Final Flight (26 page)

He sat in the little chair by the writing table and
watched her. She was so lovely.

He retrieved her dress from the floor and
draped it carefully across the back of the chair. What
would it be like to come home every evening to this woman, he
asked himself. This intelligent, fiery, beautiful woman?

It would never be dull. Never boring.

Whoa, Toad. You’ve never thought like that about a
woman before. And this is just a one-night stand. One
hell of a one-night stand, but that’s all it is.
She’s a lonely woman in a strange city and you just
happened to get the nod for stud service. She
probably still thinks you’re a jerk. She’ll walk
away in the morning without looking back.

He was holding the drapes apart and looking out the
window when he heard her stir.

“What time is it?”

“About four-thirty.”

“Come back to bed, lover. There’s still some night
left.” She captured him in her arms. She
smelled of pungent woman and sleep. Her skin was
soft, yielding over hard muscle, warm and sleek.
She drew him in as if she had waited for years for
his tension and power and desire, as if she had searched
and hungered all her life just for him.

When he next awoke the sunlight was leaking through
the drapes. He sat up in bed and looked around.
Judith was gone.

She had gathered her clothes and tiptoed out while
he slept. Oh, he had done that very thing himself-how
many times? He had slept in their beds and
escaped just as the sun rose. He had fled from the
soft, scented sheets and the photos on the dresser
and the frilly curtains on the windows. He had
stepped over the panties and bra lying on the floor
and never glanced back.

He could see himself in the mirror over the
dresser. He needed a shave. The bed still smelled
of her. The room was as empty as his life.

ALI WAS SEATED on the terrace of the villa
drinking ornge juice when Yasim joined him and
placed several envelopes of black-and-white
photographs on the table. Qazi examined hem in
the morning sunlight.

He had had four hours sleep and felt sluggish.
This close to an operation, it was difficult to get
to sleep, so he had taken a pill, the effects of which
had not yet worn off. The photographs were of people
near the helicopters. Qazi reported them
into piles: the shots of each person were stacked
separately. When he finished he had nine stacks.
“Nine people yesterday, eh, Yasim?”

“Yes, Colonel. And one helicopter flew
for two and a half ours. Here are the photographs
of the pilots and their passeners.” Yasim laid
another group of pictures on the glass
table. Qazi carefully examined each picture.
Yasim refilled his glass with orange juice.
“There is a storm coming, Colonel.”

“When?” Qazi did not look up from the photos.
“Rising seas and winds this evening. Frontal
passage at four A.m. local tomorrow.”

“Terrific. And Ali thinks nothing can go wrong.
“Do we postpone?”

“We can’t. Not after last night.” He continued
to study the pictures.

“The same people who have been there for two weeks, on
and off,” he said at last.

“No known agents, Yasim agreed. “The
pictures from the backup site will be ready in an
hour.”

“And no one has been followed to or from the
helicopters?”

“No one.

“No tails that you have seen?”

“That is correct.” Yasim frowned. He
knew as well as Qazi did how difficult it would
be to detect a major tailing operation. “We have
taken every precaution.”

“Ummm. When does the crate go aboard the
ship?”

“The supply barge is tied alongside already.
It should be aboard any time.”

“No problems at the quay this morning?”

“They took the crate just as we had arranged.”
Qazi had a difficult decision to make, one he
had purposefully been avoiding. He had hoped
these photos would help him make it. The primary
helicopters had been identified by Pagliacci,
who had arranged for the bribery of the watchman and the
transport company manager. And Pagliacci,
Qazi was forced to assume, had told the GRU all
about it. Yet no Soviet agents had been seen
to visit the site in two weeks, or so it
appeared. And Pagliacci had said he had just told
Simonov last night. If the GRU intended
to thwart Ali’s departure tonight, they were being
extremely circumspect.

On the other hand, Qazi had kepi Pagliacci
in the dark about dates. The vans were hired for another
two weeks. The villa had been rented for three
months. The ship-painting contractor thought his scow was
going to be used tomorrow and the day after. And the airport
surveillance project was moving along nicely, with
lots of Pagliacci’s Mafia soldiers
involved, costing lots of El Hakim’s
money and cocaine. Of course, Simonov would have
suspected the airport project was a red herring,
but only if he were told everything Pagliacci
knew. And Pagliacci had dribbled the information out,
squeezing rubles out of the Russian for every crumb.

So it was probable-no, certain-that Simonov did
not have the big picture when he died last night. But
had he already made preparations to act on the information
he did have? Certainly the GRU should be checking the
helicopters and hangar area if the Soviets”
intended to act.

Finally, there were the backup helicopters, about which
Pagliacci had known nothing because he had not been
told and because no Italian or NATO soldier
had been bribed or pumped for information. These
machines were parked on the concrete mat at Armed
Forces South, the NATO base.

Ali would literally have to hijack the machines, which
might or might not be fueled, which might or might not
be airworthy. These machines were guarded. So there would
be shooting, and higher authority would be immediately
alerted. The success of Qazi’s scheme depended
upon keeping the American admirals and generals in
the dark until he had the weapons removed from the
United States. He wanted them to see
a fait accompli, not an operation in progress.
Yet if the Soviets appear tonight at the primary
helicopter site, that would be checkmate.

Qazi thought the problem through yet another time as
Yasim replaced the photos in their envelopes.
Unless something else came up, he decided, he
would still go with the primary helicopters.

“Go back to the hotel and monitor the wiretaps
carefully this afternoon.

If the Americans are warned, they will try to get
their men aboard the ship and get underway. I’ll be in
to see you this evening. We’ll sanitize the suite
then.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Assume you are being followed.”

Yasim picked up all the photos and went into the
house, a large two-story with almost twenty rooms.

There were no certainties in this business, Qazi
reminded himself. You felt your way blindly, aware that
nothing was ever as it appeared, aware that every action was
fraught with hazard, both real and imaginary. And the
longer you played the game, the more real the imaginary
dangers became. The irony was that you never knew
whether or not you had already made the hard, inescapable,
fatal mistake.

“Good morning, Colonel.” Noora sank into a
chair beside him. She was wearing slacks and high
heels, and had her hair pinned in a bun on the
back of her head. “Is Jarvis sleeping?”

“Yes.”

“What did he eat when he arrived last
night?” The two of them had arrived in Rome
yesterday evening on a commercial flight. A
heavily sedated Jarvis in a wheelchair and
Noora in attendance wearing a nurse s uniform
had passed through customs and left the airport in an
ambulance, which had driven them for five hours to the
villa. “He has not yet eaten. I gave him a
shot to counteract the sedative three hours ago.

He should be waking soon. I will see that he
eats.”

“After he has eaten, have him unpack the trigger
and inspect it. It’s still in the crate in the garage.
You and Ali should supervise him. We will repack the
trigger tonight.”

Noora nodded.

“Has he been cooperative?”

“Yes.”

“What is his attitude toward you?”

“He has begun to accord me the
respect he gives his wife.” Qazi examined
her eyes. “Very good. How did you work that
miracle?”

She shrugged. “He wants to be dominated. He
needs it.” Her eyes stayed on Qazi.

“I want him at peak efficiency in twelve
hours.”

“He will be.”

Noora said only one word to Jarvis as she set
the tray in front of him.

“Eat.” Then she went into the bathroom and locked
the door.

She stood in front of the full-length mirror and
languidly brushed out her dark hair. She enjoyed
the sensual feel of the brush tugging gently at her
scalp. She undid the ankle straps of her
spike pumps, stepped from them, then slowly eased out
of her slacks. She shrugged off her blouse,
conscious of every move, watching herself in the mirror.

She was clad only in a thong teddy. She
turned and examined her reflection over her shoulder.
Yes, the thong strap was completely hidden in the
crevice of her buttocks. And her legs, so
smooth and sculpted, so perfect!

She effortlessly lifted a foot to the
top of the vanity and replaced the shoe, glancing at
her reflection as she fastened the strap. The image
from the mirror behind her reflected in the glass above
the “vanity.

She put on the other shoe, then stood and examined
the way the high heels thickened her calves and
raised the curve of her buttocks.

Jarvis appreciated her. How he loved
to lick her legs, his tongue caressing and stroking
her.

She permitted him to use only his tongue and
lips. Already she could feel her nipples harden and the
wetness begin in her vagina. She ran her fingertips
slowly up her legs and over her hips, then
slipped a finger under the teddy, into the wetness. The
sensation made her weak.

She checked her reflection again in the mirror and
moistened her lips with her finger. Then she unlocked
the door and opened it.

On the sixth floor of a downtown building two
blocks from the Vittorio Emanuele Hotel-behind
a door marked in English and Italian, “Middle
East Imports-Exports, Ltd” “comanother
set of photographs was being examined.

These photos were black-and white, but they
had been shot on fast infrared film and were grainy.

Judith Farrell selected one of the blowups and
taped it on a wall. She stepped back. The
photo was of two men standing near a car with a black
latticework in the background. There was a heat
source above them, to their left, on a pole. It
reflected on the faces, changing them somewhat. With
infrared film, each face and figure generated its
own light, since it generated its own heat.

“It’s him,” she finally said. “It’s Qazi “He certainly did a number on Simonov and Pagliacci. Lots of blood.” The
speaker was a man of about thirty years, tall and
pale with stringy blond hair that hung over his ears.
He selected a conventional photo of the bodies of
Pagliacci and Simonov and taped it to the wall beside
the infrared one. He had turned the general’s head
to try to get some of the face in the picture. Even
so, the tanned head and bristle hair were unmistakable.

“Qazi did everyone a service killing
Pagliacci. He’s been assisting the Soviets
too long.”

“His successor will pick up where he left
off. The Russians have the money and the
Mafia has the organization. It’s a marriage
made in Communist heaven.”

Judith sorted through the infrared photos until
she found one that showed a three-quarters view of the
second man by the car. She held it at arm’s
length and squinted at it. Too bad it was so
grainy.

“Who’s he?” the man asked.

“I don’t know,” Judith said at last and put
the print back on the table.

“Should we let the CIA know?”

“I suppose so,” Judith murmured. She
tossed her head to get her hair back from her eyes
and looked again at the prints taped to the wall.

“Why not send copies of these to the Soviet
embassy? Maybe the GRU would like to know who rubbed
out one of their generals.”

“We’d have to get permission to do that. It’s an
idea. But I think not. Moscow won’t be pleased
about Simonov’s death-or his disappearance-and they’ll
suspect the Mafia. Qazi set it up rather well.
He’s very good at that.”

“So why is Qazi in Naples?”

“It wasn’t to kill these two. He took many
chances going in there alone, with only one
backup waiting on the street.

“A hijacking? A bombing? Some American
sailors have not returned to the carrier. Perhaps he is
behind that,” the man suggested. “But should we move before
we know?”

“We can’t let him slip through our fingers again.
He won’t go back to Pagliacci’s. That was just one
of the possible places he might turn up.

If only we had been ready!” She took a
last look at the pictures and turned away.
“He’s been to the Vittorio every night for three
nights.

It’s going to have to be there.”

The blond man shook his head. “Uh-uh. Too
many people, too many exits-our team is too small
for a place that big. Too many risks.”

“Have the team ready. We’re very, very close. I
can feel it.”

“Not the Vittorio.”

“Yes. There. Tonight if possible. This may be our
only chance.”

“Listen, this man is dangerous. He spotted
David in Rome. And killed him. We need a
better setup, a sidewalk cafe setup.
We’ve got to be able to get in cleanly and
quickly, make the hit, and escape.”

“David chased Qazi,”
Judith shouted. “He knew better. He had been
told a dozen times.” She glared at Joel. “But
if I had been David, I would have tried to take
him then and there too. David’s mistake was that he
stood and watched, trying to decide, until it was
too late.”