A Clear and Present Danger

by Buck Sanders

  The conditions were exactly right for such a deal. The movie actor the Americans had just elected as their President had given a highly unfavorable response to a reporter’s question about continued government loans and loan guarantees for Chrysler; the city of Detroit, Turin’s sister “Motown,” faced the desperate possibility of thousands more workers out of jobs, a grim prospect for a city in the throes of the highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

  DiNicolini’s task was to convince his two visitors that only in merger could the real competition be effectively challenged—the Japanese competition.

  He was confident that he could swing one of the visitors to his way of thinking. That would be Richard Samuels, member of the U.S. Senate and, according to some voices in the American press, the logical Democratic challenger to Ronald Reagan in 1984. And besides, DiNicolini had reason to believe that Samuels had profited personally and rather significantly from the Renault-American Motors deal.

  But the other man would be a difficult case, despite (or maybe because of) the fact that he was an Italo-American, Frank Riggio by name. Riggio was chairman of the board of Chrysler, a progressive businessman who was, unfortunately, scrupulously honest. How he had gotten so far was beyond DiNicolini’s understanding. How Riggio had gotten so far in the automobile business was beyond anyone’s understanding.

  The steward stepped out of DiNicolini’s path as he returned to the table at which the Americans sat.

  “Anything more?” the steward asked.

  DiNicolini pointed to his own glass and the steward filled it. Then, when DiNicolini gestured to the ashtrays, which contained the remains of one cigar per man, the steward allowed the slightest trace of a grin to interrupt his poker face.

  The steward carefully stacked the ashtrays on his serving tray and stared at them oddly as he backed away from the table. Before disappearing into the pullman kitchen that was part of the office suite, DiNicolini said to him, “Some espresso, Anthony.”

  DiNicolini looked to the faces of his guests, who agreed that espresso would indeed be the fine finishing touch to the meal they had just completed and the wine they had drunk. He looked again at the steward.

  “Right away, please.”

  Anthony nodded and backed through the kitchen door.

  “Now then,” DiNicolini said, attending to his guests once more, “here is what I promised.”

  He extended his hand, which contained a pair of crisply wrapped Individuates, which Senator Samuels correctly gauged at ten dollars a copy. Riggio mumbled an appreciation and struck a match.

  “I’ll just put this one away for now,” Samuels said, tucking the cigar into an interior pocket of his coat. “That is, if you don’t mind?”

  Riggio and DiNicolini were both already happily puffing away on theirs. Riggio shrugged his shoulders and DiNicolini swept his right hand through the air, dismissing Samuels from any obligation to participate in the smoking ritual.

  “Had one already, as you know,” Samuels said. DiNicolini detested Samuels’ habit of beginning every sentence with a verb.

  “Clogs up the heart, absolute murder,” Samuels continued, “or so says my doctor. Can’t have more than one stogie a day and my ration’s up, see. Got to save room for the caffeine.”

  DiNicolini smiled pleasantly at the Senator as he wondered how much cash it would take to buy him. Whatever, it would be worth the investment. Samuels might very well be President in four years. And why not? The Americans had been proving for years that they were capable of electing absolutely anything to the highest office in the land.

  “Coffee, now that’s bad, too,” Samuels prattled on, “but since I had just one cup of that, and that was way back early in the morning, well, I suppose I can manage that espresso stuff now in the afternoon.

  “When in Rome, you know, and all that.”

  Samuels thought this last remark particularly funny and began snorting and laughing simultaneously.

  Riggio shifted uncomfortably in his chair, clearly bored by his fellow American’s small chat. If there was business to be done, then by god let’s get at it, he thought. He had a fair idea of what DiNicolini would propose, of course, and he knew he had no choice but to consider it. In fact, his only objection at this point of the game was the presence of Samuels, a necessary evil in the age of enabling legislation.

  Samuels would be needed to introduce a variety of Congressional bills for whatever business context it would take to salvage the Chrysler Corporation. It would make Samuels a hero in the eyes of the national liberal constituency for bringing about a quasi government-industry partnership, and it would make Samuels a hero in the more immediate constituency of Michigan, where his actions could save thousands of jobs. Also, the deal would fatten Samuels’ Swiss accounts. What a racket!

  DiNicolini, of course, was thinking the same thing. He said to Samuels, “We shall have the espresso soon, Senator.”

  Riggio could take it no longer. “How will your government react to what you are about to propose?” he asked, jarring DiNicolini from insignificant concern.

  DiNicolini cleared his throat.

  “What I am about to propose, Mr. Riggio, is a matter which is easily soluable insofar as it may concern the Italian government, as there is, practically speaking, no such thing as an Italian government,” DiNicolini said.

  He was pleased to hear Riggio laugh.

  “Should we merge our operations,” DiNicolini continued, “or at least a part of them, which, I can clearly tell, is what you have correctly anticipated as my proposal, my government will be only too happy to endorse the enterprise.

  “This I can guarantee you, Mr. Riggio. As I said, we have virtually no government. The Queen of England is due here this week, and no one in Rome can think of whom she should see. No one is able to determine who is head of state.”

  Riggio laughed again.

  DiNicolini finished his wine and said, “You may laugh, but this is the truth. In Italy today, someone like your Jimmy Carter would be considered politically charismatic.” He looked toward the kitchen door. Where the devil was the steward?

  “Don’t sweat the Congress,” Samuels chimed in, directing his comments to Riggio. “Been over that path before, right?”

  A bit of ash fell off Riggio’s Individualé. He cupped a hand and caught it. He looked about somewhat helplessly for an ashtray.

  “Sorry,” DiNicolini said. He rose from the table, now angered by the steward’s slowness. “I’ll get those ashtrays.”

  Inside the kitchen, Anthony hurriedly finished what he was doing as he heard DiNicolini’s words and his approaching footsteps. Sweat trickled down his back, beneath his starched steward’s jacket.

  DiNicolini pushed through the door, brusquely, and came face to face with his steward, who held a coffee service in a tray, along with clean ashtrays.

  “Sir?” Anthony asked. It appeared to his employer that nothing was amiss.

  “Well… just carry on.”

  DiNicolini turned then and reentered the dining area of his suite, briefly embarrassed at having engaged in the triviality of checking Anthony’s progress. He was still uneasy with Anthony. The old fellow who had been his steward for so many years had unexpectedly resigned one day a month ago, suggesting that his nephew, Anthony, fill in. He had heard the other day from Anthony that the old fellow had unexpectedly died in his sleep.

  DiNicolini resumed his seat at the dining table. Anthony placed an ashtray near Riggio. He set the other between DiNicolini and the nonsmoking Senator, then circled the table to serve each man a demitasse of espresso.

  As Riggio and DiNicolini talked business, and as Samuels mentally calculated his fee for bringing the two industrialists together, the steward quickly returned to the small kitchen.

  Once inside, Anthony opened a cupboard and removed a black leather briefcase. From it, he took a suitcoat that matched the dark trousers he was wearing, a pair of brown tortoise-shell glasses, a false mustache,
a charcoal gray Borsalino, and a somber four-in-hand.

  He removed his steward’s jacket and bow tie, placing these items neatly into a drawer where they were customarily stored. Then he patted the mustache into place with a drop of spirit gum. The necktie, suitcoat, and glasses went on next. He now looked every inch the properly uniformed European businessman.

  He inspected the kitchen, giving it a final going-over, for he never would return. Everything was in order, everything spotless. He placed the laboratory instruments he had been using into the briefcase and snapped it shut.

  The Borsalino in one hand and the briefcase in the other, he left DiNicolini’s suite through the kitchen door that connected with a private corridor leading to the main hallway of elevators and offices of lesser men.

  At the ground floor, Anthony placed the Borsalino on his head, obscuring his face with the motion as he passed by the checkout guards. They paid little attention to faces, he knew. But like his commander, Anthony was a careful man in such seemingly small matters.

  He touched two fingers to his hat brim in salute to the guards at the door, who held open the portals, obliging his perfectly inconspicuous exit from Fiat Motors Italia, Ltd.

  He saw her waiting in the first row of the visitors’ parking lot, waiting in her dark green Maserati, a shade of emerald that matched her eyes. Sigrid was very tall, very blonde, and extraordinarily beautiful; if only she weren’t his property, he thought.

  She popped open the passenger door and he stepped into the Maserati, giving her a peck on the cheek as if greeting his wife after a long day’s work.

  “The telegram?” he asked as he shut the door behind him and she fired the motor.

  “I sent it, of course,” she said. Her voice carried a light German accent.

  She turned the car out of the parking lot.

  Richard Samuels wore the look of a man contented by a day full of shrewd business successes. As well he should. The meeting had gone very well with DiNicolini. He knew that Riggio would eventually fall into line on the deal, he had been assured by one of DiNicolini’s flunkies that he would be contacted by someone from Fiat before leaving Italy, which Samuels understood to mean payment, and now, en route by the wonderful train Mussolini had built connecting Turin to Rome, he was headed to the warm comforts of the little lady waiting at the hotel. The little lady was not his wife.

  A porter knocked on the door of his compartment. Samuels gave him permission to enter.

  “Anything I can get you, sir?” the porter asked.

  Samuels took his eyes from the window. There was nothing more to be seen now. Darkness had fallen over the landscape.

  “A brandy,” he told the porter.

  Samuels settled back into the banquette and thought about lighting up his cigar when the brandy came. He also thought about money and the day he would become President. Then he felt the stabbing pain in his chest.

  It was as if someone were in the train compartment with him, a big knife in hand, the knife jammed into the left side of his chest.

  Then he couldn’t breathe.

  Unable to move his left arm, Samuels grasped at his chest with his right hand as he struggled for air. He fell forward off the banquette. His face hit the floor. Blood trickled out his nostrils. He rolled on the floor, landing finally on his back.

  He tried to call out. He could hear his screaming, but he knew no one else could.

  His only thought was the length of time it would take for the porter to return.

  Sigrid slowed the Maserati to a crawl and joined the long line of automobiles at the border checkpoint. She looked into the rear view mirror, unconsciously checking the suitcase she had packed earlier in the day. It contained weekend clothing and related items for a man and wife off on a brief holiday to Austria. Anthony’s briefcase and business suit, as well as the mustache and the glasses and Borsalino, had been disposed of along the highway.

  They had no special difficulty getting past the Italian border police.

  A clerk in the telegraph office of the Turin train station looked in her international code book and found the number sequence necessary to transmit a message to a place called Chevy Chase, Maryland, United States of America.

  She punched up the appropriate computer signals on the transmitter, and when the video screen indicated the channel was open, she studied the slip of paper and carefully tapped out a five-word message.

  Four

  CHEVY CHASE, Maryland, 17 November 1980

  “Mrs. Richard Samuels?”

  The voice on the telephone was foreign and very distant. That did not seem the least bit curious to her. But the fact that it was a man’s voice did. Most of the international operators were women.

  “This is she.”

  She next expected to hear her husband’s voice.

  “We are sorry to disturb you at this hour… ”

  She looked at her wristwatch. It was nearly midnight. She swiftly calculated the time in Italy, a five-hour differential. It was already the next day in Rome.

  “… but this is an emergency,” the man said.

  “I am afraid, Mrs. Samuels, that we have very sad news for you… ”

  She sat down. She listened only slightly, hearing the man on the other end of the line introduce himself as Inspector Somebody of the so-and-so division of the Roman police. He spoke on as she anticipated everything.

  Her eyes were dry and her mind was crystal clear. She had known this moment would come, sooner or later. There were days when she wished the call would come right then and there, so that she could be on with her life. She and her husband had long ago fallen out of love, of course, as per the usual course of marriages in high-level Washington. But she respected him, in spite of his considerable and all-too-human shortcomings. Besides, Richard Samuels had built up quite an impressive insurance portfolio during the last twenty years. That and his Congressional pension, plus widow’s benefits…

  “… and so, you will be receiving official written confirmation within the next few hours, Mrs. Samuels. My personal condolences to you, and may Godspeed.”

  She managed a thank-you and then made herself a drink, a double bourbon and soda. When she had drunk half of it, she went to the secretary, slid open the center drawer, and reached for the personal telephone directory. It was next to his pistol, a little .22-caliber that had never been fired. She knew she might be finding such curious evidences of his life for the next several months, finding them at unsuspecting moments. A tear came.

  She opened the directory to the W’s and found the number of her dear old friends, the Winships. Richard and Hamilton had not been friendly for the last several years, though both men were close-mouthed about it to their wives. Each wife, of course, understood the problem. Hamilton Winship hadn’t had the time of day for Lyndon Johnson, either, and Richard Samuels had learned all he knew of Washington politics and Washington money from Lyndon. But now all that had died with Richard. She needed to drink tonight with old friends, to drink to Richard’s better memory. Edith and Hamilton would come over, even at this hour. They would understand.

  Before she could pick up the telephone receiver to make the call, the phone rang. This time it was local.

  “Mrs. Richard Samuels?” a man’s voice asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Western Union, ma’am. We have a message for you from Turin, Italy.”

  “Yes.”

  The man hesitated.

  “I read a little French,” he said, “but my pronunciation might not be accurate. The message is in French. That’s the way we were told to give it.”

  She didn’t know what to think.

  “Should I go ahead? Mrs. Samuels?”

  “Yes,” she finally said. “Go ahead with the message.” She neither read nor spoke French. What could this be? Now there was no question in her mind but that she must call the Winships. Hamilton especially, since he worked with these mysterious things all the time in his capacity as special deputy secretary of the Trea
sury Department.

  The man from Western Union cleared his throat. Then he said:

  “Non, je ne regrette rien.”

  Five

  LONDON, England, 22 January 1981

  Ben Slayton sat alone at a table in his favorite saloon, a place called Mother Punch’s Ale House. It was situated in the cellar of a squat warehouse in Old Seacoal Lane, just off bustling Fleet Street.

  Slayton liked Mother Punch’s because it was usually full of talkative journalists, whose company he both enjoyed and found occasionally useful. Besides which, Mother Punch’s was a fair distance from the American Embassy, and the only attraction there was shop talk. Slayton had long ago learned that the American Embassy in any country was the worst possible place to learn anything about the host nation. So there was nothing Slayton liked more when assigned abroad than to nip out to some place warm and dark and wet to listen and learn.

  Over the past half-dozen years he had been with the U.S. Treasury Department as a troubleshooter agent, Slayton had traveled through dozens of foreign countries; and by his insistent mingling with all classes of people, from the poorest workers and peasants to the bejeweled, he felt he had grown particularly effective in his work.

  The fact that he was fluent in French, Spanish, German, and Russian helped his minglings, as did the fact that he was handsome in an average sense, in a pleasant, Middle Western sense, reflecting a secure and rooted upbringing. He was just under six feet in height; a trim but muscular 170 pounds, the build of a light heavyweight boxer; and his dark brown hair, light brown eyes, and narrow facial features told of his German and English ethnic makeup.