The Bannerman Effect (The Bannerman Series)

by Maxim, John R.

  Ortirez heard him. “And at worst?”

  “The doubt will remain. The secretary of state will know that and he will fear Bannerman. Whatever protection Bannerman now enjoys will be withdrawn. My hands will then be untied. I will destroy him.”

  Ortirez pursed his lips as if to spit again, but Whitlow gasped “If you don't mind.” And he did not. “This, too, is shit,” he said. “You make big plans, big schemes, you and this maricon.” He cocked his head toward Whitlow who rolled his eyes in response. “Always you say, when I do this my enemy must do that. And when your enemy does something else, you say it is because he is a fool and you make more big schemes. I tell you how I make a scheme. I say, I will shoot my enemy in the head and when I do that he must die. Do you know what happens? I shoot him and he dies.”

  Palmer Reid could feel hot liquid rising in his throat. There would be no use, he realized, in explaining the meaning of finesse, the concept of ruse de guerre, to this mestizo who would still be walking on all fours had not a few drops of Spanish blood managed to trickle into his veins. No use in pointing out that the true art of diplomacy rests on placing one enemy against another. That as we speak, Bannerman, the Bruggs of Zurich, and Lesko, wherever he is, are beginning to circle each other like so many snarling beasts. And that now, to that melange, have been added that bumpkin Barton Fuller and his toady Roger Clew.

  And you, General Oscar Ortirez, will indeed become my gesture of goodwill toward Mr. Bannerman. Your body, delivered to the town line of Westport, a signed confession pinned to your nose, will serve as proof of the guilt of some and the duplicity of others. And if your body is not enough, if there should be any lingering suspicion that any member of this intelligence body was in any way involved in profiting from the sale of drugs, if Elena should live to place such a charge at my doorstep, then I, to my horror, will discover that I have had a traitor in my midst. At my right hand. Placed there by none other than Barton Fuller. His agent. The architect of his cruel attack on that innocent girl. One Charles Whitlow. He too will confess. Readily. These pansies never have much tolerance for pain. He will be found in his home, his diaries and financial records in his personal safe, a tape recorder at his side into which he will have blubbered his guilt before taking a fatal overdose of the same vile substance with which he attempted to destroy the moral fiber of this great nation.

  Reid looked at his watch. Twenty past four. What did Bannerman say? Two hours. He would be calling at six.

  “This is shit,” he heard Ortirez say again.

  Reid wet his lips. His eye drifted toward the place on his prized Persian carpet, a gift from the Shah, where drops of Ortirez's spittle still glistened. For that alone he would . . .

  Six o'clock.

  At six it would be set in motion. This time, his way.

  Good man, that Bannerman. Priorities not where they should be but a good man nonetheless.

  It was true, you know.

  They should never have been adversaries.

  Spilt milk. No help for it now.

  The flowers.

  They were what did it, he realized suddenly. Showed Bannerman who his friends are. Made him call, one American to another, ask for help.

  The flowers, yes. They were a masterstroke.

  “Mr. Brugg? This is Paul Bannerman speaking.” “How are you, Paul?”

  “I’m well, sir. How is Elena?”

  “Recovering nicely. Her spirits are as high as I have seen them in two years. Your Mr. Lesko seems to have been the best medicine.”

  Bannerman tried to imagine being cheered by a visit from Lesko. He chose not to comment. “Mr. Brugg, I'm about to place a call to Palmer Reid. Please stay on the line but say nothing at all. Just listen.”

  “Am I to hear a confession?”

  “It will be more in the nature of a repentance, sir.”

  ”I will listen.”

  The sign on the door of Luxury Travel Limited said Closed. Through drawn blinds, Lesko could see movement inside. As he reached for the door, a latch clicked loudly and it swung open. The Russian, Zivic, smiled and stepped aside. Lesko heard the door shut tight behind him.

  Scattered around the agency's front office, Lesko saw what he took to be Bannerman's entire group, minus the shooter who was still down in Maryland. He recognized most of them. The bartender and the two women from Switzerland were there, plus a few he'd seen at Greenfield Hill and a couple more he was sure he'd seen around Westport although he had not connected them with Bannerman before this. There was also Robert Loftus, jaw wired, nose splinted, half his teeth kicked out.

  Lesko shook his head. Forgetting Loftus, he could have picked any twelve men and women off the street at random, ages thirty to sixty, and they .wouldn't have looked much different. Two jogging suits, a few ski jackets, a Mickey Mouse sweater on the woman with the knitting bag, another in a party dress like she's got a date later, Bannerman in shirtsleeves. The only other guys in suits were Zivic, who runs the local antique store—they say he's definitely not a fag, though—and a guy who someone said was their accountant, and looks it, which probably means he's a world-class money launderer. No wonder nobody in this town noticed.

  Billy McHugh was clearing one desk, setting up champagne bottles and plastic glasses. Molly Farrell was at another that had a call director on it. She was wearing headphones and fiddling with a small black box that had assorted gauges on its face, a red plastic switch and an LED readout with blue lights, all zeros. The others, one by one, were picking pairs of headphones and little radios out of an open suitcase. Bannerman was at the rear-most desk, collar open, feet up, looking more relaxed than Lesko had ever seen him. Lesko made his way back.

  “What the hell is all this?” he asked Bannerman blankly.

  ”I told you. Happy hour.”

  “Happy hour,” Lesko repeated.

  “Take some earphones. Find a chair.”

  “Ask a silly question . . .” Lesko muttered.

  Reid stared at his watch. The minute hand moved slowly toward six and then past it. Twenty seconds. Thirty seconds. Forty. Stay composed, he told himself. You're in control. Act the part.

  He jumped when it rang.

  Reid forced a smile. He motioned Charles Whitlow to the extension. Whitlow scurried into the chair nearest it, a notepad on his lap, knees close together.

  Four rings.

  On a signal from Reid, they picked up together.

  At the call director in Bannerman's office, Molly peered at a meter on the instrument she held as Reid answered. The drop in amperage was twice what it should have been. She held up two fingers for Bannerman to see.

  “Palmer? It's Paul. Is your phone secure?”

  “It is. I had it swept an hour ago.”

  Molly looked toward the audience, her expression smug. Several of them broke into mimed applause. Lesko scratched his head.

  “Are we alone, Palmer?”

  Reid considered telling the truth. After all, it was Bannerman who had proposed a conference call. But the lie came by reflex. “We're alone at this end.”

  “At this end,” Paul told him, “we have Molly Farrell monitoring for any cut-ins by listening devices. We also have Anton Zivic, who shares our outrage at all that has happened. You don't object, do you?”

  Reid was less than comfortable but he could not object. He did not like being anywhere near an electronic device if the Farrell woman was involved. He knew her file too well. And he was appalled to discover that the Russian defector, Zivic, appeared to have risen to a position of high trust. But soon he would have them as well. Zivic would be taken alive and kept alive, and in pain, until every last bit of intelligence was wrung out of him. “Not at all,” he said.

  As Reid spoke he saw Whitlow waving vigorously and pointing toward Ortirez. Ortirez had found a third extension and was carefully lifting the receiver. Reid gestured angrily. Ortirez ignored him.

  Molly's hand waved. Her meter showed a sudden drop of fifteen milliamperes. The two fingers
she'd been holding aloft changed to three. She looked at him questioningly.

  He hesitated for a beat. Glenn Cook had reported the arrival of a man, not a bodyguard, possibly important because another of Reid's people had carried his bag. Cook did not know him. No time to explain that now. He shook his head, shrugging. Molly shrugged in retum.

  “Palmer, our whole group is assembled here.” He looked to his left where every available chair and desktop held one or more of his agents. All were seated except Billy, who'd begun pouring champagne. Janet Herzog was engrossed in her knitting. Carla Benedict used the time to balance her checkbook but her eyes were shining. All the rest were eagerly attentive except John Waldo who had worn a sour expression since he arrived and was idly leafing through a Bermuda brochure. “Everyone wanted to be a part of this,” Bannerman told Reid.

  ”I understand ... of course . . .” Reid's voice trailed off. Paul could almost read his thoughts. Reid was envisioning them, all together, lightly armed at best, all trapped in one place. But his time would come. Bannerman would soon divide his forces and send them out, and they would be caught in the act of murdering the secretary of state. After that, there would be a slaughter. Even if some stayed behind, no one would hide them, protect them. Public outrage would be such that. ...

  “Palmer,” Paul interrupted his reverie, “as long as we're being truthful with each other—”

  “At long last, Paul.”

  ”—I should tell you that until we talked this afternoon, I was pretty sure you were behind all this. Mind you, that was before I knew that it's Barton Fuller who's been working with the cocaine traffickers all along. So, a few days ago, Anton sent Molly Farrell down to your house.”

  Janet Herzog looked up, stared at him.

  “Um . . . and Janet Herzog.” He tossed his head, apologetically, in her direction. She returned to her knitting.

  A long silence. “To what purpose, Paul?”

  “You'll see in a minute. I'm afraid I wasn't entirely truthful about Lesko, either. He's here listening in.”

  “Paul—”

  “Palmer, I think it's time we ended this. Don't you?”

  “If. . .if you mean the mistrust. . .the suspicion . . .” In the background, Bannerman heard a series of hissing sounds, words, that sounded like this is shit And he heard a growing panic that constricted the throat of Palmer Reid. But he knew that Reid would not hang up. Not while there was another lie to attempt. Bannerman almost felt sorry for him.

  “Bear with me, please.” Bannerman signaled Robert Loftus. He motioned him toward Molly Farrell's station. “Palmer, I have one more person here who especially wants to say something to you. I believe it's in the nature of a resignation.”

  Molly, her fingers still aloft to show that all three extensions remained in use, turned an open microphone toward Loftus and guided his hand toward the red plastic switch on her black box. Now Paul raised his arm. The arms of the others rose as well except for those of a confused Raymond Lesko and a sulking John Waldo.

  Loftus bent over the microphone.

  “Hello, Mr. Reid,'' he slurred through wired teeth.

  A gasp through the line. “Robert?”

  ”I won't tie up the line. I just wanted to say good-bye.”

  “Robert! What are you . . .”

  “Good-bye, Mr. Reid.”

  Paul's arm came down. The others fell in unison. Loftus hit the switch. Lesko heard a sharp snapping sound. Then, instantly, a duller thukk, like an archer's arrow hitting a target pad. A chorus of birdlike squawks, each at a different pitch. A telephone clattered against a desktop. A glass smashed against a hard surface. Now there were sounds of fumiture toppling over and of bodies thumping against a thickly carpeted floor.

  Silence now. No sound at all. Lesko, his eyes wide and disbelieving, clung to his earpiece. A loud ”Yes” startled him. Carla Benedict, grinning, applauding, rose to her feet. The others joined in. Billy began passing the champagne. Molly listened for a few seconds more, then broke the connection.

  Lesko, his headphone still at his ear, his mouth open, said, “What the hell . . . was that what I think it was?”

  ”I believe,” came the voice of Urs Brugg, “that it was a promise being kept. Paul?”

  “Yes, Mr. Brugg.”

  “You will come visit me one day?”

  “I'd like that, sir. As soon as the Swiss lose interest in me.”

  ”I will try to hurry them along. Mr. Lesko?”

  “Yeah . . . Yes, Mr. Brugg.”

  “You especially. I think we should talk.”

  “Well . . . you see, I hardly ever get over to . . .”

  ”I gather your horizons have expanded considerably in recent days. Come see me, Mr. Lesko.”

  ”I have some things to work out here, but maybe, yeah.”

  Molly broke that connection as well.

  John Waldo, who in his mind saw Palmer Reid's lifeless body, eyes wide, blood from both ears, and two more like him—whoever they were—steel darts exploded inside their brains, messing up the rug, would rather have seen a simple hole in Reid's forehead. Not that he'd take anything away from Molly. She was a sweetheart and all. But that was the trouble with the world today. Too much high-tech shit. You lose the personal touch.

  -14-

  Palmer Reid's obituary, with photograph, ran for three columns in the Sunday New York Times. An outstanding career. One of the original “cold warriors.” Served under seven presidents. Died suddenly. Cerebral hemorrhage. Alone at home. Working at his desk.

  The funeral service was held three days later. The vice president attended, as did the secretary of state and the undersecretary of state for political affairs. Roger Clew witnessed the lowering of his casket, then was immediately flown to Connecticut. An airport taxi brought him to the door of Luxury Travel Limited; Bannerman had been expecting him.

  Leading Roger Clew to the soundproof conference room, Bannerman listened patiently to five minutes of well-rehearsed obloquy. The secretary, Clew told him, was furious. The act was insane. It could well have cost Paul every friend he had in Washington. How are they to trust him again? How are they to work with him, if from now on they won't even be able to pick up a telephone without wondering if they've annoyed Paul Bannerman in some way?

  “Then the solution”—Bannerman made a time-out sign with his hands—“is not to work with me. They could simply leave us alone.”

  Clew stared at him. “That's it? That's all you care about?”

  “No.” Bannerman shook his head. ”I care about my friends. Another way to get along with me is not to try to kill them. A third”—he turned to the credenza behind him and picked up a tape recorder and earphones, which he placed in front of Clew—“is not to try to set me up to kill someone else.”

  Clew felt the color drain from his face. He thought only of his computer. He tried to remember what conversation he'd had, and how damning, that Bannerman might have recorded.

  “Go ahead, Roger. Play it.”

  Hesitantly, he reached for the earphones and slipped them over his head. He pressed the “play” button. Bannerman was watching his eyes.

  Palmer Reid's voice. Then Bannerman's. A phone call. Reid saying . . . that it was Fuller. Reid trying to set him up. To get Bannerman to ... that was it. It wasn't the computer at all. Relief flooded over him. But Bannerman still watched closely. He could only hope that whatever Bannerman saw in his reaction would pass for shock and disbelief. He nodded that he'd heard enough. He pressed the “stop” button.

  “There's one more,” Bannerman said. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a second cassette. This he snapped into the machine. Again he waited as Roger Clew listened. Clew's eyes, ever widening, told him that he'd reached the instant in which Palmer Reid died. Bannerman shut off the machine.

  Clew could not speak for several moments. His mouth was dry. “May I have these?” he asked finally.

  “The first one. Not the second.”

  Clew let out a bre
ath, then nodded. “Did you . . . even begin to believe it? What he said about Bart Fuller?”

  “And you.”

  “The unwitting dupe,” Clew nodded.

  “No.”

  “But he claimed he had proof. I know he didn't. But when Bart Fuller hears this,” he held up the first tape, “he's going to ask me what it was.”

  Bannerman made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “Given time, he would have produced something. Doctored tapes. Ambiguous photographs. He didn't get the time.”

  “You still should have waited. You could have been sure. And you should have trusted me enough to call me first.”

  “Roger, it's done.”

  “Not yet, it isn't. Reid's private files. We can't find them.”

  “How do you know I don't have them?” The question was asked for the benefit of the concealed microphone that his old friend might just possibly be wearing. Wire or no, the question had its effect. Roger Clew showed a pained expression and gazed longingly in the direction of Bannerman's liquor cabinet. Paul opened it and poured two Scotches.