Vortex

just have to take. Not that he believed there was much chance it would happen. Muller was too professional to bring a field agent to his hotel room without first making sure that the man hadn’t been followed. No, the odds were that the South African would leave his room to make the initial rendezvous returning only when he was certain it was safe. But Ian was betting that Muller’s main business with his mole would be transacted inside the hotel room itself. The casinos were too noisy and too public.

And the landscaped grounds outside were too quiet and too open for a clandestine meeting.

The sound of the door next to theirs opening and shutting brought them all to their feet. Muller was on his way. Ian moved to the phone and stood waiting, annoyed to find that his palms were damp. Seconds passed one by one, turning into minutes with agonizing slowness. Come on.

The phone rang. He grabbed it in mid ring

“Yes.”

“He’s outside. Walking toward the Entertainment Centre.” Emily sounded breathless-frightened and excited all at the same time.

“Great. You know what to do if you see him coming back?”

“Yes.” Emily’s voice fell to a low, husky whisper.

“Be careful. Please be very careful.”

Ian swallowed past a throat grown suddenly tight.

“We will, believe me.

And stay out of sight yourself… got it?”

He waited until he heard her murmured acknowledgment and then hung up.

Knowles and Siberia were already lined up by the door. Ian edged past them and opened it just a crack-just far enough to glance down the long, carpeted hallway in either direction. It was empty.

Four quick strides put him opposite the door to Room 335, with Siberia tagging along right behind. Suitcase in hand, Knowles followed more slowly, pausing to pull their own door shut.

Ian knocked once and listened carefully, hearing his own heartbeat pounding in his ears. Nothing from inside the room. He stepped back and let Sibena past. The young black man slipped a thick plastic card through the narrow gap between the door and the doodamb and worked it back and forth trying to force the lock. As he worked, his lips moved silently, either in prayer or in stifled curses.

Ian checked the corridor again, mentally willing Sibena to get the damned door open before somebody saw them. He wasn’t sure what the penalties were in Bophuthatswana for breaking and entering, and he didn’t want to find out the hard way.

Click. The sudden noise seemed horribly loud over the soft, hushed hum of the hotel’s air-conditioning. Siberia stuck the plastic card back in his pocket with a trembling hand and pushed in on the door, It moved, and they were in. Thank God.

Ian led the way into a room identical to their own. A large bed, writing table, lamps, a chest of drawers, television, telephone, and a private bath. All the comforts of modern civilization. Muller had closed his drapes, shutting out the view of the lake and landscaped grounds.

Naturally. The paranoid bastard was probably afraid that he might be seen and recognized.

Knowles moved immediately to the wall shared by their adjoining room. He stopped near the drape-cloaked window and started tapping along the wall, listening intently for the hollow sounds of an area free of supporting beams. Satisfied, he swung round and started panning around the room with his arms outstretched and hands held apart-mimicking the field of view available to a video camera.

“This’ll do.”

Ian handed him a small portable power drill from the suitcase.

Knowles thumbed the drill onto its highest setting and pressed the whining, spinning drill bit firmly against the wall. Fiberboard particles, sawdust, and fragments of insulation puffed out into the air and settled slowly onto the thick carpet. In seconds, the drill bored a tiny hole through the wall between their two rooms. A hole scarcely large enough to be seen, but just large enough to take a thin, flexible light tube hooked up to a VCR.

Ian glanced down at his watch. They’d been in the room for three minutes.

It hardly seemed possible. It felt more like three years.

Knowles backed the power drill out of the hole and moved along the wall, tapping again, this time closer to the door.

Ian raised an eyebrow.

“We need another lead into here?”

His cameraman nodded, still tapping away.

“Uh-huh. One thing you can always count on: if you’ve only got one camera angle, some dumb bastard’s sure to be facing the wrong damned way. Ah. There we go. ” He pulled his ear away and thumbed the drill on for a second time.

“This’ll give us coverage over the whole room. No blind spots except for the h .”

More shredded fiberboard and sawdust drifted onto the carpet. Ian tried to calm his nerves by concentrating on catching every bit of the debris with a small portable vacuum cleaner.

Five and a half minutes down. Sibena stood fidgeting near the bathroom, afraid to move and too nervous to stand completely still.