Day of Reckoning sd-8

by Jack Higgins

  Cazalet nodded. 'Old soldiers, the three of us.' He sighed. 'He doesn't deserve this, Clancy. If there's anything we can do for him, I'd appreciate it.'

  'My privilege, Mr President.'

  Twenty minutes later Blake returned, his face grey, eyes burning.

  'Is there anything I can do to help, Blake?'

  'No, Mr President, except with your permission I need to get to New York now.'

  Cazalet turned to Clancy Smith. 'Make the call and get the Gulfstream ready to take Blake to New York immediately.'

  'You got it, Mr President,' and Clancy went out fast. Cazalet turned to Blake. 'My friend, do you have any kind of idea what happened?'

  'No, Mr President.' Blake pulled on his jacket.'But I intend to find out. And with Harry Parker helping me, that's just what I'll do.' He held out his hand. 'Many thanks, Mr President, for your understanding.'

  He turned and went out.

  3

  In Parker's office at One Police Plaza, Blake listened to the whole story. When the police captain was finished, Blake nodded.

  'I'd like to hear what Romano said from his own mouth, then I'd like to see where it happened.'

  'Be my guest.' Parker picked up the telephone. 'Have my car at the front entrance in five minutes.'

  Shortly thereafter, still in the rain, that bad March weather, they stood on the edge of the pier with umbrellas and looked down into the water covered with scum and flotsam.

  'She was there by the steps,' Parker told him. 'The night watchman saw her. I happened to be walking along.'

  'And you pulled her in.'

  'I couldn't leave her.'

  Blake nodded. 'Let's go and see Romano.' He turned and walked away.

  At the morgue, Romano was in the chief medical examiner's office, drinking minestrone soup from a plastic cup and eating French bread. Parker made the introductions.

  Romano said, 'I'm really sorry.'

  'Just tell me what you told Harry.'

  Romano did.

  'So she was murdered?'

  'In my opinion, and for what it's worth, yes.'

  'But why?' Parker demanded. 'And what would a nice middle-class lady with an apartment in the Village be doing in Brooklyn under these circumstances?' They sat silent for a moment. 'You never had any children, did you, Blake?'

  'No.' Blake shrugged. 'It wasn't possible. She was sterile, so she concentrated on her career, and I concentrated on mine. We just kind of drifted apart. But though we got divorced, we never lost touch. We were always concerned friends.' He turned to Romano. 'I'd like to see the body.'

  'No, you wouldn't.'

  'Yes, I damn well would.' At that moment Blake looked every inch the Vietnam veteran.

  Parker put a hand on Romano's shoulder. 'George, I'd say we should indulge the man.'

  'Okay, let me phone down.'

  She lay on one of the tables under the hard white light.

  There were enormous stitched scars where Romano had opened her up, the same scar around the skull.

  Blake felt incredibly detached. This creature had been the love of his life, his wife, his support in many bad times, and now…

  He said, 'I was never all that religious, but human beings are pretty remarkable. Einstein, Fleming, Shakespeare, Dickens. Is this what it ends up as? Where's Kate? This isn't her.'

  'I can't give you an answer,' Romano told him. 'The essence, the life force — it just goes. That's all I can say.'

  Blake nodded slowly. 'I'll tell you one thing. She deserved better, and someone should pay for this.' His smile was the most terrible thing Parker had ever seen when he said, And I'm going to see that they do.'

  Back at Parker's office, there was a message for him to phone Helen Abruzzi.

  'What's new?' Parker asked.

  'Well, we checked out Katherine Johnson's house, and it's been burgled.'

  'Damn,' Parker said. 'Okay, we'll be right there.' He turned to Blake and explained. Blake said, 'Let's take a look.' Helen Abruzzi was already there ahead of them when they arrived.

  'There's no sign of forced entry, but the study upstairs has been ransacked. It's hard to tell what's been taken.' She led the way, opened the study door, and entered. Thes cene of devastation was evident, videotapes scattered all over the place.

  Parker said, 'Anything in the machinery?'

  'Not a thing. No disks, no tapes, no copies, nothing in the computer.'

  'That smells, for starters.'

  Blake said, 'Somebody was after something, Harry, that's obvious, and probably found it. The thing is, what and why?' He turned to Abruzzi. 'Have the crime scene people finished here?' She nodded. 'Then could you get your people to look at these tapes littering the floor, Sergeant? You never know. You might turn up something.'

  'I'll see to it, sir.'

  Blake started down the stairs, and Parker said, 'Now where?'

  'Truth magazine. I want to see Kate's editor, find out what she was working on. You don't have to come. You've got other cases on your hands, Harry. I can handle this on my own.'

  'Like hell you will/ Harry Parker told him. 'Let's get going.'

  The editor of Truth magazine, Rupert O'Dowd, was the kind of middle-aged journalist who'd seen it all, been there, and done that, and he had little residual faith in human nature. Nevertheless, sitting in his office in shirtsleeves, he reacted with horror to the suggestion that Katherine Johnson had been murdered.

  'Please, tell me, what can I do to help?'

  'You can tell us what she'd been involved in lately,'Johnson said. 'Was she working on anything special, anything dangerous?'

  O'Dowd hesitated. 'Well, there's a question of journalistic ethics here.'

  'And there's the question of my wife being murdered by the administration of a massive heroin dose, Mr O'Dowd. So don't play around or I'll make you wish you'd never been born.'

  O'Dowd put up a hand. 'Okay, okay, you don't have to come down hard.' He took a deep breath. 'She was working on a big Mafia expose.'

  There was silence. Parker said, 'Isn't that old stuff?'

  'Only because the Mafia wants you to think that. Let me explain. The ruling power in the Mafia, the Commission, right? It called a halt to mob killings in New York in 1992 because of the bad publicity.'

  'So?'

  'So they started again last year. Five stiffed in Palermo a month ago, three in New York, four in London. But it's all different, all back-room stuff you can't connect to them. They've gone legit. They don't figure in Forbes magazine, but they're easily the biggest company structure in Europe. The drug market in America is saturated, so they've moved to Eastern Europe and Russia, but now they do it behind an elaborate facade.'

  'So what are you saying?' Blake asked.

  'That the days of men in gold chains have gone. Now they wear good suits and sit next to you in the Four Seasons or the Piano Bar at the Dorchester in London. They are into construction, property development, leisure, TV. You name it, they do it.'

  There was a pause. Blake said, 'So where did my wife fit in to all this?'

  'As I indicated, these days the new image is everything. The most influential Mafia group right now is the Solazzo family. Don Marco is the old devil who runs things, but he has an extraordinary nephew named Jack Fox. Fox's mother was Don Marco's niece, so the good Jack is half and half, though he sounds very Anglo-Saxon. He was a young Marine in the Gulf, a decorated war hero, Harvard Law School, and now he's the respectable face of the Solazzos.'

  'And how does this affect Katherine?'

  'She managed to get into a relationship with Fox. She was intending to produce a devastating series, not only for Truth magazine but also for our TV side.' There was silence, then O'Dowd said, 'She wanted to get behind that acceptable face of the Mafia and expose it.'

  'Which meant showing the reality behind Fox,' Parker said.

  'And he couldn't have that.' Blake nodded. 'So now we know.' He stood up and said to O'Dowd, 'Play this down. Trust me. Give us time and you'll ge
t the story Kate wanted.' He held out his hand. 'A bargain?'

  'It sure as hell is.'

  On the way downstairs, Parker's mobile rang. He answered and nodded. 'We'll be there.' He turned to Blake. 'Abruzzi. She's sorted out the videotapes. Wondered if you'd like a look.'

  'Why not?' Blake said.

  The study at Barrow Street was much more ordered now, the videotapes arranged neatly on the shelves.

  Helen Abruzzi said, 'I've put the movies on the top two shelves, the language courses and self-help tapes on the bottom two shelves.' She turned to Blake. 'There is one that refers to you, sir. That's what I thought you'd want to know.'

  Blake said, 'What do you mean?'

  'The label says: Blake's parents.'

  Blake was silent for a moment. 'My parents died when I was very young. I never knew them. And my wife knew that better than anyone. I'd appreciate you turning that tape on, Sergeant.'

  He sat down, Parker stood behind him, and the screen flickered.

  'This is just a fail-safe, Blake, my darling, in case anything goes wrong. As someone who was the pride of the FBI and whatever you get up to there at the White House, I know you'll find this one way or the other.' She smiled at him. 'These are bad people that I'm trying to expose, the Solazzo family. Don Marco's like Brando resurrected for Godfather IV, cold, calm, and businesslike, even while he seems like your favourite grandfather.'

  'Jesus!' Harry Parker said.

  'But Don Marco is old-school. Jack Fox is different. The genuine all-American hero and Wall Street golden boy.You'd think he was some Boston blue blood, but instead he's a cold-blooded psychopath, the worst of them all. Get in his way and you're dead. Well, I'm going to get him. Lull him to sleep with the first article, then wham! He'll never know what hit him.'

  Blake hammered a clenched fist on a coffee table and Helen Abruzzi stopped the tape.

  'What in the hell are you doing?'

  'I'm giving you a chance to breathe deeply. I'm also finding you a drink. Trust me, Sir.'

  Parker put a hand on his shoulder. 'She's right, Blake.' Helen Abruzzi returned with a glass. 'Vodka, it's all I could find. It was in the freezer.'

  'That's what she liked, cold vodka.' Blake drank it down. 'Okay, let's get on with it.'

  The screen flickered again. 'I was real lucky. I found a guy called Sammy Goff, who used to do accounting work for Jack Fox. Nice guy, very gay and very ill. AIDS, which is why Fox threw him out. I was having lunch with Fox in Manhattan one day. He left early, and Goff came up to me. "You look like a nice lady," he said, "so watch it. He's not good for you."'

  A telephone sounded in the background and she went to answer it and returned.

  'Okay, Goff was dying and bitter. I cultivated him, and with three martinis in him he sounded off good, and what he told me was special. Here's the lead. Fox is front man for the family. Smart, very clever, but he's always pushing for more. He's played the market with family money and lost,particularly with the Asian crisis. How much the Don knows about this is unknown to me. He's getting by because he's responsible for the Solazzo flagship casino in London, the Colosseum. The cash flow from that is critical to him. He can't milk the family's large interests, the drug market in Eastern Europe and Russia, for example, but he has personal cash flow that helps keep him afloat. There's a warehouse in Brooklyn called Hadley's Depository. The one thing they store there is whisky. Cheap liquor. The booze is watered down and then sold to the clubs at a huge profit margin.'

  Parker said, 'I can't believe the Don doesn't know.'

  Blake waved a hand and Katherine continued. 'Another sideline in London is he's been involved with some heavy gangsters called the Jago brothers. Armed robbery, that kind of stuff, Sammy Goff said, always a source of instant cash. Fox's bad investments in the Far East are draining him. More serious, he's been into arms dealing, too, specifically for the IRA. He helped somebody called Brendan Murphy, a real hard-liner who didn't like the peace process, not only to buy arms but to build a concrete bunker in County Louth in the Irish Republic. There's everything there from mortars to the kind of machine gun that can shoot down an Army helicopter. Oh, and lots of Semtex.'

  'My God,' Helen Abruzzi said softly.

  'Goff told me there was also some link with Beirut via Murphy. Arms for Saddam, that sort of thing. He didn't have many details on that. The other thing he told me was that Fox doesn't own a London house. He usually stays in a suite at the Dorchester, but he does have an indulgence. An old castle and estate in Cornwall, in England. Very rural, very remote. Believe it or not, it's called Hellsmouth. Somewhere near Land's End.'

  A telephone sounded in the background again. There was some confusion. She was off-screen, then back quickly.

  'It's a hell of a story, thanks to Sammy Goff. However, although I'd like to expose it, Blake, life is uncertain, and the other day poor dying drunken Sammy was the victim of a hit-and-run driver. Now, was that an accident? I don't think so. He just knew too much.'

  The screen seemed to jump and her voice scrambled for a moment. Things returned to normal. She smiled brightly.

  'So there you are, my darling Blake. I'd like to believe the good guys win, but life can be such a bitch. If you're watching this, that probably means that the bad guys won this time.' The smile slipped for a moment, then came back, a little more tentative this time. 'Take care, and remember, in spite of everything, I've always loved you.'

  Helen Abruzzi switched off. Blake sat there, eyes dark. 'I'd appreciate you running that back, Sergeant.'

  'It's evidence, sir.'

  'Just get the man a copy,' Parker told her.

  Blake got up and walked to the window. After a moment, he turned. 'Okay, Harry, arrange a meeting with the bastard.'

  'I'll have to check with the District Attorney.'

  'Try the Pope if you like, but I want to face Jack Fox.' 'Maybe you should take time, sir,' Abruzzi told him. Blake took a document from an inside pocket and unfolded it. 'You've never seen one of these. Sergeant. Harry has. It's a Presidential warrant. You belong to me, not NYPD, and so does he. Now let's get moving.'

  It was the following morning when Parker picked up the Buick at the Plaza Hotel. The woman in the rear of the police car was very personable, around forty and smartly dressed, a briefcase on the floor beside her.

  Blake sat in front and Parker said, 'Assistant District Attorney Madge McGuire.'

  She shook hands as they drove away. 'I understand you're FBI, Mr Johnson.'

  'Used to be.' He turned to Parker. 'Did you tell her?' 'How could I?'

  Blake took out his Presidential warrant and passed it across. Madge McGuire read it. 'Jesus Christ.'

  She handed it back and Blake put it in his pocket. 'So, what do you think?'

  'We're wasting our time. Dammit, Mr Johnson, we all know the reality, but we can't prove it. You'll see — Fox will be all sweetness and light: any way he can help, he will, but when we finish we'll be no better off than when we started. His attorney, Carter Whelan, will be there, by the way. That one is a serpent.'

  "Fine by me.'

  `Okay. I'm bound by that warrant, but let me do my job, Mr Johnson.'

  -'Be my guest.'

  When they got there, Fox was sitting behind a desk, wearing an excellent navy blue suit, his hair swept back from his handsome face. The man who sat beside him, Carter Whelan, was small, balding, and wore a black suit.

  'I'm Madge McGuire, Assistant District Attorney, and this is Captain Harry Parker.'

  'Pleased to meet you, Miss McGuire. I'm sure you know my attorney, Carter Whelan. And you are aware, I'm sure, that I'm an attorney myself. May I ask who this other gentleman is?'

  'Blake Johnson, also an attorney,' Blake told him. 'I believe you knew my wife.'

  Whelan said, 'He's no right to be here.'

  Fox cut in. 'I've no objection. I was distressed to know of Katherine Johnson's untimely end. You have my sympathy.'

  Parker said, 'Evidence would suggest that Mrs John
son's death was no accident. Could you assist us in that matter, Sir?'

  Whelan said, 'Jack, you don't need to answer any of this.'

  'Why not?' Fox shrugged. 'I've nothing to hide. I knew Katherine Johnson, gave her interviews, and she did an article about me for Truth magazine. It's in the latest edition. Quite flattering, actually.'

  'Except for the references to the Solazzo family.' 'Just how well did you know her, sir?' Parker asked. Fox said, 'I knew her well.'

  'How well?'

  Fox seemed to struggle with himself. 'All right, we had a brief affair. It only lasted a few weeks, and I didn't want to mention it, because I didn't want to damage her reputation in any way. For God's sake, the lady is dead.'

  It was an impressive performance.

  Madge McGuire said, 'Did you ever know her to use heroin?'

  Fox struggled with himself again, got up, went to the window, turned, face working. 'Yes, once. I caught her at her apartment. I was shocked, tried to remonstrate. She said she'd only just started and promised to stop, but… I guess she didn't.'

  Whelan said, 'She was obviously not very practised with it and must have accidentally given herself too much, or had a particularly lethal batch.'

  'Still, there are certain anomalies,' Parker told him. 'Which have nothing to do with my client.' Whelan turned to Madge McGuire. 'Are we finished here?'

  'Yes,' Madge said. 'That'll do for now. Thank you for your cooperation.'

  She stood up, and Fox said, 'Hasn't Mr Johnson anything to say?'

  Blake stood up, face pale, eyes very dark. 'Not really. It's all pretty clear,' and he turned and walked out.

  In the car, Madge said, 'There's no case, people. It's not even worth trying to bring one. He just gave the explanation for the lack of track marks — she'd just started shooting and didn't know what she was doing.

  ''But if she'd shot up before, wouldn't there be some tracks?'

  'If it was only a few times, not necessarily. Whelan would laugh it out of court, Mr Johnson. There's evil here and we don't know the half of it, but there's nothing we can do,' Madge told him.