Paris and Molly sat silently on polished wooden chairs in a little anteroom in the presidential palace.
Paco Zamora stood facing them a few feet away. The little security minister cut a sturdy, brisk figure; the light caught the tips of his moustache, making them tiny lances at full tilt.
Not far from Zamora, President Rodriguez half sat on the edge of a wooden table, his powerful arms folded across his chest.
Zamora had just now closed the door of the interrogation room. He was about to break the silence.
An equally stern silence had marked the trip from the road-blocking convertible to the capital. They had stopped briefly in Balgas. Rodriguez had ordered the startled rural police to there to two in the convertible and keep it under guard until Paco sent an agent to examine the car, nut by nut.
At the palace, Zamora had dispatched agents to search the hotel rooms Paris and Molly had taken. Then the little man had ushered them into the interrogation chamber. So far the couple had identified themselves only by a pair of names.
"Alex Dotson and Elizabeth Browning," Paco now mused. "Your real names?"
"You decide," Paris suggested without discourtesy. "I want you to check them out."
"We'll certainly try to grant your wish, senor!"
"Thank you. By the way, be sure to tell your men to slit the lining of my travel kit. It's not all innocent hairbrush, nail file, and shaving cream. They'll find it on the bureau."
Zamora gave Paris a squint; then he turned to the table, reaching under the edge near the President to touch a hidden switch.
"Tell Yago Criado to dismantle Mr. Dotson's travel kit." The order went into invisible microphones stashed somewhere around the room. Paris knew the same mikes were recording every word spoken.
"Acknowledged." The single word from a dispatcher in Communications seemed to emanate from the very walls.
Zamora turned from the table. "While we await word, shall we backtrack a little?"
"Why not?" Paris was the most agreeable of captives.
Paco paced thoughtfully, hands clasped behind his back. "After we plowed into the convertible, you were innocents abroad---for the moments require to make doubly sure who was in the following car. Then you admitted recognition of the President."
"And you as well, Senor Zamora."
Paco ceased his pacing. He planted himself directly before them, bright eyes delving into their faces. "You really do intrigue me. For all you know, you might never leave the guardhouse. Don't you know how far your necks are stuck out?"
"Indubitably," Molly muttered.
"Then tell me why you did it," Paco suggested.
"It was our only chance to head you off," Paris said.
The points of Paco's moustache lacked only little red flags of danger. "You claim this was a friendly action?"
"Perhaps it was more important to the Rodriguez administration than you realize, Senor Zamora." As he spoke the words, Paris reflected how literally true they were. A clear field of operation was vital to the IMF mission. It was imperative for Law and Menendez to retain a belief that their security was intact. A little well-intended interference could foul up the whole deal. Rodriguez simply had to be sidetracked, whatever the cost. He was the one chef who could unknowingly spoil Jim Phelp's kettle of soup.
"If we had reached you in time," Paris added, "you wouldn't have barreled off in the first place."
"Indeed? Why not?"
"You'd have welcomed the chance to see Menendez, Saldana, and Law leave this country for good."
Paco stared, slapped his cheek, swiveled his gaze to Rodriguez. "Presidente, if they're not Menendez-Law people, which they claimed there on the road, we must be dealing with a queer pair from the States."
"Now, really!" Paris chided. "You've got a wider choice than that."
Rodriguez half rose from the table's edge. " You'd better point it out quickly, Senor Dotson. Your time is running out."
"Fine." Paris nodded. "I always like to get to the bottom of things. Let's start with an imaginary scene, shall we?"
Paco began to talk, but from the corner of his eye caught a little movement of the President's hand.
"Thank you, Mr. President." Paris dipped his head. "I can't depict the scene---strictly imaginary, mind you---if Senor Zamora constantly interrupts me."
"Get on with it, then!" Paco all but growled the command.
Paris settled back, comfortably thrusting his hand into his pockets. His face didn't show it, but his heart was racing like an engine on a Grand Prix straightaway. Rodriguez, he thought, you've got to catch the ball; we haven't time for you to stand around in left field shading your eyes.
"For the moment," he began, "let's transform this room. It's now a guarded, top secret chamber in a powerful capital city far to the east. We are a group of high officials in charge of subversive operations reaching into every corner of the world. Commissar Zamora"---Paris smiled---"has called this meeting for the purpose of discussing tactics."
Paco snorted but was otherwise silent, a stirring of interest curbing his impatience.
Paris let out an inner sigh. They had decided to hear him out. It was a promising beginning.
"We're grouped around a map of South America," Paris said. "We have studied the latest information on the ebb and flow of efforts to spread the Latin American revolution."
He half closed his eyes. "As usual, our operations are in a state of flux, our people coming and going across various national boundaries. We supply arms to guerrillas in one country while sending in a man from another country to lead them. We harass here, sing a lullaby there. We know when to hold back and wait and where to initiate action. We commissars are clever."
Paris's right hand slipped upward. He stabbed an imaginary map with his finger.
"San Gonzalo, my Comrades. Let them lower their guard, and they'll think the jaws of a crocodile have snapped. But here, at a present, we are neutralized---and many vital people are wasting away on a vine temporarily lopped off. Menendez, the cultivated, capable of moving in the most rarified circles, the jungle leader Pau Saldana---we don't buy Saldanas on street corners for a dime a dozen, Comrades; and Angela, a bridge to the intellectual youth."
Paris's voice dropped one octave. "The question we must answer is simple, Comrades. At which hard-pressed points, from Peru to Puerto Rico, can these skills and experience serve us best?"
He let the question hang in silence. The mood of imagination he had created dissolved.
He noted the way Rodriguez and Zamora quickly looked at each other. Much as the sturdy old fighters differed physically, they shared, Paris sensed, a rare rapport. Right now they could almost read each other's minds. Maybe it was because both wanted so much to believe what Paris had implied.
Rodriguez cleared his throat. "I like cut and dried sentences, Senor. Are you stating categorically that Law Zongxian carries reassignment instructions for subversive leaders here? That the Haigui will slip those leaders and their handpicked top aides off this country?"
"I can't cut and dry sentences, Mr. President." Paris laughed. "And I haven't made a categorical statement since the day I got my driver's license and told my father I'd have his car back promptly at midnight. I timed the evening with five seconds to spare---except the family Buick blew a radiator hose too many blocks from my home."
Despite his show of easy confidence, a question was burning hotter in Paris's mind with each passing second. Yago Criado, he thought, are you a butterfingered security agent who can't take apart a travel kit?
Rodriguez studied him for a moment longer, and Paris knew the point was coming up. Come on, Yago Criado, he thought with increasing desperation, get with the travel kit. We're dead ducks without it.
A terrible thought needled through. Had a million-in-one happenstance imperiled the mission? Sneak thief pilfering a hotel room? A most attractive travel kit catching his eye?
Appearing as solid as one of his San Gonzalan mountains, the President thoughtfully fingered the lob of his ear. "You spread the icing smoothly, Senor Dotson."
"I tell it like a friend of San Gonzalo."
"I'd like nothing better to believe you. But you've left the keystone out of the arch. Where did you come upon all this information? Just who are you?"
The President's final word mingled with the sudden beep of an electronic signal.
Paco sprang to the table, rested one hand on its top, and reached beneath with the other. "Si? Que?"
A baritone voice filtered from the communications system. "Yago Criado speaking. I'm in the hotel room and have examined the travel kit." The unseen agent hesititated.
"And?" Paco's voice snapped like a pair of fingers.
"It would appear that you have arrested a pair of friendly NATO agents," Criado reported. "I've carefully examined documents and credentials I found in the travel kit. They appear genuine."
Both Rodriguez and Paco needed 1 second for their tongues to find a word.
Paris suppressed the urge to show, "Ole, Criado." He nodded a silent smile at the wide-eyed President.
Paco found his voice. "Anything else of interest at the hotel?"
"No," Criado said.
"Bring the credentials in immediately."
Rodriguez had moved to Paco's side. He touched the little man on the shoulder. The two retired to a corner for a whispered consultation. They turned their heads now and then to glance at Paris and Molly. The IMF duo slipped each other congratulatory winks.
Rodriguez and Zamora finished their short conference and came across the room.
"Why didn't you tell us this about yourselves to start?" Rodriguez demanded.
"Would you have believed us? Just our word, the word of strangers, that we're NATO agents?" Paris asked.
"Well....no," the President admitted. "You chose a much more effective way of making the claim, I'll grand you." His eyes were cautious, undecided.
"Apparently," Paco said, "you wish Menendez and company to leave our country feeling secure, to lead you unknowingly to subversive cells in other Latin American countries."
Paris's knuckles brushed the back of Molly's hand. On the signal, they both rose quietly.
"Can we count on your cooperation?" Paris asked, looking directly into the President's eyes.
Rodriguez was plainly wrestling with the problem. If they, too, were part of a clever Law scheme, Rodriguez knew he could be making the worst mistake of his career. On the other hand....
"I don't know," Rodriguez said, lacking the arrogance of a man who feels he is above mistakes.
"What will it take to convince you, Mr. President?" Molly inquired.
Rodriguez rubbed the back of his neck. "Let us compromise, then. Yes---that is a reasonable answer. It's the best I can do. I'll keep my hands off---until I examine your papers and check you out with NATO headquarters in Europe."
Seeing Paris about to object, Rodriguez raised a silencing hand. "You will remain in your hotel! You will enjoy all the facilities of the hotel---as guests of la republica."
Paris quirked his lips. "I've never been placed under house arrest more diplomatically in my life, Mr. President."
"We've no desire to embarrass you---if you are what you claim. Bear in mind that every entrance will be covered. You can't slip from the hotel unseen."
"Comprende," Paris nodded.
"Meanwhile," Rodriguez suggested, his eyes warning against refusal, "do you object to being fingerprinted and photographed?"
"Not at all, although the young lady might want a minute to refresh her makeup for the cameras."
The President unbent a little. "The young lady," he said smiling, "would distract our technicians even if her hair were done up in curls."476Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5i1rVr11gS
476Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡS8EY87L8cD
476Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡn0roXqPd1f
476Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡC2GO4RyGN8
476Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDwuATGu4s9
The Parador Nacional was a grand mecca for foreign businessmen, trade commissioners, and the increasing influx of tourists. San Gonzalan leaders of government and business in the provinces used it as a headquarters when duties brought them to the capital. Even in other wealthier capitals----Bonn, Tokyo, Mexico City---it would have enjoyed a damn good reputation for its service and comfort.
It was almost sunset when Molly and Paris were escorted into the big, pleasant lobby by two of Zamora's officers. These were well-groomed young men who might have passed for stockbroker trainees as they mingled with the guests.
The small group paused just inside the revolving front doors. Before them, the lobby had the genteel air of a hacienda courtyard. A fountain built of native stone bubbled in the middle. Potted palms and banana plants lent an outdoorsy effect, shading attractive rattan couches and chairs. Conversations blended into a wash of sound, a rising and falling murmur, punctuated now and then by a laugh, an exclamation, or the tinkle of the bell captain's summons for a boy in red uniform to report to the desk.
Paris, Molly, and Zamora's men moved aside. Travelers of every color were arriving and departing, keeping the revolving doors in almost continuous motion. People were meeting here and there for dinner. Nearby a lanky, drawling Texan and a rotund San Gonzalan were earnestly talking business. The door twirled a family inside---three starched little girls and a man and wife---local people out to celebrate a special occasion in the hotel dining room.
The young officer at Molly's elbow had taken in the whole situation. "Buenos noches, senora," he said.
"Gracias," Paris said. "Say, why don't you have dinner with us? It would simplify your job, and we'd be delighted to have your company."
The undercover man grinned. "Oh, no, no way," he said. "I'm on duty."
"Ah, well." Paris sighed. He flashed a smile and gave the agent a light, friendly punch on the shoulder. "Relax. We promise you won't see these faces trying to sneak out of the hotel."
With that he took Molly's arm, steering her toward the desk.
Both clerks were busy. One was searching out mail for a florid, rumpled man while the other checked in a little old lady.
Molly casually surveyed the lobby while they waited. Both of Zamora's men had already faded into the background.
The petite old lady wafted off in the wake of a bellhop, and Paris stepped to the desk and asked for his and Molly's keys.
1 hour later, dressed for supper, they reappeared in the lobby. They ate leisurely, savoring the San Gonzalan seafood specialty offered by the dining room. Then Paris drifted back to his room, and Molly browsed the gift shop in a corner of the lobby. She chatted a few minutes with the girl on duty as she looked over the jewelry. She finally chose a bracelet of mother-of-pearl and beaten San Gonzalan silver.
As she turned, she bumped into a rangy and distinguished-looking man with prematurely silver hair. He had just entered.
The apparent accident knocked from Molly's hand the small, tissue-wrapped box containing the bracelet. "Whoops!" she said.
"I'm terribly sorry," Jim Phelps steadied her with a touch on the elbow. "I should've been looking where I was going. I had too much eye for this very find local handicraft."
"It was my fault, really," Molly countered.
She and Phelps both bent to pick up her package. Their right shoulders banged lightly and they both laughed. "I guess I'm determined to be clumsy!" said Jim.
"Maybe we need a traffic signal," Molly giggled. "A green light."
Jim veiled his pleased reaction to the code word. Green. A-ok. Everything was moving on schedule.
He extended the little package. They laughingly exchanged a final apology, and Molly went out. Phelps seemed to forget the incident immediately, picking up and admiring a hand-tooled leather wallet.
476Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsv4dXdxioK
With his room door open a crack, Paris saw Molly and a middle-aged couple step from the elevator. Molly turned toward her room farther along the corridor. The man and woman strolled in Paris's direction. He whipped aside, pressing against the wall. Obviously tourists, they were discussing a drive they planned tomorrow. A door opened and closed, shutting off their voices.
Paris started out, then again had to ease back as a lone businessman came around the corridor ell and stopped to wait for the elevator. The car came and swallowed the man. Then the corridor was silent and empty for the moment.
Paris hurried silently over the carpeting, turning his head for a last survey when he reached Molly's room. Nobody else had appeared. He opened the door and slipped inside.
Molly, opening her cosmetics case on the dressing table, glanced over her shoulder s the door latch clicked shut quickly behind her.
Paris felt a mounting beat of excitement. He knew that Jim Phelps had arrived. Otherwise Molly would still be finding excuses to linger in the lobby, reading a magazine or striking up a casual acquaintance with someone.
Jim's appearance was in itself a signal. It meant that he and Barney had located the guerilla base camp, handling that phase out in the hills while Paris and Tracey, here in the capital, had combed President Rodriguez out of their hair, at least for now.
"Is Jim bushed from all that Honda jockeying today?"
"Nope." Molly's mouth tipped up. "I'll bet he sneaked a 1/2 hour in a nice steam bath before he changed into a business suit. He looked as if he'd just headed the table at a company dinner."
"He would," Paris accused good-naturedly. Hands on his hips, he stood at the dressing table and inventoried the cosmetics that Molly had set out from her kit.
The kit had been left innocently on the dressing table, in plain view of the San Gonzalan agents who'd examined the room. Paris was amused by the picture of a brawny security man pawing through the dainty, feminine things, reading the gold-embossed labels, opening jars and crystal flacons for a look and a sniff.
Nothing in the assortment would arouse suspicion. Perfume smelled like perfume. Talc in the gold-lacquered box had every appearance of daintily scented talc. But as Paris's skilled hands combined ingredients, remarkable changes occurred. he poured a few drops from a cologne bottle into a half-used jar of white, oily substance labeled cleansing cream. A chemical reaction at once produced a brown skin dye.
He opened a round silver box of what appeared to be face powder, which he treated with three measured squirts from a perfume atomizer. The powder jelled into a gumlike plastic. With it, Paris's deft, experienced hands could change the contour of a cheek, the fullness of a mouth, even the apparent shape and tilt of a pair of eyes.
He reached for a water glass. "How'd you like to be a redhead?"
"With freckles?" Molly suggested.
"Good idea."
Paris unscrewed the cap from an astringent bottle and poured the contents into a water glass. From a tube that bore the brand name of a well-known eye-shadow, he squeezed a pea-sized glob, dropping it into the glass. He gave the mixture a vigorous swish, and it became a deep red.
"Just comb it through---and don't get caught in the rain, Red, or you'll turn back into Cinderella."
20 minutes later, Yago Criado, security agent, shifted in his rattan chair and stifled a yawn. He was stationed near the elevators, partially shielded by a potted palm. As a cover, he was perusing a magazine, eyes lifting now and then to keep the hotel lobby under surveillance.
Reading always made him drowsy, and he rested the magazine on his knee, thinking about refreshing himself with a long drink from the nearby water cooler.
He stretched and stood up, a big, stolid, rumpled bald man of middle age. His rough-hewn face bore the stamp of hard years. Once a military junta had a price on his head.
He looked like a slow talker and a painful thinker. He was. He was also a man with a simple, fixed idea; and he would have tackled a tank bare-handed if it meant the security of the fragile democracy being born in his long-suffering homeland.
Tucking the magazine under his arm, he ambled to the cooler, taking the icy flow in long, slow gulps. Between swallows, he lifted his head to watch the elevators. Other agents were stationed at the front and side entrances, the service doors, the loading ramp, and the fire escape drop in the back alley.
The hotel, Criado assured himself, was as secure as a bank vault. He was mildly grateful for the comfort of his post. It was better than being stationed in the alley.
Bulking over the cooler, he watched the doors of No. 1 elevator slide open. 4 people got out, an elderly couple and a younger woman grimly clutching the hand of a precocious-looking little boy.
Criado returned to his chair. One more hour, he thought. Then his replacement would come and relieve him. Settled comfortably, he opened the magazine. But he'd digested everything in it that held his interest. Dropping it, he reached into the inner pocket of his suit coat and slipped out the mug shots with which everyone had been supplied. He studied them again.
Nice-looking gringos, he thought. He was pretty sure in his own mind that they really were NATO agents. But in this business, you never left anything to chance. For example, while the couple had been at dinner, Zamora, the minister himself, had dropped by the hotel.
The brisk little man and Criado had gone up to the rooms on the 4th floor. Zamora had poked in every nook and corner. He had shown a certain interest in the girl's cosmetic case. He had squirted perfume against his palm and smelled it. He had opened a cold cream jar and rubbed a bit of the stuff between his thumb and fingertip.
After he'd prowled both rooms, Zamora had remarked, "At least they didn't bring along disguises."
His bulk dwarfing Zamora as they had waited for an elevator, Criado had delivered his own opinion. "Jefe, I don't think they're even thinking about leaving the hotel. Sometime tomorrow you'll be coming over here to apologize to them."
"I hope so," Zamora had said. "I fervently hope they prove out. We've already got problems to spare."
Now Criado slipped the mug shots back into his pocket and watched the indicators move over the elevator doors.
No. 1 was coming down again, from the 8th floor. It stopped at 6. Passed 5 without pause. Halted at 4.
The NATO people were on 4. If they came down to buy a magazine or a glass of tequila, they'd just have to accept a two-legged bloodhound at their heels.
Criado watched the doors swish back. A girl got out. College kid from the States, likely, traveling as part of her education. She wore sandals, jeans, a blue shirt open at the throat.
She was seductively slender, and her flaming red hair wasn't bad, but her face brought a fatherly grimace of sympathy to Criado's features.
Her complexion and freckles---the worse case ever---made Criado think of white dough sprinkled with little flakes of rust. The pushed-out fit of her lips indicated teeth bucked and overlapping. Adding insult to injury were the squinting, strained eyes behind commonplace glasses.
At least, Criado thought, the poor gringa isn't my daughter. Never get her married off in San Gonzalo.
He swung his gaze back to the elevator, watching 2 other women passengers debark. That did it this trip. Criado packed up his magazine.
On the 4th floor, Paris was about ready to leave his room.
He'd put the finishing touches on Molly's face, grinning off her yelps of anger.
"Paris, please! Do I have to look like such a goon? I'll stick out like a sore thumb!"
"That's the idea. They'll never suspect you or bother to stop you."
He'd left a fuming Molly so she could change clothing, hurrying to his own room with the makeup material.
Now a stranger stared back from his mirror, very dark, with beetling brows, a scar down the left cheek, a bulbous nose.
Paris nodded to the reflected image and closed Molly's cosmetics case.
Turning, he crossed quickly to the closet. He was already wearing chukkas, poplin knee-length shorts, and a shirt. He shook out a pair of slacks and a plaid sports jacket and donned these as outer clothing which he could quickly shuck later.
The image of the stranger reappeared in the bureau mirror, necktie dangling from right hand.
Paris flipped up the poplin collar and knotted the tie. It would be discarded along with the jacket and slacks.
The poplin bush outfit and Molly's denim garb were advance preparations for a second masquerade to come later that night. That would be the big one. The disguises then would have to be close to perfect.
Compared to what was to come, this getting himself and Molly out of the hotel was child's play. He took a breath and stepped into the corridor. It was empty. He paced quickly to the stairwell and walked up to the 5th floor.
He summoned the elevator and got on, the only passenger at that point. He felt stuffily warm in his 2 layers of clothing as he rode down.
The doors slid open, and he stepped nonchalantly into the lobby. Its traffic had slackened, but several people were still about.
Hardly moving his eyes, Paris spotted Zamora's men near the front and side entrances. Another, a big, homely individual, was stationed on a rattan chair suspiciously near the elevators.
Paris gave the elevator watcher a casual nod in passing. The big fellow quickly lost interest in him and in the elevators, as no one else got out.
Paris bent over the water cooler, taking time to confirm the thickset man's undisturbed illusion of security. This was the key lookout post. Men at the street entrances would be prone to rely upon it.
Paris took a nice, long slip.
"Hace frío," he remarked (in Spanish), shuffling past the big man.
"Si," Criado picked up his magazine. "Hace frio," he agreed absently.
ns 15.158.61.8da2
