Lace II (46 page)

September 5, 1979

“I
CAN’T SEE
anyone.” Using a pair of police binoculars, Mark scanned the windows, one by one. Judy followed his line of vision. “Look to your left.”

“My God! Yes! That does look like Tony.”

With the binoculars, there could be no doubt. Colonel Aziz snatched up his own pair, then turned and issued a stream of commands into his hand-held radio.

*   *   *

Unaware that he had been seen, Tony spied on the small group in the tree-dotted park below. Aware that his attention had been distracted, Lili leaned over, and with her sharp little teeth, tugged at the ropes around Pagan’s wrists. The thin nylon cord was harsh and slippery, but once Lili had succeeded in getting a grip on it, she pulled with all her strength, and the slippery knot unraveled with surprising ease. Pagan kept an anxious eye on the bulky back of her captor, who was trying to peer out of the window without being seen. With quiet, stealthy movements, Pagan freed her hands; then, with cramped and shaking fingers, she picked at the ropes around her feet, all the time aware that Tony might turn around at any moment.

Quickly, Pagan wriggled down the bed and untied the knot that bound Lili’s feet, but she could do nothing about Lili’s handcuffs. Holding her breath, Pagan slid soundlessly off the bed. Barefoot, she tiptoed to the iron-studded door and gently touched the rusty bolt. Carefully, she drew back the ancient catch, but a faint scrape of metal alerted her captor.

Tony whipped round, shouted, and bounded across the room, forgetting the central low brass tray-table, which tripped him. As he crashed to the floor, Pagan slammed back the bolt, and fled from the room before he could reach her.

Outside the door was the square courtyard, overlooked by high barred windows, where, unknown to the captives, Mark and Judy had so recently searched for them. Wildly, Pagan ran across the courtyard, hesitated, then bolted at top speed under the nearest arch. She found herself running along a dark corridor, with a massive green-tiled fireplace at the end of it. Ahead and to her left, a narrow spiral staircase of stone wound upward.

She heard the sounds of Tony thumping across the courtyard in pursuit as she started to scramble up the spiral staircase.

Tony sprinted along the dim corridor, then he stopped, uncertain of the direction that Pagan had taken. He ran to the fireplace that blocked the end of the corridor and looked up the chimney; he saw a magpie nest and the soot of centuries, but no Pagan. Then, from behind him to his left, he heard her scrambling up the spiral stone staircase.

Tony spun around, dashed back, then leaped in pursuit up the narrow stone steps. As he charged upward, he nearly tripped over his Uzi machine gun. Cursing, he propped it carefully in an alcove, then once more bounded upward.

The staircase gave on to the leaded roof of the Palace. As Pagan scrambled out of the opening at the top of the staircase, she found herself in a shimmering hot landscape of ten-foot-diameter domes, and small towers with catwalks between them. As she heard Tony’s angry shout, the panic-stricken Pagan tore along a catwalk between two rows of
gold-spiked domes until, breathless and sobbing, she reached a parapet, beyond which was a sheer drop.

In desperation, Pagan jumped onto the parapet and ran along the narrow wall. At the corner, she stopped and turned. Tony was nowhere to be seen. Pagan realized that she was an easy target and made a split-second decision to hide in the deep shadow behind one of the red towers. Quickly, she fled to the nearest small tower and dashed behind it—straight into the arms of Tony.

Triumphantly, Tony grabbed her, but Pagan ducked and managed to evade his grip. Terrified, she jumped back onto the parapet and ran from Tony along the narrow edge. Tony’s long athletic strides quickly lessened the distance between them, which grew shorter and shorter until Pagan could hear his rasping breath behind her. Sensing that he could almost touch her, Pagan panicked, screamed, and almost lost her balance on the parapet.

Suddenly, down below, among the trees, Mark heard the scream, looked up, caught sight of the chase along the parapet, and started to run forward.

Again, Pagan screamed in terror, her arms flailing wildly as she tried to regain her balance. Somehow she succeeded and took a breathless step backward to safety, but the enraged Tony was right behind her and, with one hand, he shoved her forward, off the roof and into the sheer drop below the parapet.

Screaming, Pagan managed to spin round and clutch at Tony, her weight pulling him toward the vertical drop. For a moment, they swayed together on the parapet, and it looked as if both of the figures, silhouetted against the blazing late afternoon sky, were going to plummet to the ground.

Then Tony managed to shake himself free of Pagan and violently shoved her forward. Screaming, she fell over the parapet and plunged toward the earth below.

Transfixed with horror, Judy watched Tony recover his balance, scramble off the parapet, and disappear from sight.

Down below, among the dusty foliage, police paramedics ran toward the copse of small trees where Pagan had fallen. A whistle blew and orders were barked. Colonel Aziz’s men immediately scattered around the Harem area of the Palace and, as Judy watched, police marksmen appeared on the
domed roof and took up their positions behind the slender turrets.

Tony had again disappeared into the depths of the Harem.

*   *   *

Still handcuffed, her feet numb, Lili stumbled along yet another dark corridor. Her heart was pumping wildly and she was panting with fear but as she half-ran over the uneven stones of the passage, her fright was nothing compared to the terror she had previously felt, lying handcuffed and helpless, as again and again Tony had loaded and unloaded his machine gun, taken random aim at the wine jug, the window, or the woman tied on the bed, then pretended to squeeze the trigger.

Suddenly, Lili saw a faint glimmer of light and, hopefully, started to run toward it. Dimly, she could make out a wide stone doorway.

Thankfully, she reached it, then stopped in surprise. Beyond the doorway, brilliant sunlight shone down like spotlights from the high arched windows of a big room; the far half was covered by a low platform surrounded by a golden balustrade. The ceiling was fretted and latticed in gold and the walls were edged with elaborate scrolls of gilt leaves and ribbons. The entire, sumptuous golden room was spotted with mold, and hung with cobwebs. Tiny, even rows of claw-marks on the floor showed where birds had hopped in the thick carpet of dust.

Opposite Lili, at the far end of the gorgeous room, was another elaborate doorway. Joyfully, Lili dashed toward it, to find herself in another equally sumptuous, sunlit room with high, unreachable windows, and another elaborate doorway facing her. Each room led into another room and, as if in an eerie nightmare, Lili ran through salon after overdecorated salon, each one smothered with dusty, golden swags of fruit, and
trompe l’oeil
paintings of formal gardens that seemed to offer fresh air and freedom, but then cruelly denied it.

Finally, Lili reached the end room. It was a square, tiled chamber with no windows and no further door. The walls were covered in an ogee medallion pattern of neat blue flowers, and eight feet above the floor was a gilt frieze of inlaid Arabic script.

Frantic, Lili looked about her for a way out of this lavish,
silent, cul-de-sac. But there was no way out, she realized. Despondently, she started to stumble back along the way she had come, through all the golden rooms, following her own bare footsteps in the dust.

When she reached the last golden room, the dark corridor lay in front of her. Regretfully, she turned her back on the treacherous sunlight. In the distance, echoing and distorted through the many passages, Lili could hear Tony’s faraway voice, although at first she couldn’t hear what he was yelling. Then, faintly, she heard him cry, “I know you’re there, Lili! I’m not going to let you get away!”

Lili firmly told herself that there was no need to be frightened. All she had to do was to hide in a dark place until she heard the sound of a search party. Lili’s heart thumped with fear as she plunged again into the gloomy labyrinth before her, looking for somewhere to hide. As she halfstumbled, half-ran, along, she noticed, in an alcove, a horseshoe-shaped trap door, raised and lying at a drunken angle against the wall. Below it gaped an opening, down which led stone steps, hollowed by the passage of many feet. Lili hesitated, then she heard a door crash open near at hand, and Tony’s voice again threatened. Quickly, Lili lowered herself into the darkness, taking care to make no sound.

Once below the level of the floor, Lili’s eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness. At the bottom of the stone steps an underground passage beckoned and, in the faint light, Lili could see a low, half-open door to her left. She would hide behind that door, she decided, and pushed it.

The door was stuck. Lili leaned against it and shoved as hard as she could. As the door flew open, Lili felt a rush of unearthly, fast, frightening terror. She seemed to be surrounded by flying demons, as, with a flapping of leathery wings, she felt sharp little claws, furry talons, skinny limbs, and blinding little creatures beat against her head and body.

In the darkness, Lili screamed and screamed and screamed.

She heard Tony cursing as he crashed down the steps behind her and grabbed her by the hair.

*   *   *

“Is Pagan dead?” Judy anxiously asked Mark, as he crouched down beside her in the juniper brush.

“No, but she’s badly hurt. It looks like two broken ribs,
and a broken leg, shock, and concussion. Luckily, the trees broke her fall. They’ve taken her to the French Hospital behind the Divan Hotel. I saw her into the ambulance, then came back here to look after you. Colonel Aziz is informing the King.”

“Nothing’s happened here for the last thirty minutes,” said Judy. They were both silent for a moment, listening to the interminable police megaphone as it ordered Tony to come out with his hands up.

“The police always string out a siege as long as they can,” Mark comforted Judy. “The longer it goes on, the jumpier the kidnapper gets, and the more likely he is to make a mistake, or lose his nerve and surrender.”

A burst of machine-gun fire came from the window overhead, as Tony opened fire on the policemen below. Everyone scattered to take cover.

Mark pulled Judy behind some juniper bushes, out of the line of fire, then he snaked forward toward the shooting.

Judy jumped as she felt a hand on her shoulder. It was Gregg, who had crawled up behind her, through the juniper bushes.

“How did you get here, Gregg?”

“Came up with the
Tribune
reporter. The hotel bar emptied as soon as they heard about this siege. Is Lili still in there?”

“Yes, Pagan said he’d got her handcuffed in one of those rooms. Then Pagan passed out, so that’s all we know.” Judy nodded upward. “He’s up there, where the shots are coming from.”

There was a burst of fire from Tony’s Kalashnikov. Again, Colonel Aziz turned on his megaphone and ordered Tony to surrender. Crouching low, a junior police officer ran up to the juniper thicket and ordered the three Europeans to vacate their inadequate cover and get behind one of the armored cars, positioned below the Palace walls.

As they cowered behind the hot metal vehicle, Judy, her face sunken and pale, leaned against Mark’s chest for comfort. “Mark, what’s going to happen?”

“I don’t know.” He stroked her fine blond hair. “I’ve seen gunman behave this way before. They get carried away by the excitement of it all, and by what appears to be their power.
Then, as soon as they’ve fired the first shot, it’s too late for them to get out, so, whether they know it or not, they’re in it to the death.”

“And Lili’s up there with that lunatic?” Gregg anxiously watched the window where Tony had appeared. “Are the police inside as well?”

“Crawling all over the Harem by now, but there’s not much they can do while he has Lili as a hostage!”

On either side of them, young, eager Turkish policemen crouched with their weapons. Judy remembered Spyros Stiarkoz’s warning about trigger-happy police. She said, “Colonel Aziz won’t let us go into the building. But I’m terrified that if the police storm that room from the outside, someone will accidentally shoot Lili.”

“Judy’s right. These boy cops are longing for a shoot-out; look at their faces!” said Gregg, picking up Mark’s binoculars and scanning the Palace walls. “There are a lot of handholds on that building; it shouldn’t be difficult to climb down it, from the roof, by rope.”

“What would be the point of that?” Mark asked.

“If somebody distracted Tony, at one window, I could toss a smoke bomb in the second window and then jump in after it.”

“Smoke bomb?” queried Judy. “Where do we get a smoke bomb?”

Gregg said, “The police are sure to have some. If not, they’ll have tear gas, which will be nastier, but even more effective.”

Mark said, “I suppose you want me to steal a smoke bomb.”

“I’ll offer the guard a cigarette while you sneak into the minibus.”

*   *   *

Ten minutes later, Mark had a rope, and two smoke flares, an axe, and a distress rocket. Twenty minutes later, he and Gregg were among the breast-shaped cupolas of the Harem roof.

Leaning over the parapet, Gregg pointed with one finger as he sketched his idea to Mark. “This wall is at right angles to the wall with the windows in it. If you let me down on the rope, to the little ledge, I can shuffle along it, swing round the
corner, get my foot on the ledge again, edge along until I reach the window, toss the smoke bomb through, swing in after it, and grab Tony from the rear.”

“Why not drop down from the parapet, straight above the window?” Mark asked.

“Because my legs would appear in the window; there’d be no element of surprise. And I wouldn’t be able to maneuver into the window with the correct momentum. I’m going to have to dive into that window.”

Mark thought, the guy’s got guts. “Okay, let’s go. Tell me what you want me to do.”