Nightmare Time

by Hugh Pentecost

  “Give you a hard time?” I was already feeling better, thanks to the sandwich and coffee.

  “As hard as he can. But, as I pointed out to you earlier, I’m over twenty-one! I live my life as I choose. Fortunately, I’m not dependent on Kenneth Smythe, the computer king, for my economic support. I had a grandfather named Bill Smith who left me enough to keep my head above water.”

  “Smith?”

  She laughed a bitter little laugh. “When my father began to move in high places, ‘Smith’ became too commonplace for him. He changed his name to Smythe. I wonder how many of the names Romy will give you on his list are people’s real names? I wonder how many of the facades we see are real and how many are fake? How many of the Smythes are Smiths? Romy is going to give you a list of people he thinks are two-faced. Could your Miss Ruysdale have been suckered by some two-faced charmer?”

  “She has a man, a very solid love affair,” I said.

  “Could he be a double-dealer?”

  “His name is Pierre Chambrun,” I said.

  She laughed. “Oh my! Well, I think my man is just as solid as you think her man is.”

  Romy was rising from the desk, a sheet of the yellow paper in his hand.

  “I’ve only got eight names here for you, Mark,” he said. “If I were asked for a list of all the people I know in the United States who might be agents of the KGB, it would take a book. But people who sometimes stay here at the Beaumont, or circulate regularly in the bars and restaurants, people Chambrun and Miss Ruysdale would know, boils down to eight. You probably know them yourself.”

  He handed me the paper, and I glanced at the list. There were two Russians who had some connection with that nation’s United Nations delegation; a Brazilian businessman who throws rather lavish dinner parties from time to time; a Czech tennis player, a favorite of thousands of fans, who stays with us when the tennis action is here; a British actor who was at the moment starring in a play on Broadway (that one really surprised me); a West German businessman, in charge of the sale and distribution of a popular foreign-made car in the United States; a Greek shipping magnate who stayed with us about half of every year; and, finally, a Venezuelan gent, said to be raising funds for the rebels there, rebels with whom our government sympathizes. With the exception of the two Russians, they were all a surprise to me. I knew them all well enough to say hello to when I encountered them in the lobby or in one of the restaurants or bars. Good customers, all.

  Pamela was smiling at me. “A collection of Smythe-Smiths,” she said.

  “I believe all of them are either staying here or have been in the hotel in the last forty-eight hours,” Romy said. He sounded bitter when he went on. “Zachary’s list will have at least one more name on it. Mine!”

  Romy was right about Zachary’s list in one respect. His name was on it. So was Pamela Smythe’s. Guilt by association, I suppose. Also, Zachary’s list involved about three dozen names. Air Force Intelligence evidently dug a lot deeper than Romy. It was also interesting that every one of Romy’s eight names was also on Zachary’s list.

  Chambrun picked up on Pamela Smythe’s name. “You actually think the Smythe girl belongs on this list?” he asked Zachary.

  “She and Romanov travel everywhere together lately,” Zachary said. “She provides him with an alibi for last night and this morning. But has it occurred to you, Chambrun, that he also supplies her with an alibi for the same time?”

  “Slow process of checking out everyone on these lists,” Lieutenant Hardy said. “Where were you from nine o’clock last night when the Willises disappeared until now? How many people will be as open about their night lives as Romanov and Miss Smythe?”

  “The person or people we’re looking for will have an alibi ready for us when we approach them,” Zachary said. “That’s why Romanov is at the top of my list, along with the Smythe girl. Romanov practically brought his alibi out into the hall to greet us when we first went to talk to him. He was too ready with an alibi. He had cultivated a friendship with Willis. Cocktails, a viewing of his paintings, an invitation to join them in the Blue Lagoon to hear that piano player. Romanov knew exactly where they’d be at a certain time. He meets them out in the hall as they are leaving for the Blue Lagoon. He’s changed his mind, he’ll go with them. They go to the elevator, operated by Tim Sullivan. Once in the elevator Romanov shows his true colors, produces a gun, orders Sullivan to take the elevator back up to seventeen, not down. Sullivan lunges at him and is shot dead for his pains. The elevator is taken up to where Miss Smythe is waiting. She takes care of the Willises, Romanov disposes of the man he’s murdered. He lives here in the Beaumont. He probably knows the hotel as well as you do, Chambrun. He knew where that trash bin is in the basement.”

  “And where were the Willises held?” Hardy asked.

  “Room 17E,” Zachary said promptly. “Romanov was Henry Graves. Had the room ready at nine o’clock when the time came.”

  “Everyone in the hotel knows Romy,” I said. “He couldn’t have registered as Henry Graves without being recognized.”

  “A pair of dark glasses and a hat brim pulled down over his forehead would hide a multitude of sins,” Zachary said. “Hell, man, we know Mrs. Willis was in 17E. That’s where the brooch was found.” He looked around at the others. “How much more do you need to get on the ball?”

  “You want me to arrest him for murder?” Hardy asked.

  “Of course not,” Zachary said. “I want Romanov and the Smythe girl covered by the very best men you’ve got and Dodd has. I want you to turn the boy loose, Chambrun. I’ll bet my next paycheck good old, kindly old, friend of the family Romanov or his girlfriend will pick up the boy, whisk him away, and take us straight to where the Willises are now being held. I want Willis rescued before he’s forced to talk. What happens to Romanov after that is fun and games for you, Hardy.”

  “There’s one thing you’ve left out,” Hardy said. “Romanov knows you suspect him. If he is the man we’re after, he’ll be watching for just the kind of trap you’re talking about.”

  “If he is working for the KGB,” Chambrun said, “he won’t lift a finger to pick up the boy, knowing how you feel about him, Zachary, and what you might set up to catch him. Turn the boy loose and he doesn’t make a move. While we focus on him someone else on this list picks up the boy while Romanov laughs himself sick over how stupid we are. We’re not dealing with a homicidal maniac with a grudge, but with a massive spy system, highly paid, highly trained, highly patriotic, in all probability. We’re dealing with a skilled army, not just one man. Right now the boy is the one weapon we have to keep Major Willis alive for a little longer. Guy stays in my place—unless you bring in the United States Army to take him away, Zachary.”

  Zachary raised his eyes to the ceiling as if he was looking for help from above. “So you’re right. So it’s not just one man we’re after,” he said. “But do you realize how vulnerable you are, Chambrun?”

  “Vulnerable?”

  “Stay stubborn, let your girlfriend go down the drain, and what’s their next move to get their hands on the boy?”

  “Tell me,” Chambrun said.

  “They blow up your precious hotel!” Zachary said. “Will you live a quiet old age knowing that your stubbornness has brought about the deaths of probably hundreds of people, the destruction of a massive business, and gained absolutely nothing? You won’t let yourself be blackmailed, but I think you’ll come to wish to God you’d never been born.”

  Chambrun was a stone statue.

  “That’s how they’d operate?” Hardy asked.

  “Try to think sensibly for just one minute!” Zachary said. “What these people want from Willis is, they think, information that might save their nation from destruction by the enemy—the United States. Do you imagine they’d think twice about a few hundred people dead and a building destroyed? That boy might get them what they so desperately want. One stubborn man and his misjudgment of the situation isn’t going to stand
in their way.” He waited for Chambrun to say something, but The Man stood rooted where he was, apparently thinking miles away from the moment. Zachary turned to me. “Where can I find a private phone? I’m going to get in touch with Washington, see if I can get to someone higher up who may persuade Chambrun to make sense.”

  I TOOK ZACHARY into Betsy’s office. There was no one there, God help us. Zachary glared at the two phones on her desk.

  “These both go through the switchboard?” he asked.

  I told him the white phone was a direct line.

  “I’d like privacy, if you don’t mind,” Zachary said.

  I left him and went back to Chambrun and Hardy. The Man was sitting at his carved Florentine desk, drumming on its flat surface with the square, stubby fingers of his right hand. Hardy was standing over by the windows, watching Chambrun as if he expected something from him. I went over to the Turkish coffeemaker on the sideboard and brought Chambrun a cup of that vile-tasting brew he drank all day. It was Betsy who usually kept him supplied. He looked up at me as if he was surprised, and then muttered a thanks.

  Chambrun sipped the coffee and lit one of the flat Egyptian cigarettes he smokes. He exhaled smoke in a long sigh. “To answer a question that has no answers,” he said.

  “The question of what to do in case—?” Hardy asked.

  Chambrun nodded. “I’m not a member of Zachary’s fan club,” he said, “but the man works in the world of spies and secret agents every day of his life. How that kind of person might act in a given situation is kindergarten stuff to him. Bomb a great hotel filled with hundreds of famous people is unthinkable to us. It’s the first thing that comes to Zachary’s mind.”

  “Why not? It’s everywhere, Pierre,” Hardy said. “They bomb a hotel in England where the lady Prime Minister is staying; they bomb American military installations in West Germany; they bomb everything in sight in Beirut; they bomb embassies and railroad stations and buses and airplanes. You can find a bombing in every day’s paper and hear about them on radio and TV. Bombs are the tools of terrorists everywhere. Zachary doesn’t have to be a genius to have thought of a bombing.”

  “I guess I was suffering from the great American delusion,” Chambrun said. “I won’t be mugged or robbed or raped, not me! It will only happen to the other guy. My hotel won’t be bombed—not my hotel. It may happen in London or Liverpool or Beirut, but not here in my hotel.”

  “Don’t cross that bridge until you have to,” Hardy said.

  “Zachary knows how they think,” Chambrun said. “It could happen, and it wouldn’t be aimed at the corporation that owns the hotel, or any of the hundreds of guests, or just to create an incident of terror. It would be aimed straight at me, to force me to turn an eleven-year-old boy over to a gang of butchers!”

  “So it hasn’t happened yet,” Hardy said. “They’ll have to threaten you before they act.”

  “But what do you do if they make the threat?” I asked Chambrun.

  Chambrun made a strange little gesture with his hands, like a juggler throwing three or four balls in the air. “You’re right to ask, Mark,” he said. “There are several choices, but I have to decide before the threat comes which one I’m going to make, don’t I?”

  “The first one being that you let them have the boy,” Hardy said.

  “Unacceptable,” Chambrun said sharply.

  “Boy rates above Betsy Ruysdale, above hundreds of your guests, above the hotel itself and God knows how many of your people?” Hardy asked.

  “The boy isn’t just a gambling chip, Walter,” Chambrun said. “Let him go and we let him die, let his father and mother die, and convey important military secrets to the enemy. None of the Willises will live after the Major is persuaded to talk to save his boy. They already know too much about who the enemy is and who is giving the orders. So would Betsy.”

  “So you sit tight and let them hit you where you live?”

  Chambrun crushed out his cigarette in the desk ashtray.

  “So we batten down the hatches and wait it out,” he said.

  “Or we tell the guests now that there’s been a bomb threat, empty the hotel, and wait for their next move.”

  “Moving the boy to where?” Hardy said.

  “No matter what the choice, I’m not leaving the Beaumont,” Chambrun said. “I think a large majority of the people who work for me will stand by. Emptied of customers, it’s going to be hard for someone to march in here and plant a bomb.”

  “Cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars in business,” Hardy said.

  “And save scores of lives. That’s a choice I can make without difficulty. Can we get the police bomb squad here, Walter?”

  Harry nodded and reached for the phone. Chambrun turned to me. “Get Jerry. There’s been a bomb threat. Restaurants and bars to be evacuated and closed, shops closed, registered guests gotten out. Staff are asked to stand by, but are free to go.”

  “But there hasn’t been a threat yet!”

  “We don’t know that a bomb hasn’t already been planted, ready to be triggered when they choose,” Chambrun said. “If it hasn’t been, maybe we can prevent it from happening. Get moving, Mark.”

  IT MAY NOT BE a surprise to anyone who knows the Beaumont or has read any of the stories that have been written about Pierre Chambrun that a routine for instant evacuation of the hotel had been long ago established. In the days of the war in Vietnam, most large metropolises with their large railroad stations, airports, hotels, hospitals, and the like had set up evacuation procedures to guard against the possibility of bombs being dropped by missiles or airplanes as an act of war. We had been through that evacuation drill dozens of times at the Beaumont. Everyone knew exactly where to go and what to do.

  Five minutes after Chambrun gave the order it was under way over the telephone switchboard, over loudspeakers, and special warnings given by key people who knew exactly how to spread the word. There was something special added to the order this time.

  “This is NOT a drill! This is NOT a drill!”

  My particular assignment in the procedure was to deal with the press. On this particular morning we were flooded with them, already dealing with three major stories—the murder of Tim Sullivan, the abduction of Major Willis and his wife, and the kidnapping of Betsy Ruysdale used as a weapon to force Chambrun to release the Willis boy.

  A loudspeaker in the lobby informed reporters that there would be an announcement for them in the ballroom at the rear of the lobby.

  “It is a bomb threat, we assume from the people responsible for the disappearances of Major Willis and his wife and Miss Ruysdale,” I told the mob of press, television, and radio reporters who flocked there. “The hotel is being emptied so that the police bomb squad can work more efficiently.”

  “Will Chambrun give up the boy?” a dozen voices shouted at me.

  “An answer to that question might place key people in danger,” I told them. “The main thing now is to get out of here before something blows you out! I’ll be back here as soon as the bomb squad says the coast is clear.”

  “Today or next week?” a sour voice asked.

  “When they tell us it’s safe, not before,” I said. “Now, move please!”

  I had seen and been a part of evacuation drills before. People left, laughing and joking, the registered guests leaving their belongings in their rooms because they knew it was only a drill. This morning there was little or no laughing and joking. “This is NOT a drill!” There were no bellboys to help them, and people carried hastily packed bags and briefcases themselves. There was almost no hysteria that I could see. Most of the in-house guests must already have heard on TV or radio what had been going on in the hotel since early morning. It wasn’t a total surprise to hear of a bomb threat. Cooperation was the name of the game. There was little or no casual street business in the restaurants at that hour of the morning—just after nine o’clock. Too late for breakfast, too early for lunch. The bars don’t open until ten o’clock
, so there was no problem of getting merrymakers to leave. I didn’t take the time to look, but the streets outside the Beaumont must have been bedlam, hundreds of people blocking traffic to wait and watch.

  I went back up to Chambrun’s office, where he was holding a telephone, obviously getting a running report from someone.

  “Clockwork,” I told him.

  He just nodded and went on making notes on the report he was getting. The door to his office burst open and Captain Zachary charged in. Chambrun’s face hardened and he put down the phone, after telling someone he’d call back in a few minutes.

  “You got the threat?” Zachary asked.

  “That’s the story,” Chambrun said.

  “They threatened to blow up your hotel?”

  “You told me they would,” Chambrun said. “I decided not to wait for it.”

  “So all this clearing out is a fake?”

  “It’s real enough,” Chambrun said. “When we’ve emptied out the guests, the police bomb squad will find out if a bomb has been planted. If they don’t find one, they’ll make sure one isn’t planted in the future.”

  “The Willis boy being taken out, too?” Zachary asked.

  “You know the tradition, Zachary. The captain never leaves his sinking ship. If the Beaumont is to go down, I’ll go with it. And the boy stays with me, suffers the same fate I do.”

  “In your penthouse?”

  “If I decide that’s the safest place,” Chambrun said.

  Zachary’s face was dark with anger. “Do you think you have the right, Chambrun, to decide how this Willis case should be handled? Do you think you have the right to decide not to let the Willis boy go when that might lead us to where Major Willis is being held and keep vital information from the enemy?”

  “I have the same right to decide what goes on in this hotel as any head of the family does in his own home.”