by someone quite like you, I think.
Although few would recognize the
similarity."
"I am flattered. This someone, give
him the blessings of a
farmhand-priest."
Lillian smiled. She started for the
door, where Quartze's handkerchief
fluttered a tattoo in front of his
agitated face and the sounds of mucus
still could be heard beyond his
aquiline nose and very thin lips. The
prelate sidestepped to let her pass,
doing his best to ignore her. So
Lillian paused briefly, forcing him to
look at her. When he did so, she
winked.
As she closed the door the words from
Pope Francesco were clear and firm.
For in his anger, the pontiff raised
his voice, in English.
"Talk to me not of the Sistine,
Ignatiot Instead, discuss these plans
I requested for your waterfront home
at Sam Vincentet What are 'security
arrangements'P They include a steam
bath)"
Hawkins had reserved both seats in
the first-class section of the
Lufthansa 747. Since he needed elbow
room, there was no point in
inconveniencing a fellow passenger.
This way, he was able to place file
folders beside him for quick
referrals.
He had specifically chosen the night
flight to Zurich. The travelers, by
and large, would be diplomats, bankers
or corporate executives used to
transatlantic flights; they 192
-
would use the night for sleep, not
socializing. He would have a minimum
of interruptions.
For selections would have to be
made, offers of recruitment dispatched
immediately from Zurich.
MacKenzie's briefcase contained
assorted personnel profles from which
he would choose his troops. They were
the last of the files he had Xeroxed
at the G-2 archives. Those fortunate
enough to be chosen would be his bri-
gade; his personal army that would be
privileged to engage, in the most
unusual maneuver in modern military
history.
And each soldier would return from
the engagement one of the richest men
in his pelt of the world.
For, where possible, they would be
from separate parts of the world. For
the inviolate condition of recruitment
was that none would ever acknowledge
the existence of the others once the
engagement was completed. It would be
better if they came from different
places.
The dossiers in the Hawk's briefcase
were those of the most accomplished
double and triple agents in the U.S.
Army data banks. And there was a
common denominator running through
each file: All were in forced retire-
ment.
The state of double and triple
agenting was at a low ebb. The experts
described in the dossiers had not had
really gainful employment - for some
time, and for such men inactivity was
anathema. It meant not only a loss of
prestige within the community of
international criminals, but also a
reduced scale of living.
The prospects of $500,000 per man
would not be lightly dismissed. And
each potential recruit was worth it.
Each was the best at his specialty.
It was all a question of logistics.
Think then outthink. Every function
handled by an expert, every move timed
to the split second.
And that required a commander who
demanded flawless precision from his
troops. Who trained them to perform at
peak efficiency levels. Who did not
stint when it came to equipment and
simulation; who would duplicate as far
as technically possible the exact
conditions projected for the 193
.
i
assault. In essence a general officer
the first rank. Himself. Goddamni
Once the brigade was selected and
assembled, Mac would outline the basic
strategy. Then he would allow his
officers to offer suggestions and
refinements. A good commander always
listened to his subordinate officers
but, of course, reserved final
judgment for himself.
The weeks of training would show
where the strengths and weaknesses
lay; the objective was merely to
eliminate all weakness.
The fewer troops the better, but not
so few as to impair the efficiency of
the mission. Which was why there was
only one payment for each soldier:
$500,000. There would be no rewards if
they were caught. At least, not the
kind they were after. There would be
certain family allotments in the case
of capture. It was the sort of thing
all armies had learned to take for
granted. Men performed better under
combat conditions if their minds were
free of concern about their families.
It was a good thing, too. It was
another proof of separation between
the species.
The Shepherd Company would bank
funds for denendents in advance of
Ground Zero; to be deducted, of
course, from all final payments upon
the successful completion of the
operation.
Goddamn! He was not only pro, he was
a very "borough pro at that! If those
idiots in the Pentagon had turned over
the whole U. S. Army to him, they
would not be having all that trouble
with volunteer enlistments. The
Pentagon pricky-shits did not really
understand "the book." If a soldier
took the book for what it was and
didn't try to bend it politically, or
find ambiguities to hide behind well,
it was a goddamned good book. Flawed
but workable.
He had no time to think about
pricky-shits. He had about refined his
brigade. The required areas of
expertise were seven: camouflage,
demolition, sedative medicines, native
orientation, aircraft technology,
escape cartography, and electronics.
Seven experts. He had narrowed the
dossiers down to twelve. Before he
reached Zurich he knew he would have
the seven. It was just a question of
reading and rereading. He would send
out his offers from Zurich, not from
the 194
Chateau Machenfeld, nothing could be
traced to Machenfeld. He even had to
be careful in Zurich. Not with regard
to traces, however, he could handle
that problem. But he had to make damn
sure he didn't run into Sam Devereaux.
Sam was due within hours of his own
arrival, he wasn't ready for Sam's
kind of pan
ic. He could handle that
problem better within the confines of
Machenfeld.
But then, thought the Hawk, he
didn't really have anything to worry
about. Devereaux was the girl's prob-
lem and they had each and every
one carried out their assignments with
real know-how.
Goddamn! They were splendid! A man
had to count himself fortunate,
indeed, to have such a quartet of fine
women behind him. "Behind every great
man..." they said. Behind him there
wasn't one fine lass, there were four.
And a grander, more upstanding group
of girls there never were! Sam was a
lucky fellow and he didn't know it.
Hawkins made a mental note to tell him
when he saw Sam at Machenfeld.
Tomorrow, if the schedule held
Devereaux walked down the station
platform looking for the correctly
numbered railway car. The task was
made difficult because he could not
stop belching. He had eaten his way
from Tizi-whatever-the-hell-it-was,
through Algiers, past Rome, into
Zurich. Madge had seen him off at Dar
el Beida airport admitting no more
during their good-byes than she had
saying hello in the Aletti Hotel room.
But Sam had made up his mind not to
speculate any further about the girls.
Whatever propelled them to do what
they did for the Hawk could be left to
KrafEt-Ebing; he had other things to
concentrate on.
The capitalization of forty million
dollars was committed. Hawkins now had
his marbles (no, he did not have his
marbles, but that was another
question), and he would start playing
the game. The-Hawk would begin his
final arrangements, make his
purchases, recruit his what was
its "support personnel."
Jesus! Support personnel!
195
So he could kidnap the popel
Oh, my God! The whole world was an
enormous fruitcake!
There was only one thing to bear in
mind, one objective to keep in focus:
How to stop MacKenzie Hawkins.
Two objectives: Stay out of jail
himself. And out of the homicidal
clutches of the Mafia, the Peerage,
the Nazis and particularly those Arabs
who wanted to stuff his unmentionables
into unspeakables.
He found his compartment, the sort
made famous by Rex Harrison and
Margaret Lockwood. Shadows and black
velvet collars and the incessant
therumping of the metal wheels against
the metal tracks below signifying the
inevitable approach of terror. And
large windows on the sliding doors,
with curtains suddenly drawn back
revealing the faces of evil.
Night Train, Orient Express with
slow dissolves to hands inching into
folds of dark overcoats, ever so
slowly withdrawing the black steel of
murderous pistols. The train started.
~
"Well, Ah declare! Ah said to
myself, Ah simply don't heleeve it!
It's the mayor! Right here in li'l ole
Zurich!"
There was no reason to be the least
astonished. After all, Titan*s was on
schedule.
Regina Sommerville Hawkins Clark
Madison Greenberg stood in the
corridor outside the railroad
compartment and spoke through the
wood-framed window. She slid the door
open and filled the small enclosure
with remembrances of magnolia
blossoms. Sam sat down calmly by the
window, amazed at his own casualness.
"Your timing's nothing short of
brilliant. The train rolls and so do
you. If I tried to get off at Lucerne
I have an idea you'd start screaming
'rape!' "
"Why, what a peculiar thing to say.
I hope you haven't forgotten the
Beverly Hills Hotel; I never will."
"My memories have no beginnings, no
middles, no ends. The world fornicates
in a thousand broken mirrors; we abuse
ourselves in the reflections of Sodom
and Gomorrah....
"Now, tell me why you just happen to
be in Zurich. At
196
i
i
the Hauptbahnhof, on this particular
train, in this particular car.'
"Oh, that's easy. Manny's shooting a
picture in Geneva. For UA. I think
it's so porn they had to make it
outside the States."
"That's Geneva; this is Zurich. You
can do better than that. Let's have it
for Hawkins's Harem. A little imagina-
tion, please."
"Honestly! Now you're downright
offensive!" Regina swept her vicuna
back and placed her hands defiantly on
her hips. Two cannons had Devereaux in
their sights. "I don't think you've
got a damn thing to complain about. We
root ourselves up out of very
comfortable circumstances; traipse all
over the world, subject ourselves to
every kind of inconvenience~rush,
rush, rush~heck on everything look
after you, body and soul make sure no
one hurts you see to your every
comfort . Oh, Lawdy, what more could
we do?! And for what? Abuse! Just
plain, big ale abuse!"
Regina dropped her defiant pose and
began to cry. She opened her purse,
withdrew a Kleenex, and sat down
opposite Sam, dabbing her eyes.
A lost, hurt little girl.
"Hey, come on. That's not fair."
As are most men, Sam was helpless
before a tearful woman.
Regina sobbed; her chest throbbed.
Devereaux got out of his seat and
knelt in front of her. "It's okay.
It's all right. Don't cry, please."
Between subsiding gasps, the girl
looked at him gratefully. "Then you
don't hate me? Say you don't hate me."
"How could I hate you? You're
lovely and sweet and for Christ's
sake, please stop crying."
She put her face next to his and her
lips against his ear. "I'm sorry. It's
just that I'm exhausted. The
pressure's been simply God-awful. I've
stayed by the telephone night and day,
always worryin' and, of course,
wonderin'. I really missed you."
Ginny's coat was like a warm,
comforting blanket between them. The
huge, soft lapels came close to
enveloping 197
Devereaux's arms. She took both his
hands and guided them between the Aids
of thick fabric and placed them on the
softer, warmer, more comforting swells
of loveliness that were beneath the
silk of her blouse.
"That's better. Stop crying now." It
was all he could think to say, so he
said it softly.
She whispered into his ear, causing
all kinds of things to happen to his
metabolism. "Do you remember those
marvelous old English movies that took
place on trains like this?"
"Sure. Rex Harrison saving Margaret
Lockwood from the evil Conrad Veidt "
"I think you can slide the door
closed and lock it. And there are
curtains...."
Devereaux rose from the floor. He
locked the door, closed the curtains,
then turned back to Regina. She had
removed her vicuna coat and spread it
invitingly over the soft seat of the
railroad compartment.
Beneath them the therumping sounds
of the metal against metal signified
the inexorable journey, the beat
somehow sensual. Outside, the lovely
countryside of Switzerland whipped by,
bathed in a Swiss twilight.
"How much time do we have before we
reach Zermatt?" he asked.
"Enough," she replied, smiling. She
began unbuttoning her silk blouse.
"And we'll know. It's the last stop."
198
CHAPTER EIGHI`EE~
Hawkins registered at Zurich's Hotel
D'Accordwith a counterfeit passport.
He'd purchased it in Washington from
a CIA agent who realized the courts
would not let him write a book when he
retired; the man also offered a
selection of wigs and hidden cameras
but MacKenzie demurred. On settling
into the room, his first act was to go
right down to the lobby again and
negotiate with the head switchboard
operator: cash for cooperation. Since
the cash was one hundred dollars, it
was agreed that all his calls and
cablegrams would be routed through her
board.
He returned to the room and spread
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