McCall now asked the computer for a Summary Report on Florian Gomez.
() DS/Wash/K2 39476/477121/PSPT NK Florian Gomez: AKA Colonel Gomez, Captain Hook, The Enforcer; national, Leeward Island Free State, b. Vincentown, LIFS, 07/04/46. Former Director of Security, Leeward Island Free State. Right hand man to Antonio Cappi, Lifetime President of Free State. Falling out three years ago over question of building a gaming casino in Vincentown. Gomez left Free State. Some say he fled. Currently living on French Riviera near Nice with widow of former Minister of Finance, Leeward Island Free State. No known economic activities. Car bomb destroyed his vehicle, killing chauffeur, with ex. damage to his residence, 09/10/84. For political history LIFS and for citations against F. Gomez see Amnesty International file. Also Commission on Human Rights, extensive Gomez dossier. Three applications for American visa denied: US Embassy/Par (dossier); FBI reports, passim.
McCall found the combination worthy of considerable speculation: an unfrocked casino manager from Britain now doing something in or to the film industry; an exiled Caribbean political thug and bomb target who wanted to build a casino; and a notorious arms trader and smuggler—all in the same hotel at the same time. What interesting scenarios that suggested.
But it didn’t tell him where Slane would be on November 26. He addressed the computer once more. He asked it to check all commercial airline computers for airline reservations in Slane’s name from present to November 26. For good measure, he threw in the two other names: Joli and Gomez.
Then he summoned Borden.
“I’m still trying to place Attashah’s Mercedes on that Turkish ship,” Borden said, entering.
“That’s not why I called you. I want you to put a watch on these Iranian military parts.” He handed Borden the Iranian parts list. “Go over to Export Control at Commerce and request a monitoring. We want full details on anyone who applies for an Export License with Exceptions Certificate on any of these items. Go back at least two months. Also monitor any reported thefts or disappearances of any of these items domestically. And anything of any suspicious nature concerning these parts.” He watched Borden riffle the pages. “And don’t tell me how long the list is.”
“The thought never crossed my mind.”
Before noon, the computer reported on airline reservations for Slane, Joli, and Gomez. All had multiple reservations during the following four weeks, and in a pattern McCall found most interesting.
Slane had a round-trip reservation on November 1 from Dallas through Miami to the Leeward Island Free State and back to Dallas three days later. Gomez was a citizen of the Leeward Island Free State.
Gomez had a round-tripper New York/Miami on November 1, the same day Slane was to be in Miami. And Joli had a round-tripper L.A./Miami on November 1. So the three would be in Miami on the same day. Slane was then slated to go to the Leeward Island Free State that evening. A gathering of ghouls.
What was more interesting, Slane and Joli held one-way ticket reservations to Mexico City on November 7: Slane from Dallas; Joli from Los Angeles. And Gomez had a one-way ticket from New York to Miami on November 25.
How were Slane and Joli to leave Mexico City? And where were they going? And how would Gomez leave Florida? Of course they all could be renting autos. McCall was fascinated. But none of this told him where Slane would be on November 26—where an assassin could find him on that day.
And none of the bureaus had filed any information on Peno Rus or Eric Rock.
McCall asked Chief of Station, Mexico City, for a monitoring of the three: Slane, Joli, and Gomez.
It was purely by accident that McCall saw the article in the newspaper. It was The Washington Post, lying folded on a desk; as he passed by, the headline stopped him: Monroe Scores Arms Sales.
In a prepared speech before the National Press Club last night, Eliott Monroe, career diplomat with the U.S. State Department, issued a solemn warning against the growing volume of arms sales around the world.
“Too many nations have become dependent on arms sales to maintain a favorable balance of trade,” he told nearly 200 news people. “The prognosis is for vastly increased arms sales and sharply increased competition among the selling nations.”
To prove his thesis, Monroe gave extensive statistical documentation on the growth of Brazil’s arms manufacturing capability.
The rest of the article was a summary of the speech, interspersed with extensive verbatim quotations. Eliott Monroe had read McCall’s speech to the National Press Club without changing a word.
When he returned to his office, McCall found an envelope on his desk, left by a special messenger. Inside was his speech with cover note: “Thanks much. Very interesting. E. Monroe.”
McCall looked at the quavery, alcoholic handwriting of Eliott Monroe. Why was it that no one had ever tried to throw the Monroes of the world down a stair shaft? McCall told himself he was a fool. He’d allowed himself to get stuck with a broken hockey stick.
On the fourteenth floor of the Orizaba Hotel at ten that night, Slane emerged from the elevator and strode down the carpeted corridor to Room 1434. He rapped four times.
Colonel Gomez opened the door and beckoned him in. “Your pleasure,” he said, pointing at a small bar set up on the bureau.
Slane sat down on the chair by the small guest desk. “Joli will be here in a minute.” He looked out at the Mexican nightscape: the world’s largest city with 14 million people, a megalopolis out of control.
“Have you read the script?” Gomez asked.
“Yes. It’s shameless.”
Gomez shook his head. “Shameless,” he echoed.
Four knocks sounded on the door. Gomez admitted Joli, who entered busily with an attaché case.
“Have you both read the script?” Joli asked.
They nodded.
“Then,” Joli said, “it’s your move, Slane.”
“That’s right, mate,” Slane said. “It’s my move. I’m going to take this shameless movie script of yours to my great good friend, the saintly President of the Leeward Island Free State. And as one old comrade to another, I’m going to tell him that, as I promised, I have put together a great team of film experts to make a movie of his life. And I can tell you without hesitation he’ll love this script. Gawd. It makes him out to be some kind of latter-day Jesus Christ.”
Joli pulled out a folder and consulted his timetable. “Okay. We have to have his final approval of the script by November fourth. Along with a certified check for one third of the total estimate. Okay? On November eighth we go to his old training base in the Baja desert here, and we set up to shoot the training camp sequences. That’s next week. Shooting is set between November eighth and November twenty-fourth.”
“This will have to look absolutely authentic,” the colonel said, “in case he decides to drop in.”
Joli shrugged. “It’ll be a complete movie set including one hundred extras. You won’t be able to tell it from the real thing. We are going to reenact the training episode exactly as it happened and also the invasion and take-over of the Free State. We even have the original boat the President sailed in. It will look exactly as though we’re making a movie. Okay?”
Gomez nodded.
“And all paid for with the President’s money,” Slane said.
Gomez asked Slane: “You have the hundred mercenaries signed up?”
“I only need about ten more,” Slane said.
Joli said, “Then on November twenty-fourth we break camp and sail the whole movie crew, including the hundred glorious troops, to the Free State and reenact the beach landing. That will be dawn of the twenty-sixth. Only now the movie crew turns into a unit of one hundred mercenaries who keep right on going from the beach landing to the presidential palace, where they arrest the President and his whole staff.”
“Can’t wait to see the surprise on his face,” Slane said. “His movie turns into a take-over—paid for with his money.”
Joli asked, “Colonel Gomez, you have mad
e arrangements to secretly get onto the island?”
“I have.”
“You’ll stay concealed until the beach landing is complete?”
“Correct. Then I lead the troops to the palace, where I announce myself the new President of the Free State.”
“Your speech is ready? We don’t want Washington slipping a company of Marines onto the island. That could ruin everything.”
“No, no. This will be a purely domestic political situation. No Communists from Cuba. I announce immediate elections and a five-year plan. Also I announce construction of the new casino, the establishment of a new bank, and new projects to bring jobs to the island.” He touched a briefcase on the bureau. “I have all my speeches and official documents and proclamations in here.”
Joli looked at Slane. “You’d better get the President to approve that script fast. If he diddles around with it, this whole thing will fall apart.”
“The trick is, don’t give him any time,” Gomez said. “His ego is unbelievable and if he convenes a committee to go over that script, it’ll never be finished.”
Slane nodded. “If he wants that film for the anniversary of his invasion, he won’t have time to change a comma.”
“This is the only part I don’t like,” Gomez said. “Getting that animal to approve the script.”
“Leave him to me, mate,” Slane said. “He trusts me. After all, it was my idea to make the damned movie and I’m also going to play him in the film. You watch my smoke.”
“Preposterous,” said the colonel. “How tall are you?”
“Six feet five.”
“And he’s barely five feet two.”
“It’s even better than that,” Slane said. “I promised him that all the meres I hire will be under six feet. I’ll be head and shoulders over everyone else in the film.”
Gomez shook his head.
“Don’t disapprove, Colonel,” said Joli. “It’s that enormous ego that’s making the whole coup possible.”
Slane said, “It’ll be a piece of cake.”
“I wish I were as sure as you,” Colonel Gomez said. He looked doubtfully at the script that lay on the bed. “All our futures rest on this little pile of unspeakable flatteries and lies.”
Slane held up his glass. “Here’s to November twenty-sixth.”
Rock holed up in Paris. It wasn’t the child’s father that had him concerned. It was the gooks in Egyptian Defense who were still pissed about the Libyan deal he had made; if they heard that he was messing around with a ten-year-old Egyptian girl, they could start that crap about Egyptian national honor all over again. Then they would send one of their lumps around to pat him on the popo.
After a few days he became restless. There were no knocks on his door, no other signs that he was a target for anyone, and he was getting very bored. So he went out.
He had hidden himself pretty carefully. Some twenty miles north of Paris, in a combination of tourist hotel, American-style shopping center, and low-income housing development. It was called Les Flandres.
It was dark when Rock left his hotel, but the shops were all open, flashing their lights and playing loud music. The place was crowded with people. The well-lit promenade was teeming with Algerian and black kids kicking soccer balls.
As Rock came out of the hotel, a restaurateur in his long white apron and black vest was shouting at all the children. He held one of their soccer balls.
“You hit my window again and I’ll cook you in my ovens! Get out of here!”
One black youth, big enough to be a man, said, “We have no place else. We have to play here.”
“There are five football fields around here,” the restaurateur shouted.
“They’re dark!” one of the kids yelled back. “No lights,” protested another.
Angrily the restaurateur drop-kicked the ball over a wall and down into a subterranean car-park.
The youths ran off in a throng after the ball.
“Don’t come back here!” he shouted after them.
“Is your couscous as good as your kick?” Rock asked him.
“My couscous, monsieur, is the honor and glory of Algeria.” With a flourish of his arms he ushered Rock into his restaurant as though it were the gateway to Paradise.
Rock ordered the specialty of the house, a couscous composed of barley, potatoes, green peppers, pumpkin, hard-boiled eggs, carrots, chick-peas, okra, and chicken, laced with a tongue-tingling sauce.
It was high autumn back in Pennsylvania, and while he ate his couscous, Rock thought about polo. He had come late to the sport. His youth had been spent learning the typesetting business in his father’s type shop in New York City. An immigrant from Germany, his father had allowed no time for sport. Then in college, he’d majored in electronic engineering. With his father footing the bills, there was no time for sport there either.
Rock had seen his first game of polo in Saudi Arabia, played by Arab princes on blooded Arabian horses. And a few days later he had sat upon his first horse, a trained polo pony with explosive energy. What had drawn Rock to the sport was the mad abandon in both rider and mount.
After several riding lessons, he’d taken a polo mallet and tentatively driven a few balls. He discovered the polo pony was as eager to chase the ball as he was. He scrimmaged a few weeks later and knew he’d found his sport. It gave him exactly what he wanted—what his Arab riding instructor called madness with style.
Rock proved to be an outstanding horseman.
It was late October now. Autumn would be splendid in southeastern Pennsylvania—one brilliant, clear, dry day after another. The foliage would be spectacular. Perfect weather for polo.
In the mornings there was heavy dew with thin mists along the Brandywine and a chill in the air. The horses in the paddocks were snickering and feisty. Before dawn they were led out and exercised, dancing sideways, kicking at each other and lunging with their teeth.
John Sherman, the eighty-four-year old honorary polo team captain, said those ponies were the meanest pack of roughnecks he’d ever seen—and that included ten years in the cavalry. “There’s nothing meaner or crazier than a polo pony.”
Rock ate his couscous and remembered how the exercise girl had handled his favorite mount, Tabnak. The animal was snorting and rolling his eyes in his paddock—eager to make trouble. He refused the bit.
The exercise girl grabbed him by the mane. He reared up, raising her dangerously close to his front hooves. She grabbed his lower lip with her right fist, sank her fingernails into the soft tissue and twisted. Next time he tried to rear, he shrieked with pain and anger. Still holding his lip firmly, she forced him to back up and jammed a snaffle bit into his mouth. When she mounted the saddle, he knew she was in charge. She took him off for a morning jog into the rising sun, wreathed in Tabnak’s steamy breath.
The girl was perhaps fifteen and weighed maybe ninety pounds. She reminded Rock of the Egyptian girl.
And so did the couscous. With every bite the child became more vivid in his memory.
Afterward, Rock had cups of hot mint tea and, for dessert, a sesame and almond samsa. The pastry was similar to her favorite Egyptian sweet. He ate it with a sigh. He had to see her again.
To set the scene, Peno Rus invited Ney, the arms dealer, to dinner at the Ballaster’s Club in London. Things were still done the old way there: crisp white linens, real Waterford crystal, and silverware two hundred years old. The service was the old kind too—superb.
Rus had bespoken Irish salmon for the main course. The chef, Robert, had an affinity for fish; with the merest whisper of a sauce he could create an unforgettable bouquet. With it would come those delectable small potatoes with fresh parsley. Tantalizing. It would be a memorable meal.
The way to the Israeli Merkava tanks was through Ney’s stomach. For Ney was a sensual eater.
The meal was flawless. Ney ate it with glittering eyes. Rus himself had made the wine selections, a superb white Bordeaux and several reds of flawless pedig
ree, one from Rus’s favorite vineyard near Moulin-à-Vent. With each bite Ney dabbed his heavy lips with his linen napkin and exhaled the faintest of ecstatic sighs.
“With each bite,” Rus told Ney, “I remind myself of my childhood years of near-starvation under the tender ministrations of the Comrades.”
“Incompetent Russian barbarians,” Ney agreed.
“You must pay close attention to the flavor of this salmon, Ney,” Rus announced. Ney’s eyes followed the silver tray as it was carried triumphantly into the room by Chef Robert himself.
“I have often regretted,” Ney said, “that I have but one stomach.”
All through the meal Rus kept the conversation focused on food—on other great meals he had eaten, favorite dishes, rare culinary finds, great restaurants, and great chefs. Ney’s measuring eyes gazed at each course to estimate the number of mouthfuls he would ingest. When he finished the last of the main-course wine, he kissed the glass like a lover.
“A great Frenchman once said,” he observed, “that his favorite wine should be drunk on the knees with the head bared. I applaud the sentiment but disagree with the choice of wine. Surely it is this one.” And with that Ney poured the last few drops from the bottle into his glass and, kneeling, drained it. Once more he kissed the glass.
Rus softly applauded.
After the café espresso was served, cigars were passed, Ney settled his heavy form back in his chair, comfortably fed, rolling the cigar under his nose; then, wafting the smoking tip under his large nostrils, he drew in the ambient smoke.
“Marvelous,” he sighed, his eyes mutely bidding a farewell to the dishes as they were wheeled away. The door was shut. The meal had ended and the business was about to begin.
With the brandy they talked. Times were changing, they agreed.
“Look,” Rus said. “Twenty, thirty years ago there was no such thing as an arms consultant. Your occupation simply didn’t exist. Now consider the substantial fees your client countries pay you to work out their arms buys—even though their own defense departments are top-heavy with arms experts. You read me?”
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