The Key to Midnight

up.'
        'We're not in the hotel. Still at the museum. I think we should have a nice long chat by phone before we get together.'
        'That's not possible. The situation is too urgent. I don't know how much time I have.'
        'We need to know a few things. Like what happened in Jamaica. And why Lisa became Joanna.'
        'It's too important to discuss on the phone,' Chelgrin said. 'Much more important than you can have guessed.'
        Alex hesitated, glanced at Joanna. 'All right. Let's meet just inside the entrance to the National Gallery in half an hour.'
        'No. That's impossible,' Chelgrin said. 'It has to be here in my room at the Churchill.'
        'I don't like that. Too risky for us.'
        'I'm not here to harm you. I want to help.'
        'I'd prefer to meet on neutral ground.'
        'I don't dare go out,' Chelgrin said, and the uncharacteristic tension in his voice wound tighter. 'I've taken every precaution to conceal this trip. My office is telling everyone that I've gone home to Illinois. I didn't fly out of Washington because I could be traced too easily.' He spoke faster, running the words together. 'Drove to New York, flew from there to Toronto in a chartered jet, then in another charter to Montreal, and in a third from Montreal to London. I'm wiped out. Exhausted. I'm staying at the Churchill because it's not my usual hotel. I usually stay at Claridge's. But if they discover I've come to London, they'll know I've changed sides, and they'll kill me.'
        'Who is they?'
        Chelgrin hesitated. Then: 'The Russians.'
        'You need a better story, Senator. The Cold War's over.'
        'Nothing's ever over. Listen, Hunter, all I want is a chance to make up for what I've done, for the past. I want to help you and my daughter… that is… if she'll allow me to call her my daughter, after what I've done. Together we can expose this whole dirty thing. But you've got to come to me, I can't risk showing my face. And you've got to make damned sure you aren't being followed.'
        Alex thought about it.
        'Hunter? Are you still there? My room number's four sixteen. Hunter?'
        'Yeah.'
        'You have to come.'
        'We don't have to do anything.'
        The senator was silent for a while. Then he sighed. 'All right. Trust your instincts. I don't blame you.'
        'We'll come,' Alex said.

----

    49
        
        They took a taxi to Harrods. Even that early in the day, the huge, world-famous store was aswarm with shoppers.
        Harrods' Telex address had long been 'Everything, London.' In two hundred departments, the legendary store carried everything from specialty food to sporting goods, chewing gum to Chinese art, from rare books to rubber boots, faddish clothes to fine antiques, nail polish to expensive oriental rugs - a million and one delights.
        Alex and Joanna ignored all the exotic merchandise as well as most of the mundane stuff. They purchased only two sturdy umbrellas and a set of plain but well-made steel cutlery.
        In the privacy of a stall in the ladies' room, Joanna unwrapped the package of cutlery. She examined each piece and chose a wickedly sharp butcher's knife that she concealed in her coat pocket. She left the other knives behind when she departed.
        Now both she and Alex were armed. Carrying concealed weapons was a more serious offence in London than it would have been almost anywhere else in the world, but they weren't concerned about spending time in jail. Walking unarmed into Tom Chelgrin's hotel room would have been by far the most dangerous course they could have taken.
        Outside Harrods they hailed another cab and followed a winding, random course through rain-slicked streets, until Alex was certain that they were not being followed. They got out of the cab three blocks from the Churchill.
        Using the umbrellas to hide their faces as much as to shield them from the rain, they approached the hotel from its least public aspect. Rather than barge through the front entrance and across the Regency-style lobby, where they were most likely to be spotted by a lookout, they used an unlocked rear door meant for hotel deliveries, and they quickly found a service stairwell.
        'Better leave your bumbershoot here,' Alex said. 'We'll want our hands free when we get there.'
        She stood her umbrella beside his, in the corner at the bottom of the