It’s what you do and say from here on in that is presenting you with a window, I’ll admit it’s a small window, but a window of opportunity nonetheless. To come back up that hard road to the right side. It would have to be here and now, and only with us. You would also be obliged to submit to the chain of command that we all observe. At this particular moment, that chain of command ends with me. All communications with the various and myriad Departmental H.Q.’s at DOD, any department’s H.Q.—including any communication with anyone, actually—must be cleared by myself personally, or in my absence, Major Claxton.”
Major. Damn that Rank. Every time that someone invokes my Rank, it’s followed closely by dangerous situations. Ronnie had a few more words left in her speech to Terry, and she continued.
“Any breaking of the command structure, and/or the commands, orders, and delegated mission requirement actions, will be dealt with in summary fashion. So fast that you’ll think this was all a dream, and you were actually caught, and convicted by military courts and had just woken up in your new home, a Military Penal Facility. They have a ninety-five percent rehabilitation rate at that centre by the way. I’m sure you’re aware of the facility I’m referring to. It is quite the model of efficient prison ‘programs’. Yes, well. That’s all academic now, isn’t it? You’re already started out on that uphill climb. I’m hoping you make it, despite professional instinct to the contrary. Carry on, and good-luck.” She waved her hand back in my direction, giving the floor to me like it was a possession one had to earn. Rules of Order.
“Major…”
I looked briefly at the notes I’d been taking, and picked it up close to where I had stopped.
“So, you were ‘initiated’, let’s call it, by this aid that you gave, as part of the planning stage that ultimately resulted in the death of that banker.”
“Yes, sir.” His voice was getting smaller as he realized more and more how over it all was.
“You didn’t do this planning with Enrico, though, did you?”
“No. He called me and asked me to come to a meeting scheduled for a Friday evening, I remember that as clear as day. When I got to the place, there were three men there, and a sealed note from Enrico to me. The note instructed me to take over the planning for the ‘Task at hand’, and instruct the men in the implementation of the plan.”
“The task at hand was the murder of the banker, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Was that the first time you met any of the members of this little army we’re fighting?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Explain how that went down.”
“The first thing they did was to confirm my identity, then we all sat down and had a drink and a talk. They didn’t do much of the talking. Mostly they listened, and asked a few questions here and there. They were all dressed the same, in dark suits.”
“Did you understand at the time that they were ‘soldiers’?”
“No, sir. I thought they were a ‘death squad’, you know, like all over South America.”
“You could tell that they were South American? Why not Spanish? Why not Portuguese?”
“They didn’t have any continental characteristics at all. Their language among themselves was Portuguese, but not Lisbon style. More like Brazilian Portuguese.”
“Where did you have the meeting?”
“In a walkup flat not far from here. It was where the three guys were living, as far as I could tell.”
“So they most likely recorded the entire meeting, which they would then have as additional leverage on you. Were you told of, or did you hear of, any such tape recording?”
“Yes, sir. The next Monday, this guy buys it, according to the plan I’d laid out for the guys. It was classified as a hit and run, while he was trying to change a flat tire on the road to Geneva. The flat was on the side next to the road, and it looked authentic. Death by misadventure.”
“Well, I for one am here to say that the Swiss Police are not only efficient, but they’re pretty damn good when it comes to solving crimes. Are you saying that not one single police official twigged to the fact that the victim would never have even attempted to fix a flat on his own? He was a wealthy man. He had an expensive car, and the built in hands-free cellular phone was functioning perfectly. He had no reason to change the tire himself, and probably hadn’t done so for many years. He had other people to do that for him. He was a rich banker. Doesn’t sound right to me. How about you?”
“The same, sir. That’s when I started learning about the connections these people have. Everywhere. I expect some of them would be fools like me, but some of them had to be bought off. I figure that’s what happened to the hit and run. It was declared a closed case at a higher level than the police who were doing the investigation.”
“Do you have any first hand proof of that?”
“Yes, sir. When the… incident occurred, one of my pals on the Highway Patrol was the first man on the scene. He didn’t buy the official line, and at first, he was quite verbal about it, then he changed his mind completely. Overnight, he decided that the boss was right after all. It would have been the first time that he agreed with virtually anything said by anyone except the investigating officers in a case, of which he was one. That meant that he’d been pressured heavily from above. He would never take money to look the other way, that’s not the way he was. So, it had to be pressure.”
“That would mean that you’re saying there’s a connection between Enrico and the upper echelons of Swiss Police Dom?”
“No, sir. Not Enrico. Someone higher up. Enrico runs the ‘soldiers’, but he’s not the big mover and shaker.”
“You know this to be a fact?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve heard him on the shortwave radio set, getting his instructions. All in code, though so I can’t say what they were. I was studying Portuguese by this time, I figured if I was going to get out of this thing in one piece, knowing their language when they thought I didn’t—well, it couldn’t hurt.”
“Finally, some decent thinking on your part. Terry, do you remember what it was like going on missions?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Were you disheartened when you were promoted to a desk job?”
“I was in good shape! I always got the job done. The way they wanted it done. I never questioned any team leader I’d ever had. There was no reason to spike my missions.”
“Hmm.” I was thinking about Mark, and how he hadn’t cottoned on to the trauma that was taking place right under his nose. I didn’t like it one bit. If Mark was in on this, that would explain a lot, but not what he’d done for me today, and that just wasn’t the Mark I knew. The problem was, times change, and people with it. Did I really know Mark anymore? It had been years since I’d seen him, talked with him.
I had had the feeling that a quiet little hideaway that no one but our small group was aware of would be preferable to anything else at this time. Including a safe-house that belonged to a person I’d once called ‘friend’. My instincts had never failed me yet, and without them, you can’t be good at this crazy job.
Then there was the question of where all the money to acquire all of that came from. In this game you can occasionally run across very large sums of cash. I know, because it had happened to me before. Who knows if the count is light when it hits the office? The mission team members. No one else. It would be easy, really, but things would have to have changed an awful lot since I had left the ‘job’. Aside from one renegade ‘Colonel’, I’d met idiots galore, but not one single thief.
I was left with having to ask a loaded question about Mark. One that I didn’t want to ask, partly because I still didn’t believe it was possible, and partly because I couldn’t trust the answer. Whichever way it went. Maybe I’d just save that one for Mark himself. I think I could still tell if he were lying to me. But look at the way I’d gone to ground. Not where Mark had set me up, but in an inconspicuous tourist hotel. Something had to be going through my
mind at the time. I couldn’t put it down to paranoia, as Therese was the only one who needed protection, and I could handle that. No, something else had made me switch tracks. What, though? They used to say that I had one sense for every day of the week, including weekends. That made seven.
There had been times when I’d pulled it out of the frying pan at the last second, only to discover later that there had been no pan to land in, only fire. It was stuff like that that gave a person an aura of invincibility. I had tried very hard to teach all of the team people that invincibility existed only in fairy tales, and even then, it never worked out. Mortals all.
That is what we were born to, and that was why we would die someday. To me, the longer I could put off that day the better it was for me and those around me. When I had started leading missions, one of the first things I proved to the teams was that I wouldn’t ask anyone to do something I wouldn’t do myself. It got me the loyalty I wanted, but more importantly, it helped to get the jobs done. I finally broke out of my reverie and took a new angle.
“Terry, at what point did you meet Heidi Meir, and under what circumstances?”
“I met Ms. Meir when the pressure was getting close to the break-point over the investment. Enrico fixed it up for me. I drove down to Geneva, then through into France. We met at a small Pizzeria by the side of the highway. She’s a serious looker by the way, if you’re interested. She explained that the investment was a large project, and that one year from then, we would all be millionaires. Patience was the key. Then she gave me one hundred grands. Right there at the table. She said I should share it with my fellow investors, call it an early-return bonus. She said that hundred grands was pure profit, and the deal wasn’t even fully played out yet. I asked her what she meant by ‘not fully played out yet’, and she said ‘it was just a matter of putting the right signatures on the right documents. She said she figured two to four more months at the outside, and we’d start raking in the dough.
At the same time, she says, maybe I could come up with another million if I asked the right people. I said that I wasn’t sure who she meant, because I didn’t know a lot of millionaires, I was a working man, after all, right?
Well, I wouldn’t be for much longer, unless I chose to be. That’s what she said. She can be very persuasive. If I was able to come up with another million, I’d get another ten cents on the dollar bonus. So, that’s what I did. I started keeping a lookout for cash.
I came back to Zurich and shared out the hundred grand with the other two guys I’d gotten to come in with me. That eased the pressure an awful lot.
Then Mark hit it big. When he was on vacation in Montreal, he won the 6/49 Lotto. Three quarters of a million, or thereabouts. I had a talk with him when he came back. I told him that three of us were already in for a mill, and then I set up a meeting with Mark, Ms. Meir, and myself. It went relatively well. She was from a well-respected financial group; the investment was solid. Our share came to a fraction of a percent of the whole. This thing was big. The banks themselves were investing. How risky could it be?”
“All of this was based on the depth of your involvement at that point though, wasn’t it?”
“Uhh… yes, sir. I’d have to say that was true. If I had the chance to do it over again, I wouldn’t even have gone to Montreal for the two days.”
“Do you have any regular way of contacting Enrico?”
“No, sir. He contacts me when he wants to meet.”
“Is that often, and how does he contact you?”
“Hardly ever, sir, and he calls me at home.”
“At home? You know as well as I do that all covert ops people have taps on their wires. It’s not checked often, but if it was checked when Enrico called you, it wouldn’t sound too good. What kind of code did he use with you?”
“A very simple one. He always called himself Freddy, and made out that he was just a drinking buddy, you know, and did I want to go out tonight, that sort of thing.”
“And you would always meet at Bob’s Pub, in the back room, with the ‘Section Closed’ sign up, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So you still imbibe to a certain extent, depending on the situation?”
“No, sir. I can’t drink anymore. If I do, then I’m off on a binge, and when it’s over, well, let’s just say that the shape it leaves me in, I wouldn’t get into McDonald’s, never mind a proper restaurant.”
“Okay. Do you have a way of contacting Heidi Meir?”
“I have her Geneva office number, but the only meetings we had was that one time at the Pizzeria, and Enrico set that up. Then the meeting with Mark and Ms. Meir, and again, that was set up by Enrico.”
“So, you’ve only met her twice?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What is the Geneva number?”
“Two two six, eight seven, eight seven.”
“How is it that you know about Brazil, and the ‘Big Deal’ going on over there, when other people have been killed for knowing that same information?”
“I believe that because they feel they have enough on me to implicate me in… several illegal acts, they can trust me to keep quiet about it all. That, and the fact that I have every cent I’ve ever saved sunk into this thing, along with money that wasn’t particularly meant to be used that way.”
“We can talk about that a bit later. What about the ‘soldiers’. Are any of them regulars, or are they ‘Special Operations’ people, and can you contact them?”
“That question I can answer, but only based on the ones I’ve met. Enrico is in charge, like I said before. Most of these guys seem to rotate out every two months or so. Tonight was the largest group I’ve seen in one place at the same time. Usually, they work in two’s. One armed driver, and one ‘attack’ man. I have a number I can call if something comes up that Enrico should know about. I usually get different guys whenever I call. The code name is ‘El Rosa’, which stays the same. Four six six, zero four nine nine. Caller code: ‘White Fox’. As for training, it’s very odd. Some of them have been obviously trained to a decent level, some seem to have had no training at all.”
“So if you wanted to get this Enrico to a meeting, you’d call this number that his underlings use, and leave a message.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do all of these ‘soldiers’ speak English?”
“No, sir. All they do is record my message, and from the code, they know it goes to Enrico.”
“Are you willing to lead us to Enrico? You’ll have to say you got away from us, and make it believable enough so that he doesn’t just kill you outright.”
“I’ll try the best I know how, sir. But even if things went bad, he never does anything without consultation. He has to report to Ms. Meir, but I get the feeling that there’s someone in Brazil who orchestrates everything. They have to contact Brazil for clearance on certain things. With Ms. Meir it’s always financial, and with Enrico, it’s always about people, or ‘special jobs’, ones they call ‘Pickup’s’.”
“I thought they always spoke in Portuguese Terry?”
“They do, sir. I mentioned that I was studying the language earlier, and the few words and phrases that I do know cover that particular phrase. I’ve heard them use it twice so far.”
Ronnie and I flicked our eyes up to meet. ‘Pickups’, eh? Very interesting, as the good Doctor Freud would have said. I thought that most modern psychiatry was as useful as a bucket of nails without a hammer, so I didn’t think of it often. I knew what I had to know about keeping my own head together under stress. I do it too well, is the real problem. Since landing in Zurich late last night, my personal body count was at five. Maybe someone would miss the people I’d killed, but they should have thought about that before they took a side opposite to mine, then actively attacked my group. Twice. If I’d been the way I was when I left the Service, there’d be seven dead. At least I seemed to be having more success with controlling the ‘condition’ that I had. That was a good thing. Having t
o be in a position that forced me to use those skills was another thing entirely.
We’d been at this for a good while now, straight, without any breaks, and there was a lot of data to process. A break would do everyone some good. For me, it was a chance to get on-line with Walter. For Ronnie, it was an opportunity to continue the questioning. She had been listening carefully and making notes the whole time. Her turn, now.
“Terry, you’re being very cooperative, and I want you to know that I take that seriously. Colonel Godsen is going to take over now, and I want you to remember that the Colonel is my direct commander. I’ll be back shortly.” I stood, and with my back ramrod straight, I turned to Ronnie and said, “Colonel, you have the first chair.” And then walked out of the room, into the bedroom Therese and I shared.
When I closed the door behind, me the lamp on the night table next to the bed came on, illuminating the darkness, and Therese, lying beside the lamp on the bed closest to the window.
“Are you alright?”
“You are a crazy man, and you make me crazy too.”
“I make you crazy?” ‘Are you alright’ had seemed simple enough. Something was on her mind, that’s for sure.
“Yes, that is what I said, and I meant it.”
“Therese… um, I’m not sure what I’m doing that upsets you, but if you tell me, then I can stop doing it.” I looked hopefully at her face. The last thing I wanted was a glitch in the way we’d been getting on so well.
“I don’t want to talk to you about it.”
“I see. Well—if you change your mind, or if you decide that I can help you feel better, just say so, Okay?”
“Fine.”
She was still dressed, just laying on top of the covers. I could hear the murmur of voices from the other room, but nothing specific came through. Maybe when I’d been questioning Terry it had been louder. Maybe loud enough to hear from her point of retreat. That would mean that she might have heard about ‘Johnny’, and his sojourn into the nightlife of Montreal. The drinking, the ladies, the whole shebang. Maybe.
The Diamond Dust on Dragonfly Wings: A Jeffry Claxton Mystery Novel Page 59