Murder at the Opera - Margaret Truman [63]
“I suppose we’ll see,” Browning responded. “Right now, he’s pretty much our only conduit to this new initiative by the terrorists. He still has someone in Amman, who’s working on developing new sources. The original was assassinated
“Unfortunate. See me later.”
• • •
It had been a long, tough day for M.T., whose undercover code name was “Steamer.” He’d spent the day supervising the installation of boilers in an Amman factory. He was hot and dirty, and wanted a hot shower and a hearty dinner at one of Amman’s fancy restaurants, preferably with a member of the opposite sex. It wasn’t easy making connections with attractive females. He wasn’t the handsomest of men, and his belly—which hung over his belt, no matter how hard he tried to suck it up—was a turnoff, he knew, to many women. Maybe if he could reveal his second, clandestine life, he’d have more appeal.
The problem this night was that he had an appointment to keep, and it wasn’t with a ravishing, dark-eyed Jordanian, or a buxom, redheaded employee of the British Embassy or British companies doing business in Jordan. Tonight’s rendezvous was with an Iraqi he’d begun cultivating as a source to replace Ghaleb Rihnai.
He hadn’t told Crowley about this new potential source of information from inside Iraq, or the terrorist cells that existed in Amman. This Iraqi, whom M.T. had met on one of his boiler installations, professed to suffer shame for the acts of Arab terrorists, and claimed to have contacts within Iraq who were privy to the insurgency’s inner councils. M.T. wasn’t sure whether to pursue the relationship. Rihnai’s brutal murder had shaken him. Maybe it was time to sever ties with Crowley and the others who’d recruited him with the lure of money and an appeal to his innate sense of patriotism and decency.
He left the job site and grabbed a fast bite from a sidewalk vendor before driving out to the appointed meeting place, a deserted, dilapidated barn on an abandoned farm. The Iraqi was there when he arrived. Inside the barn, the smell of decaying wood and fermenting grain was pungent. Steamer suggested going outside, but the Iraqi said he felt more secure inside.
They discussed what M.T. expected of the Iraqi. He wanted to know everything that was discussed by the terrorists, especially their future plans. The Iraqi assured M.T. that he could, and would, deliver.
“How much will I be paid?” the Iraqi asked.
“That depends on how much useful information you deliver
“I want money now,” the Iraqi said.
M.T. had started to explain the realities of how money was paid for such information when a sound from behind caused him to stop in mid-sentence and to turn. Four young men wearing stocking masks leaped on him. One wielded a long, curved knife that he plunged into Steamer’s thick neck. His assailants, slight of build, had a difficult time subduing the large and strong Brit, but as blood poured from his neck, he weakened and fell helplessly to the hard dirt floor. The Iraqi whom he’d befriended—or thought he had—pulled a small, silver revolver from his waistband and fired two shots into Steamer’s forehead.
The Brit was dead, and the five young men left the barn to celebrate their coup.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Director Anthony Zambrano held court at the beginning of that night’s rehearsal of Tosca at the Takoma Park facility. He was in an expansive mood, telling tales of various productions of that opera he’d directed around the world, and of some of the “Toscas” with whom he’d worked.
“You all know the story of Floria Tosca,” he said, “and of her calamitous love affair with the doomed revolutionary Cavaradossi.” He looked at Mac Smith and his colleagues from academia. “But for those of you unfamiliar with this remarkable tale of love, lust, and betrayal, let me give you a synopsis.
“It takes place in 1800, and begins in the Church of Sant’Andrea della Valle in Rome, where the painter Cavaradossi works on a canvas, unaware that a political prisoner, Angelotti, has escaped and is hiding in the chapel. Cavaradossi’s lover, the famed diva Floria Tosca,