Touch of Magic (20 page)

While Ellery tinkered with the radio Max ducked
in front of a mirror and combed his hair.

"Here's how we'll have to do it, Billy. I'll follow
Ballieu
. Walker can search his room and keep an eye
out for whoever shows up there. You man things in
here."

A dial at the front of the radio sprang to life again
under Ellery's prodding.

"I'll follow
Ballieu
," said Ellery.

Max's comb stopped. The humor slipped from his
face.

"Wait just a damned minute. Just because you
think you walk on water -- " He broke off, seized by
a pained expression, and hastened back to the bath
room.

"Goddamn," said Ellery again.

Channing could see the concern etched into his
face. The reservations
Yussuf
had made ran through
tomorrow night. And
Ballieu
hadn't contacted her.

"Couldn't I help out tonight?" she offered.
"Shouldn't whoever follows
Ballieu
out to that rock
have some kind of backup?"

"Too risky," said Ellery. "And you have to be
onstage. We need everything to look normal."

Walker favored her with a baleful glare, all cor
diality forgotten. "We're used to playing short-
handed. Won't be anything different."

She was still window dressing, relegated to the
fringes with nothing to do but wait for the card
shaver to arrive. And practice.

Ellery went to lean against the bathroom door.

"Hey, Max. I'm leaving my camera on your desk.
Shore yourself up and get shots of the women
you've seen with
Ballieu
. It may be a long shot, but
let's get some film out to Oliver for a background
check."

*
  
*
  
*

"All first-rate, Mama. You want to try?"
The man with the van tossed a Uzi Model B toward
Khadija
, who caught the automatic assault
weapon by its grip and checked the mechanism.
They were on a remote stretch of highway, parked well off the shoulder. The hood to
Khadija's
rented car was up, as well as the trunk lid. It looked as though the van had stopped to help. In the space of
three minutes they had loaded eight weapons and
several cases of ammunition clips into her trunk.

Besides the Uzis there were two AR-15s
equipped with night scopes. Enough to deal with
any problems that might arise when they picked up
the film. Enough selection for any contingency, all
arranged in advance. She had to acknowledge
Ballieu had planned well on this part.

The weapons dealer, sent to the rendezvous by
one of the cells that was helping them, shoved a false floor into the trunk to cover the merchandise. It was very innocent-looking -- carpeted, even.
Khadija
had had her orders of the color and model
of car she was to rent. The man she was dealing with
and the people who had sent him had no idea how
her purchase was to be used. That was the only safe way. Deal only with your own kind. No questions,
no chance of betrayal -- even under torture.

Her trunk slammed closed. The entire transac
tion had taken less than six minutes.
Khadija
walked
quickly around her car and lowered the hood. Inside the car she rocked her foot, in its high-heeled sandal, down on the gas.

She had been right about the Stuart woman. An
American spy. Yet still
Ballieu
was doing nothing.
He made excuses ... insisted the woman might
be useful. He could not know what he was doing.
She was very glad she had met him ... glad she had destroyed all the myths.

Khadija
pressed harder on the gas, keeping the
car just under the legal limit as she drove through
the shimmering heat of midday. By the time she got
back to the resort, it would be time for lunch. It would be time for the Zionist teenagers to gather
round their trough.

It would be time for the Stuart woman to eat.

And drink.

Thirteen

"Perhaps you would care to lunch with me?"

Ballieu
had appeared behind her so utterly with
out noise or warning that Channing jumped. She
was in the lobby, on her way to change and meet
Serafin
, who had scampered ahead. There were
people all around. Yet she had to fight a chill. It
angered her.

She could see
Ballieu's
satisfaction at startling
her. Yet relief shot through her.

"So, you've decided to talk," she said quietly.

He had taken the bait. She tried to
will
her blood
back to normal speed. It ran with bitter elation.

"Why not?" said
Ballieu
. "What you said last night
had a certain interest. Unfortunately
..."

Hooking a strand of her hair around his finger, he
exerted just the slightest pressure. He smiled, and
to Channing's sudden shock there was, underneath
his subtle move to intimidate, underneath the cold
calculation, something that seemed to glitter on the
edge of carnal flirtation.

"Unfortunately I'm not entirely sure I trust you."

With a moue of false apology he released her. He
was watching for her reaction. Channing kept her
face impassive.

"We're even, then, aren't we?" she said.

She thought what passed through his eyes was
anger
. She stepped back and tossed her hair. If she
made this too easy,
Ballieu
might grow suspicious.
She tried to fathom a mind like his and couldn't. Just as she hadn't been able to reconcile what
Yussuf
had
been in reality with the man she'd known, she
thought.

The recollection of
Yussuf
became, in a twisting
way, an inspiration.

"All right, lunch," she said. "But first I want
Yus
suf's
tape back. It has sentimental value."

Ellery would be starting in soon, judging by his pattern. He'd been out by the pool, playing shuffle-board while she and
Serafin
alternately splashed in
the water and read in the smidgen of shade to be
found. She hoped he might be alert enough to see
what was happening and delay a little, maybe come
in by another entrance.

"Why don't we go to my room and get it now?"
Ballieu
suggested. "Perhaps you'll demonstrate the
trick that's on it?"

A trap had opened at her feet. She had to play this
out with him, yet Ellery's warning never to go off alone with him closed down all the other functions of her brain. And
Ballieu
was smiling at her. He'd
already said he didn't trust her. He was giving her
rope. Considering the stakes they were playing for,
and his experience, he'd undoubtedly started to cat
alog faces and details around him -- noticed Ellery. She was supposed to be the Dragon Lady, so she'd
play the role.

 
"My bodyguard wouldn’t like that," she said.
 
Her vague and brazen smile echoed the same note of near flirtation he had struck.
 
She saw him suck that fact in under the hoods of his eyes, and
she felt clamminess creeping over her. Concentrate
on the matter at hand. Her comeback had been a
good one. Besides sounding in line with the part she
was playing, it might give an inkling of how much
he observed.

"The brown-haired fellow you had breakfast with this morning," he said, taking a narrow brown cigarette from a case in his pocket and lighting it. It was a volley in some game they played, and Channing
could swear he was enjoying it.

"No. He's... an admirer." She willed a wider
smile. "I see no reason to give up amusements just because I'm working, do you,
Ballieu
? Why don't you leave the tape at the front desk for me? If it's
there when I come down, I'll have lunch with you."

His eyes had narrowed, yet they were glittering with something like enjoyment.

"A pledge of good faith," he said. "What time and
where shall we meet?"

Channing hoped
Ballieu's
watch was picking this all up and that Walker or Max would get the details
to Ellery. She dared not try to find him herself.

"Don't be late," she said when they'd made the
arrangements. "I hate to wait."

She walked toward the elevators.

*
  
*
  
*

Walker came out in Bermudas and a garish sun
hat just as Ellery was about to leave his lounge chair
to follow Channing. Shambling along, un-
repentantly knock-kneed, Walker unwrapped a cigar. He tossed the crumpled cellophane aside, land
ing it neatly inside the spread pages of the
newspaper Ellery had been reading. Ellery waited,
looked down, and saw there was a note inside.

So
Ballieu
had made an overture, he thought when he'd read it. This was the break they'd been
waiting for, maybe. They'd sent in an amateur, and
she'd turned the trick for them. Why the hell did his temples suddenly feel as if someone had threaded a
ski pole between them?

He was worried. Things were moving too easily. Or maybe they were moving exactly as they should
when a plan went well. Maybe he was losing his perspective because of Channing.

He couldn't let that happen. He wouldn't be any
good to either one of them if he did. He wouldn't be
any good to the department. He flipped a page of
the paper and came face-to-face with a photograph
of his brother, Reid, and two other senators.

Jesus Christ, he thought angrily. Here he was up
to his ass in proverbial alligators, and Reid was head
ing up Be Kind to Animals Week. Not literally, of course. It was some committee for preservation of
historic buildings. All the same, it seemed characteristic of the parallel there'd always been between them.

Reid overachieving without even drawing a breath; Ellery sweating whether he could even
bring off a job. Reid walking in with no experience
and being made editor of his college paper; Ellery
spending three months on an essay for a contest and
tying for fourth place. Reid could dazzle any
woman he wanted. Probably even one as bright as Channing. But none of that mattered now, and he
was a jerk to be thinking about it.

Twenty minutes remained till Channing's ap
pointment for lunch. A little under eleven hours till
Ballieu's
meeting tonight. When things started to
break, they were going to move fast. Ellery threw the paper down, disgusted by his own doubts.

Hell, yes, Reid. We're going to put this bastard
away so you can keep making your trips to
Gstaad
every Christmas and going to Hong Kong on taxpayers' dollars without worrying about the plane
blowing up. Channing's going to put her neck in
the noose while you fuck your current secretary and
your wife gets her hair done. I'm going to see she gets out in one piece. So she can go back to her life and I can go back to mine, and neither of us will
think about each other once it's finished.

Ellery's heels bruised the concrete as he strode toward the lodge.

*
  
*
  
*

By day the indoor dining room had deep blue
tablecloths and a menu that ranged from nouvelle California to pseudo Mexican.
Ballieu
had arrived
first and rose to pull out a chair for Channing as she sat down. She'd changed into a green summer dress
with one of her white jackets. The doctored film was
on her. She had carried it ever since it had come
into her possession. There was no way of predicting
when
Ballieu
might decide to move.