Death of the Falcon

Chapter 13

Sherima found the negligee she had worn when they had carried her off, but not her mink coat. We decided that someone probably had taken it away after they moved her into the basement. She couldn’t remember much of what happened, probably because the tranquilizers Candy had given her were of much greater potency than she had supposed.

It was hard to keep my eyes from enjoying the golden curves of Sherima’s diminutive figure under the filmy lingerie as she hastily, told me that she recalled, vaguely, being awakened abruptly by Abdul, who told her something about somebody trying to harm her, and that he had to take her away, obviously without anyone knowing about it. One of his men must have been with him, because she had a recollection of two people supporting her as she got in the limousine.

Beyond that point, she remembered nothing else, except waking later to find herself tied to the wall, nude. The one whose name we now knew was Mustapha had been running his hands over her body. She obviously didn’t want to talk about that part of her ordeal and passed over it quickly, going on to explain that Abdul eventually had arrived with Selim from the embassy. Her former bodyguard hadn’t bothered to answer her questions and just laughed when she ordered him to set her free.

“He just said that soon I wouldn’t have anything more to worry about,” Sherima recalled with a shudder, “and I knew what he meant.”

As she talked, I examined the Sword and found that he was still out cold. I tore a strip from the bottom of Sherima’s negligee and bound up his wounds to stop the blood that still oozed from them. He would live, if I could get him out of there soon and he received medical attention. But it was obvious he wouldn’t be able to do much anymore with his hands, even if his wrists were rebuilt. And extensive surgery would be needed to turn those shattered kneecaps into something that might permit him to even drag himself around as a cripple.

I didn’t know how long Mustapha would wait outside, knowing that his leader had become my prisoner. If he were as fanatical as most of the Sword’s men, I figured, he wouldn’t do the sensible thing and make a getaway. His only two courses of action would be either to try to get in and rescue Abdul, or sit there and wait for me to try to get out.

I slipped out of my jacket, then told Sherima, “Get down behind that desk again. I’m going to open the door and see what our friend does. He may just come in shooting, and where you’re standing now is right in the line of fire.”

When she was out of sight, I flicked the switch that moved the concrete panel. The few seconds it took to open seemed like hours and I stayed pressed against the wall, my Luger ready. Nothing happened, however, and I had to find out if the assassin was still lurking in the outer basement.

Draping my jacket over the barrel of the empty automatic rifle, I edged my way up to the door frame just as it started to swing shut again. Thrusting, the jacket through the narrowing opening, I watched it being torn away from the muzzle of the rifle at the same time I heard two little plops from outside. I jerked the rifle back before the heavy door sealed us in once more.

“Well, he’s still there, and it looks like he’s not coming in,” I said more to myself than anyone else. Sherima heard me and stuck her head up over the edge of the desk.

“What are we going to do, Nick?” she asked. “We can’t stay here, can we?”

She didn’t know how imperative it was that we get out of there as quickly as possible; I hadn’t taken time to explain about her ex-husband and the deadline for raising him on the radio.

“We’ll get out Don’t worry,” I assured her, not knowing myself just how we were going to do it.

A sensible person, she kept quiet as I pondered my next move. I was visualizing the portion of the basement that lay outside the doorway. The washer-dryer combination was too far from the door to offer any cover if I risked making a break. The oil burner was against the far wall, near the stairway. It was my guess that Mustapha probably had concealed himself under the steps. From there, he could keep the doorway covered and still be out of sight in case of a surprise assault from above.

I looked around the CIA’s hideout, hoping to spot something that might help me. One corner of the big room had been walled off to form a small cubicle with its own door. I had assumed earlier that it probably was a bathroom; and crossing to the door, I opened it to find I was right. It held a sink, a toilet, a mirrored medicine cabinet and a stall shower with a plastic curtain across it. The accommodations were simple, but most of the CIA’s guests were short-term ones and likely hadn’t expected quarters to rival those at the Watergate.

Not really expecting to find anything of value to me, I automatically checked out the medicine cabinet. It was well provisioned, if the person using the hideout were a man. The triple shelves were stocked with toiletries — a safety razor, an aerosol can of shaving cream, a bottle of Old Spice lotion, Bandaids and adhesive tape, plus an assortment of cold pills and antacids, similar to those on the shelves in the bathroom that had been used by the dead agent upstairs. Make that in the limousine trunk outside, since the Sword’s henchman obviously had finished playing undertaker overhead.

I started to walk out of the bathroom, then turned back as an idea hit me. Working feverishly, I made several trips between the bathroom and the secret doorway, stacking what I needed on the floor beside it. When I was ready, I called Sherima out of her hiding place and briefed her on what she had to do, then shoved the desk across the tiled floor to a spot near the switch that operated the door.

“Okay, this is it,” I said and she took up her position beside the desk. “Do you know how to use this?” I handed her Candy’s little gun.

She nodded. “Hassan insisted that I learn how to shoot after the second attack on his life,” she said. “I got pretty good at it, too, especially with my gun.” Her training showed as she checked to see if the pistol were loaded. “It was just like this one. Hassan gave me one and its twin, this one, to Candy. He made her learn how to shoot, too. He never expected that someday—” Her eyes started to fill with tears and she stopped talking.

“No time for that now, Sherima,” I said.

She sniffed the tears back, nodding, then bent and scooped up her negligee to wipe them away. At any other moment, I would have appreciated the view, but now I turned to get ready for our escape attempt.

Picking up the shaving foam can, I took off the top and pressed the nozzle sideways to make certain there was plenty of pressure in the can. The whoosh of the erupting lather told me it seemed to be a new one.

The shower curtain came next. Wrapping the cheap plastic sheeting around the shaving cream container, I made a wad about the size o? a basketball, then secured it lightly with strips of adhesive tape, making certain it wasn’t packed too tightly, because I wanted air to get between the folds of the curtain. Hefting it in my right hand, I decided it was controllable enough for my purposes.

“Now,” I said, holding out my right arm to Sherima.

She took one of the two spare rolls of toilet paper that I had scrounged off a shelf in the bathroom, and while I held it in place, began winding adhesive tape around it, securing it to the inside of my right arm just above the wrist. When it seemed solidly fixed, she did the same thing with the second roll, fastening it along my arm just above the other one. By the time she was finished, I had about four inches of makeshift padding along the entire inside of my arm above the wrist to the elbow. Not enough to stop a bullet, I knew, but, hopefully, of a thickness that might deflect a slug or greatly lessen its impact.

“I guess that’s it,” I told her, looking around to make certain my other equipment was handy. Suddenly, I stopped short, amazed at my own shortsightedness. “Matches,” I said, looking helplessly at her.

I knew there were none in my pockets, so I ran to the dead Karim’s side and searched his with my free left hand. No matches. The same was true for Abdul, who groaned as I rolled him over to finger through his pockets.

“Nick! Here!”

I turned to Sherima who had been rummaging through the desk drawers. She was holding out one of those disposable lighters. “Does it work?” I asked.

She flicked the wheel; when nothing happened she groaned, in frustration, not pain.

“You have to hold down that little catch at the same time,” I said, running to her side as I realized she probably hadn’t seen many such lighters in Adabi. She tried again and couldn’t make it work. I took it from her and flicked the wheel. The flame sprang to life and I blessed the unknown smoker who had forgotten his lighter.

I kissed Sherima lightly on the cheek for luck as I said, “Let’s get out of here.” She reached for the door switch as I moved back into position, picking up my basketball bomb in my right hand and holding the lighter in the other.

“Now!”

She hit the switch and then dropped to the floor behind the desk, gun clutched in her fist. I waited for the whirr of the motor to begin, and when it did, thumbed the lighter. As the door began to swing out, I touched the flame to the plastic wad in my hand. It caught fire immediately, and by the time the door was half open, I had’ a blazing ball in my hand. Stepping up to a point just inside the door frame, I stuck my arm around the opening and heaved the flaming orb toward the spot where I thought Mustapha had to be hidden.

He had turned out the lights in the basement so as to silhouette anyone coming through the door with the glow from inside. The move worked to his disadvantage, instead; when the flaming wad of plastic suddenly appeared in the darkness, it temporarily blinded him enough to throw off his aim as he fired at my arm.

One of the .38 slugs tore along the top of the toilet paper roll Closest to my wrist. The second hit the roll nearer to my elbow, was deflected slightly, and ripped through the fleshy part of my arm there. I jerked back my hand as blood started to pour from the angry rip across my arm.

I couldn’t stop to staunch it. Grabbing the automatic rifle from where I had leaned it against the wall, I jammed it between the door frame and the massive panel itself. I had counted on the door being delicately counter-balanced, so that the rifle would be solid enough to keep it from closing.

There was no time to see if it was going to work. I had to put the next part of my plan into operation. Since I wasn’t about to stick my head around the door frame to see how effective my lob shot with a ball of fire had been, I used the mirrored door I had removed from the bathroom medicine cabinet. Angling it around the frame and fully expecting my makeshift periscope to be cracked by Mustapha’s next bullet, I took a look at the scene outside.

I had missed my target, the recess behind the basement stairway. Instead, the homemade fireball had landed beside the oil burner. As I watched, Mustapha, obviously fearing that the big heating unit might explode, darted from his hiding place and scooped up the still blazing bundle in both hands, keeping it at arm’s length so the flames wouldn’t singe him. That meant he either had discarded his gun or jammed it back under his belt. I didn’t wait to see anymore. Dropping the mirror, I drew my Luger and stepped outside, realizing as I did that my rifle wedge had been successful in keeping the concrete-sheathed door from closing.

Mustapha still held the ball of fire, looking desperately around the basement for some place to throw it. Then he spotted me standing before him with a gun leveled, and his already frightened eyes widened further. I could tell he was going to throw the flaming wad at me, so I squeezed the trigger. I never got a chance to see if I hit him.

The crack of my Luger was lost in the explosion that engulfed the Sword’s co-conspirator. I don’t know whether my slug detonated the pressurized shaving cream can, or if the heat from the blazing plastic touched off the bomb. Maybe it was a combination of both. Mustapha had raised the bundle to toss it my way and the blast caught him full in the face. Knocked to my knees by the force of the explosion, I watched as his features disintegrated. Just as the cellar went dark again — the explosion snuffed out the flames — it appeared to me as if the killer’s eyeballs had turned to liquid and were streaming down his cheeks.

Shaken, but unhurt, I stumbled to my feet and heard Sherima screaming inside the room that had been her torture chamber not long before.

“Nick! Nick! Are you all right? What happened?”

I stepped back into the doorway so she could see me.

“Score two points for our team,” I said. “Now help me get this stuff off my arm. Everything’s going to be all right.”