
“Get out of here, hijo de puta.” Son of a bitch.
The man swiped at the blade, missed and grabbed her wrist.
Suddenly, someone appeared out of the blue light of the bar and looped his thick fingers around the killer’s trachea.
Far out.
“Achtung. Get out of here. Both of you. This is a Beiz, a restaurant, not a back alley.”
That was debatable.
The fingers must have applied some pressure to the man’s windpipe, because Estrella’s hand came free. She stormed out of the room prodding the suspect with the knife.
Everett took a step backward so the angry pair didn’t collide with him.
Estrella’s small body slithered quickly through the cro
wded restaurant. He followed as her heels clattered down the empty hallway. Her short black hair disappeared into the night.
By the time Everett emerged from the reeking building, his wife stood across the littered courtyard hefting the knife from hand to hand in a taunting manner while two undercover officers apprehended the man.
Everett teetered on the top step waiting for the fresh air to clear his head.
The killer looked so exasperated that he didn’t mind his hands being cuffed behind his back.
Everett closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Okay, the buzz was gone.
And his wife had actually done it.
He walked unsteadily around the mountain of trash, suddenly aware of the stench.
Estrella’s eyes flashed with anger as a policeman pushed the man through the back door of a squad car.
Everett swayed forward and grabbed her by her shoulders. They were still taut. “How were you able to keep your head in there?”
She stared at him. “I didn’t inhale.”
He let out an involuntary laugh.
“Well, good work. You’re a real pro.”
“I’m still mad as hell,” she said.
It wasn’t the right moment to admonish her for her recklessness. That would come later, and gently.
Tobias approached them deep in thought. He was staring at the man’s identity booklet. “You won’t believe this,” he said as he flipped between the photograph and the signature.
“Try me,” Everett said. “I’ll believe anything.”
“This says his name is Khalid Slimane.”
“I believe it.”
“His picture matches his face perfectly. And, unless his booklet is a fake, he is Khalid Slimane.”
Everett rubbed his neck. “And so is the Khalid Slimane who walked into the Noga Hilton in Geneva last night with Natalie Pierce. So is the Khalid Slimane whose body turned up several days dead in Alec Pierce’s apartment in Geneva. And so is the Khalid Slimane that is a corpse in Montreux.”
“Same name,” Tobias admitted.
“I don’t know Arabic from Ancient Persian,” Everett continued. “But don’t you get the impression that this name Khalid Slimane is either as common as John Smith or some kind of figure of speech? Something akin to thumbing your nose?”
“Ja, perhaps. I don’t know the answer to that. But I do know one thing.”