Bristow watched the policewoman replace the cassette with one she lifted from a supply under the table. “I wondered about that,” he told Tasso. “Your precautions are good.”
What were they expecting? Karen looked from Bristow to Tasso and decided not to display her ignorance by any question.
“Security is tight,” Tasso said, not displeased with the American’s compliment. He nodded in the direction of the tall and massive detective. “He is responsible.”
He definitely was, thought Bristow, conscious that the chief of Security had twice eyed him thoroughly.
Tasso guided Karen to the table. “You will have to empty your handbag, Miss Cornell. No contraband?” The grave face almost smiled.
“Only my notebook, pencils and pen.” She opened the shoulder bag and let all its contents fall on the table’s surface. Bristow held back, remembering Security’s sharp look as he thought of the machine waiting to signal that he carried a pistol tucked into his trouser belt.
Tasso returned. “Something to declare? In your pocket perhaps?”
“Under my jacket. In my belt.”
“How big?”
“A Beretta.”
“I think you should hand it over now. To me.”
There was no arguing with that voice. Bristow slipped his hand inside his linen jacket, quietly freed the pistol. Tasso grasped it, slid it into an inside pocket of his suit. It was quick and unobtrusive. “No need,” Tasso said, “to carry that around.”
Bristow looked over at Karen. “She’s my responsibility.”
And perhaps something more, thought Tasso. “It will be returned to you. I suppose you have a permit for it?”
“In the United States, yes.” Complete honesty, Bristow had decided, was the only policy with Tasso. “I have no permit to enter as Miss Cornell’s translator. Don’t I need one?”
“Unnecessary. You are my guest. We shall enter the room together. No problem, Mr. Bristow. I have already explained your presence to Security. This way.”
They walked through the detector. It registered briefly as Tasso passed its alarm, but that only raised smiles from the men in charge. Karen was already through, watching with some astonishment as a young couple, well-dressed, were undergoing further search by expert hands.
Tasso said, “These are the boy’s relatives: brother and sister. The girl’s relatives haven’t yet arrived. Her cousins, I believe.”
The young couple was cleared, their small camera was returned to them (“With a new spool inside,” Tasso murmured to Bristow), and they entered the room. Tasso nodded to the two guards as he followed with Karen and Bristow. “Where do you want to sit?”
“Not in the first row,” Bristow said. Aliotto was already there, in a front seat, partially hidden by a group standing around him, engrossed in conversation. “Towards the back of the room, perhaps?”
“Wise,” said Tasso and led the way.
“No objections?” Bristow asked Karen.
“Not if it’s wise.” But she was puzzled.
“I like to see all the room, not just sit facing a stage.”
“Not a bad idea for me, too. The audience is part of the scene.” And she would see the stage clearly enough—a narrow platform running along one end of the room—for there were only four well-spaced rows of chairs set out to face it, with six chairs to each row. Not too many were expected, but more than she had thought. And as Tasso, hurrying off to talk with another journalist, left them alone, she could ask, “Relatives, Peter? Why on earth relatives?”
He told her, as he led her to the last row of chairs and selected two on its far end with the emergency exit close by. “Sure this is all right?” he asked as they sat down.
“Fourth row? Perfect. Clear view and all the reactions to watch.”
And nothing behind us except a blank wall, Bristow thought. The room, he estimated, was less than forty feet long and about twenty feet wide. The chairs formed a central island, leaving broad aisles on either side. In front was the long platform backed by another blank wall with a high row of small windows, almost at ceiling height, slanted open for ventilation but barred on the outside. The platform had two wooden chairs separated by a small table, powerful overhead lamps along with a dangling microphone, and a lectern at a front corner where a plain-clothes officer was adjusting his recording machines. Only two doors: the entrance on the right side of the room, the emergency exit on the left. A simple place for a complicated morning, and one big headache for Tasso and his colleagues. When they had agreed to this meeting, it was to be only a rather cosy little affair for five journalists and two recanters who could have twenty-five-year prison sentences for murder, kidnapping, kneecappings, and bombings reduced to five for their co-operation. Now, the front row held four journalists; the second row had its full complement of six. The third row had the two young relatives sitting directly in front of Karen and Bristow—but the girl was no taller than five feet and blocked no view—and next to them were two sombre-faced men and then two empty chairs. Presumably, guessed Bristow, for the late-arriving cousins.
“Comfortable, I hope,” said Inspector Tasso as he returned.
No one would fall asleep on these wooden seats, thought Karen and smiled as an answer.
“You seem troubled,” Tasso said to Bristow.
“No. Just speculating. What’s outside that wall behind the platform?”
“A courtyard. Well guarded. The prisoners will arrive there.”
“And where does the fire-exit door lead?”
“Into a corridor, with two men on duty.”
“And the corridor’s entrance?”
“It is on the street. A narrow door. Cannot be opened from the outside—like the fire exit on your aisle. Everything has been checked—table, lectern, chairs, walls, floor, and ceiling. The inspection ended at ten o’clock this morning. You approve?”
“Very much. You must have had major problems to face.”
“We still have, my friend. No, thank you, I won’t sit down. I like to move around.” Tasso noted Bristow’s second glance at the sombre-faced men who sat so silently in the row in front of him. “Lawyers,” Tasso said. “One for each of the criminals. They brought the suggestion for this meeting to our public-relations department.” He spoke with distaste.
“So they were the link between the terrorists?” To Karen, Bristow said, “I wondered how those two got together on this idea—they weren’t likely to be in the same cell.”
Tasso almost smiled. “Not even in the same prison.”
“There’s Aliotto!” Karen exclaimed as the Italian rose to look around the room.
“He arrived early,” Tasso said. “Insisted on that seat.”
It lay on the right-hand side of the aisle, a front-row seat, as Bristow had noted, with an empty chair beside Aliotto, presumably for Karen. But no chair reserved for any translator—Aliotto’s last word, no doubt.
“I never saw him when we came in,” Karen said. She had been too absorbed by a terrorist’s relatives—obviously a well-to-do family: it wasn’t poverty that had induced his taste for violence.
“I did,” Bristow acknowledged, “but he seemed occupied with some other journalists.” A poor excuse, perhaps. How else did he say that the less Karen saw of Aliotto the better?
Aliotto caught sight of Karen, waved, gestured to the empty seat beside him. She rose to wave back and shook her head. Out of custom, Bristow got to his feet, too.
Tasso seized that moment to slip the Beretta from his own pocket into Bristow’s. With a side glance at Karen, who was now signalling her refusal of a front-row view, he murmured, “As you said, your responsibility.” Then he moved down the aisle towards the platform, taking out his small transceiver.
Aliotto stood irresolute for a long moment, gave up with a small wave, and sat down.
“Perhaps I should have gone over and explained,” Karen said as she and Bristow resumed their seats.
“He damn well should have come here and t
alked with you,” Bristow told her. Aliotto hadn’t wanted to risk leaving that front-row position. Insisted on that seat—Tasso’s words. It had puzzled Tasso, as it now puzzled Bristow. His attention switched to the doorway, where a janitor was carrying in two extra chairs. Behind him, a young helper brought two more. “Are we packing more people in?” Bristow looked at his watch; the meeting ought to be starting any minute.
Quickly, the janitor placed one chair at Aliotto’s right and the other behind it. There was still ample leeway for movement on that aisle. But Tasso, on the other side of the room, disagreed. And vehemently. He broke off his talk on the transceiver to shout, “No, no! Out, out!” Then some report was being sent him, important enough to hold all his attention, and he was listening intently with a hand over his free ear to blot out the buzz of comment around him.
The janitor’s helper obeyed, carrying his chairs back into the hall, standing aside as two latecomers entered—young, dark-haired, of medium height, and dressed in faded US Army field jackets. They sat down in the nearest available space, which was logical enough. The janitor shrugged his shoulders—the extra chairs were now occupied—and left. The young men seemed to realise they were not in the section that had been allocated to them. The one beside Aliotto rose, stared down at the journalist and then at the empty seat on Aliotto’s left, frowned as he retreated to the third row. The other had bent down to pick up something he had dropped; then, straightening his back, with his hands deep in his pockets, he followed his friend. They paused before they sat down on the chairs next to the lawyers, surveyed the curious journalists with a truculent scowl. The frown was still deep on the first man’s face; it cleared as his eyes rested on Karen. Bristow, studying them covertly, felt his spine stiffen. They both took their seats with a quiet phrase exchanged, and the second man turned his head slowly to glance over his shoulder. He looked at Karen, only shifted his gaze when Bristow returned his stare. What had caught their interest—a pretty face, or a woman journalist? Or what? Bristow’s tension grew.
“The girl’s relatives, I suppose,” Karen was saying. “Why the glowers and the hard looks? They seem to be prepared to dislike everyone. But they’d better take off those heavy jackets—it’s warm in here.” She removed hers and wondered why Peter, who helped her ease her arm from its sleeve, made no comment. Today, he was strangely silent; quite unlike yesterday, when they had stayed in her room most of the time and worked and talked and laughed together. A good day, she thought, a wonderful day. And tomorrow, she thought, we’ll be separating. I will go back to Washington, and he will start his vacation. And I’ll hate that, she admitted, and felt suddenly desolate. She busied herself with her notebook, propped it on top of her bag on her knees. With pencil in hand, she said, “Well, I’m ready for Martita and Giorgio. She’s the meek one, Schleeman told me. Just follows Giorgio in everything he does. And did.” Their past record was appalling. Yesterday, when she had studied the detailed accounts of their exploits, she had been horrified. Brazen cruelty, senseless violence, obscene delight in destruction; and all to be forgotten, a thing of the past. Repentance and forgiveness instead of hate and vengeance.
“Here they come,” Bristow said as voices and footsteps mingled in the hall. He grasped Karen’s hand for a moment, gave her a smile that reassured her: not her fault if he had seemed so buried in his thoughts. He worries too much about me, she decided, and was both pleased and distressed by the idea.
All heads had turned towards the entrance. First, two uniformed guards appeared, armed with machine pistols, and halted at each side of the doorway. Then came a young girl—slender, with long brown hair falling straight over her shoulders—flanked by two middle-aged women in uniforms as solemn as their faces. The trio walked past Aliotto, mounted the narrow steps that led up to the platform. White blouse and wide grey skirt, Karen noted; hair held in place by a red band worn low on her forehead; a pretty girl, looking even younger than her nineteen years, fragile and helpless, almost angelic as she sat down and clasped her hands on her lap. So this was Martita, who had shot a Milanese newspaperman in both knees after he had fallen helpless to the pavement with a chest wound. Her two guards, tall and heavy by comparison, took their posts against the wall. And, thought Karen, there wasn’t a man in this room who didn’t notice the contrast and feel his sympathies tilt away from law and order. Except for Inspector Tasso and those few who had read the detailed facts of Martita’s past achievements. If I hadn’t, she reminded herself, my sympathies would have tilted completely.
Giorgio and his two guards, capable-looking males in uniform, had entered almost unnoticed. He was tall and thin, with closely cut brown hair and a neat beard. A handsome young man, erect and smart in his walk; a decided young man, Karen thought as she watched his brusque movements; and confident. He sat down, reached over the small table to touch Martita’s hair and smile encouragement. As his guards assumed their positions against the wall, Giorgio straightened his shoulders, began speaking. For both of them, it seemed.
He gave their names, their occupations (Martita had been a movie extra; he had been a philosophy student), and outlined their association with a group of five other dedicated revolutionaries—a section of the Red Brigade. He spoke of their beliefs, their hopes; even listed some of their deeds. But now he admitted they had been wrong in such action. In prison he had come to the conviction that violence was no solution, would not further the cause of justice for the poor. When released, he and Martita would marry and return to a normal life. They still believed in their opinions. It was the methods they had used, along with their comrades, that were wrong. He was convinced that only peaceful means could bring a better future for everyone.
“Do you need translation?” Bristow had asked as this speech began, and Karen had shaken her head. Giorgio spoke clearly, at a measured rate, easily understandable even for her Italian. Besides, she thought, how can Peter translate when he keeps watching the relatives—not the brother and sister directly in front of him, but the two cousins at the other end of the row? “I’ll have the transcript,” she whispered back, and bless Inspector Tasso for that privilege.
Giorgio’s speech was ended. Martita sat without moving, her Mona Lisa smile in place. The questions began, and chaos broke loose. Tasso, over by the door, shouted, “Gentlemen, gentlemen! One question at a time! Each of you in turn—and keep your questions to three minutes. We begin with the front row.” He pointed to Aliotto. Sanity having been established, he ascended the steps and stood behind the lectern to survey the room.
So now, thought Bristow, we have Tasso and the recording expert at the lectern, a couple of male guards within reach of Giorgio, two female guards to the rear of sweet Miss Silence, two men with machine pistols at the door, the door itself safely closed, and God knows how many men in the hall and the street—not to mention the two armed men in the corridor outside the fire exit. No one can say Tasso didn’t take precautions—he worries more than I do. Strange, though, the difference in the reactions of the two pairs of relatives.
Giorgio’s brother and sister listened intently. The girl needed comforting, wept, was quieted by her brother even if he seemed about to give way to tears himself. Martita’s cousins were bored; they sat slouched and unmoving, eyes straight ahead and unseeing, kept a stolid silence. The one who had frowned was now expressionless, held with obvious disinterest a small cassette recorder that he probably realised was useless to catch any words beyond twelve feet away. He ought to have stayed in that front-row seat beside Aliotto. The other had both hands deep in his pockets, ignoring the heat of the room as well as its voices. With their family connections, Bristow would have expected these two to be the more emotional pair: Martita came originally from south of Naples—an Italian father, a Spanish mother. Giorgio was from the north—his people lived in Turin.
Yes, thought Bristow, a strange contrast in their reactions. And his sense of unease deepened. There was some peculiar logic in the behaviour of Martita’s cousins. They had enter
ed this room quick and alert, their eyes interested in every detail. For a brief minute they sat on the two extra chairs at the front and then, still observant, moved back. Too observant, he was convinced. He glanced around the room—everything was normal, everyone was engrossed by the questions and answers that were calmly spoken—and felt his uneasiness growing.
Suddenly, in the street outside, there was an explosion. The room shook, the ceiling lights trembled. All heads turned in alarm, all voices silenced. From the street again—staccato bursts of rapid fire.
It has begun, thought Bristow. Not here, out there. Quickly he grasped Karen and looked towards Martita’s cousins. The man with the small recorder no longer slouched—he sat erect, the cassette recorder held in both hands, his thumb raised, his eyes on the platform. The second man was rising. Martita’s arm shot straight up, her fist clenched.
At once, the man brought his hand out of his pocket, aiming his pistol at Giorgio, and fired. Giorgio fell as Martita leaped sideways, leaving a clear field for the second and third bullets to strike her two guards, and jumped down from the platform. The extra chair beside Aliotto exploded violently.
Flames and smoke, a shaft of fire along the front row of seats, shouts changing to screams. In a matter of seconds, hell had broken loose.
As Giorgio fell, Bristow shoved Karen face down on the floor, dropped on one knee. His Beretta was out as the assassin swung around to take aim at Karen. Bristow fired first, caught the man’s chest, sent him staggering back, his wild fourth bullet buried in the ceiling. His companion hurled his only weapon at Bristow—a bogus recorder with its remote control—and made a bolt for the entrance, was lost in a spreading cloud of black smoke. Bristow dodged—a bad moment when he thought it could be a grenade—and hauled Karen to her feet, pulling her towards the fire exit. Martita was already there, thrusting the door open, the hem of her skirt lifted to cover her mouth.
Screams were mixed with moans, shouts with yells of command. The foul-smelling smoke that engulfed half the room was spreading. So were the flames from the front row of chairs. Bristow, gripping Karen’s wrist, saw Martita disappear into the corridor. Two armed policemen out there, Tasso had said. Martita would have the shortest escape on record, he thought grimly, and shouldered the door open.
Ride a Pale Horse Page 18
