A Death in Geneva (4 page)

Starring returned the subcommittee document its envelope. The words had been transcribed as he had spoken them. The message had to be hammered home whatever the odds against corrective action by the Congress. Ahead of the jetliner, a horizontal thread of orange in the blue-blackness signaled the coming of dawn over Europe. Starring rested. Connie, “immortalized in the ranks of America's heroines . . .” He savored the words. . . . part of history. Good work, Connie.

The return of the coffin, the ceremony at the Air Force base, the interment at Arlington, every moment precise, dignified. We're at
our best with the dead, not the living, he thought. His head shook as he recalled his sister's burial, young Evie griefstricken, pressed against her brother. I should have poked him in the nose! Starring detested his brother-in-law, “a lump of academic dough.” He had urged his sister repeatedly over the years to move ahead with her own interests . . . good years when she was running London . . . guts, tenacity . . . the presidential campaign . . . then, Geneva. The president had taken him aside at the cemetery, placed a hand on his shoulder, asked the secretary of state to join them. “I've got the best there is on this, Tommie. Interpol, the rest, are cooperating fully. We're dealing with the animals, but we'll crack it, crack it fast. Connie was representing me. . . .” He had looked at the casket above the grave as the caisson drew away, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Connie, Connie . . .” He clasped Starring's hand and departed.

Starring's reverie was broken by the bustle of the flight attendants. “Sullivan, the stewardess has a hot towel for you. Wake up, have some breakfast. We have some dictating to do.”

Muriel Sullivan, Starring's secretary, organized herself quickly. Pen and pad emerged from a traveled leather satchel. Starring bent over his linened tray, a napkin at his throat, speaking quickly as he ate. “Have New York wire a full review of the planning for the end of June family session. Remind Hensen this is a
formal
dress rehearsal for stockholders meeting. London has done some good work, but I want a better analysis of the coming decade in the Irish Sea and the entire Spitzbergen as well as the tote sheet on North Sea construction and production . . . need an honest statement on rig construction decline . . . some highlighting on the shift in tanker charters, shows them we're anticipating, not asleep.”

“Tell Baltimore the Mexican LNG report, more attention . . . projected employment figures . . . projected regional energy requirements . . . report needs more fight . . . being nibbled to death by small-timers.”

He folded his napkin over the half-finished breakfast. “Make a separate note, Sullivan. Want to see Oats Tooms first thing tomorrow, go over this Mexican business . . . Towerpoint receiving bad press, talk to him in the morning.” The secretary kept pace with these instructions, then flipped back to an earlier page as he resumed work on the June meeting. Starring's voice snapped through the agenda. He bore in on the improvements to be made to the defense contracts presentation.

“Tell Adrian . . . film is terrible, put the entire crowd to sleep . . . infantile narrative. Scrap it, gives the wrong impression. Each division responsible for sharp, three-dimensional models . . . includes the off-shore division, far more instructive . . .” He was interrupted by the landing announcement. “Fasten your seatbelt, Sullivan. I'll have two more paragraphs in the airport.”

Muriel Sullivan winced at the intensity of the clerk's cologne; he was leaning across the glass counter to demonstrate the 35mm camera. Two small boys raced through the concourse, their shoes slapping loudly in the nearly empty terminal. Oblivious to the announcement in French, German, and English of a departing flight, one snared the other by his sweater. They wrestled, pulled apart, and resumed the chase.

“You will appreciate, madame, the professional quality; the very best, madame. The lens is firmly in place with one twist . . . you hear the click . . . the very latest zoom. It will make excellent close-ups.” She looked through the viewfinder, focused on the alert face of a German shepherd guard dog seated beside an airport sentry, automatic rifle, barrel down, hanging from a shoulder strap. Guards; only hours since Mrs. Burdette's death. The thought made her neck and shoulders ache.

In the distance, a lanky figure with the hunch of a backpack was crossing the terminal. She zoomed in on his curly blond hair, aviator's sunglasses, mustache . . . a good camera. She told the clerk she would take it, tucked in one end of the green silk scarf knotted loosely at her throat to soften and give life to the tailored gray suit she was wearing.

Muriel Sullivan was a petite woman, fair-skinned and red-haired, at Starring's side professionally for fifteen years, her life given over to the pulsing existence of Towerpoint International. He treated her the way a ship's captain treats a second in command. He relied on her to be aware of the smallest details
inside
the Towerpoint structure. Her dedication ran around the clock eleven months each year. September marked her annual pilgrimage to the cottage on the coast near Dun Laoghaire south of Dublin Bay. Her forbearers had come from the east center of Ireland, from Kildare, Wicklow, Dublin. The cottage stayed in the care of a cousin. Starring had first fought unsuccessfully then endured with melancholy this annual disappearance, had said
it would be more profitable to put the entire operation in drydock while she was away.

Muriel was as unassuming as she was efficient. There was nothing unusual in Starring's reliance on her to purchase a camera for his second wife, Tina.

He looked to Muriel to provide a constant burnishing to this outward appearance of attentive husband. It was good for business, good for the image, a mask for hardened emptiness in his heart.

Now, with the second announcement of their onward flight, Starring gave the purchase a disinterested glance and passed it back to be packed in her satchel. They moved from the distinguished visitors' lounge to the tunnel leading from the main terminal to one of the smaller, satellite arrival and departure terminals in the center of the airfield. Starring offered his secretary his arm, which she declined, when they stepped onto the people-conveyor belt that would transport them the length of the clean, efficient tunnel. He admired such Swiss workmanship, the attention to detail. Very Strange, his mind jumped, very strange that they had still not captured the killers, not like the Swiss.

It was when they were halfway through the tunnel that Paul Andrew Head followed them onto the conveyor. He did not know them, was unaware of their presence. His right thumb and forefinger ran along his mustache, stroking the false hair, pressing it into place. He kept his left arm close to his side. The bullet had done no real damage, carved a trench, cracked a rib which they had patched before they had separated from him.

He was careful with each breath. He did not want pain; it would make him sweat. Sweat would betray him in the cool terminal. He rode in silence, his mind on his new identity . . .
Cranston, Henry Cranston.
He stepped from the belt, climbed the steps to the departure lounge . . . more dogs, police with automatics, an armored personnel carrier, small but distinct in the distance through the glass.

Easing the backpack from his right shoulder, he dug into a pocket for a cigarette. . . . No complaint. It had gone well . . . rebound from near disaster. The twin clouds of smoke from his nostrils drew an angry stare. He casually moved a few paces, turning his back, pushing the pack along the floor with his foot. . . . Tracking, kill, getaway had been clean, under control. He had taken them to the border transfer, returned the weapons, except for his pistol, to the cache, and driven back into Geneva.

The final contact by the tennis courts at the Parc des Eaux-Vives had been to the minute. The bigger the crowd, the greater the traffic, the less chance for the gestapo. Work right under their noses. The van, wiped clean, was gone. It was then he had realized he did not have his papers. They had kept all sets of papers in one pouch throughout the operation. He had forgotten, his mistake; his passport was in a farm truck heading south through Italy. Bloody bastards!

He stubbed out the cigarette, listened to the boarding announcement for the U.K.I. flight. There was a long line, full bloody flight. That was alright; he was in no rush now.

Cranston, he took no satisfaction from having killed him, an act of survival. Head had first learned survival, and terror, in the red mud of the veldt, and in the bundu nightmare of the Rhodesian bush. It had started for him with the acts of the Crocodile Commando, the murders of families in farmhouses and on empty roads. His entire nation had been at war against the terrorists then. He was still in his teens, in the Security Force Reserves guarding villages which had been secured as safe havens from ZAPU and ZANU attacks. He had lost his nerve, cracked in the grisly, deafening chaos of a night attack, hidden, fled south across his country, across the Limpopo into South Africa.

From Durban, he had continued his flight by ship to Europe, to Rotterdam. His first brush with his present was in the communes of Amsterdam where he had absorbed the intense discussions, the rising excitement in voice after voice, face after face, over the successes of the Red Brigade, the other movements. He had let it be known that he was a trained, expert killer, a member of Rhodesia's elite Selious Scouts, disillusioned by the racist actions of his country. To establish his worth, he killed. And, he had been accepted.

Head had been cautious in tracking the American from the American Express offices to his hotel. “It's 311.” The desk clerk had checked as he turned to the pigeonholes for the key. “Right,” the American had replied, “311, until the morning.” He would do. They were similar in appearance, coloration, no more than two inches apart in height. The American's hair was shorter. He had a mustache; it would be on his passport.

Having selected his prey, Head made his way across the city to a woman barber. While she was making change in the back of her shop, he stole the blond wig from one of the four wigged heads in the window, tipped her, and was gone. The heavy, double-faced tape
was harder to find, a department store back in the center of Geneva. He shaped a trimmed mustache from the cloth-backed flaxen hair and placed it in his wallet with four trimmed pieces of the adhesive.

Cranston had been punctual, a good boy, checked out at 9:00 a.m. sharp. He had met him on the street, at the rental car delivery bays. He had addressed him by name, recalling their schoolboy acquaintanceship, asked if he might catch a lift.

Cranston had been flabbergasted, gone chalk white when Head jammed the pistol into his side. He had handed over his wallet and papers. Head checked them as they left the city. . . . Excellent—passport, two credit cards, several hundred Swiss francs, travelers checks, letters of some description.

“What are these?”

“Letters,” Cranston had blurted, “letters for the university, from my professor.”

Halfway to the airport, Head had given him a hard jab with the pistol, “Here, left, turn!” The car had moved slowly along Chemin du Pommier, one more turn. Head looked carefully. “By those trees, stop!” The Cemetery de Petit-Saconnex was on their left.

“Your tie, shirt, jacket! Off! Now!” Cranston, breath coming in shallow gasps, did as he was told.

“. . . and shoes, dammit, the shoes . . . leave your pants on.” Head took the keys from the ignition. Keeping the pistol, covered by the shirt, on the American, he stepped out on the road, opening the boot of the car as he crossed to the other side. He waited as one, then another car passed.