The Bannerman Effect (The Bannerman Series)

by Maxim, John R.

  And yet her hand was shaking.

  She did not know what caused it more. The sound of Lesko's voice. Or the name of Palmer Reid.

  Two days later, Urs Brugg had learned everything and not enough about Paul Bannerman.

  His contact at Interpol, a man he had known since their days at the university, was curiously reticent. He would say only that whatever file that might have existed was not criminal in nature and that the man's activities, therefore, were of no “official” interest to Interpol.

  His choice of words, Urs Brugg realized, was deliberately tantalizing. They were those of a man who was already saying more than he should.

  “Who, then,” he asked, “would have a file, whatever its nature?”

  “You have friends with the intelligence services? Ask them.”

  “Which intelligence services? The Swiss?”

  “Any of them. But to save time, do not ask about Paul Bannerman. Ask about Mama's Boy.”

  Urs Brugg had heard the name. And the whispers. “Paul Bannerman works for this Mama's Boy?”

  “Paul Bannerman is this Mama's Boy.”

  By the end of the second day, Urs Brugg had filled the better part of his scratch pad with facts, rumors, legends, and probable lies about the man. The composite that emerged was awash with contradictions. So gray, so unknowable was the overall picture that, Urs Brugg concluded, it was probably clouded by design.

  The most balanced view, curiously, came from the KGB station chief in Bern, a man with whom he occasionally played chess. He told Urs Brugg what he could of Bannerman's history. A dangerous man, certainly, but one who kept his word when given. A contract agent, loyal to no particular flag although some bias in favor of the United States must be assumed. Hardly a friend of Soviet interests but even less so to those of the Central Intelligence Agency.

  He was said to have retired. Withdrawn from the field. Returned to America. Many of his agents simultaneously vanished from sight. They were said to be with him. Wanting only to be left in peace. No one believed this, the KGB least of all. Two things argued against it. One was that a Soviet defector, a colonel in the GRU, once Mama's Boy's opposite number, had gone with him to America and Bannerman had effectively resisted all efforts to interrogate him. The other was that Bannerman had apparently chosen a known CIA training facility as his new home and had brazenly appropriated it. In the KGB's view, it was inconceivable that either of these would be tolerated by the United States government unless there was a very substantial quid pro quo in the offing. If Urs Brugg could shed some light on its nature, his chess companion told him, the KGB would consider itself in his debt.

  Urs Brugg considered all this. But he was soon distracted. Because the same two days later, two boys, hiking with their dog up a snowy mountain path near Klosters, chanced upon the beaten and comatose body of Susan Lesko.

  -5-

  Elena's telephone chirped. She bolted for it before her maid could dry her hands. Behind her, her evening meal lay untouched.

  “Uncle Urs,” she closed her eyes. “What have you learned?”

  “The girl is alive, but barely,” he told her. “Elena. It was done with cocaine.”

  “Cocai—” Elena gasped. “But the police said she was beaten.”

  “She was, into unconsciousness,” he told her. “Then the powder was forced into her mouth. There are finger marks of a gloved hand across her cheek. It forced her to swallow or to suffocate.”

  Elena sank into a chair. “But will she survive?”

  “The doctor in charge is hopeful but not optimistic. Much depends on the amount she ingested. The cold may also have helped by slowing her metabolism. Still, she is in a deep coma. The next twenty-four hours will tell.”

  “Uncle Urs,” she swallowed hard and lowered her voice. “Please tell her doctor that the girl must be examined for the presence of a suppository. It will be made of cocaine. It is intended as insurance.”

  A brief silence on the line. His distaste, that his niece would know such things, was palpable. ”I will see to it,’* was all he said.

  “This Paul Bannerman,” she asked, “He is at the hospital?” The question was asked with bitterness. But for him, the girl would still be in New York. Working. Meeting decent boys. She would be with her father. And Elena would not have failed him.

  “He is there now, yes. He seems to have brought at least two bodyguards of his own with him. A man named Russo and a woman named Benedict. The police have picked them up for questioning. It was the woman, Benedict, who assaulted Josef.”

  Josef had been in Klosters when Bannerman and the girl arrived. On the second day, when heavy snow had closed the ski lifts, the girl had taken the train to visit the shops of nearby Davos. She had gone alone. Josef followed. A woman, an American, had intercepted him in Davos. It seemed that she too had been sent to protect the girl. Each saw the other as a possible assassin. A tragedy of errors. In interfering with Josef, the Benedict woman caused both of them to lose sight of Lesko's daughter. She was left unprotected. The killers, clearly, had been waiting nearby for their opportunity. It came as a gift.

  “Elena,” he asked, “Do you know who did this thing?”

  She took a breath and let it out. “No. Not yet.”

  “But, Elena, it was done with cocaine,” he said gently. “To kill in that manner is to send a message. Whatever else this Bannerman might have been, I am assured that he had no involvement whatsoever with drug traffickers. Not even as their enemy. Could the girl have been involved in drugs?”

  “Impossible,” she answered flatly. Not Raymond Lesko's daughter.

  “Then it must be said. You were involved, as their associate. The father was involved, as their enemy. If the girl herself is innocent, and if this attack was a message, that message must have been meant for either you or the father. Is this not so?”

  “Perhaps,” she said slowly. ”I do not think so.”

  “Tell me why.”

  “Because a message is pointless unless its meaning is clear. If this was done because of me, or because of Lesko, they would have called me within the hour to boast of it, to hear my anguish. It is their way.”

  “Do we then conclude,” Urs Brugg asked, “that it must have been done because of Bannerman?”

  “If that is so, why this method? Why cocaine? You said he had no connection with it.”

  “There is one common thread,” he reminded her. “It is your former associate, Palmer Reid.”

  Elena fell silent as she considered the suggestion. Palmer Reid. Even the name, when mouthed, formed the beginnings of a sneer. Lesko had spoken of a connection between Reid and Bannerman. Uncle Urs had confirmed it. But their relationship was far from what Lesko may have imagined. By all accounts, they despised each other.

  “Uncle Urs?”

  ”I am still here.”

  “It was Palmer Reid.”

  A long silence. “You say he is responsible? For the attack on the girl?”

  “You will ask me why,” she said quietly. “You will ask me his motives. I do not have those answers. But Reid is behind this. I feel it.”

  Urs Brugg started to speak, to argue other possibilities, to point out that no action could be taken on mere intuition. He chose not to state the obvious. “What would Lesko do if you shared that conviction with him?”

  “He would go after Reid. And Reid would crush him.”

  “In that case, Elena, I suggest that we leave the matter in the hands of Mr. Bannerman. He seems more than equal to the task. Has Mr. Lesko been told about his daughter?”

  ”I have left a message. I will wait here for his call.”

  “Elena.” A thoughtful pause. ”I am posting armed guards at your house. If you leave it, I want Josef and Wil-lem with you at all times.”

  “It is not necessary,” she argued. “If Palmer Reid wanted to harm me he would have done it two years ago.”

  “Not Reid,” he said. “Bannerman. Perhaps even Lesko.”

  The line w
ent silent for a moment. “Lesko would not harm me,” she said, her voice small.

  “Elena, listen to me.” His tone became stern. ”I have intuitions of my own in this matter. Neither Bannerman nor Lesko are likely to be behaving dispassionately, especially if the girl dies. The use of cocaine points to you, if not as the killer than as the indirect cause. If you are right about Reid, this may well have been his intention. To set you, Bannerman, and Lesko one against the other.”

  “Lesko will not harm me,” she said stubbornly.

  In the intensive care unit of Davos Hospital, a nurse approached the bed where Susan lay. She checked the flow of glucose into Susan's arm, then checked her pulse and jotted the result. Next she lifted the patient's head with one hand and tugged at a bloodstained pad with the other. She replaced it briskly, a bit roughly. The man sitting by the bed looked up at her. The nurse met his gaze, hesitated for a moment, then withdrew. For the remainder of her shift, she would shudder at the look she saw in that man's eyes.

  Bannerman stood up. Carefully, tenderly, as if in apology, he smoothed the edges of her pillow. The right side of her face was now in view. He had deliberately placed his chair where he could only see the left side, the less damaged part. Her right eye was swollen shut. The brow was held together by sutures. The cheekbone was fractured. The impression of a gloved hand was still visible across her mouth. An oxygen tube was taped to her nostrils. Her left eye remained partly open, seeing nothing.

  ”I am so sorry, Susan,” he whispered.

  In his mind, he saw her as she had been. Lovely. Young. Full of life. A childlike enthusiasm at the prospect of her first trip abroad. Delighting in everything she saw.

  They'd gone to London first. She'd never been there. She adored it, she said. Thrilling to all the sights that he barely noticed anymore. She made them fresh again. From London, they boarded a boat train, reaching Paris by early evening, Zurich by the next morning, then on to Landquart at the foot of the Engadine Alps. She was in heaven, every moment of it.

  As he sat by her bed, whatever the direction of his tght, Bannerman's mind would drift back to that train ride. She was so happy then. So excited. She'd met new friends. They were charmed by her. They exchanged addresses. One couple, Americans, promised to visit them in Klosters. He hoped they would not come. Not to see her like this. Her father would be enough to deal with. He was coming. Anton had arranged it. Bannerman wanted him there even less but he could not decently have prevented it.

  “Our choice,” Anton Zivic had told him, “was to fly him there under escort or to leave him to his own devices. The man is barely rational. This way we will be better able to control him.”

  “Who else are you sending?”

  There was an edge to the question. Zivic, on his own authority, had dispatched the team of Carla Benedict and Dr. Russo to be in place before he and Susan reached Klosters. Bannerman, he had decided, could pretend all he wished that he was just another American on holiday, but someone had to be a realist.

  “Molly Farrell and Billy McHugh,” he answered. “Until your mind is clear, I suggest you leave all operational decisions to Miss Farrell. If there is a confrontation between yourself and Mr. Lesko, I have instructed Billy to deal with him.”

  “Anton, I don't want him harmed.” Enough is enough.

  “That may not be your choice, Paul. Lesko knows who you are.”

  “From whom? You told him?”

  “He has his own sources. The man has been busy. So have we. Miss Farrell will brief you when she arrives. In the meantime,” Zivic warned, “Lesko is certain to conclude that his daughter's present condition is a result of her involvement with you.”

  “We don't know that,” he answered, stung. “The father made enemies of his own. This is more their style.”

  “The father,” Zivic pointed out, “will be no more willing to see himself as the cause of this than you are. This is human. It is foreseeable. You should assume, therefore, that it is foreseen by someone else as well. Until we know who that is, let us try not to oblige him.”

  Zivic was right. Bannerman knew it. And he knew that he was not thinking clearly. Trying to put this on Lesko's head may have been human but it was also stupid, not to say petty. Still . . .

  “Mr. Bannerman?” A nurse, a different one, touched his shoulder. He turned. “There is a call for you,” she said. “It is a Mr. Lesko.”

  Bannerman took it in a private waiting room. He picked up the phone and said his name.

  “This is Lesko.” The voice was pitched low, little more than a hoarse whisper. Bannerman could hear a rage, and a hatred, held barely under control. In the background he heard a flight announcement in English. The father was calling from Kennedy Airport. “How is she?” he asked.

  Bannerman told him all that the doctor had said. Coma. Waiting for tests. Twenty-four hours would tell. He chose not to mention the battering of her face.

  “Who did it?” Lesko hissed.

  ”I don't know.”

  “Then fucking guess. Who did it?”

  “Mr. Lesko”—Bannerman sighed—“it depends on whether this was done to you or to me. Nobody had anything against Susan. I don't know whether she had worse luck being my friend or your daughter.”

  Lesko took a breath. He had the sound of a man biting his tongue. “What about who did the hit? You got anything there?”

  “No.”

  “No? What's no?”

  The question caught him off guard. He had, he realized, answered it almost dismissively because the habit of his years in Europe was rarely to concern himself with trigger men but rather those who sent them. Chasing after hired hands was a waste of time and energy. But a policeman, he realized, would not think that way. In this case, when he thought of it, neither did he.

  “So far, no one seems to have seen anything,” he said wearily. “All we know is that she took the train to Davos to do some shopping. Then she stopped for lunch at a mountainside restaurant. It was walking down from it that she . . .” Bannerman stopped. In his mind he was staring at an American Express receipt that the Swiss police had shown him earlier. It was from the Schatzalp Restaurant where she paid for her lunch by credit card. The amount. What she paid for the lunch. He'd seen it but it hadn't registered. Almost eighty Swiss Francs. Enough for two lunches. More likely three. When Bannerman spoke again, his voice was soft and distant. “She had lunch with them,” he said. “She paid for it.”

  “Lunch with who? Whoever did it?”

  “Unless she ran into ... I don't know . . . someone she knew from the states.”

  “Come on, Bannerman. Wake up.” Lesko's voice was rising. “Her friends from the states don't hang around Davos and they don't try to kill her. Who did she know in all fucking Europe well enough she'd buy them lunch?”

  Bannerman felt the blood drain from his face. Suddenly, he knew. He more than suspected. He knew.

  “You there, Bannerman?”

  “I'm here.”

  “Our flight's in a few minutes. We'll get there in about ten hours. Do you think maybe you can give this a little thought in the meantime? Maybe keep an eye on her for a change?”

  “I'll see you in ten hours.” He replaced the phone.

  -6-

  Bannerman's eyes were burning. He returned to Susan's bedside where he dampened a towel in a pitcher of ice water and pressed it to his face. It helped him to separate the sting of Lesko's words from their content.

  Lesko, of course, was right. Even with his daughter lying close to death, his cop's mind had continued to work while Bannerman's had become paralyzed by the pain of what he'd brought on Susan. The killers had to have been people she knew. People she was so pleased to see again that her own plans for the day could wait. And as clearly as he knew that, he knew that sooner or later the phone would ring and he would hear the voice of the man or woman, the American couple, that they'd met on the train.

  They would announce that they were in Klosters, passing through, had hoped to find t
hem free for dinner, and had somehow heard the terrible news of what had happened to Susan. Maybe they stopped at the apartment. Heard it from the housekeeper. In a village the size of Klosters, an attempted murder would be on everyone's lips. They would be shocked. Horrified. Eager to help in any way they could. And, as long as they heard no suspicion in his voice, and as long as they were sure that she was still in a coma, they would insist on coming to the hospital. Good old Ray and Caroline. Middle-aged southerners. Salt of the earth. First trip to Europe. They would volunteer to forego it. To come sit with her. Take up the vigil. Share his burden. Let him get some sleep. And then, because they were paid for results, they would finish her.

  Bannerman even knew how.

  The Swiss doctor had told him, not an hour before, when he came into the room to describe Susan's condition. Almost lost in his litany of tests they had run and treatments they had given was the mention that no suppository had been found.