Savich said, "Do you wish to tell Mr. Dieffendorf who you've been working with? No? It was Claude Renard, the CEO of Laboratoires Ancondor, the man whose company has profited so handsomely from the skyrocketing sales of the cancer drug Eloxium, since you arranged for the shortage of Culovort to begin."
Savich pulled a photo out of his briefcase. "This was just sent to me by the Frankfurt police." He turned the full-color photo faceup.
It was Laytha Guerling Gerlach, seated behind a young man on a motorcycle. Her arms were wrapped tightly around his waist, her long blond hair blowing wildly about her head. She was smiling.
"I'm sure you recognize your wife. The man is Rupert Snelling, your wife's lover since before you met her."
All the color drained from Gerlach's face. "No," he whispered. He reached out toward the photo, then slowly pulled his hand back. "No, that can't be true."
"Believe it, Mr. Gerlach." Savich picked up the photo and held it out to face Gerlach. "This photo was taken yesterday morning. How much of the immense profits is Renard siphoning off to you, Mr. Gerlach? We know Caskie Royal had over four hundred thousand dollars in an offshore account. Who recruited him? Renard? You?"
Dieffendorf roared out of his chair, knocking it backward. "You traitor! You mewling fool! I trusted you, I was even a bit envious of you when Laytha wanted to marry you!" He grabbed Gerlach by his collar and jerked him forward. He shook him like a rat.
Sherlock took his arm. "Mr. Dieffendorf, you really don't want to kill him in front of three FBI agents. Let him go, sir, let him go."
"You betrayed me!" He shook him one final time and dropped him. It was only luck that Gerlach fell back into his chair. He swallowed, but remained silent.
Savich continued. "You and Mr. Renard have been very careful with your wire transfers. It will prove very difficult to track down those transactions, but your wife, Laytha, was not nearly so careful. She and Renard have a joint bank account, Mr. Gerlach. Someone has been making regular large deposits into this account. I've been working with the German authorities for the past day tracking their source in France."
Gerlach raised dead eyes to Dieffendorf. "Not Laytha, not Laytha. She loves me." He put his head between his arms on the table and wept. His sobs were the only sound in the conference room until Dieffendorf yelled, "You idiot, I remember when you met her! I'll wager her name isn't even real, you old fool!" He whirled around to Savich. "Am I right? What is the woman's real name?"
"Gerda Wallenbach."
"Yes, yes, you see? I knew she was too good to be true, you bloody blind sot!"
Gerlach never raised his head. His voice was liquid with tears. "She played tennis, her education was paid for by a rich old aunt. She was refined, she adored Wagner! I loved her!"
Dieffendorf hit his shoulder. "And she demanded what? Clothes, shoes, trips? You couldn't afford all her demands, and you were afraid she'd leave you? You probably saw Renard as your savior, with enough money to convince your precious young wife to stay with you.
"It's not like you weren't paid a princely salary by Schiffer Hartwin," Dieffendorf said. "Given the bonuses, you are rich, do you hear me? Rich! You've worked by my side for years now, moving up in the company just as I've moved up, to garner great responsibility. Did your loyalty to the company, your loyalty to me, mean nothing to you? Damn you, how long did it take her to talk you into it?"
Savich waited a moment, then said, "Your wife spent at least two hundred thousand dollars in the first month you were married, Mr. Gerlach. I have copies of bills from travel agencies, jewelry stores, fashion houses. Did you see financial ruin coming?"
Gerlach's head snapped up. He shouted, "None of this is true! It's all lies! It was Caskie Royal's doing, all of it." He strained to look up at Dieffendorf's furious face. "That is why I sent Kesselring here, to find out the truth. That is why there are phone calls between us. I had no idea you had also sent Blauvelt for the same purpose. I did not know!"
Dieffendorf shouted down at Gerlach, "When all's said and done, the truth is, you're a greedy little bastard who has to wear two-inch lifts in your shoes! I'll bet you couldn't wait to sign on with Renard. You know what? I can see your precious Laytha and her boyfriend laughing about what a preening little cock you are!"
Dieffendorf frowned down at him, then said slowly, "No, wait. No one held a gun to your head, did they, Werner? Not Laytha, not Renard. You wanted all that money for yourself, didn't you? How much was Renard paying you?"
Gerlach didn't answer. He was crying.
65
WASHINGTON MEMORIAL HOSPITAL
Sunday evening
"I would like to speak to the vice president alone, Agent Jarvis. Would you and Agent Paul wait just outside, please?"
"I'm sorry, sir, but you know we can't leave the vice president alone."
"Come, Jarvis, I've known him since we were very young men. It's a personal matter that is rather urgent. I need only five minutes."
Alex Valenti opened his eyes and his mouth widened just a bit in a smile. His voice was hoarse when he whispered, "It's all right, Agent Jarvis, I'm sure the man has already been frisked like a criminal. You can stay right outside the glass door."
Agent Jarvis continued to look uncertain, but he finally nodded. "Very well, since it's important. Senator Hoffman, the vice president is very weak, so please keep it short, all right? Press the call button if you need anything." He gave Hoffman a quick nod. "Thank you, sir."
"This won't take long, I promise," Senator Hoffman said, and watched Jarvis leave, closing the glass door quietly behind him. He looked down at a nearly motionless Alex Valenti, a man he'd known for-how many years was it now? Forty? He said, "I tried to see you earlier, but was told only family was allowed. I'm glad I could see you this evening."
Valenti's voice was hoarse when he whispered, "Dave, it's good to see you. They finally took that damned tube out of my nose, what a relief."
"Your voice sounds harsh. Is your throat sore?"
"A bit, along with everything else. Since I nearly bought the big one, I'll accept a sore throat without complaint. I'm pleased they let you in. The doctors are trying to make me bore myself to death. Even in the miserable shape I'm in, I can't sleep all the time."
"No, they want you to heal. They want to get full credit for saving you. No relapses allowed. I heard your wife and family were dancing around the halls when the doctors told them you're going to make a full recovery."
"They did indeed. Elyssa was grinning so big I could see her back molars. She wouldn't stop kissing my ear. She told me the waiting room was overflowing with family and friends. I didn't feel much like talking, but I told her I didn't deserve all the attention, and she had the gall to agree.
"I'm sorry about the Brabus, Dave. It was a beautiful machine, and now it's junk."
"Maybe you'll be the first vice president to get a year-end bonus for actually making headlines. Then you can buy me a new one."
Valenti gave a small laugh, barely a sound really, but he immediately regretted it. He pressed the morphine button, waited a minute until he could handle the slowly ebbing flow of pain. "Can you imagine the public outcry? Year-end bonus. That's funny, Dave. You're here one minute and already I'm laughing. It hurts."
"You survived, that's the only important thing. I spoke to Dr. Myller. He called you amazing, the force of your spirit, your will to live. He told me he wished all his patients had your strength, mentally and physically."
Hoffman fell silent, seeing the furrow of pain on Valenti's forehead. He watched him push the morphine button again, but it was far too soon for more of the drug to be delivered, and he had to wait, his eyes closed, for his last dose to kick in.
"Thanks for telling me that," Valenti said after a couple of minutes. "Sometimes the pain seems to spike. I'm okay now. The pain gets me every once in a while.
"
"Would you rather never have awakened?"
"I suppose if I'd died I wouldn't know any different, so the question is really irrelevant, isn't it? No, I'm glad I'm here and breathing even though my insides feel like they're on a death march. Agent Savich was here to tell me it wasn't an accident, which I already knew in my gut. He said someone sabotaged the steering linkage, set it to blow out. He said I didn't stand a chance. I've thought about who would want to kill me, Dave, but I was forced to admit that no one hates me enough to kill me in such a convoluted way. I mean, who would want to knock off a vice president? We're about as necessary as roll bars on a Volvo."
Hoffman laughed, couldn't help it.
Valenti waggled his eyebrows. "At least as a governor I was always busy-places to go, legislation to get through, enemies to make. It doesn't make much sense that someone would try to kill me now."
Hoffman looked toward the lovely big window with its view of the National Mall in the distance. He said over his shoulder, "Nikki came to me recently. Of course I didn't realize it was her, but there she was, nearly every night around midnight, in front of my bedroom window."
Hoffman heard Valenti suck in his breath. Was it pain or astonishment at what he'd so casually said about his wife?
"Truth be told," Hoffman continued after a moment, "I believed it was a trick, I believed it was my sons, the worthless little sods, trying to drive their old man over the edge to get their hands on my money. I realized quickly enough that neither Aiden nor Benson has the imagination or the guts to pull off a stunt like that."
Valenti said quietly from behind him, "Nikki's been dead over three years, Dave. We both were with her at the end. We both held her hands. What are you saying? You really believe her ghost visited you?"
"Yes, you were there, weren't you, holding her hand? Did you know Agent Dillon Savich has a special gift, that he claims she spoke to him?"
"No, I didn't know. I do know President Holley thinks he's very bright, very intuitive. Now you're telling me he's a psychic?"
Hoffman waved his hand as he turned away from the window and walked back to Valenti's bedside. He said as he straightened the glass of water and the small cup of ice chips on the wooden arm, "Apparently. Who really knows?" He picked up the glass. "Do you want to drink some water, Alex?"
"No, not right now. To be honest, I don't think I could swallow it at the moment."
Hoffman set the glass back down. "Later then. Savich and his wife, Agent Sherlock, spent an evening at my house, and the next day Savich told me Nikki came to him to beg him to save me from some sort of trouble."
"What kind of trouble are you in? What is all this about?"
Hoffman laughed again. "You don't need to worry about me, Alex. You see, I'm quite sure it wasn't me Nikki was trying to save, it was you she was trying to protect, even after her death."
Valenti spoke, his voice barely above a whisper, but the shock was clear in his voice. "What? What did you say? Is this another one of your jokes, Dave?"
"No, I'm not joking. Do you know how long I've hated you?"
"Hated me? Dave, are you all right? What's going on here?" He glanced toward Agent Jarvis through the glass door, saw he was speaking with another agent, both of them looking directly back at him.
Hoffman leaned close. "Take yourself back, Alex, to when Nikki and I met at Stanford. She told me all about you, how you'd been her high school sweetheart, how you'd sworn your teenage undying love, but then you went off to Harvard, and Romeo and Juliet were separated. She laughed about it, but I wasn't fooled. She was still in love with you. Why did you leave her?"
Valenti said quietly, "It was a very long time ago, so long ago I can't even remember exactly how my father convinced me. He always had his ways to gain my obedience, you know that. You've locked horns with him a couple of times yourself over the years. Why do you care now? It's utterly unimportant, has been for years. Why do you hate me?"
"Because when the two of you met up again-Nikki and I had been married only six months-it started all over again. You started sleeping with her, Alex. Did you think you could divorce Elyssa and that I would divorce Nikki so you two could ride off into the sunset?
"Not going to answer that, are you? I don't blame you. When you and I held her hands as she was dying, I knew she wished she could have spent her life with you, not me. At her last breath, her last instant of life, it was you she looked at, Alex, not me."
Valenti stared up at the man he'd tried to protect from this for so many years, but he knew after all, he'd always known. It had been years ago when he and Nikki had decided to keep their families together, and he'd hurt so deeply he didn't believe he would ever stop regretting that this man was her husband and not him, that her name was Hoffman, not Valenti.
But the years passed, and the despair lessened, and what took its place was an abiding love for his own wife and his magnificent children. Now he was a grandfather, and he knew he was loved-Elyssa had danced when they said he was going to live. There was only Elyssa now, he thought, and he felt the power of his feelings for her press deep. He couldn't remember when she'd become the most important person in his life. He wondered what would have happened if he had left with Nikki all those years ago when their passion seemed the only worthwhile emotion in life, when giving in to what they felt seemed the only right thing to do? How long had that pain lasted? Valenti couldn't remember now. Nor could Nikki. They'd spoken of it when she knew her death was close, and they'd even laughed a bit about their star-crossed passion that had faded, of course, through the years. "Youth," she'd said, "youth is a wonderful dream that doesn't last. What is vital in youth doesn't stay as important as we get older, now does it?"
Then David had come into the hospital room and she'd died a few minutes later, with both of the men who'd loved her holding her hands.
What had Dave said? Something about how Nikki had looked at him, Alex, when she'd died and not at Dave?
"No," he said, "I remember clearly it was you Nikki was looking at the moment she died. She whispered good-bye to you with her last breath."
Hoffman sneered. "You have a convenient memory, Alex. How much does Elyssa know of your feelings for my wife?"
Valenti felt a great grief settle over him, a heavy grief because he knew it was Elyssa's grief and David's grief as well. They'd both known, they'd both watched, both waited. He said slowly, "At the beginning, all those years ago, Nikki and I decided to keep our families together. How can you believe Nikki wouldn't do that? She was filled with honor, with goodness.
"When she became ill, Nikki told me she'd come to love you more than she'd ever loved me, because your love for each other was real, not an old fantasy."
"You're a liar!" Hoffman straightened and nodded over to the Secret Service agents who were watching him.
Valenti said slowly, "Why do you think I would lie about that?"
"Because she told me, damn you to hell! I don't think she planned to, but she was weak and confused, even delirious near the end. She told me Aiden is yours, not mine. Nikki married me only because she couldn't have you. You'd already married Elyssa, but did that matter? Oh, no, she still had to have your child!"
Valenti slowly shook his head back and forth on the hard pillow. "No, no, that's impossible."
"You slept with her in high school, didn't you? Did you meet during college as well?"
"Back then we all slept with each other, you know that, Dave. Sex was as common as eating and sleeping, it was simple recreation. Surely you slept with college girls before you met Nikki? Before you married?"
"Yes, but you and Nikki, it was more between the two of you! Aiden was born a year and a half after Nikki and I were married. I've done the blood tests, Alex, I know for a fact I'm not his father. You are."
66
He saw the instant Valenti believed him, accepted
it. The honorable, forthright man he liked to think he was had a bastard son. Valenti said slowly, "I didn't know, never even guessed. You believe I'm lying to you? You think Nikki told me and I decided to ignore it? Well, she didn't, never even hinted, never said a word, even during that brief time we wanted to go away together.
"My God, David, I've always thought Aiden looked like you."
"You know what, you bastard? Nikki did come to love me, I knew it, and so I didn't punish her by forcing you out of our lives. I allowed all of us to become such close friends, your children and mine, like cousins. Two big loving families, and the Richardses too, all the boys playing together. I remember watching them and thanking the Lord they were my sons, mine and Nikki's, together. But of course they weren't. It was a fantasy.
"When she went into the hospital for the last time, I finally believed she loved me. But then there you were not even three days later, sitting beside her, stroking your hands through her hair, what was left of it, whispering to her."
David Hoffman stared down at him, wondered in that moment if he hated Valenti more than he'd loved his wife.
He gave a low laugh, one filled with pain at the sharp memory of her death. "You know what, Alex? When she came back, Savich believed she was trying to protect me, but it was you, always you. Even beyond death, she was trying to protect you, from me. I always came in second. I hated it. But then she spoke to Savich, and gave me a gift, an opportunity, so fitting, so perfect, it was too good to let pass. That's when I decided what I was going to do."
Valenti looked into his friend's eyes, but he simply couldn't accept it. "Are you telling me you sabotaged your own car? That you tried to kill me?"
David Hoffman slowly rose. "Ah, you're looking at me like I'm a monster, Alex. If only you'd died when the Brabus hit that oak tree. I would have given one of the most eloquent eulogies at your lavish funeral, reminded all the mourners of what a wonderful family man you were. And I would have been thanking Nikki for making it all possible. Unfortunately, you survived. I've lost to you yet again."
The FBI Thrillers Collection: Vol 11-15 Page 130