(1982) The Almighty

by Irving Wallace

  ‘Nick, I’m really serious.’

  ‘So am I,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ she said. ‘When we get to the city, drop me off at the Record bureau. I have to do something there. You go to the hotel, check in - same suite - and when you’ve come down, let’s meet at a cafe on the Champs-Elysees for a snack.’

  ‘You name it.’

  ‘Let’s say the Maison d’Alsace at Rue Marbeuf on the Champs-Elysees an hour from now. It’s only a short walk around the corner from the Avenue Montaigne.’

  ‘You’ve got a date.’

  ‘A serious talk,’ she said.

  ‘A serious talk,’ he agreed, and wondered what it would be about.

  Victoria was seated at a table under a red umbrella in the front row of Maison d’Alsace, sipping her sweet sherry, idly observing pedestrians streaming past her in both directions along the Champs-Elysees. Because speculation on the backgrounds of various passers-by diverted her thoughts, Victoria shifted her gaze to the red awning that served as a canopy over the umbrellas and tables of the cafe. She tried to concentrate on what was uppermost in her mind and to organize her discussion of it with Nick Ramsey.

  She and Nick had agreed to meet here an hour after he had dropped her off at the Paris bureau of the Record and she had come to the cafe on time ten minutes ago. She had expected Nick to be waiting for her, but he was nowhere in sight and the black-and-white-striped chair opposite her remained unoccupied.

  Eager to have the conversation with him and to have his opinion, although she had foreseen that he would be skeptical, she stretched her neck and looked off toward the Avenue Montaigne. At once she saw Nick. Although he was a half block away, he was taller than the French pedestrians ahead of him and easy to identify. She could not help but

  smile. He appeared neat, for him, in a gray suit, and refreshed, and was advancing purposefully, impeded only now and then by window-shoppers. She supposed he would invite her to dinner, but first she determined to have her talk with him here and now in the cafe.

  For a moment her gaze had strayed, and she had lost him. Then she had him in sight, and her brow furrowed.

  Nick was no longer walking. He had stopped or been stopped. He had been partially blocked out by a stout man in a dark suit who was speaking to him. Another man - shorter, even heftier, a person in a black leather jacket who resembled a Lebanese - had come up behind Nick, seemed to bump into him.

  Curious, Victoria tried to make out what was happening.

  She saw the pair who had detained Nick jostle him, pushing him off the sidewalk and nearer the street. The action was unclear, but it looked as if the pair were forcing Nick toward a sedan at the curb.

  Alarmed, Victoria opened her purse, pulled out some loose francs, threw them on the table and searched for Nick once more.

  The threesome, the two strangers and Nick, had reached the low sedan. What was taking place was even clearer now. Nick was definitely being forced into the back of the vehicle.

  Victoria jumped to her feet, wondering why Nick did not resist the bullying tactics. Instantly she realized that he couldn’t. He was being forced into the car, probably at gunpoint. Nick was being abducted. He was being kidnapped.

  And Victoria was running.

  Obstructed by pedestrians, she dodged and wove and kept running toward the sedan.

  Closing in on it, she could make out a driver at the wheel, the two abductors with Nick between them in the back. Before she could open her mouth to cry out, the sedan, a light blue Citroen, darted away from the curb, then tried to wedge into traffic, blocked by a parade of other cars, all honking horns.

  Victoria cast about frantically for someone in a blue uniform, a gendarme, but saw at once there was none in sight, and then she saw something else. A taxi had drawn up along

  the edge of the Champs-Elysees and was disgorging a passenger. The passenger had paid his fare and was about to shut the rear door when Victoria stumbled up and grasped it. As she flung herself into the taxi and fell back into the seat, the beetle-browed, unshaved Gallic taxi driver twisted around and released a torrent of French. ‘No, no, no!’ he protested. T am finished for today. No more fares. I go home for dinner.’

  Victoria leaned forward, gripping his arm in both hands and shaking it. ‘Listen to me, monsieur, this is an emergency!’ she cried. T will give you a fifty-franc tip -‘ She pointed ahead through the windshield. ‘See that car there, the blue Citroen, three men have taken my friend, kidnapped him.’

  The taxi driver looked through the windshield. ‘It is a matter for the police -‘

  “There is no time. I must know where they are taking him. I will give you one hundred francs extra.’

  The driver capitulated. ‘For you, madame, I will follow.’

  “Thank you, thank you. But don’t let them realize you are behind them.’

  He shifted, jolted forward until only a single automobile stood between him and the Citroen. Then he yanked his wheel, sending his taxi in between two cars in the creeping traffic.

  Victoria sat back with relief as the dense traffic gradually loosened and the cars sped up toward the Place de la Concorde.

  She sat forward again, tense and worried, wondering who the abductors were and what they wanted with Nick. Keeping her eyes on a portion of the sloping back of the Citroen, she prayed that the abductors would not get out of sight.

  ‘They must not be aware we are following,’ she implored the driver.

  ‘Never mind, madame, I am clever. I have an older brother in the Surete.’

  The police, she thought again. At what point should she seek help? She knew the answer. Not until she was certain where those thugs were taking Nick.

  She held on to the overhead strap as her taxi careened through streets of Paris and sections of the city totally unfamiliar to her. Beyond the window, she sought the sight of

  tamous landmarks but recognized none. They were passing shops and a department store, and she tried to memorize their names. She craned her neck to try to make out if Nick was visible in the rear seat of the Citroen ahead, but she was not able to get a full view of the car.

  The Citroen breezed through a yellow light as it turned red, and so did the car ahead of them, and Victoria prayed her driver would do the same. The stoplight had turned red, and her driver valiantly sailed through it.

  The pursuit had continued for fifteen or twenty minutes and they had entered a district that she had never visited when the car that separated the Citroen from their taxi pulled out of line and eased toward a parking place. Now they were exposed to the rearview mirror of the Citroen directly in front, and Victoria could only hope that the abductors’ driver would not become suspicious of her taxi.

  She was conscious of the fact that the Citroen was slowing, and her own taxi was also slowing. ‘Where are we?’ she asked her driver. ‘Tenth Arrondissement, approaching the Musee de l’Affiche.’

  ‘The poster museum?’

  ‘Oui.’ He was gradually braking. T think they are looking to turn off.’

  ‘Follow them.’

  ‘No, we must watch. We will see.’ The vehicle in front had come almost to a halt, and Victoria realized that only the two abductors were visible, that Nick had disappeared from view. There could be only one logical explanation - Nick had been ordered down to the floor.

  The car ahead had halted, and the taxi driver was forced to apply his foot brake hard. He hammered at his horn angrily, honking away.

  ‘Don’t do that,’ Victoria cried out. ‘You’ll only attract attention.’

  ‘I am acting naturally. Someone blocks a taxi, and we blow the horn. They expect it. Just leave it to me, madame.’

  The Citroen had started moving once more, turning into a cross street.

  She heard her driver. T think this is their destination.’ She searched upward, saw the street signs. They were on

  the Rue de Paradis. The cross street into which the Citroen had entered was marked Rue Martel.
r />   ‘Still the Tenth?’ she asked.

  ‘The Tenth,’ said her driver. ‘A workers’ district.’

  He accelerated his taxi, drove it past the Rue Martel.

  ‘Hey, aren’t you going to follow them?’

  ‘No. Too easy to be noticed. I think they will not run away. See, they are slowing. I think they are getting ready to park.’ He slid the taxi into a no-parking zone. ‘You go out to the corner,’ he said. ‘Walk in a normal way to cross the street. Look down the Rue Martel and see if they are parking. If not, I will back up fast and chase them.’

  He was idling the taxi alongside the curb. Victoria did not question his street wisdom. She unlatched the rear door and stepped out to the sidewalk.

  Pulling herself together, she strolled to the corner. She glanced down the Rue Martel, trying to appear as casual and disinterested as possible. The Citroen represented the only activity in the street. It had gone less than halfway up the thoroughfare, and abruptly it swung left off the street into the driveway of some kind of building and in seconds it had disappeared.

  She teetered on the street corner, feeling certain that she had not been seen or spotted as a threat.

  She waited for someone to emerge from the building. No one appeared.

  Resolutely she turned away from the Rue de Paradis and entered the Rue Martel. She strode briskly, as if the end of the street were her destination - a French student on her way to her apartment from school.

  On approaching the building where she had seen the Citroen turn in, she slowed her pace ever so slightly. She was next to the driveway for a building bearing a sign that read No. 10. This wasn’t it, she knew, but the one after.

  She walked on. She was passing an old building with letters that indicated it was No. 12. There was another driveway - a porte cochere, really - at one side of this building, and out of the corner of an eye she could see that there was an inner courtyard beyond. Several cars were parked inside, but she could not see the blue Citroen. Yet she was positive that it had gone into that courtyard.

  She strolled a few more steps, but no farther.

  She had discovered what she needed to know.

  Pivoting, she went past the driveway of No. 12 once more, then retraced her steps to the Rue de Paradis.

  She wondered what was going on. Why would anyone want to kidnap Nick Ramsey? For what reason? For ransom? Had they mistaken him for someone else, a rich American? Above all, who were they?

  Stepping back inside her taxi, she tried to make up her mind about her next move.

  There was one obvious thing to do. Go to the police immediately. But something made her hesitate. It was the memory of Edward Armstead’s earliest advice on that day he had admonished her that her first duty must always be to report to the New York Record first.

  Christ, if she did that, the delay might put Nick in greater jeopardy.

  She assured herself that it would postpone her report to the police by only a few minutes.

  She decided to report to Edward Armstead first.

  He would know exactly what must be done.

  She saw the taxi driver studying her inquiringly. She nodded. ‘I know just where they are,’ she said. ‘Take me to the Plaza Athenee as fast as you can. A shortcut, if possible. I will report the whole matter from there. But hurry. Make it fast enough and I’ll promise you a one hundred and fifty-franc tip.’

  ‘Tres bien,’ he said, hunching over the wheel. ‘Hold on -here we go!’

  It was strange being sightless so long, and sightless still.

  From the instant of his abduction to this moment here, somewhere in Paris, Nick Ramsey had not suffered fright. He had contended with the emotions of surprise, bewilderment, confusion, but not fear. So positive had he been that his kidnapping was an error, a mistake in identity, that he was certain that the blunder would be realized and he would be freed.

  Once they had him in the back seat of their car, and had left the Champs-Elysees, they had ordered him to kneel down on the floor. Reluctantly, with the metal of a gun pressed hard

  against his temple, he had done so. At that point he had been blindfolded.

  Several times during the ride to wherever he had tried to speak up, protest, point out their gross error, and each time one of them had harshly told him in English to shut up. Neither the two in the back seat nor the driver otherwise spoke to him or to each other.

  Ramsey had attempted to calculate the time his ride had taken, but the darkness was too disorienting to enable him to think. There had been street sounds throughout the journey, even up to a minute before they had come to a final stop, so he guessed that they were still inside Paris and not in the suburbs.

  He had wondered how long Vicky would continue to wait for him at the cafe, at what point she would become concerned, investigate his whereabouts, become alarmed, consider him missing. He had wondered what she would do, and had tried to conjure up what he might do in her place. He had doubts that kidnapping would ever enter her mind. There was an unreality to such a conclusion. He was, after all, a nonentity, not a promising captive for ransom.

  After the vehicle had stopped and the engine was shut off, he had allowed himself to be pulled up and out of the car. He had been hurriedly prodded across what he assumed was a cobblestone paving and over some kind of threshold. Then, judging from the change in temperature, he had been led indoors.

  With assistance, he went up three flights of stone steps, was brought to a halt, heard a door creak, felt soft carpeting beneath his shoes, guessed that he had been jostled through several rooms, felt himself being forcibly pushed down until his behind made contact with a wooden chair.

  Now his blindfold was being unknotted and yanked off.

  Ramsey expected to be blinded by light, but the transition from unseeing to seeing was easy because he had come out of darkness into little better than darkness.

  A single low-wattage bulb off to one side of a small, drab, nearly barren room gave only minimal illumination. What Ramsey could make out in the eerie yellow light was a man seated directly in front of him, seated on a chair turned backward, straddling the chair, half smiling at him. On either

  side of this man, behind him, Ramsey could make out the shapeless forms of three, four, other persons.

  Ramsey’s gaze returned to the one facing him. This was a youngish man, as far as Ramsey could tell, perhaps middle or late thirties, large brown eyes, straight wide nose, sunken cheeks, fat lips. The flesh on his face was loose, like the flesh of a pudgy person who has lost much weight.

  When this one spoke, his voice was modulated, cultured, the accent barely British. ‘Welcome, Mr. Ramsey,’ he said. T hope you have not been too inconvenienced.’

  ‘What is this, some kind of joke?’ Ramsey demanded, surprised that his name was known.

  ‘Hardly a joke.’

  ‘What in the hell is going on? Who are you? Where am I? What do you want with me?’

  ‘I shall answer one question at a time. First, let me introduce myself. I am Ilich Ramirez Sanchez.’

  Confusion was immediately swept from Ramsey’s mind. His senses flooded back, and full memory surfaced. ‘Carlos,’ Ramsey blurted.

  ‘The terrorist, you might add. Carlos the terrorist, as you journalists always put it.’

  Ramsey stared at the long-hunted Venezuelan kidnapper and killer, filled with wonderment. ‘What on earth do you want with me?’

  ‘To talk, simply to talk,’ said Carlos.

  Ramsey was not listening. ‘If you want ransom, or anything like that, you’ve got the wrong person. I’m only a newspaperman, an American newspaperman, and not a very well-known one at that.’

  ‘We know who you are and what you are.’

  ‘Then this makes no sense. What can you want of me?’

  T have told you,’ said Carlos. ‘I decided it was time we have a brief talk.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About your shoddy work on that infamous rag, the New York Record.’ The smile
had evaporated. The soft face and soft tone had hardened.

  ‘My work?’ said Ramsey puzzled.

  ‘Your lies, Mr. Mark Bradshaw.’

  Ramsey’s mouth fell open. ‘Bradshaw? You think I’m

  Mark Bradshaw? You’re wrong, all wrong. You yourself greeted me as Ramsey. You know I’m Nick Ramsey.’ He hesitated, and added lamely, ‘I can prove it. I can show you my passport.’

  ‘Anyone can put any name on a passport. We have dozens of passports with dozens of names. As you have investigated us, we have investigated you. We have followed your inquiries, your travels, your stories. We have every reason to believe that you are really Mark Bradshaw, the journalist jackal who has been attributing all of the recent terrorist activities to me. I have had enough. I have decided the time has come to call you to account.’

  Ramsey sat nonplussed. ‘Believe me, I didn’t write those stories.’

  ‘Oh, no?’ said Carlos. ‘The stories appear. They are exclusive in your newspaper. They are spread worldwide. Carlos supplies weapons to the Basque kidnappers of the Spanish king. Carlos kidnaps the secretary-general of the United Nations. Carlos steals the Dead Sea scrolls. None of them have I done. None of these reflect my methods. Not once was a meaningful ransom asked.’

  Ramsey’s journalistic scent was aroused. ‘The killing of the Israeli prime minister,’ he said. ‘You have taken cabinet ministers hostage before. You have killed.’

  ‘I had not a thing to do with the killing of the prime minister of Israel,’ said Carlos. ‘Only a fool would try to extract ransom from a country that will pay no ransom. Israel refused to comply with the ransom demands for the Dead Sea scrolls. This morning the thieves gave up and returned the scrolls, told the government they could be found in a garbage can near the port of Haifa. The whole thing has the mark of a PLO operation. Yet, frankly, none of these terrorist acts bears the imprint of political terrorists. Whoever is performing these acts is motivated by something other than politics. None of these are Carlos operations. Yet Mark Bradshaw reports each of these as being directed by Carlos. I believe you are Mark Bradshaw.’