"Are you ready?" Spencer asked.
"As I'll ever be, Commander," the other man said.
"Synchronize watches," Spencer said. "Two forty-three and forty seconds. Forty-two. Forty-four."
"Got it," the other man said.
"All right," Spencer said. "At exactly 2:47, we move."
"Righto."
"Here's the ticket," Spencer said. He handed the other man his airline ticket and the man strolled off down the corridor toward the Air Espana loading gates.
Spencer drained the last of his vodka, careful not to disturb the pepper at the glass's bottom, which he knew was now contaminated with fuel oil. He thought about leaving the bartender a tip, but decided not to. Let his Yank friends who drank vodka and pepper leave him a tip. Spencer picked up his thin nylon gymnasium-style bag and stepped into the men's room next to the bar. Inside one of the toilet stalls, he took from the nylon bag a long doctor's robe, which he put on over his suit. A pair of dark wrap-around sunglasses covered his eyes. From the bottom of the nylon bag came a worn brown leather doctor's satchel.
Spencer rolled up the nylon gym bag and stuck it inside the waistband of his trousers. He checked his watch. Two forty-six and thirty-five seconds.
Almost time.
He stepped out of the men's room, just as the digital clicker of his watch registered the full minute.
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Two forty-seven.
He heard a scream from down the Air Espana corridor. He ran toward the sound. Ahead of him, a group of people were clustered together.
"Let me through," Spencer called out in a heavy German accent. "I am a doctor. Let me through."
He ran past the x-ray detector machines and pushed his way through the crowd until he was next to the man with the red mustache. The man was lying on the floor, gasping for breath, his hands clutching his chest.
Professionally, Spencer knelt alongside the man and felt his pulse.
"Very serious," he said. "I vill need room to work. Stand back. All of you. Schnell."
He hoisted the man into his arms and walked along the corridor toward the planes, then pushed his way through the door of the first men's room he reached.
It was vacant and the other mustached man quickly got to his feet. Spencer leaned against the door, keeping it closed, as he stripped off his doctor's robe. The other man put it on, along with Spencer's wrap-around sunglasses. He tucked Spencer's nylon gym bag into his waistband, turned, and glanced at himself in the mirror.
"Pretty neat if I do say so myself," he said. Spencer checked himself in the mirror on the back of the door. He heard people thumping outside.
"All right," he said. "Let's go. Ooops, the ticket." The man now wearing the doctor's costume handed Spencer the Air Espana ticket and then led the way through the door.
With the same thick German accent Spencer
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had used, he said, "Everything isss all right. Lucky I vas here. Just a piece of candy stuck in ze throat. Lucky I vas here. I fixed him up all right."
Quickly, the man in the doctor's smock walked away. The eyes of the crowd followed him as Spencer stepped from the men's room and walked over to the Air Espana counter, where he got a boarding pass, then took a seat and buried his face in a magazine.
Three minutes later, the passengers were boarding, and five minutes later, his arms and legs wrapped with guns and rockets and knives and bombs, Commander Hilton Marmaduke Spencer was sprawled comfortably in a window seat in the plane's first-class cabin.
It had been a while, he thought, since he had an interesting assignment from Wissex. And these two, the Yank and the old Oriental, might be interesting. Eighteen men had already died trying to remove them. It might be fun.
Eighteen dead. It did not bother him. None of those eighteen had been Brits. Wait until the Yank and the Chink ran up against British steel.
He smiled, and the faint pounding began again inside his temples.
The union of motion pictures authors had been no help to Smith.
"I'm looking for a screenwriter," he had said, and the woman who had answered the phone had said, "Pick one. We've got seven thousand members."
"This one would probably have a word processor or computer," Smith said.
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"That narrows it down to six thousand nine hundred," the woman said. "It's a great excuse not to work. They can't write movies but they sure as hell can play Pac-man. Got any more clues?"
"Maybe he's doing a script on Oriental assassins," Smith said hopefully.
"Not a chance," the woman said.
"Why not?"
"Nobody's doing assassins. Chopsaki. The movies never gross anything. Bruce Lee is dead but he was dead at the box office long before he died. Afraid I can't help you." And she hung up.
And that was it. Smith realized that he had no choice except to wait for the lunatic to call him again. The telephone rang.
"Smith here."
"You know who this is," the voice said.
"Yes," said Smith. "Except I don't have a name to put with the voice."
"That's all right. No matter what you call it, a rose is a rose."
"Obviously, you're the product of a classical education," Smith said.
"You know," said Barry Schweid, "I don't really trust you."
"I thought we were getting along fine," Smith said.
"We'll see when our negotiations go on," Schweid said.
"What negotiations? I gave you everything you asked for."