The Bannerman Solution (The Bannerman Series)

by Maxim, John R.

  Paul waited.

  “On top of that, I was a shit to Elena. I don't even know why, because I know inside she's a good lady. I'm ready to break your back for putting Susan in danger and a minute later I'm ready to leave here while I run to Elena. I don't know. I. . . .”

  Paul's expression softened a shade. Still, he waited.

  “It's okay to send Molly. I appreciate the thought. I'd appreciate also if you'd call me when you know something.”

  “You have a place to stay?”

  Lesko shook his head.

  “Use my place. Molly will give you the key and a car.”

  Lesko nodded thanks. “You see Elena, if you talk to her, tell her for me. . . .”

  “Tell her yourself, Lesko.” Paul walked briskly toward the street at the sound of Billy's horn.

  The phone message, marked Extremely Urgent, had been left by Urs Brugg, who identified himself as Elena's uncle when Bannerman hastened to return the call. The introduction was unnecessary.

  It had happened near the town of Lachen, forty kilometers south of Zurich. A van had overtaken the Mercedes driven by his nephew, Josef. Two men in the back of the van fired automatic weapons as it drew past. Josef was killed outright. Bannerman's man, Russo, seated behind the driver, was also killed outright. His niece, Elena, was hit twice and is now in surgery. One bullet pierced her left arm, which had been holding Russo. Another struck her high in the chest after passing through Russo. The van was then driven off, after an exchange of fire with another nephew, Willem, who had been following only two kilometers behind.

  “My niece remained conscious throughout,” Urs Brugg told him, “insisting that Mr. Bannerman at Davos Hospital be notified immediately. It is her impression, and that of my surviving nephew, that she was the primary target. Both gunmen concentrated their fire in her direction after hitting the driver.”

  “I see.”

  “She is alive because she was shielded by the body of the injured man, Russo. She asks me to assure you that such use of him was inadvertent.”

  “I understand,” he said. “Mr. Brugg, can I help you in any way?”

  “Can Mama's Boy find the men who did this?”

  Bannerman remembered his words to Anton about Urs Brugg, deeply regretting them. “I'll do better than that, sir. You have my promise.”

  “Elena suggests that you do it from outside Switzerland. The police have identified Russo and will soon connect him with the rest of your people. They are likely to detain all of you regardless of my wishes. The Swiss police have little tolerance for assassins of any stripe.”

  “I have a flight in four hours. Can you steer them away from the airport?”

  “I will do my best.”

  “Mr. Brugg, I did not get a chance to meet your niece. I regret that because she sounds like a very considerable woman.”

  “Yes. Yes, she is.”

  “I will be in touch, sir.”

  Paul and Billy returned directly to Klosters, where Paul told Molly and Carla about the ambush. He gave Carla no chance to brood about the death of Gary Russo. The trick was to move fast and keep moving. He sent her out to rent another car and to purchase an axe and keyhole saw at the local hardware store.

  By the time she returned he had packed his bags and Susan's, including their skis, and wrapped Lurene Carmody's body in a mattress cover. With Carla waiting at the garage elevator, Billy carried Lurene to the trunk of the BMW, where she joined her husband Harold. The axe and saw were put in with them. The luggage was stacked on the rear seat and the ski bags tied on top.

  Carla was instructed to take the first southbound train, carrying no luggage lest she be observed by the police, then make her way to Milan and book the first available flight home. Molly was to take the rented car to Davos and make sure that she or Lesko was with Susan at all times, and stay until she was told it was safe to leave.

  Paul and Billy were on the road shortly before sunset. Billy insisted upon riding with the luggage, his window open. and his silenced pistol ready in the event of a second ambush. Paul said it was a waste of heated air. Billy said it couldn't hurt.

  An hour out of Klosters, by the shore of the Wallensee, Paul pulled off the autoroute and made his way to the lake's frozen surface. Leaving Billy on shore near a stand of pines, he walked fifty feet onto the ice, carrying the axe and saw. He hacked out a hole six inches in diameter, then cut out a two-foot disk with the saw. Fifty feet downstream, he hacked a smaller hole. He dropped the tools through it.

  He returned to the BMW, where Billy had finished stripping Harold's body of all identification. Paul took these, plus Lurene's effects and jewelry, to the smaller hole, and tamped them through. He turned to see Billy dragging Harold and Lurene across the ice to the larger hole. Harold went in headfirst. Lurene followed. Billy threw his gun after them.

  Paul took the two-foot disk, inverted so it would freeze shut more quickly, and plugged the hole with it. Next he used his car key to scratch kein verdammen fischen in the ice, hopeful that it would induce the next morning's ice fishermen to try another part of the lake. It all took twenty minutes.

  They reached Zurich Airport with only thirty minutes to spare. Leaving Billy and their baggage at curb-side, Paul drove the BMW to the parking lot where, after carefully wiping all surfaces, he locked and abandoned it.

  He joined Billy, who was checking their baggage and securing boarding passes. Billy watched the clerk's face for any sign that she'd been alerted to watch for them. There was none. Just two more men with skis. Best way to remain inconspicuous at a Swiss airport in January. Their only remaining obstacle was passport control. The official at the glass Immigration booth examined their passports, then stared at each of them with what Paul took to be interest but not alarm. Nor did he bother checking their names against his stop list print-out or bulletins. The official's eyes flicked past his shoulder. Paul turned, his stomach tightening. But standing there, arms folded, touching a finger to his hat, was Willem Brugg.

  From the departure lounge as final boarding was being called, Paul telephoned Anton Zivic, to alert him that they were coming. Zivic knew already.

  “Molly called from Davos,” Anton told him. ”Urs Brugg called as well. I'll have security and transportation waiting. Have you spoken to Roger Clew? He's most anxious.”

  “I'll call him when I get there. Everything quiet otherwise?”

  “Calm before the storm, I think.”

  “Anton, I had no business asking Molly to stay. Will you call back and tell her to get out? I have to run for the plane.”

  ”Urs Brugg has seen to that as well.”

  As the Swissair flight left the runway, a profound sadness, born partly of exhaustion, settled upon Paul. He tried not to think of Susan. And he berated himself for leaving Molly with her. He'd told himself he'd done it for Susan's protection, even that of her father. But that wasn't the reason. Carla would have been the better choice as an attack dog and Molly would be needed in Westport. He left her because he knew that she, unlike Carla, would talk to Susan. Tell her about him. In a way that would ease the hurt. And Susan would talk to her.

  Mama's Boy. Always calm, cool, in control. Always the professional. Some professional.

  He was asleep before the clouds blurred out the lights of Zurich.

  At Kennedy Airport, passing through Customs without incident, he spotted John Waldo among the limo drivers and waiting relatives. Janet Herzog and her knitting bag were by the door. He did not acknowledge them. Billy hauled most of the bags to a stretch limousine waiting at the curb while Paul carried the others to a telephone. He had two calls to make.

  “Mr. Brugg, it's Paul Bannerman. How is she?”

  “Out of danger,” Elena's uncle answered. “One bullet shattered her collarbone but missed the lung. She seems more concerned about the scar and how it will effect her choice of wardrobe.”

  “That's the best possible news, sir.”

  “Easy for you to say. You don't wear low-cut gowns.”


  Paul smiled, both at the joke and at the relief that it implied. “Sir, I made you a promise. Will you stay close to your phone this week?”

  “I am in a wheelchair, Paul. I am always here.”

  “Sir, is Molly Farrell. . . ?”

  “She is en route by way of Munich. The girl and the father are well guarded.”

  “Thank you. And for your help at the airport.”

  “I am confident that you will return the favor.”

  “I'm going to ask just one more. Can you arrange for the return of Doctor Russo's body? He ought to be buried where his friends are.”

  “Give me an address.”

  His next call was to Lesko. It was two in the morning there. He tried the Klosters apartment. Lesko answered on the fifth ring. Paul waited for Lesko's head to clear before he repeated the news of Elena's condition. Lesko was silent for a long moment. He asked where she was. Bannerman had neglected to ask the name of the hospital but he provided the number of her uncle.

  “You're back in New York?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don't you ever sleep?”

  “I slept during the flight. How is ... how is your daughter?”

  “She's sleeping, too.”

  “Come on, Lesko. You know what I'm asking.”

  A long pause. “Yeah, Bannerman. I told her about you. But I laundered it a little.”

  “Why?”

  A longer pause. “I don't know. I could still change my mind. Listen, you had two calls. One was from that Palmer Reid a few hours ago. I picked up, he thought he was talking to you. He starts off saying he just heard about the try on Elena, who he says he warned you about, and how it's a case of the chickens coming home to roost. He also warned you about me because I'm a crook, too, and he says by tomorrow he's going to have his hands on the guy who's behind all this so you should know who your friends are. You people say that a lot, don't you. Anyway, I couldn't get a word in edgewise.”

  Paul winced. “What did you say to him?”

  “Go fuck yourself is what crossed my mind. But I said thank you and hung up. Guy's nice enough to call, what's not to be polite?”

  “He had no idea?”

  “I don't think so.” Lesko's voice dropped. “It's him, isn't it? The bartender was right.”

  “We'll see. Who else called?”

  “Guy named Roger Clew. From the airport.”

  “He's there? In Switzerland?”

  “Yeah. I didn't tell him you weren't so he's on his way down. What's with him?”

  “He's a good man. State Department. In fact, it's good he's coming. He'll be able to save you both any inconvenience with the Swiss authorities. Tell him I asked him to do that.”

  “What inconvenience? I didn't do any damage here. You didn't give me the chance.”

  “Is your name Dumbrowski?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “When will the hospital release Susan?”

  “They want her for a week. She wants out tomorrow.”

  Bannerman bit his lip. “Lesko, I'm about to do some damage over here as well. It's against people who have long arms. If Susan can travel, I'd like to have her where I can guarantee her safety. She can convalesce at the clinic. I promise I won't see her.”

  “This damage. I get a piece of it?”

  “You might even get to push the button.”

  Lesko replaced the phone and returned to the couch where he'd been sleeping. He wouldn't use the bed. They'd used it.

  Yeah, he'd told Susan about Bannerman. Some of it. Parts of it hurt her. Not so much because of what he was, but because he didn't tell her himself. And because his only interest in her, at least in the beginning, was to keep her from snooping around Westport.

  He had to tell her they were killers. Probably all of them. Even this Molly, although Susan wouldn't buy it. Maybe they weren't criminals in the normal sense. Maybe you could even agree with some of what they've done and figure maybe the country needs people like them now and then. But, he told her, whatever face you wanted to put on them, it still came down to this. Paul and the rest of them can't live in a world with regular people and regular people can't live in their world, either.

  So what does she say? She asks, “How is he different from you, daddy?” He says, “There's a difference, believe me. I told him to stay away from you and I'm telling you to stay away from him.”

  “Daddy?” She gives that look of hers. “You know I love you, right?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “You and Paul Bannerman. You can both fuck off.”

  Lesko stretched out on the couch. He wanted to sleep because he wanted to dream. Which was a first. But the dreams weren't coming. Jet lag, maybe. Throws everything else out of whack. Why not dreams?

  He didn't want to think about Bannerman anymore. Bannerman was still a prick, even if he was starting to show signs of being Lesko's kind of prick. What he wanted to do was talk to Katz. No matter how stupid it felt, he wanted to ask Katz flat out, was Katz a dumb dream or was he a ghost, after all. If he was just a dream, how come Susan saw him, too?

  Probably a waste of time, though. Katz says “I don't know” to any question harder than where's the nearest toilet. So if he's a ghost he's the world's dumbest ghost, on top of being the worst dressed.

  But he isn't. All it was, Susan for half her life was used to seeing him and Katz together. And he'd told her about his own dreams. Katz coming with the bagels. That's all it was.

  The other dream Lesko wanted to have, although he'd hardly admit it even to himself, was that one with Elena. The one with her in his bed. He wanted that dream back, except without Loftus, Donovan and Katz hanging around. She didn't have to do anything or say anything. All she had to do was be there. Maybe they'd talk a little.

  Thursday. Noon in Westport. A corner table at Mario's.

  Paul and Anton had just returned from a two-hour visit with Robert Loftus. Filling in the pieces.

  Loftus, his wife and children were being moved that day to Gary Russo's house. For the present, Doug Poole would move in with John Waldo who said, “He asks for an autograph, he's out on his ass.”

  “Loftus's face is a mess,” said Paul, sitting. “Can it be restored?”

  “Except for a few scars, he'll be more or less normal within three months. Gary Russo would barely have left a mark. Too bad.”

  “We need our own doctor. We'll find someone else. How's his family doing?”

  “The wife is terrified. Loftus told her more about us than is probably good for her. But she's even more afraid of Palmer Reid.”

  “We'll see if we can ease her mind.” Paul opened his menu, then put it down. He raised a hand and began counting off with his fingers. “Seven . . . eight people dead so far. Plus two near-misses. All in one week. All for a mistake.”

  Anton nodded agreement. “One man's paranoia.”

  Paul looked at him. “I didn't mean Reid. The mistake was mine.”

  “If you're about to say that because you underestimated Palmer Reid….”

  “I didn't underestimate him, Anton. The man's capable of anything. I know you've wondered why I didn't finish him three years ago.”

  “I didn't wonder. I knew the reasons.”

  Paul sat back. “I don't think so.”

  “I knew because I know you,” Anton told him. “The first is that you kill when you must, not when you like. That's what sets you apart from a Carla Benedict, for example.”

  “That's not it.” He glanced at Billy who was back at the bar greeting customers. “I played games with him.”

  “Yes, you did,” Anton leaned forward. “But it was a very good game.”