Scimitar

11

There were people in Washington, D.C., who believed there was no such thing as the CIA. These people reasonably surmised that any intelligence agency so blatantly blundering had to be a cover for America’s real spy network. Alex Nichols didn’t work in Washington, but he was one of those people. Moreover, he worked for the CIA.

His recruitment had taken place on a bright fall day at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, the clock tower bonging the hour, playhouse posters announcing the arrival of a PTP play starring James Whitmore and Audra Lindley. Something called The Magician. Or The Conjuror. Or The Illusionist. Something like that. Young Alex — he was only twenty-one at the time — noticed the posters only peripherally. His head was full of visions of derring-do, a spy! He could hardly wait to tell his mother.

That was twenty-three years ago. Alex was now forty-four, and more convinced than ever that he was merely part of a gigantic cover operation that concealed a spy mechanism too awesome to behold. The two men with him today in the New York field office were also part of the cover. They could not possibly have been as stupid as they seemed. This was all a masquerade. Outside the office, the first day of July had announced its arrival in a determinedly sizzling fashion. The men were in their shirtsleeves. It was nine o’clock in the morning. They were here to discuss the letter on Alex’s desk.

“It’s obviously a fake,” Peggot said.

Moss Peggot, unfortunately named in that his features were somewhat porcine and spooks everywhere around him called him “Miss Piggy,” albeit behind his back. A measure of his quality as a spy was that he still didn’t know about the nickname. Short and squat, the armpits of his shirt stained with sweat, his face florid and damp, he looked to Alex for approval. Alex was his boss.

“I’ll bet Moss is right,” Templeton said.

Conrad Templeton, a spy who dressed like a college professor in the vain hope that anyone on his trail would accept him as a professor of English literature at Columbia University, where in fact he did teach a course on Milton. Were it not for the heat, he would be in tweeds and a ratty wool cardigan sweater. Then again, the school term would not begin till September. Not to be denied, he was puffing on a pipe. Professor Conrad Templeton. You could’ve fooled me, Alex thought.

The letter on his desk looked genuine enough:

April 10, 1986

Dear Mr. President:

I have now carefully studied the intelligence reports supplied by Mr. Casey and have met with Colonel North and heard his views on the meetings of the Crisis Pre-Planning Group. There is now no doubt in my mind that:

1) Libya provided the passports, money and terrorist training for the two airport attacks in December of last year, one in Rome, the other in Vienna. Five American civilians were killed in those attacks, one of them an eleven-year-old girl.

2) Intercepted telephone calls to Tripoli from the People’s Bureau in East Berlin, prior to and immediately following the bombing of the La Belle Discotheque in West Berlin on April 4 this year, constitute irrefutable “smoking-gun” evidence that the bombing was planned and executed by Libyans working for the People’s Bureau in East Berlin, under direct orders from Colonel Muammar Quaddafi. One American was killed and twenty-three other Americans injured in the attack.

3) There is now hard and convincing evidence that Quaddafi divulged to President Megistu of Ethiopia his plan to have the President of the United States killed while traveling in a presidential convoy. CIA reports confirm that Libyan hit teams operating on a “stray dog” basis have targeted the President of the United States for assassination.

Given the failure of the economic sanctions imposed upon Libya in January of this year, having carefully studied the reports cited above as well as those of my own Task Force on Combating Terrorism, it is now my duty and obligation to ask that you disregard the CIA’s advice against seeking the removal of Colonel Quaddafi through a surgical bombing attack on Libya, and proceed with the recommendations proposed by the Crisis Pre-Planning Group.

Mr. President, the time has never been more propitious for Quaddafi’s removal. The American people perceive Quaddafi as an eccentric troublemaker spoiling to bring open conflict to the Middle East. There is a built-in animosity toward the man, supported by recent reports of his bizarre personal behavior. The public is ready to accept whatever action we may take to curb the mad dog of the Middle East.

I urge you, therefore, to confer at your soonest convenience with Messrs Regan and Weinberger, Vice Admiral Poindexter, Colonel North, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to implement at once a plan for immediate military action.

My kindest regards,

George Bush

“Has the signature been checked?” Alex asked.

“It’s a good forgery, but not good enough. Here’s the President’s real signature — from letters he wrote back in 1986,” Peggot said, and put the sample on Alex’s desk:

“But the signature on the letter more closely resembles this,” Peggot said, and produced another document:

“This is the President’s current signature. Signatures change over the years, you know...”

“Yes, I know,” Alex said drily.

“What I’m saying,” Peggot said, “is that the signature on this letter was obviously premised on the President’s current signature. The letter could not possibly have been written in April of 1986, as it purports to have been.”

Purports, Alex thought. A typical Peggot word.

“How about the stationery?” he asked.

“Well, this is a copy of the letter, of course,” Templeton said, puffing on his pipe and stinking up Alex’s entire office. “But vice-presidential stationery would be relatively easy to come by.”

“Anyone worth his salt,” Peggot said, nodding in agreement.

“We’ve tracked the typewriter type,” Templeton said. “The letter was typed on an IBM Selectric. A fair number of them are still shipped to the Middle East, by the way. The typeface is Prestige Pica 72.”

“Are you saying the letter originated somewhere in the Middle East?”

“Possibly.”

“Very possibly,” Peggot said, and nodded again.

“Where’d it turn up?”

“The letter? You understand we haven’t located the actual typewri...”

“Yes,” Alex said, and refrained from rolling his eyes heavenward. “The letter. Where did it surface?”

“A digger in Tripoli passed it to one of our people.”

“Reliable.”

“Our man?”

“No, the digger.”

“Oh. Yes, so far.”

“Where’d he get it?”

“She. Someone at GID copied it for her.”

“Who?”

“Confidential source. She won’t reveal it.”

“Mm,” Alex said.

The General Investigation Directorate, familiarly called the GID by American and British agents, was once headed jointly by Police Colonel Mohammed Al-Ghazali and a man from Benghazi named Sáed Bin Ūmran, who’d been recently muzzled and put on the shelf. Al-Ghazali reported directly to the Secretariat for External Security, which was formed in 1984 by order of the General People’s Congress, and whose responsibilities included the supervision and coordination of all Libyan intelligence and counterintelligence operations, including those of the GID. There was only one intelligence group controlled directly by Quaddafi, with no intermediaries. The only thing the CIA knew about this elite organization was its name: Scimitar.

“My suggestion is to forget all about the letter,” Peggot said.

“Why?” Alex asked.

“It’s obviously false,” Templeton said, and looked into the bowl of his pipe to see if it was still lit.

“What’s it doing in Libya?” Alex asked.

“What difference does it make?” Peggot said.

“How’d it get there?” Alex said.

“Who cares?” Templeton said. “It’s a forgery.”

Which is exactly the point, Alex thought.

Sonny set the nozzle on the plastic bottle to the STREAM position.

Standing on the beach, he pulled the trigger.

A stream of insecticide shot out some fifteen to twenty feet, exactly as promised on the bottle’s label. To make certain the first shot wasn’t just a freak, he tried it a dozen times. Not once did the stream fall short of the advertised distance. Moreover, he was able to trigger off fifteen shots every five seconds.

He first practiced on the flat because that was what the terrain would be tonight. But if he had to wait till the Fourth, he had to be certain he could hit the President with a deadly stream of poison from above.

In the sand below the upstairs deck of the beach house, he positioned a metal pail some eight feet out from the house. He estimated that the deck was eighteen feet or so above ground level. He climbed the staircase, and took position behind the railing, the bottle of insecticide in his hand. He felt as if he were standing at the counter of a carnival shooting gallery, aiming a water gun at a bull’s-eye that would move a mechanical rabbit uphill. Each time a stream of water hit the bull’s-eye, the rabbit would move up a notch. Whenever one of the rabbits went over the top, a bell would ring, signaling a winner.

No bells went off in the sand today.

But after a handful of test shots, he found he could accurately direct a stream that fell in a shower of smaller droplets into or onto the pail. Nor was it even necessary to hit the exact center of the pail each time; the radius of the falling drops was wide enough to encompass at least some part of it, and that was quite enough.

But he kept practicing.

A little girl walking toward the steps leading over the dune stopped to watch him.

“What’re you doing?” she asked. Five or six years old, he guessed, and fascinated.

“Trying to get this stuff in the pail,” Sonny said, and went right on with his work.

The little girl kept watching.

Different agendas, he thought.

“Why?” she asked at last.

“Oh, just for fun,” Sonny said.

“Can I try?” she asked.

“Nope,” Sonny said.

“Why not?”

“Too dangerous,” he said.

The little girl watched awhile longer and then, bored, climbed the steps and disappeared from sight. Sonny kept practicing, triggering off three shots every second, swinging the bottle in an arc now to cover an even wider radius each time.

If the tiniest bit of sarin fell on the President’s head, it would be absorbed immediately into his scalp. If he brushed at whatever fell onto his hair, it would touch his hand, magnifying his exposure and his vulnerability. Either way, he was a dead man.

There was just one other thing to check.

He dialed the 800 number on the plastic bottle, and got a recorded voice.

“Thank you for calling the Raxon Consumer Research Center. All lines are busy just now. Please hold and our next available representative will help you.”

He waited.

A live voice came on the line. A woman.

“Research Center,” she said, “may I help you?”

“I hope so,” he said. “I have a bottle of your Raxon Multi-Bug Killer...”

“Yes, sir?”

“And I was wondering what the plastic is made of.”

“In the bottle, do you mean?”

“Yes, please.”

“Well... I’m not sure, let me check.”

He waited.

When she came back on the line, she said, “We don’t have a number on that. I can tell you that the EPA doesn’t recommend recycling of the bottle. What’d you want to use it for?”

“It’s such a good spray bottle,” Sonny said, “it would seem to have a lot of uses. I’m just wondering if the plastic would be inert to organic solvents.”

“Well... let me take another look,” she said, and was gone for another five minutes.

He waited.

“Hello?” she said.

“Yes, I’m here.”

“Sorry to keep you waiting. I would guess the plastic is polyethylene, but we don’t have that information. In any case, we don’t recommend recycling, because traces of the chemical might remain in the bottle and...”

“Yes, I can understand that. But you don’t know for sure whether it’s polyethylene, is that right?”

“No. Some of the others are, so I’m guessing this one is, too. What’d you plan to use it for?”

“Some of the others, did you say?”

“Pardon?”

“Are made of polyethylene? The bottles?”

“Oh. Yes.”

“Which ones, can you tell me?”

“Well, there’s Raxon’s Flying Insect Killer, for one. It comes in a number-two bottle made of hi-density polyethylene. But I can’t say for sure that the Multi-Bug...”

“Well, thank you very much,” he said, “you’ve been very kind.”

“Thank you, sir,” she said, and hung up.

He dialed the 800 number again.

Got the same recorded voice telling him that all lines were busy and asking him to wait for the next available representative. If he got the same woman again, he would ask her to repeat the name of the product. But he got a man this time.

“Research Center, may I help you?”

“Yes,” Sonny said. “I have a bottle of your Flying Insect Killer. Can you tell me what the plastic is made of?”

“I know the code doesn’t permit recycling of that bottle, sir.”

“Yes, but can you tell me what the plastic...”

“That’s the white plastic bottle, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Just a moment, please.”

Sonny waited. All the time in the world. Canada Day was only tomorrow.

“Hello, sir?” the man said.

“Yes?”

“That’s a code-two bottle, hi-density polyethylene.”

“Thank you very much,” Sonny said, grinning.

He had his delivery system.

All he had to do was run to the hardware store again.

Then he could begin mixing his formula.

At ten o’clock that morning, Elita tried the number at the beach house and got no answer. Thinking she may have misdialed it, she immediately tried it again, slowly and carefully punching out the numbers this time because sometimes the phone’s computer system or whatever it was didn’t work as fast as you could hit the buttons. The phone rang and rang on the other end.

She tried her mother again at ten-thirty, wanting to ask if she could borrow her blue Judith Lieber bag with the big mabe pearl set into its clasp; Elita didn’t have anything dressy enough for the formal tonight, and the bag would be perfect with her blue gown.

She let the phone ring a dozen times.

Come on, Mom, she thought.

It was another scorching hot day, she was probably on the beach.

She tried the number again at eleven.

Let the phone ring off the hook.

Still no answer.

She had once met the man who owned the house next door. Someone named Martin Hackett, who was in the fish business or something. She wondered if she should call him, apologize for breaking in on him, tell him this was something of an emergency and ask if he’d yell down to the beach, if that’s where her mother was, tell her to call her daughter in New York. Sounded like a good idea.

She looked for her mother’s personal directory, but of course she’d taken that out to the beach with her. She called directory information and asked for a Martin Hackett on Dune Road in Westhampton Beach, and lo and behold, the operator came up with a phone number, would wonders never?

Elita dialed the number.

The phone on the kitchen counter in the Hackett house rang and rang.

The extension in the bedroom upstairs rang and rang.

In the basement, her mother lay unhearing in a shallow grave covered with sand.

In the kitchen, Sonny did not answer the phone because he was mixing his formula.

He worked with the kitchen windows open. Sarin evaporated swiftly, and its vapors were deadly. Even though the only truly dangerous chemical he’d purchased — his DF, the dimethylsulfoxide difluoride — was still cooling in the refrigerator, he was nonetheless wearing the yellow rubber gloves he’d bought in the supermarket. The chemistry set had come complete with a pair of eye goggles. He was wearing those now. He had also opened the box of Arm & Hammer baking soda, poured it into a bucket of water, and stirred it until it dissolved. The bucket now stood in preparation on the counter top; in solution, baking soda and water would decompose any sarin accidentally spilled or splashed.

In preparation for running his reaction, he had emptied the twelve-ounce bottle of Raxon’s Flying Insect Killer into the toilet, flushing the contents out to sea or wherever, he didn’t know and didn’t care. He had then washed out the plastic bottle with some of the isopropyl alcohol he’d ordered from the J.D. Bowles lab in St. Paul, shaking the bottle out and setting it on the sink rack upside down, so that the alcohol vapors would flow out, allowing quicker drying. The empty plastic bottle, uncapped, now sat upright in a bowl of ice cubes and water, cooling. When he began running the actual reaction, he did not want the mixture to heat too rapidly. Heating would cause evaporation. Breathing in the escaping fumes could kill him.

Into the graduated measuring cup he’d bought on his trip to the supermarket, he poured ten ounces of trichloroethane, the inert cleaning solution that was his solvent. Holding the pouring lip of the cup against the glass stirring rod from the chemistry set, he allowed the liquid to run down into the white plastic bottle.

The clock on the kitchen wall read 11:22.

He could not use the measuring cup for his reagents; the lowest graduated marker on it was fifty milliliters. Sticking a strip of transparent tape to one of the glass test tubes from the chemistry set he’d bought, he’d earlier calibrated a one-milliliter setting — twenty-five drops equaled a milliliter — and also a five-milliliter setting. He had twenty grams of DF, which was the equivalent of twenty-five milliliters. To this, he needed to add 16.6 grams each of alcohol and amine. The conversion came to twenty-one milliliters of alcohol and twenty-four milliliters of amine.

He picked up the jar of anhydrous alcohol. Anhydrous simply meant water-free, unlike the common rubbing alcohol you could buy in a pharmacy, which was only ninety percent alcohol and ten percent water — the deadly enemy of sarin. He measured his units and transferred them to the plastic bottle sitting in its bowl of icy water. He measured out his amine and transferred that as well, to bind the formula. It gave off a pungent smell, rather like ammonia. The white plastic bottle sat in its icy bath, the mixture inside it still harmless.

All that was missing was the DF.

All that was missing was the ingredient which, when combined with the others, could kill Sonny if he wasn’t careful.

The clock on the kitchen wall read 11:30.

In eight and a half hours, the guests at the Canada Day celebration would be called in to dinner from the Baroque Foyer.

World enough and time.

He allowed his mixture to cool.

Lower the vapor pressure. Keep the reaction going at a safe pace.

He looked up at the clock again.

He would not hurry.

At a quarter to twelve, he went to the refrigerator and removed from it one of the sealed ten-gram ampoules of dimethylsulfoxide difluoride. Wrapping a dish towel around the thicker end of the ampoule, holding it so that his fingers were around it and his thumb was erect and facing him, he ran the blade of the glass cutter behind the nipple end of the sealed glass container, and began working it, scoring it, finally putting down the tool and — with a sharp snap — breaking off the end of the ampoule. Despite the hours of cooling, a puff of fume escaped into the air, startling him. He turned his head away instinctively, realized at once that this was merely a reaction with the moisture in the air over the ampoule, and allowed himself a few seconds to collect his wits before he picked up the glass dropper.

From this moment on, his life was in imminent danger.

What he was running was technically called the nucleophilic displacement of fluoride by alkoxide, a reaction in which a molecule of alcohol combined with a molecule of DF to produce equal amounts of hydrogen fluoride and the deadly nerve agent known as sarin.

Drop by careful drop, he dribbled the DF into the white plastic bottle containing his other reagents and his solvent.

He could not allow any of the product he was making to touch his skin.

He could not breathe in any of it.

Ten grams of DF in that ampoule, less than a half-ounce. Drop by drop into the plastic bottle to create his deadly brew. The solution darkening as the reaction occurred. Darkening. Darkening.

The clock kept ticking behind him.

In just eight hours, the President of the United States would take his seat on the Baroque Room dais.

And Sonny would kill him.

The ampoule was empty now. He dropped it into a plastic bag, and went to the refrigerator for the second ampoule. Patiently, he repeated the procedure until he’d emptied this one as well.

The plastic bottle now contained sarin.

Making certain the nozzle tip was turned to the OFF position, he screwed the green cap tightly onto the bottle, and set it down on the counter. Opening the bottle of quick-setting glue, he applied it to the seam where cap met bottle, creating a tight seal. He then cut a strip off the roll of transparent tape and wrapped it around the nozzle, securing it firmly in the OFF position. He set the bottle down in the corner of the counter where the walls joined. He did not think it could now accidentally spill its contents. He hoped not. Because if it did, the released sarin would kill on the spot whoever or whatever it touched — human, animal, or insect.

He put the second empty ampoule into the plastic bag, together with the stirring rod and the dropper. With his gloved right hand, he peeled the glove off his left hand so that only the fingertips were still covered. Using those fingertips, he peeled off the other glove entirely, dropped it into the plastic bag, and then shook his left hand until that glove fell into the bag as well. He dropped the goggles into the bag, sealed it, and carried it outside to Martin Hackett’s garbage bin.

When he came back into the kitchen, the clock on the wall read twelve thirty-two P.M.

He was ready to leave for New York City, where he would welcome whatever destiny God had planned for him.

At two-thirty that afternoon — while Alex Nichols was reading through a mass of intelligence information about a phony British naval officer the allies had deliberately washed ashore during World War II — Sonny Hemkar was checking into a room at the Plaza Hotel.

The name he signed to the register was Anthony Logan. The American Express credit card he handed to the clerk was made out to that name. He gave two dollars to the bellhop who carried his bag to his room on the eighth floor, and exchanged only a few words of conversation with him. The bag contained a navy blue tropical-weight suit, a white shirt, a tie almost as dark as the suit, black shoes, blue socks, a white handkerchief, and a clean pair of striped boxer shorts. It also contained a 9-mm Walther P-38 pistol, half a dozen loaded magazines for the gun, and all the fake identity cards McDermott had made for him. The sealed plastic bottle of sarin was nestled in one of his shoes, in a snug corner of the suitcase. Sonny figured he had three hours before he should begin getting ready for tonight’s festivities.

And a little name plate, the loquacious Miss Lubenthal had told him. White lettering on black plastic. Totally discreet. In this city, in the midtown area alone, there were dozens of shops specializing in the instant manufacture of such things. He would find one of them and have a tag made with the name G. RAMSEY on it — for Gerald Ramsey, the name on his Plaza Hotel security card. Then he would buy a walkie-talkie from the first Radio Shack he passed, and a Walkman radio wherever he could find one.

Then...

Ah, yes, then.

While he was still in medical school and students everywhere around him were studying for finals round the clock, popping pills and drinking coffee in desperate attempts to stay awake, Sonny would go to a movie. He’d walk over to Westwood, spend a few hours in a movie theater, sometimes went to two movies in the same afternoon. Then he’d go back to the dorm and study intensely for five or six hours before taking another break. Went for a hot fudge sundae with strawberry ice cream, his favorite. Almonds on it, too. Then went back to studying again. Paced himself and never panicked. World enough and time.

Later this afternoon, Sonny just might go to a movie.

The Secret Service men Dobbs had brought with him from Washington followed him up the fire stairs to the first floor.

“What we’re doing here is blocking off rear access to the room,” Dobbs told them. “No one in or out without proper ID. Dave, you take the top of the steps here...”

“See you later,” Dawson said, and hung back from the group already walking toward the elevator at the end of the corridor.

“You here, Hank,” Dobbs said, “outside the elevator. Rest of you follow me.”

Dobbs planted another of his men at the top of the steps leading down to the Baroque Room, and a fourth one at the bottom. Two British agents were already there, flanking the doors leading into the room. The men introduced themselves all around. One of the Brits told Dobbs there were two Mexican agents on the other side of the doors, and then wondered aloud if it’d be all right to have himself a smoke before the guests started arriving. Dobbs told the Brit he thought it would be okay, and then led his remaining agent into the pantry, where he planted him at the doors leading to the Baroque Room.

He felt he had the place pretty well covered.

Nodding curtly, he told the man in the pantry to keep a sharp eye out, and then went to check the Baroque Room itself, see who else was on the job.

A limousine was waiting at the curb.

She was thoroughly impressed. A limo, my, my. The last time she’d been in a limo was when her mother’s sister, Aunt Hildy, got married in Teaneck, New Jersey.

The chauffeur came around to open the rear door for them as they came out of the building. Geoffrey glanced at her sidelong, gauging her reaction. She turned to him and smiled. A casual, accepting smile, this was a mature young woman who was used to stepping in and out of limousines wearing an ice blue gown cut dangerously low over the swelling tops of her breasts. Long blond hair piled on top of her head. Pearls her grandmother Constance had given her on her eighteenth birthday. Her mother’s blue Judith Lieber bag with the larger pearl to match, which she’d taken from its flannel pouch on the top shelf of her mother’s closet, even though she’d never been able to reach her to ask permission. There were some things you just did.

“Thank you,” she said to the chauffeur, using the voice Princess Di might have used to a menial, not even glancing at him as she pulled back the skirt of the gown and stepped into the car. Geoffrey came in behind her, looking quite handsome in a dinner jacket, although the tie was knotted somewhat crookedly.

“I have to call my mother,” she said.

“What?” he said.

The chauffeur had come around to the driver’s side now, and was getting into the car. The door eased shut with the solid simple click of luxury. “Excuse me,” Geoffrey said to her, and then leaned forward and said to the chauffeur, “We’ll be going directly to the Plaza now.”

“Thank you, sir,” the chauffeur said, and eased the sleek long limo away from the curb. Elita felt as if she were inside a tinted glass spaceship gliding soundlessly through the stratosphere, the city far below, obliter...

“I’m sorry,” Geoffrey said, “you were saying?”

“I was? Oh, yes, my mother. If you don’t mind, I’d like to try her again when we get to the hotel.”

“Something wrong?”

“Well... I just can’t believe she’s still on the beach. Would you like me to fix that for you?”

“Fix what?” he said, looking alarmed.

“The tie. It’s a little crooked.”

“Oh. Yes. Please do.”

They turned to face each other on the leather seat. She smelled of something wonderful, it reminded him of journeys to the Cotswolds when he was a boy, the hillsides covered with wild flowers, the sky a piercing, aching blue. Her hands were adjusting the tie now. Blue eyes lowered. Intent. He looked at her face and longed suddenly to kiss her.

“There,” she said, and looked up, satisfied.

“Thank you,” he said softly.

“This is nice, isn’t it?” she said, and smiled and sank back into the yielding leather seat, and unexpectedly took his hand.

He’d gone into the shower at ten minutes to six.

Soaped himself leisurely and calmly, shampooing his thick hair into a luxuriant froth of foam, thinking of the movie he’d seen this afternoon, wondering if Julia Roberts was as pretty in person as she was on the screen. Only saving grace. Otherwise, a totally dumb movie. He wondered who she was sleeping with now that she’d dumped the Sutherland kid.

He came out of the shower at nine minutes past six.

Watch on the counter, ticking off time digitally.

6:09.

He was through shaving at 6:24... no, 6:25, the watch informed him, the numeral changing even as he looked at it.

He combed his hair.

Sprayed deodorant under his arms.

Looked at himself in the mirror.

Winked.

And went into the bedroom to dress.

Geoffrey looked at his watch.

It was already six-thirty, and he was eager to get upstairs to the Baroque Foyer, where the reception line would be forming. This would not be the P.M. arriving — Major being too major for such a minor event, oh dear, Geoffrey thought — but it was most certainly a P.M., and Geoffrey wanted to be on hand to greet her. Shake her hand and let her know he was a loyal servant of Her Majesty the Queen, not to be forgotten if ever Maggie shared tea and opinions along with the scones and clotted cream at Buckingham Palace.

He was standing discreetly beyond hearing distance of Elita, who was at one of the wall phones downstairs at Trader Vic’s, where the Plaza people routed anyone desperate to ring up anyone else. If he wasn’t mistaken, she was now dialing the same number yet again, or perhaps a different number this time. She had slipped out of one high-heeled blue satin pump and was standing with the stockinged foot resting on the toe of the other shod foot, looking entirely girlish and adorable, but he did wish she would hurry up.

He looked at his watch again.

6:32.

Please, Elita, he thought, get off the phone or we’ll entirely miss her arriv...

Ah. At last.

He began moving toward her as she replaced the receiver on its hook, hoping she didn’t plan to dial yet another number, catching her elbow as she turned away from the phone, a concerned look on her face.

“Is everything all right?” he asked.

“I still can’t reach her,” Elita said, and fell silent, obviously troubled as he hurried her upstairs and through the main lobby now, toward the elevator banks.

“Are you sure you dialed the right number?” he asked.

“I know it by heart. I even called the man next door...”

“This way,” he said, and led her into the closest elevator.

“... but I didn’t get an answer there, either.”

She was nibbling at her lower lip now. He took her hand in his, gave it a little reassuring squeeze.

“Perhaps she’s at a party,” he said.

“I hope so. It’s just... so odd. Her not being in all day.”

He refrained from suggesting that her mother was, after all, a grown woman who did not need to inform her daughter of her exact whereabouts at any hour of the day. The elevator had whisked them up to the first floor, and he allowed her to precede him into the corridor, which he immediately saw was afloat with security people bobbing like blue-suited buoys on a sea of tuxedos and dinner gowns. He took her elbow again and led her to the entrance doors to the foyer, flanked by two agents, one of whom held a clipboard.

“Geoffrey Turner,” he said. “And Miss Elita Randall.”

The agent with the clipboard flipped to the second page of sheets attached to it. The other agent kept checking the corridor, making occasional eye contact with the floating agents scanning the arriving guests, most of them consular personnel eager to be on hand when the heads of state rolled in with the tide.

“Turner, yes, I have that right here, sir,” the agent at the door said, British from the sound of him. “And the other was Crandall, sir?”

“Randall,” Elita said.

“Yes, of course, pardon me, Miss,” the agent said, and ran his finger up the page to the R’s. “Yes, here we are, step right in, won’t you please? Have a nice time.”

“Thank you,” Geoffrey said.

Elita was thinking how very polite the British were.

Ozzie Carruthers stood at the top of the carpeted steps on the Fifth Avenue side of the hotel, watching the uniformed doormen opening the doors of limousines and ushering elegantly dressed men and women onto the sidewalk. A black plastic tag with white lettering on it was pinned just over the breast pocket of his jacket, O. CARRUTHERS. A laminated Plaza Hotel identity card was clipped to the lapel above that pocket. A walkie-talkie was in his right hand. In his dark suit, white shirt, and maroon silk tie, he looked discreetly official. He was waiting to say hello to the President, a man he’d loved — still loved — a man he’d voted for each and every time.

A limousine with miniature British union jacks flying from both front fenders pulled to the curb. One of the hotel doormen approached the rear door and was politely but pertinently shouldered aside by a man in a dark suit who took up a position at the curb while three other men covered the car front, rear, and driver side. The chauffeur came around and opened the rear door. The Right Honorable Margaret Thatcher accepted his gloved hand as he assisted her out of the limousine. The hotel doorman smiled graciously and bowed her toward the steps. Surrounded by the four British agents, she swept past Carruthers, who inhaled the faint scent of her delicate perfume.

The Canadian Prime Minister and his wife were at the head of the greeting line — this was, after all, their day. Margaret Thatcher, simply but elegantly gowned, her hair splendidly coiffed, wearing no jewelry but a pair of diamond earrings and a gold necklace with a diamond drop pendant, spent at least five minutes chatting with them before moving along the line. Her smile gracious and warm, she exchanged handshakes and a few words with each of the people from the Canadian, British and Mexican consulates. Elita could hardly wait till she reached them.

“How do you do?” she said, and offered her hand to Geoffrey.

“Mrs. Thatcher,” he said, taking her hand, “I’m Geoffrey Turner, Her Majesty’s Foreign Service.”

“Delighted,” she said.

“And this is Miss Elita Randall...”

“How do you do?” Mrs. Thatcher said.

“I’m a great admirer of yours,” Elita said.

“Why, thank you,” Mrs. Thatcher said.

“I admire you greatly,” Elita said, and thought Oh God!

“That’s very kind of you,” Mrs. Thatcher said, and moved on down the line, offering her hand and a “How-do-you-do?” to Lucy Strident from Passports and Visas, and managing not to wince when Lucy blared out her name, rank and serial number.

His obligation fulfilled, Geoffrey led Elita from the reception line the moment the Prime Minister’s security people escorted her to the bar, where one of them obtained for her a glass of white wine. Elita told Geoffrey she would love a scotch and soda, and immediately wondered if anyone here would card her. Waiting while Geoffrey went for the drink, she looked around dazzle-eyed at all the handsome men and beautiful women in the room, the buzz of conversation everywhere around her, the clink of ice in glasses, the floating sound of laughter on a summer’s night, and wondered who else famous would be here tonight.

Sonny came out of his room at ten minutes to eight. The walkie-talkie he’d bought at Radio Shack was in his right hand. The plastic name tag he’d had made at a place called Jefferson Office Supplies on Third Avenue was pinned above the breast pocket of his jacket. G. RAMSEY. White lettering on black plastic, three inches long by three-quarters of an inch wide, at a cost of eighteen dollars plus tax, which he thought was highway robbery. The Plaza ID card McDermott had fashioned for him was clipped to the right-hand lapel pocket of his suit jacket. GERALD RAMSEY. SECURITY. He was wearing the blue suit, the white shirt, and the quiet silk tie. He looked very much the way Carruthers did, except for one thing. Carruthers wasn’t armed. Tucked into the waistband of Sonny’s trousers was the 9-mm Walther. Single cartridge in the chamber, loaded magazine containing eight additional cartridges in the butt of the pistol. And in the inside pocket of the jacket, just under the handkerchief pocket on the left, Sonny was carrying the twelve-ounce bottle of sarin, the transparent tape removed from its nozzle now. He had practiced reaching inside the jacket to draw it; it was only a bit more difficult than yanking a pistol from a shoulder holster. He had practiced turning the nozzle from OFF to STREAM. It took no more than a micro-second.

He was ready.

He stepped out of the room, looked up and down the empty corridor, and started walking toward the elevator bank. A chambermaid dressed in nighttime black came out of one of the rooms, carrying soiled towels.

“Security,” he said. “Everything all right?”

“Oh, yes, sir,” she said, and virtually curtsied him by.

The corridor outside the Baroque Foyer was crawling with spooks. Sonny could virtually smell them. He walked past them confidently — never explain, never apologize — and went directly to where several men and women in formal attire were having their names checked at the entrance door. Two more agents stood there, one of them consulting a clipboard to which was attached several sheets of paper, the other scanning the corridor this way and that, the way agents did when they wanted to look terribly eagle-eyed and alert. Sonny went directly to the head of the line.

“Excuse me,” he said to a white-haired woman in a bouffant pink gown. “Plaza Security,” he said to the agent with the clipboard, and showed him a page he had torn from the message pad alongside the telephone in his room. The Plaza Hotel logo was at the top of the page. Under it, he had scrawled Dr. and Mrs. Harry Rosenberg. He showed this to the agent now. “Young girl called the office five minutes ago,” he said. “Told me she was their baby sitter, needed to talk to them. Said they’re at the party here.”

The agent with the eagle eyes had zeroed his laser beam in on the ID tag and the name plate. Sonny simply ignored him. The one with the clipboard seemed impatient to get on with his job. There were a lot of important people standing on line here, waiting to be admitted to the foyer.

“Are they on your list?” Sonny asked.

The agent flipped to the second page on his clipboard.

“How do you spell that?” he asked.

British, Sonny thought. Meaning dull and plodding and stupid.

“R-O-S-E,” he said.

“That all of it?”

“Here, have another look,” Sonny said impatiently, and extended the piece of paper again.

The agent scanned the R’s. “No one of that name,” he said. “Sorry.”

“I’d better check inside,” Sonny said, and nodded to the eagle-eyed one, and walked right past both agents into the foyer.

He did not arrive until almost eight o’clock.

His limousine was immediately surrounded by Secret Service men in dark blue suits. He stepped out, offered his hand inside the car, and helped his wife out onto the carpeted sidewalk. Escorted by Secret Service men fore and aft, he and his wife came up the carpeted steps toward where Carruthers was standing near the entrance doors.

“Welcome to the Plaza, Mr. President,” he said, grinning.

The Baroque Room was crowded and noisy, the guests milling in from the foyer and searching the tables for place cards, people recognizing friends or associates, men shaking hands, women kissing air. The dais was set up precisely where the good Miss Lubenthal had said it would be, in front of the columns at the far end of the room, opposite the three entrance doors. There were two agents standing on this side of the doors in the corner of the room closest to the dais.

“Big crowd,” Sonny said to one of them.

“Very beeg, yes,” the agent answered.

Spanish accent. Part of the Mexican team, Sonny guessed. The other agent was checking out Sonny’s ID card and name plate. Slow-moving Mexican eyes roving over them in seeming casualness. Checking out, too, the bulge under Sonny’s jacket where the bottle of sarin nested in the inside pocket. Figuring it for a pistol, finding it permissible on security personnel; the agent himself was packing what looked like a howitzer. Through the oval portholes in the doors, Sonny could see other suited men in the corridor outside. His escape route.

“A que hora servirán la cena?” he asked, switching to fluent Spanish.

“A las ocho,” one of the agents said.

“Pero no para nosotros,” the other one said sourly.

Margaret Thatcher was moving toward the dais now, being escorted by her personal heavy mob, four of them in all, each and every one of them as wide as the Thames. Sitting to the left of Mulroney, the Canadian Prime Minister, exchanging pleasantries with him. She would be the second to go, the whore. The chair on her left was still empty.

The chair to the right of Mrs. Mulroney was similarly empty. Sonny assumed that this was where Bush would be seated. President of the most powerful nation on earth would naturally take precedence over the Mexican leader for the place of honor on his hostess’s right. This would make things more difficult. If Sonny took out Bush first, he would then have to sweep to the right for his second target and that would take him further away from the exit doors.

He was beginning to think it no longer mattered.

The moment he squeezed off the sarin, first at Bush, next at Thatcher if there was time...

He could no longer see an escape.

Everywhere he looked, there were agents. Agents to the left and right of the dais, agents behind the dais, agents at each of the windows overlooking the park, agents outside and inside all the doors. Thatcher’s heavy mob behind her, trying to look as cuddly as teddy bears, but coming off as grizzlies. Bush would have his own army of Secret Service men. There was no way Sonny could get out of here alive.

He closed his eyes.

The Mexican agents looked at him in surprise.

They did not know he was praying.

One of the men from the British Consulate was telling a joke about Red Adair, the man who had worked to put out all the oil fires in Kuwait.

“Adair’s sitting in the lobby of a hotel there, y’know, when this American tourist begins chatting him up. ‘I hear Red Adair’s in Kuwait,’ he says. ‘So he is,’ Adair says. ‘I hear he’s staying right here at this hotel,’ the tourist says. ‘So he is,’ Adair says. The tourist says, ‘I’d love to meet him, I’m a great admirer of his...’”

Just what I said to Mrs. Thatcher, Elita thought, still embarrassed.

“... and Adair says, ‘Well, you’ve met him — I’m Red Adair.’ The tourist jumps to his feet, takes Adair’s hand, begins pumping it madly, and says, ‘Am I glad to meet you! I’ve been an admirer of yours forever! Are you still screwing Ginger Rogers?’”

Everyone at the table began laughing, except for a woman Geoffrey had earlier introduced as Lucy Phipps, who now blushed scarlet and sank lower into her chair. And all at once, the laughter trailed, and all conversation seemed to stop as well, not only at the table where Elita sat with the Brits but everywhere around the room. In the hush that followed, Elita turned to look toward the entrance doors.

Sonny opened his eyes when the room went silent.

The Mexican agents were looking toward the entrance doors.

“Aquí viene,” one of them said.

Sonny looked.

And saw not President Bush coming through those doors with Barbara on his arm but President Reagan with Nancy on his arm. The wrong goddamn President! Waving his familiar wave to the hushed and reverent crowd, grinning his familiar grin. And suddenly there was applause for this popular idiot, this fool who’d succumbed to his vice-president’s advice: Send the bombers. Had the letter not fallen into their possession, they’d have believed forever that the blood was on Reagan’s hands. But through the merciful goodness of God, they now knew that the man responsible for young Hana’s death was the man who’d written that persuasive document: Send the bombers. Destroy the Beloved Leader. Murder the infant daughter where she sleeps in her bed.

Bush.

The murderer Bush.

Not Reagan, the easily led fool, here to take his place beside the great whore of Britain, his one-time infamous partner.

Sonny would have killed them both in the next instant, but his instructions were clear.

Bush was the target.

You must not do anything to jeopardize your main objective.

It would have to wait till the Fourth, after all.

“Buenas noches,” he said to the Mexicans, and began striding across the floor, passing the orchestra where it was tuning up discreetly on his right, the applause for Reagan tapering as he took his seat beside the bitch of England, Sonny’s eyes searing with almost blinding hatred for both of them, the doors not twelve feet away now, the two agents who’d earlier been checking names now standing inside the doors, side by side, legs apart, hands behind their backs, six feet away, and...

“Sonny!”

The name stopped him as effectively as a rifle shot.

He turned, but only for a second.

And caught a glimpse of Elita rising from her chair at a table near one of the big arched windows.

He turned back to the doors again. Nodding to the agents, he said, “See you later,” and they parted to let him through.

Behind him, he heard Elita calling yet another time.

“Sonny!”

He did not look back.