As he wandered about, shooting randomly with the Nikon, he toyed with the theory he had come up with yesterday, trying to refine it further. What if the Mossad had a source inside the Agency and knew positively that Cam was investigating Jabberwock? The trail would have led directly to Burke. And it could account for the surveillance of Cam in Hong Kong. But Bulgarians? Surely not the Mossad.
Burke lounged back in the upholstered chair, his feet propped on the side of the bed, reading a paperback mystery he had bought in the hotel gift shop. He glanced at his watch when the phone rang. It was three forty-five.
He grabbed the phone off the table.
"This is Mr. Benjamin," said the caller, obviously the voice of Ben Shallit, "am I speaking to Mr. Burke Hill?"
"That's correct."
"Mr. Hill," Shallit said in a bored, sing-song voice, "I have been checking on the name you inquired about, the man in Jaffa. I am sorry, but it appears that you must have been misinformed. I cannot find such a name listed."
Jabberwock was not in the Mossad's filing system. It wasn't the answer he had expected to hear. "Are you positive?" he asked.
"Oh, yes, quite positive. I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help."
"That's okay," Burke said, hoping the note of bewilderment in his voice might be taken by anyone listening in for disappointment. "Thanks anyway."
Now he really needed to consult with Cam about his surveillance. If it were not the Mossad, then who? He grabbed his small black notebook with its phone numbers and hurried out to the elevator. Evidently Cam had been right. The Israeli angle must have been intended only to divert them from the real answer to Jabberwock. Had the perpetrators of the operation sacrificed the Palestinian merely to hammer home the point? They were still no closer to any real answers unless Cam had come up with something new.
After a day of heat and humidity designed to produce soggy shirt collars, a steady rainfall added to the nightime gloom as the rented Nissan Sentra cruised into Shau Kei Wan. Like the rest of Hong Kong, its main streets were lined with shops and hotels and restaurants featuring gaudy signs and colorful banners. Outside the primary business area, including the uphill location of Miss Lee’s apartment, wet, darkened pavement made travel treacherous for the unfamiliar driver. The Sentra approached slowly, the broadening cones of its headlights sweeping the road ahead, then parked beside a few other cars in front of the apartment. Cameron Quinn sat for a few minutes, his eyes scouring the street in both directions. There was no traffic. He finally climbed out of the car and strode up to the building.
After Quinn had gone inside, two men dressed in black got out of a car parked in front of the building next door. One of them laid a pair of night-vision binoculars on the seat before closing the door. They hurried across to the Sentra. Maneuvering his tools expertly — cars were his specialty — the shorter man had the door open in seconds. He switched off the dome light and pressed the hood release. Turning to the passenger side, he took out a flashlight and a screwdriver and bent over the fender. He adjusted the idle screw and closed the hood. It was best done with the motor running, but that would have caused too much noise. Next they poured most of a bottle of whiskey over the front seat, then dropped the bottle on the floorboard.
Twenty minutes later, Quinn appeared at the front door with Amy Lee. They chatted for a few moments and he headed for the car, his eyes moving back and forth. He shoved the key into the lock and pulled the door open. It left him slightly off balance. At that moment a pair of large hands reached around him. His arms were pinned to his body in an unyielding grip.
“What the hell—!”
A piece of tape was slapped across his mouth as he struggled against his captor. It was no contest. The large man held him as though he’d been caught in the jaws of a rigid mechanical clamp. He shifted his eyes just in time to see the smaller man reach out with a syringe. He tried to twist away but felt the needle prick his upper arm. As he quickly became disoriented, his muscles relaxed and they placed him on the seat behind the steering wheel.
Quinn had parked facing downhill, a position that would allow for a quick getaway. The smaller man picked up the keys where they had fallen and started the car. The engine began to race. He straightened the wheels in line with the street. With one foot on the ground, he pressed the other on the brake, leaned across Quinn and pushed the gear shift into drive. The Sentra bucked, throwing him backwards. The door slammed as the car sped off down the hill.
Burke finally got through to the Pearl Hotel operator. "I'm calling from overseas," he said. "I would like to speak with Mr. Logan Charles in room fifteen-fifteen, please."
There was a long wait, and then a Chinese-accented voice came on the line. "Who is speaking, please?"
"This is Burke Hill in Tel Aviv. I want to speak with Logan Charles."
"Are you relative of Mr. Charles?"
Burke was becoming a bit exasperated. "No, I'm not a relative. I'm a business partner. Where is Logan Charles?"
"Sorry to tell you, Mr. Hill. Has been accident. Automobile accident. Police call us to see if family here. Mr. Charles in Ruttonjee Hospital. Very bad."
For a moment, Burke was shocked into silence. Then he asked hesitantly, "When did it happen?"
"Police say eight o'clock."
He did some quick computations. It would have been about two hours ago. "Can you tell me his condition, anything else about the accident?"
"So sorry. I know nothing more."
"Well, thanks for the information," he said. "I'll try to get in touch with his family."
Would Lori know yet, he wondered? This was terrible. "Very bad," the man had said. He was alive, at least. Burke looked back in his book and called the number for Clipper Cruise & Travel in Rosslyn. After several rings, he heard a recording.
"Clipper Cruise & Travel is closed for the Memorial Day holiday. Thank you for calling—"
He slammed down the phone. Damn it, he should have remembered the holiday. It was just ten a.m. in Washington, and Lori had gone sailing off Virginia Beach. She wouldn't be home until late that evening. He checked his watch. It was now a little after four in the afternoon in Tel Aviv. He put in a call to the U.S. Consulate General in Hong Kong, the State Department’s largest such mission in the world. He asked if they had any information on American Logan Charles who had been injured in an automobile accident.
“We were notified by the police,” a pleasant-voiced woman replied. “We’ve sent a representative to the hospital, but I haven’t heard anything back from him.”
Burke thought it likely the representative was a CIA man. He thanked her and hung up. According to Cam’s itinerary, he should have been boarding his flight home by now. Was it a taxicab accident on the way to the airport, or something more sinister? He called El Al and asked about flights to Hong Kong. There would be nothing with the right connections for several hours. He checked his notes for Hawthorne Elliott’s private number and punched it in. A message said Mr. Elliott was not available.
After a brief deliberation, Burke decided his best course was to return to Washington and provide support for Lori in getting to her father’s beside. He talked again to a woman at El Al.
"We have a flight through London to New York that would make connections to Washington,” she said. “It departs Tel Aviv at six-fifteen."
"Can you get me on it?"
"There is space available, sir, but with the early baggage check-in requirement, there is barely enough time."