The Almighty

by Irving Wallace

"No choice. Every second counted."

  "Shields—there wasn't any identification on his body, was there?"

  "None whatsoever. None of them carried any identification." Armstead shook his head again, unhappily. "I never wanted there to be bloodshed."

  "There had to be sooner or later," said Dietz in a practical tone of voice. "Besides, our men had no choice. It was self-defense."

  "I suppose you're right," mused Armstead. "Who will be blamed for this?"

  "The Israeli government announcement has already blamed Carlos."

  Armstead frowned. "Too bad we didn't have the shooting exclusive, too." He looked up. "But the details of the shooting—no one has the details except us."

  "That's right, Chief."

  "Well, when's it coming off the presses?"

  "Chief, it hasn't even been written yet. I just got Pagano's second call. I—"

  Armstead slammed his fist on the desk. "Goddammit, Harry, get on the ball. We don't want anyone else getting it into print before us. Let's roll with it fast—another Armstead beat—another exclusive. The full and inside account of the shooting of Prime Minister Salmon—the story of the year." He came off his chair and around the desk as Dietz stood up. Armstead took him by the arm. "Let's keep moving, Harry. We're on top of the world. Let's stay there."

  "I'll hustle it into print, Chief. Do I by-line it Mark Bradshaw again? We credited him with the beat on the theft of the scrolls. It would be logical for him to report on the rest of the story, the shoot-out."

  Armstead approved. "You've got it, Harry. Let's keep him our star."

  "Okay. Oh, one more thing—"

  "Yes?"

  "—what about Ramsey?" asked Dietz.

  "Better get Nick Ramsey out of Cairo. Bring him back to Paris to join up with the Weston girl. I think I may have something new brewing."

  Dietz hesitated at the door. "I was just thinking, Chief. Maybe it would be wise to have a breather between stories."

  "Since when have you become cautious, Harry?"

  "I haven't really, but—"

  "Leave the planning to me," said Armstead. "When you're running the world, you don't get off."

  CHAPTER TEN

  To Nick Ramsey, riding the unusual, undulating arrival escalators in Charles de Gaulle Airport was always an enjoyable sport, like taking a roller coaster standing up, no hands. But this day, returned to Paris from Cairo before one in the afternoon, he hardly noticed the escalators. He was bemused by the violent events that had swirled about him in Egypt and the Middle East.

  He reached the ground-floor luggage conveyors and sought out the one that would be delivering his suitcase and typewriter. He watched the Cairo luggage sliding down the moving conveyor belt, spotted his own rubbed black leather bag, stepped forward to catch it as it came around and lifted the suitcase free. Shortly after that he had his portable typewriter.

  He was surprised to see a young woman with an arm raised motioning to him. As he arrived at the customs exit, he could see that the young woman was Victoria. Finished with customs, he could not help smiling as he approached her—she was wearing her tweed jacket over a brown silk blouse and hip-hugging beige pants, and was a dream walking—but Victoria was not smiling at all. She was dead serious, even grim.

  "Nick," she said. He wanted to kiss those full red lips, but gave her a smack on the cheek instead.

  He studied her expression. "Anything wrong?"

  "Nick, the prime minister of Israel—he's dead."

  "Dead?"

  "He died in surgery."

  "Dammit," Ramsey said under his breath. "Where'd you hear that?"

  "They broke in with a bulletin on French television. Salmon recovered consciousness only once before surgery. Someone told him the Dead Sea scrolls had been stolen, and told him the ransom demand. In return for the scrolls, release of the five PLO terrorists who attacked the kibbutz Kfar Hanassi last month. The prime minister whispered, 'Never, never in a million years. The scrolls are precious to all of us, but the safety of our people is more precious. Israel does not give in to terrorists, now or ever.' And then they rolled him into surgery. And then he died."

  "That's the whole story?"

  "Not quite. French television also had the details of what happened in the museum, details of what led to the killing. They had these by quoting an exclusive from an American newspaper.

  "I assume they were quoting the Record," said Ramsey quietly.

  "Yes."

  "A by-lined story by Mark Bradshaw."

  "Yes."

  "I see," he said. But he did not see a thing.

  "I think it's odd," Victoria said, as they walked out of the terminal to the street.

  Ramsey said, "I think a lot of things that happen in this world are odd."

  She put up her hand to get the attention of a chauffeur smoking nearby, and he acknowledged her signal and strode off. "I have a rented car at the hotel, but I was afraid if I used it on the autoroute I'd get lost and miss you. So I hired that driver with his Mercedes."

  "Extravagant, aren't you?"

  His tone had been light, but Victoria remained serious. "It's Armstead's money, and he's making more and more with all these scoops."

  "Well, I guess he's earned it."

  "Armstead, he's becoming famous, practically a legend."

  "I guess he deserves that, too."

  "He and Mark Bradshaw."

  Noting her emphasis, Ramsey glanced at her.

  She touched Ramsey's arm. "Nick, I want to talk to you about all this. Can we talk about it?"

  He knew that he was supposed to ask her exactly what she wanted to talk about, but he was not ready for that yet.

  The driver had drawn his Mercedes up to the curb. Ramsey opened the rear door for Victoria. "All right," he said, "we'll talk. But not yet and not now. Give me a chance to shake off the dust of Cairo, take a shower, get a change of clothes. Let's just neck on the way to Paris."

  "Nick, I'm really serious."

  "So am I," he said.

  "I'll tell you what," she said. "When we get to the city, drop me off at the Record bureau. I have to do something there. You go to the hotel, check in—same suite—and when you've come down, let's meet at a café on the Champs-lysées for a snack."

  "You name it."

  "Let's say the Maison d'Alsace at Rue Marbeuf on the Champs-Elysées an hour from now. It's only a short walk around the corner from the Avenue Montaigne."

  "You've got a date."

  "A serious talk," she said.

  "A serious talk," he agreed, and wondered what it would be about.

  Victoria was seated at a table under a red umbrella in the front row of Maison d'Alsace, sipping her sweet sherry, idly observing pedestrians streaming past her in both directions along the Champs-Elysées. Because speculation on the backgrounds of various passers-by diverted her thoughts, Victoria shifted her gaze to the red awning that served as a canopy over the umbrellas and tables of the café. She tried to concentrate on what was uppermost in her mind and to organize her discussion of it with Nick Ramsey.

  She and Nick had agreed to meet here an hour after he had dropped her off at the Paris bureau of the Record and she had come to the café on time ten minutes ago. She had expected Nick to be waiting for her, but he was nowhere in sight and the black-and-white-striped chair opposite her remained unoccupied.

  Eager to have the conversation with him and to have his opinion, although she had foreseen that he would be skeptical, she stretched her neck and looked off toward the Avenue Montaigne. At once she saw Nick. Although he was a half block away, he was taller than the French pedestrians ahead of him and easy to identify. She could not help but smile. He appeared neat, for him, in a gray suit, and refreshed, and was advancing purposefully, impeded only now and then by window-shoppers. She supposed he would invite her to dinner, but first she determined to have her talk with him here and now in the café. For a moment her gaze had strayed, and she had lost him. Then she had him in sight, and
her brow furrowed.

  Nick was no longer walking. He had stopped or been stopped. He had been partially blocked out by a stout man in a dark suit who was speaking to him. Another man—shorter, even heftier, a person in a black leather jacket who resembled a Lebanese—had come up behind Nick, seemed to bump into him.

  Curious, Victoria tried to make out what was happening.

  She saw the pair who had detained Nick jostle him, pushing him off the sidewalk and nearer the street. The action was unclear, but it looked as if the pair was forcing Nick toward a sedan at the curb.

  Alarmed, Victoria opened her purse, pulled out some loose francs, threw them on the table and searched for Nick once more.

  The threesome, the two strangers and Nick, had reached the low sedan. What was taking place was even clearer now. Nick was definitely being forced into the back of the vehicle.

  Victoria jumped to her feet, wondering why Nick did not resist the bullying tactics. Instantly she realized that he couldn't. He was being forced into the car, probably at gunpoint. Nick was being abducted. He was being kidnapped.

  And Victoria was running.

  Obstructed by pedestrians, she dodged and wove and kept running toward the sedan.

  Closing in on it, she could make out a driver at the wheel, the two abductors with Nick between them in the back. Before she could open her mouth to cry out, the sedan, a light blue Citroën, darted away from the curb, then tried to wedge into traffic, blocked by a parade of other cars, all honking horns.

  Victoria cast about frantically for someone in a blue uniform, a gendarme, but saw at once there was none in sight, and then she saw something else. A taxi had drawn up along the edge of the Champs-Elysées and was disgorging a passenger. The passenger had paid his fare and was about to shut the rear door when Victoria stumbled up and grasped it.

  As she flung herself into the taxi and fell back into the seat, the beetle-browed, unshaved Gallic taxi driver twisted around and released a torrent of French. "No, no, no!" he protested. "I am finished for today. No more fares. I go home for dinner."

  Victoria leaned forward, gripping his arm in both hands and shaking it. "Listen to me, monsieur, this is an emergency!" she cried out. "I will give you a fifty-franc tip—" She pointed ahead through the windshield. "See that car there, the blue Citroën, three men have taken my friend, kidnapped him."

  The taxi driver looked through the windshield. "It is a matter for the police—"

  "There is no time. I must know where they are taking him. I will give you one hundred francs extra."

  The driver capitulated. "For you, madame, I will follow."

  "Thank you, thank you. But don't let them realize you are behind them."

  He shifted, jolted forward until only a single automobile stood between him and the Citroën. Then he yanked his wheel, sending his taxi in between two cars in the creeping traffic.

  Victoria sat back with relief as the dense traffic gradually loosened and the cars sped up toward the Place de la Concorde.

  She sat forward again, tense and worried, wondering who the abductors were and what they wanted with Nick. Keeping her eyes on a portion of the sloping back of the Citroën, she prayed that the abductors would not get out of sight.

  "They must not be aware we are following," she implored the driver.

  "Never mind, madame. I am clever. I have an older brother in the Sûreté."

  The police, she thought again. At what point should she seek help? She knew the answer. Not until she was certain where those thugs were taking Nick.

  She held on to the overhead strap as her taxi careened through streets of Paris and sections of the city totally unfamiliar to her. Beyond the window, she sought the sight of famous landmarks but recognized none. They were passing shops and a department store, and she tried to memorize their names. She craned her neck to try to make out if Nick was visible in the rear seat of the Citroën ahead, but she was not able to get a full view of the car.

  The Citroën breezed through a yellow light as it turned red, and so did the car ahead of them, and Victoria prayed her driver would do the same. The stoplight had turned red, and her driver valiantly sailed through it.

  The pursuit had continued for fifteen or twenty minutes and they had entered a district that she had never visited when the car that separated the Citroën from their taxi pulled out of line and eased toward a parking place. Now they were exposed to the rearview mirror of the Citroën directly in front, and Victoria could only hope that the abductors' driver would not become suspicious of her taxi.

  She was conscious of the fact that the Citroën was slowing, and her own taxi was also slowing.

  "Where are we?" she asked her driver.

  "Tenth Arrondissement, approaching the Musée de l'Affiche."

  "The poster museum?"

  "Oui." He was gradually braking. "I think they are looking to turn off."

  "Follow them."

  "No, we must watch. We will see."

  The vehicle in front had come almost to a halt, and Victoria realized that only the two abductors were visible, that Nick had disappeared from view. There could be only one logical explanation—Nick had been ordered down to the floor.

  The car ahead had halted, and the taxi driver was forced to apply his foot brake hard. He hammered at his horn angrily, honking away.

  "Don't do that," Victoria cried out. "You'll only attract attention."

  "I am acting naturally. Someone blocks a taxi, and we blow the horn. They expect it. Just leave it to me, madame."

  The Citroën had started moving once more, turning into a cross street.

  She heard her driver. "I think this is their destination."

  She searched upward, saw the street signs. They were on the Rue de Paradis. The cross street into which the Citroën had entered was marked Rue Martel.

  "Still the Tenth?" she asked.

  "The Tenth," said her driver. "A workers' district."

  He accelerated his taxi, drove it past the Rue Martel.

  "Hey, aren't you going to follow them?"

  "No. Too easy to be noticed. I think they will not run away. See, they are slowing. I think they are getting ready to park." He slid the taxi into a no-parking zone. "You go out to the corner," he said. "Walk in a normal way to cross the street. Look down the Rue Martel and see if they are parking. If not, I will back up fast and chase them."

  He was idling the taxi alongside the curb. Victoria did not question his street wisdom. She unlatched the rear door and stepped out to the sidewalk.

  Pulling herself together, she strolled to the corner. She glanced down the Rue Martel, trying to appear as casual and disinterested as possible. The Citroën represented the only activity in the street. It had gone less than halfway up the thoroughfare, and abruptly it swung left off the street into the driveway of some kind of building and in seconds it had disappeared.

  She teetered on the street corner, feeling certain that she had not been seen or spotted as a threat.

  She waited for someone to emerge from the building. No one appeared.

  Resolutely she turned away from the Rue de Paradis and entered the Rue Martel. She strode briskly, as if the far end of the street were her destination—a French student on her way to her apartment from school.

  On approaching the building where she had seen the Citroën turn in, she slowed her pace ever so slightly. She was next to the driveway for a building bearing a sign that read No. 10. This wasn't it, she knew, but the one after.

  She walked on. She was passing an old building with letters that indicated it was No. 12. There was another driveway—a porte cochêre, really—at one side of this building, and out of the corner of an eye she could see that there was an inner courtyard beyond. Several cars were parked inside, but she could not see the blue Citroën. Yet she was positive that it had gone into that courtyard.

  She strolled a few more steps, but no farther.

  She had discovered what she needed to know.

  Pivoting,
she went past the driveway of No. iz once more, then retraced her steps to the Rue de Paradis.

  She wondered what was going on. Why would anyone want to kidnap Nick Ramsey? For what reason? For ransom? Had they mistaken him for someone else, a rich American? Above all, who were they?

  Stepping back inside her taxi, she tried to make up her mind about her next move.

  There was one obvious thing to do. Go to the police immediately. But something made her hesitate. It was the memory of Edward Armstead's earliest advice on that day he had admonished her that her first duty must always be to report to the New York Record first.

  Christ, if she did that, the delay might put Nick in greater jeopardy.

  She assured herself that it would postpone her report to the police by only a few minutes.

  She decided to report to Edward Armstead first.

  He would know exactly what must be done.

  She saw the taxi driver studying her inquiringly. She nodded. "I know just where they are," she said. "Take me to the Plaza Athénée as fast as you can. A shortcut, if possible. I will report the whole matter from there. But hurry. Make it fast enough and I'll promise you a one hundred and fifty-franc tip."

  "Trés bien," he said, hunching over the wheel. "Hold on—here we go!"

  It was strange being sightless so long, and sightless still.

  From the instant of his abduction to this moment here, somewhere in Paris, Nick Ramsey had not suffered fright. He had contended with the emotions of surprise, bewilderment, confusion, but not fear. So positive had he been that his kidnapping was an error, a mistake in identity, that he was certain that the blunder would be realized and he would be freed.

  Once they had him in the back seat of their car, and had left the Champs-Élysées, they had ordered him to kneel down on the floor. Reluctantly, with the metal of a gun pressed hard against his temple, he had done so. At that point he had been blindfolded.

  Several times during the ride to wherever he had tried to speak up, protest, point out their gross error, and each time one of them had harshly told him in English to shut up. Neither the two in the back seat nor the driver otherwise spoke to him or to each other.