covered for you at the Club. That’s what partners are for. And we are partners, unless you want to dissolve the arrangement, a move I would not strenuously object to.”
Sandberger realized that once again he’d gone too far, but the Foster contract had been a constant drain on his nerves from the start nearly two years ago. If he had known then what he knew now, he would have turned it down, no matter how fabulous the money was. But now he and Remington were in it up to their necks, and they would have to see the business through until Foster reached his ultimate goal—something that gave Sandberger nightmares.
“Sorry, Gordon, it’s the pressure,” he said.
“I understand,” Remington said reasonably. “By this time tomorrow the issue will be resolved.”
One way or the other, Sandberger thought but didn’t say. “I’ll call you.”
“Do,” Remington said and he rang off.
Leaving Sandberger to pour a stiff brandy and stare out the window at the river and try to quell his rising concern that this business with McGarvey and the Friday Club was a very long way from any sort of acceptable resolution.
A couple of minutes before midnight, as Sandberger was getting set to go up to the poker game in Jerry London’s suite, Captain Kabbani called on the house phone.
“I’m in the lobby. We need to talk.”
“Is there trouble?” Sandberger asked, a tightness gripping his chest.
“It’s better if you come downstairs.”
“I’m on my way,” Sandberger said. He went to the bureau in the bedroom, and got his SIG-Sauer P226 pistol and shoulder holster. If they were going to talk it would not be in the one of the hotel’s public spaces, nor was he having the captain up here. It meant the streets, and for this business he would go without his bodyguards, as he had when he initially met the cop.
Kabbani, dressed in robes instead of his khaki policeman’s uniform, was seated near the doors, and Sandberger passed him without a greeting and walked outside and headed down the street.
The cop caught up with him half a block away. “I received word a half hour ago that eight Sunni rebels working for Saddar Mukhtar were found shot to death on the north road outside Basra.”
Sandberger had almost expected the news. But eight-to-one odds were too lopsided even for McGarvey. “He must have had help.”
“Almost certainly. And it could have been a trap if there was a leak in your company. This man could have been waiting for them.”
“If there’s any leak it’s in your police barracks,” Sandberger retorted angrily. “But there wasn’t any. The people you hired were not good enough. And I warned you.”
“What about my money?” Kabbani said. “I have debts.”
“So do I.”
“This is still my country, my city. Accidents do happen.”
At this moment they were alone on the sidewalk, though there was traffic on the street.
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know exactly what I’m saying, Mr. Sandberger,” Kabbani said. “And this evening you do not have your bodyguards with you. Perhaps that was a mistake.”
Sandberger lowered his eyes and nodded. “I thought it might come to this with a bastard like you.”
“It’s the cost of doing business in Baghdad since the war and the pullout of most of the American soldiers. Not so easy for men such as yourself to call for help.”
“The cost of doing business in Baghdad,” Sandberger repeated. He glanced up as a police car, its blue lights flashing passed by without slowing.
Kabbani pulled out a pistol and pointed it at Sandberger’s chest. “I hope for your sake that you brought my money with you.”
Sandberger smiled inwardly, but he nodded, a grim set to his lips. “As a matter of fact, I thought it would come to this,” he said. “But not out here in plain sight. And put that gun down, as you say my bodyguards aren’t with me and I’m not armed.”
Kabbani concealed the pistol in a fold of his robes and motioned toward a narrow alley nearby. “In there,” he said, glancing around to make sure no one had spotted the exchange so far. But except for the traffic on the street, no one was nearby.
The narrow alley was dark, littered with garbage and the burned-out remains of an automobile chassis that had been dragged off the street a couple of weeks ago.
“Here,” Sandberger said reaching into his jacket. He pulled out his pistol and before Kabbani could react he shot the cop once at point-blank range in the forehead. The man