Way of Escape (20 page)

“You are welcome,” he reached across and nabbed Trisha's empty glass before it fell over. “Anything you want, let us know.” Immediately, other passengers demanded the man's attention and he vanished into the herd of people trying to find seats and store baggage.

It seemed only moments passed before they were airborne. The image of the young woman in the very expensive and sleekly tailored pink suit appearing out of nowhere and commandeering them at the x-ray table could be thought about again and Bonnie did so. She was from the UN Diplomat Corps or the Women's IHO and her name was Barbara? Right? Was it Barbara Nonady, or Monady, something like that. Bonnie mentally shook her head. She wished she had written it down. She dug into her pocket and pulled out the business card but the print was way too small for her to read without her glasses, which were in her handbag. She held it out at full arm's length—no luck.

A soft chuckle from the man across the aisle made Bonnie's head turn. A plump, older man, who had a lap full of papers he was sorting through, gently took the card and peering through his bifocals, read aloud: Barbara Monday, Administrative Assistant, International Health Organization, Women's Division, United Nations, and a phone number and e-mail address.

“Thank you so much,” laughed Bonnie, embarrassed.

“Well, comes this age, you either gotta get longer arms or permanent glasses.” He handed the card back to Bonnie.

This Barbara Monday had not explained anything to Bonnie and Trisha, not a word more than “Come here” and “Go with him” as she had hurried them down the hallway to the Diplomats Lounge. Who were those men on either side of them? The short, stocky, beady-eyed one that shouted into the Diplomats Lounge, who had been addressed as Mr. Tidewater by Prince LaFoon? The tall, darker man that had been called Russ Snow by the beady-eyed one? And Bonnie was sure there had been others. Like stars seen more clearly out of the side of one's eyes, she had noted early on at the airport a hunky fellow with a ponytail. He had mysteriously vanished. And a giant man with bushy dark hair and beard who kept his back turned to them, always. He seemed to hang like a strange night creature against the farthest wall. The tension had been so thick it was epidemic. The screaming, the shouting, Barbara's amazing calmness as she literally shoved Bonnie and Trisha into the Diplomats Lounge and pulled Prince LaFoon from his comfortable seat, and told him in French to—what? Guard them? Obviously that was the intention because LaFoon had kept that ugly Tidewater guy at bay, as well as Airport Security. So who was Tidewater and what did he want with her and Trish? Who was Snow? Who was the man with the ponytail? Who was the giant? Who? Who? Bonnie let her eyes close. She was as worn out as her daughter, undeniably from the rush and tension and confusion. They had six hours of flying time until Stockholm. Perhaps she would sleep the entire way.

In that moment before sleep overtook her, a vivid memory of being seventeen-years-old and waiting for a bus on a dark street corner in San Francisco appeared in her mind's eye. She had gone to a concert, she had missed the bus home to Morro Bay, and her parents would be furious. Her whole teenage self had been cringing from the anticipated response of her father when she arrived home so late, cringing so much that only from the side of her eyes had she noticed, but noticed clearly, the older, proper-looking man hovering around her at the outer edge of the dimly lighted bus stop. What caught her attention was the incongruity of the very big monkey wrench peeking from his suit coat pocket and his hand rested on it as he stood about three feet from her. Then the bus arrived. This man, whose intentions she had begun to worry about, half whispered to her, “A pretty girl like you should not be standing alone at night.” He had motioned with his head toward the inky shadows, “there's all sorts of men not as nice as I am, remember that.” As she stepped up, into the bus, her vision caught the movement of a skinny, leather-coated man slinking away. The proper man, an extremely relieved look on his face, had waved goodbye to her as she took a seat in the bus. As sleep overcame her here, many years later on the plane to Sweden, she became absolutely certain that Barbara Monday had served the same purpose as that man at the bus stop in San Francisco.

CHAPTER 9: MINK CASTLE

Marion Tidewater stepped quietly into his assistant's office. “Snow?”

The man jumped, startled, “Yes, Mr. Tidewater.” He had been completely absorbed by what was on the computer screen.

“Waiting for that information,” the agent demanded softly. He had an expression on his face that the Indian hadn't seen before, sort of a cross between hatred and numb shock, with a fleeting coarse little smile thrown in. Marion Tidewater had not been in a good frame of mind since yesterday, but the moment Russ had come within sight of him this morning, the agent had turned uglier than usual.

“Right, yessir,” Russ Snow shook his head, put a finger on the screen. “As far as I can see from airline bookings and her credit card use, Barbara Monday is still in New York. She had a reservation yesterday on American Airlines to Miami, Florida, but she cancelled it right after our meeting at Kennedy.”

“Miami?” Tidewater's voice didn't have the usual clipped terseness. It seemed to reek of caution. “Wonder if she cancelled because of us?”

Was it something he had, or had not, done, Russ mused. In a nervous movement, he lifted the feathery beaded headband and swept his black hair back across his head. “Yep. And I've tapped into the women's shelters in Miami, their encryption is minimal.” He shook his head. “No listing of rescued women though. Their computers may be second-rate, but they aren't stupid about what files to leave open.” He sat back in his chair and sighed. “And nothing, absolutely nothing from San Diego. Claybourne was taken to the hospital. He has a dislocated shoulder and a really bad bruise on the back of his neck, plus continuing dizzy spells. Hasn't a clue who knocked him out or how.” Russell held up both hands and shrugged.

Gingerly, as if approaching something dangerous, the ugly little agent sat on the metal chair next to Russ's computer array. He said, “I had a phone call from Commander Yusef in Saudi Arabia just now. He's received word from his contact at the women's jail that a man named Shamsi Granfa is paying all sorts of bribe money around. The suspicion is that it's for a Thai girl about to go to trial on assault.”

“What'd she do?” Russ casually asked while tapping on the keyboard. Definitely, his boss's eyes were constantly snapping back to the headband. Was it against some Agency dress code to wear native handiwork? He'd received it in the mail yesterday from his mother with a note saying he had to wear it to keep the evil spirits away. Mom said she'd been having dreams lately that he was walking close to darkness. That was Mom, a walker in the old ways, but Russ never made the mistake of dismissing her clairvoyant abilities. Russ would be calling her later today and nothing on Earth could make him lie to his mom. So he had to wear the headband.

“Huh, oh, the Thai girl?” Marion Tidewater shifted in his chair, “she's one of those indentured servants brought in from Asia.”

“Yes, but what was her crime?” the Native American insisted without taking his eyes from the screen.

“Assault, I said that didn't I?” Tidewater growled. “I don't know. Find out for yourself.”

Russ nodded, looked around. “Sure, sure.”

Tidewater went on, “Now, there's no evidence that this Shamsi is any way tied in with Habib Mansur or the EW. This is their style though. Do Yusef a favor and get some dope on Mr. Granfa? See if you can backtrack his financing.”

“Um,” said Snow, “I can try.” His thoughts went to the girl, locked away in the Arab prison.

“If we can do Yusef that favor, we'll have something to collect on him later.” Tidewater suddenly looked very despondent. He wrapped his hands together and wrung them as if washing the backs of his fingers. “Who took out Claybourne and the Iranian agent? Who the hell has the expertise? Clean, efficient.” Marion Tidewater let his eyes drop.

“Well, you might like to know,” said Russ, with a little smile, “that just after we left the airport, a known Irish operative was found unconscious in the men's bathroom…”

Tidewater perked up. “Where?”

Snow grimaced, “…about fifty feet down the hall from the Diplomats Lounge.”

The corners of Tidewater's mouth flicked. “Really? Tall, nasty asshole named McCranny?”

“That's him. He's in police custody. That's how I found out. Came over the police booking monitor.” Russ tapped some keys and a booking photo of McCranny blinked onto the screen. The man's face was puffed up with bruises.

“Damn.” The agent nodded, slightly mollified.

Russ tapped a few more keys to bring up the booking report. “Found a couple plastic weapons on him, which didn't seem to have stopped his assailant. A wad of money, no ID. Interpol ID'd him from fingerprints.”

“Well, well, well. Someone's bringing in big guns to track the Ixeys.”

“You think so?” Russ asked the agent.

Tidewater slowly got to his feet, “Why else would a high-flying asshole like McCranny be that close to us? Hmm? Taking that kind of chance?” Tidewater turned, “Get that info for Yusef, okay? And if you can find out who hired McCranny, all the better.” The agent slouched out of the cubbyhole.

“Yessir,” Snow replied and tapped up the you've-got-mail button to access the new downloads that had come in from the Paris gendarmerie. It was going to take some time. There were several jpg and gif files, meaning photos. His eyes strayed back to the McCranny file. Although not proven, McCranny was suspected in several assassinations, two bombings, and four robberies. Russ Snow felt a deep discomfort. Someone was so eager to keep the Ixeys under surveillance that they had hired an assassin to do it. A sociopath who'd have not the slightest hesitancy to eliminate a fifty-year-old librarian or a twenty-six-year-old PE teacher on a mere word. Who…?

As the photo of a very beautiful woman began appearing from the Paris downloads, Russ suddenly recalled that there had been not one Arab-looking person in the SAS waiting area when they were there. Not one. Of course, he thought, the Iranians had lost two agents tracking Bonnie Ixey so far that he knew of, one to a dog bite, the other to this person who was taking out any potential threats to Bonnie Ixey. Two of their own, so Sadiq-Fath must have decided to let someone else try tracking, someone even more sinister than ISF men.

Russ tensed his legs, moving to get up, to go tell Agent Tidewater what he suspected, when a great invisible hand pressed down on him. Russ sat back down. A howl of conscience went up from his throat but never surfaced to sound. Another level of conscience had emerged, a warning like the internal shockwave of thunder after lightning. A great battle stormed through his body, into his mind, deep, deep into his soul. He fell forward toward the desk, caught himself with outstretched hands, and muffled a scream. Then his eyes looked into the big computer screen and saw the stunning woman with café-au-lait skin, sleek black hair pulled into a tight bun, eyes the shade of Apache tears, glinting in the runway lights. The dress she was modeling was a tiny thing of shimmering ivory-cream that left long, long legs in the bright lights. A soft olive jacket was slung over her shoulder. Yet this was no frail, underfed model. Muscles rippled under that beautiful skin. A runner? Bike rider?

Russ pulled up the next page. Tahireh Guillé Ibrahim. Guillé was her stage name….”The
advant femme
Guillé in the little silk frock from the genius of…” Russ Snow gulped. His face got hot. He read through her entire biographical sketch. How much had her modeling agency put in there and how much was real, who could say, except Tahireh and the agency. Yet it seemed she was an amazing contrast to other women of her culture. Put into school in Paris for safekeeping by her Iranian parents at the age of six, she had escaped the purge of Baha'is in Iran, only to lose her parents, her brother, most of her relatives over the next few years. She volunteered with the Torture Treatment Centre in Paris beginning as a teenager and somehow continued her humanitarian work while establishing her career as one of Paris's most glamorous models. The clothes designers loved the shade of her skin. It was perfect to show off their whites and creams and pastels.

The tall Native American stared at the photo. This was the woman Tidewater, his boss, wanted him to report on to the most heinous security chief in the world. This was the woman whose life would be severely terminated if ever caught back in Iran. How could it be?

With great exertion, Russ tapped the save key and let the photo go away into some sparkling electronic file in the bowels of his computer.

He set to work on the other assignment: Shamsi Granfa and the Thai girl in the Arab prison. It took about an hour of searching. As he was about to take a break for lunch, the computer binged and up came two files on women prisoners in Arab countries, one from Interpol and the other from Amnesty International. He read the Interpol report first. She was not in Saudi Arabia, she was in a Kuwaiti jail. Her name was Milind Pandharpurkar, she was…Russ sucked in his breath, fifteen-years-old, no, she'd have just turned sixteen. Sold into servitude by her parents to help support her ten brothers and sisters in Thailand. She was, had been, employed in the Syrian embassy kitchen. Her crime? She'd knifed the son of a Saudi diplomat. Okay, thought Russ, that was assault all right.

He set about downloading the preliminary investigation reports. They were all in Arabic. He programmed them to go to the translator. He'd retrieve them after lunch. As he stood, the booking photo of Milind Pandharpurkar flashed across the screen. A tiny, terrified girl whose face and obviously naked shoulders were striped with welts of some sort. Russ was on his feet though, and determined to get out and get some food. It was almost two p.m. and he was starving. He'd read the translations and the Amnesty report when he returned and he started the research on Granfa.

Tahireh, at this very moment, bore no resemblance to the sexy, gorgeous Parisian model in the photo in Russ's computer file. Not unless grunge had suddenly come into style. The bright ruddy light of the big central campfire sent sparks into the desert night sky. The women of the Bedouin camp were gleefully patting Tahireh's heavy cotton shirt and pants to make the dust swirl. Her face was streaked with grime and she, too, was giggling. The tribe was turning her into a camel boy. The men and boys in charge of the donkey and camel caravans were squatting in the dark outside the circle of women, critically observing the process. To them it was a life or death operation and they felt entitled to their occasional shouts of advice and teasing.

The elders of the tribe were huddled with Haji Habib Mansur. There would be rituals to take care of in the morning before the men and boys set out with the camels and donkeys to the i-Shibl compound. Habib was obligated to pay his respects to the other hajis and wise old men. He would bless their wives and children and receive in return the Bedouin assurance of protection. Habib, though, was well aware that the only real protection these remnants from a time in history long, long past, could afford him and Tahireh, was temporary invisibility. Even that was not what it used to be, what with the way satellites could pick out even individual people in the remotest locale. Luckily, at this moment, it was highly unlikely that any military observer cared about a wandering tribe of Bedouins.

It was muggy in Miami, like walking into a glass-covered arboretum. The reflected lights on the surrounding black water had been beautiful. The night sky had been misty. Carl-Joran slung his duffel over his shoulder and trudged, dog-tired from the plane. His eyes did the cursory scan of people waiting in the nearly empty boarding area. Mostly Latino people, no one obviously Iranian, no one obviously FBI or Agency. Two women, dressed alike in tank tops, mussed shirts and blue jeans, one skinny with clipped blonde hair, the other thickset, black-skinned and very serious, both not much more than teenagers, disengaged themselves from their chairs and caught his glance. He gave a little nod.

They walked quickly out of the boarding area and down the long hallway. He followed. They went through the large terminal, onto the arrival pick-up sidewalk, across a pedestrian zone, and hurriedly into a large parking area. The sky was lit by the reflection of the airport landing lights on the lowering mist. It wasn't raining, but the threat was there. The humidity was so high it condensed on Carl-Joran's skin.

The women unlocked and got into an old purple van. Carl-Joran hung back. The engine started up, it pulled forward, the sliding door opened, and he jumped in. The skinny blonde slammed the door shut as the black girl accelerated out of the lot. Gratefully, the baron fell into the bench seat. The skinny blonde held out her hand, “I'm Tammy. That's Sherralyn.”

The driver held up one hand in a semisalute. “Bet you're jes skunked.”

“Um, if you mean, am I exhausted,” Carl-Joran said, “yes, I am. Very.”

“We get you to bed real soon.” Her seriousness evaporated into a broad grin reflected in the mirror. Tammy wriggled into the front passenger seat. “Then we get to work on Ms. Valentine. She safe by the way. An' doin' fine. Learnin' to speak Jamaican dialect real quick.”

“Excellent,” said the big man, barely able to keep his eyes from closing.

Tammy glanced back at him, “Go ahead and sleep if you want. It's a ways to the shelter.”

“Thank you,” said Carl-Joran and promptly passed out.

It was late in the evening when Russ Snow sat down at his desk at home to read the translations and the Amnesty report. He'd stopped off at a little restaurant on the way home, a place run by an old Cheyenne friend of his. Russ needed to talk to someone and Lost-in-Clouds, whose white name was Freddie, was a good listener.

“So what'd you expect?” was Freddie's summation of Russ's complaint. The tall Native American with the cook's apron around his middle shrugged his broad shoulders and slumped into his chair. “Hey, my grandfather was a sniper during WWII. Got wounded on Iwo Jima, got all sorts of medals and was treated like crap after being de-mobbed. Like, prejudice still happens.”