Simon Spalding held the gun very steady. Behind him, Rand thought he could hear the sound of the bald man snoring. “If what you say is true, why would I change my mind after giving Barnes the interview?”
“Because the Speculator gave you a column.”
His face had become a frozen mask. “How could you know that?”
“Magda Barnes remembers you at the house in 1981, around the time of Sadat’s assassination. You told me last evening they took you off the European desk and gave you the column in ‘81. Did you desert Communism for a newspaper column, Simon?”
“That’s what Barnes asked me! I should have killed him before his tongue got loose and he started those rumors. I thought I’d put it all behind me, especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union.”
Rand reached out his hand. “Give me the gun. It’s much too late in the game to be shooting people.”
Spalding raised the pistol, to fire or to surrender it. Rand would never know which. There was a low cough from behind the man’s chair and a flower of blood burst from his chest. His head went back and he lay there dead.
The bald man was Shirley Watkins, and the silenced pistol was out of sight before Rand ever saw it. “Thought you might need help from that bastard,” he said. “Hated to put a hole through the chair, though.”
“You were already here when we entered,” Rand protested.
“Saw him waving his cigar around the dining room. Knew you’d head this way.”
He stared at the body, and then at Shirley. “You really are an assassin.”
“I was once, in my younger days.”
Rand stared at the body. “What do we do now?”
“Forget it ever happened. I’ll handle everything. If that tape is what you say, the whole thing will be hushed up. This is the Old Spies Club, remember?”
Rand caught the evening train home.
The Old Spies Club Page 3