Dazzle The Complete Unabridged Trilogy (146 page)

'You could never do that.' Dani shook his head. 'Besides,
your fans are legion. I mean, today there's a whole new gener
ation of young people out there discovering your movies. You
were the best. You still are the best.'

Tamara smiled. 'You're so terribly sweet and so terribly
loyal. But I'm not that good. I never was. Now, Daliah—she's far better than I
ever
was. With her, acting is a natural talent.
It's in her blood.'

'You're a natural too!' he said staunchly.

She shook her head slowly. 'Noooo
...
I was a technician.'

'What's the difference? You were always one hell of a fine
actress.'

'But there is
a difference, don't you see? I had to learn. I had to study, and watch people, imitating them so I could
make audiences believe I had slipped under a character's skin.
You see, Dani, I
acted.
But Daliah . . . well, I don't know
how she does it, but she
becomes
her characters, quick as you
can snap your fingers. She's got what I think Inge meant when
she always said my mother was a natural. You either have it
or you don't.'

'You have it,' he said loyally. 'Don't try to tell me other
wise.'

She was about to tell him otherwise, when the wailing sirens
of a police car and an ambulance rose in the distance. 'There,'
she said. 'You see? Help's already on the way.'

He opened the car door again and got out. 'Don't go away,'
he teased. 'I'll be right back.'

But he wasn't. She sat in the car, counting the minutes. Five.
Fifteen. Twenty. When he finally returned, he was walking
slowly, shaking his head and scratching it. 'How strange,' he
said as he slipped into the driver's seat. 'It just doesn't make
sense.'

She looked at him, puzzled. 'What doesn't?'

'Both the driver of the van and the driver of the rig . . .
well, they seem to have disappeared. Poof! Just like that.'

She frowned. 'You mean they left the scene of the accident?'

He nodded. 'And not only that. When the police radioed in
the licence numbers, it turned out that the rig and the van both
have been reported stolen.'

'A tractor-trailer like that? Stolen here, in Israel?' she
asked. 'That doesn't make sense. Not in a tiny country like
this. It would be discovered in no time.' She added slowly,
'Unless, of course, it was filled with a valuable cargo. If they
wanted to unload it fast—'

'But it wasn't loaded. It was stolen empty, and it's still
empty. The same goes for the van.'

'Well, maybe the thieves didn't know that.'

'Could be,' he said. 'But I doubt it. Something just doesn't
sit right about this accident. It's almost as if . . .' His voice
trailed off.

'As if what?'

'As if it had been planned.' He shrugged. 'It sounds silly, I
know.' He glanced at his watch. 'Anyway, we'd best hurry. If the plane came in on time, it's already been on the ground for
five minutes.'

When they reached the airport, Tamara and Dani split up.
She checked out the VIP lounge, the various waiting areas,
bars, restaurant, and ladies' rooms while he went to inquire
about Daliah in the customs hall.

Avraham Goshen, the inspector in charge of the customs
officials, was an ugly beak-nosed man with a shiny bald pate and a ring of short black hair curving around his head from
the back of one ear to the other. Beside him stood Micha
Horev, who was everything his superior was not. Horev was
a youthful sabra, all vibrant tan and flashing white teeth. They
were both facing Dani. Behind them, Daliah's Vuitton cases
were going round and round, solitary orphans on the otherwise
empty luggage carousel. 'Of course I recognized her,' Horev
was saying. 'She came through about twenty minutes ago. One
of our VIP representatives whisked her through.'

'Which representative?' Goshen, a solidly competent
inspector who had worked at the airport for the last fifteen
years, asked.

'I don't know,' Horev replied.

'You don't
know?
'
Goshen thundered. 'You've worked
here for four years, and you don't know? Surely you know
everyone.'

'He was new. I'd never seen him before today.'

Goshen was frowning as he marched off to the nearest wall telephone and punched out a number. After a few minutes he
returned, shaking his head slowly. 'No new VIP representative
was on duty,' he said softly. 'Elie Levin was scheduled to meet
her at the plane.'

'It wasn't Elie,' Horev said definitely.

Avraham Goshen was no man's fool. His beak nose was
famous for sniffing out trouble, often long before it happened.
It had never failed him yet, and he smelled trouble through
those massive nostrils now. 'Call airport security,' he said
without a pause. 'Get them over here right away. On the
double.'
Horev, his tan gone suddenly white, sprang into action.

Tamara pushed her way through the crowds with such furious
impatience that people snapped at her left and right, but she
was oblivious of all the snarls of 'Watch it, lady,' and 'Can't
you look where you're going!' She was too tense to notice
anything but her own growing fears. Her body felt weak, as though an invisible leech had depleted her of all energy, and yet her pulse was racing and her heart was hammering
ferociously. When she met up with Dani in the customs hall,
they both looked at each other hopefully, and when both their
eyes dimmed, neither had to speak in order to communicate.

Blindly Tamara felt for the contoured plastic chair behind
her and lowered herself listlessly down onto it. Her shoulders
slumped and her face was strained. 'She . . . she's just not
here!' Her voice came out a quivering, hoarse whisper. She
stared up at him, her eyes wild, and he knew that the memory
of Asa had exploded into her mind. 'Dani, she's not here! I've
searched everywhere!'

'Don't worry. She might have gone home on her own.'

'Don't be silly! Her luggage is still here. Daliah wouldn't
just abandon it! And I
...
I called home twice. Ari answered
both times, and she hasn't arrived there.'

They had her paged while teams of airport security men
methodically searched the terminal from one end to the other.

Tamara's head was spinning.
Daliah has to be all right. She
has to be.
As they waited, she kept her hand glued to Dani's,
seeking his comfort and reassurance, knowing that his pres
ence was the only thing between her and instant madness.

Finally Inspector Goshen sent for Dani.

'You stay here,' he told Tamara.

She jumped to her feet. 'No! I'm going with you.'

'You will do as I say!' he said with such cold firmness that she stared at him in surprise. 'Sit back down!' Then, his face
sombre, he followed the inspector's messenger and strode off.

He was back almost immediately. As soon as he came in, Tamara jumped to her feet and grabbed him by the arm.
'Dani, what
is
it?' she asked, seeing his bewildered expression.
'Is she ... is she . . .?'

He shook his head. 'No, it's . . . it's one of the airline
employees. He's been killed.'

'Oh, Dani! How awful!' But he saw the relief in her eyes, just as it had been in his, and he hated seeing it there at the
expense of someone else's misery.

He let out a brittle sigh, and for the first time he looked
every year of his age. 'He's an El Al VIP representative,'
he told her, 'Elie Levin, the one scheduled to meet Daliah's
plane.'

She shivered as though ice ran through her veins. 'Dani?'
she said slowly in rising hysteria. 'First the accident with that
tractor-trailer, as though it had been set up deliberately to
delay us, then Daliah's disappearance, and now
this.'
She stared at him, her eyes huge. 'Dani? What the hell is going
on?'

* * *

Daliah was filled with a thousand terrors, too much in a state of shock to be more than numbly aware that they were still at
the airport, driving in inconspicuous leisure around to the
cargo terminals at the far end. She felt engulfed by a height
ened sense of unreality, and two hitherto foreign emotions
held her in their ugly grip. She felt dominated. Totally domi
nated and exceedingly demoralized. She didn't have to look
down to see if the revolver barrels were still aimed at her sides;
she could feel them digging through her clothes, pressing into
her flesh. She was terrified that the sudden jolt of a pothole,
or an abrupt stop, or even her own acute trembling would
accidentally cause one of the men to squeeze the trigger. She
didn't dare try to escape, at least not while the guns were pressing into her sides. These men seemed to have no com
punctions. They were inhuman, and would kill her on the spot
and think nothing of it.

The car passed some chain-link gates and then slowed as it
headed into the gaping maw of a dark, deserted hangar. It was
like going from day into night. For a moment she could not
see, and the terror was overwhelming. When the car came to
a stop, the driver clicked on the overhead light. Even then she
felt no relief.

The driver turned around, and when she saw what was in
his hand, she sucked in her breath. It was a hypodermic syr
inge, and his thumb depressed the plunger, releasing a thin
arc of clear liquid.

Eyes wide, she tried to squirm further back in her seat, but
it was futile. There was no getting away from it. Not with
guns pressing into her flesh. Abruptly the driver reached out,
grabbed one of her arms, and yanked it forward.