I grinned. My back-up team was on the ball. “Goodbye, sir,” I said, heading for the door.
“Good luck,” Hawk replied.
During its seven years of operation, the Watergate Hotel has catered to the celebrities of the world, and its staff has naturally developed a blasé attitude toward the presence of the famous people who come and go. Most of the big stars of dance and the theater have appeared at Kennedy Center at one time or another, so the center’s next-door neighbor is a logical choice for them to stay. Movie actors, in the District for personal appearances, invariably stay at the Watergate; and it is the home away from home for the jet-setters. Most of the world’s political figures stay there, and even the few top-level international leaders who take up temporary quarters in the official government guest mansion, Blair House, often address gatherings in one of the hotel’s opulent banquet rooms.
Still, accustomed as the hotel staff is to such international luminaries, the former wife of one of the world’s remaining absolute monarchs gave them pause. It was obvious that Sherima rated some very special attention, and as I watched from my post in the lobby, I could see that she was getting it.
I had decided to be in the lobby that afternoon at the time I knew Sherima would be leaving for Alexandria. There aren’t many places to sit, but after loitering for a while in front of the newsstand, examining out-of-town papers, and standing around in the Gucci shop at the hotel’s front entrance, I managed to claim one of the chairs in the lobby. The traffic was heavy, but I could keep my eye on the two small elevators that serve the upper floors and the concierge’s desk.
About five o’clock, I saw a man I recognized as Bedawi get off the elevator, cross to the stairway that led to the parking garage, and disappear. Assuming he was going for the limousine, I walked casually to the entryway; about ten minutes later, a big Cadillac with diplomatic plates swept into the drive and stopped. The doorman started to tell the chauffeur that he would have to keep going around the circle, but after a brief conference, Bedawi got out and went inside, leaving the car at the door. Obviously, the doorman agreed that the former Queen shouldn’t have to walk more than a couple of steps to her carriage.
I could see Bedawi go to the concierge’s desk, then return to wait for his passenger. He was shorter than I expected, about five feet ten, but solidly built. He wore a well-tailored black jacket that accentuated his massive shoulders and tapered sharply to a slim waist. The tight black trousers outlined his incredibly muscular thighs. His build suggested that of a running back for professional football. The chauffeur’s cap covered hair that I knew from his file picture was cut short and inky black. His eyes matched the hair, and they swept over everyone moving past him. I had stepped back into the Gucci shop to watch him from behind a selection of men’s handbags hanging next to one window near the door. He doesn’t miss a thing, I decided.
I knew the moment that Sherima came into his view from the sudden tenseness that filled the man. I moved to the doorway in time to see her walk by. From the AXE report, I knew that she was five-foot-five, but she appeared much smaller in person. Every inch was that of a queen, however.
Bedawi snapped the door open for her, and as she slipped inside the limousine, her dress slipped above a knee for a quick second before she pulled her leg inside. Several people standing nearby waiting for cabs turned to look, and I could tell from the whispers that some of them had recognized her, perhaps from the pictures the local papers had carried that morning with their stories on her expected arrival in the capital.
Time to go to work, I decided, and headed for the elevator.
Chapter 5
Her body was as warm and receptive as I had imagined. And her appetite for lovemaking proved as much of a challenge as I had ever met. But the tingling invitation of her fingertips trailing on my neck and along my chest aroused my own passion until our caresses became more demanding, more urgent.
I don’t think I’d ever touched such soft, sensitive skin. As we lay tired and spent on the twisted bedsheets, I brushed a long strand of silky hair from her breast, letting my fingers rest lightly on her shoulder. It was like stroking velvet, and even now, exhausted from making love, she moaned, pulling me forward and finding my lips with hers.
“Nick,” she whispered, “you are fantastic.”
Propping myself up on one elbow, I looked down into those wide, hazel eyes. For a brief second I had a mental image of her photograph in the dossier, and realized that it had not at all captured the depths of her sensuality. Leaning down, I covered her full mouth, and in a moment it was obvious that we weren’t nearly as tired as we had thought.
I was never considered a sexual coward, but that night I went to the very limits of pure exhaustion with a woman whose demands were as intense — and arousing — as any woman I’d ever made love with. Yet, after each frenzied climax, while we lay in each other’s arms, I could feel the desire mount again as she let her fingers play idly over my thigh, or brushed her lips over mine.
It was Candy Knight, though, and not me who finally fell into a fatigued sleep. As I looked at the even rise and fall of her breasts, half-hidden now by the sheet I had pulled over us, she seemed more like an innocent teenager than the insatiable woman whose moans still echoed in my ears. She stirred slightly, moving closer against me as I stretched out an arm to the bedside table and picked up my watch.
It was just midnight. A cooling breeze came in through the partly open window, fluttering the drapes and sending a chill over my shoulders. I reached over and picked up the telephone receiver, trying to be as quiet as possible, and pushed the “O” button.
The hotel operator answered immediately.
Softly, casting a glance toward the sleeping Candy, I said, “Would you ring me at twelve-thirty? I have an appointment, and I don’t want to be late… Thank you.”
Beside me, Candy stirred again, pulling the sheet tightly around her shoulders as she rolled over. A tiny noise, almost like a whimper, sounded in her throat, and then she was still looking more childlike than ever. Cautiously, I leaned over, lifted a lock of hair from her forehead, and kissed her softly just above her eyes.
Then I lay on my back, closing my eyes. Thirty minutes would be a sufficient rest for me, and it would have to do for Candy, too. We’d both be awake before Sherima returned to the hotel.
Relaxing, I let my mind drift over the past hours, from the time I had come upstairs after Sherima’s departure. I’d gone to the door of her suite and stood fumbling with my key, trying to force it into the lock…
Like many people do, Candy made the mistake of opening the slide on the door’s peep hole with the light on behind her, so I could tell she was trying to see who was attempting to get into the room. Apparently, she wasn’t put off by what she saw, for the door suddenly opened. Her look was as questioning as her voice.
“Yes?” she said.
Feigning astonishment, I gaped at her, looked at my key, at the number on her door, then back along the hallway to my own door. Sweeping off my Stetson, I said in my best Texas drawl, “Excuse me, ma’am. I’m truly sorry. I guess I was thinking about something and just went one door too far. My room’s back there. I do apologize for bothering you.”
The wide, alert hazel eyes continued their appraisal of me, noting the hat and suit and square-toed boots, and finally sweeping back up over my six-foot-plus frame and taking in my face. At the same time, I was getting a healthy view of her. The bright chandelier in the suite’s foyer outlined her long legs under the sheer negligee al-most as clearly as the thin material revealed every delightful detail of her firm breasts thrusting sensuously out toward me. Desire rose in. me like an electric shock, and almost immediately I sensed that she felt it too, as her glance swept down to my waist and below, where I knew the tight-cut trousers would betray me if we stood looking at each other a moment longer. In a gesture of false embarrassment, I moved the Stetson in front of me. She raised her eyes, and it was apparent that my gesture had rattled her. Her face was flushed when she finally spoke:.