Worst Case Scenario by Michael Bowen Read Free Book Online

at the end to make the sentence a strongly suggestive question.
    â€œHuh? Oh, sure. Right.”
    ***
    The police hadn’t arrived yet when Michaelson lugged his copies of the Sunday New York Times and Washington Post through the lobby at 12:10, but he knew something was wrong. His job for more than three decades had included picking up subtle cues in edgy body language and nervously elaborate speech that signaled some tense departure from routine. The tension might arise from something as oblique as an interior minister going into the hospital, or as dramatic as a bloody riot being planned. Whichever, when you were four thousand miles from home and the marines at the embassy were out-numbered a thousand to one by street thugs, it was a good idea to stay ahead of the curve.
    The hair-trigger nervousness in the lobby seemed palpable to him. A senior assistant manager was staffing one of the slots at the registration desk, scanning the lobby with preoccupied glances as she dealt mechanically with the paperwork that came her way. The concierge offered an automatic smile to anyone venturing within two yards of his Louis Quinze table, but his ear stayed pinned to a telephone receiver, and when he spoke into it he resorted to whispered monosyllables. The bell captain stood his post, but he repeatedly adjusted the silver braid on his maroon cuffs and he looked like someone who very much wanted to find a bathroom.
    Seating himself in a well-stuffed armchair that faced the registration desk, Michaelson pulled the Week in Review section from the Times . He read it with one eye while he watched the desk and the front door with the other.
    From the corner of the reading eye he picked up a splash of royal blue. He looked up from the paper to see Scott Pilkington approach, wearing the casual shirt Michaelson had just glimpsed and a pair of brown slacks. The leisure wear was elegant enough, certainly, but without his worsted pinstripes Pilkington seemed for a moment jarringly out of his element, like MacArthur in mufti or Joe DiMaggio in hunting pinks.
    â€œChecked out and waiting for a cab to the airport, I hope?” Pilkington asked quietly as without invitation he seated himself opposite Michaelson.
    â€œNo. I’m staying over another night, as a matter of fact.”
    Pilkington didn’t try to hide his surprise at this revelation.
    â€œWest Virginia must have charms I hadn’t fully appreciated.”
    â€œTwo that come to mind are distance from Washington and distance from Washingtonians.”
    â€œJust a thought, but you may want to reconsider,” Pilkington said.
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œA couple of minutes ago I couldn’t help noticing a rent-a-cop breaking into a room next door to last night’s hospitality suite. He wasn’t being shy about it, and from the urgency he brought to the operation, I surmised that he feared something pretty serious on the other side. I’m betting police, tedious questions, long delays, and other things that might very quickly take the bloom off West Virginia’s placid rose. Almost everyone who came for the conference is gone, and any participant who’s still around risks being seized on with avidity by cops who want information fast.”
    Folding the unfinished newspaper section resignedly on top of the pile on his lap, Michaelson gazed for several seconds at Pilkington.
    â€œThere must be more,” he said at last. “What is it?”
    â€œThis is strictly a professional courtesy,” Pilkington said briskly. “Favor for an alumnus, old times’ sake, no strings attached, no ulterior motive. That sort of thing.”
    â€œWho was registered to the room in question?”
    â€œA young woman named Bedburg or Bedford or something had it Friday and Saturday night. She may well have checked out by now. By great good luck she wasn’t actually part of the conference, though I gather that she crashed several of the