Touch of Magic (4 page)

He'd raged, yelled bitterly that she wasn't a Stuart. It felt like a curse. In the end she'd gone off, anyway, and two weeks later Gramps was dead.

Yussuf
had been en route to an engagement and had brought the news to her. It had been the start of
the visits and the tricks they played on each other. In a way they'd never known each other well, yet
there'd been a bond.

Action.

She outraced the emotions that wanted to claim
her, drew on a white silk robe, and went downstairs.

The living room still bore her grandmother's im
print. Good quality seascapes hung on the walls. A sofa and chairs were upholstered in moss-green velvet. A writing desk and other pieces in the comfort
able room were authentic Sheraton.

It was a room that soothed Channing. She sat
down in a wing chair. Picking up a quarter, she let it dance back and forth across the backs of her fingers.
That act also steadied her.

A footstep sounded.
Rundell
padded in at a majes
tic totter.

"This isn't some sheikhdom, madam," he began
severely.

He'd started calling her madam the day she'd
signed his first paycheck. This opening was one of
his favorites. It led to a lecture on rashness, and
Channing realized if he'd omitted it, she'd have
been disappointed. She grinned in spite of herself.

"How's
Serafin
?"

"Splendid -- but you can't afford to feed him."
Rundell's
teeth clicked shut. Subject closed. He grunted as he bent to turn on a lamp. "Where did you find him?"

"He was hanging around to see
Yussuf
. He didn't
have a place -- "

"I'll make a nightcap. You can start at the begin
ning," he said, interrupting.

Channing wondered briefly how they'd ever
come to this ritual. She really wasn't fond of liquor
late in the evening.
Rundell
was -- and she supposed
he liked to feel that he was coddling her.

"Make one for both of us," she said. That was part of the ritual, too, the urging. You had to make allowances if you wanted to keep an adversary as good as
Rundell
.

As he splashed whiskey and soda into glasses she
summarized her visit with
Yussuf
and all that had
happened afterward. Feeling as though she'd been
in a nightmare, Channing brushed a hand across
her eyes.

"God. I stole a gun, too ... Police evidence."

"I suppose you want me to put it down the gar-
bage
disposal?"
Rundell
said sourly. He clunked her
glass down beside her and lowered himself to a
chair facing hers. "Madam, you're -- "

"Impulsive, spoiled, hardheaded, and too old to
behave like a tomboy. Did I forget anything?"

Rundell
hated it when she stole his thunder. She
heard him sniff.

"Sloppy. You drop your clothes everywhere." He
knocked back half his drink. "I wish you'd find a
man to tumble around with. You'd be a hell of a lot
less trouble."

*
  
*
  
*

Her passport said Annette Lewis, but her real name was
Khadija
. Her hair was black. Her lips
were full, alluring in their sultry discontent as she
stood in the customs line. Inside the lining of the
sable coat slung over her shoulders she carried two
million dollars. Inside her belt she wore enough
plastic explosive to destroy herself and the money,
should it be discovered.

The man at the customs gate closed her suitcase. She was in Los Angeles.

She moved toward the taxi area, smiling at the
stupid American pigs who tried to flirt with her.
Bringing in the money
Ballieu
needed had been her
responsibility. She had volunteered for the job. Vol
unteered because she wanted to meet Henri
Bal
lieu
.

He was an old man, almost fifty. Too old for this
job, too cautious, the younger members of the cell
in Paris said.

Khadija
flexed lithe muscles, their deadly skills
hidden beneath the tight jeans and expensive capi
talist whore boots that her mission required as dis
guise. She was here to advance herself, to report
any flaw in
Ballieu's
judgment -- and to make sure
nothing went wrong.

She slung her coat into the back of a taxi that
opened its door to her.

Though no one knew it, she had a personal reason
for wanting to cause the downfall of Henri
Ballieu
.

*
  
*
  
*

Near a boarded-up fish house in Topanga Canyon,
Ballieu
stepped out of a phone booth. Pain twisted
his belly. Three years ago they'd said they'd cut the
pain out of him, but they hadn't.

It was why he was going to get this piece of film at
any cost -- as a memorial to himself. And nobody
knew. His pale eyes scanned the twisting two-lane
road that led through the canyon. It was almost
deserted at this hour. His car, left where it was
expected by American comrades, was hidden in
shadows. He was satisfied he hadn't been followed.

Ballieu
smoothed back thinning blond hair, the
legacy of his French father. It had been an easy
matter to call the still frantic nightclub, say he
wanted to book the girl who had helped with the
magic act, get her name and telephone number.
Tomorrow it would be equally easy to get rid of her.

He started toward his car, reflexes quickening as
another car pulled off and stopped. A youth in
shorts and a sweatshirt got out and started toward
the telephone booth. He glanced at
Ballieu
. Inno
cent, probably, but Henri
Ballieu
didn't believe in
taking risks.

"Excuse me,"
Ballieu
said. "I'm trying to find a friend's house."

Americans were so fawningly accommodating.
Ballieu
plunged his knife in as the youth turned.

The knife was better than using a bullet, which
could be linked and identified. As soon as the death
shudder came,
Ballieu
pulled on surgical gloves. He
picked money out of the dead man's wallet to make
it look like robbery and extracted the knife.

Judgment, he thought with a vicious triumph. Judgment was what gave him an edge. There were those who thought he was growing too old for his work, but he would show them. He had taken care of the greedy magician. He had lost the men in the alley. In little more than forty-eight hours he could get the film.

The single problem remaining was the woman
who had received that cassette tape.

Ballieu
wiped his knife on his victim's sweatshirt and, with his tongue, absently licked away a warm
stain that remained at the hilt.

Three

Bill Ellery rolled over and felt the fire dart in jagged bolts through his shoulder.
 
He opened his
eyes on a standard hotel clock-radio. Eight o'clock. When had he ever slept until eight in the midst of a
crisis? Why had Oliver let him?

He swung his hips from the bed and sat for a
moment, clad only in narrow white briefs. Good old basic Bill, he thought bitterly. No colored jocks, no
after-shave, because your brother, the smart young senator, always chose both so carefully.

A lot of good the basics had done him last night.
He'd still lost Sammy. His throat knotted so he could
hardly swallow. He remembered that feeling. It was
how you held in tears.

Sammy had been the first real friend he'd ever had. He'd understood Ellery's sense of humor.
They'd talked about things -- all kinds of things. Sam's family had begged Ellery to join them for holidays, something his own parents, as they
Christmased
in Vail and summered at Lyford Cay,
had never done. Ellery had found a secondhand
boat like Sam had always wanted and made a little
payment on the side so the price came down to
what Sam, with a family to feed, could afford.

Sam was the gentlest and most decent man he'd ever known. They'd been partners for almost four
years.

Ellery shook his head. Must be the pain pills
they'd given him in the emergency room that were
making him entertain such random thoughts.
Through the door to a connecting sitting room he
could see the steel-gray hair and straight back of Oliver Lemming, director of special projects, his boss. On the phone already in their makeshift com
mand post, and had probably been up all night.
Going into the bathroom, Ellery scrubbed his face to alertness, combed back the healthy mop of hair
he noticed again was getting too long, then made
his way into the sitting room, fastening his slacks.

"How you feeling?" Oliver turned at the first hint
of sound. He was small and trim, plainspoken. Once
an agent himself, he understood better than most the delicate balance between practicality and bu
reaucracy. Ellery liked him.

"I'll make it," he said, easing onto a couch.

Oliver pointed to coffee.

"Have some. Hope you don't mind my bunking where Sam was. It made most sense under the circumstances."

Ellery nodded. One of the things he admired in Oliver was the man's sensitivity. Even faced with the need for expediency, Oliver didn't overlook the fact that a man had lost his life, didn't step in as
though they were all interchangeable parts.

The older man stood up to straighten his back, wincing a little. He looked worn, and his face was showing a stubble of beard. The phone beside
sev-eral
legal pads filled with scribbling rang again. Oli
ver held a brief conversation.

"Shouldn't have let me sleep so long," said Ellery
when he'd hung up. "You get any yourself?"

"Couple of hours." Oliver grimaced again, still rubbing his spine. "Haven't learned a lot.
Ballieu's
dropped from sight. I figured no point us both losing
sleep." His shaggy eyebrows drew together. "We're
in a real mess here. I'd feel better if you'd checked
into the hospital with that shoulder, but I'm damn
glad you didn't."

The compliment did more good than painkillers
for Bill Ellery. He took a long slug of coffee. Compli
ments were something he'd never had many of
while growing up.

"What'd you find out about the girl?"

In spite of weariness, Oliver's eyes gave a twinkle.

"No wonder you don't have a love life, son. They like to be called women these days. Anyway, she's
thirty-two."

He drew a breath, and Ellery knew that whatever
came next wasn't going to be to his liking and that
Oliver knew it.

"Bill. I think we can use her for bait. To catch
Ballieu
."

The older man raised a hand to silence his pro
test.

"I know. You saw her make
Yussuf's
gun disap
pear. You told the police and they asked, and she told them she never saw a gun. I still think she's
clean."

Ellery could feel his jaw hardening. Barely ten
days had passed since two government couriers on
their way to the engraving office in Washington had been ambushed and killed, the passport film they
were transporting stolen. Through Interpol, which
had an informer, State had learned
Yussuf
had set up the sale of the film. He was the go-between. And
Oliver wanted to trust the girl who'd been with him
the night before?

The gray-haired former agent sank into a chair
across from him.