We moved up the broad lawn toward the house. A stone patio flanked the back of the structure, with French doors leading into the family room. The swimming pool was to the side, so as not to interfere with the view of the ocean from inside the house. There were no lights showing, but we’d assumed that there would be motion-activated security lights closer to the house. We were prepared to rush the place as soon as there was any sign of alarm.
The houses along this part of the beach were placed far apart, generous lawns taking up the space in between. The fact that Florida was running out of water didn’t cause any concern to this segment of the population. Acres of green grass were a sign of oblivious consumption, no thought given to the cost, which in itself was a sign of wealth. Let the farmers worry about water. These people had golf to play and balls to attend. They needed to glitter in their riches, and they did so with a thoughtless disregard for the rest of the world.
The night was quiet, the sound of a gentle surf teasing our ears. We crouched low as we approached the house. Lights flared in the darkness, bathing the lawn and us in white light. We ran toward the house, crouched, presenting as small a target as possible. We used our rifle butts to knock out the glass in the French doors, reaching in to open them. We rushed through the family room to the foyer and up the stairs.
A man was coming out of the first room on our right, wearing only pajama bottoms, a pistol in his hand. Not Allawi. Jock shot him in the leg. He went down, moaning, holding his thigh. Logan bent to search him. He was clean. Logan picked up the gun, handcuffed the man’s right wrist to his left ankle, put his finger to his lips in a shushing motion, and went to check the other rooms on the floor. Jock and I moved to the end of the hall where double doors guarded the master bedroom. Jock turned the knob, and the door opened.
The room took up the whole end of the wing, with windows overlooking the ocean on one side and the road on the other. We rushed inside. Allawi was sitting on the side of the bed, confused, alarmed, and unarmed. He was a small man, five six or so and 130 pounds. He was wearing short-sleeved pajamas. His head was covered by black hair graying at the temples. His skin was a dark red orange, the color of a ripening persimmon. A middle-aged man cowered next to him, his hair mostly gone to baldness, drawing a blanket to his neck.
Allawi was agitated, fear written on his face. “Who are you?” His English was accented, the rounded vowels of his native tongue overwhelming the sharp edges of his speech.
“We’ve come to talk about Laurence Wyatt,” I said.
“Who?”
I pointed my rifle at the other man in the bed. “I’m going to shoot your friend the next time you tell me a lie.”
“No. Not Mustafa.”
“Tell me about Wyatt.”
“Okay. Let Mustafa go.”
I waved the rifle toward the door. “Get out, Mustafa.”
The man threw back the cover and darted from the bed. He was naked, his skin several shades lighter than Allawi’s. He was thin, and I could see the bones of his spine as he ran from the room, almost running over Logan who was coming in.
“What the hell?” Logan shouted.
Jock laughed. “That’s Allawi’s playmate. He’s harmless.”
I turned back to Allawi. “I’ll kill you where you sit unless you tell me why you had Wyatt killed.”
“I didn’t. It was the major who ordered it.”
“Major?”
“Yes. Major McKinley.”
“Who is this Major McKinley?”
“He’s not a major anymore. He used to be, and so that’s what we call him.”
“Who is he?” I brandished the rifle, willing Allawi to hurry with his story.
“He is William McKinley. He lives near Boston.”
“Why would he order Wyatt’s death?”
“Because of the group.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“McKinley was a major in World War II. In the OSS.”
I was puzzled. “The Office of Strategic Services? The forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency?”
“Yes.”
“He’d be an old man by now.”
“He is.”
“So what does an aging former army officer have to do with Wyatt’s death?”
“The major helped my father and another man get a lot of money out of Europe after the war.”
“De Fresne?”
Allawi was surprised. His eyebrows shot up, his eyes widened. “Yes.”
“The money from the Jews in Vichy France.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I’m not sure. My father was a man named Abdul el-Gailani. He fought with the Syrian underground during the war. Fought the British and the Free French. He was captured and was about to be executed when the major got him out of prison and sent him back to Saudi Arabia.”
“Tell me about the money.”
“My father’s family had a relationship with a minor prince of the House of Saud. For a price, the prince helped him start a bank, got all the permissions required by our government. My father changed his name to Allawi and arranged to become a corresponding bank with the Confederated Bank Suisse. That wasn’t hard, because CBS had twenty million dollars de Fresne had taken from the Jews.”
“What happened to de Fresne?”
“The major got him out of Europe and set him up as an American. My father, de Fresne, and the major split the money three ways. De Fresne needed the major to stay alive and they both needed my father’s bank to launder the money.”
I heard sirens in the distance, coming closer. Jock and Logan reacted, moving to the windows that fronted on the street. “They’re coming this way,” Jock said. “I can see the blue lights.”
“My silent alarm,” said Allawi. “Do not shoot me. It will only go worse for you when the police arrive.”
“Let’s get out of here,” I said. I thought about shooting the little bastard on the bed, but if we didn’t make it out of the house before the cops got there, I didn’t want to face a murder charge.
We raced down the stairs and out the French doors onto the rear lawn. I jumped into the boat and started the outboard while Jock and Logan brought in the anchors. I backed off the beach, got a little depth under me, and wheeled the bow to the east. We headed straight out to sea, the boat dark, gliding over the black water of the Atlantic Ocean.
We’d rented the boat from a place on Singer Island, just across the Palm Beach Inlet. We brought fishing gear and told the man that we’d be night fishing the south double ledges, a natural bottom formation that lies about three nautical miles south-southeast of the inlet. Nobody would be suspicious of three tired fishermen returning to port after a fruitless night on the water.
We threw our weapons and jumpsuits overboard and used seawater to wash the paint off our faces. If we were stopped by law enforcement on the way to the marina, we didn’t want to be found with incriminating evidence. We emptied our live bait well, returning some relieved shrimp back to their homes. The Coast Guard would know that real fishermen wouldn’t quit until they’d used all their bait.
Our return went without a hitch. We tied the boat to its assigned pier, got in the rental car, and drove north on Singer Island to our hotel. It was a little after three in the morning.
We were gathered in my room, drinking beer, trying to dampen the adrenalin rush we’d all been running on since we approached the beach more than an hour before.
“Who is this guy McKinley?” asked Logan.
“Forbes Magazine recently called him the richest man in America,” said Jock. “They ran a piece on him. Before the war, he was a history professor, but when he was discharged he started a small manufacturing business in New England. Made uniforms on a contract with the army. He married into some money, and probably used that to build his business. He diversified over the years, and ended up in the missile business somehow. Now he’s one of the largest defense contractors in the country.”
L
ogan took a swallow of his beer. “I don’t think he used his wife’s money. More likely, he recycled the Jewish money. I bet if we dig deep enough, we’ll find a link to Allawi’s bank.”
I said, “I’m disappointed that we didn’t find out more about de Fresne. I only needed about two more minutes.”
“We’ll try again,” Logan said. “Give him some time to feel safe, and we’ll go after him again.”
“Why don’t we have a go at McKinley?” Jock asked.
That seemed like a good idea at the time. It didn’t pan out as well as we’d hoped.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
We slept late the next day, Thanksgiving Day, exhausted from the intense adrenalin-fueled activity of the night before. At mid-morning, we met for breakfast in the hotel restaurant overlooking the beach. It was a pleasant day, typical of Florida’s autumn. The sun was already high, the temperature in the mid-seventies. People were on the beach, digging in the sand, diving into the surf, or just lying on beach chairs reading.
“I just put in a call to Debbie,” I said. “I asked her to see what she could dig up on McKinley.”
“How soon can she get it?” asked Jock.
“Late this afternoon. She was on her way to her aunt’s house in Bradenton for Thanksgiving dinner.”
Logan put down his coffee cup. “Should we go after him? He’s a pretty big fish.”
“I think he’s the key. He set this up in the first place, so he’s probably still in charge. He can also tell us where de Fresne is.”
Jock said, “What are you thinking, Matt?”
“I wonder how McKinley knew about the money in the first place. How did he know that de Fresne had squirreled it away?”
“He probably got it through his intelligence network,” Logan said.
“I don’t think so. Too many people would have known about it.”
“We know Blattner knew about it,” said Jock. “He told us.”
“Yes, but he didn’t know what happened to de Fresne. I doubt anybody else did, either. As far as anybody knows, he was buried in the rubble of Frankfurt.”
“Maybe Blattner knows something,” Jock said. “He’s probably still at the safe house.”
Jock placed a call to Bad Vilbel, and using a code name to identify himself, asked to speak to Blattner. He handed me the phone.
“Good afternoon, Herr Blattner,” I said. “I hope you don’t mind if I ask a few more questions.”
“Not at all, Mr. Royal.”
“Were you debriefed by the Americans after France was liberated?”
“Oh, yes, but not until early nineteen forty-five.”
“Do you remember who you talked to?”
“No. It was an OSS officer, but I don’t remember his name. Lincoln, I think, or maybe Washington. The same name as one of your presidents. I remember that.”
“Could it have been McKinley?”
There was a pause on the phone, an intake of breath. “That’s it. Major McKinley. He seemed particularly interested in de Fresne’s money. I told him that without de Fresne he’d never get it out of the Swiss banking system.”
“Did you ever see McKinley again?”
“No. We talked for the better part of two days, but I guess he gave up on finding de Fresne and moved on.”
“Did you tell him that you’d heard that de Fresne was in Frankfurt?”
“I don’t remember specifically, but I probably did. It would have been a dead end for the Americans. By the time they got to Frankfurt in March, the city had been destroyed. I heard that the Gestapo headquarters took a direct hit.”
I thanked him and hung up. I related Blattner’s end of the conversation and said, “I think somehow McKinley found de Fresne and rescued him.”
“How could McKinley have found the de Fresne needle in that haystack?” asked Logan.
“I don’t know, but according to Allawi, McKinley got de Fresne and the money out of Europe at the end of the war. He also saved Allawi’s father from the executioner and set him up in banking. And Allawi said it was McKinley who ordered the hit on Wyatt.”
“That may have been a smokescreen to save his own ass,” said Jock.
“Could be, but we’ve got to check it out.”
“How’re we going to set that up?” asked Logan. “You know a guy like McKinley has lots of security.”
“I haven’t figured that one out, yet,” I said.
Late that afternoon, Debbie called and said she could fax me the material I’d requested. I gave her the hotel’s fax number and went to the lobby to retrieve it as it came in. I didn’t want the clerks to get a close look at the information.
McKinley lived north of Boston in a sparsely populated area dotted with homes of the very wealthy. Debbie had included an aerial photo of McKinley’s place that she’d found on the Internet. It was huge, running to several acres and surrounded by a stone wall. Much of the estate was wooded, but there was a large expanse of lawn surrounding an enormous house. A long driveway meandered through the trees from a gatehouse to the main building.
“We’ll have to get ourselves invited in,” said Jock.
We were in my room, Debbie’s fax spread over the bed. We’d spent the day doing nothing. We’d crossed the Atlantic three times in less than a week, and we were reeling from the jet lag. A day of dozing in the sun had brought each of us back to life.
“I agree,” said Logan. “I don’t think we can get in any other way.”
“How do we get an invitation?” I asked.
Jock scratched his chin. “Let me work on that. The guy’s companies do a lot of government work. That may be our key to getting an audience with him.”
“We can fly to Boston tomorrow,” Logan said.
Jock shook his head. “I don’t think so. Airlines keep records of who flies where. If we kill McKinley, I don’t want any evidence that we were anywhere near Boston.”
“What do you suggest?” I asked.
“I can fly up there on one of my phony IDs, rent a car, and get us a hotel. You guys need to come up by car or train or something. Since we don’t have a lot of time, I can’t wait for my agency to get you set up with false identification.”
“Do you think Allawi alerted McKinley about last night?” I asked.
“You can bet on it,” said Jock.
“I think we should have another go at Allawi before we head north,” I said.
“He’s bound to have better security at the house now,” said Logan.
“Maybe we can get a shot at him outside the house.”
Jock shook his head. “I doubt it. He’s got to be nervous, and I don’t think he’s going to be spending time at the grocery store. He’ll stay locked up tight in his house.”
“Let’s think about it overnight,” I said. “Surely we can come up with something.”
But, as it turned out, that didn’t happen.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
The next morning, a small article on page 3B of the Palm Beach Post caught my eye. The headline read, “Palm Beach Billionaire Dies On Way Home.” The story described the death of Saudi banker Mohammed Allawi. He’d left Palm Beach Airport in his private jet on a flight plan filed for the Azores for refueling and then on to Saudi Arabia. Allawi died of a heart attack enroute. The body was taken to Saudi Arabia for burial. The story mentioned that Allawi had a history of heart problems and had undergone bypass surgery in the past.
I was sitting in the hotel restaurant, when Jock and Logan joined me. I told them about the article.
“I don’t think he’s going to be of anymore use to us,” Logan said.
“What now?” I asked.
“McKinley?” asked Jock.
“That’s our only shot,” I said. “Let’s head for Boston.”
Jock left on a flight for Boston that afternoon. Logan and I decided to fly to New York and take the train to Boston. Our flight left at mid-afternoon, a few minutes after Jock’s.
We arrived at LaGuardia Airport and took a taxi
into the city. We were too late to take a train that evening, so we checked into the Hotel Pennsylvania across the street from Penn Station.
We left the next morning on a six fifty-five a.m. train bound for Boston. When you travel by train you see the backside of America, the garbage dumps, decaying warehouses, junkyards, used car lots, rail yards, and abandoned buildings that are the flotsam and jetsam of an affluent society.
I’ve read of a vortex in the middle of the North Pacific that collects all the junk tossed into the oceans of the world. The prevailing currents bring in the garbage, and the flow of the vortex captures it, consigning it forever to a swirling mass of refuse. Scientists tell us that the plastic found there will last forever, a triumph of modern science. And in the end, this unintended consequence may destroy the planet’s marine life.
The rail beds of the northeast pass by the land-bound versions of the Pacific Vortex, mounds of junk in its various forms, tossed out by a public surfeited by mindless consumption. Some day, our own garbage will inundate us all, and then we’ll join the marine life in the grave of our own technology.
We arrived at the Boston South Station a little before eleven. Jock was there to meet us and led us to a parking garage where he’d left his rental car. We drove northeast on Atlantic Avenue and merged onto I-93 north. Traffic was heavy but moving steadily. It had snowed the day before, and small hummocks of dirty ice flanked the road. The remains of the salt sprayed on the highway splattered the undercarriage of the car, creating a small din that was not unpleasant.
We took the exit onto I-95 and continued northward. In a few miles we left the Interstate and drove onto a road leading toward Hamilton. We turned onto a secondary road, drove for three or four miles, and came to a driveway with a gatehouse blocking the entrance.
We drove a little farther down the narrow road and stopped. Logan got out. Jock and I were going in alone.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Wyatt's Revenge: A Matt Royal Mystery Page 19
