Edge of Tomorrow

by Wolf Wootan

  “That we do know. He was playing Baccarat. Judy Beecher was outside smoking a cigarette with Lincoln’s girlfriend, Sydney Steppe, when she was shot. Wilson said Steppe shot one of the shooters with Beecher’s gun, then wiped it clean and threw it in the ocean,” replied Cannon.

  “You mean she helped Beecher? What did we ever find out about Steppe?” growled Gramble.

  “Nothing of note. We checked her entire life—birth to today. She’s clean. A college prof. She’s scheduled to teach a class at the University of Miami next month.”

  “But she can shoot a gun in a pressure situation, then be smart enough to get rid of it? Something doesn’t sound right. Check her out again! Dig deeper!”

  “Right. Let me call Wilson and put the surveillance back on Lincoln, and his woman,” replied Cannon.

  • • •

  At 5:00 P.M. on Sunday in Sicily, Evio Tessitore summoned his father to an emergency meeting and told him that he was unable to reach any of his people in Monterra. The last he had heard was two days ago when his man in charge at the Casino Barone had reported his suspicions about a Lady Morley snooping around. They were afraid she might have caught on to the scam. Evio ordered her terminated, just in case.

  The Don said, “Better send somebody over there and see what’s going on. I don’t like the smell of this.”

  “That man Lincoln is in Monterra, we know that. Could he be involved in whatever is going on?” asked Evio.

  “Trouble seems to follow him,” mused the Don. “Can we terminate him in a manner so we would never be suspected? He is a high profile man. I wouldn’t want his organization and his infinite amounts of money unleashed against us.”

  “Let me give that some thought. In the meantime, I’ll send Joey over there to find out where all of our people are.”

  • • •

  The Royal Ball was scheduled to start at 8:00 P.M. Sunday night, and Syd, Sara, and Karen were all in Syd’s suite at 5 o’clock with their costumes. The three of them had spent over two hours in the hotel’s salon having manicures, pedicures, facials, and had even had their makeup applied by professionals. All that was left to do was the donning of their 19th-century gowns—and, of course, their wigs. Captain Rossini had promised to send one of the Royal costumers over at 6 o’clock to help them dress and to put on their wigs. The women were very excited about the fact that they were attending their first Royal Ball. Karen was chain smoking, and all three were drinking white wine, trying not to get too plastered before the ball, but they had to do something to calm their nerves. They were as giggly and excited as teenagers going to their first prom.

  They had an hour to kill before Isabella, the Royal costumer, arrived to assist them with their long-line pushup bras, and the myriad layers of crinoline underskirts that would hold out the skirts of their gowns. They also needed instructions on how to walk and dance in the gowns—and especially, to sit.

  • • •

  Bruno and Hatch had not yet dressed in their costumes, but Hatch figured it would take less than an hour to get ready, so he told Bruno that the two of them should go to the hospital and check on Lady Morley. He did not trust Dave Wilson very much.

  • • •

  The hospital was only six minutes away from the hotel by taxi. The Charge Nurse at the ICU told them that Lady Morley was awake now, but was very weak from loss of blood. Her visitors were limited to family. Hatch had anticipated this, so he had used a British accent when he asked about her. He told the nurse that Lady Morley had no family with her on Monterra, and he was from the British Embassy to check on her for her family in London. The nurse hesitated, but finally allowed a short visit.

  Outside Lady Morley’s door, Hatch used his Blue Phone to change the satellite communications routing system to send a signal to Bruno’s pager when he pushed the SOS button on his watch.

  “Here’s the plan, Bruno,” he whispered. “I’ll go in and see if she can talk, see if she needs to tell me anything. I want to know if she needs our help. You go over there behind that curtain and watch the door to her room. If anyone suspicious comes snooping around, watch them closely. If I page you, come into the room—carefully, and armed!”

  “Gotcha! You’re expecting trouble, I take it,” murmured Bruno.

  “Just cautious.”

  Hatch pushed open the door and entered the ICU room of Lady Morley. She had an IV tube running into her right arm. She opened her eyes when she heard the swish of the door closing.

  “Just checking to see if you need anything, Lady Morley,” smiled Hatch.

  She coughed, then said, “At least I’m alive, they assure me. Thank Syd for me. I saw what she did before I blacked out.”

  She coughed again.

  “I will. Can I do anything for you?”

  “Get me out of here!” she coughed. “I have a funny feeling about things.”

  She went silent, and after several labored breaths, continued, “Dave Wilson was here earlier. They’ve put the surveillance back on you, and included Syd this time. Langley is wondering why I called it off without authorization. After they have time to think, they may decide that it would be better if I died of my wounds, if you get my drift.”

  “I would like to say that was ridiculous, but I can’t. I know them too well. They tried the same thing on me,” mused Hatch.

  “Dave was asked a lot of questions about why I was hanging around you, and why was Syd with me when I was shot.”

  “You don’t look well enough to travel,” observed Hatch.

  Then he saw her eyes open wide, so he slipped behind the curtain by her bed just as the door silently opened. A female nurse entered and approached the bed. She was too focused to notice Hatch watching her from the shadows around the small opening between the two curtains. The nurse took a hypodermic syringe out of her pocket and took the plastic sheath off the needle. Hatch pushed the button on his watch to alert Bruno.

  Outside the room in his alcove, Bruno felt his pager vibrate and checked it. It was Hatch’s emergency code.

  Oh, shit! That nurse must have been a fake!

  Bruno looked up and down the hall, saw no one, then drew his weapon. He reached in the left pocket of his jacket and produced a silencer, which he screwed in place as he neared the door to Lady Morley’s room.

  • • •

  Inside the room, the nurse was about to stick the needle into the plastic bag which held the fluid that was feeding into Lady Morley’s arm.

  “Who are you?” asked Lady Morley.

  “Night nurse. It’s shift change time,” said the nurse.

  “What are you doing?”

  “A new medicine the doctor ordered.”

  “How come your English is so bloody good? The other nurses barely speak it.”

  As the door opened slowly behind the nurse, Hatch pulled the curtain back and stepped forward.

  “What’s the medicine for?” he asked in his British accent.

  The nurse jumped back, startled.

  “Who are you?” she gasped.

  “I’m from the British Embassy. Didn’t the Charge Nurse tell you I was visiting Lady Morley? Now, the medicine?”

  She stammered, “It’s a vitamin complex to give her strength.”

  The plastic name tag on the nurse’s breast read “R. Jones, RN.”

  “Well, Nurse Jones, I think I’ll check with the doctor, just to make sure,” said Hatch as he reached for the phone on the bedside table.

  Nurse Jones got a panicked look on her face and started to back up. She ran into the silencer on Bruno’s gun.

  “I think—instead of checking with the doctor—that if that is only vitamins in that syringe, maybe you should inject yourself. You look tired and run down.”

  “No! You’re crazy!” exclaimed the nurse.

  Hatch grabbed her right wrist and carefully took the syringe from her. He stuck it her arm at the crook of her elbow and pushed the plunger. The nurse’s eyes became as large as saucers.

  “
Oh, no!” she gasped. Her eyes rolled up, she clasped her chest, and then fell to the floor.

  Hatch retrieved the syringe and put it in the slot on the biohazard box, then said to Bruno, “Throw her on that other bed and cover her up, then we’ll close this curtain. We need to buy some time.”

  Then Hatch turned to a wide-eyed Judy Beecher and said, “Did you recognize her?”

  Judy said, “No. She probably came in with the sweep team. Get me out of here, Hatcher. When they miss her, they’ll send someone else over here.”

  Hatch said, “Bruno, is the nurse dead?”

  “Yes. To go that fast, it must have been something that causes a heart attack. If she had got that into Lady Morley’s drip bag, her heart attack wouldn’t have been questioned.”

  “OK, here’s what we’re going to do, Bruno. Call Janet, or whoever is on duty at the GS-V, and have them rent a car at the airport and whip on over to the ER entrance. We’ll put Judy in a wheelchair and wheel her out to the car and whisk her to the plane. I’ll have Carmelo, Coffer and our medic meet the plane in the chopper; then they can take her to the med unit in Coffer’s compound behind the castle. If the medic thinks it’s necessary, she can bring in one of our contract doctors from Rome,” said Hatch.

  Hatch then turned to Judy Beecher and said, “This move could kill you, Judy. Are you sure you want to try this?”

  She rasped, “I’m dead if I stay here! Let’s do it!”

  “OK. Just rest for now. We have some things to do. Let’s hope no one else shows up right away.”

  • • •

  By 5:45 P.M., Judy Beecher was winging her way to safety, and Hatch and Bruno were back at the hotel in Hatch’s suite sipping stiff drinks.

  They had dressed the dead CIA agent in a hospital gown and placed her in Lady Morley’s bed, attached the IV and turned out the lights when they left. Their plan had gone smoothly. Bruno had barked in Italian at some ER personnel when they rolled Lady Morley through there to the exit. Some of them had wanted to know what was going on. They had no idea what would happen when the hospital staff—and the CIA—discovered the deception. As it turned out, there was a shift change at 6:00 P.M., and the new nurse reported that the woman in Room 41 had died—probably of a heart attack. The mix-up would be straightened out several hours later—and the police notified—but in the meantime, Dave Wilson of the CIA had a problem: he did hear that Lady Morley had died on schedule, but the female agent playing the nurse had disappeared. Where was she?

  • • •

  Hatch took a slug of his Stoli on the rocks and lit a cigarette.

  Bruno said, “Why did the CIA try to kill one of their own?”

  “They thought she was a liability. I’m sorry I got you involved in the death of that hit woman. I had to know if that syringe held a fatal serum or not. That was the quickest way to find out,” replied Hatch.

  “Don’t worry about it, Hatch. She was about to commit murder. If she had tried to use that needle on you or Lady Morley, I would have shot her anyway. This way is cleaner. Well, I guess I had better try and get into my fop costume,” laughed Bruno.

  “Me, too. One last thing, Bruno. We may have to tell Sara and Syd about what happened—depending on how things develop later. I don’t know how intimate you have become with Karen, but I don’t think she should know about this. Comprende?”

  “OK. I even agree with you on that. About me and Karen …”

  “You don’t need to tell me anything about your relationship. That’s between the two of you. Just don’t let it distract you.”

  • • •

  Syd’s feeling of being transported back into history was complete when she and Hatch entered the Royal Ballroom. The Prince sat in a throne chair up on a platform so he could look down on the floor teeming with people in period costumes. Syd recognized several movie stars, and other faces that seemed familiar, but she could not dredge up any names. Most of the royalty—and pseudo-royalty—of Europe were there.

  There were two 40 foot tables laden with all sorts of delicacies—huge shrimps, cold lobster tails, the best caviar, et cetera. The centerpieces were swans sculpted out of ice. A large symphonic orchestra was providing the music. Twelve professional dancers—six male, six female—began demonstrating some popular dances from the mid-nineteenth century. After twenty minutes, at some unseen signal, many of the locals who knew the dances joined the professionals on the dance floor. An endless stream of waiters circulated with trays of expensive champagne. At nine o’clock, the orchestra began playing waltzes, and Syd, Karen, and Sara dragged their escorts onto the floor and swirled dizzily around and around, laughing gaily. Every hour on the hour, the dancing was halted so several famous divas and male opera singers could entertain the happy crowd with popular arias.

  • • •

  At 11:00 P.M., after another fabulous waltz, Syd and Hatch moved off the dance floor and looked around for their compatriots.

  Syd remarked, “This has been a glorious evening, darling! It’s like being in a movie!”

  “I agree, dear. That last waltz made me thirsty. Would you like another glass of champagne?” replied Hatch.

  “That would be nice. Thank you.”

  “I see a waiter with a tray full over there. I’ll be right back.”

  • • •

  Not far away, Monterran Count Roberto di Cressi had been watching the couple. He wanted to catch Syd alone if he could. It was part of his plan. Count di Cressi was a compulsive gambler, and not a very good one. He had huge gambling debts, and when he found someone to loan him money to cover them, he found out too late who had loaned him the money: the Mafia. The night before, Evio Tessitore had made him an offer which, of course, he could not refuse. They would forgive his debt if he would kill Van Lincoln in a way that would not throw suspicion on the Mafia.

  Count di Cressi had a perfect plan to accomplish this. It would not even be considered murder. He would arrange for Lincoln to publicly insult him so he could challenge him to a duel. Being an expert swordsman, he had no doubt of his ability to dispatch an American businessman with his sword. And being the injured party, he would get choice of weapons. He was looking forward to wiping out his gambling debts, but also to the opportunity to enhance his reputation as a fearless swordsman who always defended his honor.

  He sidled up to Syd, and in a voice no one could hear except Syd, he said, “How much does a fancy American whore like you charge these days? I bet you’re really making a bundle off that rich whoremonger! Are the other two sluts whores, too?”

  Syd could not believe her ears. She looked around to see if someone else was there, but there was not.

  “I beg your pardon! Are you addressing me, sir?” she snapped.

  “Of course. I thought if you were cheap enough, I’d buy an hour of your time, but I prefer larger tits,” he continued. “Maybe the tall blonde.”

  Syd felt rage surge up, and without thinking about where she was, she slapped di Cressi hard across the mouth, drawing blood. She suddenly realized where she was and froze just before she was about to break his collar bone with a sharp blow. Fortunately, Hatch arrived with two glasses filled with champagne before she had to decide what to do next.

  “What’s the problem here, dear? This man bothering you?” asked Hatch as he sat the two glasses down on a table.

  “Yes!” she snapped. “This arrogant jerk just called me a whore!”

  “You did what?” growled Hatch as he stepped closer to di Cressi.

  “The lady is lying. I was merely commenting on her beauty,” sneered Count di Cressi.

  “She never lies!” snapped Hatch.

  “Then, are you saying I’m lying?” said di Cressi, setting his trap.

  “You’re not only a liar, you are now in deep shit, buddy!”

  Hatch grabbed his arm and continued, “Let’s take a little stroll outside so I can teach you some manners!”

  Count di Cressi jerked his arm away and snapped haughtily, “Unhand me, s
ir! Not only have you called me a liar, you have laid hands on me! I demand satisfaction! My second will call upon you!”

  Hatch exclaimed with astonishment, “You’re challenging me to a duel? You must be crazy! Dueling is illegal! Come outside and I’ll beat the crap out of you!”

  “I am Count Roberto di Cressi! I do not involve myself in common street brawls! And, signore, you are in Monterra. Dueling is quite legal here, and unless you are a sniveling bourgeois coward, you will meet me on the field of honor and face the strength of my steel!”

  Captain Rossini appeared at Hatch’s side and said, “Well, di Cressi, what trouble are you causing now?”

  “That is Count di Cressi, Captain! Remember your place!” snapped the count.

  “He insulted Syd, and now he says I have to fight a duel with him,” growled Hatch, and then he related the incident to Captain Rossini.

  A few guests were now staring in their direction, wondering what the disturbance was. Rossini took Hatch and Syd a few feet away so they could talk in private.

  Rossini said, “It’s quite true that dueling is legal here. Count di Cressi is well known here for tricking novices into duels so he can overwhelm them with his swordplay prowess and feed his ego. I would have challenged him and dispersed with him long ago, but His Highness has forbidden his officers to challenge royalty. He is not about to challenge me. What he has done is set you up into ‘giving the lie.’ He made you call him a liar so he can be the offended party and get choice of weapons.”

  “The sword, I presume,” remarked Hatch.

  “Of course. He is a fair fencer—certainly better than those he tricks into a duel. He always draws first blood, then prances around like a bloody rooster. God, I wish the Prince would let me have at him! Put an end to his tricks!”

  “You’re a good fencer, then?” asked Hatch.

  “Yes,” he answered without false modesty. “I am the champion of the Royal Guard. I took third in saber at the last World Championships. Little good that does you, however.”

  Syd interrupted, “This is all nonsense! He insulted me, and I slapped him! It’s really between the two of us! I wish now that I’d broken his friggin’ collarbone! Then he wouldn’t be dueling anyone!”