Chapter Fifteen

George met Nancy with a quick hug as soon as she stepped off the court. “The sniper got away,” she whispered at once. “Our driver’s waiting right out front, and the other guy got your things from the locker room.”

During a wild ride on the parkway, the driver abandoned the pretense of driving a private limo and used a siren. He turned it off once they were within half a mile of the hotel. All the same, Nancy and George were back in their suite just twenty minutes after the match ended.

Teresa was already there with Bess, and both of them were distraught. The news about the sniper had come over the car’s two-way radio as Dan and Bess drove back from the restaurant. Bess had been forced to tell Dan about the entire plot and masquerade. He had been furious.

“He said we were dumb and reckless-that not only could he lose his job as a result, but we might have caused either or both of you to lose your lives!”

“That is crazy,” Teresa said sharply. “I knew the risk to me, and I chose to take it!” She looked at Nancy. “But it was not right of me to let you risk your life.”

“Yes it was,” Nancy said firmly. “How else could we have found out about the dawn executions?”

Then she looked more closely at Teresa. “What’s wrong?” she asked in a concerned voice. “I mean, what else is wrong? What happened at your meeting with Roberto’s friend?”

Tears welled up in Teresa’s eyes. “I am sure it is not true,” she whispered. “Or no-I am not sure. But-”

“But?” Nancy prompted gently.

“But this friend, he is telling me Roberto-Roberto was not to be trusted! That he was-what did he say?-a double agent, working for the dictator and for the revolutionaries. He says he found, in Roberto’s papers back in San Carlos, some letters that show that he wanted to sell the list of names to the senator.”

“Sell the list?” Bess gasped.

“Yes,” said Teresa. “If she would not pay enough, Roberto would not care what happened to the people on the list!”

“So he really wasn’t working to overthrow the San Carlos dictatorship?” Nancy asked, appalled.

“There is no way to tell whose side Roberto was on.” Teresa bit her lip. “And maybe he would even betray me!”

Nancy was horrified, but there was no time to think over what Teresa had said. It was almost nine o’clock.

“Dawn’s at five-fifty-seven,” Bess said starkly. “The senator checked. Dan took Teresa straight to her as soon as he found out.”

That meant Senator Kilpatrick knew about the masquerade-and Carson Drew probably knew as well. “Where’s the senator now?” Nancy asked weakly.

“At the Department of Justice, pushing panic buttons and pulling strings. She took your dad with her,” Bess added. “I almost forgot. She said that out of desperation the government agents even took Teresa’s poetry book. They used microscopes and infrared light and tried all kinds of code tests, and it’s clean. So Teresa will get it and that postcard she was using as a bookmark back tomorrow.”

Nancy saw Teresa’s face change.

“What postcard?” Nancy asked instantly.

Teresa shook her head, turning away slightly. “It is nothing… I just realized that that card is the last thing Roberto ever gave me,” she confessed, wiping away tears.

“Roberto gave you a postcard?” Nancy jumped up. “Teresa, think hard. When did he give it to you? And why?”

Teresa looked at her, bewildered. “Why… when we were leaving the airport, Roberto said he wouldn’t have time to write postcards, that he was stupid to think he would. He threw the cards into a trash can. And I-I said I would like to have the picture of the Capitol to take home to my mother. So Roberto laughed and took it out of the can and gave it to me. I was keeping it in the poetry book.”

“Teresa, think! You’d just gotten into the U.S. You hadn’t even left the airport! When and where did Roberto get American postcards?”

Teresa frowned. “He must have bought them-”

“The novelty shop!” Nancy almost shouted. “I knew that must have something to do with this! It was the only place Roberto could have gone during those few minutes. He must have written a message on one of the cards.”

She faced the others urgently. “Come on! We have to get hold of the manager of that store! The hit list may still be there.”

“Hold on,” George said promptly. “One, the store’s been searched-several times. Two, he could have mailed the card. Three, and most important, the senator’s not about to let any of us loose till the hit men are arrested. She gave strict orders to those musclemen outside our doors.”

“That’s easy,” Nancy said. “George, phone the senator’s office, tell her assistant that we need to follow up a lead for the senator.”

Hiding a grin, George did so. “We’re in luck all the way,” she announced when she hung up. “We’ve got a bulletproof car and escorts, your father’s occupied looking up legal measures the senator can invoke to protect the people who could be on the hit list, and your chaperon,” she added, turning to Teresa, “has just been picked up by the FBI. It seems she has an interesting past they want to find out more about.”

“Chatty assistant,” Bess said, smiling at George. George simply bowed.

Could Señora Ramirez be a terrorist? If so, on which side-the rebels’ or the dictator’s? Nancy felt a sudden stab of pity for Teresa. She was so alone on her first trip to a foreign country. The man she loved had been brutally murdered, and suddenly she wasn’t sure who that man had been. Even her chaperon might betray her.

“Teresa, you stay here. You’ll be safe with the guards at the door. Would you like Bess to stay with you?” Nancy asked gently.

Teresa’s face was set. “I am coming with you. Perhaps I will remember something more when I am there.”

“No one’s going anywhere till Nancy washes her hair and scrubs that skin dye off,” Bess said. “There’s a contract out for Teresa Montenegro, remember?”

Nancy and Teresa stared at each other. “Bess is right. You change back. Me, I will be all right as a blond American!” Teresa fairly pushed Nancy toward the shower.

Nancy didn’t think it was the time to point out that by then there was probably a contract on her too. She used a few precious minutes to wash the gel out of her hair and to try to scrub away the skin dye. If she looked more deeply tanned than usual, it couldn’t hurt much. She pulled on jeans and a shirt.

Then there was a knock on the door. Everybody froze.

“Takeoff time,” a detective’s voice whispered through the door.

They piled into the car. Nancy was still toweling her wet hair.

During the second wild ride of the night-out to the airport-Teresa sat wrapped in silence, gazing unseeingly at the lights of Washington across the river.

The limousine careened into the airport arrivals area. With Nancy in the lead, George, Bess, Teresa, and their escorts swept toward the novelty store.

The owner was in the shop, and he wasn’t in a good mood. “I’ve been over this twice already with other agents,” he snapped. “Why can’t you people get your act together? Yes, I was in the shop at the time you mentioned. But I’ve already said I can’t remember every foreigner who walks into this place. Or every native, either!”

“Please!” Nancy forced herself to smile at him. “I know this is annoying, but it’s terribly important.” She glanced over at Teresa, who was gazing as if hypnotized at the poster for the tennis tournament.

“It’s about her-her fiancé!” Nancy told the storekeeper in a low voice. “He’s been murdered, and we need to know everything we can about his movements. He bought postcards. He probably bought them here.”

“You mean the poor guy I read about in the papers? Is that the girl-Montenero or something-they’re talking about?”

He snapped his fingers. “Now I remember! There was someone in here buying postcards. I remember him on account of he stared at that poster just the way she’s doing. Kind of creepy. And it was weird the way he picked his postcards-just up and down one of the rows, as if the pictures on ’em didn’t really matter.”