"You must never assume that it is one of us until we are identified!" cried the guard on the floor, embarrassed by the appearance of De Vries, and briefly removing his hands from the assaulted area, but only briefly.
"For God's sake, come in, all of you," said Karin.
"The very least you can do, Monsieur Latham, is to offer our friends a drink."
"Sure," agreed Drew, helping his presumed assailant to his feet as two hotel guests -appeared, coming out of a room up the hallway. Seeing them, Latham added clearly enough to be heard, "Poor fellow! It must have been his last two drinks."
Inside the room, the door closed, the wounded agent collapsed on the couch.
"You are trs rapide, Monsieur Lat'am," he said, his voice returning, "and very, very strong."
"If we were on the ice, you would have been dog meat," said Drew, breathless, falling into the couch beside his victim.
"Ice .. . ?"
"It's difficult to translate," explained Karin quickly by the dry bar.
"What he means is, do you care for ice in your whisky?"
"Clui, merci. But more whisky than the ice, s'il vous plait.))
"Naturellement.
Ambassador Daniel Courtland, as ordered by the government of France, was escorted off the Concorde from'a ramp in the forward section before the aircraft reached its gate. The idling jet engines were deafening as Courtland, flanked by a marine guard detail, was taken to the waiting American Embassy limousine on the tarmac.
He steeled himself for the ensuing minutes, understanding that they would be the most difficult of his life. To be embraced by the consummate enemy, an enemy trained since childhood to deceive someone like himself, was almost worse than losing the woman he loved.
The limousine door was opened for him and he fell into the arms of his adoring, consummate enemy.
"It was only three days, but I missed you so!" cried Janine Clunitz Courtland.
"And I you, dear. I'll make it up to you, to both of us."
"You must, you must! The fact that you were thousands of miles away from me made me ill, positively ill!"
"It's over with, Janine, but you must get used to Washington's demands. I have to go where I am needed." They kissed violently, viciously, and Courtland could taste the po son in her mouth. "Then you must take me with you-I love you so!"
"We'll work it out.. .. Now, please, my dear, we can't embarrass the two marines in front, can we?"
"I can. I could rip your trousers off and do wonderful things for you."
"Later, dear, later. Remember, I am the ambassador to France."
"And I'm one of the leading authorities in computer science, and I say the hell with them both!" Dr. Janine Courtland grabbed her husband's unaroused crotch.
The limousine raced down the avenue Gabriel to the embassy's front entrance; it was the quickest route to the elevators that would take them up to their living quarters. The huge vehicle came to a stop as two additional marine guards came out to assist the ambassador and his wife.
Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, three nondescript cars without license plates roared to the curb, surrounding the limousine as Courtland and his wife walked out onto the pavement. Doors opened and figures in black stocking masks leapt out, their automatic weapons on rapid fire, spraying deadly bullets everywhere. Almost simultaneously, additional gunfire erupted from two automobiles that had obviously been following the embassy car. The crowds in the Gabriel raced for cover. Four masked terrorists fell; one marine collapsed, grabbing his stomach;
Ambassador Courtland plunged across the pavement, one hand reaching for his right leg, the other for his shoulder. And Janine Clunitz, Sormenkind, was dead, her skull shattered, her chest spewing blood. A number of the masked killers-who knew how many?-raced away, soon to discard their head coverings and 'join the evening strollers of Paris.
"Merde, merde, merde!" roared Claude Moreau, emerging from around one of the Deuxi&me vehicles that had been protecting the Americans.
"We did everything and we did nothing! .. . Take all the bodies inside and say nothing to anyone. I am disgraced and I should be! .. See to the ambassador, he's alive. Quickly!"
Among the Americans rushing out of the embassy to lend assistance was Stanley Witkowski. He ran up to Moreau, grabbed him by the shoulders as the police sirens grew louder, and shouted, "Listen to me, Frenchie! You're going to do and say exactly what I tell you, or I'm declaring war on you and the CIA! Is that clear?"