Chapter 1

Rita Spencer waited nervously at the Riviera Country Club in the Pacific Palisade for hours, her impatience growing into mild irritation, unease, frustration. She read magazines and newspapers to while away the time. She drank fruit juice then whisky to calm her nerves. She paced the reception area, chatted with the barman, and scanned faces. For five hours there was no sign of Leland Gates. She felt a strong urge to telephone the Banana Bungalow but resisted it with all her might. If that room was bugged as Leland Gates feared then some evil men might just eavesdrop.

This was not happening, she thought. But wasn't it? Something was certainly wrong; she could feel it in her bones. Had Leland picked a tail and was unable to shake it off? That didn't jell, he had said it didn't matter if someone followed her down here; she was to pretend not to notice. Or had he inadvertently walked into trouble? That too seemed unlikely, he had said he would call for assistance and would rout the bastards who had been shadowing them. And he asked her to trust him. Trust? Damn.

The thought of the FBI agent changing his mind about this meeting was unsettling to Rita. Even more unsettling was the silly idea flashing across her mind that this might have been deliberate - a calculated attempt to unnerve her - Was that it? After being told that whoever understood the secret of the ALTAMA was marked for death, was it possible that Leland Gates deliberately stayed away to drive home the point? To emphasize the seriousness of the situation? As silly as this seemed, Rita spent a considerable amount of time turning it over in her mind. If that sinister cartel he talked about relied on brutal tactics, she mused, wasn't it logical that the FBI could try a psychological approach?

It certainly was not beneath the Bureau to calculate that if she were sufficiently frightened, Rita reasoned, she would quickly turn over that diary to them. And if that were so, she decided, then they had underestimated her. She believed she had an in-built mechanism to withstand it all to the bitter end, a kind of shock-absorber left inside her by years of pain and sorrow. They didn't take into consideration that she was a lawyer - a Marty Hepburn lawyer - whose defense prowess was embedded in the amount of information she could garner. Everything was important, every little bit. She felt that as long as she was the only person on earth who knew where that forbidden diary was kept, as long as it stayed out of the reach of everyone else, they - the FBI and the men of the ALTAMA - would only watch her and not harm her. Was she right? Was she wrong?

Undoubtedly, something just wasn't right this night, she felt that sensation strongly in her bones. At 10 p.m. she decided that she had waited enough. She stormed out of the country club, entered her car and drove straight home. It was as much as she could take for one day. She felt no anger now, no frustration. Nothing. It just felt good to be home again. Home, she thought. Bollocks. First time in her life she owned a home, a villa for whatever it was worth, she was made to feel alienated from it because someone had said it was swarming with diabolic listening devices. Rita resisted an urge to search. She would be careful on the phone from now on, she decided. When this nightmare was over she would get someone to comb the place thoroughly and remove the bugs wherever they were hidden. Or perhaps it would be a good idea to sell the house and buy another one.

She would consider everything properly later. For now that decision can wait. What couldn't wait was a bodyguard. Tomorrow, she told herself, she would ask Carlton for one of his bodyguards. Yes, she would do just that. There must be no more surprises. Rita Spencer entered her bedroom. Everything seemed exactly the way she had left them, except that on her telephone answering machine the red light was blinking. Someone had called. Leland Gates, she thought and quickly dismissed the thought, he wouldn't call, he knew the phone was tapped. Carlton maybe. She went up to the machine and punched the button. A voice - a male voice, a stranger - said to go to her Internet chat room for a message. A message? It had to be someone who knew that she regularly sent and received coded messages in the guise of an ordinary chat-room buff. Marty Hepburn?

Rita threw her handbag on the bed and ran out of the bedroom, into the study. Yes, there was a visitor in the chat-room all right but not a regular, his nickname was unfamiliar but obviously he knew her because his message was addressed to her unmistakable chat-room nickname, Fiaba, an Italian word for fairy tale. A single statement: 'Go back to Washington, Fiaba.'

For one unsettling moment she stared at the words on the screen, wondering who on earth might have left it. Then suddenly the words vanished and a new message began to appear. She watched, startled, transfixed. The sentence read: 'This is an advice in good faith, Fiaba, just take it and scram.'

For the umpteenth time that day, goose pimples covered her body. She stared fixedly at the screen. Then after an eternity she made a decision, she grabbed a chair and sat in front of the computer and keyed in a question, 'Who are you?'

The answer was quick and alarming, 'Your admirer,' it said.

'I don't recognize your name, have we chatted before?'

'Does it matter, Rita? You don't have to recognize the names of everyone you've chatted with.'

'Oh! So you even know my real name?'

'Yes, I do'

'I want to know yours.'

'There is no need, you've never heard of me, my name will make no difference to you.'

Her fingers remained on the keyboard, 'But I want to know you,'

'Very touching.'

'Are you male or female?'

'Male.'

'How old are you?'

'I am three years your senior.'

Rita paused and thought, twenty-eight. This was almost like her usual chat-room game. She continued, 'What do you do for a living?'

'Same thing you do.'

Very interesting, she wrote, 'So you are a lawyer.'

'You got it.'

She relaxed. Was this faceless man trying to woo her? 'Where do you live?'

'Downtown L. A.'

'Why don't you tell me about yourself?'

'I am laughing at you.'

'Why?'

'Because you don't seem to know what a secret admirer means.' Pause. 'It means I can't be that any longer the moment I tell you about myself. Didn't you have one in college? When you secretly admire someone you are the only one who should know her.'

Copyright © 2005 Augustine Sam