the seven dossiers (his final
selections) over the coffee table. He
was immensely pleased. These men were
the most devious, experienced provocateurs
in their feids. It was now merely a
question of enlisting them. And
MacKenzie knew he was an exceptionally
qualified recruiter.
Four he knew he could reach by
phone. Three by cable. Admittedly, the
telephone contacts would be difficult,
for in no case would one call find the
expert in. But he would reach them by
using various codes from the past. One
call would be made to a Basque fishing
village on the Bay of Biscay; another
to a similar coastal town in Crete. A
third would be placed to Stockholm, to
the sister of the espionage expert who
was currently living as a minister of
the Scandinavian Baptist Church. The
fourth call would be to Marseilles
where the man sought was employed as
a tugboat pilot.
And the geographical diversity' In
addition to those he could reach by
telephone (Biscay, Crete, Stockholm
and Marseilles), there were the
cablegrams: to Athens, Rome, 199
and Beirut What a spread! It was an
intelligence director's dream!
MacKenzie took off his jacket, threw
it on the bed, and withdrew a fresh
cigar from his shirt pocket. He chewed
the end to its proper consistency and
lighted up. It was just nine-fifteen;
the afternoon train to Zermatt was at
fourfifteen.
Seven hours. Now that was a good
omen if ever one existed! Seven hours
and seven subordinate officers to
recruit.
He carried the three dossiers to the
desk and arranged the files in front
of the telephone.-The cablegrams would
be sent first.
At precisely twenty-two minutes to
four the Hawk replaced the telephone
and made a red check mark on the
dossier titled Marseilles. It was the
last of the phone contacts; he needed
only two replies to the cables to
Athens and Beirut. Rome had responded
two hours ago. Rome had been out of
work longer than the others.
The calls had gone smoothly. In each
case the initial conversations with
the middlemen and women had been
reserved, polite, general, almost
abstract. And with each MacKenzie
employed just the right words,
quietly, confidentially. Each expert
he had wanted to reach called him
back.
There had been no hitches with
anyone. His proposals were couched in
the same universally understood lan-
guage; the term yellow mountain the
springboard. It was the highest score
an agent could make for himself. The
yellow mountain figure was a "five
hundred key" with advance funds banked
against contingencies. The security
controls included "inaccessible
clearinghouses" that maintained no
connections with international
regulatory agencies. The time factor
was between six and eight weeks,
depending on the "technological
refinements called for in the
sophisticated engineering process."
And finally, as leader, his own
background encompassed wholesale ser-
vice to entire governments in most
Southeast Asia, proof of which could
be confirmed by several accounts in
Geneva.
He had done his research well. To a
man, they all needed to mine the
yellow mountain.
200
Hawkins got up from the desk and
stretched. It had been a long day and
it wasn't over yet. In twenty minutes
he would have to leave for the
railroad station. Between now and then
he would speak with the switchboard
operator and give her instructions for
those callers who might try to reach
him. The instructions be simple: he
had reserved the room for a week, he
would return to Zurich in three days.
The callers could contact him there,
or leave numbers where they could be
reached. MacKenzie did not want to
return to Zurich, but Athens and
Beirut were exceptional recruits.
The telephone rang. It was Athens.
Six minutes later Athens was in.
One more to go.
The Hawk moved his untouched luggage
to the door and repacked his
briefcase, leaving Beirut's dossier in
a separate, easily accessible spot. He
looked at his watch: three minutes to
four. There was no point in
procrastinating any longer. He had to
leave for the station. Returning to
the desk he dialed the switchboard
operator and told her he wanted to
leave a few simple instructions
The operator interrupted politely.
"Yes, of course, mein Herr. But may
I take them later? I was about to ring
your room. An overseas call has just
come in for you. Ftom Beirut."
Goddamn!
Sam opened his eyes. The sun was
streaming through the huge French
doors; the breeze billowed the drapes
of blue silk. He looked around the
room. The ceiling was at least twelve
feet high, the fluted columns in the
corners and the intricately carved
moldings of dark wood everywhere
bespoke the word ' chateau." It all
came into focus. He was in a place
called Chateau Machenfeld, somewhere
south of Zermatt. Outside the thick,
sculptured door of his room was a wide
hallway with Persian prayer rugs
scattered over a glistening dark
floor, and muted candelabra on the
walls. The hallway led to an enormous
winding staircase and a proliferation
of crystal chandeliers above a great
hall the size of a respectable
ballroom. There, among priceless
antiques and Renaissance portraits,
was the entrance 201
gigantic double doors of oak opening
on a set of marble steps that led to
a circular drive large enough to
handle a funeral for the chairman of
General Motors.
What had Hawkins done? How did he do
it? My God. Why? What was he going to
use such a place for?
Devereau-x~ looked at the sleeping
Regina, her dark brown hair lying in
waves over the pillow, her California-
tanned face half buried under the
eiderdown quilt. If she had any
answers, she wouldn't tell him. Of all
the girls, Ginny was the most
outrageously manipulative; she had
orchestrated him right down to the
moment of sleep. Partially, granted
only partially, because he was
fascinated by her. There was a will of
steel beneath the soft magnolia
exterior; she was a natural leader
who, as all natural leaders, took
delight in her leadership. She used
her gifts, mental and physical, with
imagination and boldness, and a
considerable dash of humor. She could
be the strong moral proselytizer one
moment, and the lost little girl in
the middle of burning Atlanta the
next. She was the laughing,
provocative siren in the plantation
moonlight, and with the flick of a
switch, a conspiratorial, whispering
Mata Hari giving orders to a
suspicious looking chauffeur in the
shadows of the Zermatt railroad
station.
"Mach Feldman's ass is in the bitter
seltzer!"
To the best of Sam's recollection
those had been the words Ginny had
whispered to the strange man in the
black beret, with the gold front
tooth, whose catlike eyes riveted
themselves to the front of her blouse.
"Mac's in felt!" had been the
whispered reply. "His sight's in an
auto bomb's flower pot!"
With that less-than-articulate
rejoinder, Ginny had nodded, grabbed
Devereaux's arm, and propelled him
into the Zermatt street.
"Carry your suitcase in your left
hand and whistle something. He'll turn
into an alley and we'll wait at the
corner for him to bring out the car."
"Why all the nonsense? The left hand.
The whistling
"Others are checking. To make sure
we're not being followed."
The Orient Express syndrome was being
somewhat
202 -
overdone, Sam had thought at the time,
but nonetheless he'd switched the
suitcase to his left hand and started
whistling.
"Not that, you ninny!"
`'What's the matter? It's some kind of
hymn "
"Over here it's called 'Deutschland
Uber Alles'!"
He'd switched to "Rock of Ages" as
another man, this one in a real Conrad
Veldt overcoat complete with velvet
lapels, came up to Regina and spoke
softly.
"Your warts are in the wagon."
"Mack Feldman's ass surely has sweet
shackles," she had answered quietly,
rapidly. And within seconds a long
black automobile raced out of the dark
alley and they had climbed in.
That was how the tortuous, two-hour
drive had begun. Miles of winding,
uphill roads cut out of the Swiss
mountains and forests, intermittently
illuminated by the eerie wash of
moonlight. Until they reached some
kind of massive gate that wasn't a
gate; it was an honest-to-god
portcullis. In front of a moat.
A real moat! With heavy planks and
the sounds of water below. Then
another winding, uphill road that
ended in the enormous circular drive
in front of the largest country house
Sam had seen since he toured
Fontainebleau with the Quincy Boy
Scouts. And even Fontainebleau didn't
have parapets. This place did,
certainly high and definitely stone,
with the sort of cutout patterns one
associated with Ivanhoe.
Quite a place, Chateau Machenfeld.
And he had only seen it at night. He
wasn't sure he wanted to see it in
daylight. There was something
frightening about the mere thought of
such a massive edifice when related to
one MacKenzie Hawkins.
But where did the chateau fit in?
What was it for? If it was going to be
the son of a bitch's command post, why
didn't he just rent Fenway Park and be
done with it? It had to take an army
of minions to keep the place running;
minions talked. Ask anyone at
Nuremberg or in-Sirica's courtroom.
But Regina wouldn't talk. (Of
course, she wasn't a minion; in no way
did the word ft.1 Yet he had tried.
All 203
the way down from Zurich well, perhaps
not every moment and half the night in
Machenfeld perhaps less than half he
had done his best to get her to tell
him what she knew.
They had sparred verbally, each
talking obliquely, neither coming to
grips with any positive statements
that could lead to any real
conclusions. She admitte~she had no
choice that all the girls had agreed
to turn up in the right places at the
right times so that he, Sam, would
have company and not be led into
temptations that could be debilitating
on such a long business trip. And have
someone trustworthy to take messages
for him. And watch out for him. And
where the goddamned cotton-pickin'
hell was the harm in that? Where was
he going to find such a concerned
group of ladies who had his best
interests at heart? And kept him on
schedule?
Did she know what the business trip
was about?
Lawdy, no! She never asked. None of
the girls asked.
Why not?
Landsakes, honey! The Hawk told them
not to.
Couldn't any of them draw . . .
certain inferences? I mean, my God,
his itinerary wasn't exactly that of
a New England shoe salesman.
Honeychile! When they were married
to the Hawk individually, of
course he was always involved with
topsecret army things they all knew
they shouldn't ask questions about.
He wasn't in the army now!
Well-live-and-die-in-Dixie! That's the
army's fault!
And so it went.
And then he began to understand.
Regina was no patsy. None of the girls
was. Fall guy was not in their
collective vocabulary. If Ginny, or
Lillian, or Madge, or Anne knew
anything concrete they weren't about
to say so. If they perceived a lack of
complete integrity, each put on blind-
ers, and her own particular activity
remained unrelated to any larger
action. None certainly would discuss
anything with him.
There was another problem in the
midst of the Hawk's insanity: Sam
genuinely liked the girls. Whatever
the whack-a-doo furies were that drove
them to do MacKenzie's
bidding, each was her own person, each an
individual, each God help him had an
honesty he found refreshing. So, if he did
spell out what he knew, the instant he did
so they were accessories. To a conspiracy.
It didn't take a lawyer know that. What
was he thinking about; he was a lawyer.
As of this. . . point in time. . . each
girl was clean. Maybe not like a hound's
tooth; maybe no
t even like a wing's
bridgework, but legally it could be argued
that each had operated in a vacuum. There
was no conspiracy under the circumstances.
Thank you, Mr. Defense Attorney. The
bench suggests that you reclaim your
tuition from law school.
Sam got out of the ridiculously
oversized, canopied bed as quietly as
possible. He saw his shorts halfway across
the room toward the French doors, which
was where he was heading, anyway, and
briefly wondered why they were so far
from,the bed. Then he remembered, and he
smiled.
But this was morning, a new day, and
things were going to be different. Ginny
had given him one specific to hang onto:
Hawkins would arrive by late afternoon or
early evening. He would use the time until
then to learn whatever he could about
Chateau Machenfeld. Or more precisely,
what the Hawk was planning for Chateau
Machenfeld as it related to one Pope
Francesco, Vicar of Christ.
It was time for him to mount his own
counterstrategy. Hawkins was good, no
question about it. But he, Sam Devereaux
from the Eastern Establishment's Quinces
Boston axis, wasn't so bad, either.
Confidence! Mac had it;
so did he.
As he put on his shorts, the obvious
first move in his counterstrategy came
into focus. It wasn't just obvious, it was
blatant; bells rang! Such an extraordinary
place (mansion, estate, compound, small
country) as Machenfeld would demand an
unending series of supplies to keep it
functioning. And suppliers were like
minions, they could see, and hear, and
bear witness. The Hawk's proclivity for
massiveness could be the most vulnerable
aspect of his plans. Sam had considered
disrupting Mac's supply lines as one of
his options, from a military point of
Robert Ludlum - Road To Gandolfo.txt Page 29
