“Maybe not. Do you want to take a chance on it?” He didn’t say anything, and she leaned back in the seat, stretching her long legs out in front of her. “I didn’t think so. Take a nap, Mack. We’re going to make it.”
But it was she who slept the rest of the night, waking only when they landed in Zurich. It was a warm, sunny day, and Mack’s despised Holiday Inn looked massive, comfortable, and very Swiss. They were settled into their large, spotless suite by eleven, with nothing to do but pace and wait.
Maggie ordered a huge breakfast for both of them, and neither of them could eat more than a few bites of fruit. Of course Mack turned on the television, only to turn it off when he discovered they got only two channels, and both of them were in German.
“German soap operas are almost better than this,” Maggie said, dropping down on the huge bed.
“Better than what?” he said, pacing.
“Better than waiting. Better than staring out the window at Zurich, better than wearing a path in the carpet. How long are we supposed to wait here?”
“Until Van Zandt shows up, I suppose,” he said, moving back to the window.
“And what if he shows up before our contact does?”
“Then we’ll have no weapons,” he said, turning back from the window, “and we’ll be sitting ducks.”
“Cheerful thought,” Maggie said, watching as Mack headed back to the window again. That suit was definitely an asset to a body she had come to accept as impossibly sexy anyway. She patted the too hard mattress. “Wanna take a nap?”
He stopped his pacing, turning to stare at her, and slowly his brooding eyes lightened, and his grim mouth curved in a smile. “Now there’s an idea. But I don’t know if I’m sleepy.”
She matched his grin. “Maybe we could get a little exercise? Just enough to tire us out a bit.” She reached up and began unfastening the buttons of her jumpsuit.
His smile broadened to a lascivious grin. “Maybe I’m glad you came after all,” he said, shrugging out of his jacket. “If we’re going to die, we may as well die happy.” He was advancing to the bed when a loud knocking reverberated through their soundproof door.
“Damn,” Mack said, jumping a mile. His eyes met Maggie’s suddenly alert ones. “Do you think it’s Van Zandt?”
Maggie was already off the bed, her nerves strung as tightly as piano wire. “There’s only one way to find out,” she said, advancing on the door just as the pounding began again.
“Who is it?” she called out in German.
“Room service.” The reply was in flat, Midwestern American, and the two of them exchanged glances. It didn’t sound like Van Zandt, but then the voice was muffled through the door.
“We didn’t order anything from room service,” she said in English.
There was a pause. “Let’s just say I’m a friend of Hamilton’s, and no, I’m not wearing a rose in my lapel,” the voice replied.
Mack shrugged at Maggie’s inquiring glance. “Let him in. What have we got to lose?”
“Our lives,” she muttered. She unfastened one lock, then the second, and pulled open the door. And then almost slammed it shut again. “Oh, God, no!” she groaned.
Bud Willis sauntered into the room, his skeletal grin firmly in place. “Your friendly CIA contact, making house calls,” he announced himself. “Howya doing?”
twenty
“I guess it’s only the good who die young,” Maggie said, shutting the door behind him.
“You got it,” Willis said. “Surprised the hell out of me when I heard you guys made it out of Chicaste in one piece. I thought for sure those greasers would have gotten you.”
Mack’s smile resembled a snarl. “We made it. Last time I saw you, you were running from a hail of bullets.”
Willis shrugged. “What can I say? I run fast.”
“Or they didn’t want to hit you,” Maggie added. “What did you do, Willis, sell them out too? And how come you’re working for the CIA? I thought you were kicked out years ago.”
“Maggie, Maggie, you should know that things are never as they seem with the Company,” Willis chided her. “And not that it’s any of your fucking business, but I don’t sell people out. I follow orders.”
“With the CIA that’s the same thing,” she said. “So what did you bring us?”