“All right.”
“Elita?”
“Yes, Geoffrey.”
“I’m sure she’s fine.”
“All right, Geoffrey.”
“Elita, please stop crying. You’re breaking my heart.”
Which words, for some odd reason she couldn’t quite understand, almost broke hers. Or perhaps she’d just remembered what he’d said earlier. About her needing to be with someone who cared about her. That.
Arthur opened one of his desk drawers and removed from it a large manila clasp envelope. He unfastened the wing tips of the clasp, reached inside the envelope, and pulled out a thin rectangle of cardboard, somewhat longer than it was wide.
“According to your specifications,” he said.
There was thick block lettering on the sign, black on white.
“Okay?”
“Yes, perfect,” Sonny said, and then carefully put the sign back into the envelope. Arthur was still watching him.
“So,” he said.
“So,” Sonny said.
“All ready for tomorrow?”
“Almost.”
“Would it were day, hmm?” Arthur said, and smiled.
Sonny looked at him.
“’Will it never be morning?’” Arthur said.
Sonny kept looking at him.
“Henry the Fifth,” Arthur said. “‘Would it were day!’” he said, quoting again. “The French camp, near Agincourt.”
“Oh,” Sonny said.
“I still don’t know your plan,” Arthur said.
“I’ll be laying in,” Sonny said.
“I assumed. And when you surface?”
“I’ll blend in. Till it’s time.”
“Do you know when he’ll be speaking?”
“Twelve noon.”
“High noon, hmm?”
“High noon, yes.”
“Catch the West Coast, too.”
“Yes.”
“How will you do it?”
“From above. The level above him.”
“Using?”
“Sarin.”
Arthur raised his eyebrows appreciatively.
“Careful with that stuff,” he said.
“I will be.”
“Don’t want to get any on you.”
“No.”
“Or even breathe any of it.”
“I know how dangerous it is,” Sonny said.
“Should do the job nicely, though.”
“Yes.”
“Then what?”
“Get away. If I can.”
“How?”
“A boomerang,” Sonny said.
“Ah. Yes. Good,” Arthur said. “Very good. And where will you go afterward? Back to Westhampton?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Where then?”
“The hotel, I think.”
“I’d like to know for certain.”
“I’ll call you,” Sonny said. “If I get off the island.”
“Oh, I’m sure you will,” Arthur said. “Which is why I’d like to know where you’ll be, hmm? So we can help you with your future plans.”
“I’ll call you,” Sonny said.
“Please,” Arthur said, and smiled.
The three men met in the CIA office in lower Manhattan, its exact location known only to the people who had legitimate business there, and incidentally to any foreign spy who happened to be tracking them. None of the men was quite sure an actual threat to the President existed, but they damn well wanted to make certain it would be properly addressed if it did exist.
Well, actually, one of the men frankly didn’t give a damn whether the President got murdered or not. This was Secret Service Agent Samuel Harris Dobbs, who saw this latest brouhaha as just another plot to keep him here in New York when all he wanted to do was go back to Washington where his wife was. Nobody had killed Reagan at the goddamn Canada Day thing the other day, and nobody was about to kill Bush tomorrow, either. But Hogan and Nichols, the two men with him, kept worrying the thing like a dog gnawing on a bone. Nichols was the one who seemed most convinced that a conspiracy was afoot; but he was CIA, so what could anyone expect? Hogan seemed desperately trying to understand the arcane terminology Nichols kept tossing around. He understood murders, though, and three people had been killed so far, and it looked possible that someone just might also have his sights on the President; crazier things had happened in this city.
“They call themselves Sayf Quaṣīr,” Nichols said. “That means scimitar in Arabic. It looks like this,” he said, and carefully lettered the word on a pad, and then showed it to the other men. Dobbs figured he was showing off.
“Pretty writing,” he said.
“Pretty little tattoo, too,” Hogan said.
Ta-2-2, Dobbs thought. Sounded like a robot in a science-fiction movie. Tell the truth, this whole damn thing sounded like science-fiction. A conspiracy to kill the President? The way he figured it, if no one had killed the son of a bitch yet, no one was ever going to kill him.
“It isn’t so farfetched,” Nichols said, as if reading his mind. “He’ll be here tomorrow, you know. Coming in by jet to La Guardia, then by helicopter to the island.”
“These two British ladies had tattoos,” Hogan explained belatedly.
“What British ladies?” Dobbs asked.
“These two murder victims. Green scimitars.”
“What?” Dobbs said.
“Just under their... ah... breasts,” Hogan said delicately.
“What?” Dobbs said again.
“We think it’s a means of positive identification,” Nichols said. “A way of exposing impostors.”
“What do they do?” Dobbs asked. “Open their blouses, flash their boobs?”
“In interrogation,” Nichols said. “If they catch a double.”
Hogan wondered what baseball had to do with this.
“Check him out,” Nichols said, “they’ll know right off.”
“Flash their boobs,” Dobbs said, refusing to let go of it. “Don’t shoot, I’m a spy.”
“Well, I don’t know what they do, actually,” Nichols said, looking offended. “We don’t know very much about them, actually. But we feel certain the green scimitar tattoo identifies them.”
“What time will the President be in?” Hogan asked, changing the subject. Schedules, he knew. Police investigation always entailed schedules. Time tables. Who was where when? He could deal with schedules.
“He’ll be speaking at twelve o’clock. Probably get to the island minutes before. He’s an old pro at this sort of thing.”
A campaign speech, Dobbs thought. Pure and simple. Worst damn thing was he’d probably get re-elected. The thought of another four years of a Republican president — any Republican president — made Dobbs shudder.
“What if it rains?” he asked. “It looked like rain when I came in.”
There were no windows in the office. For all they knew, it could already be raining.
“I don’t know where he’ll do the speech if it rains,” Nichols said.
“Maybe stay in Washington,” Dobbs said. Which is where I should be, he thought. “Do it from the Oval Office.”
“Maybe. Statue of Liberty’d be better, though.”
A Republican, Dobbs thought. Always looking for the angles, camera or otherwise.
“I keep wondering why those two broads were killed,” Hogan said.
Murder, he could deal with. There were reasons for murder. Crazy reasons sometimes, but always reasons. If you were a homicide cop, you always asked why.
“Conflicting interests?” Nichols asked, and raised his eyebrows.
“Like?” Dobbs said.
“An agency that wants to keep the President alive.”
“Like?” Dobbs said.
“Mossad?” Nichols suggested.