Swarzwalder had been the last person to board. John watched as the door sighed shut behind the big man and the buses pulled away.
Now he felt a new concern: Alexandra and Peters had not boarded the buses, and John could not understand why. All the feelings of anxiety, rage, and humiliation that had lacerated him at the beginning of the trip began to resurface. Recognizing and fearing the symptoms, hoping to burn them away with physical activity, he hurried out of the lobby and started off at a brisk pace toward the mountain lake a half mile away.
After all, he thought, they were supposed to be hunting an assassin who was not only unaware of their presence, but who was supposedly marking time until Friday night.
Where the hell are they?
There were, at most, a dozen people who had elected to stay behind, and John knew that each individual had won the disapproving attention of Raul. John was convinced that an assassin would go to great lengths to escape such attention; the object of the dragons’ search had to be going to Peleoro with the majority of the tour group. Alexandra and Peters should have been on one of the buses.
Unless something had happened between them.
He tried to dampen his jealousy, shift his thoughts to something else, but he could not. The pair had been lovers for at least two years before he’d met them, John reflected as he reached the lake and began walking around its shore. Old passions could easily have been reignited, especially under the intense pressure they had to be feeling.
They might be taking a day off, John thought with a grim smile. Even spies needed a little diversion from time to time. They could be in each other’s arms at that very moment.
Stop it, you dumb son-of-a-bitch! If they are, so what? Ride with it!
He was around the lake in twenty minutes, but the fast walk did nothing to stem the bitterness and resentment growing inside him like tumors on his soul.
They should have gone on the trip! If they’re supposed to be tracking a killer, that’s what they should be doing! Not fucking!
He hated his thoughts, hated the shape of the person his jealousy and lack of sleep were twisting him into, but there didn’t seem to be anything he could do to staunch the flow of psychic poison into his system. The pressure of his jealousy, magnified by his feelings of impotence, was becoming unbearable, and he knew he was in trouble. Tortured by vivid images of Alexandra and Peters making love, he did not think he could stand it for another hour, much less the rest of the week.
He had to know if they were making love, John thought. That would be enough. He knew he would loathe himself if he did catch them. However, physically and emotionally exhausted, he could no longer stand the uncertainty.
He made a quick circuit of the hotel’s wooded, sloping grounds in the faint hope that Alexandra and Peters might be at the pool, or walking. They were not.
Despising himself, moving as if in a daze, John walked woodenly into the cool, dimly lit lobby, which was empty except for a tall, handsome desk clerk who was sitting on a high-backed stool, reading a paperback book. John nodded curtly to the man, then took an English-language magazine from a rack and sat down in an overstuffed leather easy chair a few feet from the desk. He opened the magazine and pretended to read, blinking away a persistent haze that turned out to be a fine curtain of tears.
Don’t do this. Forget it. Nothing about this trip has anything to do with reality. If you’re cracking, dummy, imagine what Alexandra’s feeling. Let it go.
But he couldn’t.
Five minutes later the clerk put down his book, came out from behind the desk, and headed for the lavatory at the opposite end of the lobby. Feeling like a hideous marionette helplessly tangled and strangling in its own strings, John rose and stretched over the desk to the key rack. He took the spare key to the room he knew Alexandra and Peters to be sharing, then went across the lobby to the elevator. He walked very quickly, as if trying to escape from something evil and disgusting that he knew was himself.
He rode up to the next floor, stepped out of the elevator and walked softly down the corridor to Alexandra’s and Peters’ room, where he stopped and listened at the door. Once he thought he heard a shuffling sound, but then there was silence.
They should at least be talking and moving around if they’re up. If they’re not out of bed at this hour, they’re screwing! Goddamn them!
Moving very slowly and carefully so as to make no sound, John eased the key into the lock and turned it. Sucking in a deep breath and holding it in an effort to control his shaking hands, he turned the knob as far as it would go, then abruptly pushed open the door and stepped into the room.
What he saw caused his jaw to drop open and his breath to explode from his lungs. The muscles in his body contracted spasmodically with such sudden force that he staggered backward until he came up hard against the wall.
He had seen David Swarzwalder get on the bus, John thought. And he had watched as the buses pulled away. Yet here was Swarzwalder in Alexandra’s room, standing over one of Peters’ suitcases and holding what appeared to be Alexandra’s ivory barrette in his left hand.
Swarzwalder had spun around at the sound of the door opening, and now the two men stood a few feet apart staring at each other in a silent, frozen tableau.
He’d seen Swarzwalder change once before, John thought, but the man standing in front of him now was completely different from any previous incarnation. This man had the same deep blue eyes and longish, straw-colored hair as the giggling David Swarzwalder with whom John was familiar, but all similarity ended there. This man held himself differently; his face was twisted into a fierce grimace of anger and determination. There was death in the gleaming blue eyes.
John had never met a man who actually frightened him. Until now.
The moment of stunned silence was suddenly broken as Swarzwalder, in what seemed to John a single, incredibly swift motion, dropped the barrette beside the suitcase, leaped across the room to slam the door shut, then swung the side of his rigid hand toward John’s throat.
Harry
“Oh, damn,” Harry said, suddenly rising from his seat and clutching at his stomach as the bus reached the end of the steep, winding hotel driveway and rolled onto the narrow highway.
Heads turned in Harry’s direction as he staggered up the aisle toward Maria and Constantina, who now stood and looked at him anxiously.
“Mr. Swarzwalder!” Maria said, gripping one of Harry’s arms while Constantina supported him under the other. “What’s the matter?”
“I’m sorry,” Harry said, shaking his head and wincing as if in pain. He dropped his eyes. “I’m afraid my health isn’t all it could be, as you’ve noticed. Now it’s my ulcer. It always acts up just when I’m about to do something I’ve really looked forward to. I can’t handle excitement. It’s the story of my life.”
Maria frowned and Constantina cooed sympathetically. “Oh, dear,” Maria said. “Isn’t there something we can do? Maybe you’d like to lie down on the back seat for a few minutes?”
Harry moaned softly. “That won’t do any good,” he said forlornly. “I don’t get attacks often, but when I do they’re corkers; they last all day.” He took a deep breath, as if testing, grimaced, and shook his head. “I’m sorry. I have to go back. Would you stop the bus, please?”
Constantina spoke to the driver in Spanish, and the man pulled the bus over to the side of the road. The driver spoke into a microphone on the dashboard and the lead bus pulled over and stopped a hundred feet ahead of them. A few seconds later the ruddy, grim visage of Raul appeared in the rear window of the first bus, popping up in the frame of tinted glass like the specter of a vengeful leprechaun.
“We’re very sorry you’re ill, Mr. Swarzwalder,” Maria said, glancing anxiously back along the narrow highway. “We’ll take you back if you have to return, of course.”
“Oh no, no,” Harry said quickly, patting his stomach as if to reassure the woman. He had scouted the area and chosen his spot carefully. “It’ll be a
lot of trouble to turn the bus around, and it’s only a five-minute walk back to the hotel. I’ll be all right.”
“We can’t just leave you here, Mr. Swarzwalder,” Constantina said. Her tone was sincere, but her eyes betrayed her preference for Harry’s suggestion. “You’re ill.”
Harry appealed to the two women in a conspiratorial whisper. “Please. I’ve had these attacks before, and I know how to deal with them. I don’t want to inconvenience anybody; I have trouble making friends, and I don’t like people to be angry with me.” He stepped down into the stairwell and looked appealingly at the driver. “I’ll be fine, honestly. Please just let me get off.”
Constantina and Maria looked at each other, and Maria spoke to the driver. The driver pushed a chrome lever and the bus door sighed open. Harry stepped out.
“We’ll miss you, Mr. Swarzwalder!” Maria called out. “Be careful walking back!”
“Will do!” Harry shouted, waving and stepping to the side of the road as the bus pulled away. “Enjoy your day!”
As soon as the bus was out of sight, Harry took his hands away from his stomach and stepped into the woods at the side of the highway. He leaned against a tree and slowly smoked a cigarette. He finished it, field-stripped the butt, then lit another.
He was sure that Peters would be forced to go through certain motions in order to keep Alexandra Finway convinced they were searching for an assassin. With half the week gone, a room search, however spotty and incomplete, seemed a logical step, and Harry had reasoned that the best time for the man and woman to conduct such a search would be while the bulk of the group was on the day trip to Peleoro.
Harry took a few minutes to check his “school-pack”: what appeared to be a variety of pens and mechanical pencils clipped to a plastic shield inside his shirt pocket was in fact an array of entry-and-search tools. Satisfied that everything was in order, he checked his watch and lit yet another cigarette. As far as Harry was concerned, the fact that Peters and Alexandra were not on the buses confirmed his suspicion that they had planned something and were on the move inside the hotel. However, he knew he would have to be certain they would be out of their room for a reasonable length of time before he tried to take care of his own business.
He waited a half hour, then cut through the trees toward the hotel.
A narrow, wooded ridge extended almost to the hotel’s south side, and this was the route Harry took. At the end of the ridge he paused just inside the line of trees and stared up at the hotel’s facade of polished, gleaming windows. After five minutes he caught a glimpse of Alexandra Finway on the second floor. Harry watched as she stood at a window for a few minutes, then walked slowly to the opposite end of the corridor and paused there.
They’d begun, Harry thought. Peters was searching rooms while the woman served as a lookout. Harry noted with satisfaction that the man and woman were working in the hotel’s A wing, while their own room was in the B wing. There was a second tour group of East Germans at the hotel, but with typical German cooperation, enthusiasm, and efficiency, the entire group had left for Peleoro an hour and a half earlier. Harry knew there was little chance of his being observed if he took normal precautions.
Satisfied that he had ample time and space in which to operate, Harry waited until the woman’s back was turned, then darted across a short expanse of open ground to a fire exit locked from the inside. He used a flexible steel pick from his schoolpack to unlock the door, hurried down a corridor to the B wing, and bounded up a flight of stairs to the second floor.
He paused in the deserted corridor outside Peters’ and Alexandra Finway’s room, glanced at the lights above the elevator to make certain no one was coming up or down, then took a jeweler’s glass from his pocket. Using his left forearm to brace himself against the door, Harry put his face close to the wood and inspected the entire surface of the door jamb through the loupe, looking for a single hair or trace of talcum powder that, if broken or smudged, would betray the fact that someone had entered the room. However, there was no sign of any tripping device, and Harry used his pick to enter the room.
Peters’ attack on John Finway had given Harry an idea of what equipment to look for, and he immediately went to the large portable radio set on a nightstand next to the bed nearest the door. He leaned over and examined the exterior surface of the radio, but did not touch it.
Peters was a professional, Harry thought, and a good one. Such men normally took certain precautions, no matter how secure they might feel. Surprised and made suspicious by the lack of some kind of a warning device on the door, he again used his loupe to examine the back of the radio before touching it. The inspection saved his life, for he quickly found three tiny needles that had been spring-loaded into specially made pockets in the plastic bordering the snap-off access plate. On the tip of each needle was a dull brown stain that could have been cyanide but that Harry suspected was a liquid form of one of the new binary nerve gases, probably Sarin, which required only a drop on the flesh to immobilize virtually instantaneously and kill within seconds.
He tore off a strip of rough, grayish toilet paper from a roll in the bathroom, then went back into the bedroom and carefully removed the needles, setting them on the tissue so as to be able to find them easily when he was finished. Then he opened the back of the radio. He moved the wires aside with the tip of the lockpick, then used a small pencil flashlight from his pack to look inside. He immediately recognized that the radio served as a kind of all-purpose electronics tool box, with dozens of components housed in black plastic pockets that had been glued between and around the regular circuit boards to make them appear part of the radio itself. Harry knew he would not be able to determine the function of all the components, even if he had the time to remove and examine them, but he did not have to. It was enough for him to recognize that a small, short-range transmitter had been welded next to the standard receiver component.
Harry snapped the access plate back onto the radio, replaced the poisoned needles in their spring cases, then carefully put the radio back in the position he had found it.
Harry considered the possibility that Peters used the transmitter to relay messages to an accomplice, but rejected the idea. If Peters did have to communicate with anyone, Harry thought, it would be easier, and probably safer, to use coded messages, or even simple hand and body signals. Besides, Harry had come to believe that Peters was working alone.
To Harry it meant that the transmitter would be used to detonate explosives, most likely plastique. It remained for him to find the plastic explosives, he thought, and, if he were really lucky, unearth some clue to the organization that had given Peters his contract. He doubted that he would be that fortunate, but was unconcerned; his primary responsibility was to abort the assassination. Once that was assured, he would have some breathing room and could turn his attention to the problem of putting Peters and his employers out of the assassination business. It had occurred to him that it might be enough simply to make Peters permanently disappear; a vanished assassin would certainly keep the people on the other end looking over their shoulders for some time.
He had already begun to suspect what form the plastic explosives would take; the shape he had in mind would explain the curious game Peters had been running on Alexandra Finway. Even so, a cold shudder passed through him when he found what he was looking for.
Harry was not fooled by the smooth, ivory feel of the object. When he held it up to the light and examined the edges through his loupe, he confirmed the fact that the surface was in fact a thin plastic shell made of very hard plastic. The plastique had been molded, weighted, hardened, and stained to match the barrette Alexandra Finway wore in her hair. Pressure at its base caused the steel hasp holding the needle in place to move back, exposing a small cavity designed to accept a miniature transistorized receiver that would trigger the explosives when activated by a specific radio signal.
The amount of plastique was not sufficient to kill anyone beyond a range of a few y
ards, Harry thought, which would mean a reservoir of the liquid nerve gas inside. The shell would be variegated on the inside surface, and at the moment of explosion thousands of tiny, deadly slivers would whistle through the arena, bringing death to anyone they touched. All Peters would need was a single instant when there was a reasonable range of perhaps twenty or thirty yards and a clear sightline between Manuel Salva and the back of Alexandra Finway’s head …
Rick Peters was a real prince, Harry thought as he stared at the deadly barrette and felt a wave of revulsion sweep through him. Salva would be gone, all right, along with Alexandra Finway’s head and perhaps a hundred other people. Peters, standing a safe distance away, would escape in the ensuing confusion, probably by way of a high-speed boat that would be waiting for him in the harbor.
The man was a psychopath, Harry thought, and he was going to take real pleasure in killing him. It was a good last job to round out his field career before slipping into an Administration post.
The sound of the door opening behind him struck Harry’s senses with the impact of a gunshot. He spun, ready to attack, then froze when he saw John Finway. Harry could not understand what Finway was doing in the room, but he knew that any hope he’d harbored that his last field task would go smoothly, without the kind of kinks that could torment even the toughest operative in his old age, was gone forever.
In the second or two that the men stood and stared at each other, Harry’s mind raced, frantically searching for alternatives to the terrible action that he knew he should—must—take. He could try to explain the truth to Finway, he thought, but he knew there was no reason why Finway should believe him. He could show Finway the barrette that was plastique, but Finway might well conclude that he was in the room trying to plant it himself.
Turn Loose the Dragons Page 17