Read The Bannerman Effect (The Bannerman Series) Online
Authors: John R. Maxim
“Those people down there,” she asked quietly, “are they friends as well?”
He smiled. “You have a good eye, Miss Lesko.”
The helicopter banked. The other was lifting off. Urs Brugg leaned closer to her.
“You know, I take it, what Paul Bannerman does,” he said. “May I ask how you feel about it?”
”I wish,” she said slowly, “that he were just a travel agent. But of course he isn't. Is he?”
“No. He is much more.”
“And I know, although I'm not sure I've really grasped it yet, that he's here to execute three people who murdered your nephew.”
“But then so is your father. The only distinction being that your father will not be given the chance.”
”I know that, too. I know that they're alike.”
“Would you try to change them?” Urs Brugg asked.
”I would try ... to protect them.”
“Miss Lesko”—Urs Brugg turned in his seat—“before you return home, could we have a talk? Just you and me?”
“About Paul?”
“In large part. Yes.”
“In this talk,” she asked, “will you tell me what you want from him?”
“That and other subjects. I think so. Yes.”
“What else will we talk about, Mr. Brugg?”
“About the world we live in, Miss Lesko.”
Ronny Grassi had waved off all introductions until Urs Brugg could be carried across the sand in his wheelchair and the group had safely reached a restaurant table in the open courtyard of the Puente Romano.
Around them, Susan saw, were more men and women. Some at other tables, some strolling about. Nearly all with their backs to them. Her father had noticed as well. She'd seen his hand brush over the bulge at his hip as he seated Elena. He remained standing behind her. But neither Grassi nor the bookish little man who was a KGB colonel seemed concerned by their presence.
Grassi seemed more interested in her father. He kept looking at him, his brow knitted, as if he were trying to place him.
“Lesko.” He repeated the name. He looked once more at the man who hovered close to Elena Brugg. “You're not . . . you from New York? From the cops?”
Grassì answered but he was looking at Urs brugg. “So far,” he said, “the only thing Bannerman's involved in is ruining the hotel's business. This morning he makes the rounds of the breakfast tables and next thing you know half his old friends are heading for the airport.” He turned back to Lesko. “Detectives, right? Raymond the Terrible. I’m from New York myself.”
Lesko relaxed a notch. Grassi was telling him that he was okay. Probably set up a drug bust or two for Kaplan. You have any doubts, call him. Lesko just might do that, he thought.
“Excuse me,” she said.
Grassi watched her go.
“Your daughter, huh?” he said, almost doubtfully.
“Life's full of surprises.” Lesko scowled.
But he wished she hadn't gone. He wished that he had not chosen between Susan and Elena. But he knew that he had.
-27-
Martin Selly opened the second of the two backpacks. The contents of the first lay on a glass-topped table before him.
The second held more of the same. But no sleeping bag. Apparently they had only one between them. He found spare clothing, not clean, damp with mildew. American jeans and a beaded denim jacket. Shorts and T-shirts. One cold-weather jacket and a poncho. An unused bikini. A two-liter bottle of Evian water. Junk jewelry, some of it rather clever. Tampons. A
Fodor's Spain.
And in this one, unlike the other, a packet of condoms. A lesbian, to be sure, but perhaps not beyond redemption.
A zippered plastic bag contained her toiletries. Within it, her passport. Also American. Several hundred dollars in traveler's checks, a few thousand pesetas, a few British pounds. No alcohol. No drugs.
He opened the passport. Issued two years earlier. Home address, like the other, Carmel, California. The Fodor's guide had been borrowed from a Carmel library. It was months past due.
Standing near, Amal between them, were the two women. Eyes wide. Terrified. Hands bound in front of them with a twining of electrical tape, both still naked but for the loose-fitting shirts they'd scurried into at Amal’s approach. The shirts, men's shirts, clung to their wet bodies. Water dripped to the tile floor. Fear and the chill had hardened their nipples.
“And you designed these, you say.” He chose a sample. A tiny silver skeleton fashioned into an earring. The sort of thing seen in a discotheque.
One of the women, the one who had condoms, nodded, then chewed her lip.
He frowned. “Or do you steal jewels?” he asked. “Is that what you were going to do? Look for jewels in that house?”
“No,” the woman insisted, her voice quaking. “Really. We just wanted to—”
“Bathe.” He answered for her.
He stepped nearer. The one who spoke tried to shrink from him but Amal placed a hand against her back. Selly reached to touch her hair. It was worn short. A butch cut. Not recently shampooed. Bits of algae from the untended pool still clung to it.
”I believe you,” he said gently.
The women stared.
“And I'm going to let you go.”
They wilted in relief. The one started to speak. He brought a finger to her lips.
“But first”—he grimaced, picking at the algae—“we're going to clean you up properly. We have our standards here, you know.”
She tensed. “Oh—that's okay,” she said. “We can shower down on—”
The finger came up sharply, this time in warning. But then the gentleness returned.
“And after you've had a good scrubbing,” he continued, his voice purring, “perhaps you can think of some way to thank me.”
Her mouth fell open. She shuddered.
Selly moved to the second woman. Even smaller than the first. Frizzy hair. All the dirtier for it. The one whose pack contained knitting needles and yarn and a pair of dildos but no birth control device.
“And you,” he said, “will make amends to this nice lady” —he gestured toward Erna whose chest was rising— “for all the trouble you've caused. You'll know how to do that, won't you?”
She swallowed. Then she closed her eyes. And nodded.
Bannerman, on the deck of the suite he shared with Billy, raised his Nikon to his eye and, touching a button, brought the telephoto lens into focus.
He could see no movement at the house on the hill. But they were there. He'd seen them earlier. First the blond man and the woman on the terrace. Next, the delivery truck came and went. Then he'd watched as the woman and the Algerian stepped from the house and walked to the one below where Bannerman had, before breakfast, seen a sleeping bag draped over the hedge. Airing out in the sun. The Englishman, he felt certain, had not seen the bag. The house would have blocked his view of it. But he had surely seen its owner. And her friend. Bannerman had watched as four figures scurried back up the hill. Two women in front, legs and feet bare, frightened, dripping wet, prodded from behind by the two who had surprised them during their morning swim.
He could do, he thought, with a swim himself. Some of last night's crowd might be down on the beach. Those he'd missed at breakfast. Especially the two Israeli women and the two SAS men who were bodyguards to Princess Anne. He would ask them the same favor he'd asked the others. The more the better.
Speaking of whom, he would have to go and greet the Brugg party before long. Impolite not to. He'd heard them arrive. Helicopters. He did not actually mind. A face-to-face meeting with Urs Brugg was well overdue. They'd spoken only by telephone. And he was pleased at the prospect of finally getting to know Elena, whom he'd seen only twice. Once while being pummeled by Lesko and again, shortly afterward, while trying to stop the flow of Gary Russo's blood.
Lesko was another matter. But—Bannerman checked his watch—perhaps he'd be in better humor with his daughter now safely in Zurich. Perhaps Elena had managed to mellow him a bit as well. He would have called Lesko in any case. Given him, as he'd promised, the option of flying down to see the damage for himself. But only after it was done.
“Um—hi ,there.”
A woman's voice. Sounded almost like Susan. Billy heard it as well. He put down the pistols he'd been cleaning and stepped out onto the deck. Billy saw her first.
“Hi, Billy.”
“Guess who,” the bartender said through his teeth. He waved, his smile more or less genuine, at Susan Lesko who had parted the top of an hibiscus shrub for a clearer view of their deck.
B. J. Tucker was on foot. His head and heart were pounding. His first thought, on shooting the cook who had startled him—not his fault—and then the guard who'd come running down the dock, was of escape.
All along the wharf, hatches had slid open, heads had popped up at the sound of the gunfire. He ran, gun in hand, waving it. The heads ducked out of sight. He reached the parking lot. He found two cars unlocked but both were BMWs. Hard to hot-wire, even with tools and with two good hands. He had neither. He searched for hidden keys. There were none. But there were maps. A road map of Spain and a tourist map of Marbella and Puerto Banus. He took them.
The main road was some distance away. Few cars on it at this hour. He thought of going there, flagging one down, taking it. But to do that he would have to stand in the open. And he was a mess. His collar caked in blood. No one would stop.
The map of Spain showed no other road. But on the tourist map there was a thin dotted line running through Puerto Banus to Marbella. It was the old Roman road, the map said. It led to the Roman bridge on the grounds of the Puente Romano, cutting through several other beach hotels along the way.
Tucker tried to think. A part of him wanted to go back there. To empty one full clip into one of those who had shamed him. Even if he died for it. But he knew that was crazy. If he followed that old road, however, there would be other parking lots. He might catch someone getting into a car. And, better still, no one would be looking for him to come that way. He began walking.
He waited in the shadows of one hotel and then another. No luck. At a third, a gardener stumbled on him as he hid in the shrubs bordering the lot. Tucker clubbed him with the machine pistol. But the man, falling, had somehow grabbed his splinted thumb. He broke it again. Tucker's hand and brain were screaming. He staggered on.