by Fritz Galt
She thrust her chin toward the square. “Do you mind if I make a promenade while you wait?”
He was used to her sudden mood swings whenever a fanciful idea struck her.
“Come back soon.”
He watched her go. She blended in with the students on the narrow streets en route to their nine o’clock classes. With her hands plunged deep in her bib overall pockets, she gamboled down the steps to the bottom of the square and strolled toward the Gothic façade of the library.
With a backpack and a T-square, she could easily pass for a student. But she carried no backpack, and she was no student.
Under her baggy pants and flowery, pink chemise, there throbbed the hot blood of a crazy young woman. Crazy for sex, crazy for freedom and crazy for him.
She disappeared inside the library building. How long would the old place hold her interest?
Twenty seconds later she reappeared, her hands still deep in her pockets and an indifferent look on her face. She bent her long legs and squatted on the sun-soaked steps. There, she watched the skateboarders with her round cheeks caressed between her knees.
Several young men stepped out of the library. They wore a combination of jeans and fezzes, not an unusual sight in Paris. They turned a corner and headed down a side street toward the river.
Alec found it odd that the men weren’t carrying backpacks like the other students.
He dropped a handful of euros on the table and took off after them. Then he jogged around the square and averted his face to avoid Anaïs seeing him. The less she knew, the less danger she would be in.
He broke into a breathless sprint down the worn cobblestone street. After a block, he came to a five-way intersection. There, a flower shop overflowed with roses of every color. The group of men was nowhere to be seen.
“Pardon, madame,” he said to the woman plucking long-stemmed roses out of a plastic bucket. “Have you seen a group of young Arabs?”
She pursed her lips disapprovingly and shook her head.
He raced back up the street. There were no alleys off the street, only building entrances.
He returned to the square. Anaïs was no longer there.
Damn.
He would have to find her first and make sure she was safe.
He retraced his steps to the café. Three co-eds already occupied the table he had just vacated. They had spread their papers out before them, oblivious to the world.
Okay, maybe she had returned to their hotel, which was next door.
He passed into the hotel’s mirrored lobby and asked the receptionist for his room key. The woman found it for him. So Anaïs hadn’t checked in.
“Sorry, I don’t need the key now,” he said. “I changed my mind.”
So where was Anaïs?
The receptionist raised her eyebrows and returned the key to its hook.
Alec jogged back onto the sidewalk. Anaïs might have crossed the square and entered any one of the trendy boutiques along the Boulevard Saint Michel.
Then he saw someone in jeans overalls standing at a public telephone booth. He could recognize that slim, muscular rump anywhere.
He crept up behind her.
She hung the phone up without a word and turned hastily away. She ran smack into Alec and jumped back in surprise.
“Don’t scare me like that,” she said, and put a hand up to her chest trying to catch her breath.
He frowned. “What’re you doing?”
“I just called my answering machine. Khalid left for Morocco.”
Alec was stunned. So much for Khalid showing up with a package at the steps of the Sorbonne at sunrise. “When did he go?”
“Yesterday.”
“Crap.”
“You have coffee breath, monsieur.” She wrinkled her nose. “Have one of these.” She popped a breath freshener into his mouth and pecked him on his cheek.
He started back toward the square. Where were the men he had been following?
She knit her eyebrows in thought and turned to stroll in close confidence beside him. “I didn’t want to tell you this,” she confided. “But your sister-in-law is having an affair with Khalid. The phone message said they went to Morocco together.”
“Natalie and Khalid?” he said, incredulous, and chomped straight through to the liquid core of the tablet. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
She stopped and arched an eyebrow. “These things happen.” Her eyes lingered on him, observing his reaction.
For a moment, he felt disoriented. It might have been the quiet, swiftly moving traffic that made him light-headed. Or perhaps it was the angular mannequins in the fashion store or the illusory, vanishing young men. But the idea of Natalie having an affair behind his brother’s back left him numb with disbelief.
“I’ve got to warn her,” he said. “Khalid is a killer.”
His forehead felt cold with sweat. It felt as if someone were standing on his chest and he couldn’t take in enough air.
Out of nowhere, the group of men with fezzes reappeared. They were approaching him on the sidewalk. From the oblique angle at which he viewed them, they seemed about to topple over.
Then he noticed the burningly sweet flavor on his tongue. It wasn’t the lemon flavor of a breath freshener. It was chloroform.
Chapter 30
Natalie noticed that Khalid returned from washing his deceased friend’s body in a testy mood.
But she didn’t care. After her little probe in the village that morning, she no longer believed anything he said. She could only think of the headline “Son of Killer Returns” above Khalid’s picture, with the caption bearing a name other than his.
“What’s that smell?” he asked.
She had removed his sandwich from the newspaper wrapper and placed it on a plate. She shoved the plate at him.
“You’ve been to King Snacks,” he said, and began washing his hands in the kitchen sink.
He took the food into the living room, where his mother had been preparing tea for the past half hour.
He didn’t touch the sandwich.
Maybe their sleeping arrangement had ruined his mood. Or maybe it was the sight of his dead friend.
Despite the way he treated Natalie, he seemed to have all the civility in the world for his mother.
She rose when they entered the room and poured tea from a pot with a long spout. The long stream of tea landed straight in a small glass.
He lifted the glass to his lips and tasted it. He gave a nod of approval and said something that Natalie didn’t understand.
The old woman’s dark lips melted into a smile. Her steady hand held the teapot high over the table as she poured him another glass.
“What did you say?” Natalie asked.
“I told her that it’s delicious. It’s an old blessing.”
The mother handed Natalie a glass and she tried it. It was almost too hot to pick up, but the tea was sweet with a heavy presence of mint.
So this guy knew an old Moroccan blessing. But it was clear from the newspaper and the fellow at King Snacks that he wasn’t Khalid Slimane, or an engineer from Settat. Was he even Moroccan? She decided to test him.
“This is delicious,” she told him. “How do you make it?”
He looked at her like she was a worn-out horse. Was that because of her, or because she was a woman and they were in Morocco?
“So you’re testing me,” he said.
She smiled sweetly.
“You are testing me, Mrs. Science Attaché,” he said, his dark eyes watching for her reaction.
So they were both lying. She wouldn’t dispute it. “I’d simply like the recipe. How do you make this kind of tea? I’m curious.”
She swished the mint flavor across her teeth and waited.
“Well, you use fresh mint,” he said slowly. “And you keep the leaves on the stems.”
She nodded.
“This holds the tea at the bottom and prevents clogging the teapot.”
“I see.”
“Then you cover the mint leaves completely so they don’t turn black and bitter.” He was gaining his rhythm. “We use Chinese green tea that hasn’t been fermented.”
The explanation sounded increasingly genuine to her, but she decided to make him flesh out the details. “Why the interesting pouring procedure?”
He stood up abruptly and sauntered around the room, his gestures exaggerated.
“We rinse a metal teapot with boiled water, empty it and drop in a large tablespoon of green tea. We pour in a small glass of boiling water to rinse the tea, swirl it around and strain the water out. Then we drop in dark green mint with rough, curly leaves. This much.”
He pretended to heft a handful of mint.
“Then our secret ingredient.” He bent close to her, breathing in her ear. “Ten lumps of sugar.”
She tried to diffuse the charged atmosphere with a laugh. “I figured something like that.”
He continued to hover over her, belittling himself with dainty gestures.
“We fill the pot with boiling water and stir gently, leaving the tea resting on the bottom. The tea steeps for about five minutes, and then we pour out a glass and immediately return it to the pot. We do this four or five times to mix the liquid. We never stir the pot at this time. If it tastes ready, we can serve it to our guests.”
“And why do you pour it from so high?”
“Ah, another trick. This oxygenates the tea for a better flavor. Does that answer your question?”
“Tell your mother it’s delicious,” she said.
Even if Khalid wasn’t really Khalid Slimane, he had to be Moroccan.
He spoke to the old woman in a serious tone for a long time.
Then she nodded with a frightened look and left the room.
“You must wear this for the funeral,” he said, and tossed Natalie a black chador.
They stood, and he helped her wind it around her head and shoulders, careful to cover every last strand of hair. With each wrap of cloth, she felt herself descending further into a bygone era of female servitude.
“Now I must warn you,” he said. “You’ll hear a lot of wailing.”
“So I understand.”
A mechanical bird twittered in the hallway.
“Ah, the doorbell. They’re here,” he said. “Please wait for me in your bedroom.”
Through the grills of her window, she watched the house’s guard swing the steel gate open. A shiny black Mercedes rolled onto the grounds. She propped the window open to listen.
The passengers waited for the chauffeur to open their doors. Dressed in flowing white robes, two men lowered their sandals with disdain on the crumbled concrete drive. Natalie associated their black headbands with pictures of sheiks from oil-rich Gulf States.
The smaller and rounder sheik cupped his hands around Khalid’s cheeks. “My dear Brahim. How is the general’s son?”
Khalid’s eyes guardedly swept over the garden.
“It would be better to call me Khalid these days.”
“Ha. General Abbad’s son is still in hiding? It’s been over twenty-five years since then.”
“Twenty-five years of family disgrace.”
“Don’t worry. You’ll succeed eventually.”
“It’s been a long road,” Khalid said. “And now this. Mustapha dies from his own bomb.”
“You’ll find another bomb maker.”
Khalid’s voice was so hushed that Natalie could barely catch it. “Proteus has other plans at this time.”
The second sheik, who didn’t seem to know Khalid personally, took interest in that. “What’s Proteus’ latest plan?”
Khalid looked inquiringly at the first sheik.
“Don’t worry about him. He’s my cousin,” the heavy man explained, and nodded at Khalid to proceed with an answer.
“Apparently O’Smythe has other needs.”
“Don’t be so vague.”
“The American president must die.”
Natalie stared at Khalid. Was he serious?
The two sheiks looked at each other. Natalie could see the financial calculators spinning in their heads. She could also visualize all too clearly the friendly face of her president succumbing to death.
“Is this necessary for O’Smythe?”
“You know O’Smythe’s business,” Khalid said. “He has to impress his clients. Besides, what are you worried about? This will help your oil prices.”
“My dear Brahim, prices are already high.”
“You haven’t seen high yet,” he said.
The old man gazed at him steadily. “When and where?”
“Proteus has set the plan in motion.”
“Dear Brahim. I see the old General Abbad at work in you.”
“I work for Proteus.”
“When and where?” the man repeated.
“Within a week. In Switzerland.”
The two sheiks glanced significantly at each other. The younger man whipped a portable phone from his robe. His words were Arabic and brisk. Probably something like, “Hello, Riyadh? Hold all sales for a week.”
Khalid, now confirmed to Natalie to be Brahim, began to pace back and forth across the grass.
She slipped her window back into its frame. She turned and caught a glimpse of auburn hair in the mirror. Tucking it under her chador, she saw a grim expression on her lips.
Khalid’s clumsy, offhand demeanor had disappeared in the garden. He was a cunning and bitter man. And he intended to kill the President of the United States.
She had better find a phone.
Chapter 31
Alec woke up feeling groggy. But he was alert enough to wonder why he wasn’t on the sidewalk any longer.
His arms and neck were stuck by sweat to a leather couch. The only daylight streamed through a crack in thick red drapes that muted the sounds of a city. The fragrance of freshly cut flowers and the starchy smell of linens informed him that he must be in a hotel. And a fancy one at that.
Another body lay prone beside him. The young man was stretched out on a writing table under the glare of a desk lamp.
Anaïs created a shadow over the figure as she examined it. The man’s arms were lashed behind his back. The brown leather strap with a pewter horseshoe buckle looked familiar.
Alec reached down to his waist. His belt was missing.
Anaïs was quite the black widow spider that day. She had already spun her web around two men. He had to admire her finesse. The chloroform was a touch of genius.
She turned at the sound of his movement.
“Cher Alec,” she said, and rushed to his side.
“Cher what?”
“They tried to kill you.”
“Naw. It was just a little anesthetic you slipped me in the candy. That’s all.”
“It wasn’t candy. It was breath freshener, made from natural ingredients.” She reached for his face, and he pulled instinctively away. But his head began to pound from the effort.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know what they had in mind.”
“Who are ‘they?’”
“O’Smythe’s men.”
Alec nodded. He knew of O’Smythe, a wealthy arms merchant based in the Swiss Alps. “And why, exactly, are you involved with them?”
“They dragged me here with you,” she whispered fiercely and defensively. “So I locked them out of the room.” Then she added in a softer tone, “I thought they were going to kill you.”
“Kill me?” He propped himself up on one elbow and immediately regretted doing so. He blacked out.
When he came to, she was staring down at him with a frank, distressed expression.
Then he remembered her association with the would-be killers. It hardly fit. “How could you get mixed up with such people?”
She shrugged. “It’s a long story.”
“I have time.”
She glanced back at the door. “No, you don’t.”
He wasn’t going anywhere soon. He ind
icated the other body. “Who’s that?”
“One of them.”
“Who did that to him?”
“Me.”
“With what? More chloroform?”
“No, silly. I hit him over the head with that.” She pointed to a cracked toilet seat lying on the floor.
“Oh. That makes me feel much better. Did you do that to me, too?” He felt the crown of his head for a bump. There wasn’t any. Encouraged, he eased into a sitting position.
“No, dear Alec. He stayed behind when the others left. I had to knock him out.”
“And now I’m supposed to thank you?”
“Of course not. I brought you here. It’s entirely my fault. I thought they just wanted to question you.”
“What more did they have in mind?”
“I don’t know. I got scared by their needles and their words.”
“What needles?” He lowered his feet to the carpet.
“Careful,” she said. “Poor baby.”
He groaned. “What did they try to do to me?”
“They got out long needles that looked nasty.”
“And what did they say?”
“They said your president is coming to Geneva, and there’s a plan to kill him.”
Well, that certainly put things in context. “Why didn’t you mention that first?”
She ran her fingers through his hair in a soothing manner.
“Just sit down and quit hovering over me,” he said, and tried to shake the final cobwebs from his mind. “Just how involved are you?”
She reluctantly sat down beside him. “At first I was simply working for Sir Trevor O’Smythe. You remember him, don’t you?”
“Yes. The gun runner who lends young women his apartments.”
“That’s him. I didn’t want to tell you this because I thought you might take it the wrong way. But please remember that I love you.”
“Go ahead. Tell me.”
“His only request was that I watch you and report on you.” She gave an amused little laugh. “But what was there to report? You went to work each day at the laboratory. You moved in with me. We fell in love.”
“How did you meet up with Natalie?”