Nightmare Time (22 page)

“They spotted Zachary and the brownstone for you?” Hardy asked.

“A couple of them spotted him coming out of the brownstone and heading for the hotel,” Chambrun said.

“They knew him by sight?” Colonel Martin asked.

“He’d been pointed out to them by Mike. They reported to me. I had to decide whether to go to the house and, you might say, attack, hopeful of freeing you people. But if I went there when he wasn’t there I’d never nail him. So we waited. He showed back here, and then, after a while, he headed back to the brownstone. There were kids everywhere, but invisible as far as Zachary was concerned. Why should kids be interested in him? Zachary started back. I was already stationed across the street. Suddenly, out of nowhere, there was Mark! You started across the street to him, Mark, and forgive me, but I hated you for a moment. You were going to blow it!”

“I hadn’t the faintest notion that he—”

“I know,” Chambrun said. “Fortunately you kept Zachary and his red-haired friend so busy that Mike’s young lock-picking genius was able to get the front door open for us. The rest you all know.”

Major Hamilton Willis spoke in a slightly unsteady voice. “Once you owed me, Pierre. Now I owe you ten times over.”

“So, you’re all in one piece and my hotel can start to function again. No debts, Major, just friends.” Chambrun glanced down at the boy, sitting with his mother on the couch. “Now you can put a face to that second man in your nightmare, Guy. But you won’t have to have nightmares anymore, will you?”

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1986 by Hugh Pentecost

Cover design by Biel Parklee

978-1-4804-4637-3

This 2013 edition published by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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