by Fritz Galt
“Early this mo’ning. Very early.”
He laughed. “Isn’t that always the case?”
He looked around the table where some dessert plates remained untouched.
“Care for some cake? Call it a birthday cake?”
She shook her head. “Nursing mothers should be careful what they eat.”
“Oh yeah. I forgot.”
The woman fussed over the baby, even though he was asleep.
“That’s a handsome young man you have there. Looks very healthy.”
“Six pounds, three ounces. Twenty inches long.” She beamed up at him.
“Sounds right on the money. Your first child?”
She nodded proudly. “Yes, sir.”
“Was he born in DC?”
“Yeah, Washington General. I didn’t have insurance, so they let me go early.”
“And you came right over here?”
“Soon as they released me. Said I could return the wheelchair tomorrow.”
“That’s nice.”
They both stared at the child for some time. It wasn’t necessary to say much. It was clear that the baby meant everything to the woman.
But a question still nagged at him. What was it about him that made her name her first-born child after him? Was it a prestigious name that would lend the child a certain advantage in his future? Was it something he did in office that affected her personally? Or was it his charm, his good looks?
He didn’t know how to phrase the question, so he just blurted out, “Why in the world did you name your child after me?”
She played with the baby’s hand, his tiny muscles wrapped around her little finger. “Well, I don’t know nuthin’ from politics,” she said, as casually as if she were chatting with a friend. “But I do know that this is the great’es country on earth. And you need to keep it that way. Whoever is president is a great man and I wanted Charlie to be just like you.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
Then she looked up at him, her large chocolate brown eyes meeting his. “Do you know you have a freckle just under your right eye?” she said.
He laughed. “I never noticed.”
“Well, Charlie has one, too. Look.” She pulled back part of the receiving blanket.
Charles leaned closer to look.
“Well, how do you like that? He looks just like me.”
“That’s what I was thinking’,” she said. “Sure was nice chatting with you, Mr. President, but I better get this little boy to bed.”
He signaled for the security guard to escort Ms. McCants from the room. As she left, he couldn’t help thinking that she hadn’t really intended to talk with him at all.
It was he who needed the company.
But she had obliged him, which was nice. People like her made America the greatest country in the world, not the stiffs they elected to office.
Chapter 13
Robert Zimmer’s cell phone was ringing. He glanced at the illuminated hands of his alarm clock. It was half past two a.m. The middle of the night.
He rolled over in bed and tried for the small phone. He jabbed in the dark for the right button, but the damn thing kept ringing.
Finally, he found the button and pushed it hard. Despite being a scientist, he wasn’t a mechanical man. If it were his choice, messages would be delivered by hand.
He cleared his throat and began to formulate a phrase. At last, he blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “Shit, do you know what time it is?”
“Are you awake?”
“Too early to tell.”
“Okay. Here goes…”
“Wait a minute. Let me clear my mind,” he said, the secret handshake complete. “Okay. Shoot.”
“I’ve been stewing over a certain problem that has arisen,” the mechanical voice said, beginning its familiar cadence. “It appears that our friend Proteus is getting out of hand.”
“I told you to keep him on a short leash,” Robert said.
“It seems that he no longer answers my calls. I must resort to extraordinary measures to reach him.”
“That’s your job. Stay in contact.”
“Fortunately, he does seem compelled to communicate with me, keeping me informed of his progress.”
“And what does he say?” Robert asked with a yawn.
“Just this, that he intends to assassinate President Damon on his trip to CERN one week from today.”
Robert shot up in bed. The image of Charles Damon lying in a pool of blood was not unpleasant, and satisfied his long-nursed desire for retribution.
Furthermore, the vice president was a far more decent man, in his estimation, and would make an excellent replacement president. At least he wouldn’t have so unceremoniously and ungratefully dumped Robert as National Science Advisor.
“Well, doesn’t that make you concerned?” the voice said.
Robert took a deep breath. “Not exactly.”
There was a moment of silence. “I see.”
“I see no need to alert the White House,” Robert said. “Do you?”
“Not if you don’t.”
He closed his eyes and savored the moment. “I don’t.”
“Fine. You call the shots.”
Mick stood looking around Sir Trevor O’Smythe’s drawing room. Pistols, grenades and machine guns were mounted like trophies on all four walls. Framed photographs showed destroyers, submarines and fighter jets. It made for peculiar décor.
“I take it you’re some sort of Merchant of Death,” Mick said.
“Precisely,” Trevor said, and gave a hearty laugh. He pointed around the room. “Gunships, aircraft, weapons of mass destruction. You name it. They’re the great equalizers of the world.”
“Do you represent manufacturers?”
“No.” Trevor reached in a pocket of his freshly pressed safari shirt and pulled out a business card. “I’m a broker.”
Mick studied the card. “O’Smythe Financial Services,” the gold lettering read. It was elegant and discreet. There was no address, only a telephone number.
“Switzerland is the ideal venue for my kind of trade. It’s a meeting ground for all the key players and outcasts of the world. In its special way, the country engenders respectability. It offers an opaque banking system, perfect for the kind of financial transactions I make on a daily basis.”
Mick slipped the business card into his pocket, but he wouldn’t be doing business anytime soon.
“You Americans are rather straightforward people,” Trevor remarked, his keen blue eyes taking in the appearance of his guest. “I won’t be circuitous. Please take a seat.”
After a long evening and night spent locked in a bedroom that reminded him of a Spanish dungeon, Mick didn’t feel much like the honored guest, nor did he feel obligated to share morning tea. But he was hungry and curious enough not to attempt an escape, so he took the seat offered him.
“It seems that my small plan has failed,” Trevor said, smiling like a sly old goat. “Care for a nip?”
Mick looked at the proffered bottle of whiskey. “Maybe later.”
“I hope you don’t mind if I pour myself a shot,” he said, and filled a glass. “I woke up feeling very American this morning. In my youth, I read that on his morning walks, President Harry S. Truman would slug down an ounce of bourbon. ‘It must be noon somewhere in the world,’ he would say.”
Mick merely nodded.
Trevor pulled out a bottle of pills.
“To American presidents. Fascinating lot.”
He popped a pill and chased it down with the whiskey.
“Of course, I digress. We must talk about your brother.”
His knees bent slowly as he placed his bony posterior opposite Mick.
“The truth is,” he confided, “I need Alec to foil a plot gone wrong. Permit me to explain. Last winter, I learned that America wanted to join CERN. ‘For what purpose?’ I pondered. ‘And was it in the best interest of Europe?’ I muddled these questions over
in my mind for several days and then acted swiftly. Lovely scotch.”
Mick waited.
“I make no bones about it. I hired a man, a highly professional, highly sought-after man, to destroy the Americans’ chances of CERN membership. Life isn’t fair, and certainly America doesn’t play fair, so why should I?”
“I thought you were a broker and didn’t take sides,” Mick said. “Someone must have hired you to destroy America’s chances at CERN.”
“I said it was my own idea.”
Mick gave him a dubious look.
“Be that as it may,” Trevor continued, “even if I were hired, I wouldn’t tell you who hired me. I offer my clients the strictest confidentiality. In this case, however, things didn’t work out so well. The operative was not successful.”
Trevor reached back to a credenza and grabbed a newspaper. He held it facing Mick.
“I was too late,” he said with a wry smile.
Mick scanned the headlines of The Times of London until he found a small headline “CERN Pact Reached with U.S.”
“You see, they reached an agreement this weekend. Unfortunately, my operative appears to have a one-track mind. He isn’t to be deterred and is now on the loose. Possibly even trying to kill Alec.” Trevor opened a lacquered cigar box. “Cuban? The real thing.”
Probably direct from Castro.
Mick waved off the offer, his mind on full alert at the mention of his brother. “It looks like your man has been partially successful. My brother’s dead.”
Trevor cut off the ends of a stogie and lit it. “Churchill loved cigars. If he’s not dead now, he will be soon.”
It took a moment for Mick to realize that Trevor was talking about Alec, not Churchill.
“I hired this man because of his success rate,” Trevor explained. “He has never failed to uphold his end of a bargain. In addition, his group hates the United States, although I don’t understand why. I rather like Americans on the whole.”
Mick didn’t appreciate the patronizing attitude, but did appreciate that the man trying to win him over. To what end?
He doubted Trevor was really worried about Alec’s safety. The conversation was just a more subtle continuation of his interrogation by the muscular Zafina. It was clear that Trevor didn’t buy that Alec was dead, and wanted to know where Alec was. Did Trevor want to supply that information to the man he hired?
How did Trevor know about Alec anyway? Perhaps he had decided that Alec was the perfect target to derail the membership talks. Was the professional a hit man? A murdered American working on security issues at the lab would make the perfect, threatening statement.
Mick’s mind returned to the pages of Interpol and FBI files that he had flipped through only the week before. “Who’s the operative?”
“That, dear chap, is a bit of a mystery,” Trevor said, and waved the smoking cigar like a magic wand. “I hired him…” A rumble in his chest erupted into a cough. “…yet I don’t know who he is.” He poured another glass and continued. “And I don’t know how to reach him. As I said, he’s on the loose.”
The cough erupted again. This time, he placed the cigar on top of his shot glass, wiped his eyes and spat into a handkerchief he had at the ready. At last, he smiled. “Lovely cigar.”
“So your real problem is that you may be responsible for this man’s actions, yet you have no way of stopping him.”
“Precisely. You Americans can be so pithy.”
“But how could you hire him if can’t reach him and don’t know his identity?”
“Oh, I know some things about him.” He lifted the cigar to his lips and drew on it thoughtfully. “I hired him out of Algeria. And he does have a name.”
“Which is…?”
Another hacking convulsion blew the smoke out of Trevor’s nose and mouth. Then the cough coalesced into laughter.
“Ha! You are an inquisitive chap.”
“Let’s just say I want to know who killed my brother.”
He waited for Trevor to clear his entire respiratory tract into his handkerchief.
Trevor’s pale eyes were suddenly clear. “They call him Proteus.” A humorless smile played on his lips. “How creative. A nom de plume.”
“Try a nom de guerre,” Mick muttered. “Just what we need: a terrorist with an ego.”
“Proteus,” Trevor mused. “Greek god of the sea. Ever changing. Protean. He might even be someone that you or I know.”
“Just put out the word for him to cease and desist.”
“I have. However, this man’s a professional. By that I mean fanatic. Same thing, really. We had good contact until last night. Then I’d say we had a bit of a tiff, and he’s cut off all contact with me. I can no longer be responsible for his actions.” Trevor spread his fingers as if there was genuinely nothing he could do, and therefore there was no blood on his hands. “So we wait for Alec’s body to turn up.”
“It already has.”
“Oh, come now. We both know better than that, don’t we?”
Mick sat stunned. How did O’Smythe know?
Trevor grinned and circled behind his chair with a smug look of accomplishment. Then his back went stiff. “So I put to you: where’s Alec?”
“Okay. Let’s assume for a minute that Alec’s still alive,” Mick said. “Let’s say he staged his own death. Certainly that must mean he knows that someone’s after him, and he’s either on the run or on the trail of the killer as we speak. Would that assuage your guilt?”
Sir Trevor O’Smythe talked through his teeth. “I don’t give a damn about any bloody Alec Pierce. I mean to reach the man I hired. Alive.”
He snatched an antique telephone from the credenza. It probably once belonged to Stalin. “Is the party ready? Good.”
He turned to Mick with a ready smile. “Oh, and you needn’t consider doing me in just yet,” he said. “I may be the one person who can bring your brother out of this alive.”
That argument wouldn’t sway Mick for an instant. Alec knew how to fend for himself. On the other hand, O’Smythe was the one man who knew what the hell was happening at CERN. For that reason alone, it was a good idea to stick close to him.
“I’d like to take a hike, now,” Trevor said. “It gives me a certain advantage to be out there when I’m discussing business. Are you afraid of heights?”
Chapter 14
Natalie awoke on the rattan bed and swiped at the air. Like an irritating mosquito, a phrase buzzed around in her head. Still groggy, she whispered it, ‘He’ll track thinking Lucerne.’ Then she sat up, awake enough to wonder about its hidden meaning.
The transcript had read: “Tell him the bastard is from the Proteus organization of Morocco. A jihad. Speaks English, French, Spanish, Arabic. He’ll track thinking Lucerne.”
Okay, that chameleon on the hotel phone could very well be the same bastard. He employed various accents and could easily have been Moroccan. She would check the automobile license prefix.
But what did it mean that he was ‘thinking Lucerne?’
The moment she pushed her comforter aside, she felt a pang of hunger. An apple sat in a fruit bowl beside her bed, and she sank her teeth into it.
It was delicious.
A moment later, her hands and bed sheets were sprinkled with golden flecks of apple.
She finished the apple and dragged herself to the bathroom. Warm water shot out of the showerhead and massaged the soreness out of her muscles.
As the water gradually cleared her mind, she began to map out her objectives for the day.
On previous postings, she had been given a portfolio and various assignments. Generally, she had stuck with a game plan and achieved her goals. Now, she had a clear goals, to save Mick and Alec, but absolutely no game plan. She was forced to do something that she seldom did before. She had to improvise.
She had tagged along with Barbara the previous evening and found herself auditioning for a new life. She had sat sampling wonderfully rich Movenpick ice cream un
der a streetlamp at an outdoor café. There was no Mick, no office, no obligation. She was, in fact, liberated.
Then they had visited a raunchy country and western bar with a miserably arrhythmic German band. There, she had spent the evening helping Barbara avoid thinking about Alec.
Barbara would dangle a cigarette in one hand and a glass of beer in the other. She would accept a flirtatious invitation to dance from a middle-aged bureaucrat. She would toss out careless, hearty laughs. Everyone who visited the bar that night would probably remember the wild one, but it would take time before the young Swiss woman could talk about her relationship with Alec.
Barbara might be an emotional wreck, but she was Natalie’s only link to Mick and Alec.
She turned off the shower and shivered in the air conditioning. If she had any plan, it was to hang onto Barbara.
Several minutes later, she walked into the living room and was surprised to find that Barbara had already prepared breakfast for her. It seemed more like Barbara was hanging onto her.
“You can’t guess how hungry I am,” Natalie said, and slid into a seat at the table.
She devoured several slices of Gruyère.
“I’ll have to reimburse you for this.”
“Nonsense.”
She downed a cup of yogurt in several spoonfuls.
“Good stuff.”
Then she sat back, only to see Barbara smiling.
“What?”
No response.
She grabbed a baguette and applied butter and cherry jam. “I’ve been interested in Switzerland’s love affaire with bread,” she said. “Archeologists found unleavened bread among the lake dwellers of Switzerland.”
“A very old people,” Barbara said.
“Manga,” Natalie said. “You’re not eating.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You’ve got to eat, especially after last night.”
Barbara smiled, but couldn’t mask her anguish over Alec.
“Let’s try something,” Natalie said. “I need a favor. Can you call a friend of mine?” She pulled her steaming mug of mocha-flavored coffee closer in order to clear a spot for Barbara, and then placed the portable phone on the table.