The Bannerman Effect (The Bannerman Series)

by Maxim, John R.

  “This is my good suit,” Billy said quietly, his face an inch from Tucker's. “Would you let go now?”

  Tucker nodded, blinking. He opened his hands. They'd gone stiff.

  “You want to stand up now? Nice and slow.”

  Tucker nodded again. Billy eased backward, off the table, guiding him. They were standing once more. Tucker tried to raise a hand to his ear but Billy frowned and shook his head. Tucker dropped the hand. The hard edge traced downward across his chest, pausing at his heart, then farther, below his waist. Billy released him, holding him only with his eyes.

  “Look down,” Billy said.

  Tucker obeyed. He saw the knife. It had a wide curving blade in the shape of a bird's wing. A skinning knife. Beyond it, at his feet, were the buttons of his shirt. Tucker had felt nothing.

  Billy's free hand groped for something on the table's surface. He found it. He brought it slowly up to Tucker's face. It was small and pink and smeared with blood. Billy waited until he saw in Tucker's eyes that he knew what it must be. Then he brought it to his own mouth. He chewed it, deliberately, slowly, and swallowed. Tucker's stomach bucked, his chest heaved. Billy forced him to his knees and stepped back.

  A bar towel, tossed from the crowd, struck the side of Tucker's head. He seized it, pressing it against the stub of his ear. He knelt there, keening, his body rocking, hands over both ears now and his eyes shut tight as if to shut out the pain and the humiliation. A woman, one of the Israeli's, came forward with some napkins and a bottle of Perrier. She used these to wipe the blood from the table. Kurt Weiss wiped the floor. Ronny Grassi, his color only now retuming, waved two men forward and gave them instructions. They nodded, then took the football player by the arms and led him toward a fire exit. He resisted, but only until one of them whispered into his remaining ear. The three left quickly. The sound level of the room picked up, many conversations punctuated by low whistles and nervous laughter. Another Billy McHugh story, thought Bannerman. Within a week it would be told all over Europe. Bannerman approached Ronny Grassi.

  “Did you enjoy yourself?” he asked quietly.

  Grassi had removed his ascot. With it, he dabbed at his own blood where Tucker's fingernails had gouged his neck. ”I know.” Grassi held up a hand. He did not want to hear Bannerman say it. ”I figured he'd stomp out, tail between his legs. Who'd have figured he'd take on Billy, right here, with this crowd?”

  “But you won't do this again, will you,” he hissed. “Not ever.”

  Grassi looked at Billy. He was at Bannerman's side, waiting, Bannerman's hand on his shoulder. Bannerman, he realized, needed only to apply pressure to ease the bigger man forward. “No,” he whispered. “Not ever.”

  “What will be done with Tucker?” Bannerman asked.

  Grassi gestured in the direction of the marina. “They took him to my boat. My first mate will stitch him up, give him his walking papers.”

  Bannerman shook his head. ”I want him kept there, under guard, until we're finished here and gone. If Billy sees him again, he'll probably have to kill him. And you, Mr. Grassi, will get the bill.”

  Grassi wiped his brow and nodded. “Speaking of which,” he said, gesturing toward the hill. “When's show time?”

  “Have a nice night, Mr. Grassi.”

  They had reached the path to their suite. It had taken a while. More handshakes, embraces, a few introductions, invitations to meet at breakfast. Once outside, Billy paused to spit into a running stream. “Did you pack any Feenamint?” he asked.

  Bannerman rolled his eyes, mentally. Tucker's ear had not mixed well with the paella. ”I have some Rolaids. And some toothpaste.”

  Billy spat again. “I'm getting too old for this. Tastes like calamari. I hate calamari.”

  “You did fine.” They walked toward their suite. “You even scared me.”

  Billy shrugged indifferently. “You should have let me do Grassi. He plays too many games. You can't let people do that.”

  I know, thought Bannerman. Reputations. Use them or lose them. But Grassi was harmless enough. Not dangerous. Just likes to know dangerous people. ”I think he'll behave now. You heard him. He wants to see the floor show.”

  “That's another thing. We go out on a job, when did we start selling tickets?”

  “You threw a party for Palmer Reid,” Bannerman reminded him.

  “And that time you invited Lesko and Urs Brugg. Tomorrow, they're coming again. Is this going to be a regular thing with us?”

  “It does wear thin,” Bannerman agreed.

  “So what now?”

  “We'll get some sleep, first I'll call Anton, if he hustled Susan out of Westport, something must be happening.”

  “Then what?’’

  “Show time.”

  -25-

  The same evening. A six-hour time difference earlier Westport.

  At the window table in Mario's, Anton Zivic lingered over a cognac as he browsed through the current issue of Art & Antiques magazine.

  The restaurant was full. The bar two deep in commuters. Several parties stood, drinks in hand, waiting for tables.

  Zivic knew many of the faces. But not all. Twice, in the past ten minutes, the front door had opened and the light over the bar had blinked. Both were men who had come in alone. Business suits. Carrying briefcases as if they'd just come from the train. One stood at the bar, his back against the partition. The other stayed close to the pay phone near the entrance. Both held beers and were nursing them. The man by the entrance seemed more interested in the street outside than the company within.

  Zivic frowned within himself. He touched the cognac to his lips and returned to his magazine. He was reading, with no small amount of envy, an account of two Flemish paintings, Brueghels, that had been looted by a Nazi general, vanished, and had apparently spent the last forty-five years on the wall of a Cincinnati barbershop owned by a former American corporal who had accepted them, reluctantly, in lieu of a $10 poker debt. Sotheby's put their value at $6 million.

  A shadow fell over the magazine. It stood still. He looked up.

  “Ah, Roger.” He brightened. “How delightful.” He rose to shake hands, then gestured toward a vacant chair.

  Clew hesitated. “Can we go someplace?”

  Zivic brushed the suggestion aside. He signaled the waiter, indicating another cognac for his guest.

  Clew took a breath. But he pulled the chair out and sat. Heavily. “Anton”—Clew leaned closer—“where is everybody?”

  An innocent shrug. “Is something wrong, Roger?”

  “I've got to see Paul. Where is he?”

  “He is unavailable.” The drink was brought. Zivic caught the waiter's eye. A message, unspoken, passed between them. The waiter left. “Perhaps I may be of some help.”

  Clew didn't like this at all. No Billy McHugh or Molly Farrell behind the bar. No Paul Bannerman anywhere. His house dark. No one answering the phone. Anton Zivic here as if he were waiting for him. Polite, friendly. Almost too friendly.

  “Anton”—Clew spread his hands, intending a gesture of openness—“have any of you been to Washington lately? Molly Farrell, for instance?”

  Zivic's eyes appeared to go blank.

  “Okay.” Clew's jaw tightened. “Are Paul and the rest of your crowd now in New York, by any chance?”

  The eyes came alive again. He shrugged, waiting.

  Clew pulled Hagler's newspaper from his briefcase and placed it in front of Zivic. He pointed to the article. “Five Die In Drug War.” Zivic scanned it with no more than polite interest. He looked at Clew. “Your phone message to Paul”—Zivic dropped his voice—“mentioned a threat to our security. I take it that these people are somehow involved.”

  Clew returned to his briefcase and produced a manila envelope. From it, he withdrew two photographs. He set one of these before Zivic. A black man. Zivic recognized Hector Manley but his expression showed nothing.

  “Do you know him?” Clew asked.

  Zivic ignored
the question. “Let me see the other.”

  Zivic took it from his fingers. He saw a young man, early thirties, dark complexion, Semitic nose, a large mole high on one cheek. He was dressed in military fatigues. In the background was a lifeless rocky landscape that was either the moon or the Middle East. He was, he presumed, looking at the man known only as “the Arab.”

  He returned to Manley's photograph, tapped the table next to it. “This one. Who is he?”

  Clew held his gaze. “You don't know?”

  “Tell me, please.”

  Clew seemed relieved. He gestured toward a photo of the same man, poorer quality, which appeared in The Times story. “Hector Manley. A Jamaican. A drug dealer. Also an urban terrorist trained in Cuba. Now in New York.”

  “And this one?”

  “His name is Aba Jibril. His uncle is Ahmed Jibril, head of the—”

  Zivic waved his hand, a gesture of dismissal. He knew of Ahmed Jibril. A former captain in the Syrian army. Joined the PLO in the late sixties, found them insufficiently militant. Split with Arafat to form the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Invented skyjacking as a weapon of terror. But even they were too moderate. Split once more to create a new faction called the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine—General Command. Made names for themselves in ‘74 by pitching the bodies of Israeli children from the roof of an apartment house during a siege. Also specialists in booby-trapped packages, letter bombs, and, eventually, bombs in the baggage holds of airplanes. The nephew, Aba, was the man who romanced a young Irish woman then, once she was carrying his child, placed her aboard an El-Al flight with a time bomb in her luggage. The bomb, fortunately, was discovered in time.

  “These men,” Zivic asked, “what have they to do with us?”

  Clew reached into his pocket once more. He produced an audiocassette tape. He pushed it toward Zivic. “It's from a DEA wiretap. This one”—he touched the younger Jibril’s photograph—“is hiring that one*’—he touched Manley's— “to blow this whole fucking town into splinters.”

  Zivic pretended to be stunned. He leaned closer, whispering an occasional question, as Roger Clew described a plot to visit forty car bombs on the town of Westport.

  “Why?” Zivic asked. “Why Westport? Why us?”

  “You tell me. Did you ever hurt Jibril?”

  They had indeed. Once in Athens. They'd found one of his factories, took two of his men alive. Russo had questioned them. They'd begged to die. But they were released, barely able to walk, at the gates of the Iranian Embassy. They made it through. The Iranian who was their control rushed out to meet them as guards followed with weapons drawn. The two men, now safe, bawled curses, threats, made obscene gestures at the idling car outside. Then the two men exploded.

  But Roger Clew knew of that episode. Zivic did not bother to answer. He reached for the tape, a duplicate, no doubt, of the one he'd heard two days earlier. He picked up the photographs.

  “Not those.” Clew held out his hand. “I'll need them.”

  “So will we,” Zivic said.

  Clew moved to argue but the waiter returned. He placed a paper bag, lined with foil, on the table at Zivic's elbow. It bore the restaurant's name and a cartoon drawing of a frisking dog. Zivic pushed it toward Clew. Clew looked at him, puzzled. He had no dog. Neither, as far as he knew, did Zivic.

  “Have you told me the truth, Roger?” Zivic kept one hand on the bag.

  Clew's forehead began to glow. “How can you even ask?”

  Zivic smiled. ”A simpler question. Have you come here alone?”

  “As always. Yes.”

  “You came with no escort? No bodyguard?”

  “Paul says come alone, I come alone. Why would I need a bodyguard in Westport?”

  Zivic frowned. “Then this is most embarrassing.” He rose to his feet, placing one hand on Roger's shoulder and touch-

  ing the doggy bag with the other. “Take this with you when you leave,” he said. “Do not come back unless invited.”

  “Wait a second.” Clew flared. “Who the hell are you to—”

  “Please,” Zivic said gently. “Nothing foolish. Just go away while you can.”

  Zivic walked to the front door. He waved toward the bartender as he pushed through it. The bartender waved back.

  Clew touched the bag. It seemed heavy. Carefully, he broke the tape that held it shut. He opened it, glanced inside, and covered it quickly.

  Now he reached, feeling with his fingers past the muzzles of two service revolvers until he gripped one of the two wallets that were in the bag with them. He pulled one out. Opened it. It contained a photo ID. Treasury Department. He extracted the other. Same ID, different name. He turned in his chair. He saw them at once. Two men at the crowded bar. Their backs to him. Heads slightly bowed, their arms at their sides. Not moving. They seemed to be dozing.

  They almost seemed to be dead.

  “Mr. Manley?”

  “Yes?”

  “Cover your face, please. I will turn on the light.”

  Manley sat up on his bed. He looked away as Anton Zivic turned the switch. Zivic approached him. An orderly, armed with a stun gun, stayed two paces behind.

  Zivic held a photograph in his hand until Manley nodded that his eyes had adjusted sufficiently. Manley glanced at it.

  “The Arab?” the Jamaican asked.

  “You tell me.”

  Manley stifled a yawn, nodding. The nod stopped abruptly. He blinked, then looked again, more closely this time.

  “That is not the man,” he said.

  “You are certain?”

  “They could be brothers. But no. The man I saw had no mole.”

  “It could have been removed. What then?”

  Manley shook his head. “The hairline is different. The nose is wrong.”

  “These too are cosmetic. They might have been altered.”

  “No,” Manley was firm. “That is not the man.”

  “Thank you.” Zivic turned toward the door.

  “Mr. Zivic,” he called,

  Anton stopped and waited.

  “Will you be speaking to Mr. Bannerman?”

  “In a few minutes. Yes.”

  ”I told him I would try to think of a way to reach an accommodation with Mr. Covington. I believe that I have.”

  ”I think, so has he,” Zivic said. “But I will tell him.”

  “Mr. Zivic. Will he spare my life?”

  “He will try, Mr. Manley.”

  Zivic stepped from the room.

  -26-

  Martin Selly was becoming restless. And terribly bored.

  Here it was, a perfectly delightful Marbella morning and he might as well be behind bars. As indeed he was. Wrought-iron bars.

  Before him, viewed from the terrace, all the rest of the world seemed free to come and go, seeking its pleasures. There were women everywhere. In passing convertibles, on pleasure boats, on the beach far below. He watched them through his binoculars. Many of them topless. Oiling their bodies. Their hands languidly, proudly, kneading their breasts. Exciting him.

  It had been nearly a fortnight since he'd had a woman. A fresh one, he thought. A clean one. There was always Erna, of course, but that was like saying there was always a pig wallow. No amount of bathing would make her clean. Sperm, in her case, probably died on contact.

  Worse, her capacity for conversation seemed to diminish by the day. Her drug-cooked brain had gone from slow simmer to deep-fry. Not that scintillating chats were ever her strong suit. And not that she needed much of a mind to hold up her end during periods of financial distress. In Marseilles she'd serviced the entire engine-room crew of a Nigerian freighter. He'd wanted to boil her afterward. Or chuck her out once and for all. But every time he'd been at the point of doing just that she would show up with some new pretty, sometimes two of them, waving packets of cocaine under their noses and all they'd have to do for it was to take a lovely hot bath and if they made an effort not to scream we wouldn't have
to tie them up quite so tightly, now would we. Makes it all the harder to scrub the little nooks and crannies.

  He turned his binoculars to the grounds of the Puente Romano. Quieter now. Not like last night. So many cars arriving at all hours. Unusual this time of year. He'd been on the point of driving down, Signore Grassi's instructions notwithstanding, to see who they all were and what was the attraction. But then Grassi's Rolls-Royce came into view. His man, Weiss, driving. Another bodyguard, huge creature, in front. Left the Rolls in front, naturally. No hotel or restaurant ever parks a Rolls. Too good an advertisement. Grassi climbing out, greeting other new arrivals, most of whom he seemed to know. Selly thought he'd recognized two or three himself.