I turned the screens off, then turned on all three of them. The third screen offered another view of Erikson's office from a different angle. Satisfied with my performance, Erikson went back into his office and closed the wall panel.
I sat down again on the padded stool. There was a faint whispering sound from the monitor, and it took me a second to realize it was the slurring noise of Erikson shuffling papers on his desk. The microphone inside must really be as sensitive as he claimed, I decided. I fit a cigarette and settled down to wait.
Then a girl's voice sounded faintly. "I won't do it!" she said in a high-pitched voice. "It's not like you said!"
I leaned toward the tape-recorder monitor expectantly before I realized the voice hadn't come from it. The television screens showed no one in Erikson's office except him at his desk.
"Cut the stalling and unwrap the merchandise, baby," a man's voice said. Like the girl's, the voice was faint but clear.
I looked around the room. There was a door at the opposite end of the room from the hidden entrance. When I approached it, I saw the door was steel. It had a powerful spring-bolt lock. I eased the lock back, half-expecting to find the door locked on the other side. It wasn't. I inserted a hand and explored the other side of the door. It was paneled wood, concealing the steel, and it didn't have a keyhole. I opened the door wider.
Glaring light dazzled my eyes. I blinked and tried to focus. It was another moment before I could make out three women and two men in a room that looked like a photographer's studio. Cameras on tripods and high-intensity lights on standards with wires trailing from them were deployed seemingly at random. Along one wall was a backdrop depicting a beach scene. In front of the flat was a metal beach chair in a sandbox.
"When you said photos in the nude, you didn't say it was a gang job!" the girl's voice spoke up again. I could see her now. She was a frosted blonde with flippy curls and tight waves that made up a short, bouncy hairdo topped with short bangs.
"Look, Marcia," the younger-looking of the two men said. "We're paying you forty an hour and we thought we were buying a pro. Now either strip or bug off. The door is right over there."
The frosted blonde bit her lip. Her companions, a cynical-looking brunette and a chubby brownette, were already removing skirts and blouses. By the time the brunette peeled down a girdle and stood there rubbing at the red pressure marks on her slim flanks, the blonde was pulling her dress off over her head.
"That's better," the man said.
The brownette stripped to garter belt and stockings, the blonde to canary-yellow bikini panties. The second man, the photographer, held a light meter against each of the girls' bare bodies in turn. "That's a real nice piece of meat you've got there, Ginger," he said to the brownette as he removed the meter from the vicinity of her broad, nude buttocks. "Okay, Edna," he addressed the brunette, "get into the beach chair. I can't shoot your tail till those girdle marks fade out."
The brunette sauntered to the sandbox with an exaggerated hip flourish, tested the sand delicately with a toe, then sank down into the chair. Immediately she bridged with shoulders and heels, thrusting her stomach upward. "Goddammit, that's cold!" she cried out.
"Here's a blanket," the younger man said soothingly. He arranged it beneath her arched form and the brunette relaxed again. The man patted her bare belly. "That's the girl, Edna."
"Pants off, baby," the photographer said to the blonde. "We're all girls together here." He waited while the canary-yellow panties were removed. "A real blonde, hmm? When we do the black-and-whites, we'll have to touch up your bush with a little lampblack or there won't be enough contrast. That pale fleece of yours'll come through good in color, though. Now-"
"You're not going to put any dirty old lampblack on my-on me," the girl said indignantly. "I didn't come here to-"
"Oh, shut up, will you?" the younger man said wearily. "Get them posed, Ted. This is running into money."
"Stand behind the beach chair so your tits are aimed right at the camera over the top of Edna's head, Marcia," the photographer instructed the blonde. "Ginger, you squat down at the dividing line-no, make it at the foot of the chair with your butt aimed right at me and your-"
The sound of a warning buzzer jerked me to attention. I closed the door reluctantly and threw the bolt over quietly. When I turned around to look at the television monitors, a green light on the side of them had turned red. I went to the padded stool and sat down.
Erikson was admitting two men into the outer office. As they crossed the threshold into the larger office, one of the fluorescent tubes above my head flickered momentarily. At first glance both men looked more like insurance agents than Israeli counter-intelligence agents. The older man was stocky, with a dignified bearing and thinning gray hair. He had a wide mouth but thin lips, and his deep-set eyes appeared to lack warmth.
His companion was younger, taller, and muscularly lean. His small eyes were close set, like two rivets holding in place an elongated nose that was almost sharp at its end. His sandy hair had a reddish tint which was more pronounced in his thin, straight eyebrows. His entire face had a foxy, streamlined appearance.
Erikson thrust out his huge hand in welcome. The older man took it, but the younger one merely nodded. He turned and walked into the outer office again. When he disappeared from the left-hand television screen, I knew he was reconnoitering the corridor outside Erikson's office. He came into view again on the monitor almost at once.
"Sit down, gentlemen," Erikson invited the pair. The gray-haired man nodded and sat down so erectly his back didn't touch the metal of the chair. The younger man folded his arms and remained standing. "What can I do for you, Mr. Bergman?" Erikson continued.
"What I have to say, Mr. Erikson," Bergman began in a resonant voice, "will take as little of your time as possible because I'm convinced you have little time left. We appreciate that you are forced to work under what we consider to be unnecessary restrictions, and we will curb our impatience a little longer. We have, after all, agreed to cooperate to the fullest degree. We sacrifice this important element of time, however, only to urge you to act without delay."
Bergman spoke with a clipped, British accent which reminded me of Ronald Colman in his heyday on the screen.
"Act?" Erikson responded blandly. "I'm not sure I know what you mean."
"Must we always play cat and mouse?" Bergman's tone had an undercurrent of harshness. "You know to what I refer. It's the matter of the airliner forced down by fedayeen commandos in Nevada."
He paused to gauge Erikson's reaction. "I see that you are not surprised that we know about this bold attack against your airplane," he went on. "We have ways and means of looking after our interests even in your country. It should suggest to you that if correct response on your part is lacking, we have all the information necessary to react in our own defense."
"The investigation isn't complete at this time," Erikson answered. "So it's impossible to verify your suspicion that foreign elements diverted the aircraft. At this time no one can officially name the saboteurs."
The younger man took a quick step forward but was stopped by a motion from Bergman in his chair. "Your government may choose to be as blind as it wishes, sir," Bergman replied. "We know that a quarter million dollars was acquired by Palestinian raiders from the passengers of the aircraft, and we know that this money will most certainly be used for purposes detrimental to the security of the state of Israel."
"That's quite a presumption," Erikson said.
"I know of what I speak," Bergman said firmly. "The same pattern has been practiced in the past. There is nothing new in this piracy of aircraft. This time it involves the cold-blooded murders of members of the Jewish faith. We have every reason to believe that this money will find its way to the El Fatah to reappear in the form of arms to be used against the defenders of the homeland."