“God bless him,” she said.
“I know he’s going to phone you in the next few days.”
“That’s good,” she said. “We can talk.”
A nurse appeared. She looked at McKinnon, shook her head and tapped her wristwatch.
“I guess that’s my five minutes,” McKinnon said.
“And I guess I have a lot of work to do when I get out of here,” she said.
McKinnon left a calling card, a nondescript CIA thing with a fake name, a fake title, and a real phone number. The card cited him as a cultural attaché to the embassy in Paris, with an office in Rome. His cover job was overseeing the exchange of French and Italian filmmakers and American filmmakers.
She was left with a lot of time to think. Too much time, really, but no one ever remarked that time went quickly in a hospital. Federov played over and over in her mind, as did Barranco Lajoya.
Here she was alive again. Why?
What was she to do with the extra years she had been given?
EIGHTY-FOUR
In a private search chamber at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport, Sammy Newman-better known to the world as the singer Billy-O-stood with his hands in his inside-out emptied pockets and wondered how things could have gone so terribly wrong.
In front of him, two US customs agents, with their mulish dedication to their job, went through every bit of his luggage, examining the linings, his dirty socks, and underwear. One was a no-nonsense guy with a trim moustache and glasses. The other was an even-less-nonsense female with a big midsection and pinned-back hair. They said nothing as they methodically disassembled his luggage. A Beatles tune, “Yellow Submarine,” mutilated into Muzak, played softly over the sound system.
Meanwhile, Sammy could have used a yellow submarine to get out of there. The flight from Nice, première classe all the way on Air France, had been a sweetheart. Hardly a bump, great food, and there had been two flight attendants who had caught his eye, beautiful Gallic girls with dark eyes, slender builds, and sultry legs. They had pushed their phone numbers into his hands. Sammy had booked a week at the Carlyle in New York and was thinking of inviting both girls over and extending the stay to two weeks. He had some fun planned before having to return to Los Angeles and finding out what his agent had lined up as his next film.
But now, this!
He was breaking a major sweat.
The agents had gone through the lining of his leather suitcase and had found the extra twenty-thousand dollars that he always carried, a violation of currency transfer regulations. He met that with a shrug. He knew his lawyer could get him out of that one.
“Hey. It’s dangerous to show a lot of cash these days,” he said. “Know what I mean?”
“Currency transfer violation, sir,” the male agent said. “Sorry.”
“Aren’t you from this area?” the woman asked. “New Jersey or something?”
“Westbury, Long Island.”
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Knew it was something.”
She then returned to her business of putting Sammy in jail.
The money was just the small stuff. Now, as the perspiration moved from his brow to the side of his face, and as it flooded from his palms, these lousy agents were invading his medicine kit.
He watched. They opened his pill containers and examined the contents. They showed the contents to each other. They glanced at him and didn’t say anything.
“I got a prescription somewhere for everything,” Sammy said, “even if some of the pills got messed up. You know, wrong bottles.”
The agents didn’t say anything.
Sammy was already wondering which of his lawyers he would call, or maybe his manager Adam Winters in Santa Monica, when and if they gave him his phone back. Actually, he pondered, thinking it through further, he might need someone in New York. And fast.
Then Sammy’s spirits hit the floor and shattered. The female agent found what would be the grand prize for her today.
She opened a small vial that was within a larger prescription vial. In the smaller container, there were two little tightly folded packets of aluminum foil, thick and plump, and double wrapped.
“Hey. Gimme a break, could you?” Sammy asked. “Please?”
The agents unwrapped the foil. The contents of the first packet looked like oregano. Or catnip. The agents sniffed. It didn’t appear to be catnip or oregano and it wasn’t basil, either. Well, a pot bust was a pot bust. Worse things could happen.
Then a worst thing did. The second agent unwrapped a smaller packet that had escaped notice at first. The contents this time was a single small cube.
“I don’t know how that got there,” Sammy tried meekly.
“Right,” the male agent said.
The female reached for a pair of handcuffs. All three of them knew what hashish looked like when they saw it. And they saw it right now.
“Sorry, Billy,” she said. “And you know what? This is a real shame. I always liked your music.”
EIGHTY-FIVE
Woman’s body found in Rock Creek Park
POSTED: 4:55 p.m. EST August 21
UPDATED: 7:33 p.m. EST August 21
WASHINGTON (The Washington Post)-A woman was found dead in Rock Creek Park near Walter Reed Hospital on Thursday. Police familiar to the case confirm that it was a homicide from gunshot wounds.
The body was found by a jogger at 9:12 a.m. It was about 30 yards off Sherill Drive near 16th and Aspen streets in Northwest.
Police said the woman appeared to be in her late 50s and was of European descent. She was wearing a tan raincoat and appeared to have a valid passport from a South American country.
“A possibility is that the individual came into the woods to walk and was met by a robber. There were no other signs of trauma other than the gunshot. Her purse was open and there was no money or identification in it, other than her passport,” DC Police Inspector Jerome Myles said. “We just don’t know any more at this time.”
Police said they are awaiting further results from the medical examiner and are attempting to locate any relatives of the woman. Her name has not yet been publicly disclosed.
EIGHTY-SIX
On the morning of the next day, the doctors at the American hospital moved Alex out of critical care into a private room on a regular ward. Late that same afternoon, a nurse came in with a name on a piece of paper to see if she would recognize, to see if a prospective visitor would be allowed.
She recognized the name and was very pleasantly surprised. “Oui, bien sûr,” Alex answered.
“Cinq minutes seulement,” the nurse said, limiting the visit to five minutes.
“Oh, mais pour lui, dix?” she asked. For him, ten? “S’il vous plait?”
The nurse rolled her eyes, gave a slight smile, and shrugged, which meant, yes, okay.
The nurse left. A moment later the door eased open. A large man with a slight limp entered the room, carrying a huge bouquet of fresh flowers and a small shopping bag. He wore a dark suit and a dress shirt open at the collar and was a day or two unshaven. More importantly, he was walking very well on one real leg and one fake one.
Alex sat up in the bed and thought of pickup games of basketball back in Washington for the first time in several days, not to mention the dark in March when this same man had deterred her suicide.
“Oh my,” she said. “You sure show up at the strangest times.”
“Hope you don’t mind,” Ben answered.
“Not at all.”
Impetuously, he leaned down and gave her a kiss on the cheek. She accepted it. They exchanged as much of a hug as IV tubes would allow. He stepped back and placed the flowers at her bedside table.