A Death in Geneva

by A. Denis Clift

  Tooms responded. “A little more than a week from now, Tommie, we’ll have the Octagon in the States with you. We weigh anchor today right after you shove off, ETA 1600 June twenty-ninth at the capes. In the meantime, this team’s breaking in as smooth as glass.” He reported that the two work chariots, originally a four-man Navy design, reworked for the North Sea, had been reworked again, cockpits and external racks modified, instrument panels upgraded as a result of several good suggestions by his young mermaid and her colleagues.

  “The electrical shop is humming, Tommie, coming up with intensified illumination for the compass, depth, speed, and attitude indicators—she even raised a damned good question about the battery reserves. I don’t know how the hell we did what we were able to in the North Sea sometimes.”

  “Have London run a check on the logs, Oats.” Starring never welcomed such criticism. His eyes hardened, then a new, flashing smile. “And, what else, my friends?”

  Tooms barreled ahead. “The work chariots’ after cargo racks have some freshly welded extensions and stronger antifouling tie-downs to accommodate the bay experiments. And, a telex is on its way to some of our bay colleagues calling for some bottom density readings, calculations we’ll need to gauge habitat leg penetration. We’ll probably end up modifying the fittings on the way over; bay’s soft, mighty soft.”

  Starring glanced at an antique porcelain clock above the sideboard. A ship’s officer entered, reported that baggage was aboard the helicopter with departure for Luqa scheduled in fifteen minutes. Starring had barely exchanged a word with the three, but he exhorted them, admonished Tooms to be sure that the catamaran had sufficient wet suits, coveralls, other gear with the expedition’s emblem for Parsons and other distinguished visitors. They followed him to the flight deck to see his departure.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Starring. Mr. Starring’s instructions were for the ship to sail upon your return.”

  “Sail away, my dear captain. You have met my coach and tormenter, Joan Rorie, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, ma’am, earlier today and a few passages ago.” The captain saluted the guest, turned to make sure that the right orders had been given to three crewmen, each with a wooden crate, puffing after the climb from the launch.

  “One, two, three—there were four.” Tina was peering over the railing. “Where’s the fourth? Here it comes. You must take very good care of these purchases, Captain, thrillingly beautiful ceramic tiles, each handpainted by a gorgeously talented Maltese artist. They form a . . . twelve-foot by twelve-foot mural, or is it a mosaic? of the voyage of Odysseus. I am thrilled. It is a surprise for Tommie, for the back garden in New York. They are precious, aren’t they Joanie?”

  “Lovely, lovely, lovely. Put them someplace far away, Captain, or we will spread them out on your big helicopter deck.” Joan Rorie was a pudgy woman wearing tiny, square sunglasses, sandals, with a pup-tent cotton dress bridging the intervening expanse. “My purchase.” She held out a white crocheted woolen shawl. “Survival gear for New York City’s hideous air-conditioning. Survival gear.” She looked around her. “Really, Tina, every time I sail on this mad ship, I feel I should have one of those octopus helmets on, and lead boots to do some clomping around . . . breathe through a hose, look as if I belonged!”

  “We can arrange that, can’t we, Captain? Joanie please do put a helmet on, with the little windows closed during our sessions. It will make you less oppressive; I’ll pass in snacks.”

  The Grand Harbor pilot came aboard, proceeded with the captain to the bridge. The accommodation ladder and ship’s launch were secured for sea. The crew of a harbor tug freed the shackle of the massive steel U-bolt securing the Octagon to her mooring buoy; the anchor chain was winched aboard. The captain and pilot strode briskly from wing to wing of the bridge. With the pilot’s order, a long, reverberating blast from the ship’s horn filled the harbor. The decks took on renewed life with the vibration of power from the engine rooms, the first turns of the ship’s screws.

  Lofty jets of water arched from the fireboat saluting the Towerpoint flagship moving slowly through the Grand Harbor. A friend was departing. The ship’s flag dipped, returning the honor.

  Geneva, the fireboat’s water jets . . . Head turned to Tooms. “Treat you like bloody royalty and you bloody love it. It’s obscene; it won’t—” He checked his words.

  Tooms was soaking in the historic harbor. “Treat us, I say again, us, young Paul. You’re on the Towerpoint payroll now . . . service . . . honor . . . the whole lip-smacking smorgasbord. You’re going to enjoy this shindig, isn’t he, Leslie?” The scientist snapped two cigarettes from his pack, lit Head’s sheltering the lighter’s flame from the stiffening breeze.

  “I would like to work with you this evening, Oats, to take a harder look at the schedule you have drawn up. I believe it is too light. Much more work will be required during this passage if we are to make the fullest, most productive use of the first days of the submerged operations in the Chesapeake. That is what Starring wants. You will not be able to give it to him with your present planning. I have some specific suggestions for—”

  “Done, done, but tomorrow morning. If you listen carefully, a tray of drinks is on the way. There’s a certain protocol, not too heavy. If the three of you guppies take a swing by your cabins, you’ll find a note from Lady Starring inviting you to a dinner down in the glass palace tonight in honor of her coaching pal, little Joanie, and yourselves. Not as cozy as roasting chestnuts in the Matabele’s fire, but cozy—tomorrow, we’ll work until we drop.”

  When Tina Starring emerged for dinner, she removed her high heels to negotiate the curving stairway. Her white cocktail dress was low-cut, a graceful acquisition from the trip to Rome. She slipped back into her shoes. “How indecorous. I apologize, and I must seat you. I am host and hostess tonight, while poor Tommie is nibbling from another lapful of cellophane airplane food—and, here it is.” Stewards filled the six tulip-bowled champagne glasses.

  The evening’s gin caused her to bang the glass. Filippo’s dark hand caught it, brushed against her own.

  “Now, that was very clumsy. Thank you—and, name is—?”

  “Tonasi, Filippo Tonasi.”

  “Thank you, dear Filippo.” She rose, champagne in hand. “Oats doesn’t count. We found him in the ship when it was built. It’s lovely to welcome the rest of you, my dear Joan Rorie, and our team of beautiful, talented divers who are so very important to us. A toast!” She looked across her glass at each of them, settled for a second on the young man beside her. “Welcome, a happy cruise, God’s blessings on your endeavors, Allah-i-haiyikim.”

  “Dear Tina! I am touched.” Joan Rorie remained seated, raised her glass in return. “I know you’d be disappointed if I didn’t have at least one point to make. Your Arabic is most impressive, but I would recommend against bringing champagne into the Bedouin camp—”

  “Stick to the elocution, Joanie, but—” Tooms raised his glass, “play up the bubbly. Harems always drink at sea. Here’s to Tina’s play. Here’s to the play in the Chesapeake, and to work until we drop.” He tilted toward Leslie. “Bottoms up!” Tooms drained the glass and accepted a refill.

  “Salute.”

  “Salute . . . Filippo.”

  Rome was the focus of the dinner’s conversation, crisscrossing conversation that continued over coffee on the owner’s deck. The great catamaran thrust westward through the Mediterranean, steady as a rock in the moderate sea, no rolling from the twin hulls, only a comfortable, barely perceptible hobbyhorse motion.

  “And now, my dear Filippo, you must come with me.” She led him from the deck into her suite. “You are a very special creature.” Her lips left his just long enough to praise him. The second kiss was deeper. Her hands ran along the ripples of muscles on his back, beneath his shirt, across his stomach, up along his hard chest.

  “Do come.” They crossed to the bedroom. She pushed the door closed with a hip, wrapped her arms around him, and pulled him do
wn ever so gently on to the bed.

  “Oh . . . wait, just a minute. Some music for my lovely beast . . . a lovely, lovely . . .”—she was searching the shelves of a bookcase on the far side of the cabin—“lovely tape. Here.”

  Filippo was silent, on the edge of the bed, the pouch in his teeth as he rolled the cigarette. She floated back to him, took a whiff—“Oh . . . very special”—then a puff. She held his head in her hands, brushed back the thick black hair, floated away.

  “‘The Swan,’ Filippo, the Carnival of the Animals. Do you know the ‘Swan’?” He watched as she danced, her arms out, head back, her dress opening into a circle of white as she turned and turned. “You . . . you are my whirling dervish, Filippo, but I will dance for you.” He smoked, expecting her to fall, but she was steady, spinning with the tempo of the music, turning again and again, her blond hair flowing, her outstretched arms above the plane of her skirt. “I dance . . . to mourn the thought of separation from you, to whirl and whirl . . . and whirl . . . in the ecstasy of my desire . . . to be with you.” She reached behind her, stepped out of the dress as it fell, her naked body turning in the soft light, wedded to the music. She faltered and he caught her, brought her down to the bed, her white breasts against his chest, her lips roaming his face with kisses.

  “Do you know William Blake, dear Fil . . . li . . . po? We are in his ‘Lovers Whirlwind.’ Save me from that hell. Make love to me, Filippo.”

  Chapter 9

  “This Worker’s Autonomy Movement . . . ?”

  “Italian, small stuff, on the left. The Swiss intercepted a sedan five weeks ago, on the border, handguns, political tracts, three men still being held.”

  Hanspeter Sweetman, Pierce Bromberger, and Major Karl Pitsch of the Grenzschutzgruppe 9—GSG-9—were working from identical sets of documents.

  “Not bad, Hanspeter, not bad. You are more of a European hand than I would have imagined.” The German counterterrorist took two walnuts from the bowl in the center of the dining room table, cracked them open in one hand, and went to the chalet balcony to toss the shells. Beyond the blue-greens of the evergreen tops, the lush, lighter hues of the spring meadows dropped gracefully to the surface of Lac de la Gruyére five hundred feet below. To the south, through the crystal air, the peaks of the Northern Alps, heavy with late snow, stood high above the treeline.

  Pitsch had been assigned by Bonn as Bromberger’s liaison. Following the visit to GSG-9 headquarters, the American agent had asked him to continue on to the safehouse tucked on the hillside between Geneva and Bern. They had made the journey in an Opel sedan whose armor and Mercedes engine lay hidden beneath the unpolished rusting exterior. This instrument of counterterrorism was silent in the garage beneath the balcony, beside the battered, deep-blue armored Saab which had brought Sweetman from Rome.

  Pitsch stood for a few moments enjoying the heat of the sun on his face and forearms. Acts of violence against Americans, whether in the Federal Republic of Germany or elsewhere in Europe, were his primary GSG-9 responsibility. Seven months before, his unit had infiltrated the largest of the three terrorist cells targeted against U.S. Armed Forces in the Federal Republic, saved two hundred and fifty armored division lives, with the tip and the counterstrike two hours before the bombing.

  Pitsch’s talents had been forged in the furnace of twentieth-century political violence. He was the expert. His psychological and tactical grasp of hostage survival, from capture to captivity, negotiations with the abductors, and dealing with the traumas of post-release marked a professional skill unknown a generation before. Five feet eight inches, he was physically unexceptional in his white shirt, collar open, sleeves rolled above the elbows, brown wool slacks, and brown shoes. As with the machines of war parked beneath him, this was a deception. Pitsch was a warrior in time of peace, trained for a lethal, more demanding fight than required of any commando at war, trained for the decathlon of terrorism—light and heavy arms, explosives, storming buildings, aircraft, armed and fortified positions. He was adept in land, sea, and air actions; in the use of communications; in the timing and movement of men; in the precise application of force by hand, karate, knife, and fire power.

  Through his violent missions, heroism, and successes, Pitsch had emerged as the recognized GSG-9 counterterrorist—no ribbons, no razor-sharp creases in a peacock’s uniform. The spit and polish of the counterterrorist doctrine he shaped lay in his ability to translate the classic requirements of military leadership: to understand the enemy, to anticipate his actions, to exploit the terrain, and to lead his men under fire to suppress fanatical pockets of death-wreaking mayhem in a society at peace.

  Pitsch had several hours’ headstart over Bromberger and Sweetman in the investigation of the Burdette assassination. But, a week and a day after the killing, the three agents were searching together for the first opening in the wall, the first lead.

  At the sound of a voice, the German returned in two strides to the cool shadows of the dining room. “Karl, our Mission has struck out! We’ve got a regional security officer, Howard Weems, excellent reputation—”

  “I’ve met him once, Pierce. It’s clear he blew it, before, during and after—not properly prepared, caught by surprise, panicked. It could happen to the best.”

  “From what he told me, he left the entire, on-scene investigation play to the Swiss, came home with his goddamned pockets inside out, not even a cartridge shell. No witness interviews—Swiss kept edging him away—unbelievable: I told him to take a couple of days, then we’d walk him through it again. The poor bastard is up to his ears in investigators. We must have four different levels of Washington in town, all mouthing one line—RAF!”

  “RAF isn’t Weems’s problem,” Sweetman snapped, “more like RAB, real afraid for his own butt. He leaves it to the Swiss, but you listen to some of the detail he spouts and he had to be in the limo with Burdette at the time of the hit. He’s not squaring with us, not yet that is—scared for that nice paycheck of his. We’ll walk him through it again and uncover that butt of his, bet your mortgages on it, first clean, solid prediction of this game.”

  Pitsch savored this without comment, then picked up the conversation with a change of gears. “Has his Highness, the minister of justice, granted you an audience?”

  “This Friday. Lancaster had to hit him directly. Is he just ignorant, or is he deliberately such a son of a bitch?”

  “You know,” Pitsch took two more nuts, “it is convenient to blame all bad weather on the bomb and all European bloodshed on the RAF” He extracted a large hunk of walnut flesh. “In the past, the Swiss have had to contend with six hijackings at Cointrin, Geneva, including that particularly bloody twelve hours with the Eagles of the Palestine Revolution. During the same period, Swiss banks have been hit by terrorists, mainly German and Italian, in need of expense monies. The Swiss have been pinched from the north and the south.

  “Ten weeks ago, the authorities here moved in on three Bader-Meinhoff, as you are aware, in a Zurich flat—not my responsibility, but our people were cooperating. The bankers receive a steady flow of death threats, abduction attempts, linked to the terrorists’ ransom demands, the demands for release of imprisoned killer colleagues—threats stretching from Tokyo to Belfast. In the past two years, there have been four attempts, one successful, against Swiss Army munitions depots. The pace has continued to quicken for His Excellency, Minister Grabner. He is overworked, feeling raw, exposed, and—it is all because of these outsiders. His blood pressure dances high in the warning zone; his stomach is shot; and, as you are learning, he is not given to collaboration.”

  “I don’t see a single shred pointing to or from the RAF at this point, Karl. The killing itself was political in style, the weapons, the close-in moving operation. Hell, she hadn’t been here long enough to be a target for Swiss crime. The escape was also the work of professionals. But, and here’s where I shift gears, no telephone calls, aside from the lunatics, no messages, no contact with TV, radio, the press?”<
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  “In other words, no exploitation, and that’s not political.”

  Bromberger prowled through the loose-leaf notebook before him, scanning the dossiers of terrorists with recent footprints in Switzerland, the names of the cells, factions, armies, movements; their avowed purposes, home bases, size, composition, leadership structure, modus operandi, record of actions. The file was thick: FRG, France, Iraq, Ireland, U.K., Italy, PLO, Spain, Turkey, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Argentina, Uruguay. “All these Latinos, the South Americans; there’s nothing there, radicals in exile, just like the Corsican National Liberation Front, all scheming against the mother country—”

  “The same is true for Spain,” Sweetman said. “Those poor bastards are dreaming of the easy days of La Pasionaria. ‘It is better to die on your feet than your knees’ . . .”

  Pitsch’s head turned with the words. “La Pasionaria, yah, yah. A Madrid!”

  “Dolores a Madrid!”

  “Dolores, si!”

  “Si, si, si. . . the old war cry.”

  “It’s rough there. The Basque Separatists are gunning from one flank; GRAPO’s guns are mowing down the Army from the left.”

  “This summary shows GRAPO in Switzerland this year, Karl.” Bromberger held up a smudged onionskin page.

  “Money, not politics—robberies to fund the paternal feud. Grabner will have the details. They weren’t after your ambassador. Tell me, Pierce, these are good dossiers, well constructed; why isn’t there a U.S. section; are you that confident?”

  “Hell, no. Washington is also working the case as a possible domestic homicide. But, if it were a U.S. political action, we are fairly confident we would have heard from the killers. Down through the years, a lot of bombings by the Puetro Rican independence types, Washington, New York, attacks against our people in Puerto Rico, Even then, publicity has consistently been part of their game.”