Scimitar

by Ed McBain

  No one in sight yet.

  The three bronze-framed plate glass doors just ahead of him.

  Deadbolts on all of—

  He hadn’t once thought—

  God, don’t let them be locked!

  He shoved out at the middle door. It yielded to his hand. He caught his breath, came out into daylight. Stopped dead. Looked left and right. No one. His right hand went into his inside pocket, over his heart. His fingers closed on the bottle of sarin. Breathing hard, he lifted the bottle from his pocket, and turned the nozzle to the STREAM position. He hesitated a second longer, then walked swiftly to the steps leading to the level above. When he got up there, he would crouch down below the chest-high wall that enclosed it, and then work his way to a position directly above the President. The Statue of Liberty would be facing both of them; she would witness it all. He had practiced it a hundred times. Before anyone below knew what was happening, the President would be doused with a shower of poison that would kill him within minutes.

  He started up the steps.

  Came out onto the level above.

  Ducked below the wall.

  Half-crouching, half-running, he moved toward the corner where a right-angle turn would take him to the front of the monument. Above him, the lady clutched the tablet in her left hand. In the distance, he thought he could hear the President’s droning drawl. He turned the corner. Still crouching, he lifted his head to get his bearings.

  No, he thought.

  No.

  He was looking at a squad, a platoon, a company, a battalion, a goddamn regiment of marines in dress blue uniforms!

  One of them, a man holding what appeared to be a trombone, turned to look at him, puzzled. Sonny came to his feet immediately, as if recovering from a stumble, put the walkie-talkie to his ear, turned without glancing again at the man, and hurried back toward the corner of the monument.

  But he had already been seen from below.

  Dobbs had caught movement from the corner of his eye.

  He’d glanced upward, seen what looked like one of their own people up there—blue suit, white shirt and dark tie, walkie-talkie in his hand—moving swiftly toward the corner of the monument, where suddenly he disappeared from view.

  “… in a nation where education and health are the birthrights of not only a privileged few but of everyone, where shining cities stand as beacons of achiev …” the President was saying.

  Dobbs wondered what one of their own was doing up there with all those marines. And then he wondered if the tall man he’d seen was in fact one of their own. He decided to investigate. He was heading for the stairs leading up, when Sonny broke into the open at a dead run, a pistol in one hand, the bottle of sarin in the other.

  In the instant that Dobbs yanked his revolver from his shoulder holster and rushed to intercept the man who was most certainly the one Elita had described, he knew that his worst nightmare was about to be realized: he was going to lose his life defending someone he despised.

  The words propelling him were No-Fail.

  The motives that drove him toward that podium were hatred and revenge, coupled with the realization that what he was about to do would earn him a place in Paradise. Like one of Khomeini’s ten-year-old boys—the Basseej who’d rushed across Iraqi minefields, their forearms roped together, the black cloths of martyrdom tied across their foreheads, metal tags around their necks—like one of those young martyrs whose tag was a key to Paradise, Sonny now rushed forward to accept his fate.

  It was not Dobbs who stopped him.

  He dispatched Dobbs with two neat whispered shots, puffing on the still summer air, felling him in his tracks.

  Nor was it Elita’s shouted words that stopped him.

  “There he is!”

  Her finger pointing like an arrow at his heart.

  He recognized her in that instant, but dismissed her as inconsequential, and continued his headlong rush toward the podium, where now he saw the President and heard his words and saw as well …

  And this was what caused him to stop for just an instant …

  And then turn from his course …

  Swerve away from the podium …

  And race for the nearest point on the star-shaped level.

  He leaped over the wall to the level below, ran across a parched stretch of grass … Elita’s voice shouting again behind him …

  “Stop him! That’s the man!”

  … hit the pavement that ran straight to the water’s edge …

  “Stop him! Stop him!”

  … shots behind him … stepped off the pavement in a zigzagging maneuver … more shots … stop him … get him … reached the metal railing … climbed onto it … and dove into the water.

  There was immediate darkness.

  Cold wet darkness.

  He swam some distance underwater, and then surfaced, gasping for air.

  Shots puckered the water everywhere around him.

  “Help me!” he shouted.

  And went under again.

  The cold wet dark of the river.

  Surfaced again not a moment later.

  “Help!” he shouted.

  There were men at the railing now. They opened fire at once.

  “Help! Help!” he shouted.

  And went under again in a hail of bullets.

  “He’s failing!” someone shouted.

  They spread out along the railing, guns ready, waiting for him to surface again.

  “I think we hit him,” one of them whispered.

  There was no blood on the water.

  They kept waiting.

  He did not surface again.

  Elita wondered if drowning was a painful death. She hoped he had died in agony.

  15

  At ten twenty-seven on Sunday morning, the fifth day of July, in the corridor outside the intensive care unit of Beekman Hospital, Detective-Lieutenant Peter Hogan of the NYPD and Agent Alex Nichols of the CIA’s New York Office waited for word on the colleague with whom they’d briefly worked.

  He’d been shot twice in the head.

  Their conversation kept coming back to the events of the day before. Invariably, they kept wondering what the hell had been in Hemkar’s right hand. It had looked like some sort of bottle. But what had he planned to do with it? And why had he changed his mind?

  “Couldn’t have been nitro,” Nichols said, “the way he was handling it.”

  “That’s why burglars stopped using it,” Hogan said. “Your box men. Too unpredictable.”

  “Box men?” Nichols asked.

  “Safe-crackers,” Hogan said, flashing his expertise.

  “Oh,” Nichols said, and both men fell silent.

  On the hospital wall, the clock kept ticking.

  “Did you happen to see him when he dove in?” Hogan asked.

  “We all saw him,” Nichols said.

  “So what’d he do with it? The bottle.”

  “Tossed it in the water before he jumped. The bottle and the gun both. Deep-sixed them. A person can’t swim with his hands full, you know.”

  “You think he even knew how to swim?”

  “He chose the river, didn’t he?”

  “Sure, but where else could he go?”

  “Well, that’s true, but …”

  “He probably didn’t know how strong those currents can get. Out there in the Narrows. Even a good swimmer could have trouble with them.”

  “Assuming he was a good swimmer.”

  “Did you see him go under three times?”

  “What?”

  “Before he drowned? They’re supposed to go under three times.”

  “I wasn’t counting,” Nichols said.

  He had begun wondering about that letter again. The fake Bush letter. Wondering how it had got into Quaddafi’s hands. And then suddenly he realized who was behind it all. Who was responsible for forging that letter and making certain it surfaced in Libya. Forgetting that Hogan knew nothing at all about the document, he said
aloud, “Who really wants him dead, huh?”

  “Huh?” Hogan said.

  “Bush. Who wants him dead more than anybody on earth?”

  “I don’t know,” Hogan said. “Who?”

  “Whose country did he destroy?”

  “I don’t know,” Hogan said. “Whose?”

  “Bombed it right back into the eighteenth century,” Nichols said, nodding.

  “I don’t know who you mean.”

  “Can you think of a dictator who wears a mustache and a uniform?”

  “Sure,” Hogan said. “Hitler.”

  A doctor in a green surgical gown was coming down the corridor toward them.

  “Are you the people with Mr. Dobbs?” he asked.

  “Yes?” Nichols said.

  The doctor hesitated. Nichols already knew from the look on his face that one of them would have to call Dobbs’s wife.

  He only hoped Hogan would volunteer for the job.

  Less than a mile away, in Battery Park, a Hassidic Jew wearing a rumpled dark suit, an equally rumpled black fedora, and a tieless white shirt, got off the first ferry to arrive from Liberty Island that morning.

  No one paid him the slightest bit of attention.

  They arrived at the Thirteenth Precinct downtown at a little past eleven o’clock that Sunday morning. They had gone there to talk to Detective-Lieutenant Albert Ryan, who’d invited Elita to his Homicide South office to ask whether or not he should clear her mother’s case.

  “What does that mean, clear?” Elita asked him.

  “Well, clear it. Stop the investigation.”

  “Why do you need her permission to do that?” Geoffrey asked at once.

  “I don’t, actually,” Ryan said. “This is a police matter, actually.”

  “Then why are you asking her advice?” Geoffrey said, and Elita realized all at once that she had a champion.

  “Well, the Westhampton Beach Police are already working the case, so if we clear it here, we’ll be saving a lot of duplication.”

  “I see,” Elita said.

  Never mind duplication. He was merely trying to save the city time and expense by stopping the investigation.

  “I don’t know what to tell you,” she said, and turned away because she was on the verge of tears again. In her heart, she felt Sonny was the one who’d killed her mother. But suppose it had been someone else entirely? Suppose by giving her tacit approval to … clear the case, had he said? Suppose she did that, and the real killer escaped? Wouldn’t it be better to have the NYPD investigating in tandem with the Suffolk County cops? Weren’t the New York cops superior to a small-town police force?

  “What are you truly concerned about, sir?” Geoffrey asked.

  Her champion again. Directly to the point. Riding in on a white charger, her favor tucked into his gauntlet.

  “I’m not concerned about anything,” Ryan said, far too casually. “Now that the likely perpetrator is dead, we’re just thinking of leaving the case to the department that had original juris …”

  “That’s the key word, isn’t it?” Geoffrey said. “Likely.”

  “Well, yes. We have no positive proof that Hemkar …”

  “Exactly. But if you clear the case here … by the way, that doesn’t mean solving it, does it?”

  “Well, no. Clearing is clearing, solving is solving. They’re two different things. Related, but different.”

  “Related how?”

  “In that the case would be closed.”

  “I see. And if five years from now, someone turns up …”

  “That would be Suffolk County’s …”

  “… and confesses to having killed Elita’s mother and ten other women …”

  “Suffolk would handle that eventuality.”

  “But that wouldn’t look so good for New York, would it? That eventuality?”

  “The case originated in Suffolk. If somebody kills somebody in Indiana, and the body washes up in the East River …”

  “But how would it look if New York cleared a case and then the killer turned up later?”

  “Young man …”

  “Merely asking,” Geoffrey said, and shrugged innocently.

  Elita suddenly wanted to kiss him.

  “If you’d like my advice,” she said. “I think …”

  “Well, that’s why I asked you to …”

  “I think New York should continue the investigation.”

  “Certainly. We appreciate …”

  “We don’t even know he’s dead,” she said.

  “No, actually we don’t.”

  “If he’s the one who did it.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And if he isn’t the one, then you should find the one. You should find whoever’s responsible for my mother’s death.”

  “I can assure you …”

  “Because she lived in New York, you see.”

  “Yes, I rea …”

  “And she loved this city.”

  The room went silent.

  “And we owe her at least that much,” Elita said.

  And her eyes filled with tears.

  Arthur came to see him at the hotel at four o’clock that Sunday afternoon. It was a quiet day down here in the financial district. The two men shook hands, and then sat at the table near the windows overlooking the Hudson. They were not here to celebrate. Sonny was hoping that Arthur had come to discuss their next move. He had, after all, aborted the plan only so that he could serve another day. To sacrifice himself without having accomplished his mission would have been absurd. Arthur agreed with him.

  “I was watching it all on television,” he said. “I was puzzled at first, couldn’t understand why you’d turned away, hmm?”

  “Well, the moment I saw …”

  “The shield, yes. I realized that later.”

  “Trimmed with bunting, but unmistakable.”

  “A bulletproof shield, yes.”

  “I wasn’t expecting it.”

  “They sometimes use it.”

  “It just never occurred to me.”

  “You did the right thing. If there was no way to get to him …”

  “I’d have given my life to’ve done it. My very life if only …”

  “Yes, I know. But don’t let it trouble you, truly. There’ll be another time. He’ll be repaid, don’t worry,” Arthur said, and smiled suddenly. “At least the boomerang worked, hmm?”

  Sonny smiled, too.

  This was not a joyous occasion they were sharing, but the thought of how easily he’d outwitted them was cause for at least some merriment. With great animation and obvious pleasure, he told Arthur how he’d swum back to the island instead of swimming away from it—the very principle of the boomerang escape he’d been taught at Kufra. Swimming underwater until his outstretched hands made contact with the island’s retaining wall, his lungs ready to burst, he’d taken the basting tube from his pocket, and pushed it toward the surface until only the thick end of it showed above the water. Capturing the narrow end in his mouth, he’d gently blown the tube free of water, and at last had been able to breathe again.

  “That air tasted so sweet,” he told Arthur now.

  “I can imagine,” Arthur said.

  The makeshift snorkel in place, he’d worked his way underwater around the wall, until he reached the ferry dock. He’d lain hidden just below the surface then, clinging to one of the pilings, breathing gently through the tube, and did not climb ashore again until it was dark.

  “And then what?” Arthur asked. “Did you go back to your lay-in position?”

  “I couldn’t. I’d left the door locked.”

  “Why on earth did you …?”

  “Has there been any news of a dead park ranger?”

  “No. Should there have been?”

  “I imagine there will be,” Sonny said, and smiled again. “The island’s almost deserted at night. I went back to the restroom, fished out my hat …”

  “Your hat?”
/>   “Too long a story.”

  “Fished it out?”

  “Yes. And then spent the rest of the night outdoors, drying off. I caught the first ferry back at ten o’clock. I’m glad you’re here, Arthur.”

  “I am, too,” Arthur said.

  “When do we try again?”

  “Well, we’ll have to wait for instructions, hmm?”

  “Of course. But …”

  “And in any case, you’re known now, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, but disguises can …”

  “Well, disguises. You know how we feel about disguises.”

  “Yes, but …”

  “Mind you,” Arthur said gently, “we know it wasn’t your fault. Things simply didn’t work out the way we’d hoped they would, hmm?”

  “That’s why I …”

  “You mustn’t think your efforts weren’t …”

  “But I really would like the opportunity to …”

  “Yes, well …”

  “… serve again, to do the job properly this time.”

  “Well, that’s quite impossible,” Arthur said.

  And suddenly there was a pistol in his hand.

  Sonny blinked.

  Arthur shrugged somewhat sorrowfully.

  There was a silencer on the gun’s muzzle; this would be swift and soundless.

  “Why?” Sonny asked. “Because I failed?”

  “No, no,” Arthur said. “It would have been the same either way.”

  “Either …?”

  Sonny’s eyes narrowed in total understanding.

  He sprang at once.

  It was one thing to die in the service of God and country, but it was quite another to die the way he now realized the two women had died. Total anonymity, Arthur had told him. Claim no credit, expect no retaliation. If there were no surviving links to Scimitar …

  He was not two feet from the muzzle of the pistol, his arm swinging in the backhanded deflecting swipe he’d been taught at Kufra—when Arthur fired. The first muffled shot took Sonny just below his nose, shattering the gum ridge and exploding from the back of his head. The second shot took him just above his Adam’s apple as he fell over backward, his head tilting upward, his throat exposed. Arthur fired two more bullets into his lifeless body where it lay on the floor before the windows streaming late afternoon sunlight.