The Road to Gandolfo (26 page)

“If I do, it’s because I was taught by someone quite like you, I think. Although few would recognize the similarity.”

“I am flattered. This—someone, give him the blessings of a farmhand-priest.”

Lillian smiled. She started for the door, where Quartze’s handkerchief fluttered a tattoo in front of his agitated face and the sounds of mucus still could be heard beyond his aquiline nose and very thin lips. The prelate sidestepped to let her pass, doing his best to ignore her. So Lillian paused briefly, forcing him to look at her. When he did so, she winked.

As she closed the door the words from Pope Francesco were clear and firm. For in his anger, the pontiff raised his voice, in English.

“Talk to me not of the Sistine, Ignatio! Instead, discuss these plans I requested for your waterfront home at Sam Vincente! What are ‘security arrangements’? They include a
steam bath
?”

Hawkins had reserved both seats in the first-class section of the Lufthansa 747. Since he needed elbow room, there was no point in inconveniencing a fellow passenger. This way, he was able to place file folders beside him for quick referrals.

He had specifically chosen the night flight to Zurich. The travelers, by and large, would be diplomats, bankers, or corporate executives used to transatlantic flights; they
would use the night for sleep, not socializing. He would have a minimum of interruptions.

For selections would have to be made, offers of recruitment dispatched immediately from Zurich.

MacKenzie’s briefcase contained assorted personnel profiles from which he would choose his troops. They were the last of the files he had Xeroxed at the G-2 archives. Those fortunate enough to be chosen would be his brigade; his personal army that would be privileged to engage in the most unusual maneuver in modern military history.

And each soldier would return from the engagement one of the richest men in his part of the world.

For, where possible, they would
be
from separate parts of the world. For the inviolate condition of recruitment was that none would ever acknowledge the existence of the others once the engagement was completed. It would be better if they came from different places.

The dossiers in the Hawk’s briefcase were those of the most accomplished double and triple agents in the U.S. Army data banks. And there was a common denominator running through each file: All were in forced retirement.

The state of double and triple agenting was at a low ebb. The experts described in the dossiers had not had really gainful employment for some time, and for such men inactivity was anathema. It meant not only a loss of prestige within the community of international criminals, but also a reduced scale of living.

The prospects of $500,000 per man would not be lightly dismissed. And each potential recruit was worth it. Each was the best at his specialty.

It was all a question of logistics. Think—then
out
think. Every function handled by an expert, every move timed to the split second.

And that required a commander who demanded flawless precision from his troops. Who trained them to perform at peak efficiency levels. Who did not stint when it came to equipment and simulation; who would duplicate as far as technically possible the
exact conditions
projected for the
assault. In essence, a general officer of the first rank. Himself.
Goddamn!

Once the brigade was selected and assembled, Mac would outline the basic strategy. Then he would allow his officers to offer suggestions and refinements. A good commander always listened to his subordinate officers but, of course, reserved final judgment for himself.

The weeks of training would show where the strengths and weaknesses lay; the objective was merely to eliminate all weakness.

The fewer troops the better, but not so few as to impair the efficiency of the mission. Which was why there was only one payment for each soldier: $500,000. There would be no rewards if they were caught. At least, not the kind they were after. There
would
be certain family allotments in the case of capture. It was the sort of thing all armies had learned to take for granted. Men performed better under combat conditions if their minds were free of concern about their families. It was a good thing, too. It was another proof of separation between the species.

The Shepherd Company would bank funds for dependents in advance of Ground Zero; to be deducted, of course, from all final payments upon the successful completion of the operation.

Goddamn! He was not only pro, he was a very thorough pro at that! If those idiots in the Pentagon had turned over the whole U.S. Army to him, they would not be having all that trouble with volunteer enlistments. The Pentagon pricky-shits did not really understand “the book.” If a soldier took the book for what it was and didn’t try to bend it politically, or find ambiguities to hide behind—well, it was a goddamned good book. Flawed but workable.

He had no time to think about pricky-shits. He had about refined his brigade. The required areas of expertise were seven: camouflage, demolition, sedative medicines, native orientation, aircraft technology, escape cartography, and electronics.

Seven experts. He had narrowed the dossiers down to twelve. Before he reached Zurich he knew he would have the seven. It was just a question of reading and rereading. He would send out his offers from Zurich, not from the
Château Machenfeld; nothing could be traced to Machenfeld.

He even had to be careful in Zurich. Not with regard to traces, however; he could handle that problem. But he had to make damn sure he didn’t run into Sam Devereaux. Sam was due within hours of his own arrival; he wasn’t ready for Sam’s kind of panic. He could handle
that
problem better within the confines of Machenfeld.

But then, thought the Hawk, he didn’t really have anything to worry about. Devereaux was the girl’s problem and they had—each and every one—carried out their assignments with real know-how.

Goddamn! They were splendid! A man had to count himself fortunate, indeed, to have such a quartet of fine women behind him. “Behind every great man …” they said. Behind
him
there wasn’t
one
fine lass, there were
four
.

And a grander, more upstanding group of girls there never were! Sam was a lucky fellow and he didn’t know it. Hawkins made a mental note to tell him when he saw Sam at Machenfeld.

Tomorrow, if the schedule held.

Devereaux walked down the station platform looking for the correctly numbered railway car. The task was made difficult because he could not stop belching. He had eaten his way from Tizi-whatever-the-hell-it-was, through Algiers, past Rome, into Zurich. Madge had seen him off at Dar el Beida airport admitting no more during their good-byes than she had saying hello in the Aletti Hotel room.

But Sam had made up his mind not to speculate any further about the girls. Whatever propelled them to do what they did for the Hawk could be left to Krafft-Ebing; he had other things to concentrate on.

The capitalization of forty million dollars was committed. Hawkins now had his marbles (no, he did not have his marbles, but that was another question), and he would start playing the game. The Hawk would begin his final arrangements, make his purchases, recruit his—what was it?—“support personnel.”

Jesus!
Support personnel!

So he could kidnap the pope!

Oh, my God! The whole world was an enormous fruitcake!

There was only one thing to bear in mind, one objective to keep in focus: How to stop MacKenzie Hawkins.

Two objectives: Stay out of jail himself. And out of the homicidal clutches of the Mafia, the Peerage, the Nazis, and particularly those Arabs who wanted to stuff his unmentionables into unspeakables.

He found his compartment, the sort made famous by Rex Harrison and Margaret Lockwood. Shadows and black velvet collars and the incessant
therumping
of the metal wheels against the metal tracks below signifying the inevitable approach of terror. And large windows on the sliding doors, with curtains suddenly drawn back revealing the faces of evil.

Night Train, Orient Express
—with slow dissolves to hands inching into folds of dark overcoats, ever so slowly withdrawing the black steel of murderous pistols. The train started.

“Well, Ah declare! Ah said to myself, Ah simply
don’t beleeve it
! It’s the
mayjor
! Right here in
li’l ole Zurich
!”

There was no reason to be the least astonished. After all,
Titanics
was on schedule.

Regina Sommerville Hawkins Clark Madison Greenberg stood in the corridor outside the railroad compartment and spoke through the wood-framed window. She slid the door open and filled the small enclosure with remembrances of magnolia blossoms. Sam sat down calmly by the window, amazed at his own casualness. “Your timing’s nothing short of brilliant. The train rolls and so do you. If I tried to get off at Lucerne I have an idea you’d start screaming ‘rape!’ ”

“Why, what a peculiar thing to say. I hope you haven’t forgotten the Beverly Hills Hotel; I never will.”

“My memories have no beginnings, no middles, no ends. The world fornicates in a thousand broken mirrors; we abuse ourselves in the reflections of Sodom and Gomorrah.…

“Now, tell me why you just
happen
to be in Zurich. At
the Hauptbahnhof, on this particular train, in this particular car.”

“Oh, that’s easy. Manny’s shooting a picture in Geneva. For UA. I think it’s so porn they had to make it outside the States.”

“That’s Geneva; this is Zurich. You can do better than that. Let’s have it for Hawkins’s Harem. A little imagination, please.”

“Honestly! Now you’re downright offensive!” Regina swept her vicuña back and placed her hands defiantly on her hips. Two cannons had Devereaux in their sights. “I don’t think you’ve got a damn thing to complain about. We root outselves up out of
very
comfortable circumstances, traipse
all
over the world, subject ourselves to every kind of inconvenience—
rush, rush, rush
—check on everything—look after you, body
and
soul—make sure no one hurts you—see to your every comfort—. Oh, Lawdy, what more could we do?! And for what?
Abuse!
Just plain, big ole abuse!”

Regina dropped her defiant pose and began to cry. She opened her purse, withdrew a Kleenex, and sat down opposite Sam, dabbing her eyes.

A lost, hurt little girl.

“Hey, come on. That’s not fair.”

As are most men, Sam was helpless before a tearful woman.

Regina sobbed; her chest throbbed. Devereaux got out of his seat and knelt in front of her. “It’s okay. It’s all right. Don’t cry, please.”

Between subsiding gasps, the girl looked at him gratefully. “Then you don’t hate me? Say you don’t hate me.”

“How could I hate you? You’re lovely—and sweet—and for Christ’s sake, please stop crying.”

She put her face next to his and her lips against his ear. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m exhausted. The pressure’s been simply God-awful. I’ve stayed by the telephone night and day, always worryin’—and, of course, wonderin’. I really missed you.”

Ginny’s coat was like a warm, comforting blanket between them. The huge, soft lapels came close to enveloping
Devereaux’s arms. She took both his hands and guided them between the folds of thick fabric and placed them on the softer, warmer, more comforting swells of loveliness that were beneath the silk of her blouse.

“That’s better. Stop crying now.” It was all he could think to say, so he said it softly.

She whispered into his ear, causing all kinds of things to happen to his metabolism. “Do you remember those marvelous old English movies that took place on trains like this?”

“Sure. Rex Harrison saving Margaret Lockwood from the evil Conrad Veidt—–”

“I think you can slide the door closed and lock it. And there are curtains.…”

Devereaux rose from the floor. He locked the door, closed the curtains, then turned back to Regina. She had removed her vicuña coat and spread it invitingly over the soft seat of the railroad compartment.

Beneath them the
therumping
sounds of the metal against metal signified the inexorable journey, the beat somehow sensual. Outside, the lovely countryside of Switzerland whipped by, bathed in a Swiss twilight.

“How much time do we have before we reach Zermatt?” he asked.

“Enough,” she replied, smiling. She began unbuttoning her silk blouse. “And we’ll know. It’s the last stop.”

Hawkins registered at Zurich’s Hotel D’Accord with a counterfeit passport. He’d purchased it in Washington from a CIA agent who realized the courts would not let him write a book when he retired; the man also offered a selection of wigs and hidden cameras but MacKenzie demurred. On settling into the room, his first act was to go right down to the lobby again and negotiate with the head switchboard operator: cash for cooperation. Since the cash was one hundred dollars, it was agreed that all his calls and cablegrams would be routed through her board.

He returned to the room and spread the seven dossiers (his final selections) over the coffee table. He was immensely pleased. These men were the most devious, experienced
provocateurs
in their fields. It was now merely a question of enlisting them. And MacKenzie knew he was an exceptionally qualified recruiter.

Four he knew he could reach by phone. Three by cable. Admittedly, the telephone contacts would be difficult, for in no case would one call find the expert in. But he would reach them by using various codes from the past. One call would be made to a Basque fishing village on the Bay of Biscay; another to a similar coastal town in Crete. A third would be placed to Stockholm, to the sister of the espionage expert who was currently living as a minister of the Scandinavian Baptist Church. The fourth call would be to Marseilles where the man sought was employed as a tugboat pilot.

And the geographical diversity! In addition to those he could reach by telephone (Biscay, Crete, Stockholm and Marseilles), there were the cablegrams: to Athens, Rome,
and Beirut What a spread! It was an intelligence director’s dream!