Алистер Маклин: Dead Halt

She had only agreed to make up the foursome because she knew how much it would mean to her close friend, Simone Forrest. Simone, a leading New York fashion model, had rung her the previous night to say that Steve Rutherford, the Canadian photographer she had met earlier that month on a shoot in Toronto, was in New York on a short visit. But there was a snag. His best friend, Doug Keeble, was with him. He wanted a partner for the evening and Simone had told him she knew just the person …

Sabrina had liked Rutherford straight away. He was just as Simone had described him. Polite, affable and strikingly handsome. She could well understand how Simone had fallen for him. So why did he have a friend like Doug Keeble? Admittedly, Keeble was also good-looking, but that was where the comparison with Rutherford ended. He was loud with a vulgar sense of humor and a bad case of wandering hands. She’d already given up counting the number of times she had had to prize his hand off her knee. She had even spoken to him discreetly about it but he had only laughed it off. Simone certainly owed her for this one. Then, after Rutherford had settled the bill, Simone announced that they were off to a nightclub. Sabrina knew Simone wanted to be alone with Rutherford. But she was damned if she was going to entertain Keeble for the rest of the evening …

“Where should we go now?” Keeble asked after Rutherford and Simone had left the restaurant. He slipped his hand over hers. “You know New York.”

Sabrina eased her hand out from under his. “We aren’t going anywhere. I’m going back to my apartment, I’ve got a busy day ahead of me tomorrow.”

“It’s still early. We can have a few drinks somewhere and take it from there.” He grinned. “I’ll see that you’re in bed in good time for your beauty sleep.”

Sabrina inhaled sharply. She was struggling to control her temper. If there was one thing she hated, it was being patronized. Especially by someone like Keeble. It was the same kind of chauvinism that she had encountered when she first arrived at UNACO from the FBI two years earlier. She supposed it was to have been expected as she had been the only female field operative in the organization: nonetheless she had found it irritating. But she had managed to overcome her critics with her gritty determination and her unswerving belief in her own ability. Those same critics now regarded her as their equal. Not that anyone outside UNACO, apart from her parents, knew that she was a member of Strike Force Three. As far as her friends were concerned, she was a translator at the United Nations. Secrecy was essential to the organization.

“Come on, let’s go,” Keeble said, reaching for her hand.

She pulled her hand away roughly from his and stood up, her eyes blazing. “I really don’t give a damn where you go. But one thing’s certain, it won’t be with me. Understood?”

She turned sharply on her heel and walked to the door. Every man in the restaurant watched her leave. She was a strikingly beautiful twenty-eight-year-old with shoulder-length blonde hair tinted with auburn highlights, and a near perfect figure accentuated by the contour-hugging velvet dress she was wearing. She emerged onto the street then paused to retrieve her car keys from her purse.

“Hey, wait up,” Keeble shouted breathlessly from behind her. “What the hell are you playing at?”

She looked around at him. “What does it look like? I’m going home.”

“And what about me? Steve’s got the car, you know.”

“So get a cab,” Sabrina retorted. “You want me to hail one for you?”

“What’s wrong with you?” Keeble demanded. “You get a free meal and this is how you show your appreciation. You embarrass me in the restaurant then storm out like some spoiled brat. I think you’d better get your priorities right.”

Sabrina stared at Keeble in disbelief. She opened her mouth to say something then abruptly changed her mind. What good would it do to try and reason with someone like him? The guy was still firmly entrenched in the Dark Ages. Better just to walk away.

“Don’t turn your back on me,” he snarled, grabbing her arm.

She broke his grip with ease but resisted the temptation to dump him on the sidewalk. It wouldn’t be difficult. Not with a black belt in karate. But he wasn’t worth it. Instead she levelled a finger of warning at him. “You touch me again and you’ll be spending the rest of the night in a police cell.”

“At least the company would be better,” Keeble snapped.

“In your case, you’d probably be right,” she retorted sarcastically as she walked to her champagne-colored Mercedes-Benz 500 SEC which was parked at the end of the street.

Keeble cursed angrily but he seemed to have given up on her at last and hailed a cab.

Sabrina watched as it disappeared into the traffic, then started up her car and drove back to her Manhattan apartment. The night porter looked up from the magazine he was reading to greet her as she entered the black and white tiled foyer. She smiled back at him then unlocked the door of her small flat which led directly into the sparsely furnished lounge. Kicking off her high-heeled shoes, she crossed to a shelf lined with an impressive collection of modern jazz compact discs, selected the latest Bob Berg, and fed it into the Wadia transport. She switched the kettle on in the kitchen then went to her bedroom to change out of her dress. She was about to take a gray tracksuit from the cupboard when the telephone rang. Well, at least it couldn’t be Doug Keeble. He didn’t have her number. She sat on the edge of the bed and was about to answer it when a thought struck her. What if he had asked Simone for her number? She wouldn’t have given it to him, would she? There was only one way to find out. She picked up the receiver.

“Miss Carver?” a male voice inquired.

“Speaking,” she replied.

“This is Llewelyn and Lee,” the man continued.

She gave a sigh of relief. “Llewelyn and Lee” was the name Philpott had devised as a cover for UNACO’s thirty unlisted telephone lines. The receptionist during the day, or duty officer at night, would only drop the pretense if the second party could identify themselves by means of either an ID number or a password. Sabrina gave him her ID number, and the duty officer repeated his message once more.

“I’ll be there,” Sabrina replied.

“You wouldn’t happen to know where Mr. Graham is, would you?” the duty officer asked after a moment’s pause. “I can’t seem to get hold of him on the phone and he’s not answering his beeper either.”

“I know where he’ll be,” she told him. “Leave it to me, I’ll pass the message on to him.”

“I’d appreciate that. Could you give me a ring once you’ve spoken to him so that I can log it in the diary?”

“Sure, I’ll do that. Oh, and don’t mention to Mr. Kolchinsky that you couldn’t get hold of him.”

“It’s regulations, Miss Carver. The Director specifically asked me to make a note of any operative not responding to a call.”

“Just this time,” she said softly. “I promise I’ll have a word with him about it. And if it does happen again, you can report him. Please.”

There was another pause. “I guess it’ll be OK so long as he gets the message.”

“He will. And thanks.”

“Sure,” the duty officer replied, then the line went dead.

Sabrina replaced the receiver then crossed to the cupboard again where she selected a pair of designer jeans and a baggy white T-shirt. She knew Graham would be at the Manion Hotel in Yorkville. He traveled down from his home in Vermont every Wednesday to put fresh flowers on the graves of his wife and son and stayed overnight at the Manion before returning home the following day. She tucked her jeans into a pair of brown ankle boots, grabbed the leather jacket from behind the door, and left the apartment.