Abdul would soon be arriving at the Watergate to pick up her and Sherima to go househunting again, I explained, noting the time. Her job was to keep him from finding out that Sherima was gone, since he was a servant of Shah Hassan and would feel obligated to report her disappearance right away. Candy wanted to know how she was supposed to do that, so I suggested that when Abdul phoned from the lobby, she tell him Sherima wasn’t feeling well and had decided to stay in her suite and rest for the day. However, she was to tell the bodyguard that his mistress wanted him to drive Candy back up into Maryland so she could begin contacting real estate agents there, since Sherima had settled on that as the area to buy an estate.
“What if Abdul wants to talk with Sherima?” Candy asked.
“Just tell him that she has gone back to sleep and doesn’t want to be disturbed. Tell him that if he insists, he’ll have to be responsible. I think he’s been conditioned enough to taking orders from Sherima through you that he’ll do as he is told. Now, I want you to go out with him and keep him up around Potomac as long as you can. Stop at every real estate agency you can find and keep him waiting while you go over listings. Give me as much time as you can before coming back to Washington. Then, when you do have to come back, explain that you have to do some shopping for Sherima and have him take you to some of the stores downtown. That will give me a few hours to try to track down Sherima and see if we can’t get her back before you two return. All right?”
She nodded, then demanded, “But what if you can’t find her by then, Nick? I can’t put him off forever. He’s going to want to get a doctor or something if Sherima isn’t up and around by the time we return. What do I tell Abdul then?”
“We’ll just have to worry about that when the time comes. You can tell the manager before you leave here this morning that Sherima isn’t feeling well and doesn’t want to be disturbed by anyone… maids or phone calls. That way, nobody will be trying to get into the room today. And the switchboard won’t put through any calls to the room. Better still, maybe you better instruct the manager to have the switchboard tell any callers for Sherima that she is out of the hotel for the day. Make certain that he understands everyone is to be told that, even if someone from the embassy phones. Stress the fact that Sherima is indisposed and wants no calls or visitors. He’ll listen to you, since, from what you’ve told me already, you’re the one who has been dealing with the hotel staff since your arrival.”
“Do you think it will work, Nick? Can you find Sherima before she gets hurt?”
“I’ll do my best. Now, I’ve got to go next door and make some calls. I don’t want to.tie up this phone right now, just in case. You get dressed and be ready when Abdul arrives. And don’t forget to look through Sherima’s clothes to see if you can tell what she was wearing when they took her away.”
I made certain she was up and moving around before I went back to my room and phoned Hawk. As succinctly as possible, I told him what had happened and what I had arranged with Candy to keep the news from spreading. He wasn’t so certain that I had been right in identifying myself as an agent of the Executive Protection Service — there could be considerable repercussions if something went wrong and it looked as if that bureau were going to take the blame for it — but he agreed the story was better than telling her the truth about myself and AXE.
He also was a bit disconcerted about having to arrange to pick up two bodies at the Watergate, but we quickly worked out a plan. Two of his men would deliver a pair of packing cases — ostensibly containing rented movie-projection equipment — to my room as soon as possible. The suggestion would be made to whatever member of the hotel staff passed them through the delivery entrance that they were to set up the equipment for a business conference in my room, then return later for it. The corpses would go out along with the packing boxes.
“What about the hotel security man?” I asked Hawk. “There’s liable to be someone coming up to relieve him soon. He’s been on duty all night, supposedly.”
“As soon as we’re off the phone,” Hawk said, “I’ll get to work on that. Since we have the kind of influence we do with the people who run the hotel, we’re in a fairly good position, but even so, it’s going to take every bit of pull we have to keep this quiet. And we can only hush it up for so long, then there will have to be some sort of official explanation for his death.”
My orders were to stay in my room and await further information from Hawk. I wanted to get into action, but admitted when he pointed’ it out, that there really was little I could do at the moment. He assured me he would put out an alert immediately through all official channels to be on the lookout for a woman of Sherima’s description, without identifying her by name. Also, all AXE agents who had infiltrated militant radical groups and known subversive organizations operating within the District area would be ordered to use any means at their disposal to establish a lead to the former Queen’s whereabouts.
In response to a question from Hawk, I told him that I felt certain Candy Knight would cooperate in trying to cover up Sherima’s disappearance. “Not so much because it’s for her country,” I told the Old Man, “but for Sherima herself. And certainly not for Hassan’s sake,” I added, telling him about her apparent dislike of the man who had done so much for her. “I’d like to know what’s behind her feelings about the Shah,” I said.
“I’ll see if I can get anything more from our branch in Sidi Hassan,” Hawk said. “But I think they put every available piece of information in that dossier. Now, N3, if you’ve nothing more, I want to set all these things into action.”
“Right, sir. I’ll be waiting here for your call. I just want to go next door to see if Candy is ready to divert Abdul Bedawi, then I’ll come back to my room as soon as I know they’re off to Maryland.”
Just before breaking off our conversation, Hawk reminded me to put up the Do Not Disturb signs on my door and on the door to Sherima’s suite. “We can’t have a maid going in either of the rooms and starting to clean up the showers,” he observed. I agreed, reassured as always by his attention to the smallest detail, however complex the overall operation. Then we hung up.
“Abdul’s waiting downstairs for me,” Candy said as soon as she unchained the door and let me into Sherima’s suite.
“How did he take the news about Sherima’s staying in today?”
“At first, he insisted on speaking with her. Then I got across the idea that maybe we had celebrated a bit too much after we left him last night — God, was that just last night? It seems so long ago — and that she was hungover, not up to seeing anyone, not being accustomed to drinking so much… He was a bit stuffy about it — yon know Moslems and alcohol. But he finally went along with it. I’ll keep him out and busy for as long as I can, Nick, but you’ve got to find her fast. Abdul will kill me if he thinks I had anything to do with her disappearance, or if he even suspects that I kept him from looking for her.”
“Don’t worry, Candy,” I said as confidently as possible. “We’ll find her. I’ve just been on the phone with headquarters, and a lot of people are looking for her already. Now, what was she wearing?”
“It looks to me like she still had on her negligee. None of her dresses seem to be gone, as far as I could tell, but she’s got so many. Oh yes, her long mink is gone, too.”
“They probably put that around her to take her out. Over a negligee, it might have looked like she was wearing an evening gown. The way I’ve figured it so far, they probably took her down on the service elevator, then out through the garage. If she was still dopey from those pills she took, she might have looked like a girl who had had too much to drink, and who was being helped home by a couple of friends.”