Corsican Honor

by William Heffernan

  Wheelwright was staring into his drink, thinking about his evening conversation with Walter Hennesey, and his inattention left him no opportunity to act when Alex and Michelle took seats on either side of him, with Alex taking pains to show him the small Walther automatic in his hand.

  “Looks like your old service weapon,” Wheelwright said, nodding toward the pistol. “I assure you, you won’t need it.”

  “I’m happy to hear it,” Alex said. “But I may want it.”

  “You don’t have to threaten me, Moran. I’m on your side. And you can make book on that.” He snorted derisively. “I just got off the horn with that thieving asshole Hennesey, after listening to him accuse me of hiding you out.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I told him I wasn’t, but would if I knew where you were.”

  “That must have thrilled him,” Alex said.

  “A lot of things are thrilling old Walter these days. Mainly his inability to find you.”

  “You could make yourself a hero,” Alex suggested.

  “I don’t think Walter is going to be in a position to hand out any medals when this is all over.”

  “Don’t count him out.”

  “I know,” Wheelwright said. “Never count them out. Take them out instead.” He drew a breath and looked at the pistol again. “What can I do for you?” he asked, smiling now. “Since you have me at the point of a gun.”

  “Tell me where I can find Ludwig.”

  “If I knew, I would.” He offered a look of regret. “But I can tell you where to find Montoya. Maybe Ludwig will be with him.”

  “Where?” Alex asked, unable to keep the eagerness from his voice.

  “He’ll be headed for the airport tomorrow morning. Driving in from a small village outside Aix.” He gave Alex the route the car would take.

  “Your people will be guarding him?”

  “Supposedly,” Wheelwright said. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if the trail car managed to get lost somewhere along the way.”

  “How come?” Alex asked, still suspicious of the man.

  “I’ve been told to keep hands off Montoya because he’s a Company asset. And to leave Ludwig alone because he works for him.” He took time to sip his drink, then smiled. “If Montoya didn’t exist anymore—and they tell me that happens to drug bosses all the time—well, then I wouldn’t consider Ludwig as working for anybody. And I doubt certain people at Langley would have the balls”—he glanced at Michelle—“sorry,” he said. “I don’t think they’d dare complain about me going after a terrorist who’s killed so many of our people.”

  “What about helping me? I understand there’s a sanction out now.”

  Wheelwright grinned. “I almost forgot to tell you. That’s been put on hold. Seems your old boss, Pat Cisco, got wind of it, and raised hell in a hand basket. Our orders are to sit tight and wait.”

  “That’s interesting,” Alex said.

  “It’s got them a little uptight at Langley. In certain quarters anyway.” He paused, choosing his words. “So much so, I understand your father’s on his way here. Wants to set up a meet with Meme Pisani.”

  “How delightful,” Alex said. “The man does love to travel.”

  “Yeah,” Wheelwright said. “We’ll be picking him up at the airport day after tomorrow. You have any message for him?”

  “Not now,” Alex said. “I’ll have one for him later.”

  CHAPTER

  45

  Montoya was raving. He marched back and forth across the sitting room of the CIA safe house, his short, stocky body dressed in a white Armani suit, his arms flailing flamboyantly, all of it making him seem like some sallow-complected ghost bent on intimidating a mortal who had crossed his path.

  In fact, he was trying to intimidate Ernst Ludwig, who sat in a chair watching the spectacle, his eyes going occasionally to Raphael Rivera, who stood stoically across the room. Rivera avoided Ludwig’s gaze after the first few times. The eyes were laden with contempt. It was as though they said: You created this fool, now control him. And do it before I cut his throat.

  But no one was going to cut Montoya’s throat. Two of his bodyguards, as always, were standing within easy reach of any attacker. They were hard, flat-faced men—part Indian, Rivera thought—who looked as though they would kill with the dispassion of one insect eating another. Rivera closed his eyes for a moment and questioned why he was even there. This was not what you had in mind when you graduated from Dartmouth, Rivera told himself.

  “We are not attacking, we are sitting, playing with our pricks, and waiting for this old miracón to come at us,” Montoya was raging in Spanish. He turned and glared at Ludwig. “It’s not what I pay you for. You’re supposed to be a fucking killer. So go kill the old bastard. Show me you have the balls of a bull, not some fucking chihuahua.”

  Montoya had stopped his pacing, and stood now rubbing the death’s head tattoo on the back of his hand. Ludwig could imagine him at a Nazi death camp, raging at the guards because the Jews weren’t dying quickly enough.

  Ludwig stared up at Montoya, his face one large sneer. One of the bodyguards took a step forward, watching him. He knows, Rivera thought. He knows how close his boss is to getting his head blown off.

  “Answer me!” Montoya shouted. He seemed to suddenly catch the look in Ludwig’s eyes, and he turned and walked quickly away. “I must know what your plans are before I leave,” he added, his voice softer, more controlled.

  Ludwig scares him, Rivera thought. Even with his bodyguards standing here, the man makes him nervous.

  “First I am going to kill Alex Moran—”

  “But that is just to protect yourself,” Montoya snapped, cutting him off. “I want the Pisani faction wiped out. Then you can kill anyone you want. But first Pisani and all his fucking men. They attacked me.” He jabbed a finger in his chest. “Me! Who the fuck they think they are?”

  “Ludwig’s right,” Rivera said, causing Montoya’s head to snap toward him. He doesn’t like being contradicted, Rivera thought, and he held up both palms, begging patience.

  “Moran’s a professional. Just like your man is.” He nodded toward Ludwig. “And if we hadn’t been able to cut Moran off, he could have called in a lot of resources to put against us.” He gestured with his hands again, begging more time. “But even without them, he’s more dangerous than Pisani right now. He knows if he kills Ludwig, your operation stops until you can replace him. He knows you need someone like Ludwig to run things here. And he knows if he kills you”—he watched Montoya’s eyes glitter at the suggestion—“the whole operation is dead, because there’s nobody to run it.”

  Rivera knew he was weaving a texture of lies, but he also understood they would play well off Montoya’s own beliefs. He believed he needed Ludwig, even though he could hire a half-dozen European killers to do the same job—at first, anyway. And he believed no one could run his operation but himself, even though Rivera’s CIA group was essentially running it for him. And Rivera also understood that Moran didn’t give a rat’s ass about Montoya. He just wanted Ludwig dead. If Montoya’s death made Ludwig more vulnerable, all well and good. If not, he wouldn’t waste his time on the man.

  “What we have to do is cut off the head and watch the body die,” Rivera said. “The French police wouldn’t tolerate all-out warfare on the streets of their second largest city. Especially when it involves foreigners going against—”

  “But Pisani’s the head, not this fucking Moran,” Montoya interrupted, shouting again. He watched Rivera wave for patience.

  “There are better ways to cut off a head,” Rivera said. “Moran’s considered part of Pisani’s family. And the old man can’t afford to have another member of his family hit like his brother was. He’d look too vulnerable to the rest of the milieu, and they’d make a move on him.” He nodded, as much to himself as to Montoya. “Get Moran and the others will take care of Pisani for us.” The nod changed to a reassuring smile. “And then they’ll c
ome to you for a piece of the operation.”

  It was all hypothetical, and Rivera knew it. But he also knew he needed Moran dead. By now he would have learned about the long-standing drug deal between Pisani and the others. Pisani certainly would have told him, pissed as he must be—as he should be—at the way he had been hung out to dry. And that was the biggest danger everyone faced right now. A loose cannon like Moran, who knew more than he ever should have.

  And Rivera didn’t have any faith in the plan to placate Pisani. The time for that was long past, and he was certain Piers Moran’s upcoming attempt at doing so would prove a wasted effort. The others were just pissing in the wind, and hoping nothing would splash back on their shoes.

  Montoya had turned back to Ludwig. He was rising and falling on the balls of his feet, like some little shit of an emperor, Ludwig thought. Some South American Napoleon who never should have been allowed out of the dusty, heat-baked hole of a village from which he had crawled.

  “So you kill Moran,” Montoya snapped. “You don’t wait, you kill him.” He had digested what Rivera had told him, and had adopted it as his own idea.

  “Soon,” Ludwig said, his voice as cold as his eyes.

  “What is soon? Now!”

  “I have to find him first,” Ludwig said. He smiled for the first time. “Or let him find me.”

  “So do it!”

  Ludwig had come to the safe house at Montoya’s order. To see the man before he boarded a plane and got himself safely away. He knew what he wanted to tell the man, but it wasn’t time yet. That would come later. And perhaps Montoya would find himself looking down the barrel of a gun when he finally did. The thought was pleasing.

  “He’ll be dead before the week is out,” Ludwig said. He wished he could walk out, and leave the little fool to do his own killing. If he could. But the only protection he had was from the CIA, and without it he’d be far too vulnerable. Alex Moran would remain alive and would never stop coming for him. And if he walked away now, the CIA would sell him quickly. They’d buy Moran off with his body, serve it up to him on a platter.

  “Everything takes a week here,” Montoya complained. “In Bogotá, I want a man dead, the mortician is dusting off the coffin the second I snap my finger.”

  Ludwig nodded toward one of the bodyguards. “You think your men can do it faster.…” He shrugged and let the sentence die. He smiled at the smaller man. “While you are burying them, I will go about my business and kill Moran my way.”

  The two bodyguards bristled at the insult, which had been spoken in Spanish, but Montoya did not. He was still intimidated by Europe, the little he had seen of it. Things were not as he had expected. There seemed even to be rules for killing people here. Fucking rules! he raged inwardly. At home he could order a judge killed; a police chief, the fucking president of the country, and no one would expect any less. Here he couldn’t kill a fucking gangster the way he should be able to. Only local gangsters could do that. But not him, not his men. It was because they were foreigners, and the killing of locals would give offense. It was like some kind of discrimination, he told himself.

  And his men, they were useless here. They couldn’t even speak the language. They couldn’t find a place to shit without help. And Ludwig knew it. He knows you need him. And so he pisses on you. Challenges your orders in front of your own men.

  Montoya drew himself up, becoming as imperious as he knew how. He squared himself on Ludwig, who was standing now, making him feel physically small.

  “You have him by the end of the week,” he said. He waved his hand in a gesture of benevolence, entirely for the consumption of his men. “You understand this country, so I give you the leeway to do this the way you think best.” He forced a smile and raised a cautioning finger. He was the patron lecturing a minion. “But only a week. No more.”

  Rivera thought Ludwig would fly across the room and seize the man by the throat. But instead he smiled. It was a chilling sight, Rivera thought. They’d have to get rid of Ludwig when his part in all this was over, he told himself. Otherwise Montoya would find himself dead, and they’d have to start again, breaking in another South American punk with a fancy tailor.

  “I assure you, Rudolfo. It will be done,” Ludwig said. “He is number one on my list.”

  Montoya missed the hidden message. He turned from one man to the other, making sure he included his bodyguards, and gestured and nodded his head, indicating his approval.

  “When I come back,” he said, opening his hand and holding his palm like a cup, “then we will have this country here.” He nodded his head again. “The whole continent will be here.” He turned to Rivera and offered him a sly look. “And we will make much money eh, my friend? Much, much money.”

  Montoya rode in the rear of the long black Mercedes. He was annoyed that he had been denied the limousine that had been rented for his arrival. It made him feel as though his stature had somehow been diminished. But he had no choice, and, to a degree, he understood it. And at least it was still a Mercedes.

  The car moved along an open stretch of highway winding through the French countryside. It was pretty here, he supposed. But it lacked the lushness of his own country, Montoya told himself. But it was old. As old as the Aztecs, from whom—he liked to tell people—he had descended. It wasn’t true. At least he didn’t know if it was or not. But he liked the idea. And so he made it true.

  His thoughts turned back to Ludwig, as they had repeatedly over the months he had used him. The man was dangerous. Too dangerous to remain alive. But there was no choice for the time being. But later it would be different.

  Most of the men who worked for him were from his own region in Colombia. Either that, or relatives, or the husbands of relatives. You couldn’t trust people who weren’t bound to you by blood, or close to blood. Or the sanctity of your own part of the world. The others he used, he got rid of when he no longer needed them. It would be the same with Ludwig. He’d use him until he could replace him with one of his own. Already he had told some of them to start learning the French language. They had looked at him like he was crazy, but they were doing it. His people always did what they were told.

  His man in the passenger seat had turned and spoken to him, but he had not heard what he said.

  “What is it?” he snapped. The man should not have interrupted his thoughts. It was disrespectful.

  “The CIA car,” the man said, his tone more subservient. “It is not behind us.”

  Montoya turned and looked out the rear window. The road behind was empty.

  The fools had probably had a flat tire, or had gotten themselves lost in the last village they had passed through. He glanced at his $7,000 Rolex. There wasn’t time to look for them. They had timed his arrival for the plane so there would be no waiting, no unnecessary exposure. He waved a dismissive hand toward the man. The two bodyguards were well armed, and it was only a short distance now.

  The roadblock came into view as Montoya’s car rounded a sudden bend in the road. He stared at it, momentarily concerned, then dismissed the worry when he saw it was manned by only two gendarmes, one of whom was apparently a woman. The bodyguard in the passenger seat chambered a round in his weapon, and Montoya snapped at him, ordering him to place it under his seat. The last thing he wanted was a confrontation with French police. While the CIA might be able to resolve any dispute, it would undoubtedly cause him to miss his plane, especially now that his CIA escort had managed to get themselves lost or broken down.

  The car pulled up in front of the makeshift barrier, and one of the gendarmes—the man—came to the driver’s window. He had a submachine gun slung from his shoulder, but he wore it casually, as though unconcerned about its possible use. The other—the woman—wore a holstered automatic. She stood back at the barrier, watching the car. Montoya thought she looked nervous.

  The gendarme at the window asked a rapid question, and the driver shrugged helplessly, indicating he could not understand French. The gendarme gave him a d
isdainful look, then glanced at the other bodyguard and then Montoya, and received the same response.

  He motioned to the driver curtly, indicating the rear of the car. He wanted to inspect the trunk, Montoya knew. The CIA had warned him there might be occasional roadblocks in France, making routine checks for weapons and explosives. They had cautioned him against carrying any weapons in the trunk of a car, since it was the place most often checked by police.

  The driver opened the trunk, and the gendarme looked inside, then raised the lid of the well that housed the spare tire. Satisfied, he nodded to the driver and walked slowly back to the barricade, while the woman waved the car around it.

  “And have a nice day,” Alex said as he watched the car drive off.

  He turned to Michelle. “Flashy-looking little guy, this Montoya,” he said.

  “I had hoped Ludwig would be with him,” she answered.

  Alex grunted. He understood what she meant. It would be over then. At least for her.

  He reached into his pocket and withdrew an electronic detonator that Pisani had provided, then turned to watch the car as it drew farther away. The road ahead was clearly visible for a long stretch, and he wanted to be sure no innocents would stray past.

  The image of Montoya came back to him. He had been hard-eyed and had seemed tense sitting in the rear seat, and there had been a look of avariciousness about the man that seemed to go with his chosen occupation.

  He stared at the car for several seconds more, then depressed the red button on the detonator. The explosive he had planted in the tire well went off after a one-second delay, sending a ball of flame and debris into the air, part of which, he knew, were the remains of the three men in the car.

  He had chosen the false police barricade because that had been the way they had killed Antoine. It was a personal form of revenge and he thought his uncle would have appreciated it.

  He picked up the barricade and tossed it to the side of the road, choosing not to look at Michelle. He didn’t want to see her eyes, afraid of what might be there.