The Silent Blade (Harry Bauer Book 6), page 2
“Harry, that’s ridiculous.”
“Tell the brigadier.”
I hung up, pulled the SIM from the phone and destroyed it. Then I sat and wondered what the hell to do next. I didn’t have time to wonder long. The hotel room phone rang.
“Yeah?”
“This is the reception desk, Mr. Smith, I have a message to say that Tobias will meet you in the Caribar in ten minutes.”
“Tobias?”
“Yes, sir. That is correct.”
I took a moment to think. “Did Tobias give you that message personally?”
“No, sir.” He sounded embarrassed. “The truth is, the note was on the desk. Nobody seems to remember who delivered it, but it was addressed to you, with your room number.”
“You didn’t see Tobias?”
“No sir, I am very sorry. Nobody did. I don’t understand how it could have happened…”
“OK, don’t worry about it. Thanks.”
“Thank you, sir.”
The Caribar at the Caribe Hilton is not an ideal place to kill somebody. So whoever it was probably wanted to get my attention, and talk. I pulled on my jacket and made my way down to reception, and then to the Caribar. It was quiet at that time because most people were dining already. There were a couple of guys up at the bar, nursing complicated cocktails. There was a couple at a table laughing quietly at some private joke, and a table of five men in suits who were talking quietly about something that was making them all frown. There was nobody that made me think of Tobias.
I went to the bar and told the boy in the waistcoat and bowtie I wanted a Macallan, double, straight up. He gave me a paper doily and a bowl of peanuts, followed by a glass shaped like a giant iceberg, and poured a generous measure of whisky into it.
Five minutes passed and I was wondering if I had been lured away from my room so the Agency could inspect it while I waited like a sap for my dead colleague to show up. I was about to go back up when a woman stepped into the bar. She was alone, dressed in a scarlet, knee-length affair with a slash up her right thigh. Not many bodies can make a dress like that work. This woman made it work and had it on overtime. She had red shoes with straps and legs that were made to be undressed by candlelight. By the time I got to thinking about her bosom, her face and her auburn hair, she was already walking toward me like she knew me. She didn’t waste time with Mr. Smith, BS or small talk. She came right to the point.
“Mr. Bauer?”
“No. I’m Mr. Smith.”
“Buy me a drink and let’s sit down.”
“My room is less than a minute away. We’d be more comfortable up there.”
“Maybe later. Gin and tonic. Lime, not lemon.”
I conveyed the order to the guy in the waistcoat and the bowtie. He gave me another doily and another bowl of peanuts and we carried the drinks up five steps to the mezzanine floor. We sat at a small, white table by a palm and I smiled at her.
“Did you bring your piano wire? Or do you plan to use a slice of lime on me?”
She gave me a blank stare in exchange for my smile and said, “I’m disappointed. You’re making assumptions. That’s not smart.”
“I’m making assumptions, Tobias? No, I’m making facetious small talk while I wait for you to do three things.”
She raised an eyebrow. It was about as close as she could get to an expression. “What three things?”
“Explain why you called yourself Tobias, give me the envelope you took from him, and give me just one good reason why I should not hustle you into the can and break your neck.”
She nodded a few times, with her huge, green eyes examining my face. “Yeah, you are Harry Bauer.”
“Am I? You’re sure as hell not Tobias. So you’d better start explaining, sweet cheeks. The can is calling, and it’s calling your name.”
“I was told: He is arrogant, pushy, rude, facetious and excruciatingly misogynistic. He will not listen to you and he will probably threaten to kill you within the first five minutes.”
“You’ve been speaking to my mother. I’m actually a nice guy when you get to know me. Twice you have answered me and twice you have avoided the questions. You have one more shot, sister. Why did you call yourself Tobias? Where is the envelope you took from him? And, above all, give me one good reason why I should not take you out right now.”
She picked up her gin and tonic and wet her lips with it. As she set it down she said, “My name is Alice White.”
She opened her small red handbag and pulled out her purse. From that she extracted a driver’s license and handed it to me. I arched an eyebrow at it, and then showed the same eyebrow to Alice White.
“Don’t you get those free with cornflakes?”
She sighed. “This is going to be hard work.” She put the license back and went on. “I am an intelligence officer.”
“Who for?”
“Stop interrupting and I’ll tell you. I work for the same people you do…”
“Bullshit.”
She seemed to count to ten with her eyes closed, then soldiered on again. “And I was told that you would be just like this.”
“Who told you?”
“Don’t be absurd. Good lord! Have you no professionalism at all?”
I stared at her for a long time. It was like talking to the colonel. “Go on.”
“I called myself Tobias to get your attention and have you join me in the bar so I could update you and give you your new instructions. He was your first contact. I wanted to let you know I was stepping into his shoes.”
She took a deep breath and wet her lips again with her drink. After she’d wet them she licked them but didn’t set the glass down. She didn’t look nervous or scared, but she did look stressed.
“As to the envelope, I cannot give it to you because I don’t have it.”
“Who has?”
“I wish I knew. Whoever killed Tobias. Tobias was a good friend and a good colleague. I would like to get my hands…” She trailed off and smiled for the first time. She looked like she meant it. “I’d like to find who did this to him, and set you on them.”
I didn’t answer for a moment, studying her face for some sign that she was lying. I didn’t find one. “Bombs and all, huh?”
The smile shifted to ironic. “Yeah, bombs and all.” She shrugged. “As to a good reason not to drag me into the can and break my neck, all I can offer you is that you are now cut off. There will be no more contact until this is resolved, and all you have is me.”
I gave a short grunt of a laugh. “I got plenty of nothin’, but nothin’s plenty for me.”
A wave of irritation contracted her face. “Yeah, and you’re as flattering as tight leggings on a fat ass. I’m not thrilled about this either, buster, but it’s the job. And for your information, I am a rifle-qualified expert in the US Army. I am also trained in Krav Maga and I have a third dan in Tae Kwon Do. Is there anything else you need to know about me, Mr. Smith?”
“Yeah.”
“What?”
“What it is you are supposed to do for me. I need to get back to New York, soon.”
“And that, if you will give me a break, is what I am instructed to do. But we have to do it here and we cannot use the system or the organization. We have to make it with the resources we have in Puerto Rico.”
“Which are?”
“My contacts.”
I picked up my whisky and stared into it. I swirled it around a bit and took a pull. It burned.
“You’re telling me I am entirely in your hands.”
She shrugged and made a doubtful face. “I wouldn’t put it like that exactly, but I suppose to some extent that’s true.” She gave a more definite shrug and added, “I guess from time to time we are all in somebody else’s hands. Five minutes ago you might have said I was entirely in your hands.” She smiled without malice, but with a touch of humor. “The tables have turned a bit though, huh?”
I didn’t react to the humor. “I need to be out of Puerto Rico tomorrow.”
She nodded. “I know, and those are the instructions I have. Believe me, there are people back home who would like to have you back. And not only because if Bloque Meta gets a hold of you and makes you talk, a lot of heads are going to roll. They are genuinely worried about you. But you have to work with me.”
“What do you mean? How exactly?”
She sighed, then arched an eyebrow. “How about we start with you stop riding me so hard? We could then move on to you stop threatening to kill me. And we could then move on to you accept that it is very unlikely that I killed Tobias.”
“Why?”
She looked surprised. “What?”
“Why is it unlikely that you killed Tobias?”
She gave a small laugh. “Look at me! The guy was six two and as strong as an ox!”
“And according to you, you are an expert in Krav Maga and a third dan in Tae Kwon Do.”
She sagged back in her chair with a “who’s a silly boy?” expression on her face. “Really? They told me you were smart. You haven’t taken your eyes off this body all evening. So let me ask you something, genius. Do I look like a third dan in Tae Kwon Do and an expert in Krav Maga?” She made a dogleg of her right arm and clenched her fist. “You want to squeeze these biceps and tell me if I could break a man’s neck or bust his jaw?” She was right. She looked like she could play a good game of tennis or squash, but she didn’t look like a killer. She laughed and shook her head. “I was trying to get your attention and even things up a little. This isn’t an easy job, but I don’t often get threatened by a man as dangerous as Harry Bauer.”
“What is your job?”
“I told you, I’m an intelligence analyst.”
“Who do you report to?”
“No names. You know that.”
“You just named me, several times.”
“Yeah, and you make no effort to hide your name.”
I drained my whisky and sat looking at the empty glass in my hand. She was credible, but any good pro is credible. The fact was that I had no way of knowing if she was the real deal or not, and my choices were very limited. I said:
“What happened tonight?”
She leaned forward, with her legs crossed, her right elbow cupped in the palm of her left hand, holding her drink.
“Bloque Meta are swarming all over Venezuela and the west Caribbean looking for the guy who pulled off the three hits on St. George. As far as we are aware they don’t know it’s Harry Bauer—yet—but if you are not careful, yours is going to become a household name.” She took a deep breath and thought for a moment. “Tobias had been a fixture on this island for a long time. His specialty was always narcotics, but sometimes he did a little bit of this and that too. When he was detailed to liaise with you, a colleague and I were told to watch his back.
“He arrived at the designated address at six thirty and we were right behind him. We watched him go in and waited five minutes for him to send us the OK that he was in position. It never came. At ten past we went in and found him on the bed with the piano wire around his neck. The envelope he was supposed to give you was gone. We moved out.”
I scowled. “You could have warned me off.”
She gave a single laugh. “Are you kidding me? With your reputation? You’d have taken me and my colleague out before we’d said, ‘Good evening.’ As it is you almost took me out right here in the bar!”
I sighed. “Yeah, OK. So what’s next?”
“You’re a handsome guy who is dressed well, if a little unexcitingly. I am a beautiful woman who is exquisitely dressed…”
I nodded. “And very excitingly dressed.”
“And here we are in the Caribar having cocktails in the Caribe Hilton. What is the least conspicuous thing we could do, do you think?”
I shrugged with my eyebrows. “Put like that, I guess we should have dinner and then go to my room.”
She smiled without humor. “You are all of half right, pal. All of fifty percent.”
Three
She had oysters and lobster. It’s the thing in the Caribbean, a lot of seafood. I enjoy it as an exotic interlude, but pretty soon my body starts asking for some good red meat. It’s like trying to drive an Aston Martin on a fine French cognac. It might get you to the next gas station, but what you really need is high-octane gasoline. So I had the oysters followed by a T-bone steak. Then we had coffee. She had the fine French cognac—maybe she needed it to get her to her next stop—and I had a twenty-five-year-old Macallan because cognac is too fine and too delicate for my palate. I sipped, felt the warm glow in my belly and asked her: “So now what, Alice? Do we step through the looking glass?”
She gave a small sigh through her nose. “Did anybody ever tell you that facetious is not the same as witty?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I had a Scottish sergeant in the SAS. He grew up in the poorest part of Glasgow, left school at thirteen, specialized in housebreaking until he was sixteen and then joined the army. He used to say to me,” I switched to a serviceable, incomprehensible Glaswegian accent, “Och yer feckin’ brain dead, ye feckin’ Yankee ignoramus! D’ye no’ understand that facetious is nay the same as witty!”
She laughed, and then she laughed some more. “Now that—see? That is witty.”
I smiled. The story—and the sergeant—were not mine, they were the brigadier’s and I had borrowed them from him. I added, still stealing from the boss: “He used to quote Plutarch at me.”
“Seriously? Now you’re pulling my leg.”
I shook my head. “His favorite was, ‘Know how to listen and you will profit even from those who talk badly.’”
The laughter faded to a smile with a hint of sadness in it. “Are you trying to tell me something?”
“Not at all. But I do try to listen and I have noticed that whenever I ask you an important question, you become evasive.”
She made a thin line of her lips and gave a small shrug. “Maybe that’s because you have a very aggressive way of asking questions.” She met my eye and held it. “I am an intelligence officer, H… Mr. Smith. All my muscles are in my brain. You are…” She took a deep breath and gestured at me with both hands. “What you are! You are most definitely what you are! A thousand years ago you would have had a horned helmet and an axe and you would have been plundering northern Europe.”
“I’m flattered.”
“Maybe you should be. It’s not an unattractive quality. You are very intense and you come on very strong. You would not normally find me in the field. This is new and a little bit scary for me. But it was an emergency—not to say a crisis—and I had to step up.”
“You’re doing a fine job. When this is over I’ll put in a word for you.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it. But for now you might just be a little more gentle.”
“OK.” I nodded. “So what now, Alice?”
She held my eye a moment without speaking, smiling, one brow arched and her cheeks colored with pink. In spite of myself I felt a burn in my belly. “Now,” she said, “being the gentleman you are, you drive me home and we see if we can’t scratch your itch.”
“I’m not going to ask you if that is witty or facetious. I’m just going to listen to my itch and go with the plan.”
I had the valet bring my car round and led Alice out into the balmy night. She slipped into the passenger seat, I climbed behind the wheel, and we took off toward the Avenida Fernandez Juncos bridge and, following San Juan’s crazy one-way system, took the Calle Olimpo, made a big loop north along Manuel Fernandez Juncos, and then dropped down south again to her villa on Calle José Martí.
The house was a big, rambling 19th-century affair with a gable on top and sloping roofs slanting over the first floor, where a patio skirted the left of the house among tropical gardens. The whole thing was fenced off behind a low wall with white, wrought-iron railings in the shape of spears. It wasn’t bad for the center of town and I figured intelligence officers must make a decent living at Cobra. I killed the engine and the lights and we climbed out. The attack came while she was fishing the keys out of her purse.
The streetlamps were few, a dull amber and largely concealed by the foliage of the abundant trees on the street. That meant the road was mainly in shadow and dark. It was also narrow, with a lot of parked cars lined up on each side. What little light there was reflected orange off the black windshields and the hoods. Alice stood before the white, wrought-iron gates, holding her purse open, and I stood looking up and down the road, searching only half-consciously for movement, anything that seemed wrong.
The sound came first. The opening and closing of car doors, four almost simultaneously, then four more. Eight men. My hand reached automatically for my Sig, but it wasn’t there. It was fifty miles east of Trinidad, at the bottom of the Atlantic.
I didn’t think. I stepped forward, snatched Alice’s purse from her hand, selected the most likely key and shoved it in the lock. I could hear feet, shifting fast from a tramp to a run. Alice was saying, “What the…?” I heaved the gate open, shoved her in with my left hand, ripped the key from the lock and slammed the gate closed. There was no time for anything else. I threw the keys over the gate and turned to meet my attackers.
I could hear Alice screaming, “Harry! No, no, no! Harry!” but I was too busy to answer. There were eight of them, they were pros and they were not about to give me time to think.
When you are under severe attack, there is only thing you can do: straight blast. Throw everything you’ve got at your opponent with as much explosive energy as you can find deep, deep within your reserves. A wise warrior once said that life’s battles do not always go to the stronger or the faster man, but sooner or later the man who wins the war is the man who believes he can.
I charged at the biggest, ugliest bastard I could see. I feinted with a straight right to his jaw, withdrew as he tried to bat it away, gave a small jump and crashed down with my heel on his knee. I felt it crunch and he screamed in pain, but already I could feel three hands grappling at me and bodies pressing in all around.
