The chair to the right of Mrs. Mulroney was similarly empty. Sonny assumed that this was where Bush would be seated. President of the most powerful nation on earth would naturally take precedence over the Mexican leader for the place of honor on his hostess’s right. This would make things more difficult. If Sonny took out Bush first, he would then have to sweep to the right for his second target and that would take him further away from the exit doors.
He was beginning to think it no longer mattered.
The moment he squeezed off the sarin, first at Bush, next at Thatcher if there was time...
He could no longer see an escape.
Everywhere he looked, there were agents. Agents to the left and right of the dais, agents behind the dais, agents at each of the windows overlooking the park, agents outside and inside all the doors. Thatcher’s heavy mob behind her, trying to look as cuddly as teddy bears, but coming off as grizzlies. Bush would have his own army of Secret Service men. There was no way Sonny could get out of here alive.
He closed his eyes.
The Mexican agents looked at him in surprise.
They did not know he was praying.
One of the men from the British Consulate was telling a joke about Red Adair, the man who had worked to put out all the oil fires in Kuwait.
“Adair’s sitting in the lobby of a hotel there, y’know, when this American tourist begins chatting him up. ‘I hear Red Adair’s in Kuwait,’ he says. ‘So he is,’ Adair says. ‘I hear he’s staying right here at this hotel,’ the tourist says. ‘So he is,’ Adair says. The tourist says, ‘I’d love to meet him, I’m a great admirer of his...’”
Just what I said to Mrs. Thatcher, Elita thought, still embarrassed.
“... and Adair says, ‘Well, you’ve met him — I’m Red Adair.’ The tourist jumps to his feet, takes Adair’s hand, begins pumping it madly, and says, ‘Am I glad to meet you! I’ve been an admirer of yours forever! Are you still screwing Ginger Rogers?’”
Everyone at the table began laughing, except for a woman Geoffrey had earlier introduced as Lucy Phipps, who now blushed scarlet and sank lower into her chair. And all at once, the laughter trailed, and all conversation seemed to stop as well, not only at the table where Elita sat with the Brits but everywhere around the room. In the hush that followed, Elita turned to look toward the entrance doors.
Sonny opened his eyes when the room went silent.
The Mexican agents were looking toward the entrance doors.
“Aquí viene,” one of them said.
Sonny looked.
And saw not President Bush coming through those doors with Barbara on his arm but President Reagan with Nancy on his arm. The wrong goddamn President! Waving his familiar wave to the hushed and reverent crowd, grinning his familiar grin. And suddenly there was applause for this popular idiot, this fool who’d succumbed to his vice-president’s advice: Send the bombers. Had the letter not fallen into their possession, they’d have believed forever that the blood was on Reagan’s hands. But through the merciful goodness of God, they now knew that the man responsible for young Hana’s death was the man who’d written that persuasive document: Send the bombers. Destroy the Beloved Leader. Murder the infant daughter where she sleeps in her bed.
Bush.
The murderer Bush.
Not Reagan, the easily led fool, here to take his place beside the great whore of Britain, his one-time infamous partner.
Sonny would have killed them both in the next instant, but his instructions were clear.
Bush was the target.
You must not do anything to jeopardize your main objective.
It would have to wait till the Fourth, after all.
“Buenas noches,” he said to the Mexicans, and began striding across the floor, passing the orchestra where it was tuning up discreetly on his right, the applause for Reagan tapering as he took his seat beside the bitch of England, Sonny’s eyes searing with almost blinding hatred for both of them, the doors not twelve feet away now, the two agents who’d earlier been checking names now standing inside the doors, side by side, legs apart, hands behind their backs, six feet away, and...
“Sonny!”
The name stopped him as effectively as a rifle shot.
He turned, but only for a second.
And caught a glimpse of Elita rising from her chair at a table near one of the big arched windows.
He turned back to the doors again. Nodding to the agents, he said, “See you later,” and they parted to let him through.
Behind him, he heard Elita calling yet another time.
“Sonny!”
He did not look back.
12
Why had he run?
Hadn’t he seen her last night? Heard her?
She’d screamed at the top of her lungs. Startled the Brits — especially Miss Lucy Phipps — out of their collective wits. Well, the shock of it. Seeing him there. In a business suit and wearing some kind of identification tag, was he the doctor in residence or something? I mean... what was he doing there? And why had he ignored her, dashed through those doors and out into the corridor as if there was an emergency someplace, calling Dr. Hemkar, emergency in the operating room, Dr. Hemkar, report to the operating room at once.
“Sonny!” she’d yelled, and “Sonny!” again, and then, embarrassed to death — first her gushing to Mrs. Thatcher and then bouncing out of her chair like a teenager — she almost whispered his name the third time, a question mark at the end of it this time, “Sonny?” and since she was standing anyway, she muttered, “Excuse me, please,” and went after him. By the time she reached the corridor, he was gone. Penn Station all over again. And now, ladies and germs, it gives me great pleasure to present The Amazing Disappearing Dr. Krishnan Hem... oops, where’d he go? Amazing.
He probably hadn’t seen her or heard her. There’d been a lot of noise in the place, after all, people talking and laughing and table-hopping, waiters bustling about, it was entirely possible that her voice had been drowned in the babble and boil. Because surely, after what they’d done together, after the intimacies they’d shared, he wouldn’t just ignore her... would he? I mean, if he’d heard her or seen her, would he have just run off that way? Unless there was some kind of dire emergency that required a doctor. Which may have been the case, after all. His beeper had gone off and he’d...
Wasn’t that a walkie-talkie she’d seen in his hand?
Well, a doctor.
She supposed doctors sometimes carried walkie-talkies. She guessed. Especially at a large important function like that one, where he was most likely the doctor in attendance, that was the word she’d been looking for. There to be on hand in case anyone had a fainting spell or a fit, I’m a doctor, ma’am, please let me through. Open the woman’s blouse, put his stethoscope to her chest, lucky lady. Just thinking of him, she...
Damn it, she had to stop this.
He had heard her.
He had seen her.
He had ignored her.
Period.
She picked up the phone and dialed her mother’s number at the beach.
She let the phone ring a dozen times, and then she hung up and punched out the numbers again, and let it ring another dozen times. On the offchance that Mr. Hackett next door might have gone out there by now — this was Thursday already and a lot of people were starting the Fourth of July weekend early — she dialed his number, too, and let it ring and ring before finally giving up.