Touch of Magic (15 page)

She stared, not at her hand but at its reflection. It
wasn't possible. What had she done wrong? She re
peated the movements tensely, perfectly. No. It wasn't her. It couldn't have been. What else could have caused the slip?

Stripping off her jacket, she examined the sleeve
and lining for a
slub
, a loose thread, anything. Noth
ing caught her attention. Dropping the jacket, she
studied all edges of the film itself, with her eyes and
with her fingers. Could there be a rough spot,
brought out by practice or from some latent flaw in
the film itself?

She became aware of the tension in her face, a straining throughout her body, and worse still, a pounding doubt.

What if it had been her? What if she wasn't equal
to the task she had accepted?

She had buried her talent, turned her back on her Stuart heritage. Now, when all her training could count for something, she was suddenly unsure of
herself. It seemed impossible that she herself could
have
glitched
without knowing it, yet she relived that sickening sensation of the film snagging. She wanted to believe it had been something she could rectify, something that would never occur again if she discarded this jacket and used another piece of film. Yet what if it wasn't?

The sound of the telephone bulldozed the si
lence, flinging her thoughts aside and leaving a bare space.

"Come down two floors. I'll meet you at the elevator," said Ellery's voice.

*
  
*
  
*

"You're going to try to make
Ballieu
believe you
need to be there when the film changes hands?
You're going to lead us to it?"

   
Max circled Channing with a slack-jawed disbe
lief that tickled Ellery. They were in the listening
post. As soon as Channing had made that call to
Ballieu
, Ellery had known he'd have to bring her here. With the bug on
Ballieu's
phone, either Max
or Walker would have picked up what they believed
was a new scent. Quick contact with Oliver had
confirmed the wisdom of untangling things. Ellery
had broken the news to the others before bringing her down to meet them.
Ballieu
was in his room
right now, and Max and Walker were changing
shifts.

"That's right," said Channing, answering Max's
question, "And then I hope the rest of you are fast at
doing what you do."

No reference to the switch she was there to per
form. Ellery had told her Oliver didn't want that part mentioned. He saw her steal a glance to con
firm she was playing it right. He nodded slightly.

Was he imagining it, or was there a strain around
her mouth that hadn't been there before?

"Maybe I won't have to cramp my ass so much in
front of this damned equipment, then," growled
Walker. He was middle-aged, black, and perpetu
ally disgruntled. Chewing an unlighted cigar, he sat
hunched in front of a video screen that showed the
door of
Ballieu's
room. His head was hooked to ear
phones. Various pieces of electronic gear were spread on the desk before him.

Ellery saw Channing taking in every detail: the equipment, the .38 tossed on the bed, the one Max was hiding under the expensive golf jacket he was shrugging into for a shift downstairs. Her eyes re
corded it all with a single sweep.

"Hey, listen, it's tough being new." Max was recovering his footing. He slipped a hand under
Channing's elbow and started to draw her along
with him toward the door. "I've got this shift in the
lobby in case
Ballieu
leaves his hole. But let me buy
you dinner when I'm done. Bill can spell Walker,
and I'll clue you in on how things usually work in a
setup like this."

Ellery had to press his injured shoulder to curtail
amusement at the look crossing Channing's face.
With her free hand she reached beneath her elbow to flick Max's grip away with the tips of her nails.

"I generally buy men dinner," she said. "If I'm
interested."

Max's jaw dropped. His gaze shot in question to
Ellery's. His blue eyes started to narrow as his quick
mind grasped at last that he'd been misled.

"I owe you one, pal," he murmured, nudging El
lery in the ribs in passing. He took his exit with an
air of pretended injury.

Ellery crossed the room to look over Walker's
shoulder. He'd give Channing a minute more to
look at things, though she wouldn't be sharing the
work in here.

"Anything new?" he asked.

"Not a thing." Walker fiddled with dials. "That
other room
Yussuf
booked still looks empty."

The joke on Max already forgotten, Ellery ran the
back of a knuckle across his lower lip and frowned with displeasure.
Yussuf
had made three reserva
tions: one for himself; one for someone named
Cardwell, which
Ballieu
had claimed; and one
they'd assumed was for whoever was selling the film. If the seller hadn't shown up
...

"I don't like it." Walker's words paralleled Ellery's thoughts. "Something's not right."

Ellery moved his head in slow agreement.

   
Several things weren't right. Yet he couldn't quite
put his finger on what they all added up to. In addi
tion, Oliver wanted a low profile here so they didn't
spook
Ballieu
. One man had to be with the equip
ment all the time, to monitor and relay messages from Oliver, who'd set up down the road with a
couple of men. That left just two of them to keep an
eye on both Channing and
Ballieu
.

Last year
Ballieu
had gotten wind of a girl French
intelligence had planted in his organization. Word
was he'd gutted her like a pig.

Turning suddenly, Ellery looked at the woman who was temporarily his partner. She was standing
at the window now, her arms crossed, hugging her
shoulders. Oliver had been right. She wasn't a girl.
She knew too much, watched things too closely for
the label. But what kind of defense was magic
against someone like
Ballieu
?

Channing felt him watching her in the same instant she realized her cheeks were wet. She'd been
remembering the little girl in a bright pink dress
who had died in her arms in that restaurant in Bei
rut. The scene and the feel of blood soaking into her
blouse had returned to clutch at her even as she tried to avoid them.

The child's arms had been blown off at the shoul
ders, and in all the noise and confusion no one was paying any attention to her. Channing, dazed with
seeing
Tony's
body, realizing he was dead, had held
the whimpering child and kissed her forehead. It
was all she knew to do. From the first she had
known the child would die. She could feel the blood
surging out. And she had felt so helpless....

"Something wrong?" asked Ellery as he came to her side.

His presence took the sharp edge of the memory
away.

"No. Yes."

She rubbed her forearm over her cheeks so he
wouldn't see it was tears she was wiping away.

"Ellery, if it turns out I can't do this -- if we fail --
 
what happens?"

"We try to take the film by force. Maybe lose some people. Maybe it gets away."

She saw his mouth tighten.

"Several overseas intelligence sources have
picked up rumors that some group, somewhere,
plans to blow up an airport next week -- location
unknown. Forged passports may be what they're
counting on to get them in. So we damn well better
not let it get away. Why?"

Behind them, oblivious to their conversation,
Walker stood up and tossed his earphones onto the
desk.

"How about one of you spelling me for a while?
My daughter's expecting a baby any day now. Want
to go make a phone call. See how she's doing." He beamed suddenly, as though he did it all the time.
"First grandchild."

Ellery waved agreement. Channing felt his
sharpening alertness even though she could see no
outward trace of it. This was her chance to do some
thing for everyone who had died in that restaurant. But she had to be honest with Ellery. If she got her
chance to switch the film and
glitched
again, his life
would be in danger as well as her own.

  
"The film snagged," she said when the door had
closed behind Walker. "Just before I came down
here. I don't understand it. It's been going fine. I
think it was a thread on my jacket. Or the film -- a rough spot--"

"Are you sure?"

She watched the slow vibration of Ellery's throat.
She heard the implication of his words: It might
have been her.

"Not a hundred percent," she said grimly.

His attention flicked toward the radio equipment he'd promised to monitor. She could feel the pressure, feel him weighing this, feel his waning confi
dence in her even before he spoke.

"Jesus!"

Ten

“Had enough of the kid already, madam?”

Rundell’s smugness, funneled through the tele
phone cable, did more to kick Channing's spirits
back into order than any reasoning she'd done since
leaving Ellery. It had to have been some flaw in
materials, not her own skills, that had caused that
hitch in the film. Ellery might have his doubts, but
she didn't. Couldn't. She was urged ahead not only
by her own drive, but also by a vision of Gramps
urging her to prove herself. She lay back in the cool
of her room, the phone to her ear.

"The 'kid' is no problem at all. But I need a card
shaver,
Rundell
."

She could hear surprise in his second of silence.
This wasn't what he'd expected.

"A card shaver, madam?"

"That's right. Has your hearing gone bad? I need
it just as soon as you can get it."

She gave him the names of two sources. With a
little luck he'd be able to get it today. If he ex
pressed it out, it might arrive by midday tomorrow.
Until then she'd just have to count on luck.

   
With a few crisp words
Rundell
hung up on her to
do her errand. Too restless for anything else,
Channing
rose and began to practice with the pieces of
film. She'd asked Ellery for a replacement, to eliminate any chance of the problem being a rough spot in the film. He'd said it was impossible. So with a card shaver, generally used for such unsavory pur
poses as marking a deck, she'd make sure the edges of the film were smooth. It was a chance, but rather
than simply sitting down and whimpering, she'd take that chance.

*
  
*
  
*

"Something bothering you, Billy?"

Max swung cheerfully into place on the opposite
side of the table where Ellery sat observing the pool
scene. Ellery let Channing Stuart, reading in a
lounge chair, slide into the edge of his vision.

"Yeah. The heat," he answered, filing away the fact that his face had betrayed his tension, if not its cause. This new turn -- the fumble with the film --
 
breathed on his back like a faceless presence.

If he pulled Channing, they'd have to bring in
more help -- FBI, try to capture
Ballieu
, risk a shoot-
out, maybe never know who had stolen the film. If
he didn't pull her, he might risk her life.

He had to decide what to do, report the incident to Oliver or trust her ability. The irony was that he was even wavering. He'd been against the whole
idea of using her in the first place. Yet now he had
started to sense not only her competence, but also how she was being driven to prove something to
herself -- to silence something in the past. He under
stood that need well enough, Ellery thought bit
terly.