Solo

to find her now. She’d check into her room and start making anxious phone calls, warning everyone. The ants’ nest would be in swarming disarray.

·5·
     

SUITE 5K
     
    Bond spent the rest of the afternoon in his Alcazar office watching the comings and goings on Milford Plaza. None of the usual suspects appeared but he wasn’t too concerned. As it grew dark he went back to the Fairview, put a pillow and a bottle of bourbon in his suitcase and went out to his car. He drove the Mustang out west across the Potomac to the Blackstone Park Motor Lodge, found a space for his car and went into reception with his suitcase. He had deliberately not checked out of the Fairview – sometimes having rooms in two hotels in a city was better than one.
    He was given a large double room in the main block. The Blackstone Park wasn’t cheap and nasty, just overused. The sheets on the bed were crisp cotton but the carpet was threadbare and the paintwork was chipped and scarred. The air conditioner worked but hummed a little too loudly. The lavatory was protected by a sheet of cellophane and the tooth-glass had a little cardboard cap on it, but the shaving mirror was cracked and the shower tray’s enamel had been scoured through. Anonymous, large, functional – perfect to hide yourself in.
    Bond went down to reception and slipped the bellhop on duty $10.
    ‘Keep this between ourselves,’ Bond said, ‘but I think my wife’s checked into this motel under a false name.’
    ‘You mean . . . ?’
    ‘Got it in one,’ Bond said, putting on an embittered face. ‘Yeah – she doesn’t know I know.’
    The bellhop’s name, according to the plastic badge above his breast pocket, was Delmont. His acne had almost gone but had left his skin dimpled like a golf ball. The wispy moustache he was trying to grow was no asset either, but he bought into the male sodality that Bond offered and they talked briefly of the perfidy of beautiful women like two men of the world.
    ‘She’s coloured,’ Bond said, ‘but pale-skinned, you know. Very sexy with a kind of Afro hairstyle.’
    ‘We got two hundred rooms here, sir,’ Delmont said. ‘But I’ll ask around. A babe like that will have been noticed by my colleagues, know what I mean?’
    ‘I just need her room number,’ Bond said. ‘I’ll give you five bucks for it – leave the rest to me,’ Bond smiled. ‘I’m Mr Fitzjohn, room 325.’
    Bond went back to room 325 and poured himself two fingers of bourbon from his bottle and switched on the television while he waited for Delmont. He watched a game of baseball uncomprehendingly – the Senators versus the Royals – thinking that it made cricket seem exciting. Delmont’s knock on the door came ten minutes later.
    ‘She’s in suite 5K in the new annexe in back by the parking lot,’ Delmont said, folding away Bond’s $5 into a small pocket in his jacket. ‘She paid for two weeks in advance – so it don’t look like she’s planning on coming home soon.’ Delmont commiserated and said if there was anything else he could do then Mr Fitzjohn shouldn’t hesitate. Call the front desk and ask for Delmont.
    ‘A thousand thanks,’ Bond said, and he meant it. Life was becoming more intriguing by the hour.
     
    Bond was up at dawn and drove into DC, stopping at a diner for scrambled eggs and bacon and the hot brown liquid that passed for coffee in this country. He took up his position armed with his binoculars and watched the office workers arrive for the daily round.
    Just after nine o’clock, Kobus Breed stepped out of a Chevrolet Impala and strode across the plaza to 1075. Ten minutes later Denga’s car arrived and there – Bond swivelled the binoculars – there was Blessing herself, walking fast, her head turning constantly, checking to see if she was being followed. Bond smiled. A council of war? The day was young.
    An hour went by, then two. Bond dashed to the restrooms at the end of the corridor, cursing the diuretic potency of American coffee, and raced back, hoping he hadn’t missed anything or anyone. When he saw Kobus Breed appear twenty minutes later, he relaxed. Kobus was swiftly followed by Blessing.
    Bond picked up his rifle and adjusted the zoom on the sniper-scope. There they were – faces close in animated conversation. Bond settled the cross hairs of the sight on Kobus’s forehead, watching him dab at his weeping eye with a handkerchief. Then his car arrived and he left. Bond moved the sight to