Bannerman's Promise

by John R. Maxim

  But it was not.

  He opened it a crack and listened. Still no sound. No snoring from the bedroom. Only the ticking of a clock and the cloying smell that the homes of single women always seem to have. He opened it further and froze again. He was about to shine his light when something, it sounded like chunks of broken glass, clattered off the tilted door. A rat chose this moment to scream again and another caused a bottle to tip over and roll.

  He eased the door closed and stood, not moving. It crossed his mind that the broken glass might be some sort of booby trap, some warning device, but he knew that this was probably nonsense. More likely, Carla Benedict was as poor a housekeeper above as she was below. And if ever there was proof that no one was home, all that racket provided it. Borovik would have to be satisfied.

  He switched the penlight on again, marking a path back through the boathouse with its beam. It picked up several pairs of glowing eyes. Two of the rats paused, briefly, and then scurried toward the launching well where he saw them leap the several inches into the hanging motorboat. More squealing broke out. Rats thumping against the hull. He wondered what had attracted them to that boat.

  He swung the beam and saw it. A carpet, rolled up loosely. At the bow end he saw what seemed to be a defeated rat. Its face was bleeding. It was licking its paws. Now he saw movement inside the carpet.

  The Sicilian's stomach tightened. Two things were possible. Either the rats were nesting in that boat or he now understood why Aldo Corsini had not reported, why his car was not there.

  The fool had killed another woman.

  A part of him wanted to leave at once, get to his transmitter, make his call. But he had to be certain. He hurried down the iron staircase and picked up a centerboard that was leaning against a wall near the Sunfish. With it, he stepped to the edge of the launching well and began beating the carpet. Four, then six rats emerged and scattered, leaping over the gunwales and plopping heavily to the concrete before vanishing into the darkness.

  Satisfied that none were left, he reached into the opening at the bow end and felt the unmistakable shape of a skull. It was wet and torn. He found the end of the carpet and, with effort, began unrolling it, wiping his hand clean in the process. When only one thickness was left, he pulled it down far enough to reveal a face and he fumbled for his penlight again.

  He had little doubt of what he would see. This scene was familiar to him. In his mind he saw a picture of Corsini's dead wife, wrapped tightly in a sheet, flames lapping all around her bed. He saw that other woman, the fashion model from Milan, weighted with a sack of canned goods and dropped over the side of his boat off the Corsican coast. He saw that Carla Benedict, like those two, had somehow caused Corsini to forget himself.

  Cursing Aldo once more, he switched on the light.

  The Sicilian gasped. In surprise, not horror.

  He had been wrong.

  The face, badly gnawed, both eyes gone, was not that of Carla Benedict. It was Corsini himself. He covered it again. Breathing heavily, struggling against the swaying boat, he rolled the carpet once more.

  His face burning, he made his way out of the boathouse and toward the small marina where he had left his car. He needed to clear his head. To think.

  What could this mean?

  His first thought, as before, was that Corsini had lost control again. A wrong word was said, some imagined insult, and he had hit her. The sickness of Corsini was that once this began, he could not seem to stop it. But this time the woman he hit was not a whining wife who had grown up rich and spoiled. It was not a preening model from Milan. This was Carla Benedict, who had probably killed twenty to his two.

  But he had another thought.

  Carla had discovered him. Or she knew from the beginning.

  This would not have surprised the Sicilian. He thought from the beginning that this would never work. This was Carla Benedict, he had argued, not some schoolgirl, not some unfulfilled housewife in search of a romantic fling. Has she stayed alive so long, he asked, by trusting a man just because he takes her sailing in the moonlight?

  Perhaps, thought the Sicilian, he should go back and examine the body more closely. See how he died.

  Had she questioned him first? Coring one eye socket to get him in a talking mood? That was what the Sicilian might have done. And then ended it with one quick thrust at the base of the skull.

  Both of Aldo's eyes were gone, but that must have been the work of the rats. Cuts by Carla would have been clean, practiced, professional. No use going back. With a flashlight, without a pathologist, it would be impossible to tell how long she might have worked on him.

  And whether she had help.

  The Sicilian considered this.

  In his mind, he tried to envision how Carla could have wrapped Corsini in a carpet and lifted him into that boat by herself.¯Would she have the strength? Perhaps. She is small, but she is wiry. He could not imagine who she might have called upon for help in any case. Possibly one of Bannerman's people who are now working for the Bruggs. But if one thing is known about Carla Benedict, it is that she is very independent. She almost always works alone.

  Yes, he decided. It could have been done. Dragging him to the trapdoor would not be so difficult. Squeezing him down that winding staircase would have taken some effort, but in that case she was assisted by gravity. From there it was not far to the launching well. She would have lowered the boat to just below the edge and rolled him into it.

  But the point of doing so, he assumed, was to dispose of Aldo out on the lake. Why, therefore, had she not seen it through? Where had she gone? If she had decided at last to get help, perhaps to enlist the Bruggs, tell them of Aldo's interest in the Russia visit, she could have done all that by telephone.

  He could think of only one other possibility. If Corsini had named names, including the Sicilian's, she might now be out looking for him.

  A second alternative flitted across his mind. She had gone after Borovik himself. He knew that this was ridiculous. Inspired, no doubt, by Carla Benedict's reputation for extravagant behavior. Getting Borovik's name from Aldo was one thing. Getting at him was another. You don't just climb on a plane and say take me to Moscow.

  Yes.

  An intelligent move would be to sever Aldo's one communications link with any support that might be available to him. Even now, she might be waiting for him outside the house where he had taken rooms. The Sicilian was sorely tempted to go back there. She might have gotten Aldo to describe him to her, but she would not know him on sight. He had that advantage. He could finish her first. Be able to report that he had nipped this in the bud.

  A better way, he reflected, might be to stay right here. She would surely come back well before sunrise in order to dispose of Aldo. She would not expect him. The Sicilian wet his lips. To be the man who took out Carla Benedict, one against one, would raise his stock considerably.

  He knew that he should ask Podolsk first. But Podolsk would say hands off. Get out of Zurich now. Go back to Genoa, lie low. We don't need problems with Mama's Boy.

  So, no use asking Podolsk.

  The Sicilian's excuse would be that he could not risk reporting to Podolsk on an open line and that his instructions, in any case, were to report directly to Borovik.

  He took the communicator from his belt and stepped out under open sky. Extending the antenna, he tapped out a series of digits and followed them with Borovik's designator. He waited. From Ostankino, an answering code blinked across his readout. Cleared to send.

  The Sicilian hesitated. There were only so many prearranged signals.

  Corsini was barca. cat meant dead. Carla Benedict was blade, blue meant am terminating. This last, strictly speaking, referred to operations and not to avenging Aldo. He would do his best to make his meaning clear. Mix in a few words for which there were no codes. Doing so would surely make Podolsk angry.

  But maybe not Borovik.

  All Borovik would care about was that he made her suffer.

&
nbsp; 34

  Yuri knew that he must clear his head.

  Too many distracting images.

  Booby traps with nerve gas. Innocent victims. Vengeance. Decapitation. Add to these the knowledge that he had probably said too much. But there was no help for that now. The immediate need was to get rid of a body.

  He had driven, with Lydia, over the Quay Bridge where Carla told of feeding swans with Aldo. He turned south, down through the necklace of lights that bordered Lake Zurich. Just a few kilometers further, where the lights began to thin, was Carla's boathouse. Time to be alert.

  Innocent victims. The phrase pushed through again.

  Not only the two girls on the motorcycle. Not only the ambulance crew. There were Russian victims as well. The file on the late Colonel Borovik said that there had been confessions and executions. It noted that their legitimacy was doubtful. And yet the investigation had been closed.

  It had been closed, he felt certain, because they knew perfectly well who had done it. Mama's Boy would have left no room for doubt. Hit me, I hit back. Twice as hard, twice as terribly, and where you least expect it. Yuri could only suppose that someone high in the KGB had decided to cut his losses. Or to mollify the surviving Borovik by sacrificing a few more Russians.

  Those who were executed were certainly scapegoats, dying to protect KGB interests. And perhaps to avoid a diplomatic confrontation with Finland. Yuri hoped that they were not so innocent. Criminals, at least. Rapists and murderers. But it was just as likely, he knew, that one of them had an apartment that some party official coveted.

  No wonder General Belkin is ashamed.

  Most distracting of all, in its way, was this business offirebombing KGB headquarters in Leningrad. It was done,

  according to Mama's Boy, not as additional retribution but as a statement of architectural criticism. At first, Yuri felt sure that his leg was being pulled. But no. Bannerman was quite clear. John Waldo had decided that the building was ugly. · . This was completely insane.

  I mean, thought Yuri, here is John Waldo, at that time surely one of the three most hunted men in all of Eastern Europe—not Russia, because no one would have imagined that he would linger in the Soviet Union—and he tosses a bomb made of petrol and rubber cement—very hot, hard to put out—through the front door of Number 4 Liteiny Prospekt.

  You want to know who thinks this is not so crazy? You need to guess? The answer is Lydia. Lydia listens to this story and you know what she says?

  She says, “It is ugly.”

  She does not say that he does this, perhaps, to lay a false trail, to sow confusion. She says that this building—they call it the Big House—is totally out of place among the fine czarist pastel-colored houses of Liteiny Prospekt and all of Leningrad for that matter. In this whole museum city, she says, it is the one building that the citizens of Leningrad would permit to be torn down. Not because of KGB. Not because of unpleasant associations. Plenty of buildings have bad memories. It's only because it's so ugly. Too bad, she says, about those who died from the smoke. But also too bad that the fire was extinguished.

  Lydia and John Waldo. A match made in heaven.

  He forced the subject from his mind. He was sorry that he mentioned it to Lydia. He was talking entirely too much this evening.

  His most serious lapse has been with Mama's Boy. Where this Borovik was concerned, the cat was definitely out of the bag.

  Although Bannerman had not let on that he knew, probably out of politeness, it had perhaps taken him thirty seconds to realize that the colonel he had kidnapped in East Germany, whose brother he had subsequently decapitated, was the same man who was now running Aldo Corsini's network.

  Very stupid, thought Yuri. No excuse for it. Certainly none that will satisfy General Belkin. The only mitigation is that Bannerman can do little for the next seven hours except sit on an airplane. By the time he arrives in Zurich, Yuri will have spoken to General Belkin and made a very strong suggestion that he get out of Moscow immediately.

  Come back to Bern. Begin building names into computer. We now have General Vadim Y. Borovik and most of his European network except for two or three names that Yuri had been unable to retain when he memorized them. No matter. Lydia will probably give him another look if he can manage to keep her moods on an even keel. After that, it is only a matter of finding dossiers to match the names. And then interrogating a few. Soon we will have all the names we need.

  Better yet, forget the Zurich program. Go to.the Chairman with names and evidence. Go to CNN for that matter. New York Times.

  But he knew that General Belkin would do neither of these. We don't hang out our laundry, he would say. Nor do we go to the Chairman, or to the KGB chief of investigations. The cockroaches would only scurry out of sight and the goon, Borovik, will have conveniently thrown himself out of his apartment window.

  This would surprise anyone? Five days after the Gorbachev coup, party treasurer Nikolai Kruchina does precisely that. Jumps or is pushed. A few weeks later you look up and here comes his predecessor, Georgi Pavlov. Meanwhile, most of Soviet Union's gold is missing. Next comes Dmitri Lisovolik, chief of the party's International Department, after investigators find 600,000 American dollars in his office safe. Got so people would only walk in middle of street.

  Carla's boathouse was just ahead.

  He knew that it would be in darkness. It was set in a grove of trees some thirty meters in from the road. The house was equipped with floodlights that were activated by a motion detector, but he had pulled the plug before he left. He would have motions of his own which he didn't need detected. It also helped that there was not much moon. And a haze floated over the lake. A small boat would quickly be lost in it. This was all to the good.

  “House is there,” he told Lydia. “Slow down but drive past.”

  Sliding lower in his seat, he looked as best he could for signs of visitors. He saw the shape of only one vehicle. Carla's Volkswagen. There were still no lights coming from the house. No suspicious cars parked in the vicinity.

  “You see that marina?” He pointed to a sign. “Pull in there.”

  It was not much of a marina. Little more than a ramp for the launching of boats on trailers. But it was a place to stop and get organized.

  The marina had parking for about a dozen cars but only one space was filled. A small Fiat, probably left for the night. He would check it all the same, see if it's warm to the touch. It might also be useful if he should need to borrow it. Fiats are easy to start. Yuri pulled in next to it.

  Nearby, was a rack holding several canoes. They were chained and padlocked. Yuri saw one whose chain ran through the handle of a paddle. It gave him an idea. The chain would be no problem. A tire iron would suffice.

  He reached into the glove box for the two automatic pistols which he had taken from General Belkin's safe. They were not the best. One was a Browning, .22 caliber, long rifle. Only useful for head shots, thought Yuri. He counted five rounds in a clip meant for ten. He chambered one of them.

  The other pistol was a Turkish MKE, four-inch barrel, seven shots, caliber was a .380 ACP. A ridiculous weapon, he thought. The rear sight was adjustable for windage. With a four-inch barrel, this is pretentious. He gave that one to Lydia.

  She sniffed but made no other comment as she very professionally checked the mechanism and determined that the bore was not obstructed. She, too, chambered a round. Yuri handed her the key to Carla's front door. He described the location of the lock and the direction in which it turned so that she would not be seen to fumble with it.

  ”I will go back by canoe,” he told her. “Give me ten minutes to look things over, then you will drive to her door, enter quickly, and wait. Do not turn on the lights. I will watch a few minutes more and then come in.”

  “So much caution?” she asked.

  “Best to be safe.”

  “But this is Corsini's car. If anyone is watching, they have already seen it.”

  Yuri had considered that. He had th
ought of driving directly to the boathouse as if they were Carla and Aldo returning from a day's outing. But while Lydia might pass for Carla in the dark, he was twice the size of Corsini. Better this way, he told her. Bannerman might be right about a second agent snooping about. American intelligence was another possibility. Even Swiss police, if a cleaning woman, for example, had chosen this day to enter the boathouse and had seen all the blood.

  Always amazing, the things that go wrong.

  35

  Borovik sat slumped in his chair, a framed photo of his mother in his hands. He kissed it. Then he hugged it against his chest.

  He had told her the bad news. Corsini was dead. Bannerman would have to wait a while longer.

  She put up an understanding front, she comforted him as always, but he could see in her eyes, even in just a photograph, how disappointed she was.

  A jangling of the olive-colored phone had intruded. The caller, a former captain, wanted an explanation of the traffic that had just been exchanged with Zurich.

  He was polite enough. He had said, ”I am sure, Vadim Yakovich, that I must not be reading these correctly. If you would tell me precisely what these signals mean . . .”

  But Borovik had looked down into his mother's eyes. Her eyes said, “Tell him it's none of his business.”

  That's just what he did. But the former captain started to give him an argument. He was not so polite now. Borovik hung up on him.

  Perhaps, he told his mother afterward, that wasn't such agood idea. The former captain might go right to the man in the Scottish hat, and Borovik had had enough trouble from that one already. But his mother said, “Vadim, my fine son, don 't worry about it. They still need you more than you need them. One hand washes the other.”