The Keeper

by George C. Chesbro

  But now Hasim and Romallah Baz’s prodigal daughter was returning home to test the bonds of blood and to see if any love remained.

  Jade climbed the concrete steps leading up to the front door. She took a few moments to try to compose herself and still all the feeling swelling in her, and then drew herself up very straight, took a deep breath and knocked. She waited a few seconds and was about to knock again when her father, dressed in a flowing, green jalava and sandals, opened the door. The green eyes in the tall man’s lean, leathery face opened wide with surprise, but before he could say anything Jade quickly stepped forward, wrapped both arms around his frail shoulders and kissed him on both cheeks.

  “Hello, Papi,” Jade said in Arabic.

  “Jahli-?!”

  Jade’s mother suddenly appeared in the small foyer at the entrance. The woman started when she saw Jade, who immediately went to her and kissed her. “Hello, Mami.”

  For several moments both the man and woman seemed too startled to speak. Jade waited patiently, and finally her mother, also speaking in Arabic, asked, “Jahli, what are you doing here? Why are you-?”

  “Mami, I’m here because I want and need to speak to both of you. May I please come in?”

  Jade’s father, who still seemed in shock, said nothing, but her mother quickly nodded, and then took Jade firmly by the hand and led her into the living room. The room still looked as Jade remembered it, with the same beige sofa and brown armchairs in the same places, and with the same religious icons on shelves and paintings hanging on the walls. It struck her how her parents and the Adens, with their different faiths and backgrounds, lived in remarkably similar surroundings. The whole house smelled pleasantly of spices and herbs.

  Although her father still had not spoken, he now took Jade’s arm and led her to one of the overstuffed armchairs near a fireplace. He gently pressed her shoulders to indicate she should sit, and Jade did so.

  “Chai, Jahli?”

  “Yes, Mami. Please.”

  As her mother went into the kitchen to prepare tea, Jade folded her hands in her lap and smiled at her father, who was sitting on the sofa across from her and looking intently into her face. She did not attempt to make conversation, although she knew her father was waiting for her to speak first, for she wanted her mother to be present when she explained the purpose of her visit.

  Jade and her father sat for almost five minutes in silence, with Jade demurely bowing her head and staring at the floor, just as she had initially done at the Adens half a world away. Her sense of déjà vu was almost overwhelming. Finally, like Mabel Aden, her gray-haired mother emerged from the kitchen carrying an ornately carved silver tray. On her parents’ tray were a teapot, tiny cups, cubes of sugar, and a plate of petite, anise-flavored biscuits. First the husband was served, and then Jade. Jade sipped at the strong, aromatic tea, and then set her cup aside and looked up at her parents, who, again reminding her of her visit to the Adens, were sitting close together on the sofa, staring at her.

  “I was recently in Israel on some personal business,” Jade said in a firm, even tone as she looked directly into the eyes of her mother and father. “I visited the Adens while I was there. It was not a visit I’d looked forward to, because I was not sure I’d be welcomed. But the visit did go well, and I felt much better about many things after I left. But the visit also only made me feel worse about my relationship with you. I wondered why, if I could begin to repair a relationship with people who are related to me only by marriage, I couldn’t try to do the same with my parents. Mami and Papi, I’ve come here today to tell you how very, very sorry I am for the many ways in which I’ve hurt you. I didn’t mean to. I am also sorry if I have shown disrespect toward you, toward our culture, or your faith. I didn’t mean to do that either. I am sorry for the disappointment and sorrow I have caused you. I love you both more than I can ever say, and I’ve missed you.”

  Jade paused, but there was no response from either the man or woman. Her mother’s face reflected sympathy and love, but also confusion. Her father’s expression was more difficult to read; his face, with its hawk-like features, remained impassive, even stony, and there was a strange light in his eyes. She wondered if the years of estrangement had built up a wall of silence in his heart she would never be able to breach with mere words.

  “I’m going away tomorrow night on another trip I have to make,” Jade continued quietly, looking away from her parents’ gaze and out the window, where a light spring rain had begun to fall. “I hope to be flying home on Sunday night, but there’s a possibility I may not be able to. What I must attempt to do while I’m away carries risk, but I have no choice but to go. Enemies from my past are not only threatening me, but my children as well. This thing I must do …”

  Jade’s voice trailed off as the window suddenly blurred and the rain outside mingled in her vision with tears, which she made no move to wipe away. She swallowed hard, drew in a deep breath, and then continued in a voice that had begun to crack, “It’s possible I won’t be coming back. I could be killed, or wind up in prison. If that happens, then … Fatima is safe now with friends who’ll take care of her, but I wondered if you would let Max Jr. visit you for the weekend. Then, if anything happens to me, both kids will need …”

  Jade could no longer hold back the tears. It was not fear of death or imprisonment that made her cry, but the thought of Max Jr. with his limited intellectual and emotional capabilities left all alone in his grief. She covered her face with her hands as she began to sob uncontrollably.

  She had not heard her father’s footsteps on the carpet, but now she felt his hand on her shoulder. Another hand grasped her elbow and gently raised her to her feet. Then her father’s arm was around her waist and he was leading her to the sofa. Still covering her face with her hands, Jade sat down. Both of her parents held her tightly, and her father gently caressed her hair.

  “Oh, Papi-!”

  “Shhh, shhh, your Papi’s turn to speak,” the man said in halting English. “You come back from this trip safe. I sure of that. Maybe your Mami and I know more about you than you think. You not only Palestinian in American military, you know. We get news about you from other Arabs. Navy make you captain, and you drive big ship if you want to. You big shot in Navy, and we very proud of you. You going to be all okay, but you bring Max Jr. here anyway while you take care of your business. We hope Fatima come visit us soon too. Max Jr. here good for us. Teach us gooder English.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  i

  Jade looked up uncertainly as Roy entered the room. Neither his face nor manner gave any clue of what, if anything, he had found at the Beowulf Society registration center. “Well?”

  “Not a very friendly bunch,” Roy said quietly as he went to the nightstand next to the bed on which Jade sat surrounded by the array of electronic surveillance equipment he had acquired. He poured himself a glass of water from a carafe, continued, “They’ve booked the whole damn floor. They’re holding the registration in a conference room, and you need to show a letter of invitation to get through the door. I estimate that about seventy-five people checked in between four and six. I couldn’t get an accurate count because I had to keep moving between the public areas on the mezzanine and in the lobby.”

  “Okay. The point is that there’s a whole load of them down there.”

  Roy removed the tiny camera from the buttonhole on his jacket lapel and tossed it on the bed, “I took a lot of pictures. I hung around by the front desk while some of them checked in. They’re easy enough to spot. They all look alike—ramrod-straight bearing, black wingtip shoes, crew cuts. No women, which isn’t surprising. It makes sense from a security point of view to have everybody on one floor. Our maid and room service acts could get old really fast.”

  “Any uniforms?”

  “No. All business suits. If there are men on active duty helping these people, they’re not going to show their faces at this meeting. These are the top honchos in the organization and th
eir lieutenants, the retired officers and planners. Incidentally, there are a few younger, hard-case types I assume are acting as security guards. From the description you gave me, I think your Sergeant Bolo is one of them.”

  “Shit,” Jade said in a flat tone.

  “Yeah, well, the good news is that you’ve found him. The bad news is that he can make you, maid’s outfit or not. There aren’t a lot of women your height, and I doubt that wig is going to fool him if he gets too close a look at you. I trust you’ll just hustle away and resist the impulse to simply blow him away if you do see him? We’ve got to get the goods we came for.”

  “I know that, Roy.”

  “We’ll take care of him just before we leave.”

  “I’ll make sure you’re not involved.”

  “Why? You think I’ll be shocked by what’s going to happen to him?”

  “I intend to kill a man in cold blood, Roy. The police and courts will call it murder, and I won’t make you an accomplice.”

  “I view it as permanent underground preventive detention.”

  Jade smiled grimly, and then turned and opened a steel carrying case that was laying on the bed next to her. Inside the case was a multi-track tape recorder with ten sets of tiny dials and ten miniature microphones. She said, “We’ve got the capacity to record up to ten separate conversations simultaneously. These are voice-activated, so we don’t need to monitor. We’ll keep two microphones for ourselves, tuned to the same frequency, so we can communicate when we’re separated. The question is where to put the eight others. We don’t have a schematic of the floor, don’t know the major players, and we don’t have a schedule of meetings. It would be a waste of time to tape dinner speeches, because nothing that’s of value to us will be said in front of the hotel staff. We need more information before we can plant the microphones, because we can only do so many room service walk-ons. I’m going to have to think on this.”

  “While you’re thinking on it, why don’t you study this?”

  Jade looked up from the tape deck as Roy, a broad smile on his face, removed a folded piece of paper from his hip pocket and held it up. “What’s that?”

  “The official Conference Bulletin. There’s a schedule of the weekend activities, and it lists the names of the officers in the organization, committee chairs, and their suite or room numbers. It’s a very thorough and concise document, as befits something put together by seasoned military planners.”

  Jade’s eyes went wide with surprise and delight. “Roy?! Are you joking?!”

  “Would I kid you about something like this?”

  “But how-?”

  “I filched it out of some guy’s back pocket in the public men’s room on the mezzanine.”

  “You wonderful man!” Jade said, rising off the bed and reaching for the paper. Roy, still smiling broadly, held it just out of her reach. “Give me that!”

  “You did hear me say the men’s room? You’d be up shit’s creek if I weren’t here, wouldn’t you, lady? Huh? Huh?”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. My hero. Now give me the damn paper.”

  “Let me hear you say it.”

  Jade put her hands on her hips and laughed. “All right, sweetie, here it is. I would be up shit’s creek if you hadn’t insisted on coming along with me. Satisfied?” She paused, and then continued seriously. “It’s true. I’m definitely the wrong sex for this job. Considering the fact that Henry Bolo is wandering around down there, I’d be getting nowhere.”

  “Now that’s the kind of humility I like to hear,” Roy said, handing Jade the paper as he kissed her on the forehead. “Now let’s see what the Beowulf boys have planned for the weekend. I know there’s a banquet this evening beginning at seven. The main speaker is addressing the subject, With God On Our Side. Everybody will certainly want to catch that.”

  “Good. That’s when we begin.”

  ii

  “How do I look?”

  “Constipated,” Jade said with a smile as she adjusted Roy’s waiter’s jacket. “The pants are too tight for you, but they’ll just have to do. This was the largest pair I could find in the uniform closet. Just don’t bend over too suddenly.”

  “I’ll be all right as long as I don’t think of us in bed,” Roy said with a grin. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a device Jade had given him—a wafer-thin sheet of perforated magnesium with a slender steel cylinder clamped to the top. “You say this will get me into every room in the hotel?”

  “It will open any lock that takes a key card. Just slide it into the slot and push the red button on the right side of the cylinder. When the green button on the left lights up, just open the door.”

  Roy picked up the tray brought to them by room service, with one of the three dinners they had ordered left untouched under the metal cover of a serving dish. “I’m out of here.”

  “You’re not going to take your gun?”

  “No room. The uniform’s too tight. It would show.”

  “What about under the lid?”

  “And what do I say if some security guard wants to inspect the food? Ask who ordered the thirty-eight Police Special rare? As it is, I can just play the dumb room service waiter who wandered into the wrong room by accident.”

  “Sure. A dumb room service waiter with nine button microphones in his pocket and a receiver plug in his ear. You really don’t want to get caught planting those.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  “The earplug will enable you to hear me. If you have something to say, just speak in a normal tone of voice, or you can even whisper. The microphones are very sensitive.”

  “Got it.”

  “Be careful, Jade. Talk to me when you can.”

  “Will do.”

  Jade opened the door to their room and looked up and down the corridor, which was empty. She ushered Roy out of the room, then closed the door and went to the bed, where she opened the cover of the multi-track recording machine. She pressed a button under the sixth deck, which corresponded to the microphone Roy was using for communications. She listened through a tiny speaker as an elevator door sighed open, and then closed. There was a low hum as the elevator descended, and then she heard the sound of the doors opening and Roy stepping out.

  “Hey! Hold it right there!”

  Jade tensed. It was a man’s voice, but not Henry Bolo’s.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “I am Gregory, sir.”

  “What the hell have you got there?”

  “Is this for you, sir?”

  “I ask the goddamn questions here. Where do you think you’re taking that?”

  “Room two-thirty-eight, sir.”

  “Everybody on this floor is at a banquet. They’re not going to be ordering room service.”

  “If you will give me your name, sir, and order me to take it back, I’ll gladly do so. But this was definitely ordered by the gentleman in two-thirty-eight. Chicken noodle soup, poached egg, toast and tea. And a bottle of Milk of Magnesia. Apparently the gentleman does not feel well.”

  There was a prolonged silence during which Jade feared she would hear the sound of a metal cover being lifted, which would reveal a cold grilled cheese sandwich and French fries. She closed her eyes, held her breath.

  “All right. Go ahead.”

  Jade slowly let out her breath, and then sat down on the edge of the bed. She unstrapped the chronometer from her wrist, pressed the button activating the stopwatch function, and then set it down next to her. And she waited. She heard Roy’s footsteps as he crossed the parquet floor of the mezzanine, but the sound was lost when he entered the carpeted corridor leading to the rooms.

  “Hey,” Jade said in a low voice. “You all right?”

  “Shhh. I’m trying to get some work done down here.”

  “You’re taking too long. You’re supposed to be just delivering a meal.”

  “I took a little detour to plant a mike in a hospitality suite that wasn’t listed on the
bulletin.”

  “That’s good, Roy. Just hurry.”

  Again, Jade waited in silence, very conscious of the rapid beating of her heart and the cold sweat under her arms and on her back. She knew she would not be nearly as agitated if she were carrying out this task herself, and for the first time it struck her that she cared very deeply for Roy Mannes. She did not want anything to happen to the gruff man with the iron-colored hair and eyes. She had not even come close to feeling this strongly about a man since Max and the initial blossoming of their love, and that time now seemed very long ago, when she was young and a bright future loomed before her and the possibilities seemed endless. Now she knew for certain that she wanted the police detective to be a part of her life.

  There was the faint click of a door opening, a few seconds of silence, and then, “You there, Mother Hen?”

  “Mother Hen is here. What is it, Roy? You’re taking way too long.”

  “Decision time. I’m in the sitting room of the treasurer’s suite. I’ve planted a bug behind the sofa, and right now I’m looking at a briefcase on a coffee table. It has a combination lock, but the snaps are open. You want me to look inside?”

  Jade gnawed at her lower lip as she glanced at the chronometer on the bed beside her. Ten minutes had passed since Roy had gotten past the security guard posted at the elevator. “Okay,” she said at last. “Go ahead.”

  After a few moments she heard the rustle of papers. She knew Roy would be careful to leave everything as it had been, but it wasn’t his technique she was worried about; now eleven minutes had passed, and they were definitely in the red zone.

  “Roy …?”

  “We’ve got a big Bingo here, Mother Hen. Copies of bills of lading and correspondence between these guys and some of their customers. Would you believe these bastards are peddling a thousand canisters of sarin? You’ve got the goods here, lady. Why don V we just cut to the chase and I bring the whole shebang back up to you?”