“It would seem we had one margarita too many, and three or four after that,” Hadley said as soon as Kyle loosed her gag. “As for our friend who left us tied up here like this, I don’t think there is any earthly explanation for her behavior.”
“It happens,” said Kyle, the amiable aquatics director.
Stanley hoped that Kyle was sincere, or, at least, that any curiosity the hardy Australian harbored would go no further than war stories the staff shared at happy hour. Although young-twenty-seven or twenty-eight-he had probably seen his share of oddities on the resorts circuit. Certainly he’d never opened up shop to find a couple bound and gagged. Yet he exhibited no surprise beyond the natural shock of discovery, nor any misgivings after hearing Hadley’s yarn. He asked only, “You folks want a Powerade-get some electrolyte action going?”
“That would be wonderful,” Hadley said. “Anything would be, except a margarita.”
“A margarita might not be such a bad idea, actually.” Kyle regarded Stanley. “You look like you could stand some hair of the dog, mate.”
Stanley decided to leave Kyle’s recommendation out of the report he would write Eskridge, who had never been in the field and would have enough trouble digesting the rest of the events at Hotel L’Imperatrice.
On return to their hotel room, Stanley took a seat at the rolltop desk. Blocking out the postcard view of the Caribbean through the balcony window, he clicked a featureless area of his computer screen four times in rapid succession, opening a fresh cable form. He filled it with a blow-by-blow account of the past fifteen hours. If adversaries were to intercept the transmission, they would view only an e-mail from Colin Atchison to his secretary asking her to call some other fictitious person and reschedule the morning’s round of golf.
Then Stanley launched into putative next steps: PERMISSION FOR OVERT ACTION. OBJECTIVE: DEBRIEF CARTHAGE
He heard Hadley turn off the shower. He did not hear her approach. The pile carpet was so thick, she might have long-jumped into the bedroom and he would have been none the wiser if it were not for the pleasing perfume of honey and lavender. He didn’t turn around, largely to avoid gawking, not until he felt her standing just inches from his back.
“Overt action?” she said. “In other words, we call up Carthage and say, ‘Actually, Mr. Bream, we’re professional spies from the CIA.’ ”
“Breaking cover is the most expedient way I can think of,” said Stanley.
“Why would a couple of spooks-spooks with a track record of deceiving him-be the people best able to get the truth from him?”
“Because we’ll best be able to convince him that he’ll be in deep kimchi otherwise.”
She took a seat on the nearest corner of the bed, crossing one glowing dancer’s thigh over the other. “I know a really good way that won’t leave any marks,” she said with an enthusiasm that transformed her in Stanley’s perception from a sensuous woman into something darker and colder.
He was troubled already by her rush to slash Drummond’s jugular last night with her switchblade ring-which would have certainly come in handy after they were tied up. Their track record notwithstanding, the Clarks very obviously were not bent on murder. It would have been more expedient for Drummond to snuff them than to tie them up. Also Charlie’s assertion that they had acted in self-defense seemed free of artifice.
Stanley wondered if Hadley had her own agenda.