Touch of Magic Page 8

  Even though it would grow still hotter as afternoon set in, the sun already scorched the unshaded patch of grass that was the archery range. Of all the resort's activities, this seemed to be the most remote, which no doubt explained its selection. Putting her forearm up against the glare of the sun, Channing saw the usual round targets set up on easels. She was glad to be acting finally, instead of waiting. There were figures at two of the targets. The nearer of the figures was Oliver Lemming.

  "Bill's not here yet?" she asked in greeting.

  The white-haired man who'd recruited her hadn't been in evidence at the resort. Maybe he was staying somewhere else.

  "He'll be waiting in your room when you get back," he said, sighting down an arrow. "As soon as you leave here, we want you to make contact with Ballieu."

  With a thunk the arrow he'd released sank into a bull's-eye. It seemed to underscore the gravity of his words. It also impressed Channing with the older man's physical conditioning.

  "We want to make you valuable enough that Ballieu won't hurt you," he said, looking at her for the first time. "Tell him Yussuf had set up a double cross but that you can stop it if you're there when the film changes hands. The story's your insurance policy."

  "And the names I'm to drop? Of Yussuf's people?"

  "Marinka in London and Colón at the Banco Central in Managua. Got it?"

  "Got it."

  He sent another arrow home, then handed her a bow and quiver that rested nearby. With them, Channing felt a flat, heavy envelope pass into her hands. The full weight of her responsibility beat into her along with the sun. She realized the envelope held the doctored film.

  Vanishing the envelope, she slid her middle fingers into a leather guard.

  "Bill told me about what happened last night," said Oliver.

  "That's not all."

  It had been years since Channing used a bow, and as her shoulders moved out and back, the man with her tapped the inside of her left arm to correct her form so the string would clear. She waited until she'd released and her arrow had hit the very bottom of the target before she continued.

  "Someone's been through my things." They were both pretending to watch the target, but she caught the sharpening of his expression. "I had a tape Yussuf gave me the other night. He told me it was instructions for a magic trick. It's missing."

  "You're sure that was all that was on it?"

  "I didn't play it." Hearing the swiftness of his question, she felt more chagrined than ever by the admission.

  "Tell Bill?"

  "Max Hopkins showed up before I got a chance. I was told to run along like a good little girl."

  Oliver seemed lost in thought. He motioned her to try another arrow. This time her aim was better. He nodded approval.

  "We'll go from where we are," he said. "It's all we can do. We're getting barbecued out here. Why don't you head on back?"

  * * *

  Her hotel room gave few hints of what Channing Stuart was like in private. Ellery noted Adler's Six Great Ideas beside her bed, and half dollars stacked on the dresser as if she practiced magic tricks while brushing her hair.

  He heard a key in the lock, tensed to react in case it wasn't her, then relaxed as he saw it was. She secured the door and then took pointed note of how he stood. One of his legs was hitched easily up across the corner of her dresser. He'd assumed the posture from habit. He'd always been a leaner.

  "Learn anything else about me by going through my drawers?" she asked. She wasn't pleased.

  Ellery grinned.

  "Damn." She realized how her words had come out.

  "Just that you were serious about switching to cotton," Ellery said.

  He figured she was irritated at his invasion of her privacy, but her safety depended on his hearing every word of the phone call she was about to make. She tossed her hat on the bed. He found himself unusually conscious of her movements.

  "Let's get it over with," she said crisply. "Serafin's downstairs, and I don't like leaving him alone for too long."

  "It's not my fault you brought him, is it?"

  Ellery heard his voice hardening. She looked cool and in control of herself in her white linen jacket, but her hands, as though moist, passed briefly over the legs of her slacks. She seemed to accept the reprimand. He wondered if beneath her hair-trigger reactions there might be a streak of common sense.

  "Any last words of wisdom?" she asked.

  "Just dangle enough bait to keep yourself safe."

  They walked to the telephone.

  She raised the receiver. He dialed. The unrehearsed coordination of their movements felt so natural and so perfectly timed that Ellery found himself holding his breath.

  He tried not to notice her wetting her lips. He tried not to think how she could be safe, back in her comfortable home with her crotchety houseman. He wondered if she ever took the easy way out of anything. Then a voice snapped to life at the other end. It was Ballieu.

  "Hello?"

  Channing's lips shaped each word carefully. She looked across the mouthpiece, and Ellery realized she was watching his eyes to gauge the effectiveness of her performance.

  "The deal with the film is in danger, Monsieur Ballieu," she said distinctly. "I can help you. Come watch the magic act."

  She raised her eyebrows, sliding a finger across the base of the phone to break the connection before Ballieu could answer.

  Bill Ellery nodded grim approval.

  Step One was over. There was no turning back.

  Nine

  Ballieu strolled past the swimming pool, enjoying the heat of the sun on his body. It made him feel young again. He was shirtless and free.

  A group of boys was splashing at the deep end of the pool, outdoing each other with leaps and belly-whoppers off the concrete. He could hear them taunting a younger boy who stood on the edge, afraid to dive.

  Ballieu was fond of children. Especially the little ones. He flung out his arm, catching back the quaking boy of eight or thereabouts who, with tears in his eyes, was about to launch himself out.

  "Hunch your shoulders forward and cut the water with your hands, eh?" whispered Ballieu. He pantomimed the hand position. "Then it won't hurt so much." He winked.

  The boy stared at him in awe.

  "Hey, thanks, mister!"

  Folding up like a clam, the boy dove, came up, and waved triumphantly. Ballieu, feeling satisfied, walked casually to his appointment. He lowered himself onto one of the lounge chairs ringing the pool.

  "Is the safe guarded?" he murmured to the woman who lay facedown in the chair next to his.

  Khadija's slim, oiled body was as motionless as an adder. Ballieu had just bought two drinks for a girl in a blue bikini. When he left here, it would be to make arrangements with a high-priced prostitute. With such attention to women, his occasional contacts with Khadija would not arouse undue notice.

  "Only one, hired by the magician," she answered. "I left him in a storeroom. We'll be gone before the body starts to smell."

  Under the pretext of applying sunscreen, Ballieu scanned the crowd and picked out a familiar face. He was sure now that he had identified two men watching him. One was black and looked out of condition; the other was flashy and white. They traded turns.

  "The bomb is a new design, set to go off if even one of its wires is touched before the time elapses," the female beside him was reporting. "My group has seen only one, and it blew up the man who thought he could take it apart. But I believe a spray fixative might dull the contacts. I'll go back tonight--"

  "No." Ballieu's command was soft but swift. "An attempt that fails would destroy the film."

  He could see by the way her body stiffened that she disagreed with his decision. He was satisfied with her nerve, but she was too caught up in her zeal. Cleverness was their only chance now. And nerve. They were being watched. They were outnumbered, possibly. But they had the advantage of the Americans wanting to catch whoever was selling the film.

  "We'll wait
them out," he said aloud. "It takes more courage to walk with a bomb between your legs than to storm a camp with a rifle. We are walking with a bomb, and we will have our victory. Do you understand? Besides, we may have help. The Stuart woman called me--"

  He broke off as Mildred Farrow, who last night in the lounge had shared a table with him, walked past, sending him a look and a hopeful flutter of her fingers.

  "Bridge class at two," she called. "Are you going to come?"

  "Of course," he called back cheerfully. "Would you like a partner?"

  Beneath its layer of paint, Mildred Farrow's face broke into a smile. She had a bracelet around her ankle and painted toenails. Ballieu watched her buttocks, squeezed ridiculously into white pants, as she pattered off on high-heeled shoes.

  "The Stuart woman called, and she wants a meeting," he said, resuming.

  "It's a trick!"

  "Perhaps."

  He was noting the hate in Khadija's eyes as she watched the people around them. She had not been a wise choice to send amid Westerners. Her language was good, but she lacked sophistication. She didn't understand how much could be gained by playing a role.

  She tried to sweeten her tone.

  "Let's plan something more, Ballieu -- something more than getting the film. Suppose something goes wrong? Suppose the call you got was a trap? Suppose we don't get the film -- we could still accompiish something here that would make our trip worthwhile. Look around!"

  Ballieu hesitated, coaxed by what she was saying. He closed out the thought. It would be bad luck. If you anticipated failure, you failed. He would not anticipate failure.

  "How we feel personally doesn't matter," he said, hardening his voice. "We are soldiers. Our only objective is to win. Wait for my instructions."

  He rose and walked off, and Khadija lay with her nails stabbing into her palms. Ballieu was losing his nerve, she thought. Or his judgment. He was going to wait and play the Americans' games while they sprang some sort of trap. It was stupid.

  Above the sounds of the pool she could hear the constant clatter of dishes being cleared away and new dishes coming. Things to drink, with umbrellas and colored cherries on top. Ice cream. Sandwiches that were pushed away half eaten. Twenty-four hours a day Americans ate and drank while other people starved.

  Four teenagers descended, laughing, on the chair Ballieu had abandoned. Fat Zionists, Khadija thought, the girls obscenely overflowing their bathing suits. The boys sniffed after them like dogs. One of the boys turned to leer at Khadija. The sweet desire to see all four of them with their brains splattered out rose inside her.

  Khadija turned her face away. She had been born in a refugee camp and had grown up in guerrilla outposts in the Bekaa Valley. Her little brother had died in a Zionist raid on one of the camps. Khadija carried inside her own body pieces of shrapnel. Her mother had died in a failed attempt to blow up a diplomat's car. A heroine. Khadija had been fifteen when she first shouldered a rifle in her people's cause.

  The soft and stupid youths beside her laughed again.

  Splintered glass? It would be such an easy and unsuspicious way to slaughter a few pigs and the Stuart woman as well. Ballieu was mad not to kill her. Khadija wavered, drowning in her own anger.

  Even if she could defuse the bomb and get the film tonight, she would have to depend on Ballieu to get it out of the country. She had no idea who his contacts were. She had been sent simply to help. Yet more and more it became apparent to her that Ballieu's judgment couldn't be trusted.

  If he waited and they were captured, they would accomplish nothing. They would be fools, not martyrs. They would be held up for the world to laugh at.

  She rose and walked angrily back into the lodge. Coming after a piece of film was all very well. She could see its endless value to her group and others. But she had expected more when she volunteered for this assignment. She had expected a bombing, a kidnapping -- some chance to kill Americans.

  Prowling down a side hall, she was forced to move aside for a long cart bearing a display of fruit. The two men wheeling it noticed something missing, stopped and conferred, then disappeared back through a distant door.

  Khadija stared at the tiers of fruit cut into fancy shapes. Huge clumps of grapes, whole pineapples, and uncut melons sprawled around them. Her eyes lighted, lingering, on a thick-skinned melon the size of a man's head.

  She could not force her eyes to move. Instinct, rather than a conscious effort to check, told her the hall was still deserted. Her face contorted. In a darting movement the side of her hand slashed out to cave in the side of the melon. Flesh and sticky juices oozed across her fingers.

  She had no recourse against Ballieu's infernal waiting. But she wasn't going to content herself with a piece of film.

  * * *

  Every sort of sleight of hand performed, with coins or thimbles, ropes or cigarettes, cards -- or film -- brought into play a subtly different group of muscles. Channing felt the reminder of it throughout her hand as she held the film before her, flicked her fingers, and watched in the mirror for any telltale movement. Since morning she had executed the switch a thousand times, flawlessly. She had thought herself in peak condition because of her coin work, but she could feel muscles throughout her forearms pleading for rest.

  She and Serafin had enjoyed a leisurely lunch from room service, and now she became aware she hadn't yet heard him leaving for the pool, which he adored. Stepping through the bath that connected their rooms, she found him sprawled across the bed with his chin in his hands. His face was toward the television, but she could tell by his expression that his thoughts were on nothing remotely connected to the images flickering there. A dark unhappiness pinched his features. Channing snapped off the TV and sat down next to him.

  He seemed to anticipate her question even before she opened her mouth to speak.

  "Why do you figure Mr. Yussuf was being so nice to me?" He rolled over and looked at her, and again she thought how his eyes were too old for his years. Yet this time they were haunted as well. "What was he going to use me for?" His forehead wrinkled.

  Channing felt clumsy, unsure how to cancel out the self-doubt and betrayal she heard in his voice. Didn't she, too, feel betrayed by what Yussuf had been?

  "He wasn't going to use you," she said, and the words came out harsher than she'd intended.

  Serafin looked stubborn.

  "Bullshit, Channing. I heard most of what those men said when they came to your house. He was rotten."

  "So what? He still was capable of being a friend." She was snapping now, saying things she wasn't sure of herself because it was important that Serafin believe them. And she knew he'd forgive her brusqueness, even as she softened it. "Yussuf was nice to you because he liked you. You've got to believe that."

  He squinted at her for a long minute, then sighed.

  "Yeah, maybe."

  She could hear the hurt still lodged deep down, but the child in him became more cheerful.

  "I'm hungry. You think we could get a piece of pie or something?"

  "I thought you were going swimming. You'll sink like a rock."

  "Yeah, maybe I oughta swim first." He slipped off the bed and gave her a grin. "Oh, say, Channing, don't worry about me when you've got things to do, okay? I already talked to Wilbur. Told him I was getting tired of the rat race and all this traveling. I said I was interested in finding out about hotel work when he had some time, and he said fine."

  Two minutes later Serafin was out the door, whistling. Channing resumed her position in front of the mirror. She switched the film. She'd meet Ballieu tonight, and she felt ready.

  She turned to observe a different angle and flexed her muscles to repeat the switch. Suddenly the smoothness of her movement was marred. She felt a tug. A piece of film veered and buckled, midway between her fingers and her sleeve. Channing stared, aghast, a sensation of coldness spurting through her pores.

  The film had slid on into position, forced by the automatic movement of her finge
rs. But there had been a visible hitch. Something had happened.

  She stared, not at her hand but at its reflection. It wasn't possible. What had she done wrong? She repeated the movements tensely, perfectly. No. It wasn't her. It couldn't have been. What else could have caused the slip?

  Stripping off her jacket, she examined the sleeve and lining for a slub, a loose thread, anything. Nothing caught her attention. Dropping the jacket, she studied all edges of the film itself, with her eyes and with her fingers. Could there be a rough spot, brought out by practice or from some latent flaw in the film itself?

  She became aware of the tension in her face, a straining throughout her body, and worse still, a pounding doubt.

  What if it had been her? What if she wasn't equal to the task she had accepted?

  She had buried her talent, turned her back on her Stuart heritage. Now, when all her training could count for something, she was suddenly unsure of herself. It seemed impossible that she herself could have glitched without knowing it, yet she relived that sickening sensation of the film snagging. She wanted to believe it had been something she could rectify, something that would never occur again if she discarded this jacket and used another piece of film. Yet what if it wasn't?

  The sound of the telephone bulldozed the silence, flinging her thoughts aside and leaving a bare space.

  "Come down two floors. I'll meet you at the elevator," said Ellery's voice.

  * * *

  "You're going to try to make Ballieu believe you need to be there when the film changes hands? You're going to lead us to it?"

  Max circled Channing with a slack-jawed disbelief that tickled Ellery. They were in the listening post. As soon as Channing had made that call to Ballieu, Ellery had known he'd have to bring her here. With the bug on Ballieu's phone, either Max or Walker would have picked up what they believed was a new scent. Quick contact with Oliver had confirmed the wisdom of untangling things. Ellery had broken the news to the others before bringing her down to meet them. Ballieu was in his room right now, and Max and Walker were changing shifts.