Nick Carter - Death of the Falcon

He spotted me almost at the same time I saw him in the phone booth and he quickly hung up and stepped out to make way for me.-

“I was reporting to the embassy where we were,” he said coldly. “His Majesty might want to contact my lady at any time and I am ordered to let our ambassador know our whereabouts regularly.”

It seemed like a logical explanation, so I said nothing, simply allowing him to pass and watching until he went out to the car. Then I called Hawk to make a report myself. It was unnecessary to worry about the absence of a scrambler on a pay phone. He got a bit upset when I asked to have someone tidy up the landscape at Great Falls. I left the details of how to collect the three corpses without arousing the suspicions of some Park Service employee up to him, and just gave him a quick rundown on what our schedule was for the rest of the afternoon, then told him that I would contact him when we returned to the Watergate.

Just before I hung up, I asked if Communications Section had been able to get into Sherima’s suite to plant our bugs. His grunt of disgust told me that the listening devices hadn’t been put in place, then he explained why. “It seems someone phoned the Adabian Embassy and suggested that Sherima might feel more at home if some native paintings and handicrafts were sent around to decorate the suite while she was out. Anyway, the First Secretary has been in the suite almost from the moment you all drove away, and he’s had people carrying things in and out all day. We’re ready to move in as soon as they get out of there, but it looks to me as if the First Secretary wants to be on hand when Sherima returns so he can take credit for the decorating job.”

“Who phoned to suggest all this?”

“We haven’t been able to find out — yet,” Hawk said. “Our man in the embassy thinks the call went directly to the ambassador, so it would have had to have come from Sherima herself, your Miss Knight, or, perhaps, from that Bedawi fellow.”

“Speaking of him,” I said, “see if you can find out if he knows anyone at the embassy, or has had any opportunity to contact a friend here.”

I went on to tell him how our side trip to Great Falls had been suggested. Hawk said he would try to have an answer for me by the time we got back.

Then, pitching his voice to an almost admonishing tone, he said, “I’ll take care of those three packages of Japanese goods you mentioned leaving behind at the Falls, but please try to be more careful in the future. Collection service of that type is rather difficult to arrange in this area. The competition among the agencies that might have to be involved is so hot, one of them might find it to their advantage to use the information against us, businesswise.”

I knew he meant he would have to make some arrangements with either the FBI or the CIA to cover up the fate of the trio of would-be assassins. Asking for assistance of that kind always upset him, for he was certain he would have to repay the favor ten fold at a later date. “I’m sorry, sir,” I said, trying to sound as though I was. “It won’t happen again. I’ll stay behind myself next time.”

“That won’t be necessary,” he said brusquely, then hung up.

Returning to Sherima and Candy, I found that lunch had arrived. We all were hungry from our hike, and since I had indulged in a bit more exercise than the others my stomach was screaming for anything, and the food was good. We finished quickly, then spent another hour touring the hunt country, with Candy busily making notes as Sherima told her what sections particularly interested her. They decided that Candy would begin to contact real estate agents the following day. Hopefully, they would find a home within the next week or two.

It was shortly after six P.M. when Abdul swung the limousine into the Watergate driveway again. By then, we had decided to have dinner in Georgetown. I insisted that they be my guests at the 1789 Restaurant, an excellent dining spot housed in a building that dated back to the year that gave the restaurant its name. Sherima again was hesitant about imposing on me, but I convinced her to agree by accepting her invitation to be her guest the following evening.

As we got out of the car, Sherima instructed Abdul to return at eight-thirty to pick us up. I suggested that we could easily go to Georgetown by taxi, and that Abdul might enjoy a night off.

“Thank you, Mr. Carter,” he said with his usual iciness, “but I require no night off. It is my job to be at my lady’s disposal. I shall return at eight-thirty.”

“All right, Abdul,” Sherima said, sensing, perhaps, that her faithful bodyguard’s feelings might have been hurt. “But you be certain to get something to eat.”

“Yes, my lady,” he said, bowing. “I shall do so at the embassy immediately. I can drive there easily and be back here as you instructed.” He closed the discussion by stepping quickly around the car and driving off.

“Abdul takes his job very seriously, Nick,” Sherima said as we rode up to our floor in the elevator. “He does not mean to be impolite; it is just his manner.”

“I understand,” I said, stopping at my door while they continued to their suite. “See you in the lobby.”

Moments later, I was on the phone to Hawk, who had some information for me.

“For one thing,” he began, “that fool First Secretary didn’t give up waiting for Sherima until about fifteen minutes ago. We never got into the suite, so don’t count on the bugs.”

I started to say something about an unscrambled phone, but he broke in to say that, if nothing else, Communications hadn’t wasted the day at the Watergate entirely. “A scrambler has been installed in your phone, so you can talk freely.”

“Great! What about my three friends at the Falls?”

“Just about now,” he said slowly, “their totally incinerated corpses are being removed from the wreckage of their Datsun on MacArthur Boulevard near the Naval Research Center. A tire must have blown out, for they suddenly swerved and hit a gasoline tank truck just waiting to swing into the Center. A couple of officers from Naval Intelligence happened to be passing at the time, and they saw the accident. Fortunately, the driver of the tank truck jumped clear just before the explosion. From what the Naval Institute witnesses told the Maryland State Police, the truck driver’s in the clear. It was just an accident.”

“Were you able to find out anything about them before the accident?”

“Their photographs and prints were taken, and we’ve established that they were members of the Rengo Sekigun. We thought most of those Japanese Red Army fanatics had been rounded up or wiped out, but apparently, these three had fled Tokyo and made their way to Lebanon; they’d been taken in by Black September.”

“How did they get here?”

“We haven’t pinned that down yet, but we’re working on it. The Beirut office says it had a report that some Japanese being trained by Black September had decided that the September organization wasn’t militant enough for them so they made contact on their own with the Sword’s Silver Scimitar boys. He may have arranged to have them sent here for this job on Sherima.”

“So they didn’t think the Black September was militant enough,” I mused. “What did they think that little massacre their fellow countrymen pulled at Lod Airport in Tel Aviv a couple of years back was — an exercise in pacifism?”

“What are your plans for the evening?” Hawk wanted to know. “Do you want any back-up assigned?”

I told him about our dinner at the 1789 Restaurant, then rang off. As if on cue, there was a knock at my door.

Loosening my tie as I crossed to the door, I swung it open. Candy pushed past me immediately, closing it quickly behind herself.