LACKING VIRTUES

by Thomas Kirkwood

  Steven glanced back at the door into the hallway and gave a start. Nicole was sitting on the floor, her shoes off and her ankle bound in yellow canvas. With both hands, she was raising the automatic pistol he had left in his pack.

  Don’t let him look around, Steven thought. Offer him your throat, do what you must, but do not let him look around. “Well, Wally, let’s burn the rest of these. You keep your office much too cold for comfort, and since you’ve got copies – ”

  Claussen was coming now, coming in earnest. “You are not only dumb, my friend. You are naive.”

  A tremulous voice rose from the heap against the wall, a voice that grew stronger with each syllable. The voice spoke in English, American English.

  “He’s naive,” choked Warner, “but he’s lucky.”

  Steven dove to the side. Claussen spun around to finish off Warner. When he saw the girl training the pistol on him, his jaw dropped open.

  “Shoot!” Steven screamed. “You can’t miss.”

  He and Claussen saw it at the same time. Nicole had mistaken the mode selector for the safety.

  Claussen dove at her with his stiletto. Steven dove at the same time, bringing Claussen down with a shoestring tackle from behind.

  Claussen, on the floor, coiled and spun like a snake, slashing at Steven with the razor sharp blade. When Steven ducked out of the stiletto’s deadly path, Claussen went after Nicole. Steven caught him before he could sink the blade into her and jerked him backwards. He crashed a fist into Claussen’s thigh, narrowly avoided the slashing knife, and caught hold of Claussen’s foot. He viciously twisted his shoe, hoping to snap his tibia.

  The shoe came off.

  Nicole sat there trembling. She pushed the mode selector into the other position, but the gun still refused to shoot.

  Claussen was still ferocious, still dangerous. The stiletto seemed to come at Steven out of nowhere while he sat with Claussen’s shoe in both hands. He saw it in time. He thrust the shoe in the path of the knife. The blade sliced through the leather upper.

  Warner clapped his hands. “Nicole! The gun! Throw me the gun.”

  Steven got Claussen by the foot again. Claussen took another vicious swipe at him, then yanked free, raised the knife and lunged toward Nicole.

  Nicole gave the gun a toss, screamed and covered her breasts with her arms.

  Steven couldn’t get there in time so he flung the shoe. An ace. It glanced off Claussen’s hand, deflecting the deadly thrust of the blade into the door frame.

  Nicole slid away while Claussen yanked the knife out of the wood. He started to go after her again but the click of a safety stopped him in his tracks.

  Warner was still sitting on the floor, still groggy, the gun unsteady in his hand. His bloodshot eyes narrowed. The pistol began to settle down.

  “Wait,” Claussen said, “we need to talk.”

  “Talk?” Warner scowled. “You’re dreaming.” His stare was fierce, stony and unrelenting. He squeezed the trigger and put a bullet through the bridge of Claussen’s nose.

  Claussen landed beside Steven. The stiletto clattered from his grasp. Steven slid his good arm beneath the sofa and came up with the other pistol.

  He didn’t need it. Claussen was dead.

  “I hunted chuckers when I was kid,” Warner mumbled. “I knew there was a reason for it, just didn’t know what it was.”

  “What are chuckers?” Nicole sobbed.

  “Little birds,” Warner said. “They run up the mountainside and fly down. You don’t get many shots. When you do, you don’t miss. My God, girl, what possessed you to drag yourself all this way?”

  “Lights,” Nicole said, taking a deep breath. “Automobile lights. I knew it was him.”

  Steven sat down beside her and hugged her. “Frank,” he said, “we’d better take a look at my arm. I think the son of a bitch cut an artery.”

  ***

  It was still dark when Bauernsachs left the slaughterhouse in Altenhagen in his horse-drawn wagon. He carried a load of swine innards from the night shift so warm he could see them steaming beneath the streetlights on the town square.

  This was capitalism, he thought, crossing the bridge over the Augraben and guiding his team on to the fork in the road that led to Herr Claussen’s property. Back in the old days the East German state paid him a set wage to transport the discarded entrails and heads to the dog food plant. They paid Kaltenburg the same amount to bring the grain swept up from the floor of the chafing facility. And they paid old Gerhardt, who ran the machinery, the same amount to keep it going. No one was happy, no one made any money, and the dog food lay around for months until it went bad because the state couldn’t figure out how to get it picked up and taken to the shops – state-owned, of course.

  How things had changed in a decade! Bauernsachs now had a contract with the slaughterhouse to dispose of the remains. He collected a fee for his service. He charged the chafing a similar fee to haul away the dreck they swept off the floor. Some thought he was a fool, out at all hours of the night with his primitive wagon. But what did he care? He was getting rich.

  Bauernsachs stopped in front of the barn and tied up his team. He blew out the lanterns on his wagon to save paraffin, lifted the bar and swung open the barn door. The geese came at him with a vengeance. He beat the feathery mayhem away with a stick, cursing when he noticed that they had pecked through the bags of dog food waiting to be shipped.

  Money lost. He’d have to work doubly hard to make up for it.

  When the geese were outside and he could concentrate, he lit the gas burner under the giant cooking tank and started the heating unit on the ceramic pellet press. He checked the conveyor belt to make sure it was working properly, then swung the boom out over the tank in his wagon. He secured the hooks dangling from the cables to the steel eyes around the rim of his tank.

  Working the controls, Bauernsachs carefully lifted his load above the cooking tank and dumped it in. When his transport tank was back in place on his rig, he pushed the green button to start the counter-rotating blades at the bottom of the cooking tank. He climbed the ladder on the side of the tank to peer in and make sure the blades were churning the gook.

  They were. This was essential. In a free market economy, you couldn’t have recognizable chunks of swine snout showing up in your product.

  He closed the barn door securely, waved his stick at the geese and drove to the chafing facility. He would return in a couple of hours with the grain husks, which he would add to the guts.

  Then, when the mixture was perfectly blended, he would send it down the conveyor belt to the pellet press. With some help from his son at the bagging end, he might be able to make up a full load before the transport company from the West came for the shipment.

  ***

  “Steven,” Warner asked, “are you strong enough to walk to the window? I want you to see something.”

  “I’m feeling better. You did a damned good job wrapping the arm.”

  “Well, shall we try?”

  “Where’s Nicole?”

  “Already there. I carried her. Give me your good arm.”

  From the dark kitchen, they watched the man who had arrived in a horse-drawn wagon conduct his bizarre routine.

  When he left, Warner lingered a moment to enjoy the delicate first light of morning that glowed to the east.

  “Pilot’s dawn,” he said. “It’s going to be a nice day. Now listen, both of you. I’ve been cleaning upstairs. There’s no more blood, no fingerprints, no signs of struggle. His car is just down the road. I’m going to load your boxes into it and drive us to the American base in Berlin. The important, the essential, thing for all of us to remember is that Claussen was not here. We came, we found the papers, we left. Understand?”

  Steven wasn’t listening. He was thinking about something else. “The car!” he said. “Jesus, Frank, have you looked inside yet?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was there a suitcase?”

  “Not the
one you’re hoping for, Steven. It wasn’t the same car he drove to France. My guess is that he visited his banks and then switched vehicles.”

  “Not the same car? No money? Shit.”

  “It’s all right, Steven. He had enough money on his person to get us to Berlin and the boxes to the States. You don’t need the other money. You’ve got the memoirs, you’ve got the KGB files. Even if you don’t write a word, you’ll be a wealthy man.”

  “But two hundred fifty million bucks – ”

  ”Steven, please.”

  “All right, all right. I don’t need it. Those Swiss bankers are the ones who need it. Now what about Claussen’s car? You say we should act like he wasn’t here. I understand that. But if he wasn’t here, what the hell are we doing with his car? How do we get rid of it? How do we destroy that link to the truth?”

  “The car, Steven, is registered in the name of a Doctor Peter Weiss of Bern. I guarantee that Dr. Weiss knows nothing about this car. I guarantee it’s not traceable to Claussen. It’s the automotive equivalent of a throw away gun.”

  “A spy car?”

  “Yes. Satisfied?”

  “I . . . yeah, sure. So what’s our agenda for the day?”

  “I take you and Nicole to the base for emergency treatment. During the drive, we’ll devise a creative story about how we got mugged. Anyway, while you’re being put back together, I’ll go to the DHL office in Berlin and ship your boxes home. I’ll then park Dr. Weiss’s car downtown and return to the base on public transit. They’re not looking for me, remember?”

  “That’s right,” Nicole said. “They’re looking for your rental car but not you.”

  “Exactly. So both of you sit here and relax. I’ve made some coffee. Have a cup. I’ll come for you when we’re ready to leave.”

  ***

  Steven was gazing blankly at the blue light of the gas burner in the barn. Warner materialized in the distance, accompanied by a swarm of geese. He was carrying Claussen’s naked corpse over his shoulder. The wiry little bastard with the hole between his eyes looked evil even in death.

  He called Nicole, and together they watched Warner climb the ladder up to the tank of simmering entrails and heave Claussen in. He would be dog food by noon.

  Steven wanted to put into words the visceral satisfaction he felt. He was stopped by the sudden memory of Sophie – brilliant, outrageous, wonderful Sophie – proposing that he go south to charm the pants off some lousy politician’s daughter.

  He was with that daughter now, and he pulled her close to him for comfort. She wiped his tears away with soft fingers smelling of Guerlain and gun oil.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Michelet stayed in his bedroom to listen to the first edition of the Monday morning news. When it contained no mention of a U.S. military action against Iraq, he knew the time had come to have a stern word with Delors.

  He dressed and started toward the library, which the three men had been using as their command and control center since the Friday night débâcle. He changed his mind before he got there and headed for the kitchen. A formal reproach was something that needed more thought and preparation. He would have breakfast and jot down a few words before the confrontation.

  Henri and Isabelle, whom he had ordered to be fully awake and ready to serve at 5:00 a.m., were nowhere to be seen. There was no fire in the stove, no coffee brewing and no bread baked. This was an outrage, one which would not go unpunished.

  He tried to make his own coffee but discovered he did not know how to operate the coffee maker. He started to eat the cold cuts left over from the night before, but found he had little taste for them. Suddenly he had a premonition that his partners had abandoned him.

  Furious, he stormed into the library. It was as cold and dark as the kitchen. He turned on the lights. There was an old dueling pistol on the desk which he recognized as his own. In a corner of the ornate frame of his father’s portrait was a neatly folded note. He grabbed it and unfolded it. He recognized Delors’ handwriting as he read:

  Dear Georges,

  Claussen has apparently taken off with the money. Our police and military units have been unsuccessful in stopping Warner and LeConte. We have no knowledge as to the whereabouts of your daughter, but we remain shocked and disappointed that you did not foresee and act upon the security threat she posed for this operation.

  We discussed the possibility of including you in our plans for relocation. We decided, based on your fatal error, that your judgment in hiding might be no better than it was in freedom.

  A final word, Georges. Members of the governing coalition have been tipped off about the relationship between Nouvelle France, the Haussmann Group and the SDECE. This was not our doing. An investigation has been scheduled. It will begin with your arrest today at noon.

  We ask you, in penance for the blunder which has cost us all so dearly, to do the right thing. Destroy this communication and take the only honorable way out for yourself. Otherwise, Georges, you will live out your life as an embarrassment to your country.

  A deep chill gripped Michelet as he tossed the note aside. The furnace came on, catching the note in an updraft from the heating register near his feet.

  Michelet stared at the register for a moment. He did not feel the heat. He would never feel the heat. That register was an icy crevasse through which his private words had traveled to the wine cellar and out into the world.

  He was not going to be the next De Gaulle. He would not even be allowed to retire from politics and live out his life in peace. Delors and Haussmann, his betrayers, had mocked him by calling suicide the only honorable way out. It was the only way out.

  He picked up the dueling pistol and sat in the overstuffed armchair beneath his father’s portrait. His fury was spent, his frustration gone. His political dreams had evaporated, and he had no others. Devoid of emotion, he cocked the hammer.

  He sat there for a long time, pointing the gun at his heart, then at his temple, then putting the barrel in his mouth. He could not bring himself to pull the trigger until hours later, when he saw the government cars arriving outside his gate.

  ***

  Claire brought another bowl of cheese crackers out to the glassed-in patio. Steven had always hated those things, but for some reason he couldn’t stop eating them.

  Warner stuck his head through the sliding glass door. “I’ll be with you in a minute,” he announced.

  Steven counted the days he had known Frank Warner. Friday to Wednesday, less than a week. He wondered what it would be like to know him for a year. Intense, he thought. Not really unpleasant, just intense.

  Claire said, “Nicole, how’s your ankle?”

  Nicole smiled. “Oh, just fine. The doctor you sent me to was a magician. Look at this tiny cast. In France they would have put me in something the size of a coal bucket.”

  Steven leaned over to the stool on which she had propped her ankle, kissed her shin and signed the cast “Baron Richelieu.”

  “He was a cardinal, Steven,” Nicole said, laughing. “Don’t Americans know anything?”

  “We have a few lacking virtues.” He held up his right arm and touched the bandage. “I wish you could see this. Frank’s doctor friend at the base must have been drunk when he stitched me.”

  Claire laughed. “Well, you shouldn’t go around getting yourself cut up.”

  Warner strode in, wearing a sweater. The side of his face was still swollen, the bruises still black and blue.

  He bent down and kissed Claire and Nicole.

  “I have news,” he said. “Most of it good, some bad.”

  Nicole smiled at him. Steven could see that she liked him a lot. “What is it, Frank?”

  “Airbus is letting carriers who placed orders with them during the crisis cancel if they wish.”

  “That’s very civil of them,” Claire said.

  “They’re decent people. It’s an ethical company. I would not have expected less. And the boxes from Berlin are here. There was no
problem with customs.”

  “That’s very good news,” Steven said. “Very good.”

  “Indeed it is. And there’s something else you’ll be happy to learn. You are no longer charged with Sophie’s murder or Nicole’s kidnaping. I know you don’t want to miss Sophie’s funeral. It’s being held Friday afternoon in Paris. I have the address written down upstairs.”