At last, frustrated and exhausted, they went to their suite.
Sarah gave a huge sigh and flopped on the bed.
Henry walked to the window and peered down at the street.
“You know, I haven’t got a clue how we could contact the ship. No number — nothing.”
She groaned. “You didn’t think you’d need them. More to the point, they didn’t think you’d need them.
They’re probably off having lunch or something.”
“Your computer,” said Henry. “Does it have a modem? Could we e-mail?”
“Not without an e-address. Like any other phone, you need a number to dial.”
“Shit. This is ridiculous! We’ve got him! That was Suarez. He shot me. We can take him ourselves!”
“ ‘We’?” said Sarah, taking her hand away from her forehead and looking at him sceptically. “What we are you referring to?”
He went to the phone and called the front desk. A moment later he was having a strange discussion with someone there about men hanging around the lobby. Finally he asked for the manager. After more odd conversation he said “Gracias” and hung up.
“Fuck and double-fuck it.” He pounded the wall in frustration. “Nobody has a clue! They aren’t even aware that military intelligence has been in the building. How is that possible? Wouldn’t hotel security get at least a little suspicious, with these strange jocks loafing around the lobby? Christ Almighty!”
He threw the phone on the floor. “This is nuts!”
“Calm down. You’ll upset your beast, and he’ll kill us both.”
Shep sat in the middle of the room watching them as though he found them very entertaining. He even seemed to be smiling at them.
Her words had been what Henry needed, and his fury evaporated.
After some further conversation they decided the best thing to was just try to relax for a while. Their guards couldn’t be too far away. Henry took out the pack of cigarettes he had bought. Sarah fell asleep as he sat on the divan next to his dog and smoked.
An hour later he retried Enrique’s cel phone.
This time Enrique himself answered.
“Oh my heaven, Sir Henry,” said Enrique as soon as he heard Henry say hell o. “My wife told me of the strange call er, and I was most afraid it was you. It is my fault — I did not tell her to expect a call from you.”
Sarah had awoken at the sound of Henry’s voice.
Henry tried to explain the situation as calmly and plainly as he could, then told Enrique to have someone at the palace call the Enterprise and tell them to contact him immediately. Without hesitation Enrique agreed and said he’d be at the hotel in a few minutes.
“No need to rush. I don’t need you — at least, not right away. Relax and wait for my call.”
He disconnected, then looked at Sarah, who was sitting up on the bed blinking sleepily.
“That should do it,” he said. “The next voice you hear…”
Fifteen minutes later there was a knock at the door.
Peering through the spy hole, Henry saw three of the men who’d been keeping them under surveillance.
At least, he thought it was them, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He slid the chain latch into place, then cautiously opened the door. A wall et with Naval intelligence insignia greeted his eyes.
“Henry Gibbs?” said the young man behind the wall et. “We’re responding to a call from Captain Halsey.
May we enter, sir?”
Henry was sure it was the same men he’d seen in the lobby and out in the street. He unlatched the brass chain and opened the door. “Where the hell have you guys been?”
“We had a false alarm, sir,” said the man as he entered the room. “This latest development is a bit of a surprise. I’m real y sorry.”
He introduced himself as Lieutenant-Commander Sam Levy from Navy intelligence. With him were Ensign Harry Saunders and Lieutenant John Tilbury. Henry invited the men to sit, but they were only interested in Suarez. They listened with interest as Henry and Sarah did all they could to describe the man the conversation in the cantina.
“Jeez,” said Henry at last. “It’s been over an hour since they got back to their hotel, if that’s really where they were going. I sure hope they’re still there.”
Tilbury nodded to his two companions and sat down. Henry, hovering awkwardly between them, dropped down on the bed alongside Sarah. An ornately decorated plush carpet replete with gold-and-brandy- coloured flowers lay between them and the agents like a mandela — a graphic symbol for the complexity of the moment at hand.
Henry raised his eyebrows and looked at Sarah.
Shep sat quietly near the potted plant, looking back and forth at Henry and the intruders. Henry noticed him and smiled, envying the dog’s cool detachment.
Tilbury was speaking about the phone call. The uplink to the ship. The rousing of Captain Halsey and Commander Grimes from a game of poker. He said the two officers were now in a Gadfly heading towards a rooftop nearby. He told Henry he was already under orders, because of section whatever of some Us National Security Code or other — indeed, Henry was as of this moment officially drafted into military service. His job? In a nutshelclass="underline" make the bad guy.
“If you would accompany us to the Carrera,” said Tilbury, “Chilean authorities are standing by with papers to serve on this Rudolfo Suarez.”
“He said his name was Giantonio Frazetti,” said Sarah.
The lieutenant closed his eyes. “If there’s a Giantonio Frazetti or a Rudolfo Suarez registered at that hotel, you’re to finger him, and we’ll take over from there.
Simple as that.”
“Kind of a line-up in the field?” said Henry. “Well, if it’s any help, the dog growled at him. He recognized him too.”
For a moment John Tilbury relaxed and smiled, but when he looked at his companions his face fell.
“If you’re ready to go, Mr Gibbs. It’s cool outside, if you’re coming too, ma’am.”
Henry looked at Sarah. “Got yer gun, Annie?”
“I’ll fetch my sweater,” she said, and went to the closet. “Are you bringing Shep as well?”
When they arrived at the Carrera a little later the lobby was deserted, so the magnificence of the architecture dominated Henry’s view. As the three military officers walked to the desk and presented their badges, he found his eyes lingering on the pyramidal atrium, appreciating its raw beauty and the earthy pastoral glow it lent to the otherwise ornate, almost Victorian decor. He studied the orchids and ferns that clung to the stones of the pyramid. Something about the scene made him feel as though he were glimpsing the soul of the man who was hoping to ransom the world.
He wondered if that stuff he’d heard about the energy of dead warriors clinging to the stones of pyramids — that their spirits lived in the rock itself — might be true after all. He dismissed it as a bit of his own taste for the extraordinary as he turned to watch the agents, who were still talking to the hotel manager and security chief.
Henry heard the lieutenant say, “We have a potential terrorist situation, sir.”
Strangely calm, expressing no apparent alarm, the manager nodded and picked up the phone. There was mumbling as he checked the hotel registry.
“Giantonio Frazetti” were the next words Henry could make out. Then: “Yes, I am told he is at this hotel.”
In thirty seconds, five grey-suited men seemed to come out of the very woodwork of the lobby. One of them, seemingly older than the others, walked to where Tilbury and the manager waited.
Sarah tugged at Henry’s sleeve. “Are we going to wait here?”