He tried for a scream, but all that emerged was a muffled rasp. Then, as if to preclude further effort on his part, the white figure threw something down upon him — a hand, that was it, a hand over his mouth, and Blaine felt his head rocking helplessly back and forth. With an incredible effort he shook the hand from his mouth and, using the last reserves of his strength, twisted the arm bearing the needle that was killing him violently enough to strip it from his flesh.
The white figure groped for it while Blaine flailed with a heavy arm for the nurse’s call button. He had almost reached it when the white figure snatched his arm and pinned it to the bed. He tried to roll free, tried for anything, but his motions came one frame at a time, which was how he saw the white figure grasp the pillow and lower it toward him.
Help, somebody, help!!!!!!!!!!!!
Blaine had screamed the plea only in his mind. The pillow was over his face and it took a few seconds before his dulled brain registered that he couldn’t breathe. He tried to use his arms, but they were heavy and slow. Consciousness skipped and darted but strangely he felt no pain, just emptiness.
There was a sudden smack in his ears, followed rapidly by two more, a pause, and then a last. The pressure eased up on the pillow and Blaine realized he could breathe again. Then the pillow was yanked from his face, exposing his eyes to sudden stinging light. They closed reflexively, then opened slowly again to find a familiar face looming over him wearing a half-smile.
“That makes it two you owe me, pal.”
And Blaine caught the wink of Sal Belamo.
It was two hours later before he came fully around and faced the chauffeur who had driven him to Sebastian’s boat in the harbor.
“It was you who pulled me out of the water,” Blaine said in what had starred out as a question.
Sal Belamo nodded, the light emphasizing that bent nose. “You ask me, this whole assignment was weird from the start.”
“You were almost too late tonight.”
Sal’s eyes tilted toward the bloodstained floor, where earlier the fake nurse’s body had been. “Fucking bitch locked the damn door. I had to run back and grab a key. Her name was Scola. Used to work for the Company.”
“Stimson set this whole thing up?”
Sal Belamo got up from his chair and stretched. “He didn’t send Florence Nightingale with the poison bedpan, if that’s what you mean.”
“I mean you.”
Belamo nodded. “He had a watch put on your phone line at the hotel two days back. When you called for a limo, he figured he might as well take the opportunity to provide some backup.”
“Why not tell me?”
Sal shrugged. “You got me on that one, pal. I was just followin’ orders. Maybe he didn’t want you behavin’ any different ’cause I was around. Tonight he figured someone would try to whack you, and I had orders to keep you safe and sound. ’Course, that brings us to the next stage of the plan. You ask me, it’s a little much, but orders again.”
“What?”
“Boss wants to make sure you’re dead.”
“You mean, it’s supposed to look like Scola was successful,” Blaine realized after a few breathless seconds.
“And got offed herself in the act,” Belamo acknowledged. “Should give you room to move around, stretch your legs a little.”
“I gotta hand it to Stimson.”
“Yeah, like I said, he knew somebody’d be coming to finish the job the explosion started. The thing was, I had to let them make the attempt. You ask me, it got a little close. I mean, if there’s no one with keys at the nurse’s station …”
McCracken sat up a little more in bed. Twin sledgehammers went off in his head.
“We gotta head down to Washington, pal. You okay to travel?”
“Give me till sunrise and I’ll be fine. Right now I want you to get Stimson’s private number for me.”
Belamo’s cold eyes showed he didn’t approve. “You’re supposed to be dead, remember? Hospital lines are open, pal, and corpses don’t talk much.”
“Stimson will understand. I’ll take the responsibility.”
“Damn right you will.” Belamo moved reluctantly to the phone on Blaine’s nightstand. “I just do what I’m told. You ask me, life’s a lot simpler that way.” He pressed out the proper series of numbers and handed the receiver over to Blaine. “It’s your neck, pal. Be a shame if he chops it off after I just saved it.”
“Stimson,” came the Gap chief’s groggy voice after four rings. Obviously the call had reached him at home. It must have been later than Blaine thought.
“This is your wake-up call, Andy. Coming straight from the Pearly Gates.”
“Blaine! I left orders with Belamo not—”
“Pipe down and get your pants on, Andy. You’re gonna want to get right down to the office after you hear what I’ve got to tell you. The computers couldn’t figure out the fiche because you sent them in the wrong direction. It’s so simple we almost missed it. I had it right from the beginning and I didn’t even know it.”
“Am I dreaming all this?”
“Yup, and it’s a nightmare.” Blaine paused. “Christmas Eve dinner for 15,000—the fiche is a goddamn shopping list. But not for food, Andy. The list is for weapons. Each food represents a different armament. I’ll give you the specifics later, but according to the menu, Sahhan’s got enough to outfit an army of, you guessed it, fifteen thousand or so.”
Chapter 12
Sal Belamo drove McCracken to LaGuardia an hour past dawn on Saturday. At the hospital they made use of service elevators and exits, so that no one would see Blaine leave. Meanwhile, a John Doe that had shown up the night before was being given Blaine’s name, chart, and fake death certificate. The apparent hospital murder would be sealed tight, but Belamo would make sure enough leaked out to reassure Scola’s employers that Blaine McCracken had indeed perished. Belamo, in fact, had set up the whole ruse in the last hours of darkness before they left. He was far more clever than his beaten-up exterior and gravel voice suggested. Blaine should have figured Stimson would never have left him to visit Sebastian on his own, let alone leave him vulnerable at the hospital.
“Be seeing ya, Sal,” he told Belamo at the airport, where he’d be taking a private Learjet to Washington.
“First let me get over the cold I got from jumping in that water.”
“Deal.”
The flight to Washington was smooth and short and, as arranged, McCracken climbed into a cab with the designated license plate outside Washington National Airport. Andrew Stimson was waiting for him in the backseat.
“ ’Morning, Andy.”
Stimson’s face was pale and his eyes were sagging. “This is everything we’ve got on Mohammed Sahhan and the People’s Voice of Revolution,” he said gruffly, flopping three stuffed manila dockets onto the seat between them. “Go over it carefully. There may be something in there that can help you.”
“Was I right about his army?”
Stimson sighed. “Not that we can prove, but that doesn’t mean a thing. You’re right. Everything fits together this way, and for now we proceed on that premise.” A grim nod. “In which case, a fanatic radical has fifteen thousand troops at his command. …”
“And plenty of weapons,” Blaine added.