The Bannerman Effect (The Bannerman Series)

by Maxim, John R.

  “Don't you ever want to just jump on my bones? A good, happy, rip-roaring, spontaneous screw?”

  He cleared his throat. “The truth? Just about all the time.” He glanced past her shoulder. There was a wing chair, red leather, behind her. He saw Molly Farrell in it. She sat cross-legged, chin resting on two fists, enjoying herself thoroughly.

  “How about now?”

  “Well . . . yes. Sure,” was all he managed.

  She seemed to consider it. She shook her head. “The mood's all wrong.”

  Bannerman threw up his hands. He glared, murderously, in the direction of the wing chair. Susan turned.

  “What do you keep looking at?” she asked.

  “Nothing. Um . . . nothing.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “You're not ,by chance, recording this, are you?”

  “Are you kidding?” he asked, incredulous. “Who would I let hear it?”

  “Just asking.” She sipped her wine. A drop fell on her sleeve. She brushed it off. “Do you like this blouse?”

  “It's very, um . . . sexy.”

  ”I bought some other things. Do you want to see?”

  He reached for the loose fabric, fingering it lightly. “How about later?”

  “No.” That look again. ”I want to show you.”

  She stepped into the bedroom and returned with several packages. All showed the names of local merchants except one, a plain brown bag, folded over. Susan put this to one side. She opened a bag from Ed Mitchell's, a clothing store for men. ”I bought you a shirt,” she said. “It'll look great on you. You need more color.”

  She produced a shirt with a Burberrys label, long sleeved, button-down, casual. It was a handsome forest green with yellow stripes set wide apart. Bannerman took it in his hands. For several moments he held it, examining it as if it were fragile. He did not speak.

  “Do you like it?”

  “Very much.” His expression grew soft. Far away.

  He seemed, to Susan, genuinely touched. So much like her father when she brought him a gift for no special reason. “It's just a shirt,” she said.

  “It's a beautiful shirt. Thank you.”

  She reached into another bag. ”I bought myself another top. On sale.” This one was green, a lighter shade than his, a very wide neck. “Want to see it on?”

  “Sure.”

  She set it down, then tugged her white silken blouse loose at the waist. She pulled it over her head.

  ”I didn't mean—” He stopped.

  “Would you rather I did this inside?” She crossed one arm over her breasts, her free hand holding the green top.

  Bannerman's head moved indecisively.

  She lowered the arm, unfolded the new top, taking her time. Her movements seemed natural, unforced, thoroughly unself-conscious. Yet Bannerman began to have a feeling that they were also entirely deliberate. That she knew perfectly well the effect that her unabashed nakedness would have on him and was pretending to be oblivious to it. That and the shirt. He could not remember the last time that a woman, not of his world, had brought him a gift. But these were fleeting thoughts. Wispy. Nothing he could grasp and hold or seize control of.

  Control The word brought a rueful smile. The last thing he controlled in the past half hour was the wheel of his car.

  Raising her arms, she slipped into the pale green top. She shook out her hair. The green went well with it. The neck, very loose, extended to the edge of one shoulder. A touch, the smallest tug, would have left the shoulder bare down to the top of one breast. The effect was, in its way, more erotic than her nudity.

  “It's . . .” He swallowed.

  “Sexy?”

  “And then some.”

  “Which one do you like better? Want to see the other one on again?”

  “Susan”—he brought both hands to his eyes, covering them—“Why are you doing this to me?”

  She looked at the fire, took a breath. ”I bought one other thing.”

  He nodded. “Let's see it.”

  “Don't peek, okay?”

  ”I promise.”

  She reached for the folded paper bag, opened it, and slid it's contents onto the rug between them. It made a thunk. “You can look now,” she said.

  His eyes followed the sound. They found it and blinked. He was looking at a pistol, flecked with tiny pits of rust, the bluing well worn. He picked it up. Colt—Super .38 Automatic, it said on the barrel. It was at least thirty years old.

  “Where did you get this?” he asked, frowning.

  ”I saw an ad. It was sort of an impulse.”

  “It was also a crime. You can't just walk in and buy a gun in Connecticut.”

  ”I guess the man didn't know that. Will you teach me to shoot it?”

  “Susan . . . what for?”

  “Because I'm going to stay with you. Because I want to be someone you can count on.”

  “To do what? Shoot people?”

  “If they tried to hurt you. Yes.”

  Bannerman touched his temple as if a pain had begun there.

  “Or to hurt me,” she added.

  “No one will hurt you,” he said earnestly. “No one will ever try that again.”

  “You, then. Will you teach me?”

  “Absolutely not. You'd end up shooting yourself. Or some passerby.”

  Her eyes flashed. “That's patronizing, Bannerman. Knock it off.”

  “It is not,” he said firmly. “Learning how to shoot takes hours. Learning when to shoot takes years. Being able to shoot . . . maybe never.”

  “I'd have a pretty good teacher.”

  “Wrong again. I'm average at best. The worst shot on the Westport police force is probably better than I am.”

  ”I don't believe you.”

  He spread his hands. “Your father never taught you about handguns?”

  “Just never to touch his.”

  “Then ask him, if you won't believe me. He'll probably tell you that when you're close enough to use a pistol you'd usually be just as well off with an ax except that the handgun makes lots of noise while you're missing and it makes the man you're shooting at want to run and hide. You've seen too much television, Susan.”

  “Watch it.”

  He rose to his feet. He began pacing. “On television, shootings are neat and clean. One shot and the bad guy drops. You never see—”

  “I'm a reporter, Paul,” she said evenly. “I've seen people die.”

  He stopped. “What people?” he asked doubtfully.

  “At crime scenes. In emergency rooms. Shooting and stabbing victims. Car crash victims. I've been there when their bowels let go. When they swallowed their tongues. I've seen rape victims. And their rapists. I've seen two of them, in a police station, laughing about what they'd done. If I had a gun that day—”

  Bannerman shook his head abruptly.

  ”I keep trying to tell you, Paul. You didn't invent me.”

  He said nothing.

  “Do you love me?”

  He hesitated. “Yes.”

  “But for who I am.”

  “For who you are,” he nodded. “Not for trying to be more like me. I can't stand the thought of you with a gun.”

  She did not answer. Neither spoke for several moments.

  “Want to see my boobs again?” she asked.

  His head snapped up.

  “Just trying to ease the tension.”

  Bannerman's hands slapped against his cheeks. What does it take? he asked himself. What does it take for one single conversation with Susan Lesko to go his way for more than a few seconds at a time?

  “Come here,” she said. She moved the packages aside. And the pistol. She covered it with the new green top.

  An hour had passed.

  The fire had dropped to a whisper. They lay on pillows, under a quilt. She had sent him to get them. Afterward.

  They lay facing each other. He on one elbow, touching her, exploring her, his eyes filled with . . . she wasn't sure. Wonder, perhaps. A
sense of discovery. They had made love before, many times, but it seemed that they were different people then.

  He made love differently as well. Hard to say how, exactly. It was more . . . respectful. More . . . admiring. Or just more.

  And so gently. She reached her fingertips to his eyes. They were gray when in shadow, green when he faced the fire. Those eyes. They'd seen so much. And yet they could still be tender. They could become flustered. They could blush.

  “Would you promise me something?” she asked him.

  “I’ll try,” he said.

  “Stick around here. Don't take any trips. Not for a while.”

  ”I wasn't planning any.” A short pause. “Like where?” he asked.

  “Like to Europe. No unfinished business. What happened over there, I'd like you to just let it lie for now.”

  Bannerman frowned. His mind drifted to his answering machine. He had locked it back in the cabinet. Had he forgotten to turn the volume down?

  “Susan,” he asked, “have I had a call?”

  She nodded. “From your office. A half hour before you called. I thought it might have been you.”

  “What was the message?”

  “That someone was trying to reach you. He had the same last name as Elena.”

  ”Urs Brugg.”

  ”I guess. It's not about Elena. Part of the message said she was doing well. But he wants you to call. He said it's urgent.”

  Those eyes, she thought. Those beautiful eyes. They were flat now. Lifeless. As if a switch had been thrown. But only for a moment. Here was that gentleness again.

  “Will you promise?” she asked.

  “It's probably nothing.”

  “Come on, Bannerman.”

  “Okay,” he nodded. “How about if I promise that I won't do anything foolish, or dangerous, or anything that would keep me away from you one minute longer than it must. And that includes not even going to New York again if I can help it.”

  “How about,” she closed one eye, “if you don't do anything at all, except be with me, for a solid week. I'll go rip out the phone. Also the one you think I don't know about.”

  He grimaced as if stung. But privately, he was pleased. “I'd like that.” He said, bringing her fingers to his lips. ”I want that. But you know I can't. Don't you.”

  “Obligations?”

  He nodded.

  She said nothing.

  ”I appreciate that,” he said.

  “What?”

  “You not asking, what about my obligations to you?”

  “Oh yeah. Right. What about them, Bannerman?”

  Bannerman groaned inwardly. Another checkmark.

  “It's okay.” She patted his rump. “Go make your call.”

  “Maybe tomorrow.”

  “He said it was urgent.”

  “He's not here with you. I am. And there's nothing in the world I'd rather be doing. No place I'd rather be.”

  He kissed her. Lightly. Tenderly. His lips tasting her.

  “Which reminds me,” she said, trembling, ”I made spaghetti.”

  He kissed her again.

  “But no garlic bread. You mind?”

  “It doesn't matter,” he murmured. “All I'll taste is you.”

  Oh, brother.

  All I'll taste is you.

  Silver-tongued devil.

  But she liked it. Good move, Bannerman.

  Now they'll have their dinner. Another bottle of wine. No garlic bread, so they can sleep, face-to-face, without curling each other's hair.

  Back to the fire. A couple of fresh logs. They'll make love again there. Then sometime later he'll carry her into the bedroom, stroke her back until she falls asleep, make love again in the morning, maybe shower together.

  And then he'll go to his office. Maybe he'll call Urs Brugg from there. Probably not. Because the way to bet is that as soon as she's asleep he will quietly slip out of bed and close the door behind him.

  She won't ask if he did that, she decided.

  She won't make him lie to her.

  -19-

  In the communications center of the Soviet Embassy in Bern, Colonel Leonid Belkin stood at the shoulder of a younger man, burly, twice his size, watching as a series of cryptic English phrases scrolled up the computer screen.

  “Stop there, Yuri,” he said.

  The screen read:

  ENMITY: BANNERMAN/POSSE 100.0

  ENMITY: BANNERMAN/JIBRIL 100.0

  ENMITY: BANNERMAN/TRE GROUP 0.6

  “What might that mean?” he asked.

  “It is...an assessment of some kind.”

  “Have those names appeared before this?” he asked.

  The younger man shook his head. “On these disks? Only Bannerman. But perhaps on the others.”

  “What of those letters? TRE”

  “Ah, yes. They refer to ‘the Ripper Effect.’ That is the designator for this program.”

  “Who is Ripper?”

  ”A code name, I think.”

  “Of Roger Clew?”

  Yuri Rykov shrugged. “Clew's diplomatic code name is Dancer. The only Ripper I find is a nineteenth-century English maniac who . . .”

  Speculation. Belkin lost interest. He gestured accordingly. “This list,” he peered at the screen, frowning, “it is obviously an assessment. But of what? And in what context?”

  “It gives no context. There is only these three lines. They were transmitted to Clew last night, by modem, by that man.” He pointed to a file photograph clipped to one of the dossiers at his side. The face was that of Harold C. Hagler.

  Rykov sat back, tapping his forehead as if to set his brain in motion. Abruptly, he rolled his chair to another machine and, in seconds, had called up a file. The word Jibril appeared in bold face. There were several listings under it.

  “Arabs,” he said, pleased with himself. “Syrians, specifically. There is your connection with Mr. Hagler. Freedom fighters.”

  “They are terrorists, Yuri, dogma notwithstanding. Try the other name. ‘Posse.’ ”

  The younger man's fingers flew across the keys. It was a sight that never failed to impress Leo Belkin. Such big hands. They had squeezed triggers. They had crushed throats. And yet they could play this machine with the touch of a Rachmaninoff.

  “Nothing.” Rykov grunted. “No file.”

  Although not always with the same result, Belkin sighed. “Can you not ask this Ripper program?”

  Yuri tossed his hands. “Without their commands, we cannot access evaluative functions. We can only read what they send by modem.”

  Belkin motioned him back to the other machine. “If this is an assessment,” he gestured toward the screen, “it probably refers to the consequences of a specific activity. Might that activity involve this business in Spain?”

  ”I find no reference to Spain. No match of any kind. Ask my opinion, I will say that the two are unrelated.”

  “Might it interfere, then?”

  ”I may guess?”

  Belkin nodded.

  ”A prediction of enmity, if one hundred percent certain, would seem to require a first priority. Those three in Spain are insects. They can be squashed at any time.”

  “And yet Bannerman has promised my friend Urs that he will see to them at once.”

  “If he is not distracted by new enemies.”

  Leo Ðelkin folded his arms, bringing one hand to his mouth. ”I need him there, Yuri,” he said quietly. ”I need him in Europe, I need him vulnerable, and I need no distraction that would cause him to send others in his place.”

  The younger man said nothing.

  “Hagler. Clew. They are up to something. Whatever it is, we must assume that it is not in our interest.”

  Rykov motioned to his attache case. A chain and handcuff dangled from it. “We have only begun to review these disks. There are twelve others. Also more than nine hours of voice tapes.”

  “Teach me, Yuri. Then go back to Washington. Go today.”