I didn’t have a chance to warn the operator when he opened the service elevator door. The blackjack clubbed him to the floor of the car immediately. Just before that, I had felt the pressure in my back ease for an instant, and as I looked down at the operator’s shattered forehead, I knew that my captor had switched the Magnum to his left hand, leaving the right free to bludgeon the man.
Following orders, I dragged the elevator man into a nearby linen closet and slammed the door on him, hoping he would be found in time for medical aid to be of help. The action had given me an opportunity to see the man who kept the big handgun leveled at me as I worked. He was another Arab, shorter and huskier than the one who had died on the balcony with my knife in his throat. He switched gun hands again long enough to take a swipe at the housekeeper’s linen closet key which, fortunately for his purposes — or, perhaps, by arrangement — had been left in the lock on the linen closet. He was an expert with the little leather sap. The blow snapped the key in the lock, making certain that discovery of its battered contents would be delayed even longer.
“Now we’ll go down to the cellar, Mr. Carter,” my heavyset companion said. “Just walk straight into the elevator, facing the back wall… That’s far enough… Now, just lean forward from the waist and put your hands flat out against the wall. You’ve seen the police searching prisoners, Mr. Carter, so you know what to do… That’s right, and don’t move.”
We made the trip to the lower level of the Watergate in silence. The buzzer sounded to indicate that buttons had been pushed to signal for pickups on several floors, but the car was set on manual control and the Arab didn’t stop. When the doors finally opened, I already had been given instructions for my exit: Turn around, hands back at my sides, and walk straight out of the car and turn left. If anyone is waiting, just walk right by as if nothing is wrong. If I did anything to arouse suspicion, I and several innocent persons would die.
No one was waiting in the cellar, but as we walked through the connecting corridors that led to the Watergate parking garage, two men wearing hotel service department uniforms looked at us curiously. To save their lives, I pretended to be talking amiably with the man who was sticking close to my side, his gun now jammed into my ribs from his jacket pocket. They apparently decided we were hotel executives or guests who had gotten lost looking for the garage and passed us without saying anything.
“Nicely done, Mr. Carter,” my polite captor said when we were out of earshot of the pair. He dropped back behind me again, giving directions that eventually led us to a remote section of the garage. Only a few cars were parked there — plus a Volkswagen camper. No wonder it hadn’t been spotted by the patrols. The Arab with me must have dropped off his companions somewhere, then driven directly to the Watergate garage and waited outside my door almost from the time the hunt for them began.
Automatically, I started to head toward the camper, and the Arab interpreted the action correctly. “So you know about that, Mr. Carter. We felt certain you would. That’s why I was sent to pick you up. However, we will be using the car that is parked next to the Volkswagen. It’s been here since last night. One of our men never returned to it from a visit to the roof. I’m sure you know why.”
I didn’t answer, but my talkative friend obviously hadn’t expected a reply, because he continued: “Walk right up to the rear of the Vega, Mr. Carter. You will find the trunk is open. Just raise it and climb inside, slowly. There is no one around, but all the same, I would not like to fire this gun inside the garage. The sound would be quite loud and if someone came to investigate, he would have to be killed, too.”
I had just about reached the Vega’s trunk when the gunman apparently realized he had made a serious error and corrected it right away. “Stop there, Mr. Carter. Now, lean forward onto the trunk lid… I’ll just take this gun. All right, you may stand up again and open the trunk… If you’ll just get in and make yourself comfortable, we’ll be underway.”
Folding myself into the cramped quarters, I made certain that my head was as far back under the overhang as possible, while keeping my legs close to the opening. As I scrunched around, the Arab kept the Magnum pointed at my head; then, when I seemed to be settled, he stepped back and reached up for the trunk lid. As it started to descend I kept my eyes on his body, making certain he hadn’t moved away any further. At the moment I knew his view of me would be completely cut off by the almost closed trunk lid, I lashed out with both feet, putting all the force of my coiled legs behind the kick.
The trunk lid jumped upward, slammed into something, and kept on going. By the time I could see out, I found myself staring at a grotesquely twisted face on a head that was tilted backward at what looked like an impossible angle. Unseeing eyes that already were starting to glaze peeked out at me from over the bottom edges of their sockets. A hand holding the big Magnum involuntarily jerked out toward the car trunk, but the nervous system never had passed on the signal to those frozen fingers to pull the trigger.
As I threw one leg over the edge of the trunk and started to get out, the dying Arab suddenly fell backward, stiff as a board. The back of his oddly tilted head struck the concrete garage floor first and jerked forward again with a loud crack. It.was only as I was bending over to retrieve my Luger from the belt of the man who had held me prisoner, that I realized what had happened when I’d slammed the trunk lid upward. Its edge, like a blunted guillotine blade, had caught him under the chin, snapping his head back with such force it broke his neck.
Searching his pockets, I found two sets of car keys. One ring had a tag on it bearing the same plate number is the VW camper and the name of a car rental agency. I tried one of the keys on the other ring in the trunk of the Vega and it worked. That was pretty strong evidence that this man had been with the one I’d knifed on Sherima’s balcony the previous night. I wondered who else might have been along on what must have been an assignment to kidnap the former Queen. Could the Sword have been on the hotel roof, too? Was the one I had killed accidentally when Candy panicked and bumped my arm trying to tell me that without speaking as he had kept rolling his eyes upward?
There was no time to check out the VW, and I didn’t want anyone to suddenly find me with a dead man in the garage. I dumped him into the Vega trunk, slammed down the lid that had taken his life, and got in the driver’s seat. What the hell, it would save AXE cab fare to Military Road and be one less corpse for Hawk to have to arrange to cart out of the Watergate.
Twenty minutes after I paid the parking fee for the Vega — the ticket had been stamped in almost sixteen hours earlier at one A.M. — I was passing the address I wanted on Military Road. Fortunately, most District Police cars were concentrating on the hunt for a VW camper that afternoon and not bothering with traffic light offenders or speeders, so I had made it fast and without getting stopped. I pulled around the next corner and parked. Walking back to the intersection, I noticed a large, low cluster of buildings on a rise across the street and decided that was likely the ground of St. John’s College, where Candy should be waiting for me. I turned the corner and walked rapidly back on Military Road, not wanting to risk having to explain to some helpful passer-by that I knew there wasn’t supposed to be any parking on that side of the street and that there wasn’t any space on the other side, and that I was in a hurry.