Lace II

  * * *

  Still handcuffed, her feet numb, Lili stumbled along yet another dark corridor. Her heart was pumping wildly and she was panting with fear but as she half-ran over the uneven stones of the passage, her fright was nothing compared to the terror she had previously felt, lying handcuffed and helpless, as again and again Tony had loaded and unloaded his machine gun, taken random aim at the wine jug, the window, or the woman tied on the bed, then pretended to squeeze the trigger.

  Suddenly, Lili saw a faint glimmer of light and, hopefully, started to run toward it. Dimly, she could make out a wide stone doorway.

  Thankfully, she reached it, then stopped in surprise. Beyond the doorway, brilliant sunlight shone down like spotlights from the high arched windows of a big room; the far half was covered by a low platform surrounded by a golden balustrade. The ceiling was fretted and latticed in gold and the walls were edged with elaborate scrolls of gilt leaves and ribbons. The entire, sumptuous golden room was spotted with mold, and hung with cobwebs. Tiny, even rows of claw-marks on the floor showed where birds had hopped in the thick carpet of dust.

  Opposite Lili, at the far end of the gorgeous room, was another elaborate doorway. Joyfully, Lili dashed toward it, to find herself in another equally sumptuous, sunlit room with high, unreachable windows, and another elaborate doorway facing her. Each room led into another room and, as if in an eerie nightmare, Lili ran through salon after overdecorated salon, each one smothered with dusty, golden swags of fruit, and trompe l’oeil paintings of formal gardens that seemed to offer fresh air and freedom, but then cruelly denied it.

  Finally, Lili reached the end room. It was a square, tiled chamber with no windows and no further door. The walls were covered in an ogee medallion pattern of neat blue flowers, and eight feet above the floor was a gilt frieze of inlaid Arabic script.

  Frantic, Lili looked about her for a way out of this lavish, silent, cul-de-sac. But there was no way out, she realized. Despondently, she started to stumble back along the way she had come, through all the golden rooms, following her own bare footsteps in the dust.

  When she reached the last golden room, the dark corridor lay in front of her. Regretfully, she turned her back on the treacherous sunlight. In the distance, echoing and distorted through the many passages, Lili could hear Tony’s faraway voice, although at first she couldn’t hear what he was yelling. Then, faintly, she heard him cry, “I know you’re there, Lili! I’m not going to let you get away!”

  Lili firmly told herself that there was no need to be frightened. All she had to do was to hide in a dark place until she heard the sound of a search party. Lili’s heart thumped with fear as she plunged again into the gloomy labyrinth before her, looking for somewhere to hide. As she halfstumbled, half-ran, along, she noticed, in an alcove, a horseshoe-shaped trap door, raised and lying at a drunken angle against the wall. Below it gaped an opening, down which led stone steps, hollowed by the passage of many feet. Lili hesitated, then she heard a door crash open near at hand, and Tony’s voice again threatened. Quickly, Lili lowered herself into the darkness, taking care to make no sound.

  Once below the level of the floor, Lili’s eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness. At the bottom of the stone steps an underground passage beckoned and, in the faint light, Lili could see a low, half-open door to her left. She would hide behind that door, she decided, and pushed it.

  The door was stuck. Lili leaned against it and shoved as hard as she could. As the door flew open, Lili felt a rush of unearthly, fast, frightening terror. She seemed to be surrounded by flying demons, as, with a flapping of leathery wings, she felt sharp little claws, furry talons, skinny limbs, and blinding little creatures beat against her head and body.

  In the darkness, Lili screamed and screamed and screamed.

  She heard Tony cursing as he crashed down the steps behind her and grabbed her by the hair.

  * * *

  “Is Pagan dead?” Judy anxiously asked Mark, as he crouched down beside her in the juniper brush.

  “No, but she’s badly hurt. It looks like two broken ribs, and a broken leg, shock, and concussion. Luckily, the trees broke her fall. They’ve taken her to the French Hospital behind the Divan Hotel. I saw her into the ambulance, then came back here to look after you. Colonel Aziz is informing the King.”

  “Nothing’s happened here for the last thirty minutes,” said Judy. They were both silent for a moment, listening to the interminable police megaphone as it ordered Tony to come out with his hands up.

  “The police always string out a siege as long as they can,” Mark comforted Judy. “The longer it goes on, the jumpier the kidnapper gets, and the more likely he is to make a mistake, or lose his nerve and surrender.”

  A burst of machine-gun fire came from the window overhead, as Tony opened fire on the policemen below. Everyone scattered to take cover.

  Mark pulled Judy behind some juniper bushes, out of the line of fire, then he snaked forward toward the shooting.

  Judy jumped as she felt a hand on her shoulder. It was Gregg, who had crawled up behind her, through the juniper bushes.

  “How did you get here, Gregg?”

  “Came up with the Tribune reporter. The hotel bar emptied as soon as they heard about this siege. Is Lili still in there?”

  “Yes, Pagan said he’d got her handcuffed in one of those rooms. Then Pagan passed out, so that’s all we know.” Judy nodded upward. “He’s up there, where the shots are coming from.”

  There was a burst of fire from Tony’s Kalashnikov. Again, Colonel Aziz turned on his megaphone and ordered Tony to surrender. Crouching low, a junior police officer ran up to the juniper thicket and ordered the three Europeans to vacate their inadequate cover and get behind one of the armored cars, positioned below the Palace walls.

  As they cowered behind the hot metal vehicle, Judy, her face sunken and pale, leaned against Mark’s chest for comfort. “Mark, what’s going to happen?”

  “I don’t know.” He stroked her fine blond hair. “I’ve seen gunman behave this way before. They get carried away by the excitement of it all, and by what appears to be their power. Then, as soon as they’ve fired the first shot, it’s too late for them to get out, so, whether they know it or not, they’re in it to the death.”

  “And Lili’s up there with that lunatic?” Gregg anxiously watched the window where Tony had appeared. “Are the police inside as well?”

  “Crawling all over the Harem by now, but there’s not much they can do while he has Lili as a hostage!”

  On either side of them, young, eager Turkish policemen crouched with their weapons. Judy remembered Spyros Stiarkoz’s warning about trigger-happy police. She said, “Colonel Aziz won’t let us go into the building. But I’m terrified that if the police storm that room from the outside, someone will accidentally shoot Lili.”

  “Judy’s right. These boy cops are longing for a shoot-out; look at their faces!” said Gregg, picking up Mark’s binoculars and scanning the Palace walls. “There are a lot of handholds on that building; it shouldn’t be difficult to climb down it, from the roof, by rope.”

  “What would be the point of that?” Mark asked.

  “If somebody distracted Tony, at one window, I could toss a smoke bomb in the second window and then jump in after it.”

  “Smoke bomb?” queried Judy. “Where do we get a smoke bomb?”

  Gregg said, “The police are sure to have some. If not, they’ll have tear gas, which will be nastier, but even more effective.”

  Mark said, “I suppose you want me to steal a smoke bomb.”

  “I’ll offer the guard a cigarette while you sneak into the minibus.”

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, Mark had a rope, and two smoke flares, an axe, and a distress rocket. Twenty minutes later, he and Gregg were among the breast-shaped cupolas of the Harem roof.

  Leaning over the parapet, Gregg pointed with one finger as he sketched his idea to Mark. “This wall is at right angles to th
e wall with the windows in it. If you let me down on the rope, to the little ledge, I can shuffle along it, swing round the corner, get my foot on the ledge again, edge along until I reach the window, toss the smoke bomb through, swing in after it, and grab Tony from the rear.”

  “Why not drop down from the parapet, straight above the window?” Mark asked.

  “Because my legs would appear in the window; there’d be no element of surprise. And I wouldn’t be able to maneuver into the window with the correct momentum. I’m going to have to dive into that window.”

  Mark thought, the guy’s got guts. “Okay, let’s go. Tell me what you want me to do.”

  Gregg showed Mark how to slip the rope around the nearest turret and take the strain, as Gregg tied the other end of the rope around his waist, then threw a leg over the parapet.

  Hanging onto the rope, Gregg planted his sneakers on the ancient stone wall, leaned out and started to walk down. As he descended, Mark played out the rope. Gregg could not be seen by Tony because the corner of the building lay between them.

  Gregg passed two ornamental ledges, then stopped at the third one. Inch by inch, with arms outstretched, Gregg slowly shuffled sideways along the ornamental ledge, toward the corner on his right. Trying to feel as if the wall were sucking him into it, he clutched at handholds in the rough stonework, until his right fingertips eventually touched the corner.

  Gregg silently looked up at Mark and nodded, then swiftly he pushed the upper part of his body out from the wall and swung himself around the corner, feeling with his right foot for the continuation of the ledge he was standing on. He had checked from below, before he started, that the ornamental ledge continued round the building.

  Gregg was sweating as he put his right foot round the corner. This was partly because of the blazing heat and partly because he knew that, as soon as he turned the corner, he would be within gunshot range of Tony. Dangling from the rope, Gregg felt naked and vulnerable. Firmly, he told himself that Tony couldn’t see him, and wouldn’t see him, because Tony wouldn’t risk putting his head out of the window, or the Turkish police would shoot it off.

  Then, to his horror, Gregg realized that the continuation of the ledge on the far side of the corner was not the same depth as the ledge upon which he had been standing. It had not been possible to see this, either from below the Palace or from the roof.

  Gregg kept feeling for the ledge with his right toe, but the ledge was only about an inch wide—too narrow to stand on—and as soon as Gregg put any weight on it, his foot slipped off.

  He tried again, but the ledge crumbled, and again his foot slipped as soon as he put his weight on it.

  Gregg turned his sweaty face up to Mark and shook his head. Slowly, he began to inch back along the ledge. He was almost directly below Mark when his left handhold, a piece of decorative leadwork, came away from the wall. Gregg stumbled, swayed, then fell off the ledge, dangling on the end of the rope, like a spider on the end of a string.

  Mark braced his feet against the parapet and took the strain.

  Very slowly, Gregg swung his legs, searching with his sneakered toes for a foothold on the pitted wall. Eventually, one groping toe found the ledge. Gregg leaned out, pulled on the rope, and began to slowly climb to the top of the parapet.

  “Shit!” he grunted, as he swung himself over and onto the roof.

  Mark nodded.

  * * *

  Once again inside that gruesome room, her feet tied more tightly than before, Lili lay on the green-striped mattress, quivering with terror. “Tony, for God’s sake, let’s give ourselves up!” she begged. “Otherwise the police are going to kill us both.”

  Sheltering behind the window embrasure, Tony said nothing, but fired a burst of machine-gun fire into the dusk.

  Lili closed her eyes and linked her handcuffed fingers in an unconscious gesture of supplication. As she did so, she felt—on her center finger—the coral rosebud of the ring that her mother had given her. It comforted Lili.

  * * *

  “I’m pretty certain that if he lets me in, I can talk him out.” Judy stood in front of Colonel Aziz, a resolute expression on her face. “He knows me, he trusts me and, when he’s in his right mind, he’s devoted to me. If anyone can get through to Tony, I can.”

  Covered with gray dust, Gregg added, “There’s only one guy in there; I don’t see what we have to lose.”

  Eventually, Colonel Aziz said, “As you say, it is worth a try. Very well. You will go in with six of my men. You will try to persuade him to open the door. You will stand aside as six of my men throw themselves into the room. If two men take the gunman, two throw themselves to the left, and two to the right, and shoot, we will have the best chance of getting Mademoiselle Lili out alive.”

  “No!” Judy spoke quietly and firmly. “I want to go in and persuade Tony to come out. I know exactly how to do it. If I fail, you can storm the room with smoke bombs, tear gas and bullets. But I won’t have such unnecessary risks taken with my daughter’s life, until I’ve tried to get Tony to come out peacefully.”

  * * *

  Outside the studded wooden door, Judy shouted “Tony! Thank God I’ve found you. I’m alone. Please let me in.”

  “What do you want?”

  “To get you out of this alive. Please let me in.”

  There was a long, nerve-racking pause.

  “No.”

  “Tony, I don’t want you to come out, I want to come in.” Judy pleaded, “I’m your friend, Tony. This is Judy out here.”

  “Things ain’t goin’ as I hoped, Judy.”

  “That’s why I’m here, Tony, so that together we can work out what to do next.”

  Nothing happened.

  “You’re sure you’re alone, Judy?”

  “I’m alone.”

  Another long pause.

  “Okay, I’ll undo the bolt and cover the door,” shouted Tony. “Come in, then bolt the door behind you. If there’s anyone behind you, I’ll shoot.”

  They heard the sound of the bolt slowly being pulled back.

  Judy gestured frantically, and the men behind her took cover in the doorways.

  Judy stepped forward and pushed the massive door open.

  “Bolt the door,” said Tony. “Gee, I’m glad to see you, Judy.”

  “Judy!” gasped Lili, struggling on the green-striped mattress. Judy looked at her with dismay, but fought back her natural inclination to run to her daughter. She ignored Lili and beamed at Tony.

  “I’ve missed you, Tony.” Judy tried to behave as if they were still in the VERVE! office. “And I sure could do with a workout. I’m out of shape.”

  “Yeah, well…”

  “May I sit down, Tony?” Judy knew that she should move slowly and deliberately and, at any cost, avoid startling the gunman.

  “Sure, go ahead.”

  Judy sat on a stained rose-brocade mattress. “May I eat a peach, Tony?”

  “Sure, go ahead.”

  From the central, low brass circular table, Judy picked up a half-rotten peach, around which a few flies had been hopefully buzzing. She knew that the table was really a brass tray on a plinth, and she considered flinging it at Tony, then leaping to unbolt the door. But not yet. She was supposed to try to get him out peacefully.

  Outside there was total silence.

  Inside, Tony stood, submachine gun in his hand, with his back to the wall by the window. Lili lay on the green-striped mattress, not moving.

  “What was the plan, Tony?” Judy asked.

  “I never meant it to get outta hand like this, Judy. I only wanted to help you.”

  “You’ve always been wonderful to me, Tony. But why did you think I needed help?”

  “I knew that the magazine was gonna fold. I heard Tom talking to the Lady Mirabelle people. Then, late one night, when I was waiting to take you home, I heard you tell Tom that you wanted someone to kidnap Lili.”

  “What?”

  “It was after Tom had said somethi
ng about kids giving you more trouble when they was grown up than when they was small.” Tony shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Judy, you said you wanted a miracle to happen. You asked Tom to kidnap Lili for a ten-million dollar ransom, then give the money to you. But the putz said he didn’t know how to handle a kidnapping. You called him a weakling, Judy. You said you couldn’t rely on him.”

  “But I can rely on you, Tony,” beamed Judy, as, with horror, she vaguely recalled her joking conversation with Tom. She took another bite of the disgusting peach and leaned back agains the pink brocade.

  “Yeah, so I thought, I’ll do Judy a favor and make a bit for myself as well, then hide out in Europe, change my appearance a bit, that stuff. I never had such a great life in the States until you appeared, Judy, and I knew that if the magazine closed, I’d lose my glamour job. But, like it says in the VERVE! self-help articles, nobody has to put up with what they think they’re stuck with.”

  “The clever thing,” said Judy, hoping that she wouldn’t retch, “was those ransom telegrams. They got front page coverage, Tony! How did you think of that?”

  Tony looked pleased. “The Greek guy was easy. He wanted to be Lili’s sugar daddy. That’s what gave me the idea. Originally, that is. I sorta kept this idea hangin’ in my mind, then bits got added.”

  “Like?”

  “Like I hear the pop star yellin’ at you on the phone. I think the guy’s got no manners, the guy’s rich, and the guy seems to think he’s Lili’s father.”

  “Then?”

  “Then I’m waitin’ for you outside Mr. Halifax’s office and the door’s open a crack … I can hear you cryin’ … well, I guess I opened the door. His secretary’s got her own office, so she doesn’t sit outside the boss’s door. I reckon that’s a big mistake. So, anyway, I hear that Mr. Halifax has got the same idea as the pop star and I think, little Miss Jordan, she sure kept them guessin’, even when she was a kid.”

  “But how did you get here, Tony?”

  “Simple. I flew to Britain, caught a ferry across the Channel, then got here by train and bus. Don’t worry, Judy, I didn’t leave a clear trail.”