Montezuma’s Revenge

He unlocked the door and Sones pushed in with finger to lips, frowning fiercely, making hushing motions with his other hand. Tony stood aside and gaped in silence while Billy Schultz followed, winking conspiratorially and carrying with great ease I immense suitcases. He was followed by a stranger, a large, hulking man wearing a lumpy brown suit and carrying yet another suitcase in one hand, a drawn automatic pistol in the other. I bag carriers placed their burdens down without a sound and sat on them; Sones rattled the dishes loudly as he loaded the tray and put it out in the hall.

“Thank you, senor” he said, closing and locking the door from the inside and waving Tony after him to the bathroom. He closed this door behind them as well, made a quick search of the and electrical fittings, then flushed the toilet.

“We got your message,” he whispered. “I have no idea you arranged it but it showed good thinking, you know, how it arrived. You’re shaping up a bit better.”

Tony nodded and waved his hand in a dismissing motion, taking silent credit for Goldstein’s work. It was about time someone gave him credit for something, even though undeserved.

“What’s this with all the people and bags?”

“We are moving our base. Too much surveillance now at Cocoyoc. We will stay at this hotel.”

“Why are we whispering in the toilet?”

“Electronic bugging, of course. I am surprised at you, Hawkin. Schultz is checking the other room now.”

The roar of the toilet gurgled and stopped and Sones flushed it again. Steam rose from the bowl and he stepped back, eyes wide.

“I wondered too,” Hawkin said. “The waiter told me they laid the water pipes wrong before they poured the concrete slab. It was easy enough to fix the faucets, just change the handles around, but the toilets would have been ...”

“All right now. If this place is bugged, as I am sure it is, I will go out and come in again and talk to you and you play along. I want to feed some false information to those people.”

When they emerged, the stranger was still sitting on his bag, gun in hand, but Billy was standing on the bed pointing to the light fixture on the ceiling. Tony could see nothing of interest, but Sones stood on tiptoe and peered at it and nodded under-standingly. He went to the door and knocked. Tony joined him there, feeling slightly foolish at the play acting, while Sones opened the door, rattled the knob, and closed it again quickly,

“Hello,” was all he could think of.

“Hello. I received your message.”

“That’s nice.” Would this sort of thing fool a five year old?

“The money is on the way from Washington and will be here in the morning, all used small bills, unmarked, just as they asked.”

“That’s good.”

“I have a room down the hall. Why did you pick this hotel for a rendezvous?”

“I didn’t. They made the reservation for me.”

“What! You did not tell me that in your message. The room must be bugged. We do not want them listening to us. Let me look, aha! there it is, there on the light. I will pull it down.”

He waved to Billy who reached up with a wire cutter and clipped an invisible strand then took something from behind the fixture and handed it down to Sones, who nodded approvingly.

“Swiss, the Steinhager 31, the same kind we use.” The metal button, no bigger than a dime, rested innocently on his palm. “Retail cost three hundred and eighty-seven dollars. We can turn this in, it will look good on the budget. Hawkin, this is Stocker, he is from Treasury.”

“Pleased tuh meet you,” Stocker said, making no effort to rise, to extend his hand or to put his gun away. He was big, solid, suspicious, noncommittal; his pale-blue eyes had no more expression or warmth than those of a lizard.

“Pleased to meet you too.” Tony lowered his half-raised hand. Sones pointed to the suitcase Stocker was using for a chair.

“Treasury always sends their own men on these kind of money transactions, people experienced in handling large sums and taking care of them. Stocker is a specialist. There is a million dollars in bills in that bag.”

“And A’hm keeping an eye on it.”

Stocker smiled, for the first time, wintry as it was, and took a grenade from his pocket and bounced it happily on his palm. So that was why his pockets bulged so! What could possibly be in all the others? Tony took a reflex step backward, not really wanting to know.

“Now here is the drill,” Sones said, once more in command. “Schultz and I are down the hall, in fourteen, we’ve signed in. No one—and I repeat, no one—knows that Stocker is here, nor will they find out about it. Lizveta Zlotnikova is in the room next to ours, fifteen. We are leaving our heavy equipment here and Stocker will stay here with the money.”

“Well, that’s fine by me,” Tony said. “But there is only the single bed.”

“Ah don’t sleep.”