League of Terror

by Bill Granger

  “Thomas is our man,” Jameson said, reaching for the telephone. Armstrong snapped out of his reverie.

  “No, that’s all right.” The boss sighed. It might be better to deal quickly and quietly than to ring up the embassy and get the kowtowers active. What Armstrong needed was peace and quiet and time for EAA to heal from the wounds of the bombing. He didn’t want to see the stock of EAA drop further; he didn’t want to send the wrong signal to someone like Carl Greengold; he didn’t want his own stock holdings to drop—Christ, he was leveraged in up to his nostrils. “Send him in, let’s make this quick. We’ve got Sir Robert at eleven?”

  “Ten forty-five, actually.” Jameson was Brit; so were Dennison and Turnbull. Dwyer he had brought along from New York because Dwyer was as faithful as an old dog and knew the boss. Funny he had never named a dog after Dwyer.

  Miss Turnbull was already gone. Armstrong looked at the messages on his desk. Cargo was the real problem at Heathrow, not only for EAA but the other carriers. Too damned much theft. And then it reached JFK and the real stealing began. The October figures were appalling and he thought Dennison was falling down on the job. He fingered the FBI card in his hand.

  “Hello, Mr. Armstrong. Special Agent Cassidy,” Henry McGee said.

  Armstrong turned up his smile three degrees. Jameson sat at his secretary’s desk, pen poised. Henry shook Armstrong’s hand and turned to Jameson. “What I got to say is for you, Mr. Armstrong.”

  “I don’t like unrecorded conversation,” Armstrong said, moving to his desk.

  “You’ll like this one.”

  Armstrong paused. London tried to boom through the foot-thick walls and failed. What was that tone of voice? Armstrong thought about it for a fraction of a second. “All right, Jameson.”

  The secretary rose, capped his pen, started for the door. Henry blocked his way. Jameson went around him, faintly annoyed by the man.

  The door closed.

  Utter silence for three seconds.

  “Well?”

  “Something bad is gonna happen.”

  What was the accent? Armstrong frowned.

  “I don’t—”

  “Siddown,” Henry said, and smiled, his teeth lighting up the darkness of his face.

  “Who are you?” Because he knew this man was not an FBI man.

  “I know how these things work, Trevor. Public is fickle but has a short memory. Today they remember Flight One forty-seven but, hell, that’s water over the dam. If you stopped flying airlines because their security was shit, you’d have to go by boat. Ain’t an airline in the world really gives a shit about security except for the Jews and that’s because they’re playing for real against nations of terrorists. What you want is not to have people think you’re just unlucky.”

  Everything was chill. Armstrong thought of reaching for the intercom, putting Dennison in the room and putting this man out of it. Henry didn’t move and neither did Armstrong.

  Another three seconds of silence.

  “Who are you?”

  “What if planes crash and there ain’t no bomb?” said Henry McGee. “Could happen. That’d piss everyone off. Like them Caravelle planes in the fifties, kept crashing, people wouldn’t take them after a while. Wasn’t a bad plane but, what the hell, that’s the way it goes. You keep reminding people you run an unlucky airline and they start making jokes about you. Ain’t no way to stay in business, not for a middling carrier like yourself.”

  “You’re threatening?”

  “Sure. What the hell do you think this is about?”

  Armstrong decided. He reached for the intercom at the moment Henry revealed his gun. It was a Walther PPK, a policeman’s gun, very neat and dark.

  “Who are you?” Armstrong said for the third time. “How’d you get in here?”

  “Had a card. Badge. ID. Usual shit. Your security stinks, I think you ought to fire your security man.”

  Armstrong thought the same thing.

  “Here’s the drill, Trevor honey. You don’t believe me. You gotta have a demonstration. It’s gonna come fairly soon. Alert security, all that. It helps to keep the boys on edge. But it don’t matter. We’re gonna make the first thing small, not involve a lot of people, but it’s gonna prove my point.”

  “Which is?”

  “Bombs are stupid. A lot better is something that does the same thing without looking like it’s the same thing.”

  “You won’t get out of this building.”

  “Sure I will.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Felix Frankfurter. What the fuck do you care? The point is, you trade at seventy-seven. You don’t want to lose another six points on the New York exchange. You start smelling bad and the confidence is lost. You’re putting together a deal, a nice deal, you’re going to get out of this airline in a year with a lot of money by selling it to a greenmailer who’s gonna break it up in little pieces. And you’re gonna sell the airline down the river for a lot of money. I know that. Some of the inside guys know that. That takeover guy, that Carl Greengold, he’s gonna tear this airline a new asshole before it’s over. But what if EAA has a lot of accidents all of a sudden and suddenly, people find other ways to fly to Europe and the U.S. They ain’t gonna buy three-day-old fish. Or an airline that’s falling. Maybe Carl would lose interest if the stock started dropping real fast and he’d just back out. How much stock you got, Trevor? I bet you got a lot and I bet you’re in hock from tits to ass. Am I right?”

  “Who sent you?”

  “I sent myself. I even tie my own shoelaces now. Trevor, you got to understand what I’m trying to message. I want five million dollars. You can slush that to me out of your own pocket. I know you can. I know you have to. You’re gonna make what? A buck and a half when you sell this company down the toilet to the breakup artists?”

  “You don’t know anything.”

  “Shit, man. I know everything. And you know I know. The point is you don’t know exactly what I have in mind.”

  “You’re crazy. I can’t be blackmailed.”

  “Extortion. That’s the word you’re groping for.”

  Henry took a step toward him and snapped the safety.

  “Look at me, Trevor.”

  “What do you want me to see?”

  Henry smiled. Trevor was frozen dead still. The day had shattered around him. He thought he was embalmed.

  “I want you to be afraid,” Henry said. “I know you’re a little afraid now but I want you to be big afraid. The only thing is gonna make you afraid is losing all that money when you could make a little contribution to the widows’ and orphans’ fund and be left alone.”

  “Would I be left alone?”

  “Sure. I don’t want to play this game more than once.”

  “Why me?”

  “Luck.” He smiled. “Was reading about that crash of Flight One forty-seven when I was striking a deal. I figured: Why not you? Did my homework and you were elected prom queen.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Henry said, “I’m going to scare the living shit out of you, Trevor.”

  20

  Devereaux had truly frightened Dr. Krueger and he did as he was told for a long time.

  Rita Macklin was brought into the small reception foyer of the sanitarium by the director, a man who guided her by the arm as if she might be old or merely crazy. She wore a plain gray dress and a cloth coat and flat shoes. Her hair was loose and wild about her shoulders. She wore no makeup. Her eyes were dull and her hands were small and they had grown old in the past month. She trembled from time to time, as though a passing memory had frightened her.

  She stared at Devereaux for a long moment as though he might be someone she had known.

  Dr. Krueger glanced at Devereaux in that moment of first meeting. “You see?”

  Devereaux saw.

  “I am trying to help her,” Dr. Krueger said.

  “Rita,” Devereaux said. He touched her arm. The director of the sanita
rium stood behind Krueger, a perpetual smile on his face. He had the sincere manner of an undertaker. He was accustomed to dealing with people in grief.

  “Do you see?” Dr. Krueger said, almost in triumph. It was better than he had hoped for.

  “Dev,” she said. “Where have you been?” She stood apart from him, her green eyes growing sad with tears. “Where have you been? Didn’t you hear me calling you?”

  “The night after you were shot, I came to see you; I was hit. They kept me in a hospital room without a telephone. They wouldn’t let me call you.”

  “You look different.” Sadness turned down her mouth. “You look older. Look at me, Dev. Look at what’s happened to me. I was dying and I called you and you never came.”

  “I’ll never leave you.”

  “Is that true?” And she began to smile. “Until the next time. When you have to leave me. And be about your uncle’s business. The next time and the time after that time. I always believe you.”

  “I never told you before,” he said. “I’m telling you now.”

  “Words lie, you said.”

  “I love you, Rita,” Devereaux said.

  She was crying and everyone saw it and no one moved. Tears fell down her pale, drawn cheeks. She resembled a photograph of a refugee, perhaps taken at the time of a recent war, the face hollow and drained and the eyes staring and unbelieving that the body was not yet dead. Numbed by starvation or grief or loss of hope.

  Krueger said, “Do you see? She can’t be released.”

  She looked at Krueger and blinked against her tears. She reached for his hand and held it. He patted her shoulder and she went to him and rested her head against him.

  Devereaux said, “We’re going now.”

  “I don’t think so,” Dr. Krueger said. “Do you want to go, Rita?”

  Rita Macklin stopped and looked up at the kind face of Dr. Krueger. Did she want to leave? Where was she exactly? Was this still the hospital? She looked at Dr. Krueger’s face to see what the answer was. Dr. Krueger shook his head. She saw what the answer was. She looked at Devereaux and saw this different man, a man of ashes, in pain, old around the eyes. Or was she staring at herself in a mirror? What was she exactly? Sometimes she was certain she was someone else.

  She said, “I should do what Dr. Krueger wants me to do.”

  “No. You should not.” Very soft, very certain. Yes, she knew that voice. Her eyes opened wide. She saw him. “Devereaux,” she said. She had never called him by his first name. She knew him now, it really was him, he had come to her after all these years.

  “But what if this is a dream?” she said.

  Dr. Krueger said, “You’re not dreaming, Rita.” Very gently.

  “Yes. This is the dream where Devereaux comes, only now you’re part of the dream as well,” Rita Macklin said. “Is that right?”

  “You’re confused,” Dr. Krueger said.

  The sanitarium director finally spoke. “I think she would like to return to her room.”

  “You’re tired,” Dr. Krueger said.

  “Yes, I must be tired,” Rita said. But she stared at Devereaux.

  Devereaux said, “I’ll never leave you again.”

  “Is that true?”

  “Yes.”

  “You said words lie.”

  “Everything is changed.”

  “Is it changed?”

  “Come on, Rita.”

  “Do I have to go, Dr. Krueger?”

  Dr. Krueger shook his head.

  Devereaux said, “But you have to go.”

  Dr. Krueger said, “She’s staying here. You’ve overplayed—”

  Devereaux decided.

  He took Rita’s arm and began to walk her the necessary ten steps to the front doors of the sanitarium. Dr. Krueger said, “You’re not going anywhere, I’ll call the police.”

  And Devereaux turned at the door. “Dr. Krueger, come.”

  Krueger wondered if Devereaux could do anything to him. This was his world. The director was here. There were witnesses.

  And the man had a gun and had fired it twice.

  “Dr. Krueger,” said the director. “Are you all right?”

  “No. I’m all right. I’m all right.” He took a step toward the door. “I’m all right,” he said again. He heard the remembered shot echo in his head and he felt unbalanced for a moment. Terror squeezed him again as it had in his study.

  They got into the car, Devereaux and Rita in the backseat.

  The director stood on the concrete steps and watched the Mercedes pull around the gravel drive and head for the road that was beyond the trees.

  They reached Dr. Krueger’s house shortly after eight P.M. A soft and warm Washington night surrounded the old houses on the block. Trees filled the sky and the clouds over the city were colored red by the lights from the earth.

  They all went inside. Dr. Krueger turned on the lights. They went into the study and he turned to Devereaux.

  “What are you going to do now?”

  “What’s she on?”

  “A mild sedative that—”

  “Tell me.”

  Krueger lied.

  Devereaux shook his head.

  “Look, I did what you asked me to—”

  “But you didn’t do it well. And you started to lose your terror, back there in the sanitarium. You almost forgot that I could have killed you.”

  Rita stood next to Devereaux but her hands were at her sides in a completely passive pose. She was hearing the dialogue but it came to her faintly, like the voices on a distant television heard on warm summer nights when all the windows are open.

  “You know this is wrong, everything you’re doing is wrong, you’re harming this woman.”

  Devereaux said, “Rita. Go outside and wait in the car. It’s a warm night.”

  Rita said, “Are we all going someplace?”

  “Yes. We’re going someplace.”

  “Back to the hospital,” she said to Dr. Krueger.

  But Krueger was staring at Devereaux as though he were seeing him for the first time. The fear was coming back exactly as it had been before; the moments without terror were illusions, Krueger saw.

  Rita walked out of the room, hands at her sides, doing as she was told. She was trembling because the drugs of the afternoon were beginning to lose their hold on her. The bad dreams of night would be coming unless she could get a powerful enough sedative to sleep right through them, no matter how horrible they were. Devereaux was always in the dreams. Sometimes he was watching her and he was smiling because she was in pain. She was bleeding, lying on gravel, crying for him, and he loomed over her and watched her bleed and die.

  She opened the door of the Mercedes and slid into the backseat because that was the seat the men had given her when they took her to Dr. Krueger’s house. She closed the door. There was perfect silence in the world.

  Then she heard the scream.

  It was long, awful, like the screams in the sanitarium when one of the women had a nightmare. Or when she had a nightmare and awoke and could hear her own screaming. The scream tore through her thin body and made her tremble all the more.

  The scream was a single scream and lasted a very long time.

  Oh, God, deliver them from pain and suffering, she thought.

  And then she thought of hell.

  And then she thought of Devereaux. He would never come to see her again. Even if she was dying.

  She was dying, she was sure of it.

  Devereaux opened the door on the driver’s side and looked at Rita in the backseat. “Come sit in the front,” he said.

  “I did the wrong thing,” she said.

  “No. It’s all right.”

  “Where’s Dr. Krueger?”

  “He said he couldn’t come,” Devereaux said.

  Rita opened her door and changed seats. Devereaux slid behind the wheel and fired the ignition. The car purred into gear and rolled down the quiet block.

  Rita stared at nothing. />
  Devereaux turned to look at her from time to time but they did not speak again all the way into the part of the city where Mac lived.

  21

  Matthew O’Day was having sex with Maureen Kilkenny when the telephone rang in the hotel room.

  He withdrew from her body and padded across the carpeting to the receiver inconveniently located on a cheap Formica-topped credenza that was screwed into the wall. The hotel was one of the drearier railroad station hotels down from Paddington Station in a slummy neighborhood of London.

  “Yeah?”

  “You got five minutes to get to the buffet in Paddington Station. Alone. And that means leave the girl in bed.”

  The receiver clicked.

  “Bloody hell I will,” Matthew O’Day said. But he was already slipping into his undershorts.

  It was dead Sunday morning, London time. The pubs were closed, the restaurants were closed, the banks were closed, the windows were closed, the traditional English Sunday yawned ahead, or at least until the public houses opened at noon and the alcoholics and the gentry could mingle over Bloody Marys and pints of lager. The churches were all open and here and there, some appeared to be filled.

  Maureen had red hair of the dark, Irish hue and a freckled, fresh face. Only her eyes were absolutely mad, evidence that she took as much pleasure in murder for the cause as in anything else. Including sex. Particularly sex with Matthew O’Day, who was wham, bam, thank you, ma’am.

  Her nipples were erect and she was leaning on her side. “Where the bloody hell are you goin’, man?”

  Her voice ended in the traditional soft Irish lilt with the upturned note on the last syllable, which is a peculiarity of the Northern Irish.

  “A man called this time,” he said. “I don’t know what’s up and I’m gonna find out. He wants me alone.”