She pushed against the box spring with her knees and pulled the headboard with her bonds and the pain almost knocked her out but now she felt something. The bed was shifting, confused by these two pressures on it. The bed was pulling away. An inch. Maybe two inches. Maybe a third inch. Each time she pulled at the headboard, she wanted to scream because of the pain but the dry gag stifled even that act of rage and frustration.
She pulled and pulled and pushed and pushed and now the bed was twisting itself sideways; the support of the broken footboard and rail was gone and the mattress and box spring touched the floor on the foot end of the bed. The headboard began to bend against the under rails and she could feel another four inches and then the headboard made a terrible sound that was almost human and it collapsed against the mattress. Yes. Yes. In her fury, her absolute certainty of the rightness of her hatred for the man who had tried to kill her and kill Devereaux, she was stronger than three men and the headboard bowed to her in honor of her strength. She got off her knees and dragged the headboard behind her to the door and she rubbed her back against the Plastique.
It fell from the doorframe onto the carpet, breaking the connection with the armed trigger in the doorjamb.
She kicked it away and then it was over and she fell, unconscious in her exhaustion, onto the remains of the bed strewn on the floor. She was still bound and gagged but she had done it and now the fury fell out of her in the obliteration of sleep.
This is the way Devereaux found her and the way Rita Macklin saved their lives.
49
Dwyer was armed with an old-fashioned 45 Colt army automatic, the type of weapon called a horse-killer because it had been developed for the army after the turn of the century to allow the shooter to bring down a cavalry horse. Dwyer did not intend to bring down any horses today. He intended to get the boss’s money back from Henry McGee, and if Henry McGee didn’t like it, he would blow Henry McGee to kingdom come. And if Henry McGee did like it, Dwyer was going to do the same thing because you can’t make a deal with a terrorist, not ever. The terrorist is a coward, Dwyer had told the boss, and like all cowards, he keeps coming back for more as soon as he thinks your back is turned. The thing to do, unless you want to cover your ass for the rest of your life, is to finish the threat once and for all.
Dwyer wore a light tan camel hair coat and a hat. He always wore a hat. He was an old-fashioned kind of natty New York — type dresser who appreciates sharp creases, starched collars, diamond rings, and silk scarves. Dwyer had the great fortune of knowing exactly who he was and what he wanted to invent.
The boss was one hundred feet away, near the departure lounge, and he had a bag on his lap. Five million dollars in Swiss francs and British pounds and American dollars. It was a colorful payoff. Dwyer had helped him pack the case just as Dwyer had gone to the necessary banks in Belgium, France, Switzerland, and Luxembourg to get the money.
Him and the boss. Together. Just like at the beginning when he had hitched himself to the boss’s star. Because Dwyer intended to be a rich man at fifty-five and take a very long retirement in the Caribbean, surrounded by beautiful black girls.
He saw the boss get up and walk across to Henry McGee and he saw Henry point to a third man. It had to be the terrorist, Matthew O’Day, who was shuffling along in the line that led to the jetway. The plane was boarding, as the loudspeaker said over and over. This was final boarding.
Henry McGee stood a moment with the boss and said something and the boss nodded and handed over the suitcase full of money. Dwyer pushed the safety on the horse-killer in his pocket. Henry McGee looked small and tough and Dwyer was small and tough and not afraid of anyone in the world.
Matthew O’Day settled down in the first-class seat and sighed. It was a pleasure to be away from the madness of the last two weeks. He buckled his seat belt and stared out the window. London was beginning to drizzle and the rain beaded on the thick glass that separated him from the rest of the world. The plane was filling, there were bumps and murmurs of “excuse me” in the narrow aisles and Matthew folded his hands over his belly. He closed his eyes. He thought he might just sleep his way across the Atlantic Ocean unless the movie was any good.
The baggage was loaded on a string of carts being tractored across the tarmac to the belly of the 747. Guard dogs had sniffed at the bags for drugs and anything else that might have threatened the safety of the flight. The dogs did not sniff the explosive plastic in the lining of the bag O’Day checked through because they had not been trained for that purpose.
Examination of the luggage, as usual, was cursory. The airline had not been warned to expect any terrorist act; the death of Flight 147 of a rival airline had not been forgotten but had been tucked away back in the collective memory in the corner reserved for remembrances of past acts of terror. It was just between the assassination of John Kennedy and the death of hundreds of marines in Beirut; somewhere in that area.
In a few moments, the airplane would lumber out to the runway and wait its turn in the line of planes heading for America and Asia. The foggy, rainy day of a little corner of the world would be shrugged off as the plane climbed through the clouds to the eternal clarity of the sky, where sunlight and moonlight are unfettered by mere weather.
And Matthew O’Day was already asleep, so that he did not hear the stewardess ask him if he wanted a cocktail before the flight began.
50
Trevor entered the limousine with his flesh-colored copy of the Financial Times tucked under his arm. He might be having a usual day. He said, “office,” to the driver and opened the paper. The Rolls-Royce purred into drive and he began by burying himself in another of the interminable cycle of articles about the power of Europe after 1992 and what would pass for economic union in the Old World.
Dwyer would meet him back at the offices with bloody hands and five million dollars. Don’t worry, Dwyer had said. Dwyer was as good as his word. Dwyer was as good as a dog. Funny he had never thought to name one of his dogs after Dwyer when he accorded that singular honor to his secretary. Funny. Because Jameson was today’s driver.
These thoughts dimly filtered through his head. The car picked its way through traffic around the airport to the M4 for London. The drizzle enhanced the closed feeling.
“Turn up the heat, Jameson,” Trevor Armstrong said. His face was buried in the paper and his thoughts were on France and the French insistence that any united Europe would have France at its head. He shook his head. The French. They just didn’t get it.
The automobile was picking up speed and something about this disturbed Trevor. The route to London was usually clogged. He looked up from the paper and looked around him and saw the wet, November farms of Middlesex streaming past the rain-beaded windows. Then he looked at the back of Jameson’s head for the first time.
“Who are you?”
“Just the driver, lamb.”
“Where’s Jameson? What the hell is going on?”
“He was given the day off.”
“Who the hell are you? I want you to stop the car—”
“On the M4? Do you want to get killed?” The chuckle was from the back of the throat. “Or maybe I shouldn’t ask that question just now.”
The traffic, murderous and pounding and very fast, created valleys of tire tracks in the flood of water on the roadway. Bleak November pressed at the windows and Trevor felt cold. The paper fell from his hands.
“I want you to stop the car,” he said again.
“In a little while. We’ll stop soon enough,” Marie said. “I thought you wouldn’t notice the driver. People don’t. People like you. I thought about it but he wasn’t so sure. I told him it would be all right because if you had noticed the driver, I would still have the gun.”