Star of Egypt Read online

  “Well, French hamburgers are made from beef that’s grass-fed, not corn-fed. If you’re not prepared for the taste—” He grimaced. “Phew! And they make milkshakes out of water.”

  “They don’t even use milk in them in America anymore, so what’s the difference?”

  At that moment the frenzy of the dancer’s gyrations caused her magnificent breasts to burst free of her costume. They were finely toned—the dancing muscles helped—and exhibited deep brown buds. She merely smiled at her audience, showing fine white teeth and a dark, gypsylike face, and continued dancing.

  “To stop the dance in the middle of the story would be a faux pas of major proportions,” shouted Barney, rapping knuckles on the rough-hewn table in time to the music. The woman returned Slayton’s appreciative smile enthusiastically. She had the darkest eyes Slayton had ever seen.

  “Why are we sitting here talking about hamburgers and milkshakes?” he yelled back over the din, and both men broke up laughing.

  Barney had raised his glass in the general direction of both Slayton and the dancer, when the top of his head was torn off by a salvo of 9-millimeter slugs from a Smith and Wesson M76 submachine gun in the grip of a man in a black fighting suit standing in the small entrance foyer to the cabaret. More men crowded in behind him, weapons bristling. A thermite jug went noisily off behind the bar, cutting what little electricity illuminated the place, and everything was plunged into panic and blackness.

  Slayton hit the deck, tearing a Baretta Brigadier he had borrowed from Barney away from the shoulder holster he wore. His shirtfront was spattered with his friend’s blood and brains, and he could feel viscous moisture speckling his face as well. It took only a second for his eyes to adjust to the ambient candlelight in the large room. He snapped off two clean rounds, and saw a silhouette near the entrance jerk backward and drop in a sprawl. Slayton was up and moving before anyone could fix his position.

  The dark room was alive with screams and shouts, shooting, and rampant movement. Slayton body-rolled across an open space, coming to a crouch and up-ending a filled table into the path of a guerrilla nearly invisible in his black outfit. The man pivoted into a forearm smash from Slayton that cleaned his feet from under him. His head cracked on the table edge, and Slayton drove the heel of his hand into the man’s throat, crushing his larynx. He did not get up.

  Slayton snatched up his weapon, an Uzi submachine gun his hands recognized even in the dark, and sprayed the doorway in two arcs. He fixed on return fire, and cut down a man holding a pistol near the flaming remnants of the bar.

  Like that, it was over. Apparently the guerrillas had hit their mark and fled, taking less than forty-five seconds for the entire operation.

  Maybe their mark had been Barney, Slayton thought uneasily. It was not unlikely. All men like himself had enemies; sometimes it did come to this. And if he had been sitting about a foot to the left, he would be on the floor with his friend, fodder for the morgue, instead of picking the ID and personals off his corpse.

  Slayton took Barney’s belongings, and in so doing took responsibility for his friend until they put him in the ground. He told the relatives and those who needed to be told. He dispatched his primary obligation of honor.

  Two days after the fracas, Slayton learned through Interpol that the hit had been arranged through Egyptian shipping interests, using imported thugs. The dead bodies in black suits, two of whom Slayton had killed, would never be traced. They were picked to be linked to Palestinian interests if killed. A lot of Moroccan cash, laundered via Saudi Arabia, had paid for the hit. The targets turned out to be a table-load of minor-league Egyptian shipping executives who happened to be sitting several yards away from Slayton and Barney. It was specified that the hit be messy, and leave a lot of bodies. It was, and it did.

  Slayton also learned that the hit was used by the Black September terrorist named Rashid Haman as a dry run for a more important assassination assignment, to follow several weeks later in Johannesburg. Barney had been murdered purely as local color for Rashid Haman.

  As he drove, the Washington weather now threatening rain, he thought of Barney, dumped unceremoniously on the cabaret floor in a welter of black blood, and of the topless cabaret dancer, flung over a broken chair like a dirty shirt, her left foot jutting upward in the stillness of death, her fine, fine body perforated by at least ten Uzi bullets.

  As a special troubleshooter for Treasury, Slayton sometimes acted as a contra-terrorist, who employed the same moves and methods as men like Haman. He was not a government hit man. He knew himself to be different in an important, basic, chemical way. But thinking now about Barney and Rashid Haman, he was damned if he could name that precise difference to himself at the moment.

  “I had a premonition I might find you moping around here. This makes three times in recent memory you’ve bounced back to Washington without calling me.”

  Slayton looked up from his mostly untouched medallions de veau au bec rouge with sauce milo and instantly felt a sting of sheepishness. Yes, he should have called. Wilma Christian was worth a call, despite his packed and mechanically tedious day.

  He had spent most of his time poring over a Treasury Department security A-priority computer terminal, extracting information to construct a rise-and-fall graph of Rashid Haman’s terrorist activity. Slayton preferred having vital details centralized into his own handwritten notations on a yellow legal pad—often, his own constructs yielded patterns the machines and the political experts overlooked. One byproduct of his labor was adrenalin; it accumulated poisonously in his system as he documented Haman’s activities into boxes subgrouped by real, suspected, and advisory participations. He could not cleanse Barney Kaufman’s face from his mind, and the negative energy he had dammed up toward the faceless entity known as Rashid Haman proved to be frustrating. Slayton felt a surge of relief—or something like it—upon looking up and recognizing a friendly face.

  “I could blame dereliction of duty, but I don’t think you’d buy it,” he offered. “How about preoccupation? No?”

  Wilma smiled. Slayton had already risen at the approach of the waiter who threaded Wilma back toward the private, three-quarter carrel where he dined, and now Wilma slid easily in beside him.

  “You look like you’re starving,” he said.

  “Jesus, Ben, a line like that I thought you’d reserve for the high-schoolers you like to molest,” she said with a light smirk. Looking toward his plate, she added, “I might order something later, maybe. After I do this.” And she leaned over and planted a delicious, welcome-home kiss on his lips.

  Slayton forgot about the fair-to-middling French concoction before him.

  Access to A-priority terminals had all sorts of advantages. For example, according to the machine records, CHRISTIAN, WILMA B(LAIR), b. 06/ 13/ 50 ss# 527-55-1937, was a WFA, had bl/br, was 5′9¾″ and 1301b and was cross-indexed under JOURNALISTS, among other categories that somehow related to her professions, her upbringing, likes, dislikes, or political leanings/potentials.

  “Hello,” she said, breaking the kiss at last.

  Slayton cleared his throat. “Evening, ma’am.”

  What Wilma Christian actually was was a soft and incredibly wily creature in a field whose beat, the nation’s capital, often required uncompromisingly dirty play from those who tried to succeed as reporters and journalists. Her fabulous cascade of hair was a mellow sandalwood color, not brown, and her eyes a brilliant Danish blue, the irises ringed in direct black—eyes that commanded attention. She was a hard-core professional whose beauty frequently butted opponents off-kilter, and one way or another she ran whatever she needed to earth, in due course. She was perhaps one of the five top reporters in the city.

  And sometimes, Slayton added mentally, she had just a little trouble reconciling her ethics with her news sense. But then everyone did… even Treasury agents.

  He was a bit perturbed by the immediate way she asked him the question he knew was coming: “You on assignment?
”

  He let it off lightly. “Of course. And no, it’s not open for discussion. Next topic. Cheers.” He raised his glass as the waiter returned with Wilma’s martini.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Mata Hari strikes again. One of us will learn. So anyway, why has my phone not been alive with invitations to visit you in Virginia again?”

  “You’re the only houseguest I’ve ever had that didn’t wait for a butler to putter in to clean up after her, did you know that?” Of course she did.

  “Evasive, Slayton. Good god.” A pause. “Your august presence in Washington doesn’t have anything to do with the President’s crowing about ‘more visible political figures,’ does it?”

  Slayton frowned into his wine.

  “Okay, okay, change of tack,” she said. “Wherever you dumped your attache case, let’s stop there and get whatever you may need on the way back to my flat.”

  “Actually, I’ve been sleeping with my pet computer console,” said Slayton.

  “Isn’t the pillow talk a bit, um, stilted?”

  “Practically prefabricated.”

  “One more, and this one isn’t so much nosy as personal interest: when do you have to go to work?”

  “Sunday morning,” he said, too quickly.

  “Ah. That afternoon I’m off anyway. Some British embassy types are uncrating a tomb-load of Egyptian incunabula up in Maryland, and I have to cover it.”

  Slayton’s expression remained comfortably neutral. It had happened before—pure coincidence. Even if Wilma spotted him around, she knew enough not to draw attention to him.

  She was past the future assignment already, and onto items of more personal import. “Well, sir, the weekend fairly glitters before us.”

  He deliberately tried to sound cowed. “Gee, Wilma, I should have called, I mean, gosh, I…”

  “Oh, shut up,” she said as he finished off his wine. “Mom and Dad won’t mind, and besides—”

  Slayton’s eyes grew very white as he almost spluttered. “Mom and Dad…?” he rasped.

  She reached over to him. “Just kidding, just kidding. You high-power government types take everything so goddam seriously.” Now she could not keep from smiling. Slayton laughed out loud.

  He hated to admit it, but Wilma was just the person he needed to keep Barney Kaufman’s ghost from prodding him, to put the black flood-tide of hatred for Rashid Haman on hold so it did not shred away his gut. With anyone else that evening, he might have become vindictive, preoccupied. He lucked out; Wilma had found him.

  Her smile was a distinctive and enriching thing. It still adorned her face as he tossed his junk onto the marble-topped table in the cramped little foyer to her apartment. She came sprinting out of the kitchen before he even got the door closed, and leapt into his arms, guiding his hands beneath her ski sweater, eagerly molding her mouth over his.

  “I’ve got a jug of very cold Rhine in the fridge,” she managed, between breaths.

  “Somehow I’m not very thirsty right now.” She held up her arms, and he pulled the sweater up from the bottom, remembering her admonishments to be gentle to the material, damn it.

  In a sort of mad party tangle of limbs, they helped to divest each other of clothing while running an equally mad line of chitchat that seemingly had very little to do with sex.

  “I see you got the window fixed.”

  “You know how mad a drafty hairline crack can make you when you sleep with the heat off? Jesus!”

  “How come you get so much junk mail?”

  “Nice tie. A he-present or a she-present?”

  “I haven’t gotten around to underwear monogrammed by the days of the week yet, but I manage.”

  “Hey, the carpet’s new, too. Feel the shag; it’s very nice…”

  “Don’t forget about the heat—” They both stopped. Her eyes shone blackly in the darkness, and he said, “It’s very nice to be with you again. And I promise I’ll call. Next time.” He smiled disarmingly.

  “Liar. My mother warned me about your type, liar!” She pushed him, and they both wound up on the floor, naked and laughing. They eventually made it to the Rhine jug in the refrigerator. In between, the carpet was luxurious, and clean-smelling, and very, very nice.

  3

  The Star of Egypt was a relic of the middle-1950s shipping boom, constructed before the United States ever fretted about OPEC or worried about hydrogenization lobbies. Even before he saw the ship, Slayton spotted the red, white, and black bands of the Egyptian flag above the third-story roofs of a cluster of corrugated-steel, dock storage areas.

  There was a nickel-plated .45 automatic in the glove compartment of Slayton’s inconspicuous Triumph. The hammer was down on an empty chamber, and the car was locked. There was no reason to pack heat during his initial tour of the ship and docking facilities.

  The Star of Egypt dominated the scene, extending back seemingly to the horizon. Give her two or three more years, thought Slayton, and she’ll be signed over to commercial petroleum service like all the rest—but right now she was pretty impressive.

  Slayton saw the first guard instantly, and starting from there it was simple to pinpoint the others. Security people always milled around in a pattern, however unconscious, and if you could nail one, it was easy to project the locations of his buddies. These men, Slayton knew, were bona fide guards from the Sparta Security Agency Ltd. He had often seen Brinks and Pinkerton dregs that appeared to walk off-kilter when strapped to a weapon; the Sparta men were for the most part ex-military or ex-specialist, and they knew what gunplay was all about, should shooting become necessary. It appeared fairly obvious that neither the Cairo Museum, the British Museum, nor the specialists in attendance during the tour were taking any chances.

  The nearest sentry was already glaring at him, prepared to impede his progress if he tried to venture inside the cordon of sawhorses and yellow rope that sectioned off the unloading area. He pulled the credentials brief from inside his suit. He was legitimate.

  The guard, whose tag read Stackman, was already into his spiel as Slayton handed him the brief: “I’m sorry, sir, but access to this area is prohibited.” He was shifting his balance—an authority gesture, thought Slayton disconnectedly—as his eyes ran down the credentials. He straightened almost self-consciously, then spoke with an air of camaraderie. “You’re Rademacher. Excuse me, sir.” He snapped the brief shut and handed it back. Slayton nodded.

  “Where do I find Willis?” he said.

  “On board, I think, sir.”

  “Who is your crew chief?”

  “Frank Groth. Standing over by the ramp, there.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Stackman.” Slayton wheeled and walked briskly toward the ramp with just a tinge of self-satisfaction. It did not look as if he were going to have any trouble.

  “Yes, sir,” Stackman said to Slayton’s back, mentally cursing command hierarchies.

  Slayton spotted a man who had to be Professor Gordon Willis. He was standing on the loading ramp, towering over Frank Groth in a wobbly way, belaboring something terribly important. The spiked brown beard and the spectacles fit Slayton’s preconception of the man. Hanging a little too loosely on his tail and bony frame, Willis’ suit fluttered against the light breeze. He was waving his arms like a symphony conductor.

  “Because these men, while somewhat lacking in other areas, know their jobs in this one, Mr. Groth! If they were not so slow, as you say, we might have a disaster. Those cases?” He pointed and Groth turned. “Hermetically sealed. They contain a gas for the preservation of the artifacts; that gas is odorless as well as colorless. Thus, if we rupture a case in unloading, we may not know the gas has escaped until it is too late. So I think, Mr. Groth, that a certain amount of care—which you might interpret as laziness or slowness on the part of my workers—is justified in this case!” Without so much as a beat, Willis spun his head and zeroed in on Slayton. “Yes?”

  Slayton extended his hand. “Ben Rademacher, Mr. Willis. I’m here to—”
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  “Professor,” said Willis, icily.

  “Professor Willis, sorry.” Slayton smiled diplomatically. “Here to oversee—”

  “My security, yes, I know. I was informed,” he clarified, “by phone calls and letters and documentation—and does your government really waste all that paper to make sure of what it is doing? Hm.” He shook Slayton’s hand. “At any rate, I’m pleased to deal with you, mister… um, Rademacher, yes.” He was already ignoring Groth.

  “If it’s not too much of an imposition, Professor,” said Slayton, picking up a cue from the cooling argument between the two other men, “I’d like to meet the other principal members of the tour as soon as it’s convenient.”

  Groth interposed himself, sticking out his hand. “Groth, Mr. Rademacher.”

  Slayton disposed of the duty. “Right, Mr. Groth. I’ll speak to you as soon as I get oriented here.”

  Willis, who was preoccupied with brushing imaginary lint from his coat, muttered, “That will be all for now.” Groth made a gruff noise and loped off, the gear on his belt clanking. Willis watched him go.

  “Well,” he said, looking up. “My contingent.” He turned to indicate the Star of Egypt, as huge as a skyscraper on its side, extending in all directions behind him. “Should be easy enough to locate them; they’re in there somewhere. God knows they’re not hefting these crates around or doing anything that remotely relates to our schedule. But please, sir, don’t get me wrong—they’re invaluable, all of them.” Willis’ sentences flowed into one another in a tailgating fashion, with no gaps left for Slayton to jump into, like a running one-man monologue that regarded an audience as only a matter of convenience. Willis had already turned and his long, spindly legs were taking him up the steeply canted ramp with more assurance than was apparent when he said—not bothering to speak to Slayton, since he had turned—“Follow me, we’ll go seek them out. Rather like mucking about in a tomb, looking for secret doors. Ah, well.”

  Obediently, Slayton kept pace, already oddly fond of the rambling professor before him. There was no doubt that he, at least, was bona fide. Slayton’s quick reading of the professor’s personal history had left him impressed. In his heyday, Professor Gordon Willis had been one to slog down into filthy hovels and dig with bare hands, uncovering finds and artifacts that the armchair Egyptologists who made their dole from quarterly journals had speculated could not possibly exist. Willis went in and proved them wrong, betraying a maverick spirit Slayton found easy to relate to. Slayton liked dealing with men who knew what they were talking about. And he could generally smell an imposter, thanks to senses honed by dealing with professionals—everyone from professional Washington power brokers to professional Harlem knife-fighters, from sophisticated international secret agents to street-corner whores.