The phone rang suddenly, startling us both. “Didn’t you arrange for the switchboard not to put through any calls?” I asked.
“Yes. The manager wasn’t on duty yet, but the assistant manager was very nice about it. He assured me that the Queen wouldn’t be disturbed.”
“Answer it,” I said as the ring came again. “It must be Abdul on the house phone in the lobby. The switchboard can’t control anyone dialing direct from there. Be sure to reprimand him for ringing and risking awakening Sherima.”
Candy picked up the phone, listened briefly, and nodding to me that I had been correct in my guess, proceeded to tell of! Abdul for daring to call the room when he had been instructed just to wait for her and not to bother Sherima. She pulled it off quite well, and I mentally applauded her acting ability in the midst of stress.
Hanging up, she turned and said, “Nick, I’ve got to go. If I don’t, he’ll be up here next. He says he’s still not certain that he should go off into the country when ‘my lady’ doesn’t feel well.”
“All right, Candy,” I agreed, giving her a swift kiss as she slipped a fox jacket over her crisp white blouse. “Just don’t let him suspect anything. Act normal and keep him away as long as possible.”
“I will, Nick,” she promised as I let her out the door. “Just find Sherima.” Another quick kiss, then she was gone. When I had closed the door behind her, I stood for a moment looking down at the lock and the chain, on the door — sturdy steel devices. I wondered how anyone could have gotten into the room without smashing his way through the chain, creating enough noise to arouse everyone on the floor. Obviously the chain hadn’t been in place. It couldn’t have been, for Candy had been in my room during the abduction, and she hadn’t had an opportunity before that to secure it in place. While we were making love, someone had taken advantage of the unchained door to get in and carry off the former Queen I was supposed to be protecting. And in the course of doing that, they had killed a man whose career as a guard had never brought him up against anyone more dangerous than an over-zealous autograph hunter or a bungling petty thief. Disgusted with myself, I slipped the Do Not Disturb sign over the outside knob on the door to Sherima’s suite, then went back to my own room. The phone was ringing as I opened the door, and I ran to answer it. Hawk began talking as soon as he recognized my voice:
“The men will deliver your movie projector and other things in about an hour. The security man they killed was a bachelor and has no family in the District, according to his personnel record. That’s a break, at least; no one will be expecting him home this morning. The hotel manager will be informing Watergate’s security chief that he has Hogan — that’s the man’s name — on special assignment, and that he’s to be removed from the duty roster for a couple of days. That’s all I have for you right— wait a minute…”
I had heard the buzzer signaling that a call was coming in on another of Hawk’s many desk phones, and I could hear him talking to someone on the other end, but couldn’t make out his words. Then he was back on my line.
“That was Communications,” he said. “Our monitors report that a signal was transmitted, obviously in code, to a station in Adabi less than ten minutes ago. The sender wasn’t on the air long enough for us to get a fix on it here. The message was short, repeated three times. Decoding is working on it now — if they come up with anything, I’ll get right back to you.”
“Do we have a car covering Sherima’s limousine?” I asked. That was part of the plan Hawk and I had worked out earlier. We didn’t want anyone grabbing Candy and Sherima’s bodyguard, too. I purposely had neglected to mention that possibility to Candy, not wanting to suggest to her that she might have anything to worry about personally.
“Yes. Just a minute, and I’ll check on their whereabouts.”
Once more I could hear Hawk in conversation with what. I assumed was the radio room from which local operations were directed, then he was speaking to me again:
“Right now, the chauffeur and the girl are in Georgetown, getting ready to swing down onto Canal Road; about the same route you took the other day.”
“Good. I guess she managed to convince him that it was their job to find Sherima a house as quickly as possible. Now, if she can just keep him occupied most of the day, we’ll have a little breathing time before the word gets to the embassy.”
“Let’s hope so,” Hawk agreed, then added, “I’ll be in touch as soon as I get anything else for you, N3.”
When he hung up, I went into the bathroom and checked out the dead Arab there. The corpse had stiffened in the tub, fortunately in a cramped position that would make him more easily stuffed into the makeshift coffin that soon would be delivered to my room. I was glad of that; I had no desire to start breaking arms or legs on a dead man.
Chapter 9
It was noon before I heard from Hawk again. By that time, the corpses had been taken away from both my room and Sherima’s suite. The latter job hadn’t been so easy. The maids were working the floor by the time Hawk’s men arrived. There wasn’t any trouble getting the Arab into one of their equipment boxes in my room, but it took a bit of doing to distract the maid in my wing while they went into the suite next door and removed the grisly bundle from the bathroom there. To accomplish it, I had to go down the hall to the room where the maid was working and keep her occupied with inane questions while they carried out their job.
By the time the maid got through explaining to me that she was too busy to sew some buttons on my shirts and to personally handle some laundry for me — the housekeeping department and valet service would be happy to take care of any tasks like that, she insisted repeatedly while I pretended not to understand just what she meant — she must have thought I was a complete idiot. In the end, though, I was almost able to talk her into it by flashing a twenty-dollar bill at her. I pretended to give up when I heard coughing from the hallway — a signal that Hawk’s men were finished — and, I headed for the service elevator, putting the twenty back into my pocket. Her look of disappointment was partially wiped off with the five dollars I slipped to her as “consolation,” however, and the free-spending — if simple minded — Texan had won another friend on the Watergate staff.
Hawk’s call didn’t do anything to ease the anguish I was feeling at being stuck in that room, though. Somewhere, I knew, Sherima was prisoner of the Sword or his men, and I was sitting around on my butt not able to do anything about it until AXE’s undercover agents and their informers came up with a lead. And Hawk’s response to my immediate question about that potential lead didn’t help:
“Nothing. Nobody seems to know a thing. And that’s not the worst of it, N3.”
“What now?”
“The State Department has had an inquiry from the Adabian Embassy regarding the safety of Sherima. The ambassador was acting on the direct request of Shah Hassan. Somebody in Adabi — whoever received that radio signal — has passed the word to the Shah that Sherima’s life is in danger here. We still don’t know who transmitted the signal this morning, or who in Sidi Hassan received it. But this is the message that Decoding analyzed from the signal a few minutes before the call from the Adabian Embassy: ‘The Sword is poised to strike.’ ”
“It sounds like she might still be alive,” I interrupted. “Don’t you think it would have said something like, ‘The Sword has struck,’ if she were dead?”