Death of the Falcon

by Nick Carter

  Sherima, horrified by all that she had heard in the past few minutes, once more demanded of her old school friend, “Why, Candy? How could you do this to me? You know that His Highness and I both loved you. Why?”

  The question finally got through to Candy. Eyes blazing, she said scornfully, “Sure, Hassan loved me. That’s why he killed my father!”

  “Your father!” Sherima exclaimed. “Candy, you know your father was slain by the same man who tried to kill the Shah. Your father saved Hassan’s life by sacrificing his own. And now you do this to him and me.”

  “My father didn’t sacrifice his life!” Candy was almost shouting, and crying at the same time. “Hassan killed him! He pulled my father in front of him to save his own lousy life when the assassin came at him. I swore that I would get even with Hassan when I heard about it, and now I’m going to do it”

  “That’s not true, Candy,” Sherima told her passionately. “Hassan was so surprised when that man broke into the palace reception room and went for him, that he just stood still. Your father jumped in front of him and got stabbed. Then Abdul killed the assassin.”

  “How do you know?” Candy shot back at her. “Were you there?”

  “No,” Sherima admitted. “You know I was with you at the time. But Hassan told me all about it later. He felt responsible for your father’s death, and then responsible for you. You—”

  “He was responsible! He was a coward and my father died because of it! He just couldn’t face up to telling you the truth, because then you’d know he was a coward, too.”

  “Candy,” Sherima implored her, “my father told me the same thing. And he wouldn’t have lied about something like that. He was your father’s best friend, and—”

  Candy wouldn’t listen. Interrupting Sherima again, she yelled, “Your dad was just like mine. A company man first. And the oil company couldn’t afford to have his people know that Hassan was a coward, or they wouldn’t have supported him. Then the precious company would have gotten tossed out of the country. Hassan lied and everybody who worked for the oil company backed him up.”

  I had been watching the Sword as the two girls argued, and the smirk on his face raised a question in my mind. Candy didn’t sound like herself, I thought. It was almost as if she were repeating a story that had been told to her over and over. I broke in to ask a question of my own. “Candy, who told you about what happened that day?”

  She turned to face me again. “Abdul. And he’s the only one who was there who had nothing to lose by telling me the truth. He almost got killed by that man that day, too. But he wasn’t a coward. He stepped right up to that crazy assassin and shot him down. Hassan was just lucky Abdul was there or the man would have gotten him right after my father.”

  “When did he tell you about it?” I asked.

  “That same night. He came around to see me and to try to comfort me. He just happened to let slip something about what really happened, and I pried the rest of it out of him. He made me promise not to tell anybody what the Shah had done. He said it wouldn’t be good for the country at the time if everybody knew that the Shah was a coward. It was our secret. I told you everyone has secrets, Nick.”

  “Enough of this,” Abdul suddenly said sharply. “We have much to be done here. Selim, how are the papers coming? Are you almost finished?”

  “Five minutes more.” It was the first time the embassy official had spoken since I entered the room. “I have used the code book we found upstairs to prepare a report that indicates Her Highness—the former Queen—has informed her superiors that she no longer believes that what the CIA has done in Adabi is right, and that she regrets helping them all this time. She has threatened to expose the CIA to His Highness and to the press of the world.”

  “What else?” Abdul demanded.

  “The paper I am completing now is a coded message instructing the people in the house to dispose of Sherima if they can’t change her mind. They are to make it look like an accident if possible. If not, she is to be shot and her body disposed of in such a manner that it never will be found. In that event, the message continues, a cover story will be released saying that it is believed that she has disappeared because she fears the Black September movement is going to take her life. The other paper is ready too.”

  I had to admit that the Sword had worked out a setup that was certain to put the CIA—and in doing so, the United States government—on the spot with Shah Hassan and the world in general. I was thinking about the potential ramifications of the scheme when Candy suddenly asked me:

  “Nick, you said you were expecting me. How did you know? How did I give myself away?”

  “On the way out here, I remembered two things,” I told her. “First, something that one of the men who followed you and Abdul to Potomac this morning had reported. He had watched when Abdul stopped at the gas station, and both of you used the phone. That reminded me that I asked you if you had had a chance to hear whom Abdul called or see what number he dialed, when you phoned me later at the Watergate. And you said you hadn’t gone into the station with him. But you had, my dear. Only you didn’t know that someone had seen you do it and had reported it.”

  “So those were men from the Executive Protection Service following us, Mr. Carter,” Abdul said. “I wondered about that, but I have not had enough experience in this country to be able to recognize all of the various undercover operators. But I did not think one of them had risked getting so close as to watch us in the station. I thought they waited around the curve until they saw us swing back onto the road.”

  “Where you drove slowly enough for your men in the camper to reach the ambush point,” I added.

  “Exactly.”

  “You made two calls, Abdul,” I told him and he nodded in agreement. “I know the one was to the men in the house here, who were holding Sherima prisoner— after killing the man and woman. Who was the other call to . . . Selim?”

  “Right again, Mr. Carter. I had to tell him that I would soon be picking him up. After Miss Knight and I staged our little charade in Georgetown for your benefit so you could be lured directly here.”

  “Then your call had to be to a cab company,” I said, looking at Candy. “You had to arrange to have a cab right at the boutique so you could make your fast exit and be sure to get away before that girl followed you outside to ask any questions.”

  “Correct once more,” Abdul said, not letting Candy answer me. He wanted to be certain that he got all the credit for planning the whole setup. “And it worked, Mr. Carter. You are here, as planned.”

  I wanted to deflate him a little, so I said, “Actually, that bit with the cab was what got me thinking about Candy and the many coincidences that involved her. Only in movies does someone run out of a building and get a cab right away. It’s like the hero always finding a parking spot just where he wants it. Anyway, I remembered that it was Candy’s idea to take that little walk around Georgetown, and that she insisted on spending last night with me while Sherima was abducted. Then I recalled the phone calls at the gas station, and everything fell into place.”

  “Too late, I’m afraid, Mr. Carter,” Abdul said. He turned to the man at the desk who had started to pick up his papers and tuck something—the CIA code book, I guessed—into his pocket. “Are you ready, Selim?”

  “Yes.” He handed the Sword several slips of paper that he’d been working on, and said, “These are the ones which are to be found in the house.” His leader took them, then held out his hand again. Selim looked at him for a moment, then sheepishly handed over the code book from his pocket. “I just thought I should take care of it,” he apologized. “There is always the chance that when the police come they might search you and it would not be wise to have it in your possession.”

  “Of course, my friend,” Abdul said, throwing a beefy arm around his shoulder. “It was good of you to think of my safety. But I will worry about that and, at the same time, I will remove any temptation from your path. There are those who
would pay much to get their hands on this little book, and it is best that the money comes directly to me and our glorious Silver Scimitar movement. Is that not so, Selim?”

  The little document forger from the embassy nodded quickly in agreement and seemed relieved when the Sword relaxed the bear hug he had around the man’s shoulder. “Now, you know what you are to do?”

  “I will go directly back to the embassy, and then—” He stopped short, looked startled and asked, “What of the car I was to use? And Muhammed who was to bring this Carter here? What has happened to him?”

  Abdul turned to me. “Ah yes, Mr. Carter. I have been meaning to ask you about Muhammed. I assume he suffered the same fate as our friends from the Black Liberation Army in Georgetown. And the others.”

  I was just about to answer him when I saw the questioning look on Candy’s face and decided that she didn’t know about “the others.” Thinking back on the trio of Japanese who had been lying in wait for us at Great Falls, I had another revelation and tucked the idea away for future use. “If Muhammed is the man who was waiting outside my room, he was detained. He asked me to tell you that he would be late. Very late. In fact, I don’t think he’ll make it at all.”

  Abdul nodded. “I suspected as much,” he said.

  “Candy, were you watching when Mr. Carter arrived as I instructed you? How did he get here?”

  “I saw him get out of a car that he parked around the corner,” she said. “It was a Vega.”

  “Again, as I suspected,” Abdul said, bowing to me. “It seems we have much to repay you for, Mr. Carter, including bringing our car here so that Selim can return to the embassy.” He held out his hand. “May I have the keys? Reach for them very carefully.” He gestured to the killer with the automatic rifle, and I saw his finger close slightly on the trigger.

  I fished the key ring out of my pocket and started to throw it to the man with the rifle. “No! To me,” Abdul said quickly, alert to any suspicious move on my part. I did as he instructed, then he handed the car keys to his man Selim, saying, “Continue with your instructions.”

  “At the embassy, I am to wait for your call. When it comes, I telephone the police and say that you have called me from this address, saying that you have found Her Highness murdered. Then I radio His Highness of what has occurred.”

  “And how did I get to this address?”

  “I sent you here when it appeared that Her Highness was missing. I recalled that His Royal Highness once had me take him to this house to meet with some Americans, and I thought that perhaps Her Highness had come here to visit her American friends. And I know nothing more about whose house it is, or anything.”

  “Good. Do not forget a word of what I have told you, Selim,” Abdul said, patting him on the back. “Go now and await my call. Mustapha Bey will pick up the car later and return it to the rental agency. Park it in the lot near the embassy and tell the attendant someone will come for the keys.” As Abdul flicked a switch inside the hideout similar to the one on the post outside, the heavy door swung open again. He had a final word for his man after checking his watch. “It is now six o’clock. You should be at the embassy in half an hour and we should be finished here by that time. Expect my call between six-thirty and six-forty-five. Allah be with you.”

  “And with you, Seif Allah,” the traitorous Adabian official said as the concrete panel closed again, sealing us in the soundproof room with Sherima and me staring certain death in the face.

  Chapter 12

  Abdul got busy planting his forged CIA notes as soon as Selim was gone. The angry-faced Mustapha Bey kept the gun trained on me, only occasionally shifting his gaze for a moment to dart glances at the bare body of his former Queen. Somehow, I knew that he was the one who had molested her while she hung on the ropes that held her arms wide and her legs open. I felt certain, too, that he and his now-dead companion had probably had strict orders from the Sword not to rape their captive. Any such sexual assault would have shown up in the autopsy, and I didn’t think that the Sword wanted that kind of complication. The killing had to be neat, as if it had been carried out by CIA professionals.

  I hadn’t quite figured out how the Sword was going to explain the difference in the times of death between the corpses upstairs and Sherima. Then it struck me that those bodies weren’t going to be found in the house. All he had to do was to say that he broke in and found the secret door open and Sherima’s body lying in the hidden room. He also could say that he saw one or two people drive away as he arrived in the limousine. Or he could open the trunk of the Mustang in the garage, then tell the police that somebody ran away when he drove up. The logical assumption would be that the killer was getting ready to carry off Sherima’s body when her bodyguard got there and frightened him.

  I wondered where I fitted into his plan. Then I realized that I was going to be the dead man who would help make Abdul’s story even more air-tight, and I knew why I wasn’t to be killed with the automatic rifle. I had to die with a bullet from the same gun that killed Sherima. Abdul could say he brought me along to the house to search for her, and the man who ran away from the garage when we arrived had fired one more shot before he fled, which hit me. Abdul would pretend not to know that I was from the Executive Protection Service—as he now thought I was—and explain that I was just someone who had been friendly to Sherima, whom he had asked for help.

  His story wouldn’t stand up, of course, as far as any official investigation went. But would the government be able to convince Shah Hassan that our story simply wasn’t a cover-up of the CIA’s involvement in her murder? And any exposure of my true identity as an AXE agent would only make the whole situation even more complicated and suspicious. After all, I had been sticking pretty close to the former Queen almost since her arrival in Washington. How could that be explained to the man who loved her?

  As my mind raced over the complexities of the plot, I had been watching Candy. She had sat down on the bed and seemed to avoid looking at me or Sherima. I don’t think she had expected to see her former friend stripped and cruelly bound. I had figured out that the rope marks on her wrists and ankles were to be passed off as part of the CIA’s torture to try to get the former Queen to change her mind about spilling the beans concerning its purported plotting in Adabi.

  By that time, Abdul had finished stashing away the forged notes. He came over to my guard and started issuing orders in Arabic. “Go upstairs and bring the two bodies to the side door. Then back the limousine up as close to the door as you can. Open the trunk and load them in. Be sure no one sees you do it. Then come back down here for Karim. Unfortunately, he must ride with the capitalist pigs. And there will be one more passenger for the trunk, so make certain there is room.”

  I was the only one who could hear what the Sword was telling his man, and his words implied something I hadn’t thought about until that moment. If Sherima and I were to be found dead on the scene, then the only other “passenger” for the trunk had to be Candy! And I guessed what was on the “other paper” the forger Selim had completed and the contents of which he had avoided mentioning. I was sure it painted Candy as the CIA’s link to Sherima, and thereby, to Shah Hassan. This part of Abdul’s plan was enhanced by the fact that her disappearance at the time of Sherima’s death would look even more suspicious if the CIA couldn’t produce her to refute the evidence concocted by the Sword.

  When Mustapha was gone and the massive door cut off all sound again, I said, “Candy, tell me something. When did you get Abdul to join you in seeking revenge on Shah Hassan?”

  “Why? What does it matter?” She had looked up at me to answer, then turned away again.

  “I figure it was about the time the word got out about the divorce and Sherima returning to the States, right?”

  The hazel eyes searched my face, and she finally nodded, then said, “I guess it was about then. Why?”

  Abdul didn’t say anything, but his black, hawklike eyes darted from her to me as I continued talking,
hoping as I did so that he was too tense to notice that I’d never raised my hands again after throwing the car keys to him.

  “What did he say?” I asked, then answered my own question. “I’ll bet it was something like he’d finally realized that you were right. That Hassan was a bad man who wasn’t really helping his people, but just piling up wealth for himself and giving away a few schools and hospitals to keep the people quiet.”

  Her face told me I’d hit the mark, but she wasn’t ready to admit it, not even to herself. “Abdul showed me the proof of it! He showed me the records from a Swiss bank. Do you know that good old philanthropic Hassan has over one hundred million dollars deposited there? How’s that for helping himself instead of his country?”

  Sherima had come alive again and had been listening to our conversation. Once more, she tried to convince Candy that she was wrong about her former husband. “That’s not so, Candy,” she said quietly. “The only money that Hassan ever sent out of Adabi was to pay for equipment that was needed by our people. That, and the money he deposited in Zurich for you and me.”

  “That’s how much you know about your precious Hassan,” Candy shouted at her. “Abdul showed me the records, and that’s when he suggested how we could destroy him by using you.”

  “The records could have been forged, Candy,” I said. “You saw tonight what an expert Selim is at that kind of thing. Bank records would have been much easier to create than coded CIA notes.”

  Candy looked from me to Abdul, but found no relief from the doubts I was planting in his expression. “Abdul wouldn’t do that,” she said vehemently. “He helped me because he loved me, if you must know!”

  I shook my head. “Think about it, Candy. Would a man who loved you allow you to go to bed with someone else—order you to do it—like you did?”

  “It was necessary, wasn’t it, Abdul?” Candy said, almost crying as she turned to him for assistance. “Tell him how you explained that he had to be kept occupied for the night so you could get Sherima, that there was only one way to keep a man like him busy. Tell him, Abdul.” The last three words were a plea for help that went unanswered as Abdul said nothing. A savagely tight smile was fixed on his face; he knew what I was trying to do and didn’t care, because he felt it was too late to change anything.