“He just said that soon I wouldn’t have anything more to worry about,” Sherima recalled with a shudder, “and I knew what he meant.”
As she talked, I examined the Sword and found that he was still out cold. I tore a strip from the bottom of Sherima’s negligee and bound up his wounds to stop the blood that still oozed from them. He would live, if I could get him out of there soon and he received medical attention. But it was obvious he wouldn’t be able to do much anymore with his hands, even if his wrists were rebuilt. And extensive surgery would be needed to turn those shattered kneecaps into something that might permit him to even drag himself around as a cripple.
I didn’t know how long Mustapha would wait outside, knowing that his leader had become my prisoner. If he were as fanatical as most of the Sword’s men, I figured, he wouldn’t do the sensible thing and make a getaway. His only two courses of action would be either to try to get in and rescue Abdul, or sit there and wait for me to try to get out.
I slipped out of my jacket, then told Sherima, “Get down behind that desk again. I’m going to open the door and see what our friend does. He may just come in shooting, and where you’re standing now is right in the line of fire.”
When she was out of sight, I flicked the switch that moved the concrete panel. The few seconds it took to open seemed like hours and I stayed pressed against the wall, my Luger ready. Nothing happened, however, and I had to find out if the assassin was still lurking in the outer basement.
Draping my jacket over the barrel of the empty automatic rifle, I edged my way up to the door frame just as it started to swing shut again. Thrusting, the jacket through the narrowing opening, I watched it being torn away from the muzzle of the rifle at the same time I heard two little plops from outside. I jerked the rifle back before the heavy door sealed us in once more.
“Well, he’s still there, and it looks like he’s not coming in,” I said more to myself than anyone else. Sherima heard me and stuck her head up over the edge of the desk.
“What are we going to do, Nick?” she asked. “We can’t stay here, can we?”
She didn’t know how imperative it was that we get out of there as quickly as possible; I hadn’t taken time to explain about her ex-husband and the deadline for raising him on the radio.
“We’ll get out Don’t worry,” I assured her, not knowing myself just how we were going to do it.
A sensible person, she kept quiet as I pondered my next move. I was visualizing the portion of the basement that lay outside the doorway. The washer-dryer combination was too far from the door to offer any cover if I risked making a break. The oil burner was against the far wall, near the stairway. It was my guess that Mustapha probably had concealed himself under the steps. From there, he could keep the doorway covered and still be out of sight in case of a surprise assault from above.
I looked around the CIA’s hideout, hoping to spot something that might help me. One corner of the big room had been walled off to form a small cubicle with its own door. I had assumed earlier that it probably was a bathroom; and crossing to the door, I opened it to find I was right. It held a sink, a toilet, a mirrored medicine cabinet and a stall shower with a plastic curtain across it. The accommodations were simple, but most of the CIA’s guests were short-term ones and likely hadn’t expected quarters to rival those at the Watergate.
Not really expecting to find anything of value to me, I automatically checked out the medicine cabinet. It was well provisioned, if the person using the hideout were a man. The triple shelves were stocked with toiletries — a safety razor, an aerosol can of shaving cream, a bottle of Old Spice lotion, Bandaids and adhesive tape, plus an assortment of cold pills and antacids, similar to those on the shelves in the bathroom that had been used by the dead agent upstairs. Make that in the limousine trunk outside, since the Sword’s henchman obviously had finished playing undertaker overhead.
I started to walk out of the bathroom, then turned back as an idea hit me. Working feverishly, I made several trips between the bathroom and the secret doorway, stacking what I needed on the floor beside it. When I was ready, I called Sherima out of her hiding place and briefed her on what she had to do, then shoved the desk across the tiled floor to a spot near the switch that operated the door.
“Okay, this is it,” I said and she took up her position beside the desk. “Do you know how to use this?” I handed her Candy’s little gun.
She nodded. “Hassan insisted that I learn how to shoot after the second attack on his life,” she said. “I got pretty good at it, too, especially with my gun.” Her training showed as she checked to see if the pistol were loaded. “It was just like this one. Hassan gave me one and its twin, this one, to Candy. He made her learn how to shoot, too. He never expected that someday—” Her eyes started to fill with tears and she stopped talking.
“No time for that now, Sherima,” I said.
She sniffed the tears back, nodding, then bent and scooped up her negligee to wipe them away. At any other moment, I would have appreciated the view, but now I turned to get ready for our escape attempt.
Picking up the shaving foam can, I took off the top and pressed the nozzle sideways to make certain there was plenty of pressure in the can. The whoosh of the erupting lather told me it seemed to be a new one.
The shower curtain came next. Wrapping the cheap plastic sheeting around the shaving cream container, I made a wad about the size o? a basketball, then secured it lightly with strips of adhesive tape, making certain it wasn’t packed too tightly, because I wanted air to get between the folds of the curtain. Hefting it in my right hand, I decided it was controllable enough for my purposes.
“Now,” I said, holding out my right arm to Sherima.
She took one of the two spare rolls of toilet paper that I had scrounged off a shelf in the bathroom, and while I held it in place, began winding adhesive tape around it, securing it to the inside of my right arm just above the wrist. When it seemed solidly fixed, she did the same thing with the second roll, fastening it along my arm just above the other one. By the time she was finished, I had about four inches of makeshift padding along the entire inside of my arm above the wrist to the elbow. Not enough to stop a bullet, I knew, but, hopefully, of a thickness that might deflect a slug or greatly lessen its impact.
“I guess that’s it,” I told her, looking around to make certain my other equipment was handy. Suddenly, I stopped short, amazed at my own shortsightedness. “Matches,” I said, looking helplessly at her.
I knew there were none in my pockets, so I ran to the dead Karim’s side and searched his with my free left hand. No matches. The same was true for Abdul, who groaned as I rolled him over to finger through his pockets.
“Nick! Here!”
I turned to Sherima who had been rummaging through the desk drawers. She was holding out one of those disposable lighters. “Does it work?” I asked.
She flicked the wheel; when nothing happened she groaned, in frustration, not pain.
“You have to hold down that little catch at the same time,” I said, running to her side as I realized she probably hadn’t seen many such lighters in Adabi. She tried again and couldn’t make it work. I took it from her and flicked the wheel. The flame sprang to life and I blessed the unknown smoker who had forgotten his lighter.
I kissed Sherima lightly on the cheek for luck as I said, “Let’s get out of here.” She reached for the door switch as I moved back into position, picking up my basketball bomb in my right hand and holding the lighter in the other.