Nick Carter - Death of the Falcon

Sherima gasped. “You intend to kill me and blame it on the CIA? Why should the Shah believe that lie? Especially if you are going to insinuate that I worked for the CIA.”

Abdul turned to me, saying, “Tell her, Mr. Carter. I am certain that by now you have figured out my plan.”

I didn’t want to reveal just how much AXE knew of the Sword’s plot, so I merely said, “Well, they might try to convince the Shah that you were killed because you had decided to expose the CIA’s operations in Adabi to Hassan and the rest of the world.”

“Precisely, Mr. Carter!” Abdul said. “I see that you people in the Executive Protection Service have some brains, too. We had assumed that you were little more than glorified bodyguards, good for nothing better than to stand outside embassies and consular offices.”

The Sword didn’t know it, but he had answered a big question that had been on my mind since he first had said he was expecting me at the CIA safe house. He obviously didn’t know about AXE or who I really was. I looked over at Candy, who had been standing silently, still holding a little gun in her hand during the entire conversation between Abdul and Sherima.

“I guess I have you to thank for telling him who I am, Lovely,” I said. Her face was defiant as I continued, “You use that body of yours pretty well to get what information you want. Thanks.”

She didn’t reply, but Abdul chuckled and said, “Yes, Mr. Carter, she does use that body of hers well.” From the way he sneered as he spoke, I realized that he, too, had experienced the delights of Candy’s love games. “But, in your case,” he went on, “it was not uncontrollable passion that influenced her. You were treated to her pleasures as my guest — at my instructions. I needed to know just where you fit into the picture, and once she discovered that you, too, were in the employ of the capitalists’ government, I decided to include you in my plans.”

“It was my pleasure,” I said, speaking to Candy rather than to Abdul. “Tell me, Candy, the man on Sherima’s balcony — was it an accident when you drove my knife into his throat? Or were you afraid that he was going to talk and tell me that the Sword was on the Watergate roof, too, directing the abduction attempt on Sherima?”

The big hazel eyes refused to look at me, and Candy still didn’t speak. Abdul wasn’t nearly so reticent, however. Satisfied his plot to destroy Shah Hassan was going to succeed and that there was nothing standing in his way, he seemed almost eager to discuss every facet of the operation.

“That was very clever of her, wasn’t it, Mr. Carter?” he said condescendingly. “I heard about it when I came down to Sherima’s room to see what had gone wrong. That was when I told her to keep you occupied for the rest of the night while we made off with Her Highness… excuse me, Her ex-Highness. Imagine, that old fool of a hotel detective thought he could stop us. He walked right up and wanted to know what I was doing at the door to the suite at that hour, flaunting his hotel badge as though I were a peeping torn.” He didn’t add the obvious — that he wouldn’t have had to kill the old man — Abdul was, after all, recognized as Sherima’s official bodyguard.

“Unfortunately for him, that may be just what he thought,” I said. “He didn’t really know what was going on, only that he was to protect the lady from being bothered.” That had been our mistake, I admitted to myself.

Sherima, horrified by all that she had heard in the past few minutes, once more demanded of her old school friend, “Why, Candy? How could you do this to me? You know that His Highness and I both loved you. Why?”

The question finally got through to Candy. Eyes blazing, she said scornfully, “Sure, Hassan loved me. That’s why he killed my father!”

“Your father!” Sherima exclaimed. “Candy, you know your father was slain by the same man who tried to kill the Shah. Your father saved Hassan’s life by sacrificing his own. And now you do this to him and me.”

“My father didn’t sacrifice his life!” Candy was almost shouting, and crying at the same time. “ Hassan killed him! He pulled my father in front of him to save his own lousy life when the assassin came at him. I swore that I would get even with Hassan when I heard about it, and now I’m going to do it”

“That’s not true, Candy,” Sherima told her passionately. “Hassan was so surprised when that man broke into the palace reception room and went for him, that he just stood still. Your father jumped in front of him and got stabbed. Then Abdul killed the assassin.”

“How do you know?” Candy shot back at her. “Were you there?”

“No,” Sherima admitted. “You know I was with you at the time. But Hassan told me all about it later. He felt responsible for your father’s death, and then responsible for you. You—”

“He was responsible! He was a coward and my father died because of it! He just couldn’t face up to telling you the truth, because then you’d know he was a coward, too.”

“Candy,” Sherima implored her, “my father told me the same thing. And he wouldn’t have lied about something like that. He was your father’s best friend, and—”

Candy wouldn’t listen. Interrupting Sherima again, she yelled, “Your dad was just like mine. A company man first. And the oil company couldn’t afford to have his people know that Hassan was a coward, or they wouldn’t have supported him. Then the precious company would have gotten tossed out of the country. Hassan lied and everybody who worked for the oil company backed him up.”

I had been watching the Sword as the two girls argued, and the smirk on his face raised a question in my mind. Candy didn’t sound like herself, I thought. It was almost as if she were repeating a story that had been told to her over and over. I broke in to ask a question of my own. “Candy, who told you about what happened that day?”

She turned to face me again. “Abdul. And he’s the only one who was there who had nothing to lose by telling me the truth. He almost got killed by that man that day, too. But he wasn’t a coward. He stepped right up to that crazy assassin and shot him down. Hassan was just lucky Abdul was there or the man would have gotten him right after my father.”

“When did he tell you about it?” I asked.

“That same night. He came around to see me and to try to comfort me. He just happened to let slip something about what really happened, and I pried the rest of it out of him. He made me promise not to tell anybody what the Shah had done. He said it wouldn’t be good for the country at the time if everybody knew that the Shah was a coward. It was our secret. I told you everyone has secrets, Nick.”

“Enough of this,” Abdul suddenly said sharply. “We have much to be done here. Selim, how are the papers coming? Are you almost finished?”

“Five minutes more.” It was the first time the embassy official had spoken since I entered the room. “I have used the code book we found upstairs to prepare a report that indicates Her Highness — the former Queen — has informed her superiors that she no longer believes that what the CIA has done in Adabi is right, and that she regrets helping them all this time. She has threatened to expose the CIA to His Highness and to the press of the world.”

“What else?” Abdul demanded.

“The paper I am completing now is a coded message instructing the people in the house to dispose of Sherima if they can’t change her mind. They are to make it look like an accident if possible. If not, she is to be shot and her body disposed of in such a manner that it never will be found. In that event, the message continues, a cover story will be released saying that it is believed that she has disappeared because she fears the Black September movement is going to take her life. The other paper is ready too.”