"Never mind. Listen, you--Wanbecq, is that your name? Miss Hawtree has
nothing to do with any of this. Her father--"
"Is a part of the embassy which sent you out," said Wanbecq, flicking
Susan's ID card with his finger. "Do not expect me to believe
foolishness, Mr. Watson-Durham." He spoke rapidly to Wanbecq-ai. She
nodded, and they both turned to Susan.
"Obviously you were sent with instructions for Mr. Durham. Will you
tell us now what they were?"
Susan's face was such a blank of amazement that Durham would have
laughed if the situation had not been so extremely unfunny.
"Nobody sent me with anything. Nobody even knows I came. Lloyd, are
these people crazy? Are you crazy? What's going on here?"
He said, "I'm not sure myself. But I think there are only two
possibilities. One, your father is a scoundrel. Two, he's a fool being
used by scoundrels. Take your pick. In either case, I'm the goat."
Her white cheeks turned absolutely crimson. She tried twice to say
something to Durham. Then she turned and said to the Wanbecqs, "I've
had enough of this. Let me out."
They merely glanced at her and went on talking.
"You might as well relax," said Durham to her, in colloquial English,
hoping the Wanbecqs could not understand it. "I'm sorry you got into
this, and I'll try to get you out, but don't do anything silly."
She called him a name she had never learned in the Embassy drawing
rooms. There was a manual switch recessed in the body of the taxi, high
up, and sealed in with a special plastic. It said EMERGENCY on it.
Susan took off her shoe and swung.
The plastic shattered. Susan dropped the shoe and grabbed for the
switch. Wanbecq yelled. Wanbecq-ai leaped headlong for Susan and bore
her back onto the seat. She was using her gun flatwise in her hand,
solely as a club. Susan let out one furious wail.
And Durham, moving more by instinct than by conscious thought, grabbed
Wanbecq-ai's uplifted arm and pulled her over squalling onto his lap.
Wanbecq started forward from the opposite seat.
"Don't," said Durham. He had Wanbecq-ai's wrist in one hand and her
neck in the other, and he was not being gentle. Wanbecq-ai covered him,
and the two of them together covered Susan. Wanbecq stood with his
knees bent for a spring, his gun flicking back and forth uncertainly.
Wanbecq-ai had stopped squalling. Her face was turning dark. Susan
huddled where she was, half stunned. Durham shifted his grip on
Wanbecq-ai's arm and got the gun into his own hand.
"Now," he said to Wanbecq. "Drop it."
Wanbecq dropped it.
Durham scrabbled it in with his heel until it was between his own feet.
Then he heaved Wanbecq-ai forcibly at her husband. It was like heaving
a rag doll, and while Wanbecq was dealing with her Durham managed to
pick up the other gun.
Susan lifted her head. She looked around with glassy eyes and then,
with single-minded persistence, she got up.