from you! That makes me an accessory!"
"I don't know anything about that,
but it's surely not right for one
person to call upon the time and the
talents of another person and not pay
him for it." Hawkins's voice had the
ring of a quiet evangelist.
"Oh, shut up, you son of a bitch,"
said Devereaux, recognizing the
inevitability of defeat. "Outside of
Danforth, why did you call?"
"Well, now that you mention it,
there's a fellow in West Berlin I'd
like you to talk with."
"Wait. Don't tell me," interrupted
Sam wearily. '4The airline tickets and
the hotel reservations will be at the
Savoy desk before I can say kippered
herring."
"By morning, anyway."
127
"Okay, Mac, I know when I'm hung." He
was getting in deeper. Somehow, some
way, sometime, Sam thought, hewould
have to climb out.
MacKenzie wrote out the figure
numerically.
$20,000,000.00
Then he wrote it in words:
Twenty million dollars.
Strange, but it had no real effect on
him. It was merely a means, not an end
in itself. Although it had occurred to
him that he could easily call it an
economic day, wrap it up, and retire to
the south of France. Certainly, neither
Dellacroce nor Danforth would sue. Not
bloody likely. But that wasn't what it
was all about, the money was both a
conveyance and a by-product. And in its
way, a legitimate form of punishment.
The two marks deserved their losses.
But time was running short and he
could not allow himself to get
sidetracked. Suminer was only a few
months away; there was an enormous
amount of work to do. The selection and
training of the support personnel would
be time-consuming. The leasing and
stocking of the maneuver site would be
difficult, especially the covert
purchasing of equipment. The maneuvers
themselves would take a number of
weeks. All told, there was a great deal
to accomplish in a short time. Because
of this it was a natural
temptation to veer from the initial
strategy and go with less than the full
capitalization, but it would be wrong.
That's for sure. He had set the figure
of forty million not merely for the
nuinerical symmetry to the four hundred
million (although it certainly looked
proper on the limited partnership
agreement, in the blank lines he had
filled out), but because forty million
took care of everything, including
last-extremity contingencies.
Otherwise known as quick-witted
evacuation of the fire base.
It would have to be forty million. He
was just about ready for his third
investor.
Heinrich Koenig, Berlin.
Herr Koenig had not been easy. Whereas
Sidney Danford' 128
had overworked his modus operandi in
Chile, and whereas Angelo Dellacroce
had been just plain sloppy with regard
to his Mediterranean payments and
entirely too ostentatious in his manner
of living, Heinrich Koenig had made no
obvious errors, and lived the quiet
life of a country squire in a peaceful
rural town twenty-odd miles from
Berlin.
But twenty-two years ago Koenig had
played an enormously dangerous game
brilliantly. A game that not only
netted him a fortune but also insured
the capitalization and ultimate success
of his various business enterprises.
During the height of the Cold War,
Koenig was a double
agent-cum-blackmailer. He began by
secretly informing on single agents to
both sides, then extorting
cash financed through opposing
intelligence channels from those
seeking protection from exposure. Soon
he was issued exclusive international,
nontariff "franchises" for his new
companies from scores of countries
dependent upon the economic goodwill of
both giant factions. Finally, with the
grace of Mephistopheles, he forced
Washington, London, Berlin, Bonn, and
Moscow into declaring his companies
outside the regulatory legalities that
governed other industries. Koenig
accomplished this by explaining to each
that he would inform the others of its
past activities.
And then, to the profound relief of
many governments, Koenig retired. He
had built his empire on the trampled
bodies deceased and paralyzed of half
the bureaucratic and industrial
population of Europe and America. He
had remained untouchable because of the
very real terror of chain
reaction-reprisal. What bureaucrat,
what undersecretary, what minister or
statesman (indeed, what head of a
government) would allow access to the
horrors of Pandora's box? So, in
retirement, Koenig remained as safe as
during his halcyon days of furious
activity.
Fear was Koenig's clout. But there
was no fear or clout if a man didn't
give a good goddamn about reaction or
reprisals governmental, industrial, or
international.
- And naturally this was Hawkins's
weapon.
For there was an international army
of victims,who would quick-march for
the kill if they thought they could 129
I,'
do so with impunity, if everyone realized
his past sins were known to everybody
else. Complete disclosure was Mac's
threat.
Koenig would certainly see the logic of
this approach; it was the absence of it
that had guaranteed his fortunes. He
surely could foretell the effects of
several hundred lengthy cablegrams sent
simultaneously to several hundred inhab-
itants of the corridors of power
throughout the world. Oh, yes! Koenig
would be convinced, the instant a barrage
of names, dates, and activities was
rattled off to him.
MacKenzie picked up the raw-fle Xeroxes
from the bed, keeping the piles in
sequence, and carried them to the coffee
table in front of the couch. He sat dowry
and with the red crayon he began circling
two or three items on each page.
; Things were going beautifully. It
was all a question of
making a realistic appraisal of one's
capabilities and the
logistics available to complement those
abilities. Simple
inventory. He picked up the Xeroxes,
moved to the desk,
and arranged the papers properly in
front of the telephone. He was rea
dy to
calmly, dispassionately recite a
record of international duplicity that
would cause Genghis
Khan to blush.
Heinrich Koenig would part with ten
million dollars.
His eyes rimmed with black circles of
exhaustion
Devereaux went through customs at
Berlin's Templehof Airport, fully
prepared to have his forehead stamped by
the officiously barking neo-Nazi who
inspected his papers and luggage. Christ,
he thought, give a German a rubber stamp
and he went wild.
At one point he stared in amazement at
the contents of his own suitcase.
Everything was folded neatly and arranged
tidily as though packed by Bergdorf
Goodman, and he simply did not pack
suitcases that way. Then through the fog
of dislocation, he remembered that Anne
had taken care of everything. She not
only had packed for him, she had also
accompanied him to the cashier's desk and
helped him settle his bill.
She had done all this, reflected Sam,
because he was not in condition to do
much for himself. The insanity of his 130
predicament had led him into a battle
with a bottle of Scotch. He lost. The
only thing he did remember to do was
to airmail the goddamned limited
partnership agreement to Hawkins.
Berlin's Kempinsky Hotel was a
Teutonic version of New York's
old~Sherry-Netherland with a slightly
harsher interior; the overstuffed
lobby chairs seemed cast more in
concrete than leather. Still, it
screamed money, polished dark wood,
arid terribly proper clerks Sam knew
hated his weak, democratically
oriented, and inferior guts.
The front desk dispensed with him
efficiently and swiftly. He was
escorted by a disagreeable aging SS
Oberfuhrer who treated his suitcase as
though it contained bagels and lox.
Once inside the suite (it was
enormous; Mac Hawkins did send him
first class) the Oberfuhrer snapped up
the shades in the various rooms with
the authority of a Nan used to issuing
commands to a firing squad. Devereaux,
fearing for his life, grossly
overtipped him, saw him to the door as
if he were a visiting diplomat and bid
him a gracious auf Wiedersehen!
He opened his suitcase. Anne had
possessed the foresight to wrap a full
bottle of Scotch in a Savoy towel. If
there was ever a time to ingest the
indigestible, it was now. Not much;
just enough to get the motor running.
There was a knock on the door. Sam
was so startled he coughed a mouthful
of whiskey over the bed. He corked the
bottle and furiously looked for a
place to hide it.
Under the pillow! Covered by the
bedspread! He stopped. What was he
doing? What the hell was the matter
with him? What was happening to him?
Goddamn you, MacKenzie Hawkins!
He took a deep breath, and calmly
placed the bottle on the dresser top.
He took another deep breath, opened
the door, and promptly, involuntarily,
expelled every bit of air in his
lungs.
Standing in the door frame was the
blonde Aphrodite from Palo Alto,
California, catalogued in his memory
as Narrow and Pointed. The third Mrs.
MacKenzie Hawkins. Lillian.
"I knew it was you! I said to the
man at the desk that it had to be
you!"
131
Sam was not sure why he had
catalogued Lillian as Narrow and
Pointed. "Narrow" did the lady an
injustice. Perhaps it was a relative
adjective, subject to the immediate
visual comparison to the other six.
Devereaux was thinking these absurd
thoughts and he was aware staring like
a twelve-year-old at his first Art~sts
and Models magazine, while Lillian sat
across from him, explaining that she
had flown into Berlin three days ago
to attend a two-week course in gourmet
cooking.
Of course, it was unbelievable.
After all, he was a skilled attorney.
He had analyzed scores of crime-ridden
mentalities, stripping away the layers
of fraud from sophisticated deceivers
on all levels of the social jungle. In
spite of his drained mind and body, he
was not a man to be conned easily and
he would let the third Mrs. MacKenzie
Hawkins know that in spades! He stared
at her harder then mentally shrugged.
What the hell!
"So there we are, Sam. I may call
you Sam, mayn't 1? It's amazing what
an interest in really fine cooking can
lead to."
"But entirely plausible, Lillian!
That's what makes coincidences
truly well, coincidental!" Sam laughed
quasihysterically, doing his best to
control his eyes. He was simply too
exhausted to be successful; he just
gave up and let his eyes roam freely.
"And I can't think of a better way
to see Berlin. If we're lucky, we can
find an indoor tennis court! I hear
the hotel has a swimming pool; perhaps
a gymnasium " Lillian stopped and
Devereaux felt deprived; in his spent
condition he was enjoying the soft,
breathless, aural massage. "I may be
taking far too much for granted. Are
you traveling alone?"
He knew he shouldn't. He shouldn't.
"More alone than I've ever been in my
life."
"Well, we certainly can't have that.
If you don't mind my saying so, you
look dreadfully tired. I think you've
been working half to deaths You really
need someone to look after you."
"I am only a warm shadow of my
substance...."
"You poor lamb. Come over here and
let me rub your shoulder blades. It
does wonders, it really, really does."
32
~ '
"I am a wasted vestige. I am filled
with vacuum and molten lead...."
"You're exhausted, my lamb. That's
the good boy; stretch out and put
your head on Lilly's lap. Oh my, your
temples are so warm. And your neck
muscles are much too tense. There,
that's better; doesn't it feel
better?"
It did. He could feel her nimble
fingers unbutton his shirt and the
gentle hands moving about his chest,
caressing his flesh with the touch of
angels. What the hell. He opened his
eyes, his sight was filled with the
unbearable loveliness of two
magnificent breasts inches above his
face.
"Do you like hot tubs filled with
lots of soap bubbles that s
mell like
roses and springtime?" he whispered.
"Not actually," she whispered back.
"I'm partial to warm showers.
Straight up, as it were."
Sam smiled.
133
.~
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The fragrance permeated the air around
him; he did not need to open his eyes to
know its source.
If he was able to reconstruct the
previous evening with any accuracy and
the quiescence below his waist convinced
him that he could they had spent most of
the night in the Kempinsky shower.
Sam opened his eyes. Lillian was
beside him, sitting up against the
pillows with a pair of horn-rimmed
glasses perched on her lovely upturned
nose. She was reading from an enormous
piece of frayed cardboard, the white
sheet covering her chest but not for an
instant obscuring the shafts beneath.
"Hello," he said quietly.
' Good morning!" She looked down at
him and positively beamed. "Do you know
what time it is?"
The blonde creature was a healthy
type, he considered. It must be all that
California suriboarding, or perhaps
MacKenzie Hawkins had taught her to do
pushups. "My watch is under the covers
with my wrist. I do not know what time
it is."
"It's twenty after ten. You slept for
eleven hours. How do you feel?"
"Are you telling me we went to bed I
was asleep by eleven thirty last night?"
"You could be heard at the Brandenburg
Gate. I kept shoving you to stop your
snoring. You were positively operatic.
How's your head?"
"Fairly secure, as a matter of fact. I
wonder why?"
"All that steam. And exercise.
Robert Ludlum - Road To Gandolfo.txt Page 19
