Tell her all about the Silver Scimitar and how you’re the Sword of Allah who’s been leading the most vicious pack of killers in the world. Tell her about all the innocent II people you’ve sacrificed to try to take over control of the entire Mideast. And be sure to tell her how she’s the next one to be sacrificed.”
“That’s enough, Mr. Carter,” he said coldly at the same time Candy asked, “What is he talking about, Abdul? What about the Silver Scimitar and what about me being the next sacrifice?”
“Later, my dear,” he said, watching me intently. “I’ll explain it all as soon as Mustapha returns. We have much to do yet.”
“That’s right, Candy,” I said harshly. “You will find out when Mustapha gets back. Right now, he’s loading the trunk of the Cadillac with the bodies of the two people upstairs. Then he’s to come back for Karim there on the floor. And he’s saving space for you in the trunk, too. Right, Abdul? Or do you prefer the Sword of Allah, now that your moment of triumph is so close at hand?”
“Yes, Mr. Carter, I think I do,” he said. Then he turned slightly toward Candy, whose hands had gone to her face in horror at my words. She stared at him unbelievingly as he turned to her and continued in an icily brutal tone, “Unfortunately, my dear, Mr. Carter is very correct. Your usefulness to me ended as soon as you made it possible for me to make the former Queen my prisoner and lured Mr. Carter here. As for you, Mr. Carter,” he went on, turning back to me, “I think you have said enough. Now please remain silent or I shall be forced to use this rifle, even though it would entail a change in my plans.”
The tipoff that I had been right about the Sword intention of using my corpse as the best piece of evidence to support his story — that he and I had tried to rescue Sherima — made me a bit more daring in the face of the automatic weapon. He would fire it at me only as a last resort, I decided, and I hadn’t forced him to that point yet. I wanted to keep talking to Candy despite his threats, so I said:
“You see, Candy, there are people who make love for mutual pleasure, such as you and I experienced, and there are people like Abdul, here, who make love out of hate to achieve their own ends. Abdul became your lover when he was ready to use you and not before, the way I figure it.”
She lifted a tearstained face and looked toward me without seeing. “Up to that time, we’d just been friends. He’d come around and we’d talk about my father and how terrible it was for Hassan to be responsible for his death, to save his own greedy life. Then, finally, he told me he had loved me for a long time and… and I’d been so careful for such a long time, and—” She suddenly realized what she was revealing about herself and looked guiltily toward Sherima, then back to me.
I suspected that long ago she had confided to her old friend about the intense search for satisfaction that once had driven her from man to man. But she had no way of knowing I was aware of her nymphomania. Now it was obvious that, having started to admit it in front of me, she had become embarrassed. More importantly, I was conscious of the passage of time and Mustapha’s impending return to the concealed room. I had to make a move before that, and letting Candy get involved in a discussion of her affair with Abdul wasn’t going to do anything but use up valuable minutes.
Taking a chance that the crafty Arab’s plotting went way back, I asked her, “Did Abdul ever tell you that he was the one who planned the assassination attempt in which your father died? Or that the killer never was supposed to get to the Shah. Isn’t that right?” I prodded him, while Candy and Sherima both gaped in shock and disbelief. “Wasn’t he just somebody else you used, intending to shoot him down before he got close enough to actually knife Hassan? You knew that saving the Shah’s life would win you his trust since he was that kind of man. Not only that, if Hassan had been slain then, his people would have wiped out everyone connected with the assassination, and it probably would have meant the end of your Silver Scimitar movement. You weren’t powerful enough to ask for help from the rest of the Arab world.”
The Sword didn’t answer, but I could see his finger tightening again on the rifle trigger. I was pretty sure I had guessed right, but I didn’t know how far I could go before those bullets would start spewing out at me. I had to take it one step more to try to spur Candy into action.
“See how quiet the great man is now, Candy?” I said. “I’m right and he won’t admit it, but he’s really the one responsible for your father’s death, and furthermore—”
“Nick, you are right!” Sherima exclaimed, interrupting me. Abdul took his eyes off me for an instant to glance her way, but the cold gaze came back onto me before there was time to jump him.
Her voice full of excitement, Sherima kept on talking: “I just remembered something that Hassan said when he was telling me about the attempt on his life. It didn’t register then, but what you just said recalls it — makes it fit logically. He said that it was too bad that Abdul Bedawi had thought he’d had to push Mr. Knight in front of the assassin before he shot him down. That Abdul already had his gun out and probably could have shot him without trying to create a diversion by shoving Mr. Knight. It was Abdul who sacrificed your father, Candy, not His Highness!”
It was impossible for the Sword to watch all three of us. He was concentrating on Sherima and her story and on me, for obvious reasons. If Candy hadn’t cried out in pain and rage when she turned to grab for her gun on the bed, he wouldn’t have swung on her fast enough. She’d barely raised the little pistol waist high when the heavy slugs began stitching their way across her chest, then back across her face as Abdul reversed the path of his bullet-spewing gun. Miniature fountains of blood erupted from countless holes in her beautiful breasts and erupted from the hazel eyes that would narrow no more in passion as she teased her lover to endless climax.
One of Abdul’s first bullets had knocked Candy’s pistol from her hand and sent it spinning along the floor. I dived for it as he kept on holding back the rifle’s trigger, viciously keeping the stream of bullets following the pathetic target that jerked and twisted from the impact, even as the once lovely redhead was thrown backward onto the bed. His slugs sought out and made hate-filled love up and down her legs.
I was just about to scoop up Candy’s gun — a .25-caliber Beretta Model 20—when my movements apparently caught his attention. The heavy rifle arched in my direction. Triumph glinted in his eyes and I could see that madness and a lust for power had swept away all thought of his need for my corpse later. The time was now, and a smile crossed his face as he sighted the barrel deliberately at my groin.
“Never again, Mr. Carter,” he said, his trigger finger going white from the pressure as he pulled it back further and further until it would move no more. His face suddenly paled as he realized with horror, at the same moment I did, that the rifle clip was empty, its deadly contents spent in a macabre intercourse with a corpse.
I had to laugh at his unintentional use of the international Jewish slogan which protested that the horror that had once engulfed European Jews would never be repeated. “You could get thrown out of the Arab League for saying that,” I told him as I grabbed up the Beretta and leveled it at his stomach.
Candy’s death obviously hadn’t sated the rage that had gripped him; reason was gone from his head as he cursed and threw the rifle at me. I sidestepped it and gave him time to jerk back his tight jacket and pull out the gun I had known for so long was holstered there. Then it was my turn to squeeze a trigger. The Model 20 is noted for its accuracy, and the slug shattered his wrist bone just as I expected it to do.
He cursed again, looking down at the twitching fingers that couldn’t hold onto the gun. It hit the floor at an angle and we both watched, momentarily immobile and fascinated, as it spun briefly at his feet. He was the first to move, and I waited again as his left hand clawed for the heavy automatic. When he got it almost waist high, Candy’s Beretta barked a second time, and he had another splintered wrist; again the automatic crashed to the floor.