Timothy Culver - Power Play

She picked up the telephone, frowning at the closed connecting door, troubled at being separated from Bradford even at a time and place like this. She would tell whichever it was, Carrie or Edward, to hold on while she went over and re-opened the door. “Hello?”

“Evelyn?” The voice was Wellington’s, and totally unexpected. “A situation has come up,” he said. “Are you there?”

Still standing, she half-turned toward the desk, holding the receiver to her face with both hands. “Yes, of course. What’s the matter?”

“Eddie, Jr. You know the organization he belongs to?”

“I know he belongs to something or other, but I don’t know—”

“Maoist. The Chinese have gotten to him, he’s told them our plans, he got everything from his father.”

“How could he do such a—”

“The best motives in the world,” Wellington said drily. “All the worst things are done for the best motives, I could tell you a lot about that. The point is, we have to change our plans. Don’t be surprised by the things that happen. Are you still there?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I can’t say too much on the phone. And neither can you, with Bradford right there.”

She turned her head quickly, and looked at the closed door. “Wait,” she said.

“Evelyn!”

“I’ll be back!”

She dropped the receiver to the desk, and ran to the connecting door. She pulled it open, and stepped through, and the room was empty.

She turned back, stunned, not knowing how to say the words to Wellington, and the office door opened and two Chinese men came in. While the one went to the desk, picked up the phone, listened for just a second and then cradled the receiver, the other came toward her, holding up a brown cloth coat and saying, “Mrs. Canby, there is no time to waste.”

Scream? They were coming toward her, their faces impersonal, businesslike. They had taken Bradford away.

She still didn’t know whether or not she would scream — only a few mind-shattering seconds had gone by — when she saw another man in the corridor doorway. This one was Caucasian, elderly, with a thick black moustache and hornrimmed glasses. He wore a black homburg, a shabby black overcoat, and carried a worn brown briefcase of an old-fashioned kind. She was going to say something to him — ask him where Bradford was, or scream for help, or demand an explanation — when he said, with Bradford’s voice, “Come along, Evelyn, take off your coat.”

“Bradford?” She stared at him, not believing the transformation, while the two men efficiently helped her off with her own coat and put the brown cloth one on in its place. He was so totally different, but very little had been done to him: a moustache quickly glued in place, a pair of glasses, a change of coat, the addition of the hat and briefcase. But the touches were just right, just enough to change the personality, the appearance, everything. He looked somehow shorter than Bradford Lockridge, and dumpier.

They had the coat on her, and now one of them brought forth a pair of glasses, a soft brown felt hat, and a camera in its case with a long thong. “If you please, Mrs. Canby,” he said, like a hairdresser wanting her to turn her head. “They are clear lenses,” he said, holding the glasses out to her, and she took them from him and put them on. He nodded without smiling, put the camera strap over her head, and let the camera dangle at her waist. Then he handed her the hat, saying, “If you will put this on, please.”

It was difficult without a mirror, particularly because her hands were shaking and her mind was alive with questions, but she did get the hat on one way or another, and then the Chinese said, “That’s very good. This way, please.”

They walked down the deserted corridor, following the two Orientals, and Bradford said under his breath, “Damn clever, these Chinese. Eh?” He was no longer tired, and under the strange bushy moustache his mouth was fixed in a broad happy smile.

Ahead was the open main terminal floor. Evelyn considered a dozen different things she might do when they got there — it didn’t matter now if she exposed the truth about herself to Bradford, if it resulted in rescuing him — but as the crowded terminal came closer she suddenly remembered one of the things Wellington had said to her on the phone just now: “Don’t be surprised by the things that happen.”

Were those two Chinese? She stared at the backs of their heads, she thought back to the appearance of the Chinese agent who’d talked to her last night in Pennsylvania. But how could one tell? She was sure there were physical types in different Asian countries, just as there were in different European countries, but she didn’t know what they were. Perhaps someone from China would be able to tell just by looking at them whether these two were Chinese or Vietnamese, but Evelyn couldn’t.

She had to make a guess, and she didn’t know which way to go. “Don’t be surprised by the things that happen.” If she shouted for help now, would she be ruining a scheme of Wellington’s? She remembered how the Chinese agent in the private road late one night had turned out to be one of Wellington’s men, how Robert and Howard’s discovery of the Chinese base of operations had turned up a secret operation of Wellington’s, how she’d stumbled on Wellington’s construction site, how even this trip to Paris had been kept from her by Wellington until after she’d already heard about it from Bradford.

But if she guessed wrong, she and Bradford could wind up in Communist China.

Would it be safer, then, to sound the alarm, to take the chance on being wrong rather than permit the Chinese actually to get their hands on Bradford? But that way Bradford would find out what was going on, and this was far too public a place to keep him from making the sort of general announcement that was just exactly the kind of thing they were trying to avoid, the effect of which, for all intents and purposes, would be just the same as if he had gone to Red China.

“Don’t be surprised by the things that happen.” Could she count on that? If only Wellington weren’t so compulsively secretive!

The terminal floor. The Chinese — Vietnamese? — led the way, keeping a bit ahead so they weren’t obviously a group of four. Hundreds of people swirled and swarmed around them, all intent on their own concerns; she and Bradford might as well have been alone on a basketball court. Snatches of a dozen languages came to her ears, and the bits and pieces of English in the stew were the parts that sounded strange.

A young Frenchman in a black turtleneck sweater bumped into Evelyn, murmured a quick apology, moved on.

Ahead, the Chinese stopped, turned around. Bradford and Evelyn joined them, and one of them took a long flat envelope from his pocket. “Here are new passports,” he said, “and tickets for the fight to Stockholm. You will be met at the terminal there.”

Bradford took the envelope. “Thank you. You won’t be coming with us?”

“No.” A politely wistful smile. “We are most pleased to have met you, but we must leave you now. You will see that your flight does not leave for two hours, you will have plenty of time for a pleasant breakfast. Bon appetit.”

“Join us,” Bradford said.

“You will attract less attention without Oriental companions.”

Hands were shaken all around — Evelyn numbly joined the ceremony — and the two men started off. Bradford was opening the envelope. One of the two men, as they moved past her to go back the way they’d come, murmured to her, “Everything is all right.” And then they were gone.

How could they get away with it? One of the most famous men on earth, walking amid a crowd, having breakfast in a public restaurant, being recognized by no one. The glasses and the moustache were almost no disguise at all, once you knew who it was you could see Bradford’s face clearly behind them, but for some reason they were just enough. That, and the fact that no one would expect Bradford Lockridge behind glasses and a moustache, no one would expect Bradford Lockridge eating a meal in a crowded airport restaurant, no one would expect Bradford Lockridge, seedily dressed and carrying a shabby briefcase, walking untended across an airport terminal floor.