“Clean and sober?”
“Yes.”
“How do you feel about them?”
“Well, now… pretty good, I guess.”
“You think drugs?”
“Oh, no!”
“Go ahead, then. Standard rate. Ask Ben to check her over and top off the tanks.”
He went back to the galley, picked up a towel and a plate, and the phone rang.
Back at the desk, he lifted the receiver again.
“McCory.”
“Mac, you know Air Force General Mark Aspin?”
“No, Ted. Should I?”
“I had breakfast with him. He’s a client. Works at the Pentagon in some planning function.”
“You supposed to be telling me this?”
“I wouldn’t reveal anything of a professional nature, you know that. We small-talked about the news of the day.”
“And the news behind the news?”
“That, too. There’s a lot of pressure building up on the other side of the river. The White House and the Secretary of Defense are putting the screws on the Navy people. Jobs could hang in the balance.”
“I’d think so,” McCory said, “Losing a whole class of boat just isn’t done.”
“It may be to our advantage, come negotiation time,” Daimler said.
“I’ve been thinking about that.”
“Getting anxious?”
“Yeah. People around here might start catching on.”
“Well, there are some other things,” Daimler said. “One, I called Malgard.”
“Who’s Malgard?”
“I sent you a package. He’s the CEO of AMDI. I didn’t identify myself, but I suggested a deal for getting his boats back. Not boat. I implied the plural.”
“And?”
“He didn’t buy it.”
“What’s he like?”
“Instinctively, I didn’t like him,” Daimler said. “But then, I’d just read the background package myself. He’s an ambitious bastard.”
“The kind who’d steal a boat design?”
“Perhaps, but we’re going to have to prove it.”
“Ginger’s going to type up my notes. I’ll send them to you when she’s done.”
“Does she know that women’s prisons are separate from men’s prisons?”
McCory didn’t respond. He figured she knew.
“Then,” Daimler went on, “the primary reason for this call. Apparently, the Air Force had some of its recon planes involved in the search. I get the impression from Mark Aspin that the Air Force is trying to stay an arm’s length away from the debacle, but they’re contributing a little. They’re kind of laughing at the Navy, but only in private. How-some-ever, Mac, he tells me that the Navy has narrowed the search to one particular area of ocean.”
“How in hell did they do that?”
“Well, you and I know the boats have missiles aboard. I acted totally surprised, naturally, when Aspin told me about that.”
That was pure Washington. Secrets were only vague aspirations.
“What about the missiles?”
“That terrorist, Ibrahim Badr? He fired a missile last night. Some search plane picked up the active radar and the missile track.”
All McCory could say was, “No shit?”
“No shit, compadre. Cross your fingers, and hope for the best. If the Navy gets that boat back from Badr, our time has come.”
“I do see a problem,” McCory said.
“Problem? What problem?”
“I don’t know if you want to hear about it.”
“Try me.”
McCory was right. Daimler didn’t want to hear about it.
Justin Malgard’s Washington office was just as comfortable as the one in his home. Thick, plushy carpet in rust tones. Dark woods, heavy leather. There was a wall of bound books. Four hundred square feet supporting two couches and an oversize desk. A pedestal was topped with a computer terminal, to show he was state of the art. Next door was his matching conference room, with the bar built into the end wall. From the corner windows, he had a view down New Hampshire to Dupont Circle. He entertained senators, representatives, and important staffers in the suite.
The sun was starting a downward trek, and he had slanted his blinds against it. The office had a gloomy air about it, and he had turned on the overhead lights to wash it away.
His secretary stuck her head inside the doorway. “Okay if I leave now, Mr. Malgard?”
“Sure. See you in the morning, Cheryl.”
“Sorry I couldn’t raise Mr. Chambers for you.”
“That’s all right. He’s bound to call in.”
As soon as he heard the outer door close, Malgard went back to his pacing. He was going to wear a large circle in his rust carpet.
All afternoon, Cheryl had been calling up and down the Gulf Coast of Florida, looking for any motel that had a Richard Chambers registered.
Nothing.
He kept glancing at his telephone, willing the light for the private line to start blinking.
Nothing.
He had searched all of his telephone books, as well as telephone information for surrounding cities, looking for some law firm called Weirgard, Amos, Havelock, and Moses.
Nothing.
A probe, that’s all it was.
But it confirmed what he had been thinking all along. Kevin McCory had his boats. The damned Navy was off searching the world for wild geese, but McCory had the boats.
He sure as hell couldn’t tell the Navy about it. There was no way in hell that he could allow a Navy investigation to involve McCory.
All he could do is wait for that phone to ring and then shove a stick up Chamber’s ass.
Ibn el-Ziam no longer wore his arm cast.
He had abandoned it at Dulles International Airport, after four and a half hours of flights and waiting time, when he changed from his jeans and sport shirt to a conservatively cut blue-gray suit, white shirt, maroon tie, and highly polished black wing tip shoes. He detested ties but was convinced they helped make him invisible. In busy airports, people paid very little attention to yet another businessman in pursuit of American dollars.
He did get a few appreciative glances from several women, ranging from a blonde, blue-eyed young lady in designer jeans and a short fur jacket to a well-kept and stylish woman in her sixties. That kind of attention was expected, for el-Ziam had always been attractive to women. He was only 178 centimeters tall, but his body was well proportioned. His hair was dark and moderately long, combed back over the ears, with a forelock allowed to drape over his forehead. His skin was smooth, and his smile was white and frequent. He suspected that his eyes were his best feature, laughing eyes with a hint of adventure, and perhaps violence, in them. Set slightly wide to either side of a fine, straight nose, they were a limpid brown. Various women had described them as sensuous, sympathetic, or bedroom.
Quite often, the women he met on his travels for the Warriors of Allah had been quite useful. On his arm, they got him through security checkpoints or into restaurants and hotels that contained his targets.
Immediately after changing clothes in the men’s room, el-Ziam had gone to a telephone booth and looked up Advanced Marine Development, Incorporated. There was an address for a manufacturing facility in Baltimore, Maryland, and an address for an office in the District of Columbia.
He chose the District of Columbia.
Outside the terminal, the heat had been oppressive, much more humid than that to which he was accustomed. He had flagged a taxi and told the driver in flawless English that he wished to be taken into the District, to the address on New Hampshire Avenue.
He spoke Arabic, Farsi, English, French, German, and Italian with ease. He could get by in Spanish and Greek, also. His facility with languages was what had first drawn the attention of Colonel Ibrahim Badr.