Touch of Magic (18 page)

So swiftly she didn't have time to flinch, his hand
moved, pinning her wrist to the table.

"Disengage the timing device."

His words were the glint of a knife edge, a threat
that need not be articulated. Channing's breath
stalled. She didn't know what he was talking about.

"I can't."

  
Instinctively she knew it was the thing to say. She
got her balance back.
Ballieu's
hand pressed harder
against her wrist.

"What do you mean you can't?"

The pieces fell into place before her. This explained why he was waiting.

"The timing device was
Yussuf's
idea," she said. "I
can't undo it. But I can see that you get out with the film. If I'm not there when you pick it up, you won't walk away."

It was someone else speaking in her voice, some
one as coldly composed as
Ballieu
himself. The man
across from her sat back. At the edge of her vision
she saw Bill Ellery do the same, as if he'd been about
to rush them.

"I don't like threats," said
Ballieu
. "Or black
mail."

"Which is why you killed
Yussuf
?"

There was a wine bottle on the table. And two glasses. She reached and filled one, uninvited.

"I'm making a peace offering, not threatening.
I'm not asking a cent except what you owed
Yussuf
for setting up the deal."

"Why?" There was no indication at all in his face
of what he was thinking.

"Didn't I make it clear enough? I want to keep
doing business with you."

He hadn't decided yet what to make of her story.
That was how she read it. Which meant, she told her
knotted nerves, that she had a chance.

"The magician thought he could ambush me?"

His eyes were pale and chill. He was pretending
unconcern. Or was he pretending?

Channing gave a knowing look. She rose.

"Let's say he expected to sell the film twice. To you, and then when you were out of the way, to
another buyer. Of course, if you don't want my help, you can always try to shoot your way out."

She turned. He made no move to stop her. He wasn't biting, and her mouth felt dry with worry.

A few tables over, Ellery was tossing a couple of
peanuts into his mouth, slouching toward the door without so much as a look in her direction.
Channing
set her teeth, thinking of an airport sprayed with blood if
Ballieu
got what he wanted.

She looked at him across her shoulder, adopting
the same careless tone she'd used in their whole
conversation.

"Think about it."

She walked briskly back to her dressing room.
Her determination not to think
Ballieu
might be
behind her, or what he might do if her story didn't offer the protection Oliver Lemming thought it would, held her erect. This was war. She under
stood that now. She'd understood it sitting there
across from
Ballieu
.

She slid into her dressing room, closed the door, and sagged against it with relief. Sensing a presence, she snapped herself back together. Her eyes jerked open. Bill Ellery lounged against her dress
ing table, one leg hooked over the corner. She started forward, but he intercepted her, catching
her shoulders.

She felt his tension. And his unvoiced question.

   
"I don't know if it worked. He didn't take me up on the deal." Her voice lacked the steadiness she was used to, but she knew a part of the reason was anger. If a few men like
Ballieu
could plunge the
whole world into chaos, then by God a few like her
and Ellery could make it
sane
again.

"Learn anything?"

"Yes. There's some sort of timing device. He asked me to disarm it."

"A time bomb in reverse." He let his breath out
slowly and stepped back. "That's why he hasn't run.
Yussuf
must have put the film in some sort of vault
they can't open."

He smelled of soap and shaving cream. Channing
could see the outline of his Adam's apple.

"Not right here in the hotel." She found that possibility too farfetched.

"No. Somewhere near here. If we can find out
where, that's our ace in the hole."

She didn't understand and must have shown it,
for his mouth began to relax in the first traces of a
smile.

"You can make things vanish; I can take bombs
apart. Are you okay?"

Ellery knew he shouldn't have touched her just now. It hadn't been necessary. But she'd looked
drained when she'd come through that door, and
then immediately had bluffed, pretending she
wasn't. He wished he wasn't starting to see so many
sides of her and that she hadn't performed so well.
It was making things harder.

  
She had nerve enough for any three people, but
nerve wasn't enough. You had to know when to be
scared. She hadn't been trained... didn't have a
gun... would, he was starting to feel, equate
backing down with failure. And her life was in his
hands.

"You're doing a damn good job," he said.

He wondered whether she still dreamed about the doctor in Beirut.

"Let's call it a day," he said abruptly.

*
  
*
  
*

Ballieu
prowled his room lifting pictures off the
wall and looking in lamp shades. The people watch
ing him would have searched his room in his absence. The question was whether they'd been fool
ish enough to leave more of their electronic bugs.

He finished his circuit. Nothing. They were smart
enough to realize that if he'd torn out the last ones,
he'd search again. They were taking care not to
scare him away. They were counting on him to lead
them to the film itself. He'd disappoint them.

His only worry was over the woman who'd met
him in the bar. Could she be telling the truth? The
magician
Yussuf
had no political loyalties, only a
love of money. He would not have been above such
a trick. And the woman herself seemed fearless. It
was possible.

The phone rang bringing him to instant alertness.
No one should be calling him here. A pulse of high-
frequency sound to rupture his brain? No, they
wanted him to lead them to the film. Perhaps it was
only the desk, or one of the women he'd met. He
answered.

"Don't say a word," a male voice cautioned. It
was the seller's voice. "Your watch has ears. The
woman who put it there is working for their side."

  
Ballieu
held a minute in disbelief, then slammed
the receiver down savagely. Bitch. Cunning Ameri
can liar. Was it possible she could have done it right
before his eyes?

He ripped his watch from his wrist, bent the segments apart, and saw the evidence. His fingers reached out to destroy it, then pulled back as he
smiled.

Twelve

Ballieu
slept late and awoke with a sense of
tran
quillity
that seemed to drag at his body. For the first
time in years he had dreamed of the village where he had been born. Light dancing as it could only in the sun-drenched lands of the southern Mediterra
nean. Lushness. Colors. The wavering call from the
minaret that, though he couldn't remember a time
when he hadn't scorned Allah as a fairy tale fit only
for children, nevertheless had soothed like music.
The clear and lingering images haunted even as
they beckoned to him. He could almost smell the
dust in the streets. From somewhere inside him there trickled an unknown rivulet that he recog
nized as fear.

Shaking off the torpor that was pulling at him,
Ballieu
sat up. He ran a forearm over his face and found it bathed in cold sweat. Absurd. Ridiculous. There was nothing wrong with him. Nothing that
mattered, anyway. He flung the sheets from him
and, with cool and practiced discipline, brought all
the resources of his mind to bear on the problems at hand.

So the woman who had told him she was taking
over
Yussuf's
business was nothing more than a U.S.
spy.
Ballieu
pulled open the draperies and ex
amined his fingernails. A pity. There was something
fascinating about her. Some element he had always
found more prevalent in danger than in women.

Ballieu
narrowed his eyes and found he could
recall the exact shade of her hair and the look of challenge in her eye. He had always wanted to bed a U.S. agent. He wondered what sort of trick this
was that she was playing on him. The seller would
call at 10:21, and
Ballieu
would learn more then.

He looked at his watch with the treacherous im
plant that might have spoiled all his plans. Now that he knew of its presence, he would make good use of it, just as he might make good use of the woman, for
his own amusement if not as a matter of safety.
Ballieu
placed the watch carefully on the sink and,
with a smile gliding across his lips, stepped into the shower.

After his shower, naked, he examined his body
before a mirror. The scars left by surgery three
years ago were almost lost amid older ones—from a
mortar attack, a comrade's treachery, and a bullet
received when he was very young and less efficient
than he was now. Those lines, and the firmness of
his body itself, proved he was a soldier. The muscles
across his torso and belly were taut and flat.

He turned and began the course of calisthenics he
did almost daily. Punishing sit-ups; push-ups; the leaping, twisting, turning movements of attack and escape. Lastly he brought his locked fists crashing
against the part of his body where it would be
softest, the spot in his belly. Surviving the pain
would make him stronger. He drew up, gasping.

Perhaps when he finished this mission, he would
become a training officer. He would handpick a few likely candidates who already had proved themselves and teach them the tactics and discipline at which he excelled.

For now it was time to go downstairs for two phone calls. For the first, from the man who was
selling the film, he would make sure his watch and
its cargo were safely deaf inside the phone book.

The second call he intended to be overheard.

*
  
*
  
*

It was still too early for the large swimming pool
to be crowded. From a distance Ellery could see
Channing pulling herself through the water with strong, even strokes. He felt a momentary irrita
tion. Getting no answer when he'd called her room had made him uneasy. The concern had increased when he didn't see her on his first pass through the
lodge.

"Nice morning," he said as she hit the side and
shook the water out of her eyes.

He'd forgotten the impact her body had in the
splashes of orange that made up her swimwear. Droplets of water were sliding down the curve of her breasts. He bent and offered a hand to haul her out. She hesitated.

Vulnerable? Ellery wondered. Or did she just resent him? She put her hand in his and he noted the startling strength in her fingers. He pulled her out
in silence. Behind her
Serafin
was splashing
gracelessly
but exuberantly down the length of the pool.

"Next time let me know where you'll be before
you set out in the morning," said Ellery as mildly as
he could. "I'm supposed to be watching your back,
remember?"

She nodded, a little short-winded from the vigor
of her workout, and picked up a towel she'd left on a
nearby chair.