Touch of Magic (6 page)

Now Oliver Lemming was asking her to work
with them. To pose as the heir to
Yussuf's
empire.
They'd provide her with names, make her story
convincing, be on hand to protect her. They wanted her to substitute a flawed piece of film for the good
one, through sleight of hand.

"You could help us put away a lot of people who'd
otherwise be out hijacking planes and planting
bombs," he said soberly. "You could save a lot of lives."

Did they know?

Channing's fingers slid across the desk toward the photograph, the one possession that made this room
hers now. Tony. Still in his surgeon's clothes. His
arm around her on a day they had laughed together.

She owed this to him, for the things he had be
lieved in.

She owed it to cancel out what
Yussuf
had done.

But was she good enough?

The man by the window was watching her hand
on the photograph frame. His expression was too
alert. He was seeing too much. Channing turned
the picture face down and took her hand away.

"You think I can do it because
Ballieu
saw me
with
Yussuf
. I'd play
Yussuf
's next engagement so it
looks like I'm taking over his cover, his network,
everything."

She repeated it back like a parrot. It wasn't fear
that kept her from a decision, only uncertainty that
she could bring it off. Yes, she could do coin tricks,
card tricks ... but a full twenty-minute act com
ing after some vocalist or stand-up comic? And
could she look into the eyes of a man who had done
what
Ballieu
had done and pretend to play games with him?

"We've got forty-eight hours to get into position
 
-- one plan or another," said Oliver, rising. "We've
got to have your answer tomorrow. Bill will check
with you."

From his spot by the window Ellery spoke
through his teeth.

"It's dangerous. Do you understand that?"

She nodded mutely. Her head was reeling with
the truth about
Yussuf
. She wished they'd leave. Bill
Ellery shrugged and moved past her desk.

"I'll be in the middle of Venice Beach tomorrow
at four," he said. "At one of the jewelry stands."
 
And then they were gone. Channing drew a deep
breath, leaned back in her chair, and tried to think.
She wished now she hadn't made herself responsible for
Serafin
, but once she started something, she
didn't back down. Walking to the window where
Bill Ellery had stood, she threw it open. It was going
to be hot today, and
Rundell
was going to
scream
about
wasting the air-conditioning, but a little fresh
air always helped her brain.
 

Bailieu
, as he drove past the house for a second
time, saw a window open. It hadn't been, on their
first pass at seven this morning. He wondered if this
Khadija
they had sent with the money, this female
with insolent eyes who was supposed to help him,
had been so observant.
Bailieu
had chosen to drive expressly so she could notice such things. Immedi
ately she had resented it. She had sneered that to
day their organization believed in equality. She was
one of the young ones, fat on her own importance.
Bailieu
was not pleased. He would have to teach her some lessons.

"An easy entry." The sneer was back in her voice.
Her
slitted
eyes crawled up the house. "But unnec
essary, with the meeting only two days away. We -- "

"When there is any question, I do not take risks,"
Bailieu
said coldly, interrupting. He had always
worked alone before. He did not like explaining his
actions. "This woman could spoil the meeting. The cassette the magician gave her could have names. Information about our organization. Anything. She
could make demands on us, as he did."

The cause of people's liberation would not be
slowed by blackmailers. Let sniveling governments
afraid to pull a trigger play that kind of game, he thought.

Kadija
shrugged, her boredom evident. Her black hair was braided against her neck.
 
She wore a tight jersey, tight slacks. Though she couldn’t be more than twenty-two, years of conditioning showed in the curves of her body.

“You’re in charge,” she said, but a challenge showed in her eyes.
 
And they burned too brightly.
 
She was overeager. So passionate in the zeal that she might make a misstep.

Ballieu
noted all.
 
He would have to watch her carefully.

For the moment he knew by her fervor and training that she was more than capable of the job he had assigned her.

“Find the cassette,” he said.
 
“Then get rid of the Stuart woman.”

Four

Channing stood in the study facing the portrait of the man known to his audiences as the Great Sebastian. After all these years it still hurt, the last things he’d said to her here in this study. She knew he hadn’t meant them. Yet sometimes she’d wondered herself, was she a Stuart? Knowing the skills she’d ... been born with, maybe ... had she turned her back on her birthright?

She toyed with the smooth old wand she’d picked up. Gramps’ wand. What the men who’d just left
wanted from her wouldn't be easy. Could she do it?

Behind her she heard the soft whisper of the door opening. She turned to see
Serafin
standing motion
less just inside it.

"You're going to dump me, aren't you?" he said.
"So you can help them."

Channing caught in a breath.

"You were listening!"

"It's okay." His voice was flat. "It doesn't matter."

Hard on the heels of her anger came a realization that he'd heard about
Yussuf
. If it had shocked her,
how much harder had it hit him? Channing moved quickly, catching his shoulder and spinning him as
he started to leave.

“
Serafin
. Listen to me. I have to help them. I've
seen what people like the man they're after do. I
don't mean to
Yussuf
, I mean to innocent people. To
someone I cared for, who could have saved thou
sands of lives -- "

She heard, suddenly, the vehemence of her own anger. As though it had lain hidden, like the water
she often sought, it came rushing to the surface,
tapped by the visit from the State Department
men. Channel it. Capture it. Pipe it to where it
served some purpose or it would be wasted.

Her voice softened. The boy before her had been
betrayed by
Yussuf
. He wouldn't be betrayed by
her. She wasn't going to vanish on him like some
dove turned into a silk scarf.

"I'm not going to dump you,
Serafin
." She
searched for the words that would make them both
comfortable. "I figure we were sort of meant to be a team. You keep
Rundell
out of my hair and I'll teach
you magic. Right now I need to practice. I'm not
sure I can do what those men want me to do, and I've got to find out. What do you say?"

His face relaxed into the precursor of a smile. He
looked almost as boyish as his twelve years. As she
retreated toward the desk he nodded shy encour
agement.

"Your grandpa's notebooks would probably tell
you all kinds of things. Hints and stuff."

In the midst of scrabbling through the central desk drawer, Channing jerked to attention. How
did he even know the notebooks existed? Or that
she'd been hunting the key to the very drawer
where they lay?

As though she'd spoken the questions aloud, he
shrugged, his dark eyes on her.

"I can tell what people are thinking sometimes, that's all. Mr.
Yussuf
said I have a gift."

She let her breath out slowly. No. Growing up in
this house, she certainly knew what was possible
and what wasn't. She pointed the wand that was still
in her hand to underscore her words.

"Nothing occurs that can't be explained by natu
ral phenomena. No good magician claims they do.
So no more of that. And no more eavesdropping. Understood?"

She tossed the wand to him, releasing the bright
bouquet of flowers that popped free as he caught it,
startled and delighted.

"Now," she said, "tell
Rundell
if he lets anyone
else in to see me today, I'll fire him."

Not that
Rundell
would believe the threat, but it
sounded good.

She'd look at her grandfather's notebooks; call a
friend at the State Department to confirm that
these two men who'd visited her were really employees, though they'd probably be listed as archivists or something; think about what she could put together for a twenty-minute act. Then she'd better find a piece of film to practice with.

*
  
*
  
*

It was like stepping into another world, one
viewed through glass yet never experienced, as
Channing immersed herself in hours of practice. Of
course she'd put together little shows in her youth. She'd performed at hospitals with her grandfather,
appeared in school talent extravaganzas, been
booked at a nightclub or two while she was in college. Yet she'd never felt driven like this, never felt this compelling need to pull something from inside
herself that went beyond skill.

It was that consuming force that had burned in
her grandfather.

And her father? He'd died when she was five. She
could hardly remember him. His car had gone off a
bridge and he, a renowned escape artist, and her
mother, an accomplished swimmer, had both
drowned while she floated free.

Twenty years later, in Beirut, she had been a sur
vivor once again. Inexplicably. Through some whim
of fate. And she'd cursed deaf gods, asking, Why?
Why was she spared? For what had been requested
of her this morning? she wondered as she tried to
knot two silks of different color together, producing a larger, checkered one. Her skill and interest lay in
close-up magic, but she needed flashy tricks for
stage work, some she hadn't tried in years.

"You have to eat!" protested
Rundell
, marching in
on her at two that afternoon.

"All right. Outside," she said. She had polished several tricks with silks now.

In the garden behind the house she walked, a
sandwich in one hand, one of her grandfather's notebooks in the other.

"This is what it's like?" asked
Serafin
in bewilder
ment.

"This is what it's like. All day. Every day. If you
want to do it."

He followed her back to the study, and she
showed him the simplest palm while she practiced
her coins. He still was trying it, by lamplight, when
he fell asleep.

"Just what are you going to do with him?" hissed
Rundell
as they walked the boy to bed.

Channing grinned.

"I've got friends in high places,
Rundell
. I expect
everything to be ironed out."

"I expect to see you in jail!" he said crisply. "And I
don't understand this practicing for a magic show.
Aren't you gone enough?"

"Charity gig," said Channing. "I want you to
check the thread in that gold jacket Gramps had made for me
aeons
ago. I'll fit it tomorrow."