Corsican Honor

by William Heffernan

  And what if it cost him his? she thought. What then? Was it worth her need for vengeance? No, he was risking his life for his own vengeance. Would do so no matter what she did.

  She felt a stirring for him, one that brought her back ten years, to the time when she had first known him in Corsica. The naive young woman so taken with the man and his pain. And the pain was still there, she told herself, after ten long years it was still there inside him. She wondered if her own pain would still gnaw at her ten years from now. Yes, she told herself. And even more so if Ludwig was still alive.

  She lit a cigarette, but ground it out almost immediately. She had begun smoking years before while a student in Paris, and then she had given it up, banished it from her life. She didn’t need it, she told herself now, and immediately lit another. Alex would be coming to her later. After his meeting with the American who ran the CIA office here. And she told herself she must find a way to remain close to him so she would be there when Ludwig made his assault. What an innocent word, she thought. Assault, instead of the brutal killing he would attempt. Perhaps even with the same pleasure he had taken when he had killed Alex’s wife.

  But this time it would be different. This time she would help him, and Ludwig would be the one who would be trapped. She only had to make sure Alex did not keep her from him. Try to keep her away from the danger: keep her safe. She had no need of safety. Only of revenge. She wondered if little Pierre, and gentle, oh so gentle Rene, would have understood.

  Alex was ushered into James Wheelwright’s office. The man remained behind his desk, his eyes red with lack of sleep, or something. He gestured toward a chair, and Alex sat. He stood then and walked to his suit coat, hanging on a hat tree in one corner, and removed a pack of cigarettes. He was of average height, average appearance, seeming more like a salesman than a spy, with thinning, mousy brown hair that was overwhelmed with dandruff. And he was slightly overweight. Alex guessed his age at about forty-five as he lit a cigarette and perched on the edge of his desk.

  “This is a great pain in the ass for me, Moran. And I’m not even sure how much I can help you.” He drew on the cigarette, but even behind the smoke Alex could smell the previous night’s booze waft off his body.

  “I’m not sure how much you can either,” Alex said. “But since Ludwig already knows I’m here, somebody sure as hell seems to be able to help him.”

  “What do you mean, he knows?” Wheelwright said.

  “He telephoned me yesterday. At the Pisanis’ house.”

  “Shit,” Wheelwright snapped. “Then we better not talk here. We better go to a more secure room.”

  “What is it, Wheelwright? You think Montoya’s got you bugged? Or don’t you trust your own people?”

  Wheelwright glared at him. “I don’t trust anybody anymore, Moran. Not even you. There’s so much drug money floating around, I don’t know who’s been bought, and what’s been sold.” He glared at Alex. “And I don’t like being told to jump for some rogue agent just so he can help a bunch of greaseball drug dealers save their asses. Understood?”

  “Yeah, I understand,” Alex said. “And fuck you too.”

  Wheelwright stared at him, and for a moment Alex thought the man might take a swing at him. Then he walked past him. “Follow me, big shot,” he snapped, and headed out of the room.

  Wheelwright took Alex into the building’s basement, through a security checkpoint manned by a Marine guard, and into the Bubble Room. Alex had read about the new secure rooms, developed since he had left the service to counteract new Russian listening devices.

  The room was literally a room within a room, with two doors leading inside and a gap of several inches between exterior and interior walls. The exterior walls were lined with four inches of acoustic dampening materials so nothing could be heard inside. Any listening device would have to be planted inside the dampening materials on the interior walls, and those walls, built inches away from the others, were made of Plexiglas, so any listening device secreted there would be visible to those inside. It was like being inside a windowless, glass-walled cocoon.

  There was a long table surrounded by chairs, and they took seats across from each other.

  “Sometimes I wonder if these rooms are to protect us from ourselves or our enemies,” Wheelwright said. “Or if we even know the difference anymore.” He tapped his fingers on the highly polished wood. “What do you want to know, and what help do you expect?” he asked.

  “I want to know everything you know about Ludwig and Montoya, and I want access to any new intelligence that comes in. As soon as it comes in,” Alex said.

  “What about men?”

  “I don’t need any help there.”

  “Prefer your greaseball gangsters, huh?”

  “That’s right. They’re better than the clowns you have on the street.”

  Wheelwright stared at him. “Remember what you said to me upstairs?” He offered a cold smile. “Well, fuck you too.”

  “Good,” Alex said. “Now we have that out of the way. So tell me what you know.”

  Wheelwright continued to stare at him, then snorted, and finally smiled. “You’re every bit as much of a prick as they said you’d be, Moran. But they told me to do what I could to help keep you alive. At least until you killed this terrorist cocksucker. So I will.”

  “Thank you,” Alex said.

  “You’re welcome.”

  Wheelwright leaned back in his chair and rubbed his bloodshot eyes.

  “We think the center of activity is somewhere up around Aix. But that’s mainly because Francisci operates out of there, and some South Americans have been seen with his people. There are about fifty South Americans, as best as we can estimate, but they’re kept pretty much under wraps, so they have to be stashed somewhere. Little fuckers don’t speak anything but Spanish, so they stick out everywhere but the Spanish quarter of Marseilles. And we know they’re not living there. Our guess is that Ludwig has one or two locations outside the city, where he’s got them holed up, and only brings them out when he’s going to hit somebody, or to give them a little R & R. We think Francisci sends in hookers to clean their pipes, but frankly, I haven’t had enough men to put a tail on all his poules to find out.”

  “I can arrange that,” Alex said.

  “I’m sure you can,” Wheelwright said. “The Pisanis probably know about every hooker within a one-hundred-mile radius. It is their business.”

  “One of them,” Alex said.

  “Yeah,” Wheelwright added. “Probably the cleanest one they have.”

  “What about political contacts?” Alex asked. “Through Francisci or Ludwig?”

  “We don’t see any other than what Francisci has always had. But that doesn’t mean shit. It could be through the cops, but, Christ, the Marseilles police will deal with anybody who’s got the bucks.”

  “Except the Pisanis.”

  “If you say so,” Wheelwright said. “I’ve never been allowed to work them. They’ve always been controlled out of Langley.”

  Alex was surprised to hear that, but kept it to himself. “You know I’ll be reporting directly to Hennesey? It was his idea, not mine,” Alex said.

  “Yeah, I know,” Wheelwright said. “I’m not happy with it, but that doesn’t mean shit either. I’d be appreciative if you could keep me as informed as you can. Just so I don’t look like a complete asshole.”

  “I’ll do what I can. Did they send the KL-43 I’m supposed to use to contact Langley?”

  “I’ve got it here,” Wheelwright said. “I’ll run through it with you again, and I’ll arrange for you to come and go as you need to. So you can come here and use it anytime. Night or day.”

  “I have to use it here? Hennesey didn’t say anything about that.”

  “Those are my instructions,” Wheelwright said. He had placed a small attaché-like case on top of the table. It looked like a cross between a briefcase and small portable typewriter case.

  “These babies are all own
ed by NSA [National Security Agency], and they’re one of the most classified pieces of equipment we have. They don’t go outside secure buildings, for obvious reasons. And if we’re ever overrun, our instructions are to destroy this first. Even before classified documents. So I can’t let you walk around with it. Even Hennesey can’t okay that.”

  Wheelwright noted the concern on Alex’s face and decided to ease it. Otherwise he’d never use the damned thing, and Langley—being the pricks they were—would blame him for scaring the man off.

  “Look,” he said, “this fucking thing is completely secure. And I mean completely. There is no way anybody can tap into it while you’re using it. Even if they tap into the telephone you’re using, all they get is scrambled crap, and even that’s in code.” He tapped the top of the box, then began to open it. “And after you’re finished, everything you’ve put into it is automatically erased. And if anyone tampers with the machine, tries to cut off the automatic erase or anything else, the little bugger is programed to shut itself down to the point it can’t be started up again. It’s like an ultimate computer virus.”

  The KL-43 lay open between them now, and Wheelwright began to explain it. Alex had been briefed at Langley, but decided to hear Wheelwright out just to see if the instructions varied in any way.

  “Here you have a small computer with a liquid-crystal diode screen. The phone cable is unhooked from the back of any regular telephone and plugged into one cable of a Y cord.” He held up the cord. “That plugs into the computer, and back into the phone.” He held up a small cassette. “This tape cassette holds the transmission code, and it slips into this slot on the side of the computer.” He gestured with both hands. “That’s all the assembly required. From that point you just type in your message on the keyboard. All conversations are typed, transmitted automatically in code, and automatically decoded by the receiving machine before they appear on the receiving screen. Hennesey’s machine is kept in his office. So the only way your message can reach anyone but him is if he chooses to give it out. Even if someone had the code, it wouldn’t do any good. Not unless they had the machine too. And as I said, they all belong to NSA, and they know who has them, and check daily to make sure they’re all where they’re supposed to be.”

  “So why make a portable transmitter that can’t leave a secure location?” Alex asked.

  Wheelwright gestured helplessly with his hands again. “Hey, you think maybe engineering and security don’t talk to each other.” He grinned. “Or maybe engineering did its job so well it made security shit when they saw it. It’s chicken and egg, my friend. Like everything else in this business. And we end up with a portable transmitter that an agent could take anyplace, and transmit from any regular telephone he can find. Except he can’t, because it’s not allowed. So he has to travel to a secure building. Maybe from someplace out in the boonies, or some fucking jungle, and intelligence that’s urgent enough to go out on this little sweetheart is delayed a day, two days, a whole fucking week. You explain it to me. We developed it, then cut its effectiveness in half. For the guy in the field, he might as well use smoke signals, for all the good this does him.”

  Alex stared at the machine, then at Wheelwright, but said nothing.

  “What else do you need?” Wheelwright asked.

  “Some new documents,” Alex said. “In the name of Owen Morris, and identifying me as a buyer for a California vineyard. They’ll replace what Langley gave me, which doesn’t fit with what the Pisanis have in mind.”

  “They’ll be ready by the end of the day,” Wheelwright said.

  “I’ll pick them up,” Alex said.

  Wheelwright nodded. “Where can I reach you if any new intelligence about Ludwig comes in?”

  “Contact the Pisanis,” Alex said. “They’ll find me. Anything else I should know?”

  “Just one thing,” Wheelwright said. “Your old friend Bugayev is back in Marseilles.” He watched Alex’s eyes, saw the interest there he couldn’t mask. “I don’t know if it means anything or not,” he added. “He was shipped out to Afghanistan about a year after you left the service. Now he’s back. And so’s Ludwig. We haven’t seen any contact, and it could be coincidence, but who the fuck knows?”

  Alex slipped into the passenger seat of his car, leaving the driving to the Pisani man who had taken the wheel while he was inside. It was the same man he had met in Cervione ten years ago. Jo-Jo Valeria, the Pisani casseur who had waylaid the Russian hit team that had come for him then.

  “You drive,” Alex said. “I’m going to Michelle Cabarini’s apartment.”

  Valeria nodded. He had aged well over the past ten years, only a hint of gray hair acknowledging his thirty-five or so years. He had grown a thin line of mustache, but otherwise still had the same lean, hard good looks and intelligent eyes that Alex remembered. The mustache made him look like a pimp, but perhaps that was what he wanted, Alex told himself.

  “I will have you there in five minutes,” Valeria said. “Will you be long?”

  “I don’t know,” Alex said. “I’ve got to learn something about the wine business.”

  “That could take years,” Valeria said, smiling. “I’ll let my men take lunch, one man at a time. It’s early, but I like to keep them fed.” He grinned again. “There’s a cafe on the corner.”

  “That’s fine,” Alex said. “Just don’t hold me up when I’m ready to leave. There’s an old friend I want to look up.”

  As the car pulled out into traffic, he thought about Sergei Bugayev. He didn’t believe in coincidence, and if Bugayev hadn’t lost his love of bouillabaisse, he knew where to find him.

  Michelle opened the door of her apartment and greeted Alex with a warm smile. She was dressed in a simple blouse and full skirt, reminiscent of the young girl-woman he had first known in Cervione. He wondered if she had intended it.

  He returned the smile. “Seeing you dressed that way, I feel we should take a walk along the maquis,” he said.

  “You remember our walks,” she said.

  “What man could forget walks with a beautiful and innocent young woman?” he said.

  “I was not so innocent,” she said. “I was very infatuated with you. And I dreamed of more than our walks together.” She looked at him steadily as she spoke, and there was no hint of flirtation in her voice or her eyes.

  She turned and moved toward the kitchen. “Can I offer you a coffee?” she asked.

  “I’d love it,” he said.

  “Good. Then we can talk about wine. And I would like to do it in English. I get little chance to practice it, and it is good for me.”

  They sat in the spacious living room, Michelle on a large white sofa, Alex in a carved wooden chair opposite, a silver coffee service on the low table between them. Large windows opened on to the Vieux Port, and Alex thought of the quayside restaurant where Bugayev had always gone to take his bouillabaisse. He would be there, he told himself, half listening as Michelle explained what he would have to know to be a believable buyer of vine cuttings. He was sure that couscous had not replaced Bugayev’s love of French food during his years in Afghanistan.

  “I do not think you will have to know much more,” Michelle said at last. “Frenchmen know their wine, but only from the drinking of it. Few understand the process of transplantation and the soil comparisons needed to make it work. And most will be satisfied to regard you with disdain, thinking only of an American coming to buy their cuttings in an attempt to imitate French wines. Allow their egos to satisfy them, and I think you will be safe,” she said. “I have drawn up a letter, dated many months ago, which appears to answer a request from you to come and meet with me. I have used the name we discussed yesterday.”

  “That should do fine,” he said. “I doubt I’ll ever need it—I intend to avoid the police—but it will cover me, at least temporarily.”

  Michelle sat quietly for a moment, then leaned forward. “Tell me about Ludwig,” she said. “How you plan to take him.”

 
; “I intend to make him come to me. If I can,” he added.

  “I want to be with you when he comes.” Michelle noted the objection that came immediately to his eyes and hurried on. “It isn’t necessary that I kill him,” she lied. “But I want to be there when he dies. I want to see it.”

  “I can’t promise you that. I don’t know when or how or even if he will come.”

  “Just let me be with you whenever you can,” she said. “The Pisanis have given you a large apartment. Let me stay there with you.” She stared at him. “I am not trying to seduce you, Alex. To change anything you have in your life now. It is for my dead husband and for my little Pierre. He was only three, Alex. Only three.”

  He thought she was about to cry, was sure of it. But somehow she fought it back and continued to stare at him. He wondered how he could say no to her. Her family had sheltered him ten years before, and he thought of old Grand-père, of Madame, who had lost a great-grandchild, and of Michelle’s parents, and of Michelle herself. How could he say no?

  “It will be dangerous,” he said. “And you will have to do exactly as I say.”

  “I will,” Michelle said. “And I will be a help to you. You will see that.”

  She hesitated, as though deciding if she should push it further. “What did he say to you yesterday? That you did not tell us?”

  “How did you know there was more?” he asked.

  “It was there in your face,” she said.

  He nodded. “He spoke about my wife. Just to remind me about our conversations ten years ago, when she was his captive. Back then he would tell me what he was doing to her. And what she was doing to him. And he claimed they had been seeing each other for months.” Alex’s left eye had narrowed, and the muscles along his jaw were doing a rapid dance. “Last night he said he couldn’t remember her name. He could only remember the pleasure she had given him.”

  Michelle closed her eyes. She wondered if Ludwig remembered the names of her husband and of her sweet, dead child. Her hands began to tremble.

  “I don’t want to talk about him anymore. I want to talk about something pleasant.” She smiled weakly. “It is still hard for me thinking about him.” Her eyes darkened. “Even though I do it every day.”