Blood of His Fathers (Sinners and Saints)

by Michelle Chambers

  Erik turned his gaze back to Colin. “At the core of his idea was the concept of national identity. Nations were to be perceived as religious entities not political concepts. He believed nations were divine creations not products of history and geography. Every nation had its own mission in the world and the nations that betrayed their God-given mission would disappear from the face of the earth. Politics was separate from religion and only men who respected the divine order became true patriots.”

  “Divine order?” Colin queried.

  “Yes, divine order. My father laid out a doctrine that established a hierarchical order. The individual was subordinate to the nation and the nation was subordinate to God and the divine laws.”

  “And you? What did you believe?”

  “I was my father’s son, Colin,” Eric returned simply.

  “What does that mean?” Colin asked. “What are you telling me? That you were a member of some fascist organization?”

  “Yes,” Erik replied quietly. “I was my father’s son.”

  Colin blew out a breath. “And had it not been for you I would’ve been mine.”

  Erik nodded slowly. “I am not proud of my past, of what I’ve done—”

  “Is that why you stay here, all alone?”

  “Partly.”

  Colin blew out a breath. “I think I should go, Mr. Pilarczyk.”

  “And what of the fasces?” Erik asked. “Don’t you want to know what it is?”

  “I already do,” Colin returned.

  “Do you?” Erik countered swiftly, raising his wrinkled brow.

  “An ancient Roman symbol…” Colin’s voice faltered as he watched Erik’s feeble fingers undo the buttons of his shirt.

  “It’s a symbol that united the leaders of the Iron Guard, and their allies. There are few of us left,” Erik continued. He bared his aged chest and exposed the vague tattoo of the fasces above his heart.

  “What are you trying to tell me?” Colin asked, although his voice clearly belied any need to hear an answer.

  Erik fixed his small gray eyes on Colin. “They are reviving the Iron Guard,” he said.

  “They? Who are ‘they’, Mr. Pilarczyk?” Colin asked leaning forward in his seat.

  Eric chuckled and waved a gnarled finger in the air. “Nicolae Nastase,” he said. “He tried to fool me, but I would know him anywhere. His appearance may have changed—” Eric poked tellingly at his own face and spoke slowly—“but it was him. He came to see me five years ago, you know. We talked about my father, about the old days. That’s when he told me about his plan to revive the Iron Guard. He wanted my support because my father’s name would carry a great deal of weight, but I said no. No more.” Erik’s feeble voice strengthened in his conviction. “I’ve seen what the Iron Guard can do and I cannot forget. I wanted no part of this fascist uprising. Never again.”

  “Nicolae—”

  Viktor Marinescu,” Erik interjected. “That is the name he used.”

  “Are you sure?” Colin insisted.

  He stared with incredulity at the photo lying on the coffee table between them. Only the insignia had been enlarged, so Viktor Marinescu’s face couldn’t be seen.

  “My eyes and my memory are still good. I would know Nicolae Nastase anywhere, no matter his appearance.”

  “Tell me more about him. About Nicolae Nastase,” Colin prompted.

  Erik closed his eyes and kept them closed. The morning light captured his face, emphasizing the stillness of his features and the transparency of an aged skin. Colin leaned forward listening for signs of life. He visibly jumped as Erik suddenly drew breath.

  “Nicolae has always been ambitious. He’d worked closely with my father, taking over the Iron Guard after my father died. That was in nineteen thirty-eight. King Carol II had established a dictatorship, and in an attempt to steal the ideological appeal of the Iron Guard move and win support, he ordered my father’s death.”

  Colin whipped out a pen and a small notebook. He didn’t know shorthand, so he wrote as quickly as he could.

  “Two years later, on the anniversary of my father’s death, Nicolae led the Guardists on a sustained rampage, slaughtering political opponents and massacring Jews. It was an ironic foreshadowing of what was to come during the second great war.”

  “In nineteen forty, the Iron Guard was declared the sole legal party of the National Legionary State. Nicolae became its Vice President. The President was Ion Antonescu. He forced the king to abdicate in favor of his son, Michael, but as in all complots of betrayal and deceit, Antonescu assumed power himself. That’s when I decided to leave Romania and come here.

  “But you know what is truly ironic?” Erik said.

  Colin stopped scribbling and raised his head. “No, what, Mr. Pilarczyk?”

  “I left the fascism of the Iron Guard only to find your English Blackshirts.” Erik chuckled wryly. “Life,” he reminisced sadly, “is ironic, Colin.”

  “Yes, Mr. Pilarczyk,” Colin answered. “It is.”

  He punched Drew’s number in on his mobile.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Viktor Marinescu was Nicolae Nastase. And if Nicolae Nastase was still alive then who was the man lying in Adrienne’s cold chamber? And if Nicolae Nastase was still alive he was as old as Methuselah. What in gods name was going on?

  Drew sat alone in contemplative mood behind his desk, the silence amplifying his thoughts and spotlighting his dilemma. Colin had stunned him. If Erik Pilarczyk was to be believed then the British National Party was linked to a secret organization plotting to revive the most vicious group of the twentieth century. Even the Nazi’s would be considered moderate in comparison. And it was all happening under their very noses.

  And somehow this all tied to Jessica and the property at High Rock.

  Speculation and supposition, that’s all he had. And the evidence to substantiate any of it lay among the paperwork and files strewn across his desk. He knew it. He’d recognize it too when he saw it. Drew looked at the clock. Quarter to one.

  It was hard to believe he’d only been back one day. He’d not slept for two nights and he doubted he would get to bed any time soon. He’d sent Colin home under extreme duress, but one of them had to get some rest.

  For the best part of a day they’d been pouring over all the information at their disposal, trying to make some sense of it all, trying to create some semblance of order from the chaos, trying to fill in the blanks. They’d deduced the main players, but finding a connection to each and every one, that’s where they became stuck.

  Drew pushed himself to his feet and rubbed his eyes. He needed coffee. The vending machine was all the way down the hall, but he needed to stretch his legs and correlate the thoughts and ideas coursing with alarming disarray through his mind. He reached for his mug and headed out the door.

  His coin rattled in the machine, its sound echoing through the empty corridor as loudly as the sound of Bernard Greene’s name tumbling through his head.

  Bernard Greene had traveled frequently to Romania during nineteen eighty-seven, Colin had said and again in the early nineties. He also had extreme right-wing connections. Drew pushed the “coffee with milk” button on the machine. He retrieved the mug and took a gratifying mouthful of the brew. His mind continued to mull.

  Bernard Greene was linked to Alexander McCormack—a prominent Thatcherite with links to the BNP. In turn Alexander McCormack had a probable contact to extreme right-wing groups in Eastern Europe and most important in Romania. Why Romania? Where was the connection? He took another mouthful of coffee and then almost spit it out as Grant Wesson’s words bounced through his brain.

  You could jeopardize years of tenuous peace in the Balkans.

  Drew sprinted back to his office. He rustled through the papers on his desk and searched for the one thing that’d been niggling at him more than the rest. Eva Ricci’s file. He found it and pulled it open. Other than being Jason McCormack’s ex-wife, hired assassin and arms dealer, Eva was a
model citizen. Beautiful, philanthropic and a member of a charity group she’d notably set up herself that supplied aid to Eastern Europe.

  “What if…” Drew muttered to himself.

  He perused the invoices and travel documents showing times, dates and shipments to…Bosnia. Aid from Eva’s charity had started to arrive in Bosnia in nineteen ninety one, some seven months before the Balkan war. That was what bothered him.

  The telephone rang. Apart from Colin, no one knew he was working late.

  He answered. “Scotland Yard. Detective Inspector Mahon.”

  “Can we meet?”

  Drew recognized Jason’s curt tone immediately. “Where? When?”

  “My apartment in Kensington. I’m sure you have the address. Fifteen minutes.”

  Click.

  Drew frowned at the receiver in his hand. Jason was already back in England. Now there was something he hadn’t anticipated. And Jess? Would she back too?

  There was little traffic at one o’clock in the morning, still Drew took a little longer than fifteen minutes to reach the red-bricked Victorian mansion apartment block. He parked his car in the adjacent parking lot and walked across the light sprinkling of snow on the ground to the front entrance. The door was locked and the porter at the ground floor reception buzzed him. Drew made his way up the spiraling Victorian staircase to Jason’s apartment on the third floor.

  “I’m here,” he said as Jason moved to one side to let him in. “What’s so important that it couldn’t wait until I’d gotten some sleep?”

  “Adnan Oric?” Jason said, taking a swig from the beer bottle he held in his hand.

  Drew slowly closed the door. He’d absorbed Jason’s less than amicable mood. “Who’s Adnan Oric?”

  “A Bosnian Muslim and if all goes well in the elections in two weeks he’ll be the next Prime Minister of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. My father wants me to kill him.”

  Drew kept his cool. “Why?”

  “There’s a price to be paid to keep Jessica alive,” Jason snorted derisively.

  “And you’re willing to pay it? Jess is willing to pay it?” Drew frowned. “What am I missing here? What’s going on? Where is she?”

  Jason shook his head and pressed his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose. “She doesn’t want me, Drew.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. Don’t ask me why, but your wife is very much in love with you.”

  “Really,” Jason sneered. He raised his head. “The last time I saw her I didn’t get that impression.”

  “What do you expect?” Drew retorted. “She’s been shot. She probably just needs time to—”

  “I would give her time,” Jason ground out. “But it wasn’t that. It’s something else, something I can’t fight.”

  He sent the beer bottle hurling against the wall at the far end of the room. It shattered loudly with the force of his irritation, frustration and powerlessness.

  “What happened between you both?”

  “It’s over between us. That’s what happened,” Jason snapped. He glared at Drew. “I’m not standing in your way anymore, Detective.”

  “What? Jess doesn’t love me and she wouldn’t want you to do any of this.”

  “And you know her so well, don’t you?”

  Drew raised his eyebrows. “I told you there’s nothing between Jess and me.”

  “I know what you told me, but I’m not stupid,” Jason retorted.

  “Yes, you are,” Drew shot back. “Blind, stupid and arrogant.”

  Jason’s fist connected with his jaw and Drew reeled from the blow and stumbled backward against the door.

  “Feel better?” he spat angrily. “Why in hell would you do something this crazy if you’re convinced Jess doesn’t love you?”

  “Because despite everything, I love her. I promised her she and Jake would be safe and I’ll keep my word on that. I have to make this right.”

  “She’ll not forgive you for this.”

  Jason glanced sharply at Drew. “If you care so much about Jessica’s opinion of me, then stop me, Detective Inspector. Adnan Oric is due to appear on Bosnian television at the end of the month with his list of social and economic reforms intended to steer Bosnia toward integration with Europe. He’s not meant to make that speech. You have until March thirty-first, Drew. Save his life or I save Jessica’s.”

  “I can arrest you.”

  Jason reached for the duffel bag lying in the corner by the door. “But you won’t.”

  “You once told me you were not your father’s son,” Drew said. He put his fingers to his cut lip.

  Jason gave a half smile. “Take care of her, Drew,” he said. “And give her this.”

  Drew shook his head at the elegant iron and gold ring lying in the palm of Jason’s hand.

  “You have to give it to her yourself. You have to tell her you love her and you have to make her listen. Don’t do this, Jason. You’re a better man than your father.” But his words fell on deaf ears.

  Jason slipped the ring on pinkie. “Tell Jessica she’ll always be safe,” he said. “She’s got what she wanted. Time. Space. You. Whatever the hell it is she’s looking for.”

  “I said—”

  “See yourself out, Mahon.”

  Jason left, slamming the door behind him.

  * * * *

  Drew punched in Jess’ number on his cell phone as he hurried from Jason’s apartment block. She answered straightaway. No, she wasn’t asleep and yes, he could come over.

  “I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” he said.

  Jess pulled open the door to her flat and stared at Drew. “I’m glad you called, Drew. It’s been a while.”

  She stepped back so he could enter. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Me, too.”

  “You look tired.” She fidgeted with the neck of her pullover, fingering it unconsciously as if she was afraid he could see her scar through it.

  He chuckled softly. “Thanks.”

  “No…I mean…I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s okay, Jess. I am tired. I haven’t slept for two nights.”

  “Me, neither.”

  There was a moment’s silence. She turned and he followed her into the living room. She sat down on a chair by the small gas fire heating the room and he sat on the sofa facing the television.

  “I didn’t expect to see you again,” she said.

  The last time they’d spoken had been the day of the fire. He’d told her of Tom’s connection to Jason. He’d been an idiot. It’d only made her that more determined to find out the truth, which almost got her killed. His eyes scoured the tiny flat. Homey. His gaze caught hers once more.

  “Jason wanted me to make sure you were all right.”

  “Well, as you can see I am,” she returned lightly.

  “Are you? Really?”

  She fidgeted again with her pullover. The levity of the mood was gone. She stood again consciously distancing herself from his close scrutiny as she moved toward the window.

  “Yes, of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “I hope you know you can talk to me, Jess,” he said, following her across the room.

  “About what?”

  “Everything. Anything.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Like, why you’re here for example and not with Jason.”

  She turned to face him. “I know it’s small, but it’s comfortable,” she said. “Jake and I don’t need a huge house like Madeley to feel at home and as long as he has me he’ll want for nothing, not even a father.”

  She sighed. “Within the space of a month—four of the most hectic and emotional weeks of my life—he’s lost two fathers.”

  She turned back to gaze outside onto the quiet street below. “Sometimes it isn’t enough to love, Drew. It isn’t enough to want someone if it was never meant to be. And Jason and I were never meant to be. I should’ve never married him.”

  “Why did you?”

  “The truth?” She spun bac
k to him. Drew nodded. “There’s something I have to tell you first, Drew. Wait here.”

  She quickly left the room and returned carrying a photograph. “This is my brother…Sean Wright.” She faltered.

  “I know,” Drew admitted slowly.

  “I’m Sean’s sister,” Jess stressed.

  “I know,” Drew replied.

  “When? How do you know?”

  “The day after the fire at High Rock I went to the Public Records Office in Nassau. I needed to check out something that was bothering me at the time. Why you would choose to visit such a remote place as High Rock? I’ve been a policeman long enough to know human nature and when someone is hiding something.”

  He traced a finger along her cheek, persuading her eyes back to his. “There’s always inevitably a reason behind anyone’s action.”

  “Drew…” There was regret in her voice.

  He read the sorrow in her eyes and knew. Jason may be gone from her life, but he wasn’t gone from her heart. He smiled faintly and pushed his hands firmly into his pockets. He stepped back.

  “High Rock is an old plantation that once belonged to the McCormacks, but I guess you know that,” he said.

  “Yes, but not in the manner you think. Jason came to me—” Jess smiled to herself.

  She folded her arms across her chest and breathed in deeply. “He told me Sean had found a letter written by a man named John Thomas among his father’s papers. I didn’t understand,” she whispered. “Until that moment I’d never heard of anyone called Thomas. I had no reason to suspect the man who raised me with such love and affection was in actual fact my stepfather. In that single moment I was told my name was Jessica Thomas and not Jessica Wright and that I owned an estate in the Bahamas. It’s that letter that got Sean killed and endangered my life.”

  “I met John Thomas,” Drew replied. “Out of curiosity and a need to understand the significance of the old plantation to the McCormacks. Your true identity came as a shock to me, even more so than the fact you’d married a man whose father had killed your brother. And all that time you’d known it, too.”