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Authors: Ronald Watkins

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BOOK: Shadows and Lies
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"Yes. Did you see anything unusual last night?"

Dorat shook her head. "It was quiet at first even though it was Saturday. Almost everyone in the apartments is on vacation. I arrived from Paris early in the evening and got here about 10:00. The fight must have been an hour later. I'm not certain. I hardly slept last night I've been so worried. I think you should check the apartment, don't you?"

"I better. You wait here please."

But she didn't. Powers had no key but the lock was not difficult. Dorat was surprised he had to pick it and a measure of her suspicion returned. He eased the door open then entered, the woman coming in on his heels, her manner daring him to object.

"
Mon Dieu
!” she muttered. "Look at it!"

The apartment was a wreck. Books had been thrown from their cases and were scattered about the living room like confetti. The television was knocked over and lay face down on the carpet. The video tapes kept in a cabinet below it were piled in a lazy cluster. The couch had been overturned and sliced open, the stuffing spewing out. Nothing remained on the walls. The frames of photographs had been smashed and the pictures inside torn up, the bits tossed about the room. From where he stood Powers saw the refrigerator door was open and heard the motor cycling continuously. He touched nothing.

"Look!" Dorat said, pointing with one hand, the other thrown to her face.

Powers had already spotted the blood. It was partially concealed by the chaos in the living room but a trail led along the short hallway. He checked the bathroom and found a pool in front of the sink, the blood an unpleasant brown, coagulated and smelling sour.

Dorat was peeping into the room. "They've killed her!"

“Keep your voice down."

"They've killed her!!" she declared firmly, backing away from him. "I warned her. I told her she was playing a dangerous game but she wouldn't listen." Her eyes were wide. In the iris he could detect a myriad splash of indigo, emerald and ash hidden within the brown.

Powers grabbed her thin shoulders. "This is no time to panic. Calm down. We don't know anything certain yet. Let's check the bedroom. Come on." He led her by the arm to keep her from bolting.

It was in the same state. The walls were stripped, the mattress tumult on its back then sliced open. Stuffing was everywhere like dirty snow. There was blood on the carpet but not like the rest of the apartment.

He slid open the closet door and saw clothes piled on the floor, each with a hanger. Leaning in the corner was a tripod and camcorder, the tape door open with nothing in it.

"All right," Powers said. "Let's leave it as is. Did you touch anything?" Dorat's eyes were fixed on the bloody trail along the hallway. "Yvette! Snap out of it. Did you touch anything?"

She shook her head absently. "I... I don't think so."

"You and Julie are friends. You've been in this apartment before, haven't you?"

"Of course."

"Fine. That will explain any prints if you are ever asked. Come on."

Powers closed the door, smeared the knob then took them back to Dorat's apartment. She stumbled into her kitchen and poured herself a double shot of brandy. It calmed her at once, but she eyed him suspiciously.

"Something has happened," Powers explained in his most reasonable voice. "Julie is not in the apartment. I'm going to find her, Yvette. You must believe me. If she needs help, I'll see to it. Do you understand?"

"Yes," she whispered without conviction, looking frightened but also like someone very much out of their depth.

"You mustn't say anything to anyone. It could be dangerous for you. You realize that, don't you?"

The woman nodded slowly and he wasn’t certain she understood him. "Did your people do this?" she asked.

"No," he said firmly, but in fact he had no idea. "If I had anything to do with this, I certainly wouldn't have come back, would I?”

She considered that a moment. "I suppose not." She didn't sound persuaded. “What will you people do about it?”

"I don’t know yet. We both need for you to think logically. It's important. Julie needs you now, more than ever."

"Maybe. Maybe she's dead and they took her body away."

"That's possible. But we have to assume she's still alive. We don’t know if that's even her blood we saw. You understand?"

She nodded her head numbly. "I think so."

"This is a mystery. We mustn’t form conclusions prematurely. I'm calling for help. Remain here and tell no one."

"I understand." The young woman was in a state of shock but it was obvious any trust she felt for him was gone.

"It's for your own good."

Her eyes snapped to his. She looked in that instant like a porcelain doll captured in an unguarded moment, the expression of fear set permanently in its face. She had taken his words as a threat.

 

~

On the sidewalk Powers took the cellular telephone from his coat pocket and pressed pound nine. Alta answered at once. "Yes?"

"Trouble. We need to meet."

She didn't respond for a moment. "Fifteen minutes," she finally said.

Powers stepped quickly towards M Street. On the second block, the last flanked by residential trees, they picked him up.

 

 

FIVE

 

Georgetown, 10:02 p.m.

There were two of them in long coats and they moved from the shadows with the casual confidence of professionals. One was short and heavy; the other tall and hard. It was accomplished with no fuss and within seconds Powers found himself flanked by the pair in the rear seat of the black limousine he had spotted earlier.

The heavy one spoke, his breath smelling of peppermint and tobacco. "Easy now, friend. No one's after trouble. And we damned sure don't wanna hurt you. A man just wantsa have a talk, that's all." There was no malice in his voice. If anything he sounded bored.

The hard one ran hands that felt like flint along all the right places. He slipped them inside Powers’ suit coat and paused momentarily at the cellular telephone before moving to his waist and ankles, even checking the area between his legs, an unlikely but occasionally used area of concealment. He said nothing to the other, so Powers concluded this pair had worked together many times. His silence meant he'd found no weapon.

"Nice and calm now," Peppermint Breath sniffed then said. "You'll be on your way in two shakes. My name's Shanken. He's Lily. You're Powers. So now we've all been introduced. We're gonna wait just a minute for someone to join us, then you'll have your little chat and be on your way."

“How’s the Dalmatian?”

Shanken grinned. “You got a good eye. He’s safe and snug at home. I thought I’d give you a once over before we made the move, see if anything was bulging or you had company.”

He was in his 50's, more portly than muscular with a wide fleshy nose. He was seriously balding with a thick shaggy fringe that hung as if he never combed it. His well-used raincoat had once been olive but was now a faded green closer to celery.

Lily was somewhere between early thirties and mid-forties. He was tall, taller even than Powers, with a spare frame and tight muscles Powers could feel through the man’s trench coat as he leaned against him. His hair was cut short, and his face was chiseled with a beak-like nose that had been broken more than once. His eyes were slate grey.

              There was no driver the other side of the glass partition so Powers assumed Lily performed the chore. "How much longer..." Just then a car approached from behind, its headlights momentarily illuminating the limousine in a stark glare as it stopped. Powers heard a door close, followed by another. He caught a glimpse of a black driver, with gloves, cap and doorman’s umbrella spread above another figure. Then a man dressed in a dark charcoal suit entered the limousine and slid into the seat opposite him. Powers knew the face from the media. The driver deftly closed the umbrella then climbed in front and sat motionless behind the wheel.

"Thank you for agreeing to see me, Mr. Powers. No trouble I see."

Shanken shrugged. "Nah. Powers here knows the drill, don't you?"

"I'm Martin Karp. Perhaps you've heard of me?"

Karp was in his late forties, smelled of floral aftershave and scotch. He spoke in a flexible, resonant voice that commanded attention. He was neither heavy nor thin and wore expensive glasses on a soft face held in place by a nearly invisible gold frame. His carefully brushed hair was thinning. He had the appearance and demeanor of the baby powdered lawyers Powers had dealt with for 23 years and had never liked or trusted, the ones who cost your house to retain and sold you out once the money was gone.

"I work for the President," he announced solemnly. "You've been asked to perform a task and I think you've been left a bit in the dark. I'm here to help you. I hope to convince you of that before we finish."

"If you're serious about helping then you can start by not interfering and letting me leave."

"Alta Fort is expecting you, I suspect from the way she hurried from her office. We won't detain you long, just tell me what you found in Miss Marei's apartment."

Powers didn't respond.

Karp smiled lightly. "It's all right. I'm here taking care of my President, just as you are. One of my jobs is to protect him at any price. I'd have seen to this business myself but I must agree using an outsider was better. Not, of course, if you don't cooperate. So what did you find?" His voice was more insistent and Lily's left hand moved to Powers' knee where he placed fingers like a vice on the tendons and cartilage just behind the joint.

"None of that," Karp ordered in the same voice. The pressure eased but the threat remained. "Let's be reasonable, Mr. Powers, but as I said, there is more at stake here than you can know, more than even Mrs. Tufts is aware of. Let me tell you what I know about your situation. Maybe that will get us off on a better footing."

Karp unbuttoned his jacket and eased himself more comfortably into the seat. He extracted an art deco designed gold case from an inside pocket and lifted a slender cigarette. Powers had never seen a cigarette case anywhere before but in films.

The lighter was part of a set and Karp put both away as he inhaled then continued. "You are a lifelong friend of Mrs. Tufts. She is being blackmailed by a certain Marei woman who is a friend of the President. How am I doing?” He briefly paused for a response. “Nothing to say. I generally appreciate someone who knows how to keep his peace. We need more of them in Washington. That much you know. Now I'm going to tell you matters you must also keep to yourself. There are national security issues involved here." He pronounced the last as if it were sentence of death.

"Isn't that phrase a bit shopworn?" Powers said.

"I'm not responsible for the excesses of other administrations," Karp answered levelly. "I can only tell you it is true in this situation. Pillow talk may not sound that serious but in this case it could lead to disaster given the current international situation. What you are involved in is highly dangerous. I don't just mean for you personally, but for the country as well."

"What are you talking about?"

"In the next week or two, once the nomination is secure, the President will be compelled to make a decision about the Gulf. If Saddam has nuclear weapons, and we are trying our damnedest to confirm that, then we are facing a possible calamity. Where will Saddam stop? He's already in actual control of forty percent of the world's oil and with the threat of more aggression can exercise effective control over thirty percent more. The stability and security of this planet hangs on the web of a constant, affordable supply of oil. If we attempt to dislodge him, he is in the position to destroy a major portion of the world's oil supply, disrupting the global economy to an extent we can only imagine. And I suspect our imaginations will not be vast enough for the consequences. Not to forget that with an easily modified SCUD rocket he will be in a position to kill tens of thousands of American troops. You get my point?"             

"I read the newspaper."

Karp made a dismissive gesture with his cigarette. "If that doesn't impress you, then maybe this will. Julie Marei is not French. True, she was raised primarily in France and is a French citizen, but she is not French. She is Lebanese. A mixture to be sure, as much Armenian as of French descent. But on her father's side she is all Arab. She lived in Lebanon until the civil war and sometime after her family relocated to France. Consider that for a moment. This woman flies to Paris at least twice a week. Every month or so she's routed to Athens, the European hub for flights to the Middle East. Now are you beginning to see how perilous pillow talk can be? I've had my suspicions that she was the leak for certain inside information but the President refused to listen. He assured me she knew nothing of his business. I wish I could believe him. Now tell me: What did you find?"

“The President controls the intelligence resources of the most powerful country in the world. He can learn anything he wants about this woman. Someone as close to him as she will have been checked every way there is.”

“That’s what I urged, but the President categorically refused. He wanted no one, especially those in government, to have any knowledge of her. He trusts his instincts and the background information my private sources developed. Marei has never been under official observation nor has she had her travels monitored. I have urged this repeatedly but he is inflexible on the matter. The consequence is a sea of uncertainties and limitless possibilities.”

BOOK: Shadows and Lies
4.81Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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