Way of Escape (5 page)

“It is better than Friday,” Siddhu commented with his Indian accent, “because everyone would say, Thank goodness it is Friday!”

The group laughed as if humor would help ease the load each had just taken on, the burden of life and death, the seriousness of their missions.

“Who chose the name Valentine,” asked Habib Mansur, standing, “for Monday's lady?”

“Probably Monday chose it,” said Carl-Joran, getting to his feet.

“So it is Monday's Valentine!” Siddhu giggled. “We must go out this Monday and send money to Monday for her Valentine.”

Everyone laughed and the Swede responded, “We'll do that, Siddhu. I'll meet you at the Swiss bank after I have a haircut.” Carl-Joran waved at the two women, “See you soon.”

“You stay out of trouble, Baron!” Halima insisted loudly.

“Of course!” he responded lightly.

“Goodbye,” said Habib and bowed formally to the women.

“Good luck,” said both women simultaneously and they watched the two men exit and listened to their footsteps go down the hall. “I wish,” said Rachel Bar-Fischer, “I could have found a man like the baron when I was younger.”

“Wouldn't any woman!” whispered Halima Legesse rising to her full height.

Siddhu Singh Prakash spread out his printouts and prepared to brief Halima on the further intricacies of their present funding status.

Darughih Quddus Sadiq-Fath slid one hairy leg off the plush sleeping mat and was about to push the satin cover aside when a timid knock came at the big door. That should be dinner arriving. He leaned back and patted the slender leg of the boy on the bed next to him. “Put on a robe and set our table.”

“Yes, master,” said the beautiful lad, hopping from the other side of the bed and wrapped a kaftan, as flowing and white as the sand outside, around himself.

A more confident knock came, the door opened a crack and a gravely old voice announced, “Sadiq-Fath, sir, you have a phone call.”

That would be his second in command, Ali Fur Muhit. The boy, poised near the knee-high, expensively carved serving table, glanced inquiringly at the man. With a firm signal, Sadiq-Fath waved the boy out of the room. The boy hurried into the bath area and closed the door behind him. Sadiq-Fath pulled a silk shirt over his head and a half robe around his waist.

He said to the door, “Come in.”

Two people entered, the servant girl with dinner and Muhit, the crusty warrior who'd been Sadiq-Fath's assistant for so many years he was a virtual institution. Ali's eyes were clouded. Cataracts. Years of being out on the desert, one war after another, fighting his commander's battles. There would come a day when he'd have to go in for surgery and Sadiq-Fath knew the man would have to be ordered to go.

Muhit had a cell phone in his hand. “Call coming in from Tidewater in Virginia. He's got news about EW.”

Sadiq-Fath's whole face screwed up. “I'll take it.” He reached out his hand.

Ali Muhit said in rough English into the phone, “Mr. Snow, you have Mr. Tidewater on the phone, yes?” He then handed it to his commander. “One minute, sir.”

The servant girl, a pretty one from the Philippines, was standing patiently by the serving table, tray in hand. Sadiq-Fath motioned her to put it down and leave. She did. Ali Muhit bent over and lifted the lids of the plates letting the wonderful aromas of cumin, nutmeg, and saffron escape.

“Help yourself,” said Sadiq-Fath, sitting again on the edge of the bed as he put the phone to his ear. Ali immediately dug into the big bowls of steaming food. The phone clicked on the other end and there was the familiar voice.

“Hello? Is this Quddus?”

“Yes, Marion. And how is Mr. Tidewater tonight?” Sadiq-Fath's English was not only American, but with a Los Angeles accent that demonstrated his years spent at California State University in San Jose as a student of criminology.

“Hey there old buddy! It's darned near lunch time here,” came Marion Tidewater's voice enthusiastically. “How ya doing?”

“I'm fine, Marion. How's it going with you?” Sadiq-Fath had a smile drawn tightly across his teeth. He had let this man consider him a friend since their Agency training together. He was useful. It cost Quddus a lot in tolerance. He would much rather have dispensed with the overbearing, crass, ugly little American.

“I'm just fine, but I wanted to share some hot news with you. Get your input.”

“My assistant says it is about Emigrant Women. You know I am always interested in that organization.” Quddus moved to the table, unable to resist the food that Ali was consuming.

“Well, first,” came Tidewater's words, “we gotta discuss Barbara Monday.”

“Monday!” Quddus growled, and then winked at Ali as he lowered himself to a cross-legged sitting position across from him, “That American whore. I will have her in jail one fine day, my private jail…”

“She went to Jerusalem.”

“Hmmm.” The Persian commander made his tone more neutral, and the food, which had halted halfway to his mouth, continued.

Tidewater said, “She met with someone from EW, what else? But since our good ol' buddy Hermelin's taken care of, who would she have contacted?”

Quddus swallowed the excellent dahl and hummus along with a piece of pita and pursed his lips, “Maybe their accountant, that Sikh Prakash.”

“Nah, the Indian wouldn't leave Haifa, I was considering Halima Legesse herself.”

“Dr. Legesse does not do errands.” This was said with a touch of respect, and then Quddus Sadiq-Fath sighed dramatically, “I had hoped once the baron was…eliminated, we would not have to worry so much about these people.”

“Yes, and by the way,” Tidewater slyly inquired, “you got any, uh, information on how the baron met his end?”

“Ahhh,” laughed Sadiq-Fath, his powerful jaw muscles loosening from their continual clenching for a brief second, “he had a little accident in his limousine in Cairo a couple weeks ago. Something about a grenade launcher that blew up a large part of the street. Lots of casualties, I am told.”

“Well, well,” Tidewater responded, “those things happen, don't they?”

“They certainly do. One of those radical Muslim sects which cause so much trouble in Egypt claimed responsibility,” Sadiq-Fath added.

“Yeah, I bet.” Tidewater said.

“So,” the Persian commander folded his legs under the table and leaned an elbow onto it, “let's talk about Barbara Monday.”

“Yes, she's up to something.”

“Hmmm, didn't expect her to go to Israel like that,” said Sadiq-Fath tantalizingly. “We knew Smoland in Stockholm was working with Dubbayaway in Thailand on a case relating to Arab interests. We think it has to do with a Sanjay Pandharpurkar whose daughter is being held in Kuwait for knifing a young Saudi fellow.”

“Didn't know about Smoland ‘cause we don't have much interest in Sweden,” said Tidewater.

“In consequence you would not know,” gloated Sadiq-Fath, “about what has happened with Baron Hermelin's estate?”

“No, should I?” Tidewater responded, curious.

“It has been given, in its entirety, to a woman, a widow named Mrs. Bonnie Ixey. It is a big surprise to everyone.” Sadiq-Fath paused, relishing both the shocked grunt on the other end of the phone and the excellent food. He ate a few bites of the saffron rice dish. “We have an agent on this Mrs. Ixey already. She's in California, has a couple of grown daughters.”

“How did that happen? Awarding the estate to her, that is.” Tidewater's incredulous voice came over the line a bit staticky. The satellite was moving along in its orbit and the transmission hadn't yet shifted to another uplink.

“One of our agents in Sweden got a copy of the government's records. Bonnie and the baron were married back when she was in college. Ever so briefly, before Hermelin disappeared again and the couple never bothered to divorce. She is and has been for all these years, his official wife.”

“Well, I'll be damned.” Marion Tidewater's chair could be heard squeaking.

“She will have to go to Sweden to the castle to do business and deal with the baron's son, Sture.”

“Bet the boy is madder ‘an hell.”

“I imagine he is furious. No one knew, maybe even they had considered it invalid, the baron and this Ixey woman. But,” the Persian commander laughed cruelly, “How will EW operate without the estate's money? Sooner or later, the organization must contact Mrs. Ixey and persuade her to join its efforts or go broke. I thought,” Sadiq-Fath said with intense cunning, “if the old woman can be eliminated, the estate will be in total chaos and this nuisance, this EW, will disappear!”

“Sounds like a plan,” Tidewater said with only the briefest of hesitation, quickly realizing he'd just agreed to some poor woman's assassination. “We'll put an operative on at this end and keep their movements posted here.”

“No need,” said Quddus Sadiq-Fath, knowing full well Tidewater would assign an operative anyway as soon as they'd hung up, “as I said, we have it covered. Oh, and you might like to know, our Los Angeles agent has heard a rumor through the police there, that your Barbara Monday is helping an American woman escape. I assume they'll be using the EW's pipeline. We don't know who this person is except she is the wife of someone famous, perhaps a movie star. That is probably why Monday flew to Tel Aviv, to avoid the paparazzi.”

“One of
our
women! In that damned underground railway EW runs!” Tidewater exclaimed, “No way, not again.”

“You know, Monday may be a whore of the Satanists, but she's damned good at her work,” Sadiq-Fath nodded to himself. He couldn't resist taunting the hated American, “I believe she could sneak anyone she wanted out of your country.”

“We'll see about this,” snarled Tidewater. “Okay, Quddus, thanks for everything. Be sure to tell me if I can help you in any way. Talk at ya later, buddy!”

“You too, Marion.” Quddus cut the connection, handed the phone to Ali Muhit who had to wipe the grease off his hands first before laying it on the floor nearby. “Time for you to leave,” said Sadiq-Fath to his assistant, “and take the phone with you.” Sadiq-Fath glanced back at the bath area. “I want privacy, for the entire rest of the night. Understood!”

“Yessir,” Ali Muhit grabbed up the phone and saluting, left.

As soon as the big door had closed tightly, Sadiq-Fath ordered loudly, “Come out, young one,” and the boy emerged, “have some dinner with me.”

The boy bowed, knelt close. “Thank you, sir.”

Russ Snow regarded his boss with perturbation. Tidewater's chin was crunched onto his chest in what seemed to be immensely serious deliberation. “You okay, Mr. Tidewater?”

The beady brown eyes shot up and focused on the young man.

“Sure, son. Couldn't be better.” Tidewater stretched and grinned broadly, dissembling. “Got more information out of that old bastard Quddus than I could ever have hoped. You pay attention, Snow. All you have to do with these Arab guys is start them bragging on themselves and bingo! they blab their heads off.” As he stood, he pushed his shirttail back into his pants. “I'm going to lunch. You,” he pointed at the young man, “find out where a Mrs. Bonnie Ixey lives. She's in California somewhere. I want all the particulars on that woman by the time I get back. Family, kids, hobbies, everything. And look up who the operative closest to her is. I want to talk to him. Okay? See if we can have her under observation by dinner time.”

Marion Tidewater went to the office door and opening it, regarded his secretary with appreciation. Maybe she'd like lunch at the Top Hat, he thought. Bet she never gets to eat such a fancy lunch. To Russ, he said, “Be back in a couple hours.”

“Yessir,” said Russ Snow, deliberately not watching his boss walk over to the secretary's desk.

The barber brushed the trimmings of white-blond hair from Carl-Joran's shoulders and onto the floor. Even with the chair at the lowest rung, the barber still had to stand on a stool for this tall fellow. With the kind of gratuity the baron gave though, the barber would have brought in a stepladder if he'd had to. He swung the Swedish man around and handed him a mirror.

“Thanks,” said Carl-Joran, noting only that more of the blond had turned white.

The barber took off the plastic cloak and pulled the tissue away from the big man's neck. “I'm glad you're satisfied so easily.”

“You always do a good job,” the big man stood, pulled some bills from his wallet, and paid. “See you in a month or so.” As Carl-Joran stepped through the door, onto the busy street, Siddhu hurried up on his bicycle.

“Ah, you look much handsomer now,” said Siddhu, “so are we ready then?”

“Yes, let's walk.” They went briskly together along the pavement with Siddhu pushing his bicycle. The breeze from the Mediterranean was warming the late winter's afternoon, and as they arrived at the Bank of Switzerland, Carl-Joran said, “Wouldn't it be nice to take a holiday for a couple weeks somewhere warm, like Southern California or Hawaii?”

“It surely would,” responded Siddhu, parking his bike and following Hermelin into the entry and first security room of the quiet bank, “but you know Doctor Legesse would be very upset with you if you tried to leave.”

“I know,” grumbled Carl-Joran, as they passed along the corridor and through the guard station before being allowed to go up to a counter, “that's one part of this being dead business that I find extremely irritating. She hasn't told me yet how long I have to be deceased.”

The teller, a penguin-dressed Israeli man who knew the big Swede, hustled over. “What can I do for you today, Baron Hermelin?”

“I need to move some money,” he explained.

“Then we will do that,” said the teller smiling. After making out the correct forms, the teller bowed and walked back into the rear security area.