Proteus

by Morris West

  ‘You’ve heard the news about my daughter and her husband?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I need help. I want to meet the man who runs the South American Revolutionary Junta. I understand he works from Paris.’

  ‘When do you want to meet him?’

  ‘The earliest.’

  ‘Can I give him a reason?’

  ‘My son-in-law is in Martín Garcia Prison.’

  ‘That will not interest him too much.’

  ‘I am prepared to interest myself in any other prisoner he may care to nominate.’

  ‘That may interest him. I’ll do my best.’

  ‘How soon?’

  ‘Give me twenty-four hours. Call me back at this number.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Kitty Cowan came in, just as he was setting down the receiver. She stood off from his desk, surveyed him like a museum exhibit, and then pronounced her verdict.

  ‘You look like a hole in the ground that nobody wants to fill. I’ve called the hospital. Teresa’s resting well and Anna’s decided to go back to the apartment. We’ve got lunch in fifteen minutes with Maury Feldman and Mike Santos . . . Now, take ten and talk to Kitty, eh?’

  ‘What can I say, girl? It was rough. It’ll get rougher.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking about Teresa. What’s the meaning of this deal with Max Liebowitz? I thought we were going to fight him?’

  ‘We don’t have to, now. We’ve got Mike Santos in on a five-year contract. Maury will be Chairman of the Board.’

  ‘So Mike will be running the corporation. What will you be doing – bowling with the geriatrics? And what’s going to happen to me? I’ve wet-nursed you all these years. I’m too old to repeat the performance for Mike Santos.’

  ‘Sit down!’ Spada grinned at her. ‘You look like Medusa with snakes in her hair.’

  ‘Who the hell is Medusa?’

  ‘Skip it!’

  ‘I’m serious, chief. You’ve helped me make enough money so I can go play for the rest of my life – except there’s no one I specially want to play with. I love this job; but it won’t be the same when you’re not here. So come clean with me, okay?’

  ‘I’m not hiding anything, Kitty. It’s just that, after what’s happened to Teresa and to Rodo, everything I’ve done seems suddenly futile. Look! Ever since the military took over in Argentina there’s been one of the most savage reigns of terror in South American history – fifteen thousand people vanished without trace, ten thousand detainees, four thousand known dead, bodies picked up every week from rivers and lakes and beaches! It’s not only there. You can walk yourself round the map and fill in a whole catalogue of horrors . . . In a special way, I’m part of that catalogue. That bloody upstart in Buenos Aires bargained with me for Teresa. For him it was just a business deal; and I’m mixed up in similar situations all over the world. The way I am now, my hands are tied, because I’m bound in law and conscience to represent the interests of our investors. Once I quit, I’m free to dispose of my own life, my own money, any way I please. I can’t take it any more. I’m getting out. From now on, I’m not Spada Consolidated, I’m Proteus . . . Before I die, I’m going to fight one decent battle with the bastards of the world. If you want to join me, you’re welcome; but I’ve got no right to ask you, because out there, it’s a battle-field. People get maimed and killed . . . They live dangerous, secret lives that they can’t share with ordinary people. You’ve seen some of it – but very, very little . . . So, truly, I daren’t persuade you one way or the other. I can’t even show you a plan, because I don’t have one yet. I’m simply reacting to events. All I know is that I have to stand up and say: “Enough. I’m going to fight the evil, whatever face it wears . . .”’

  He broke off, surprised at his own vehemence. Kitty Cowan sat looking at him with a strange, sad tenderness. Finally, she asked quietly:

  ‘What does Anna say about this?’

  ‘I haven’t told her all of it. She sees only as far as Teresa and Rodo. She’s in full agreement with whatever I do for them.’

  ‘And afterwards?’

  ‘I don’t know. It all depends how Rodo is when we get him out – if we get him out. Anna may have two invalids on her hands.’

  ‘And a husband who’s walking a very dangerous road.’

  ‘There’s always a price tag on the wedding-cake.’

  ‘I guess so. The question is, who picks up the tab? . . . Anyway, thanks for being honest with me.’

  ‘Have I ever been anything else?’

  ‘No. So here’s my side of it. I’ll hold Mike’s hand until he’s settled, then I’ll move out. If there’s a place for me in what you’re doing, I’ll take it gladly.’

  ‘It’s always been reserved – priority one.’

  ‘Thanks, John . . . What does Maury think of this arrangement?’

  ‘As my lawyer, he’s happy. No one can compromise me with the stockholders. I go out clean. On a personal level, Maury’s worried. He thinks the Proteus organisation is still too fragile to stand the strain. However, now that I have time and freedom I can strengthen and perfect it.’

  ‘And Mike Santos?’

  ‘He doesn’t know yet. We’ll give him the news at lunch and drink to his success.’

  ‘I’d rather drink to yours.’

  ‘Don’t!’ said John Spada sharply. ‘In this game there’s nothing to win but the right to die free.’

  Luncheon was an uneasy meal. Far from being elated by his appointment, Mike Santos was distinctly unhappy about it. He agreed with Max Liebowitz. The timing was wrong;it emphasised Spada’s political involvements. There would be an immediate negative reaction in the stock market. Why not wait until the annual meeting and make the change then?

  Maury Feldman had already defaced two napkins with unsuccessful erotic renderings of Pasiphae and the Bull. Now he was grumbling at the quality of the coffee and urging immediate reform in the President’s catering service. On the question of the changeover, while he agreed with Mike Santos in principle, he saw greater dangers in having a President who was engaged in criminal activity – which was exactly what Spada was planning in Argentina. Also, in plain fact and among friends, he wouldn’t venture a plugged nickel on any business decision John Spada made in his present frame of mind.

  It was a real piece of ironic advocacy and, in the end, Santos was convinced by it. If Maury would handle the details with the Board and Spada himself would prepare a personal statement for the press, and Kitty would engage to stay at least six months longer, he would accept the appointment. Finally, it was agreed that the announcement should be made during Spada’s absence in Europe, so that the severance of his control would be defined physically as well as legally. At the end of it, Kitty Cowan made a tart comment.

  ‘It’s like a bloody conjuring trick. Now you see John Spada. Now he disappears in a puff of blue smoke! But I suppose the suckers will buy it.’

  ‘They always do,’ said Maury Feldman, ‘otherwise I’d be out of a job. Half the law is magic – paper tigers guarding the temple of a blindfold goddess.’

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ said Mike Santos.

  ‘I do,’ said John Spada. ‘When the law permits you to rape a woman with a cattle prod, and pay the torturer from the public purse, it’s time to take to the barricades . . . Thanks for what you’re doing, Mike. You too, Maury.’

  ‘Don’t thank me!’ said Maury Feldman with a grin. ‘Not until you’ve seen the bill . . . There’s a Mantegna for sale in Paris. As Chairman of the Board I figure I can afford it.’

  ‘And what do I get?’ Mike Santos relaxed enough to join in the joke.

  ‘Ulcers in ten languages,’ said Kitty Cowan. ‘Pour me another glass of wine, Mr President.’

  Two days later, after a second telephone conversation with Castagna, John Spada flew to the city of Basel in Switzerland. In the jargon of the underground trade, Basel and its environs had a special name: the Iron Thumb, a projection of neutral land that touched Franc
e on the West and Germany on the East, with so many exits and entrances that even the most zealous border patrols could not police them all.

  If you were on the run from the French or the Germans, an obliging barge skipper could drop you north in Little Basel or south in Great Basel. You could come by rail from Stockholm, Rome, Madrid, Istanbul, Athens and the Channel ports. You could fly into Blotzheim and, twelve kilometres later, be back in France. You could, if you needed a rendezvous, meet by Erasmus’s tomb in the Munster, wander together through the Hol-beins in the Kunstmuseum, or sit whispering among a million volumes, in the University library on Peters Platz. If you were a more leisurely conspirator you could do as you damn well pleased, provided you didn’t do it in the streets and frighten the burghers, who believed in clean money, clean streets and the eternity of the Swiss Confederation.

  It was in this grey enclave that a man who called himself El Tigre, leader in exile of the South American Revolutionary Junta, had consented to meet with John Spada to discuss the fate of a man named Rodolfo Vallenilla, a prisoner in Argentina. Their meeting was scheduled for eight-thirty in a small inn called The Golden Stag on the outskirts of the city.

  It was two minutes after eight-thirty when El Tigre presented himself: a tall, swarthy man in a suit of Italian cut. He was immaculately groomed, the hands manicured, the shoes brightly polished, the grey hair freshly barbered. He smiled and said, in Spanish:

  ‘Mr Spada? El Tigre at your service.’

  ‘Thank you for coming.’

  ‘Your friend, Castagna, was very persuasive.’

  The waiter presented the menu with a flourish and then retired. John Spada asked:

  ‘Shall we order first?’

  ‘Fish . . . an almond trout. Then a mousse. I have a passion for sweet things.’

  ‘I’ll join you. Wine?’

  ‘A Chablis, if you please.’

  Spada signalled the waiter, and when the order was given, plunged straight into business.

  ‘Let me tell you what I want.’

  ‘I know already. You want to spring Rodolfo Vallenilla from Martín Garcia prison.’

  ‘Are you prepared to help?’

  ‘For Vallenilla alone – no. He is of no interest to us. He is a brave man, yes; a notable journalist, yes; but he is not, never has been, one of us. He is a liberal, a moralist, always thinking like Thomas Aquinas about right and wrong, the nature of the State, the duties of a citizen . . . To us that’s irrelevant shit, not worth the risks we have to take to get him out. He’ll still be doing his balancing act on Judgment Day! However, we’ve got one of our own inside Martín Garcia, whom I’d specially like to spring. He’s an old hand in the ERP, total believer, totally dedicated. Whatever works for the cause is right; everything else is variable and dispensable. Mind you, he’s not worth a big operation, which would bring more raids, more pressures; but in combination, yes, we’d go for him. Clear?’

  ‘Quite clear,’ said John Spada. ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Chavez.’

  ‘OK. Chavez and Vallenilla in the same delivery.’

  ‘What do you need from me, Mr Spada?’

  ‘A note, a signal to your people in Buenos Aires, telling them I can be trusted and that I pay for services rendered.’

  ‘That’s simple enough. However, you must know I can’t force them to join your operation.’

  ‘I need volunteers, not conscripts.’

  ‘And we need money, Mr Spada.’ El Tigre smiled amiably. ‘Bank robbery and kidnapping aren’t as profitable as they used to be.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Let’s try to do the arithmetic. Let’s say Chavez and Vallenilla balance each other. I would not insult you by bargaining for your son-in-law’s body. However, without our help you cannot move – or at least you cannot move as fast or as securely. So, shall we say two hundred thousand dollars, paid here in Switzerland? It’s less than we’d charge for a middle-class kidnapping.’

  ‘One hundred.’

  ‘Much too low, Mr Spada.’

  ‘Is it ? Your man Chavez is still in prison. So far as I’m concerned, your organisation is untested.’

  ‘But you still need us.’

  ‘So I’ll add another hundred as a bonus – if we succeed.’

  ‘You have a deal, Mr Spada.’

  ‘Whom do I see in Buenos Aires?’

  ‘You’ve already met him, Mr Spada. In a wine-shop, I believe. His name is Sancho.’

  ‘I could have had him for nothing.’

  ‘Don’t believe it, Mr Spada.’ El Tigre was suddenly grim. ‘You are a dangerous man to treat with, a lone wolf and a very rich one – with a name that is known in every continent. You could be sold for ten times the money you are paying us.’

  ‘It would be a bad bargain,’ said Spada easily. ‘I’ve just retired from business and my trustees have written instructions that, in the event of a kidnap, no ransom is to be paid.’

  ‘Don’t count on reason in today’s world,’ said El Tigre gravely. ‘With drugs and sensory deprivation you can turn any man into a puppet . . . However, so long as we are allies, you have nothing to fear from us . . .’

  ‘Can you give me any other contacts in Buenos Aires?’

  ‘No.’ El Tigre was blunt. ‘Everything goes through Sancho. He decides what contacts you may make. Oh . . . there’s another condition. If you want a hit man – you bring in your own. We take care of party scores, not private ones.’

  ‘Any recommendations?’

  El Tigre considered the question for a moment, then gave a shrugging answer.

  ‘There’s a fellow we’ve used recently. He’s a German, one of the Baader-Meinhof bunch. Holes up in Amsterdam, makes half a living as a painter, the rest as a hit man. Very good at close-quarters work, I’m told – crowded streets, public transport, that sort of thing. His real name is Gebhardt Semmler.’

  ‘How do I get in touch with him?’

  ‘Call this number in Amsterdam.’ El Tigre scribbled it on the corner of a paper napkin. ‘Ask him if he’d like to buy a case of Tiger Beer . . . That will tell him you come from me.’

  ‘And what’s his price?’

  ‘Ten thousand US – and not a cent more, or you’ll spoil the market for the rest of us.’

  Spada grinned and made a sour joke.

  ‘I thought all revolutionaries were idealists!’

  ‘We are!’ said El Tigre good-humouredly. ‘But the Day dawns slowly. It helps to have a little comfort in exile. Now, let me tell you how our money is to be paid…’

  Once their bargain was struck, El Tigre lost interest in the proceedings. He ate hurriedly and left without ceremony. Spada sat alone nursing a brandy and watching the small, sober comedy of manners in the restaurant. It was a new experience. Suddenly, he was the spectator in absolute, remote, indifferent, a being from another dimension. All his scales and measures fell askew. His primal identity was gone. He was no longer John Spada, pillar of capitalist society, but the spadaccino nero, the dark duellist, lurking in the alleys of an international underworld.

  As he strolled back to his hotel through the darkened streets of the old city, he felt an odd perverse elation. For the first time since his youth, he was totally free – a nameless particle adrift in an alien element. As he undressed and made ready for bed, he had an impulse to call Amsterdam and talk with Gebhardt Semmler, the hit man.

  He lifted the receiver and then stopped short. What should he say? How should he identify himself? Was he truly interested in hiring a killer? In the end he yielded to the impulse of curiosity. He sat on the edge of the bed and dialled the number. It rang once, twice and again, then a man’s voice answered:

  ‘Ja, bitte?’

  Spada answered in German.

  ‘I am told you might be interested in a consignment of Tiger Beer.’

  ‘Oh I . . . From where are you calling?’

  ‘Outside Holland. Are you interested?’

  ‘I could be – but not for a fe
w days.’

  ‘I would be happy to come to Amsterdam to discuss the matter.’

  ‘What did you say your name was?’

  ‘I didn’t – but the beer is Tiger Beer.’

  ‘Yes, well . . . I’ll be away for a few days as I told you. Why don’t you call me on – let me look at the calendar – yes, on the 17th, about this time. Then we can arrange a meeting.’

  ‘I’ll do that.’

  ‘You know about the price?’

  ‘Ten – and expenses.’

  ‘Where’s the merchandise located?’

  ‘I’ll tell you that when we meet.’

  ‘That’s fine. Wiedersehen!’

  ‘Wiedersehen!’

  John Spada put down the receiver and wiped the sweat from his palms. Suddenly he found himself laughing. It was all so simple. You could order death like a drink at a bar. All you needed was the nerve and the money. Besides – a new thought struck him – with luck he now had something to bargain with in Munich.

  As he left the passport control booth at Munich airport, a tall, youngish man fell into step beside him.

  ‘Mr John Spada?’

  Spada swung around, startled.

  ‘Yes?’

  The tall fellow smiled and held out his hand.

  ‘Deskau . . . Kurt Deskau. I am a friend of Meister Hugo Von Kalbach. I shall drive you out to Tegernsee.’

  ‘That’s very kind:’

  ‘You have luggage?’

  ‘One valise.’

  ‘If you will point it out to me please.’

  It was on the tip of Spada’s tongue to ask how a chauffeur was permitted to enter the customs area; but he refrained. When his valise came through on the carousel, Deskau picked it up and walked ahead of him through the barrier. His car was parked in a prohibited zone, just in front of the taxi rank. A man, in police uniform, stood beside it. The policeman saluted, took the valise and stowed it in the trunk. Deskau motioned Spada into the front seat and took the wheel. Spada was puzzled.

  ‘A police car?’

  ‘Divisional Inspector Deskau, at your service.’

  ‘This is an honour, Inspector.’

  ‘I am in charge of anti-terrorist operations in this area. Meister Hugo is closely protected. He comes under my jurisdiction – as you will during your stay.’ He took out his wallet and extracted a personal card which he handed to Spada. On the back of the card was a pencil sketch of the Proteus symbol. ‘I was curious to meet you for other reasons as well.’