Death of the Falcon

Chapter 12

Abdul got busy planting his forged CIA notes as soon as Selim was gone. The angry-faced Mustapha Bey kept the gun trained on me, only occasionally shifting his gaze for a moment to dart glances at the bare body of his former Queen. Somehow, I knew that he was the one who had molested her while she hung on the ropes that held her arms wide and her legs open. I felt certain, too, that he and his now-dead companion had probably had strict orders from the Sword not to rape their captive. Any such sexual assault would have shown up in the autopsy, and I didn’t think that the Sword wanted that kind of complication. The killing had to be neat, as if it had been carried out by CIA professionals.

I hadn’t quite figured out how the Sword was going to explain the difference in the times of death between the corpses upstairs and Sherima. Then it struck me that those bodies weren’t going to be found in the house. All he had to do was to say that he broke in and found the secret door open and Sherima’s body lying in the hidden room. He also could say that he saw one or two people drive away as he arrived in the limousine. Or he could open the trunk of the Mustang in the garage, then tell the police that somebody ran away when he drove up. The logical assumption would be that the killer was getting ready to carry off Sherima’s body when her bodyguard got there and frightened him.

I wondered where I fitted into his plan. Then I realized that I was going to be the dead man who would help make Abdul’s story even more air-tight, and I knew why I wasn’t to be killed with the automatic rifle. I had to die with a bullet from the same gun that killed Sherima. Abdul could say he brought me along to the house to search for her, and the man who ran away from the garage when we arrived had fired one more shot before he fled, which hit me. Abdul would pretend not to know that I was from the Executive Protection Service — as he now thought I was — and explain that I was just someone who had been friendly to Sherima, whom he had asked for help.

His story wouldn’t stand up, of course, as far as any official investigation went. But would the government be able to convince Shah Hassan that our story simply wasn’t a cover-up of the CIA’s involvement in her murder? And any exposure of my true identity as an AXE agent would only make the whole situation even more complicated and suspicious. After all, I had been sticking pretty close to the former Queen almost since her arrival in Washington. How could that be explained to the man who loved her?

As my mind raced over the complexities of the plot, I had been watching Candy. She had sat down on the bed and seemed to avoid looking at me or Sherima. I don’t think she had expected to see her former friend stripped and cruelly bound. I had figured out that the rope marks on her wrists and ankles were to be passed off as part of the CIA’s torture to try to get the former Queen to change her mind about spilling the beans concerning its purported plotting in Adabi.

By that time, Abdul had finished stashing away the forged notes. He came over to my guard and started issuing orders in Arabic. “Go upstairs and bring the two bodies to the side door. Then back the limousine up as close to the door as you can. Open the trunk and load them in. Be sure no one sees you do it. Then come back down here for Karim. Unfortunately, he must ride with the capitalist pigs. And there will be one more passenger for the trunk, so make certain there is room.”

I was the only one who could hear what the Sword was telling his man, and his words implied something I hadn’t thought about until that moment. If Sherima and I were to be found dead on the scene, then the only other “passenger” for the trunk had to be Candy! And I guessed what was on the “other paper” the forger Selim had completed and the contents of which he had avoided mentioning. I was sure it painted Candy as the CIA’s link to Sherima, and thereby, to Shah Hassan. This part of Abdul’s plan was enhanced by the fact that her disappearance at the time of Sherima’s death would look even more suspicious if the CIA couldn’t produce her to refute the evidence concocted by the Sword.

When Mustapha was gone and the massive door cut off all sound again, I said, “Candy, tell me something. When did you get Abdul to join you in seeking revenge on Shah Hassan?”

“Why? What does it matter?” She had looked up at me to answer, then turned away again.

“I figure it was about the time the word got out about the divorce and Sherima returning to the States, right?”

The hazel eyes searched my face, and she finally nodded, then said, “I guess it was about then. Why?”

Abdul didn’t say anything, but his black, hawklike eyes darted from her to me as I continued talking, hoping as I did so that he was too tense to notice that I’d never raised my hands again after throwing the car keys to him.

“What did he say?” I asked, then answered my own question. “I’ll bet it was something like he’d finally realized that you were right. That Hassan was a bad man who wasn’t really helping his people, but just piling up wealth for himself and giving away a few schools and hospitals to keep the people quiet.”

Her face told me I’d hit the mark, but she wasn’t ready to admit it, not even to herself. “Abdul showed me the proof of it! He showed me the records from a Swiss bank. Do you know that good old philanthropic Hassan has over one hundred million dollars deposited there? How’s that for helping himself instead of his country?”

Sherima had come alive again and had been listening to our conversation. Once more, she tried to convince Candy that she was wrong about her former husband. “That’s not so, Candy,” she said quietly. “The only money that Hassan ever sent out of Adabi was to pay for equipment that was needed by our people. That, and the money he deposited in Zurich for you and me.”

“That’s how much you know about your precious Hassan,” Candy shouted at her. “Abdul showed me the records, and that’s when he suggested how we could destroy him by using you.”

“The records could have been forged, Candy,” I said. “You saw tonight what an expert Selim is at that kind of thing. Bank records would have been much easier to create than coded CIA notes.”

Candy looked from me to Abdul, but found no relief from the doubts I was planting in his expression. “Abdul wouldn’t do that,” she said vehemently. “He helped me because he loved me, if you must know!”

I shook my head. “Think about it, Candy. Would a man who loved you allow you to go to bed with someone else — order you to do it — like you did?”

“It was necessary, wasn’t it, Abdul?” Candy said, almost crying as she turned to him for assistance. “Tell him how you explained that he had to be kept occupied for the night so you could get Sherima, that there was only one way to keep a man like him busy. Tell him, Abdul.” The last three words were a plea for help that went unanswered as Abdul said nothing. A savagely tight smile was fixed on his face; he knew what I was trying to do and didn’t care, because he felt it was too late to change anything.

“I can’t buy that, Candy,” I said, shaking my head slowly again. “Don’t forget, you already knew what kind of a man I was. You and I were together before Abdul even knew about me. He had gone off to Alexandria with Sherima before I met you that first night. You remember that night, don’t you?”

“That was just because I was so lonesome!” She was sobbing now, looking wildly at Abdul. Apparently, she hadn’t told him everything about her initial meeting with me. “Abdul and I hadn’t had a chance to be together for months. There was so much to do getting ready to leave Sidi Hassan. And then all the time we were in London I had to be with Sherima because she was acting like such a baby. Abdul, it was nothing that first night with him. You have to believe me. It was just that I needed someone. You know how I am.”

She started to run to him, but he backed up so that he could keep an eye on me. “Stay there, my dear,” he said sharply, stopping her. “Don’t get between Mr. Carter and my friend here.” He motioned with the gun. “That is just what he wants you to do.”

“Then it’s all right? You do understand, Abdul?” She brushed away the tears. “Tell me it’s all right, darling.”

“Yes, Abdul,” I prodded him, “do tell her everything.

Tell her all about the Silver Scimitar and how you’re the Sword of Allah who’s been leading the most vicious pack of killers in the world. Tell her about all the innocent II people you’ve sacrificed to try to take over control of the entire Mideast. And be sure to tell her how she’s the next one to be sacrificed.”

“That’s enough, Mr. Carter,” he said coldly at the same time Candy asked, “What is he talking about, Abdul? What about the Silver Scimitar and what about me being the next sacrifice?”

“Later, my dear,” he said, watching me intently. “I’ll explain it all as soon as Mustapha returns. We have much to do yet.”

“That’s right, Candy,” I said harshly. “You will find out when Mustapha gets back. Right now, he’s loading the trunk of the Cadillac with the bodies of the two people upstairs. Then he’s to come back for Karim there on the floor. And he’s saving space for you in the trunk, too. Right, Abdul? Or do you prefer the Sword of Allah, now that your moment of triumph is so close at hand?”

“Yes, Mr. Carter, I think I do,” he said. Then he turned slightly toward Candy, whose hands had gone to her face in horror at my words. She stared at him unbelievingly as he turned to her and continued in an icily brutal tone, “Unfortunately, my dear, Mr. Carter is very correct. Your usefulness to me ended as soon as you made it possible for me to make the former Queen my prisoner and lured Mr. Carter here. As for you, Mr. Carter,” he went on, turning back to me, “I think you have said enough. Now please remain silent or I shall be forced to use this rifle, even though it would entail a change in my plans.”

The tipoff that I had been right about the Sword intention of using my corpse as the best piece of evidence to support his story — that he and I had tried to rescue Sherima — made me a bit more daring in the face of the automatic weapon. He would fire it at me only as a last resort, I decided, and I hadn’t forced him to that point yet. I wanted to keep talking to Candy despite his threats, so I said:

“You see, Candy, there are people who make love for mutual pleasure, such as you and I experienced, and there are people like Abdul, here, who make love out of hate to achieve their own ends. Abdul became your lover when he was ready to use you and not before, the way I figure it.”

She lifted a tearstained face and looked toward me without seeing. “Up to that time, we’d just been friends. He’d come around and we’d talk about my father and how terrible it was for Hassan to be responsible for his death, to save his own greedy life. Then, finally, he told me he had loved me for a long time and… and I’d been so careful for such a long time, and—” She suddenly realized what she was revealing about herself and looked guiltily toward Sherima, then back to me.

I suspected that long ago she had confided to her old friend about the intense search for satisfaction that once had driven her from man to man. But she had no way of knowing I was aware of her nymphomania. Now it was obvious that, having started to admit it in front of me, she had become embarrassed. More importantly, I was conscious of the passage of time and Mustapha’s impending return to the concealed room. I had to make a move before that, and letting Candy get involved in a discussion of her affair with Abdul wasn’t going to do anything but use up valuable minutes.

Taking a chance that the crafty Arab’s plotting went way back, I asked her, “Did Abdul ever tell you that he was the one who planned the assassination attempt in which your father died? Or that the killer never was supposed to get to the Shah. Isn’t that right?” I prodded him, while Candy and Sherima both gaped in shock and disbelief. “Wasn’t he just somebody else you used, intending to shoot him down before he got close enough to actually knife Hassan? You knew that saving the Shah’s life would win you his trust since he was that kind of man. Not only that, if Hassan had been slain then, his people would have wiped out everyone connected with the assassination, and it probably would have meant the end of your Silver Scimitar movement. You weren’t powerful enough to ask for help from the rest of the Arab world.”

The Sword didn’t answer, but I could see his finger tightening again on the rifle trigger. I was pretty sure I had guessed right, but I didn’t know how far I could go before those bullets would start spewing out at me. I had to take it one step more to try to spur Candy into action.

“See how quiet the great man is now, Candy?” I said. “I’m right and he won’t admit it, but he’s really the one responsible for your father’s death, and furthermore—”

“Nick, you are right!” Sherima exclaimed, interrupting me. Abdul took his eyes off me for an instant to glance her way, but the cold gaze came back onto me before there was time to jump him.

Her voice full of excitement, Sherima kept on talking: “I just remembered something that Hassan said when he was telling me about the attempt on his life. It didn’t register then, but what you just said recalls it — makes it fit logically. He said that it was too bad that Abdul Bedawi had thought he’d had to push Mr. Knight in front of the assassin before he shot him down. That Abdul already had his gun out and probably could have shot him without trying to create a diversion by shoving Mr. Knight. It was Abdul who sacrificed your father, Candy, not His Highness!”

It was impossible for the Sword to watch all three of us. He was concentrating on Sherima and her story and on me, for obvious reasons. If Candy hadn’t cried out in pain and rage when she turned to grab for her gun on the bed, he wouldn’t have swung on her fast enough. She’d barely raised the little pistol waist high when the heavy slugs began stitching their way across her chest, then back across her face as Abdul reversed the path of his bullet-spewing gun. Miniature fountains of blood erupted from countless holes in her beautiful breasts and erupted from the hazel eyes that would narrow no more in passion as she teased her lover to endless climax.

One of Abdul’s first bullets had knocked Candy’s pistol from her hand and sent it spinning along the floor. I dived for it as he kept on holding back the rifle’s trigger, viciously keeping the stream of bullets following the pathetic target that jerked and twisted from the impact, even as the once lovely redhead was thrown backward onto the bed. His slugs sought out and made hate-filled love up and down her legs.

I was just about to scoop up Candy’s gun — a .25-caliber Beretta Model 20—when my movements apparently caught his attention. The heavy rifle arched in my direction. Triumph glinted in his eyes and I could see that madness and a lust for power had swept away all thought of his need for my corpse later. The time was now, and a smile crossed his face as he sighted the barrel deliberately at my groin.

“Never again, Mr. Carter,” he said, his trigger finger going white from the pressure as he pulled it back further and further until it would move no more. His face suddenly paled as he realized with horror, at the same moment I did, that the rifle clip was empty, its deadly contents spent in a macabre intercourse with a corpse.

I had to laugh at his unintentional use of the international Jewish slogan which protested that the horror that had once engulfed European Jews would never be repeated. “You could get thrown out of the Arab League for saying that,” I told him as I grabbed up the Beretta and leveled it at his stomach.

Candy’s death obviously hadn’t sated the rage that had gripped him; reason was gone from his head as he cursed and threw the rifle at me. I sidestepped it and gave him time to jerk back his tight jacket and pull out the gun I had known for so long was holstered there. Then it was my turn to squeeze a trigger. The Model 20 is noted for its accuracy, and the slug shattered his wrist bone just as I expected it to do.

He cursed again, looking down at the twitching fingers that couldn’t hold onto the gun. It hit the floor at an angle and we both watched, momentarily immobile and fascinated, as it spun briefly at his feet. He was the first to move, and I waited again as his left hand clawed for the heavy automatic. When he got it almost waist high, Candy’s Beretta barked a second time, and he had another splintered wrist; again the automatic crashed to the floor.

Like a man gone berserk, the Sword advanced on me, his hands flapping uselessly at the ends of massive arms that reached out to enfold me in what I knew would be a bone-crushing bear hug. I wasn’t about to risk his reaching me. The second crack of the Beretta sounded like an echo of the sharp retort that preceeded it by a second.

Abdul screamed twice as the bullets tore into his kneecaps, then another shriek tore from his throat as he slumped forward and landed on the knees that already were sending knife-sharp streaks of pain through him. Driven by a brain that no longer was functioning logically, he pulled himself up on his elbows and began to inch his way toward me, across the linoleum tiles. Obscenities poured from his twisted lips like bile until he finally sprawled at my feet, mumbling unintelligibly.

I turned away and walked to Sherima’s side, suddenly aware that her screams, which had begun as the Sword’s bullets ripped Candy apart, had subsided into deep, rasping sobs. Shifting gun hands so I would be ready in case the secret door started to open, I unsheathed my stiletto and cut the first of her bonds. As her arm dropped, lifeless, to her side, she became aware of my presence and lifted her bowed head. She looked at me, then at the Sword groaning in pain on the floor, and I could see her throat muscles tighten to hold back her reflex to gag.

“Good girl,” I said as she fought off throwing up. “I’ll have you loose in a minute.”

She shuddered and, involuntarily, started to look toward the bed. I moved in front of her to obstruct the view of the blood-covered woman she loved like a sister, as my blade freed her other arm. She fell forward on my chest, the top of her head just brushing my chin, and choked out, “Oh, Nick… Candy… Candy… It’s my fault… It’s my fault…”

“No it isn’t,” I said, trying to comfort her at the same time I was supporting her with one arm and squatting to cut the ropes around her ankles. Severing the last brutal binding, I stood back up and held her close, saying soothingly, “It isn’t anyone’s fault. Candy couldn’t help herself. Abdul had her convinced that Hassan was responsible—”

“No! No! No! You don’t understand,” she sobbed leaning back to pound her tiny clenched fists on my chest. “It’s my fault she’s dead. If I hadn’t told that lie about remembering what Hassan had said, she wouldn’t have tried to kill Abdul, and… and that never would have happened.” She forced herself to look at the horrible crimson drenched figure sprawled on the bed.

“That was a lie?” I asked, incredulous. “But I’m sure that’s just what happened. It was the kind of thing Abdul would do,” I motioned with the Beretta toward the Sword, who was lying still. I couldn’t tell whether or not he had passed out. If not, he gave no indication he had heard what Sherima was telling me. “What made you say it, if it never happened?”

“I could see that you were trying to upset him or distract him so you could perhaps jump him and take his gun away. I thought that if I said what I did, he might look my way, or maybe come after me, and you would have your chance. I never thought that Candy would. Her body convulsed in spasms of wracking sobs again, but I didn’t have time to comfort her. Over the sound of her crying I had heard something else, the whirr of an electric motor, and my brain had whirred with it, remembering the noise that marked the first time I’d opened the door to the CIA hideaway.

There was no time to be gentle. I shoved Sherima toward the desk and hoped that her legs had regained enough circulation to hold her up. As I spun toward the opening, I saw her, out of the corner of my eye, falling partially behind the cover I had intended her to take.

That’s when I discovered that the Sword had been feigning unconsciousness. Before the massive concrete barrier was open far enough for his man to walk into the room, he was on his elbows again and shouting a warning in Arabic:

“Mustapha Bey! Danger! Carter has the gun! Watch out!”

I flicked a glance in his direction just as he collapsed on the tiles again. The effort to warn his gunman had taken the last of the strength that was ebbing from him as the blood seeped from his wounds. Tense, I waited for the killer to come through the doorway. He didn’t appear, however, and the motor that operated the heavy panel completed its cycle as the door started to close again. A whoosh of air told me when it had sealed off the hideout. We were safe inside, but I knew I had to get out. I looked at my watch. Six-twenty. Hard to believe that so much had happened since six o’clock, when the Sword had dispatched his henchman Selim back to the embassy. Even more difficult to believe was the fact that I had to get Sherima out of there and have her at the Secretary of State’s pied-a-terre in just about ninety minutes.

Selim, I knew, had instructions not to contact his cohorts in Sidi Hassan until he heard from the Sword. I had delayed that part of the plan, all right, but there was no way I could stop the Shah from expecting Sherima’s voice over the radio. And ready to keep me from getting her there was a professional killer. I had his automatic rifle, but still unaccounted for was the silencer-equipped .38 that very efficiently had knocked off two CIA agents with well-placed shots. I had him outweighed with firepower, having also retrieved my Luger, but he had the advantage of being able to wait for me to come out the only exit from the hidden room. Also, I had a deadline to meet, and he didn’t.

I should have had help waiting outside — Hawk’s men must have arrived by now — but they would be under orders not to interfere unless it appeared obvious I needed assistance. And there was no way of communicating with them from a soundproof room.

My contemplation of the odds facing me was suddenly interrupted by a quivering voice behind me: “Nick, is it all right to come out now?”

I had forgotten the former Queen, whom I had shoved roughly to the floor. “Yes, Your Highness,” I told her, chuckling. “And for Pete’s sake, find your clothes. I have enough on my mind without being distracted by your loveliness.”

After I said it I was sorry I had used the word lovely.

It brought back memories of the beautiful woman who had laughed and loved with me, and who was now a bullet-butchered hunk of meat in the corner. It was my turn to hold down the gorge rising inside me.