Now You See Him(46)

She wiped her face, but the tears kept coming, an unstoppable flow, and finally she couldn't fight them anymore. Leaning forward, she put her head on the steering wheel, clutching it with her hands, and wept.



The real Michael Dowd lumbered down the empty halls of Willingborough. The little swine were off reading their girlie magazines, blasting rock and roll through their adolescent eardrums. There was no one around to overhear.

He dialed the number quickly and efficiently. "Cardiff," he said when a familiar voice answered. "You were right. She showed up."

"Unfortunate," Ross Cardiff said at the other end. "But I knew she would, I just knew it. What did she say when you told her who you were?"

"She didn't believe me, of course. But I managed to convince her. She looked as if she'd been hit by a bomb. Just sort of mumbled something and said she was heading back to London."

"Do you think she'll have the sense to drop it?" Cardiff's voice was its usual nasal whine.

"I doubt it. You know Americans. And she had that 'hell hath no fury like a woman scorned' expression on her face. You know the effect he usually has on women. She'll probably walk barefoot over coals till she tracks him down. She said she was going to ask a lot of questions when she got back to London. She could make a great deal of trouble."

"Curse him," Ross fumed. "And curse her, too. He swore he hadn't boffed her. I should have known better. Even on his death bed he couldn't keep his pants on. He probably went through half the nursing staff while he was in a coma."

The real Michael Dowd grimaced on the other end, knowing full well the real cause of Ross Cardiff's fury. "I couldn't say, sir. All I know is she looked shocked, angry and determined. She said she didn't like being lied to."

"I suppose there's no need to overreact. After all, how much trouble can she cause? It's not as if she has anything to go on."

"She has a photograph, sir."

"Impossible! He couldn't have gotten that soft!" Cardiff exploded. "How did it happen?"

"I couldn't say. Obviously he didn't know it was being taken. From the looks of it, it was done at some restaurant in the islands. But it looks like the Cougar, boss. Anyone who knows him would recognize him."

There was a dead silence on the other end, and he could just imagine the expression on Cardiff's weaselly little face. "Then I suppose we're just going to have to do something about this little problem, aren't we, Dowd?"

"Not me, sir. I've got twenty-seven young buggers here to keep me busy. I've done what I can."

"For now," Cardiff said, and his voice was chilling. "I'll get back to you later."

Michael Dowd hung up the phone, staring at it for a moment. Ross Cardiff was a bad man to cross, a petty, back-stabbing little bureaucrat who thought nothing of bending the rules to support his own shortsighted agenda. He paid extremely well and asked no questions, and the real Michael Dowd had always appreciated a little tax-free income. But he was glad he was out of the line of fire in this one.

The girl was going to be right sorry she'd ever come across Ross Cardiff. And she was going to regret even more the time she'd spent with the man who'd appropriated Michael Dowd's name.

Still and all, it wasn't his problem. And if an American tourist was found floating in the Thames in the next few days, he would skip over that bit in the newspaper and concentrate on the tits and bum in the centerfold.

Still and all, it was a hell of a life.



Of all his recent persona, the man sometimes known as Cougar thought, Charlie Bisselthwaite was one of the most annoying. He'd been somewhat envious of the Michael Dowd he'd created, with his basic decency, his solid background, his hopes for the future. Charlie Bisselthwaite was nothing more than an irritating fop.

He squinted up into the bright sunlight. He'd been on Malta for more than a week now, cultural attaché to Sir Henry Putnam, the blustery ambassador, a nothing kind of job that required no more than a decent social grace and appearances at various cocktail parties. Occasionally he might have to squire around someone's angular spinster daughter, but the rest of the time was his, as long as he was discreet about it.

The problem with discretion, of course, was that it was hard for information to find you. In the week he'd been in place he'd put out tentative feelers, showing up in out-of-the-way places, asking casual questions, and so far he'd come up with nothing. Far less than had been apparent during his cursory stop on Gibraltar.

Which had only convinced him further. The Cadre wouldn't leave an obvious trail. Ross was going to have his own troop of goons tromping all over Gibraltar, looking for terrorists, and they would most likely come up with nothing more dangerous than a few Barbary apes.