Proteus

by Morris West

  ‘Good. What about Von Kalbach?’

  ‘We took him back to his hotel,’ said Kitty Cowan. ‘I told him you’d come round for breakfast in the morning . . . What’s the next move, chief?’

  ‘The State Department is pulling out all the stops. The White House will intervene later, if necessary. I’m going down to Buenos Aires tomorrow. I’ll take the company jet. It’s a ten-hour flight. Tell them to be fuelled and ready for take-off by midday. Telex the Embassy. Have our people get in touch with Rodo and bring him to meet me at the airport. Book me the usual suite. I won’t be there much, but I’ll need an official address. Which reminds me . . .’

  He crossed to the telephone and dialled a New York number.

  ‘Is Mr George Kunz there please? John Spada calling . . . Hullo George. Sorry to call so late; but I’m needing a great favour. My daughter has been arrested in Buenos Aires . . . It’s a political thing, too long to go into over the phone. Point is, I’m flying down there tomorrow and I’m damn sure all our company lines are bugged and there’ll be a tap on my hotel line as well. I know you have a company apartment. If it’s free, I’d like to use it as a hidey-hole . . . That’s great. A thousand thanks. Have them send the key over to Herman Vigo . . . You’re a real friend. I won’t forget it.’

  ‘So!’ As he walked back, Anna sat bolt upright and challenged him. ‘It is that kind of affair now.’

  ‘It may be, my love. I like to be prepared. Another thing, Kitty. Get Henson in as soon as possible. Tell him our other friend is at the Palace Hotel.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of Henson.’ Mike Santos cut in. ‘I’ve never heard of his friend at the Palace Hotel. If it’s company business, I should know about it, yes?’

  There was a brief, strained silence. Kitty and Anna looked at each other. Maury Feldman studied the backs of his long, soft hands. Mike Santos waited impassively. Finally, Spada answered.

  ‘It affects my daughter; but it’s not company business.’

  ‘But company people are involved in it – Kitty here, for one.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, you trust me to run a billion-dollar enterprise and protect your personal stake therein. It seems to me you shouldn’t ask me to walk anywhere – and I mean anywhere! – in the dark.’

  ‘The man’s got a point,’ said Maury Feldman.

  ‘The man’s got a good point,’ said Kitty Cowan.

  ‘I would like to ask you a question, Mike,’ said Anna Spada, ‘since I also pressed my husband to promote you.’

  ‘Ask anything you want, ma’am.’ Mike Santos was calm and deferential.

  ‘You have seen what can happen, even to people who sit in high places. Can you imagine what it is like when the same things happen to people who have no protection, no redress?’

  ‘Yes, I can, ma’am. I made reference to the matter in a paper which I prepared for your husband; although I know he hasn’t had too much time to read it.’

  ‘I’ve read it,’ said John Spada. ‘Kitty’s read it, and so has Maury. There are things we don’t agree with; but the general line makes sense.’

  ‘You took a big risk when you wrote it,’ said Feldman with a grin.

  ‘I wonder if you’d take a bigger one?’ asked John Spada.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Gamble your career for something you believe in.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I’ll try to explain. We had all intended to invite you to join us. We simply wanted to wait until you’d digested the new appointment. Now, we’ve been outrun by events. The three of us here – and I exclude Anna because she is part of me and not part of the corporation – do another job, private, unpaid, subject to certain risks. Our work for Spada Consolidated is a cover, a necessary cover, for that private work. In my case, for example, if it became known, I should certainly lose the proxy fight with Liebowitz. Now, if you involve yourself in it, you’re at greater risk, because you’re an executive employee who can be fired at will by paying out his contract. So, here’s the bottom line. You walk out of here knowing nothing; and whether I go or stay, your career’s in no jeopardy. Once I tell you, you’re in a cleft stick. If you can’t live with what you hear, you’ll resign. If you can, you’ll be doing what we’ve all done for a long time: living a double life. Clear?’

  ‘So far, yes. Let me ask you something. Is this political – Left and Right, that sort of thing?’

  ‘It’s a human thing,’ said Kitty Cowan. ‘I still vote Democrat.’

  ‘You can still swear the oath of allegiance.’ said Maury Feldman, ‘and look your God in the eye on Sunday.’

  ‘But,’ said John Spada, ‘you could get a hell of a roasting at a stockholders’ meeting – and in extreme circumstances you might get a bullet in the back.’

  ‘Stop it, Giovanni!’ Anna was outraged. ‘There is no call for all this ‘

  ‘I asked for it, ma’am,’ said Mike Santos. ‘OK, boys and girls. I’m duly warned. Now, let’s have it!’

  ‘There’s a final warning,’ said John Soada firmly. ‘Once you know, you carry human lives in your hands.’

  ‘I still want to have my father smile at me when we meet.’

  ‘Fine!’ said John Spada. ‘We start with a little puzzle that looks like a fish in a box . . .’

  It was one in the morning when he finished his story of Proteus and the sea-creatures. At the end of it Mike Santos sat, chin cupped in his hands, staring at the carpet. Kitty Cowan reached out and touched him.

  ‘That’s all there is; there ain’t no more.’

  Mike Santos shook his head like a man waking from a long nap. He straightened up and faced John Spada.

  ‘It’s a lot to swallow at one gulp.’

  ‘Do you want more time?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What’s your answer?’

  ‘A few days ago you asked me how badly I wanted this job. I told you I had to be able to live with the man I saw in the mirror.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I figure this is the one way I can do it.’

  ‘Welcome!’ said John Spada. ‘Maury and Kitty will brief you. Now, all of you, get the hell out of here. I want to go to bed with my wife!’

  As they kissed goodbye at the front door Kitty asked softly:

  ‘Are you coming to the office in the morning?’

  ‘Sure. I’ll be there at nine. I’ll stop by and have breakfast with Von Kalbach first.’

  ‘How bad is it for Teresa?’

  ‘Very bad. Hold Anna’s hand while I’m gone.’

  ‘Anything you say, chief. Courage, eh?’

  Mike Santos clasped his hand and said with rare emotion:

  ‘Thanks for asking me in. I’ve always admired you, John, but this is the first time I’ve really liked you.’

  To which Maury Feldman added his own tart postscript :

  ‘Tonight, enjoy! Tomorrow you’ll be eating Dead Sea fruit – dust and ashes in the mouth! Goodnight, John boy! When you get to Buenos Aires, walk close to the wall!’

  Next morning, as Spada drank his last cup of coffee in Hugo Von Kalbach’s hotel room, the old man said with poignant conviction:

  ‘Last night was horrible; but in the end I saw it plain. There is no way to bargain with evil. You have to fight it – even to death.’

  ‘Are you sure of that, Meister?’

  ‘Yes. At long last, I am sure. When I went to bed, I had, again, a warning – what do they call it in English? – a fibrillation of the heart. I lay very quiet until it passed and the rhythm was regular again. I was not really afraid. I understand now that death is a very small event, soon over, soon forgotten; but to be a man is a big event, full of possibilities, even when one is old. When I go back to Germany I shall try to find good people for you – Proteus people. When I have them I shall send you their names.’

  ‘Thank you, Meister.’

  ‘And you, when you can, please come to visit me. You should meet Fraulein Helga
. A good woman, who needed a good marriage; but I was too old and too occupied to prepare her for it. Eh! The passing years!’

  ‘I’ll come. Maybe sooner than you expect.’

  ‘It cannot be too soon. I shall pray for your daughter and her husband. There is little else I can do.’

  ‘There is something.’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘One day I may need a new identity, therefore a new passport. My German is good. I am told I could pass for a Swabian.’

  ‘Near enough.’ The old scholar brightened. ‘Let me think about it, see what I can do.’

  ‘But quickly, please.’

  ‘How else, my friend ? When you hear the knocking on the gate, everything becomes very urgent.’

  They embraced, in the old way. At the door Spada turned back. The old man smiled and waved, but his face was wet with tears.

  As she set down the last page of directives to cover his absence, Kitty Cowan said:

  ‘Chief…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We’ve been together for a long time. When you hurt, I hurt too.’

  ‘I know, girl. I’m grateful. The rest of it is hard to put into words; but…’

  ‘But you love Anna and you love Teresa and it’s all clean and none of it comes together. Just remember, I sure as hell care what happens. So be honest with me, eh?’

  ‘That’s a promise.’

  ‘You say that; but I know you. I see that killer’s look in your eye and I start to sweat.’

  ‘Ladies perspire.’

  ‘I’m not a lady. Never have been. Never will be. You need me, you call. Promise?’

  ‘Every day. Even if I don’t need you. How’s Mike Santos this morning?’

  ‘You’ll see. Fire in the eyes, fire in the guts, ready to go crusading. He’s fine though.’

  ‘Keep an eye on him, girl. He’s still under test.’

  ‘There’s something else.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Maury and I talked about it last night. We’re both Jewish; so we understand. When things turn bad, like they have down there, like they did in Germany before the war, there’s only two things you can do – go underground, or leave and fight from outside. If you stand up in the public square they pick you off. Your Teresa and her Rodo, they’ve got to understand that. You have to make them see it.’

  ‘I’m sure as hell going to try.’

  ‘It won’t be easy. Teresa’s like you, a hard-head.’

  ‘And Rodo’s full of pride and Spanish vinegar, I know. All I can do is try to persuade them.’

  ‘But if you can’t?’

  ‘We wear their decision.’

  ‘You say that; but will Anna wear it?’

  ‘I’ll have to help her.’

  ‘Right… But you can’t do it and you won’t do it with that goddam Spada gall in your guts. You won’t break, you’ll just turn tough and sour. But Anna will break, unless you teach her to bend to the wind. You read me, big John?’

  ‘I read you, Kitty girl. Wish me luck, eh?’

  ‘All the luck in the world.’ She took his face in her hands and kissed him. ‘Say hullo to Mike on the way out. I’ve learnt to live without you. He hasn’t yet!’

  When he landed in Buenos Aires, twenty minutes before midnight, he found that his luck had run out. Herman Vigo met him at the entrance to the customs hall and told him that Rodolfo Vallenilla had been arrested.

  ‘How? When?’

  ‘Wait till we’re in the car, please!’

  ‘Who’s driving?’

  ‘I am.’

  As they drove towards the city, Vigo gave him the sparse details.

  ‘As soon as I got your telex I called Vallenilla’s apartment. Believing the phones were bugged, I made it a normal family message. You were coming in. He might like to drive out with me to the airport. We arranged to meet for coffee in a bar near the Plaza de Mayo. He didn’t turn up. I went to his apartment. The place was a shambles, every drawer turned out, clothes and books and papers all over the place. I went to his office. They said he didn’t usually come in until three o’clock when it was time to start setting up the midnight edition. I left a message for him to call me when he came in. At five, his assistant telephoned and said he hadn’t shown up. Then your man, Lunarcharsky, telephoned and asked me to have a drink with him before dinner. He told me he’d been watching Vallenilla’s apartment since early morning from a car parked across the street. He saw Vallenilla leave and start walking towards the Plaza. Three men got out of a parked car, stopped him, bundled him inside and drove off. Lunarcharsky followed them for a dozen blocks then lost them in traffic. He said he’d been poking round all day trying to get a lead. So far nothing.’

  ‘Where’s Lunarcharsky now?’

  ‘He’s waiting for us at the bus-stop outside the General Hospital.’

  ‘Any word of Teresa?’

  ‘Your lawyer and the Embassy people have been in touch with the police. They’ve filed formal requests for access. The police say they’ll be dealt with in due course.’

  ‘Shit! . . .’

  ‘I’ve put the word out to all our Proteus people. They’re digging around for information.’

  ‘How do you read it, Herman?’

  ‘It’s bad – but easy to read. They’ve always wanted to silence Vallenilla. When he married your daughter they were in trouble, because you control a lot of investment down here. This way, they figure they’ve got you tied. Your daughter’s up on a criminal charge – conspiracy to aid and abet a criminal. They’ll assemble enough documents to prove it. Then they’ll release her and deport her. They figure she’ll stay quiet and you’ll sit still because of what may happen to Vallenilla.’

  ‘The bastards! Has his family been told?’

  ‘Yes. The father will come into Buenos Aires to see you. But first he wants to make his own enquiries.’

  ‘Can he do anything?’

  ‘I doubt it. He’s got lots of friends in high places; but most people are scared to talk too loudly.’

  ‘Anything for order in the streets, eh?’

  ‘That’s the way it is down here,’ said Herman Vigo. ‘There’s the hospital ahead. Get ready to open the rear door. We don’t want to stop, just slow down.’

  Spada reached back and held the door slightly ajar. As they rolled past the bus-stop, he thrust it open and the Scarecrow Man scrambled, with surprising agility. into the back seat of the limousine. Vigo gunned the motor and they moved off at speed. Spada demanded abruptly:

  ‘Any news?’

  ‘A little. There’s no record of your son-in-law’s arrest by the police. That means the security boys have got him.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Headquarters, probably. The place they call the “Fun Palace”. I’m sorry. I saw it happen; but I couldn’t intervene – not with your daughter in custody.’

  ‘What’s the next move?’

  ‘For you, only one. Work with the Embassy and the lawyers to get your daughter out. Leave Vallenilla to me. That’s another kind of job altogether. Let me out at the next traffic lights, please. I’ll walk the rest of the way.’

  ‘Keep in touch,’ said John Spada.

  ‘Of course,’ said the Scarecrow Man. ‘But don’t expect miracles; and send your aircraft back to New York. You’re likely to be here for some time.’

  He had dealt with bureaucracy before, but always as a man of power, who could walk away, jingling his dollars in his jeans, until the clerks and jacks-in-office had a fire lit under their backsides. Now, everything was different, brutally different. He was the petitioner, forced to be courteous, driven to be humble, because there were lives at stake, and here the writ of habeas corpus ran no longer. The lawyer whom Maury Feldman had hired spelled it out for him on the first day:

  ‘There is more happening in Argentina than you see on the surface: a power-struggle between the die-hards and the moderates in the military junta, a lesson for foreign investors that whoever wants to do busine
ss here, plays by Army rules, a warning to the liberals that, now that they are saved from revolution, they had better be content with an orderly tyranny . . . To you, and to your daughter, they will dole out their favours in droplets, so that, in the end, you will accept her conviction and her banishment as a mercy. Personally, I should advise you not to stay, but to come and go often.’

  ‘How long will it take to get Teresa out?’

  ‘Not less than a month, possibly longer.’

  ‘When will they let me see her?’

  ‘I don’t know. Certainly not soon. Even I cannot get near her and I am her legal representative.’

  The reason was made plain enough after the Consul-General’s visit, ten days later. He made his report to Spada and Ambassador Bewley in a closed session at the Embassy.

  ‘I was taken to see her at the women’s prison. I was not permitted to be alone with her. There was a woman warder and a security man present. I told her you were here and that we were making all efforts to have her released. She herself spoke very cautiously.’

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘In her own words, “Well enough, considering . . .” She said she had suffered a miscarriage but was now recovered from it.’

  ‘How did that happen?’

  ‘Mr Spada.’ The Consul was obviously distressed. ‘You may as well face it now. Your daughter has obviously been questioned under duress.’

  ‘You mean tortured?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘Did she tell you that?’

  ‘Obviously she could not, since her ultimate release will depend on her signing a document that she has been well-treated. She did, however, manage to pass me the clue. Speaking of the miscarriage, she said she attributed it medically to her state of shock after the arrest. One of the standard methods of interrogation is the application of electric shock.’

  ‘God Almighty!’

  Spada was murderously angry. The Consul tried to calm him.

  ‘If it is any help, the interrogations are obviously finished; since she is now confined in the political wing of the women’s prison.’

  ‘But they could begin again.’

  ‘It is not usual. The first session is usually exhaustive.’

  Spada heaved himself out of his chair and paced the room like a caged lion, raging impotently.