by Greg Dinallo
“Familiar?”
The clerk put her elbows on the counter, her flabby underarms hanging in a catenary to the worn Formica. “Nothing real distinctive about him, is there?” she wondered, solicitously.
Applegate took a ten pound note from his pocket and snapped it between his thumbs and forefingers. “Yes or no?” he demanded impatiently.
“Room two oh six,” the clerk said, snatching the note from Applegate’s hand. “Oh, he’s here all right,” she offered, anticipating the next question.
“How many ways out of here?”
“Main and service,” she replied, indicating a second door at the base of the staircase.
The agents remained in the lobby, covering the exits. Applegate took the lift to the second floor.
It groaned to a jerky stop. He slid the gate back just enough to exit, guiding it closed to keep it from slamming. Shepherd’s room was at the end of the hallway beyond the stair landing. Applegate drew his pistol, walked to the room, and leaned to the scarred door, listening; then he turned the knob slowly. The latch withdrew with a soft clack and the door opened slightly. Applegate sent it smashing back into the wall in the event Shepherd was behind it. The knob bashed a hole in the plaster.
The room appeared empty.
Applegate entered, glancing about cautiously, peered beneath the bed, then advanced toward a closet. He threw open the door, ready to fire.
Shepherd was outside in the hallway, concealed in the angular space beneath the staircase. As soon as Applegate entered the room, he slipped from his hiding place and hurried to the lift.
Applegate was staring into the empty closet when the gate slammed. He whirled at the sound and ran into the hallway in time to glimpse the lift rising behind the decorative grillework. He stepped quickly to the stairwell, leaned over the rail, and shouted. “Hey! Hey, he’s heading for the roof!”
Applegate took off up the staircase, both agents following after him from the lobby below.
Shepherd had sent the lift on its way and returned to the space beneath the staircase. He crouched in the darkened cranny listening to the footsteps approaching; soon they were thundering directly overhead, sending a cascade of dust atop him. He waited until they made the turn on the third floor landing, then he started down the stairs.
The desk clerk was keeping a vigil at the base of the staircase. Shepherd came rocketing past her and made a beeline for her counter.
“Hey! Hey, what the bloody hell are you doing?” she shouted, waddling after him.
He leaned over the counter and snatched the paring knife she used as a letter opener, then charged past her to the street. She lumbered across the lobby to the staircase. “He’s down here!” she bellowed through cupped hands. “The bloody creep’s down here!”
Applegate and the agents had already realized they’d been duped and reversed direction. They came clambering down the staircase and through the lobby to the street, the clerk padding after them.
Shepherd was at the corner, getting into one of the black taxis that patrolled London’s streets like convoys of teeming ants.
Applegate and the agents ran to their car. He opened the door, then paused and slammed it in disgust without getting in. “Son of a bitch!” he shouted, sending a frustrated kick into the front tire, which had been slashed.
The taxi turned the corner and drove off.
“Where to, sir?” the driver asked.
“A post office—a busy one,” Shepherd replied, slipping the paring knife into his sock.
“That would be the main off Trafalgar Square,” the driver said, selecting not only a busy but also a distant post office. “Tough morning?” he prompted. “I mean it’s not every day a chap runs from a hotel and slashes a tire.”
“Pardon?” Shepherd said, stiffening. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken about that.”
“I saw you right here, I did.” The driver tapped his rearview mirror.
“Better just pull over and let me out.”
“You don’t want me to do that, sir, believe me.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’d have to tell the police where I dropped you. I could lose my license if I didn’t. Of course, they pay for information. Twenty pounds minimum if it works out, and I have a feeling you’re worth quite a bit more. Maybe fifty, even a hundred.”
“I don’t have that much,” Shepherd replied, getting the driver’s point. “I’ll take my chances on the street. Pull over.”
“I haven’t finished,” the driver replied. “How much were you paying in that hotel?”
“Fifteen pounds.”
“Well, we know you’re not staying there tonight, don’t we? Now, I can put quite a lovely roof over your head for ten; you guarantee me two nights and we all make out. See how it works?”
Shepherd nodded warily. “I’ll think it over.”
“Plenty of time,” the driver replied.
A short time later, he had driven the length of the Strand past Charing Cross Station and turned into Duncannon, stopping in front of a Greek revival structure ringed by huge columns of bloated granite.
“Well?” he prompted, turning to Shepherd.
“Where is this place?”
“On the waterfront. Quiet, no one about. I’ve no doubt you’d find it to your liking, if you follow me?”
Shepherd studied him, wrestling with the decision.
“I’m going that way from here,” the driver went on as inducement, concerned he might lose the sale. “I’ll wait until you’re finished if you like.”
Shepherd nodded and turned to get out of the cab.
“That’s three pounds fifty,” the driver said sharply, resetting the meter.
Shepherd paid him and hurried toward the post office. He was pushing through the door when he saw the taxi’s reflection in the glass, saw the driver turn to the microphone next to him, and begin talking.
A sickening chill came over Shepherd. Was the driver reporting in to his dispatcher or to Applegate? Was he just a hustler making a buck any way he could? Or was he one of them, one of Applegate’s operatives who had slyly ensnared him? But he had picked the cab from several on the street; could Applegate’s people have been driving every one of them? Bet your ass, Shepherd decided. He’s in the post office on Trafalgar Square, he imagined the driver saying to Applegate with a smug smile. Come get him.
As Shepherd crossed the lobby, his eyes darted to a newspaper in a nearby trash receptacle. The headline proclaimed U.S. BOMBERS ATTACK LIBYA. His photograph was one of those that accompanied the story. He fetched the paper, using it to shield his face while he waited in the postal queue. It inched forward at an unnervingly slow pace. At least ten minutes passed before he stepped to the window and mailed the cassette.
A light rain was falling when he came out of the post office. The square was a bustle of homeward-bound office workers, scurrying about Nelson’s Column beneath umbrellas on their way to the Underground. He scanned their faces warily; not one approached or took notice of him; there was no sign of Applegate or the Special Forces agents as Shepherd hugged the facade of rain-darkened stone and peered round the corner.
The taxi driver was slouched behind the wheel, reading a magazine. There was nothing anxious or vigilant about him; nothing to suggest he was anything other than what he appeared to be, Shepherd thought, dismissing his previous anxiety as paranoia. It might be a week before Stephanie got the tape and could take action; furthermore, he had no credit cards and little cash. Deciding it would be more difficult for Applegate to track him down again if he avoided hotels, he hurried through the rain to the taxi.
“Sorry to be so long,” Shepherd apologized as he got in and pulled the door closed after him.
“Does that mean we have a deal?” the driver asked.
“Something you should know, first. Those men were trying to kill me.”
“I didn’t think they had news of an inheritance,” the driver quipped. He put the cab in gear and drove off, the wip
ers slapping noisily at the windscreen. “By the way, I’m Spencer, Spencer Quait.”
“Smith,” Shepherd replied. “Walt Smith.”
Spencer drove south on Craven to Victoria Embankment, the broad boulevard that snaked along the Thames, then east toward the waterfront into ever-narrowing streets until the stately granite buildings gave way to a russet landscape of abandoned warehouses that lined the approaches to Blackwall Tunnel.
Dusk had fallen by the time the taxi started down a cobbled hill that twisted steeply through thickening fog to an expanse of dilapidated wharves. The decaying timbers rumbled in protest as the taxi proceeded across the dock, stopping next to a lone houseboat lashed to the tarred pilings. The decrepit vessel had a low-slung cabin with canted sidewalls and a rusted pipe rail that ran atop the gunwale. It listed slightly to port, tugging gently at the mildewed hausers, which matched the color of her hull.
“There she is,” Spencer said as they got out of the taxi into the rain. “A coat of paint, a tune-up, and I’ll sell her for twice what I paid; maybe more. In the meantime, she’s all yours.”
“You don’t live here?”
“Not on your life. I have me a flat in Woolwich. That’s on the south bank, just through the tunnel.”
Shepherd’s head filled with the strong odor of creosoate and salt as he followed Spencer up a rickety gangway that swayed over the brackish water.
The slight cabbie opened the padlock, grasped the paint-encrusted hasp, and slid back the door. His hand found the light switch and turned it. Nothing happened. He grunted in disgust. “I must’ve thrown the main last time. Don’t go way.”
He hurried down the gangway and across the dock to an equipment shed that leaned against a power pole, making his way in the darkness to the electrical panel. Shepherd remained on deck until the lights inside the barge came on, then entered cautiously, half expecting to find Applegate waiting for him. He was greeted instead by the bored meow of a battle-scarred tomcat who shouldered past him into the main cabin. It was cluttered with packing crates, cartons of books, overstuffed furniture, a table, and a captain’s chair. The bed was in an alcove opposite the galley. Shepherd was browsing through cupboards stocked with canned provisions when Spencer entered the cabin behind him.
“Two nights payable in advance,” he announced.
Shepherd put a twenty pound note in his hand and studied him for a long moment before releasing it. “How do I know you still won’t tell the authorities where I am?” he finally asked.
“Because I’m a man of my word.”
“Just ask anyone who’s done business with you, right?” Shepherd said, with a thin smile.
Spencer’s eyes flashed with indignation; he whirled to a cabinet, opened a drawer, and removed a pistol.
Shepherd froze at the sight of it.
“I wouldn’t be giving you this if I was planning to go to the police, now would I? Come along, take it,” Spencer insisted, seeing the terror in Shepherd’s eyes. “There are a lot of nasties on the waterfront; too many for my taste. Having this about gives me peace of mind when I’m here working on her. I imagine it might do the same for you.”
Shepherd sighed with relief.
The cabbie gave him a set of keys and left.
Shepherd bolted the door after him then, mentally and physically exhausted, he fell face down on the bed and was asleep before the sound of the departing taxi had faded.
20
“THE MAD DOG AMERICAN and English whore are leading a barbaric crusade against the Arab world!” Muammar el-Qaddafi shouted, the twisted veins at his temples throbbing. He stood amid the rubble of his headquarters building, a bulletproof vest strapped around his torso.
A crowd of reporters who had been bused from their hotel surrounded him. Behind them, medical teams scurried to care for bombing victims who were being dug out from the rubble and loaded aboard helicopters that would take them to Al Fatah University Hospital.
“They are the two Hitlers behind this act of state-sponsored terrorism!” Qaddafi ranted on, purposely using the phrase from the president’s speech. “But they paid for their crimes! Their bombers were destroyed!” He paused dramatically, then cupped a hand over his mouth and leaned to an aide. “Are the children ready?” he whispered calmly—in sharp contrast to his rhetoric.
The aide nodded and, on cue, two gurneys appeared from within the collapsed walls of Qaddafi’s home. Each contained a heavily bandaged child.
“The Americans are murderers! Child murderers!” he roared, gesturing to the young boys whom he had never seen before in his life. Then he strode toward his tent, which despite several near-misses was still standing.
A phalanx of bodyguards closed in, barring the reporters from pursuing or asking questions, and herded them back onto the buses.
The public relations charade over, Qaddafi entered his tent, where General Younis was waiting along with Reza Abdel-Hadi, head of the SHK, the Libyan secret police. An Akita heeled at his side sprang to a standing position, its tail unmoving and tightly curled.
Moncrieff sat in a chair nearby, still fuming at being left behind by Larkin. He and Katifa had been fished out of the harbor by a navy patrol boat.
The tent was in shambles: books and papers littered the woven floor mats; the steel tent poles had been knocked askew, causing the billowing fabric to sag to the ground in several places; a support cable on one of the light fixtures had snapped and the long fluorescent hovered overhead like a ghostly apparition.
The blue cast of the lighting perfectly suited Qaddafi’s mood. “Anything we can do about this?” he asked, having acquired two essentially useless bombers.
“No, sir,” Moncrieff grunted. “The Americans delivered. We didn’t.”
“But it was Abu Nidal’s doing,” Qaddafi protested halfheartedly. “Why should we be penalized?”
“No hostages, no ANITA,” the Saudi replied with finality. “That was the deal.”
“But the Americans may never even locate the hostages, let alone get their hands on them.”
“Then again they might . . .” Abdel-Hadi observed, letting the sentence trail off mysteriously. The SHK chief was a sullen, malevolent man in his mid-fifties. Dark, dispassionate eyes hid behind blue-veined lids that rarely blinked. SHK stood for Sahim Hiya Khurriye, literally Preserver of Life and Liberty; and Abdel-Hadi carried out his mission with legendary ruthlessness. “Especially if we help them,” he concluded.
“What are you suggesting?” Qaddafi asked, intrigued.
Abdel-Hadi prompted Younis with a crisp nod.
“Moncrieff and the Palestinian woman weren’t the only ones we pulled from the sea last night,” the general explained. “We netted one of Nidal’s people too.”
The previous evening, the young Palestinian had managed to shed the heavy cartridge belts that were dragging him to the bottom of Tripoli harbor, but the gunboat was gone by the time he surfaced. A Libyan patrol boat plucked him from the oily waters along with Moncrieff and Katifa.
Qaddafi’s eyes flashed at the implication. “He can tell us where they’re taking the hostages,” he enthused. “And we can pass it on to the Americans.”
Abdel-Hadi nodded smugly. “He’s in solitary. We’ll have his cooperation soon.”
“Perhaps some cellmates might help loosen his tongue,” Qaddafi suggested, heading out of the tent, the others following after him.
He and Younis strode to the colonel’s customized transport-panzer which was parked next to the tent, and headed for Okba ben Nafi Air Base.
Moncrieff, carrying a small package under his arm, boarded a helicopter that was taking injured soldiers to Al Fatah University Hospital.
Abdel-Hadi headed for the military prison on the other side of the compound, the Akita heeled next to him on a short leash. A section of the prison had been damaged during the air strike and some of the inmates were being moved. One of them had broken ranks and was running across the grounds toward the wall that enclosed the compound.
Abdel-Hadi called them off and unleashed the Akita. The powerful canine, heir to centuries of breeding by Japanese emperors who prized their fierce loyalty and killer instinct, sprinted across the grounds. The fleeing prisoner heard the animal approaching and whirled. Without breaking stride the 130-pound Akita leapt into the air, clamped its jaws around his throat, and, with an abrupt jerk of its massive head, shredded it. Then as if it had just fetched a stick, the animal bounded back to its master in search of praise.
The SHK chief patted its head and descended into the bowels of the prison, the Akita padding after him. He strutted through the maze of concrete corridors, waving one of the guards to follow him. His nostrils flared at a vile stench as they entered a small room. The walls were lined with wire cages filled with rats, which went into a frenzy at the dog’s presence.
“Brother leader thinks it’s time the Palestinian had some cellmates,” Abdel-Hadi said to the guard slyly.
THE HELICOPTER circled to a landing at Al Fatah University Hospital. Paramedics rushed forward with gurneys and began removing the injured Libyan soldiers.
Moncrieff climbed out, carrying his small package. He hurried into the hospital, took an elevator to the third floor, and went to a private room at the end of the corridor. Two military guards posted at the door stepped aside as he approached.
Katifa lay peacefully in the bed. Several hours of surgery were required to remove the bullets that had torn her smooth flesh. She had survived thanks to Moncrieffs heroic efforts and the superb medical technology brought in over the years by oil companies, which had raised health care in Tripoli to near-Western standards.
A nurse was adjusting the flow of an intravenous fluid as Moncrieff entered.
“She’s doing quite well,” the slight fellow said with a reassuring smile. “Aren’t we?”
Katifa nodded and forced a smile.
“You’ll just have to take my word for it,” the nurse teased affectionately, taking Katifa’s pulse before leaving the room.