The Negotiator

“Just what I said, no tricks. Just me and the diamonds.”

“Be there in that phone box at nine.”

There was a click and the line buzzed. Qui

He showered again to get rid of the telltale smell, set the clock, then lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling, quite immobile, thinking. He never slept much before combat; that was why he had caught three hours’ rest during the afternoon. He catnapped just before dawn and rose when the alarm went off at seven.

The charming receptionist was on duty when he approached the desk at half past eight. He was dressed in his heavy-rimmed eyeglasses and tweed hat, and the Burberry was buttoned to the throat. He explained he had to go to Heathrow to collect his luggage, and he would like to settle up and check out.

At quarter to nine he sauntered up the street to the phone booth. There could be no old ladies this time. He stood in it for fifteen minutes, until it rang on the dot of nine. Zack’s voice was husky with his own tension.

“ Jamaica Road, Rotherhithe,” he said.

Qui

“Go on.”

Zack gave the directions. Off Jamaica Road down a street leading to the Thames.

“It’s a single-story steel warehouse, open at both ends. The name Babbidge still written over the doors. Pay off the cab at the top of the street. Walk down alone. Go in the south entrance. Walk to the center of the floor and wait. Anyone follows, we don’t show.”

The phone went dead. Qui

He took the underground due east to the Bank, then the Northern Line under the Thames to London Bridge. It was a main-line railway station; there were cabs waiting in front. He was in Jamaica Road fifty-five minutes after Zack had hung up.

The street he had been told to walk down was narrow, dirty, and empty. To one side, derelict tea warehouses, ripe for development, fronted the river. To the other, abandoned factories and steel sheds. He knew he was being watched from somewhere. He walked along the center of the street. The steel hangar with the faded painted name of Babbidge above one door was at the end. He turned inside.

Two hundred feet long, eighty wide. Rusted chains hung from roof girders; the floor was concrete, fouled by the windswept detritus of years of abandonment. The door he had entered by would take a pedestrian but not a vehicle; the one at the far end was wide enough and high enough to take a truck. He walked to the middle of the floor and stopped. He took off the phony eyeglasses and tweed hat and stuffed them in his pocket. He would not need them again. Either he walked out of here with a deal for Simon Cormack, or he would need a police escort anyway.

He waited an hour, quite immobile. At eleven o’clock the big Volvo appeared at the far end of the hangar and drove slowly toward him, coming to a stop with its engine ru

He sensed more than heard the scuffle of ru

The passenger door of the Volvo opened and a man got out. Medium height, medium build.

He called: “Qui

Zack’s voice. Unmistakable.

“You got the diamonds?”

“Right here.”

“Hand them over.”

“You got the kid, Zack?”

“Don’t be a fool. Trade him for a sack of glass pebbles? We examine the stones first. Takes time. One piece of glass, one piece of paste-you’ve blown it. If they’re okay, then you get the boy.”

“That’s what I figured. Won’t work.”

“Don’t play games with me, Qui

“No games, Zack. I have to see the kid. You could get pieces of glass-you won’t, but you want to be sure. I could get a corpse.”

“You won’t.”

“I need to be sure. That’s why I have to go with you.”

Behind the mask Zack stared at Qui

“See that man behind you? One word and he blows you away. Then we take the stones anyway.”

“You could try,” admitted Qui

He opened his raincoat all the way down, took something that hung free from near his waist and held it up.

Zack studied Qui

From below his sternum to his waist, Qui

In the center was the velour package of diamonds, framed on each side by a half-pound block of tacky beige substance. Jammed into one of the blocks was a bright-green electrical wire, the other end of which ran to one of the spring-controlled jaws of the wooden clothespin Qui

Also in the chocolate box was a PP3 nine-volt battery, wired to another bright green cord. In one direction the green cord linked both blocks of beige substance to the battery; in the other direction the wire ran to the opposite jaw of the clothespin. The jaws of the pin were held apart by a stub of pencil. Qui

“Phony,” said Zack without conviction. “That’s not real.”

With his right hand Qui

“Semtex,” he said.

“That’s Czech,” said Qui

Zack knew enough to know all explosive gelatins both look and smell like the harmless confection marzipan. There the difference ends. If his man opened fire now they would all die. There was enough plastic explosive in that box to clear the floor of the warehouse clean, lift off the roof, and scatter the diamonds on the other side of the Thames.

“Knew you were a bastard,” said Zack. “What do you want?”

“I pick up the pencil, put it back, climb into the trunk of the car, and you drive me to see the boy. No one followed me. No one will. I can’t recognize you, now or ever. You’re safe enough. When I see the kid alive, I dismantle this and give you the stones. You check them through; when you’re satisfied, you leave. The kid and I stay imprisoned. Twenty-four hours later you make an anonymous phone call. The fuzz comes to release us. It’s clean, it’s simple, and you get away.”

Zack seemed undecided. It was not his plan, but he’d been outmaneuvered and he knew it. He reached into the side pocket of his track suit and pulled out a flat black box.

“Keep your hand up and those jaws open. I’m going to check you out for wiretaps.”

He approached and ran the circuit detector over Qui