7 Steps to Midnight

  “I don’t think we’d better take you back to your hotel tonight,” she said.

  He felt his heartbeat catch.

  “They may know that’s where you’re staying.”

  “Oh. Yes.” He exhaled wearily. Goodbye romance again, he thought. Then he recalled. “But the clothes, the passport. The gun.”

  “The gun?” she said, incredulous. “They gave you a gun?”

  “After what happened tonight, I think I need one.”

  “Mmm.” She didn’t sound convinced. “The rest we can replace by morning,” she told him.

  “The passport too?” he asked, impressed.

  “No problem.”

  “Listen,” he said, “do you know anything about the man who vanished from the plane I was on?”

  “Vanished?” He could tell from her tone that she didn’t know.

  “Do you know what seven steps to midnight means?” he asked.

  She repeated the words in a way that told him she didn’t know that either.

  “My God,” he muttered. “All I have is questions. Not a single answer.”

  “You have the only answer you need right now.” Her voice was grave. “Your work is important enough for a lot of people to want to know about it.”

  “They wouldn’t be so curious if they knew how much trouble I’ve been having with it,” he responded.

  She patted his arm. “You’ll figure it out,” she told him.

  Then she looked around and made a sound of decision. “We’d best be off again,” she said.

  6

  The Bond-Tellier Hotel looked like a clone of the Park Court. The same portico-type entrance, the same doorman standing in front with the long coat and high hat—did they make them from a mold? The same polite smile and tip of the hat as the doorman said, “Good evening, Miss Claudius.”

  Claudius? he thought as he went up the steps beside her to the lobby door. Alexsandra Claudius? Or was she simply part of the overall nonreality of this experience? Everything seemed suspicious, since Veering. True, she’d done nothing that seemed to contradict her words. It was just the frame of mind he was acquiring. Her name had jarred it into operation once again. He just wasn’t sure he could safely trust anyone at present.

  Alexsandra (was it her name?) nodded at the desk clerk as they crossed the lobby toward the elevators. The lobby walls were fashioned of dark paneling, buffed to a glow. The floor was made of tiling and the furniture was oversize—Victorian-style chairs and sofas.

  Chris found himself shaking his head in disbelief. Incredulity was almost a constant state of mind these days. It was virtually impossible for him to assimilate the number of changes in his life that had taken place since he’d found that his car was missing from the parking lot. There was just no way of discovering a pattern to it all—a condition he always found disconcerting since the four words he spoke most often in his life were “What does it mean?”

  They entered the lift where the operator smiled at Alexsandra and said, “Good evening.” Fancy, Chris thought; I had to push buttons at the old Park Court.

  “Claudius, eh?” he murmured, looking at her. In the dimly lit interior, she looked more beautiful than ever.

  “That’s right.” She smiled at him.

  He was going to say more, but let it go. If she wasn’t what she seemed, there’d be no advantage to indicate suspicion on his part.

  They said no more as the lift glided up its cables to the sixth floor. The operator said, “Good night,” as did Alexsandra. Then it was just the two of them, walking along a thickly carpeted hallway. The walls were paneled here as well. Prestige hotel, he thought.

  Alexsandra stopped at a door with 634 on it in brass numerals. Removing a key from her purse, she unlocked and opened the door, reaching inside to switch on an overhead light.

  This is a hotel room? he thought, bedazzled, as he entered. A brief glimpse of an almost full-size living room gave him pause. It looked more like a Park Avenue apartment, for Christ’s sake. Surely secret agents couldn’t afford such accommodations.

  “Quite a place,” he said.

  “If you’re wondering how I can afford it, I can’t,” she told him as though she’d read his mind. “I’m only here while I’m on this assignment.”

  “I see.” He nodded, looking around the foyer as she closed the door.

  He saw the painting then, and caught his breath.

  It was very old, the paint faded and cracked—a portrait of a Roman noblewoman standing in a courtyard. She was wearing a diaphanous white robe, her dark hair plaited, lying across her left shoulder. She was radiantly lovely.

  She was Alexsandra.

  “Now, wait a minute,” he said. “How can that be?”

  She laughed softly. “It isn’t me,” she said.

  “But it is.”

  “I’ll admit the resemblance is striking,” she said.

  “Striking?” he said. “It’s you.”

  “No.” She shook her head, smiling.

  “And what’s it doing in a hotel suite?”

  “It doesn’t belong to the hotel,” she replied. “I have a few personal belongings to make it feel like home while I’m here. This is one of them.”

  “Where did you get it?”

  “A man I used to go with found it in an antique store in Rome and was so struck by the resemblance that he bought it for me.”

  He stared at the painting, still amazed. “That’s your face all right.”

  “Maybe I’m a descendant or something,” she said.

  He nodded. “That could be.” He rotated his head, grimacing.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Oh…” He hated to mention it, it was so goddamn unromantic. Well, hell, he thought. “My neck is stiff. Occupational hazard for mathematicians.”

  “Come inside,” she said, taking him by the hand. She led him into the living room and turned on a lamp. He whistled softly, looking around. “You government agents are well taken care of,” he said.

  “My usual accommodations are far more Spartan,” she told him. “It just so happened this was all they had available and my supervisor experienced a moment of highly atypical generosity.”

  She pointed at a chair. “Sit.”

  Chris did and she moved behind the chair. He winced, making a sound of pain as her fingers began to knead the back of his neck. “It’ll hurt at first,” she said.

  “That’s what my mother says,” he responded.

  “Does she massage your neck?”

  “On those rare occasions when I see her,” he answered. He hissed, wincing as her fingers dug in more strongly.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured.

  “No, no, keep it up,” he said. “No pain, no gain.”

  Alexsandra laughed softly.

  “How long have you been here?” Chris asked.

  “A few weeks,” she said.

  He looked confused. “But I’ve only been in this mess about three days.”

  “There are several other things I’ve been working on,” she said. “They only put me onto your situation this morning.”

  “My situation,” he muttered. His neck was starting to feel better now and he closed his eyes. “To repeat: What is my situation?”

  “We’re working on it,” she answered. “Do you mind telling me a few of the details? I was given precious little information and it would help if I knew something about it.”

  As the kneading of her strong fingers continued on the back of his neck, then his neck and shoulder joints, Chris gave her a digest version of the mystery: the car, Veering, the couple in his house, Meehan and Nelson, Gene, the airline ticket, the overnight bag in the LAX locker, Basy’s disappearance.

  “Good Lord, you have been put through the wringer, haven’t you?” she said when he was finished.

  “Somewhat,” he agreed. “The question still remaining: Why?”

  “Well, as I told you,” she said, “it’s obviously connected to your work. As to why so
me of those things happened, I have no idea. The Veering thing, for instance. It seems… well, not a part of it at all.”

  “But Nelson got angry that I didn’t mention Veering and then tried to kill me.”

  “Curiouser and curiouser,” she murmured.

  Chris made a sound of pained amusement, remembering his mother had said that. “Exactly what I thought,” he told her. He momentarily wondered why he’d told her so much. If he didn’t think he could trust her…

  Well, obviously, he did trust her for whatever reason—her reassuring personality, her alluring appearance or his own emotional vulnerability. He was so alone and harassed that falling in love, especially with so beautiful a woman, was practically de rigueur.

  He started involuntarily as her fingers were removed from his neck. “What?” he muttered, opening his eyes.

  “I have to call my supervisor,” she told him. “Let him know what happened tonight. Please excuse me.”

  He looked around, wincing as he felt it in his neck. Standing, he turned to see her walking toward the bedroom doorway. She glanced back and smiled at him. “I’ll only be a few moments,” she said.

  She went inside the bedroom and closed the door. Should that bother me? he wondered. Now he’d have no idea what she was going to tell her supervisor, or indeed, if she was going to call her supervisor in the first place, or if she even had a supervisor.

  “Oh, come on,” he muttered, frowning at himself. He had to trust someone or he’d lose his mind. He needed an anchor. Without one, he’d be all at sea.

  He ambled around the room, looking at the refined and expensive furnishings, looking out the window at the glittering vista of London (London, for God’s sake!), then, finally, walking back into the foyer to gaze once more at the painting.

  The portrait threw him off again. It wasn’t just a resemblance. He could swear that Alexsandra had posed for the painting.

  He shook it off. That is patently impossible, he told himself. How many times had he looked at a photograph taken in the 1800s and thought That looks exactly like… whoever the photograph resembled.

  Why should this be different?

  Because, he realized, he was in an agitated state of mind, involved in an ongoing mystery. No wonder his imagination was making this portrait a part of that mystery.

  He turned away and went back into the living room. Problem solved, he thought.

  Unless, his brain needled, Alexsandra did not come out of the bedroom. Unless he’d go in there presently and find nothing but an untenanted room; unless, like Basy, she’d have disappeared and he’d be back in the nightmare again.

  He was getting ready to enter the bedroom, nerves steeled for the worst, when Alexsandra came out.

  She’d removed her coat and jacket and he now noticed the thrust of her breasts against the pale beige sweater she was wearing. It’s too much, said his mind. He couldn’t prevent an expression of antic disbelief.

  “What is it?” she asked with a tentative smile.

  “Oh…” He didn’t know exactly how to put it. Then he plunged in. Why not? he thought. “It all seems so insane,” he told her. “Like a Hitchcock movie.”

  “Does it?” Her smile was no longer tentative.

  “Does it!” He shook his head. “The dull mathematician finds himself suddenly embroiled in an international conspiracy of some kind? Suddenly, from an Arizona tract house, he finds himself in a gorgeous London flat with an even more gorgeous government agent who has just eluded God-knows-who in a high-speed car chase? Yes, my dear. That is your standard suspense plot…” He couldn’t finish for chuckling.

  She smiled at him, then repressed the smile into a look of mock distress. “I’m sorry you think it’s standard,” she said.

  Now, he thought. Now is the moment. He should walk over to her, put his arms around her, kiss her hard.

  “Are you hungry?” Alexsandra asked.

  Shit, he thought.

  He got a look of surprise on his face, then said, “My God, I am,” he said.

  “Come in the kitchen then,” she said, turning away.

  “I’m following,” he said.

  “And thank you for calling me gorgeous,” she said across her shoulder.

  “What else could anyone call you?” he asked.

  “Thank you,” she responded.

  “You do see that this whole thing smacks of exotic fiction,” he said.

  Her sigh was not a happy one. “Would that it were,” she said, the tone in her voice making him shiver unexpectedly. He remembered then that Gene was dead, Nelson too, in all likelihood, Basy probably. It certainly took the exotic edge off the situation.

  The kitchen was small but well appointed. Alexsandra gestured toward a chair and Chris sat down, looking at her as she crossed to the refrigerator and opened it. She moves gracefully too, he thought. Was there nothing wrong with her? How could any female be so perfect?

  “How about some caviar and finely chopped onions and eggs on biscuits?” she asked. “Some chilled white wine?”

  He laughed aloud. “Is that how spies eat over here?”

  She smiled as she took the plates from the refrigerator. “I’m not a spy,” she said. “And, actually, this is here compliments of the hotel.”

  “Remind me to stay here next time I’m involved in an enigma,” he said.

  She kept smiling as she took the wine from the refrigerator and set it on the table with the plates of caviar and chopped egg and onion. She got a box of biscuits, a plate, knife and a crystal wine glass and set them down in front of him. “There.”

  “Nothing for you?” he asked.

  “I ate just before we met at the theater,” she told him. “However…” She got a second wine glass for herself and sat across from him at the table.

  Chris picked up the bottle, pulled out the cork (a little of the wine had already been drunk), and poured some in her glass, then his. Putting down the bottle, he picked up his glass and held it out to her in a toast. “To the one enjoyable feature of this highly unenjoyable experience,” he said.

  She clinked her glass against his and they each took a sip of the pale white wine.

  “Good,” he said. “Dijon LaFitte Chardonnay, 1973.”

  “Are you—?” She glanced at the bottle.

  “Showing off,” he finished. “I read it on the label as I poured.”

  They exchanged a smile, then she gestured at the plates. “Eat,” she said.

  He nodded and spread some caviar and chopped eggs and onions on a biscuit. Caviar and wine in London with a goddess, he thought. It really was difficult to comprehend.

  He took a bite of the biscuit and spread. “Mmm,” he said. “Delicious.” He hadn’t realized how hungry he was. “Tell me something,” he said.

  “Surely.”

  “Why the blue cassette box? The Carnival of the Animals?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You don’t know about it?” he asked.

  “I’m afraid not.” She looked perplexed.

  He told her about waking up to find the cassette player and the blue cassette box. How he finally came to realize that he was supposed to go to The Blue Swan.

  “Then that man in the pub—” he continued.

  “Williams,” she told him.

  “Uh-huh. He told me Crown over H and I had to figure that out, too. Wouldn’t it have been a lot simpler to just put a note under the door of my hotel room telling me there was a ticket waiting for me at the Theatre Royal Haymarket?”

  “Undoubtedly,” she said, laughing. “My supervisor does move in mysterious ways now and then.”

  “Williams said that ‘Number One’ relishes these little mysteries.”

  “He does.” She shook her head with a smile. “I imagine he gets fed up with the stupefying boredom of what we typically do. So, when he gets a chance to have a little fun…”

  “Fun?” He wasn’t sure of that.

  “For him,” she said. “Especially with a Yank.” br />
  Chris grunted. Must be a weird guy, he thought. He finished the biscuit and took a sip of wine, then spread caviar on another biscuit.

  “What’s his name?” he asked.

  “My supervisor? Mr. Raymond. That’s what we call him anyway. It might not be his real name.”

  “You live with enigmas, too,” he said, taking a bite of the second biscuit.

  “Indeed.” She looked a bit discomfited. “Such as what I’m going to do with you tomorrow.”

  He felt a tremor of uneasiness at that. “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “Well, obviously, you can’t go back to your hotel. I don’t think Mr. Raymond will want you to stay here. We’ll have to find a place.”

  “Uh…” He didn’t know how to put it. “Is there a… plan? I mean—why am I in England? Am I staying here?”

  “That remains to be seen,” she answered. “As to why you’re here—for protection, of course. Until this conspiracy or whatever it is is sorted out.” She clucked. “Whatever you do, it must be bloody important.”

  He sighed. “I never thought it was.” He gestured vaguely. “Well, that’s not exactly true. I guess space defense is important.”

  “You don’t have to tell me anything,” she cautioned. “It’s none of my business.”

  “I know,” he said. “I’m not about to give you formulas.”

  “No, don’t,” she said. “The less I know, the less anyone can find out from me.”

  That sounded ominous, he thought. He looked at her gravely. “I wouldn’t want to put you in any danger,” he said.

  “You won’t,” she assured him.

  He decided that he’d better tell her nothing. It probably wouldn’t make sense to her anyway.

  “Does it bother you to work in a field where—people get killed?” he asked uneasily.

  “Well, of course it bothers me,” she replied. “It really doesn’t happen all that often though. What’s going on with you is rather more advanced, as these things go.”

  He nodded. That didn’t make him feel particularly good. He ate a third biscuit spread with caviar, chopped egg and onion, and washed it down with the chilled white wine. As he did, he looked across the table at Alexsandra. What was going to happen now? he wondered. In James Bond novels, bed always followed peril. Didn’t it?