“I'd like you to make an empty seat for me.”
“You want to bump someone?”
“If that's the only way, yes.”
“Why is this so urgent?”
“I'm sorry, Captain Giffords, but I can't say. This is highly classified State Department business.”
“That's not good enough.”
Canning thought for a moment. Then: “I'm carrying an extremely important message to a man in China. It can't be delivered by phone, mail, or telegram. It can't go in the scheduled weekly diplomatic pouch. I didn't use a government plane because it was easier to keep the mission a secret if I flew on civil airlines. Somehow the wrong people learned I was the messenger, and they want to stop me at any cost. An attempt was made on my life just before I left Washington. It failed only because they didn't have time to set it up properly. But if I change planes in L.A., as planned—”
“They will have had time to set it up there, and they'll nail you,” Giffords said.
“Exactly.”
“This is pretty wild stuff for me,” Giffords said.
“Believe me, I don't find it routine either.”
“Okay. You'll have a seat to Hawaii.”
“Two other things.”
Giffords grimaced. “I was afraid of that.”
“First of all, I have two suitcases in the baggage compartment. They're tagged for Los Angeles.”
“I'll instruct the baggage handlers to retag them and put them aboard again.”
“No. I want to get off for them and bring them back to the check-in counter myself.”
“Why?”
“I've got to try to mislead the men who're waiting for me. If they know I'm continuing on to Hawaii, they'll just set up something in Honolulu.”
Giffords nodded. “Okay. What's the other thing?”
“When we land, get in touch with the airport security office and tell them there's a damned good chance that the next Pan Am flight to Tokyo will have a bomb aboard.”
Giffords stiffened. “Are you serious?”
“That's the flight I'm supposed to take out of L.A.”
“And these people, whoever wants to stop you, would kill a planeload of innocent people? Just to get you?”
“Without hesitation.”
Watching Canning closely, Giffords frowned. He wiped one hand across his face. But he failed to wipe the frown away. “Let me see your papers again.”
Canning gave him the State Department documents.
After he had looked those over, Giffords said, “You have a passport, Mr. Otley?”
Canning gave him that.
Once he'd paged slowly through the passport, Giffords handed it back and said, “I'll do what you want.”
“Thank you, Captain.”
“I hope you realize how far out my neck is stuck.”
“You won't get it chopped off,” Canning said. “I've been straight with you.”
“Good luck, Mr. Otley.”
“If I have to rely on luck, I'm dead.”
He was the last one off the plane. He took his time strolling the length of the debarkation corridor, and he found his suitcases waiting for him when he reached the baggage carrousel.
Picking up his two pieces of luggage, he turned and looked at the busy crowd ebbing and flowing through the terminal. He paid particularly close attention to everyone in the vicinity of the Pan Am facilities, but he couldn't spot the men who had to be watching him — which meant they were damned good.
He turned his back on the Pan Am check-in counter and walked across the terminal toward the main entrance. He walked slowly at first, hoping he could get at least halfway to the doors before he alarmed the Committeemen who were surely watching him. Gradually he picked up speed and covered the last half of the lobby at a brisk walk. He glanced back and saw two obviously distraught men hurrying through the crowd, well behind him. Smiling, he went through the main doors.
Outside, he got into the first taxi line.
“Where to?” the driver asked. He was a young, mustachioed man with a broad scar on his chin and a broad smile above it.
Canning opened his wallet, which was thickened by five thousand dollars in U.S. currency and Japanese yen. This was the operational fund that McAlister had included in the packet that contained the Otley identification. Canning handed the driver a fifty-dollar bill and said, “There's a hundred more for you if you'll help me.”
“I'm no killer.”
“You don't have to be.”
“Then you name it,” he said, folding the bill and thrusting it into his shirt pocket.
“Get moving first.”
The driver put the cab in gear and pulled away from the terminal.
Looking through the rear window, Canning saw the two agents hail the next taxi in line.
“We being followed?” the cabbie asked.
“Yes.”
“Cops?”
“Does it matter?”
“For one-fifty in cash? I guess it doesn't.” He smiled at Canning in the rear-view mirror. “Want me to lose them?”
“No. I want them to follow us. Just keep them from getting too close.”
“That cab behind us?”
“That's right.” Canning looked back at it again. “Give them all the breaks. It isn't easy to run a tail at night.”
“Got you.”
“But don't be too obvious.”
The cabbie said, “Trust me. Where we going?”
“Do you know the Quality Inn on West Century Boulevard?” Canning asked.
“It's a little over a mile from here.”
“That's the one.”
“Sure. I've taken people there.”
“First, I want you to drop me in front of the lobby.”
“And then?”
Crisply, succinctly, with his characteristic orderliness, Canning told him the rest of it.
“One of the oldest tricks in the book,” the cabbie said, showing his broad white teeth in the mirror.
“You sound like an expert.”
“I watch the old movies.”
Canning grinned. “Think it'll work?”
“Sure. What you got going for you here's the simplicity of it. These guys won't be looking for anything that uncomplicated.”
“No trouble on your end?”
“Easiest money I ever made,” the cabbie said.
The other taxi stayed between a hundred and a hundred-fifty yards behind them, nearly far enough back to blend in with the other sets of headlights. Canning had no trouble keeping it in sight because one of its headlamps was dimmer than the other and flickered continuously. Just as, he thought, something about the tail end of this car individualized it and helped the Committeemen to keep it in sight.
“Here we are,” the driver said.
“You remember everything?”
“What's to remember?”
Before the screech of the brakes had died away, while the car was still rocking back and forth on its springs, Canning opened the door and got out. He grabbed both suitcases, kicked the door shut, and started toward the lobby entrance. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the flickering headlight of the other cab, which was now rushing across the motel parking lot.
The super-cooled lobby air snapped whiplike against his sweat-slicked face and sent shivers through him. At the back of his mind, just for a fraction of a second, there was a vivid picture of the dead man lying in blood on his kitchen floor. But the dead man was not Damon Hillary: he was David Canning, himself. He was standing over his corpse, looking down at his own dead body. He had shot himself. One David Canning had killed the other David Canning.
What the hell did that mean?
Forcing himself to walk slowly, he went past the front desk and on across the lobby. He entered a carpeted side corridor and kept going. He moved faster now.