Chapter 24
1605 Words
Chapter 24It must have been nearly eleven o’clock the next morning when Talya went to the pool to have a relaxing swim. She was definitely a good-looking woman. I wouldn’t have minded taking her for myself.
Khalid came to sit beside her. He had been watching her all the while she was playing in the water.
“Talya, look at me.” She did.
“What is bothering you? What is it?”
“What’s going to happen to us?”
He put his arm around her shoulders.
“I am thinking of Hassan. Where is he now? I miss him, Khalid.” Talya started crying.
“Shhh, Talya, Hassan is watching us right now. What we’re going to do will be for him. He won’t be able to rest in peace until we destroy everything that made him suffer for so long. I promise you, he will let you know when he will be able to take his leave from us.”
“Does Mark know where we are?” Talya asked.
“He knows. He’ll be here this afternoon. And please let’s not go swimming on his first day with us.” Talya had to wipe the tears from her eyes and smiled. Gilford really didn’t like water.
“Let’s go, Talya. We’ll meet Pierre and John for lunch at The Dining Room.”
As they reached the suite, the phone was ringing insistently. Khalid lunged on the bed and grabbed the receiver. Talya stood by the terrace door.
“Yes? ...Good Morning. She’s fine, thank you.” I must admit I hated these one-way conversations. “Of course, yes. No, no there won’t be any problem. We’ll be there at nine. There is no need for it, Mr. Gillette. Mark Gilford will be arriving this afternoon... Yes, he is...” I could only guess, but I thought Gillette was trying to add another bodyguard or two to her protective custody. Gladly Khalid was having none of it. “All right. We’ll see you in the morning. Good day to you, sir.” At last, Khalid hung up.
I wondered what Gillette was up to. I had told him to stay put. I hadn’t managed to put a bug in the phone in their room yet.
Khalid shook his head and smiled up at her. “Come here, Talya.” He extended an arm from the bed where he was sitting. She sat beside him. “This Mr. Gillette is a little too impatient and too pushy for my liking. When Mark comes in this afternoon, we’ll get him to find out a little more about your consul. Something doesn’t sound right. He was not telling me the truth...”
“How could you tell?” Talya was curious and so was I.
“He didn’t know who Mark was, for one thing. He wanted to send another bodyguard to watch over you. Something else, which bothered me yesterday – it was late at night, but I didn’t see anyone, nor heard anyone in that house. There was only he and the two security guards.”
“What are you saying? Is he an impostor? How could that be?”
“I wouldn’t go as far as saying that he’s an impostor, because I was given the consulate’s address by a ministerial advisor who did the paperwork related to your release. I’m still leery of Mr. Gillette, nonetheless.”
I wasn’t happy. Gillette was only supposed to get Talya down to Miami and that was all. So, why was he phoning or insisting on meeting with her and Khalid? I had to find out what was going on with this guy.
“...We’ll find out soon enough. When Mark gets here, we’ll put him to work...” Khalid turned to Talya.
“What does it all mean?”
“Don’t start fretting about Mr. Gillette, Talya. We know what we have to do and we’ll play carps when we go and see him in the morning. But somehow I don’t think we’ll be seeing him again.”
The Dining Room of the Palms Hotel is a huge veranda, opening on all sides to the gardens below its terraces. Rattan chairs, adorned of blue and beige cushions, accent the long white tablecloths covering every table. It’s a place for pleasant and comfortable eating. John and Pierre were waiting for them. They had shed the pilot’s uniforms in favor of white and ecru trousers and shirts. If they weren’t so different in attitude and appearance, one would have thought them to be brothers. They always moved in unison, always talked the same language and always seemed to be on the same wavelength. No question, they were a team.
“Hello, you two, where did you get lost this morning?” John said as they stood to meet Khalid and Talya. “We scoured the ocean with binoculars in search of your bodies but none came out of the waves.”
“We took care of a small medical problem,” Khalid replied
“Talya? What did you do now?” Pierre questioned, a grin coming across his face.
“Why does it have to be me? It could have been Khalid...”
The waitress came to the table at that moment. She was a plain young lady, but her smile, revealing a perfect set of gleaming, white teeth, made up for the plainness of the rest of her face.
“Good Afternoon, my name is Maria. I’ll be your waitress.”
No kidding. Why did she have to say that? I thought. I was sitting at the next table, but my disguise – suntanned, blond hair and colored glasses – would certainly prevent any of them to recognize me.
“Would you like me to give you a little more time to look over the menu?” She spoke with a South American accent. Her olive skin and black hair were revealing her Hispanic ancestry at first sight.
“Yes, Maria. If you don’t mind coming back,” Khalid said, smiling at her.
“No problema,” Maria replied, going away.
“Now, My Lady, what would be your pleasure?”
“I don’t know, Khalid. I’ve got fish in mind...”
John chuckled.
Talya threw him an amused glance.
“All right then. Why don’t we have one of these ‘big’ shellfish grills that we could share?” Khalid suggested, looking at Pierre and John for approval.
“That sounds perfect,” Pierre said, and winking at Talya, he added, “As long as there are oysters and many of them...”
Khalid almost choked, and put his glass of water back on the table, coughing and laughing. Talya was giggling.
A few moments later, Maria came back to take the order and asked if they wanted some wine with their meal. “No thank you, just some Perrier all around,” was Khalid’s reply.
He chose that moment to bounce into the room. Gilford was back.
“Hello, everyone.” He pulled a chair to the table.
Maria rushed to his side. “Are you eating, sir?”
Mark looked up at Maria; her question had been superfluous. “Yes, I think that’s what I am intending to do. Or is this place not the one where you do such things?”
Maria was staring down at him uncomprehendingly. She obviously preferred short answers. “Do you want a menu?”
Gilford looked at each one around the table in turn, a blank look on his face. “Yes, I think that would be helpful.” He then raised his eyes to the waitress once again. “Unless you want me to eat some scraps from the kitchen”
Maria didn’t know what Mark was talking about. “Be right back.” She turned on her heels shrugging her shoulders.
Mark’s face was worth a picture. “Ms. Kartz, are you responsible for the choice of hotels?”
“No, Mark, I’m not.” Talya giggled. “I don’t know who is.”
“I am. You can blame me for this,” John said, grinning.
“Here it is, sir,” Maria said, passing the menu over Mark’s shoulder.
“I don’t need it after all, miss. I’ll have whatever everybody is having,” said Mark, handing back the piece of glossy cardboard to Maria without looking at her.
“Then I’ll add another fish to the grill, shall I?”
Mark turned around to fix his gaze on her. “You do that and if you have something like a scotch and soda in the back cupboard, please add it to the order.”
“Would that be a double?”
“Yes, please... but one fish only.” Maria didn’t reply. She turned around, shrugging her shoulders again. “What is it with this woman? She’s got an aversion to blonde hair or what?”
“Don’t worry; she didn’t understand half of what you said,” Khalid said. “She’s Hispanic and your remarks got lost in translation.”
“Now tell us, how was your trip? Eventful I suppose.” Talya asked hurriedly. She wanted to hear everything he had to tell much sooner rather than later.
“Not here, Talya. We’ll go to the gardens after lunch, and I’ll give you a full report.” She looked at the CSIS agent with disappointment.
“Mark is right, Talya. We will go to the gazebo later where we’ll be able to hear his report without anyone else listening to it.” She had to agree... “Just tell us one thing, Mark: who is Mr. Gillette?” Mark frowned. He then reclined in his chair and grabbed the armrests looking fixedly at Khalid.
“Was he a brown face, brown hair man with glasses?”
“Yes, I would say that it describes him fairly well.”
“He’s one of the consul’s advisors. His real name is Arnoldo Garcia.”
That was to be expected; Gilford would have looked into Gillette’s ‘replacement’. Yet I wondered what else he found out.
“You mean he was an impostor then?” Talya pressed on.
“No, not really. We needed to have him take the place of the consul because the man is away until the end of September. But how did you figure it out?”
“When he didn’t know who you were, I thought something was amiss,” Khalid answered.
“Yes, well, when I arrived in Ottawa this morning and they told me what happened – I mean you taking Talya into your custody – I thought the office would pull something like this.”
“But what would have happened if I hadn’t intervened?”
“They would have taken Talya to a safe house and she would have had to stay there until I got my hands on our Miami man.”
“You mean they would have kept me in a motel somewhere, for God knows how long? And why would they do that in Miami – and not in Vancouver or in Ottawa?”
“They need you here, Talya – I bet that’s what Gillette told you – or better, I need you to guide me to find enough evidence to get our Mr. Miami behind bars. My orders are not to eliminate him unless the contract he has on you is validated.”
“Mark, I think we shouldn’t go any further in this discussion. As you suggested earlier we don’t know who the company is around here.”
“I agree, Khalid. I wonder where my fish is. Or my scotch for that matter.”
“I’ll get our waitress back,” John said, rising from his seat.
- Writer
