I hadn’t quite figured out how the Sword was going to explain the difference in the times of death between the corpses upstairs and Sherima. Then it struck me that those bodies weren’t going to be found in the house. All he had to do was to say that he broke in and found the secret door open and Sherima’s body lying in the hidden room. He also could say that he saw one or two people drive away as he arrived in the limousine. Or he could open the trunk of the Mustang in the garage, then tell the police that somebody ran away when he drove up. The logical assumption would be that the killer was getting ready to carry off Sherima’s body when her bodyguard got there and frightened him.
I wondered where I fitted into his plan. Then I realized that I was going to be the dead man who would help make Abdul’s story even more air-tight, and I knew why I wasn’t to be killed with the automatic rifle. I had to die with a bullet from the same gun that killed Sherima. Abdul could say he brought me along to the house to search for her, and the man who ran away from the garage when we arrived had fired one more shot before he fled, which hit me. Abdul would pretend not to know that I was from the Executive Protection Service — as he now thought I was — and explain that I was just someone who had been friendly to Sherima, whom he had asked for help.
His story wouldn’t stand up, of course, as far as any official investigation went. But would the government be able to convince Shah Hassan that our story simply wasn’t a cover-up of the CIA’s involvement in her murder? And any exposure of my true identity as an AXE agent would only make the whole situation even more complicated and suspicious. After all, I had been sticking pretty close to the former Queen almost since her arrival in Washington. How could that be explained to the man who loved her?
As my mind raced over the complexities of the plot, I had been watching Candy. She had sat down on the bed and seemed to avoid looking at me or Sherima. I don’t think she had expected to see her former friend stripped and cruelly bound. I had figured out that the rope marks on her wrists and ankles were to be passed off as part of the CIA’s torture to try to get the former Queen to change her mind about spilling the beans concerning its purported plotting in Adabi.
By that time, Abdul had finished stashing away the forged notes. He came over to my guard and started issuing orders in Arabic. “Go upstairs and bring the two bodies to the side door. Then back the limousine up as close to the door as you can. Open the trunk and load them in. Be sure no one sees you do it. Then come back down here for Karim. Unfortunately, he must ride with the capitalist pigs. And there will be one more passenger for the trunk, so make certain there is room.”
I was the only one who could hear what the Sword was telling his man, and his words implied something I hadn’t thought about until that moment. If Sherima and I were to be found dead on the scene, then the only other “passenger” for the trunk had to be Candy! And I guessed what was on the “other paper” the forger Selim had completed and the contents of which he had avoided mentioning. I was sure it painted Candy as the CIA’s link to Sherima, and thereby, to Shah Hassan. This part of Abdul’s plan was enhanced by the fact that her disappearance at the time of Sherima’s death would look even more suspicious if the CIA couldn’t produce her to refute the evidence concocted by the Sword.
When Mustapha was gone and the massive door cut off all sound again, I said, “Candy, tell me something. When did you get Abdul to join you in seeking revenge on Shah Hassan?”
“Why? What does it matter?” She had looked up at me to answer, then turned away again.
“I figure it was about the time the word got out about the divorce and Sherima returning to the States, right?”
The hazel eyes searched my face, and she finally nodded, then said, “I guess it was about then. Why?”
Abdul didn’t say anything, but his black, hawklike eyes darted from her to me as I continued talking, hoping as I did so that he was too tense to notice that I’d never raised my hands again after throwing the car keys to him.
“What did he say?” I asked, then answered my own question. “I’ll bet it was something like he’d finally realized that you were right. That Hassan was a bad man who wasn’t really helping his people, but just piling up wealth for himself and giving away a few schools and hospitals to keep the people quiet.”
Her face told me I’d hit the mark, but she wasn’t ready to admit it, not even to herself. “Abdul showed me the proof of it! He showed me the records from a Swiss bank. Do you know that good old philanthropic Hassan has over one hundred million dollars deposited there? How’s that for helping himself instead of his country?”
Sherima had come alive again and had been listening to our conversation. Once more, she tried to convince Candy that she was wrong about her former husband. “That’s not so, Candy,” she said quietly. “The only money that Hassan ever sent out of Adabi was to pay for equipment that was needed by our people. That, and the money he deposited in Zurich for you and me.”
“That’s how much you know about your precious Hassan,” Candy shouted at her. “Abdul showed me the records, and that’s when he suggested how we could destroy him by using you.”
“The records could have been forged, Candy,” I said. “You saw tonight what an expert Selim is at that kind of thing. Bank records would have been much easier to create than coded CIA notes.”
Candy looked from me to Abdul, but found no relief from the doubts I was planting in his expression. “Abdul wouldn’t do that,” she said vehemently. “He helped me because he loved me, if you must know!”
I shook my head. “Think about it, Candy. Would a man who loved you allow you to go to bed with someone else — order you to do it — like you did?”
“It was necessary, wasn’t it, Abdul?” Candy said, almost crying as she turned to him for assistance. “Tell him how you explained that he had to be kept occupied for the night so you could get Sherima, that there was only one way to keep a man like him busy. Tell him, Abdul.” The last three words were a plea for help that went unanswered as Abdul said nothing. A savagely tight smile was fixed on his face; he knew what I was trying to do and didn’t care, because he felt it was too late to change anything.
“I can’t buy that, Candy,” I said, shaking my head slowly again. “Don’t forget, you already knew what kind of a man I was. You and I were together before Abdul even knew about me. He had gone off to Alexandria with Sherima before I met you that first night. You remember that night, don’t you?”
“That was just because I was so lonesome!” She was sobbing now, looking wildly at Abdul. Apparently, she hadn’t told him everything about her initial meeting with me. “Abdul and I hadn’t had a chance to be together for months. There was so much to do getting ready to leave Sidi Hassan. And then all the time we were in London I had to be with Sherima because she was acting like such a baby. Abdul, it was nothing that first night with him. You have to believe me. It was just that I needed someone. You know how I am.”
She started to run to him, but he backed up so that he could keep an eye on me. “Stay there, my dear,” he said sharply, stopping her. “Don’t get between Mr. Carter and my friend here.” He motioned with the gun. “That is just what he wants you to do.”
“Then it’s all right? You do understand, Abdul?” She brushed away the tears. “Tell me it’s all right, darling.”
“Yes, Abdul,” I prodded him, “do tell her everything.