held up the radio between himself and the much taller, muscular code Grey. The first words from Room 202 were obscured; then the Mossad agent spoke.
'Shaikh Strickland?'
'Who's this?' The Englishman's cautious whisper was now distinct; Ben-Ami had adjusted the radio.
'I'm downstairs... Anah henah littee gahrah - '
'Bloody damn black fool!' cried MacDonald. 'I don't speak that gibberish! Why are you calling from the lobby?'
'I was testing you, Mr. Strickland,' Ben-Ami broke in quickly. 'A man under stress often gives himself away. You might have asked me where my business trip was taking me, perhaps leading to a subsequent code. Then I would have known you were not the man - '
'Yes, yes, I understand! Thank Christ you're here! It's taken you long enough. I expected you a half-hour ago. You were to say something to me. Say it!'
'Not over the telephone,' answered the Mossad infiltrator firmly. 'Never over the telephone, you should know that.'
'If you think I'm just going to let you into my room - '
'I wouldn't if I were you,' interrupted Ben-Ami once again. 'We know you're armed.'
'You do?'
'Every weapon sold under a counter is known to us.'
'Yes... yes, of course.'
'Open your door with the latch on. If my words are incorrect, kill me.'
'Yes... very well. I'm sure it won't be necessary. But understand me, whoever you are, one misplaced syllable and you're a corpse!'
' I shall practise my English, Shaikh Strickland.'
A tiny green light suddenly began blinking on the small radio in Weingrass's hand. 'What the hell is that?' asked Manny.
'Direct transmission,' replied code Grey. 'Give it to me.' The Masada commando took the instrument and pressed a button. 'Go ahead.'
'He's alone!' said Ben-Ami's voice. 'We have to move quickly, take him now!'
'We don't make any moves, you Mossad imbecile!' countered Weingrass, grabbing the radio. 'Even those mutants from the State Department's Consular Operations can hear what they've just been told, but not the holy Mossad! They hear only their own voices, and maybe Abraham's if he's got a code ring out of a box of corn flakes!'
'Manny, I don't need this,' said Ben-Ami slowly, painfully over the radio.
'You need ears, that's what you need, ganza macher! That daffodil expects a contact from the Mahdi any minute - someone who's not to call from the lobby but who's to go directly to his room. He's got the words to get MacDonald to open the door, that's when we join the party and take them both! What did you have in mind? Breaking the door down courtesy of the Neanderthal here beside me?'
'Well, yes - '
'I don't need this, either,' muttered Grey quietly.
'No wonder you idiots blew it in Washington. You thought Password was a Mossad drop and not a television show!'
'Manny!'
'Get your secret ass up to the second floor! We'll be there in two minutes, right, Tinker Bell?'
'Mr. Weingrass,' said code Grey, the muscles of his lean, muscular jaw working furiously as he snapped off the radio. 'You are probably the most irritatingly vexatious man I have ever met.'
'Oy, such words! In the Bronx you would have been beaten up for that - if ten or twelve of my Irish or Italian buddies could have handled you. Come on!' Manny started across Government Road, followed by Grey, who kept shaking his head, not in disagreement but only to purge the thoughts he was thinking.
The hotel corridor was long, the carpet worn. It was the dinner hour and most of the guests were out. Weingrass stood at one end; he had tried to smoke a Gauloise but had crushed it out, burning a hole in the carpet, as it had started a devastating rumble in his chest. Ben-Ami was by the farthest elevator, the ever-present, irritated hotel guest waiting for a conveyance that never came. Code Grey was nearest to Room 202, leaning casually against the wall next to a door fifteen feet diagonally across the hall from 'Mr. Strickland's'. He was a professional; he assumed the posture of a young man eagerly awaiting a woman he was perhaps not meant to meet, even to the point of seeming to talk through the door.
It happened, and Weingrass was impressed. The uniformed doorman from the Tylos's marqueed entrance suddenly walked out of an elevator, his gold-braided cap in his hand; he approached Room 202. He stopped, knocked, waited for the chained door to be partially opened and spoke. The chain was unlatched. Suddenly, with the aggressive speed and purpose of an Olympic athlete, code Grey spun away from the