A Death in Geneva

by A. Denis Clift

  Sweetman departed for Washington the next morning. On Monday afternoon, June 20, Harold Fisker had the first lab analysis of the tape. The words were indistinct. But, unmistakably, there were two women’s voices.

  Chapter 10

  Sea gulls, hundreds, lifted in a gray-white fluttering from their perches on the Victorian roof and clock tower of the pier A Marine firehouse jutting out from the Battery into New York Harbor at the southern tip of Manhattan. Circling and screeching, they swooped low toward the food in the outstretched hand, veering away in fear only at the last second.

  “Sullivan, did you know these sea gulls are retired harbor pilots gone to their reward?” Tommie Starring tossed a chunk of bagel into the harbor air, whooped at the steep plunge of two of the birds, the snatch and flight of the victor. “Tell that pushcart vendor we’ve got some hungry pilots on our hands, Sullivan. We need another one of these things, two more. A splendid, splendid morning; good meeting coming up today. I smell success!”

  In the days following his return from Malta, he had been closeted with the Towerpoint inner team preparing for the July stockholders’ meeting. His Mediterranean tan gave him a look of extraordinary fitness. His spirits were soaring with the morning birds. He was on the verge of tying the last knots in the multibillion-dollar Sea Star consortium. Oats had reported from the Towerpoint Octagon that the ship had cleared Gibraltar, the research team in the traces pulling hard. The president had called the night before to report a promising lead in Connie’s case, one that he could not discuss over the phone. He had encouraged Starring to come to Washington; he would personally bring him up to date.

  Starring and his secretary started up the west-side waterfront, followed at a discreet distance by another of his blue Continental convertibles. The president’s call had led him to make a two-fold decision. First, Muriel Sullivan was instructed to arrange his call at the White House, if possible, for the first weekend in July. Second, she was instructed to reserve the Octagon mansion two blocks west of the White House for his personal use over that entire weekend.

  For years, Starring had toyed with the notion of staying at the historic Octagon, President Madison’s home following the burning of the White House. Now, he would do it, take the time he needed . . . alone . . . in retreat, within those historic walls to put his hand personally to the stockholder’s speech he would deliver in mid-July. It would be far more than the usual bookkeeping account. He wanted to relate the Towerpoint programs to preceding and future generations, to provide the conceptual underpinnings that would make the corporation’s contributions lasting.

  “You don’t build on sand, Sullivan. Look at this deserted harbor, piers in decay, not even a garbage scow in sight. Just a few years ago, the Hudson River, these buildings, trembled with the powerful horns of maritime commerce. Mile after mile of piers, six hundred miles of waterfront, were teeming with ships and cargo. The old Ellerman Bucknell and United Fruit had piers just ahead on the left. The U.S. Lines, Panama Pacific, Cunard White Star, our STARCO, Grace, Clyde Mallory, dozens and dozens more were up-river. It was a sight—national strength, maritime leadership, employment! Now, mismanagement, poor politics, a vanishing act. Those ships still working have gone across the river, south to the gulf—thirty to forty shipping lines. The mind aches at the loss.”

  They steered away from a sanitation truck giving the streets their morning washdown. “The Octagon house, what arrangements have you made?”

  “I have been assured by the Institute’s hostess that nothing is booked other than normal visiting hours for the entire summer. She told me the house may be leased any weekend you wish. She did ask for the courtesy of a week’s advance notice, as there is often touch-up repair work going on.”

  “Book it. What is today, the twenty-fourth?”

  “The twenty-fourth.”

  “Oats and company are due on the twenty-ninth; we’ll have the bay arrival ceremonies. Book it for the entire Fourth of July weekend. Confirm the appointment with the president’s staff. Then organize me, organize my papers for the Octagon.”

  “You alone. No Mrs. Starring, no staff?”

  “Absolutely no one; a retreat, Sullivan, a retreat!” He scowled at the question. They crossed West Street, arrived at the southern face of the World Trade Center’s twin towers. “Ha-ha! Here’s Adrian looking well washed and combed. Mother would be pleased.” They entered One World Trade Center, swept upwards seventy, eighty, ninety floors to the corporate headquarters of Towerpoint International. A coterie of executives fell in behind the two brothers. The procession moved through the reception gallery in the direction of the boardroom.

  “I won’t be two minutes, Adrian. Have everyone take their places.” The younger brother relayed the order and caught up with Tommie who had passed the first of two, internal security checkpoints enroute to the corporation’s plot center. Watch officers jumped to their feet. Starring strode past them, halting before the thirty-foot by ten-foot electronic chart of the world. Towerpoint ships, yards, offshore platforms, and support facilities glowed in color-coded lights. He addressed the senior watch officer. “You have us running smoothly this morning.”

  “A fair amount of activity, sir; nothing unusual.”

  “Where do you make the Towerpoint Octagon?”

  “South of Santa Maria Island, sir; the Azores, 35 degrees 16 minutes north, 26 degrees 30 minutes west.”

  “To the south?”

  “Yes sir. There’s a good-sized storm building to the north. The skipper made the course change fifteen hours ago.” A green light flashed with increased intensity on the display screen. An orange dotted line appeared, flicked across the screen to the western Atlantic seaboard. “Her projected track, Mr. Starring; she’s still on schedule.”

  “Landfall the twenty-ninth?”

  “Chesapeake Light, 1600 the twenty-ninth.”

  “The LNG tankers?”

  The orange light of the catamaran faded. Two new green lights grew in intensity. “The Towerpoint Partner has just arrived in Baltimore; she’ll be offloading . . .”

  “Not as much ruckus as predicted.”

  “No sir. She’ll berth there until the third. The Towerpoint Mayan is in the gulf, enroute Baltimore.” Another orange, projected track appeared, marking a long curve from the Mexican coast around the tip of Florida northward into the Atlantic. Starring moved left a few paces, studied the Pacific, then left the plot center, giving the watch a brisk, saluting wave.

  The board of directors’ portraits lined the entrance to the conference room, one heavy gold frame draped in black. Cumulus clouds reflected in the gleaming mahogany table which paralleled the wall of glass looking down on lower New York Bay, past the Statue of Liberty, Governor’s Island, Staten Island, the Verrazano Narrows Bridge to the opening to the Atlantic, a spectacular panorama of the famous harbor.

  Starring beckoned his directors to take their chairs. The next two hours were dedicated to an intensive review of the planned report on the Towerpoint Defense Weapons Systems programs: the Staghound-Class antisubmarine heavy destroyers, the Cunning-Class nuclear attack submarines, the Neptune submarine rescue class and the newest, Valor-Class nuclear command cruisers. The corporation’s production, yard-by-yard, class-by-class, played on the conference room screen. There had been seventeen launchings over the past twelve months, in the black, orders on the rise despite the problems with Washington.

  The presentation had good color, schematics, the right mix of statistics aimed at bringing the stockholders aboard, giving them the plankowners’ view of each ship’s weapons suite, the engineering plants, armor, and seakeeping built into each fighting hull. Starring ordered another run-through. The slides flashed by quickly. The directors were a study in concentration.

  “Tight. A good report on the present, with good flow into the yards’ modernization for the future—excellent report. What is your opinion, Mr. Counsel?”

  “We’ve given it a good look, Mr. Chairman. The presentation is
solid from the legal viewpoint.”

  The board’s secretary turned a tab divider in his book. The lights came up in the room. “Mr. Chairman, looking to the actual meeting, we anticipate a goodly number of questions from the floor following this presentation, a few plants from known detractors—fed from the left and, of course, from official circles.”

  “Of course.” Starring turned his pen end over end. “Of course there will. I plan to preside during the Q-and-A session. We’re going to emerge from that session, my friends, with the stockholders and the media on our side.”

  He leveled the pen at the secretary. “We will want a complete transcript, unedited, of that session ready for distribution by the second day. For my own use, I will want identification of each questioner. We’ll break now for ten minutes, airport next.”

  Muriel Sullivan met Starring at the door prepared to receive his next volley of instructions. She followed him into his office, past the clusters of furniture, across the enormous rug, to the view of the harbor. He put an eye to the long glass to take a closer look at the Staten Island ferry beginning her swing, to line up with the Manhattan slip. “What’s up?”

  “When you and Mrs. Starring were in Rome, you met with an agent, a Mr. Sweetman, investigating your sister’s death.

  Starring looked up momentarily, returned to the glass. “I remember.”

  “Mr. Sweetman called this morning to ask for your personal intervention—”

  “Nothing to report?”

  “I tried to draw him out. He was very noncommittal, said it was essential that he have your authority to examine all, he underlined the all, of your sister’s London TOPIC files—”

  “Nothing on leads?” The long glass swung up-harbor, settled on a tug shepherding a fuel barge.

  “He said that the evidence was such that they could not rule out anything, even the possibility of a British connection—”

  “What do they have?”

  “He wouldn’t go any further, Mr. Starring.”

  “I understand.” Starring moved his examination to the far reaches of the harbor, pushed the long glass away. “He’s a good man—an Irishman, Sullivan. Of course he has my permission. Damn it; it’s going on a month now. Connie’s blood still dripping from those bastards. Give London the necessary instructions.” He gave an enormous stretch, checked his appearance, and returned to the conference room.

  “This is Sea Star!” At the sound of Starring’s voice, the directors melted away from the eight-foot-square scale model. He bobbed his head as he peered through the Plexiglas dome. “Remove the cover—and keep it off for the stockholders—reflects the light.” He studied the detail, the airfield runways, hotel, ports for the surface effect shuttles, recreational craft, and commercial shipping. “Far superior to that damned film. Proceed.”

  The curtains closed and the Towerpoint symbol appeared on the screen with SEA STAR—SUPERPORT COMPLEX. “Mr. Chairman, this coming fiscal year marks the beginning of Stage Two of the Sea Star complex, as approved by vote of the Towerpoint International stockholders a year ago.”

  The next slide presented a bird’s-eye view of the five-pointed, star-shaped airfield afloat in the open ocean. Two eight-thousand-foot runways angled along the star’s edges, one running from the northern point to the southeastern, the other from the western point to the eastern, crosswind runways designed for the new and projected generations of commercial and military aircraft. The control tower topping off the structure of the terminal was spotted in the center of the star. Tree-lined access roads ran to the base of the southwestern point where they merged with the fountains and gardens at the front-entrance drive and side-serviceways of the terraced Sea Star resort hotel.

  A semi-submerged breakwater curved from the tip of this point, sheltering the passenger transit and recreational harbor. Another breakwater, sheltering the cargo piers, curved south from the eastern tip, giving the entire ocean complex the appearance of counterclockwise motion. The next slide showed a hazy photograph of twenty jetliners stewing in their jet exhausts, the skyline of New York in the background, awaiting clearance for take-off.

  “With the coming of Sea Star, America enters a pioneering new era of transportation, relaxation, safety, efficiency, and commercial progress unique in the world.”

  “‘Relaxation, safety’? . . . Hold those points; build them in later.”

  “Yes, Mr. Chairman . . . enters a pioneering new era of transportation, efficiency, and commercial progress unique in the world.” Successive slides reported on the complex strata of planning being devoted to Sea Star, the consortium organization, the stages One to Four of financing, the time-phased meshing of industrial participation, construction, and final assembly outlays, projected employment in the tens of thousands, projected revenues—the timetable from first letting of contracts through the first landings and takeoffs.

  Starring’s voice cut into the presentation again. The lights came up and the drapes slid open. He looked sharply from one director to the next. “Sea Star is more than a leap into the next century. It is the essence of Towerpoint, the superior technology, the concept, the sheer volume of construction, and the benefits to the nation. This presentation is uninspired; give it a lift!” He turned to the project manager. “How many semisubmersible columns support Sea Star?”

  “Two thousand plus, Mr. Chairman.”

  “What are the dimensions of each column?”

  “Three hundred feet long, sir, thirty-five feet in diameter—”

  “The length of a football field, the diameter of a nuclear submarine—more than two thousand. That’s the theme you want to build on! The unparalleled manufacturing in graving docks along the eastern seaboard; the talented thousands of men and women; that’s the message. The shaping of Sea Star, the fleet of ocean tugs towing each column to the site, the technology—greater than the space shots—tipping each column vertically into place, joining them together on the open ocean, module by module, the physical phenomenon of this stable, semi-submersed city with the decks, the airfield riding above the energy of the waves.” He glanced at a police helicopter darting over the tip of Manhattan, “and, Sea Star contributes to the nation’s defense. You have a line on that?”

  “In the event of national need, the Sea Star port and airfield could make an immediate contribution to America’s security.”

  “Vague—good, as it should be. We know we are looking at a tactical air base, a refueling and replenishment field, a carrier capable of projecting air and sea power. My friends”—Starring stood with one hand on the model, the other on his hip—“it is your task to present this message—experience and brains; no one else can match us—audacity and tenacity. We have vision; we have guts; we succeed.”

  Muriel Sullivan was at his side. “Mrs. Starring sir, calling from the ship. Shall I tell you will call her back? You should be leaving for your meeting with the secretary-general.”

  Starring nodded at the whispered message, returned to the conference table. “We’re going to have an outstanding meeting this year. The year’s record is superb, every division. You should all take great pride. This model leaves for Washington tomorrow for my meeting with the president.” All rose as he left the conference room.

  The blue Continental slowed, passed the Washington Square Arch, and rolled to a stop in front of Starring’s brownstone town house on Washington Square North. An unmarked New York City police car was parked a third of a block away. The three detectives were relaxed, windows open, enjoying the balmy late afternoon. Starring chatted for a moment with the plainclothes UN security guard, a member of the secretary-general’s personal detail, at the entrance. He spotted the slender, transparent two-way radio tubing running from the guard’s ear beneath his collar. “Is the secretary-general on schedule?”

  “Yes sir, still showing arrival 5:30 P.M.”

  Starring trotted up the steps into the house, showered, dressed in fresh clothes, and was at the door when the black UN limousine arrived. He bounde
d back down the steps to greet the secretary-general. A cluster of agents formed an immediate protective perimeter around the two men.

  “Lars, you do me great honor.”

  “Quite to the contrary, Tommie, it is always a reinvigorating pleasure for me to see you again.”

  Starring pointed across the park. “Did you know that FDR used to keep an apartment on the Square, that tall brown building?”

  “Truly? No, I didn’t know that. Campobello, Hyde Park, Hot Springs; I thought I knew them all.”

  “He used to arrive as only he knew how to, an open car behind a swift, flying-vee of scarlet motorcycles. They stopped for no one.”

  The secretary-general shook his head. “I’m afraid open cars are a luxury of the past, at least for some of us. You’ve just come back from Europe, haven’t you? Any developments about those responsible for your poor sister?”

  “Those bastards. It’s promising, Lars; nothing firm, but I think our people are about to pop it. I should have a better picture in a very few days.”

  They started into the house. Still another police car had halted traffic a block away. The three New York detectives were at work, stationed on either side of the street, scanning the buildings, watching the movements of the curious who had gathered to observe the event whatever it might be.

  “I have just returned from Europe, Lars, Malta, in fact. Tina, by the way, is coming home by sea, making the crossing now. I just got off the phone; she sends you her most affectionate love.”

  The secretary-general beamed. “Tina, such a lovely lady. You’re very generous to share her with the world. I am a devout admirer and an opening-night regular. You know that!” He laughed again.

  “She has your tickets; the Fourth of July, if you’re going to be in town. Now, come inside my friend. I want to tell you what we’re doing with the international Oceanic University program in Malta.”