A Death in Geneva (5 page)

“Out, out! Fast! Into the boot . . . the trunk, the trunk, fast!” Cranston had jabbered in protest, grabbed at him, sending a spear of pain through the wounded ribs.

Head slammed him back into the trunk lid, gave another look in each direction. “Quick, damn your bloody ass! I need the money. Get your bloody ass in the trunk if you don't want to be killed!” It was cramped, but Cranston fit. Head pushed his shoulder down, shot him twice in the head, and slammed the trunk lid closed. He returned to the front seat, closed the door, stuffed the shirt in his pack, folded the tie into a pocket of the jacket, flicked through the papers again . . . stopping at the passport.

Hair . . . parted more in the middle . . . bigger eyes, sunglasses would take care of that . . . mustache, mustache! He worked quickly.
The false hair was in place; it stayed. . . . Have to be careful not to set the bloody hair on fire.

He yanked Cranston's shirt back out of the pack, wiped down the passenger's side of the front, then stepped out again, banging against the dead man's shoes as he exited. The shoes! He looked at them; no prints . . . leave them! He moved to the other side again, wiped the outside of the door, then the trunk lid. He climbed back into the driver's seat, and the sedan continued its journey to the airport bearing two Henry Cranstons.

Three stops were required en route; the pistol disappeared in pieces. Henry Cranston was not armed. In the airport lot he finished the wiping down of the gearshift, emergency brake, steering wheel, rear view mirror, inside and outside of the driver's door. The sedan was clean. He locked it, locked the trunk, tested it with a kick. Another car pulled in beside the rental sedan. He ignored it, heading toward a sewer grate, wiping the keys as he walked. The plan changed with the approach of a refuse truck. The keys disappeared down the road with the airport's morning trash.

Head's first stop in the terminal was at Trans-Global. He purchased a ticket, one-way, for Henry Cranston to Cairo, gave the girl a good look at the passport. The American bastards played a bloody tougher game; this was the test. The passport was returned . . . okay. He paid for the ticket in francs, circled the terminal, bought a paper, moved on, tossed it into the trash, then walked to the U.K.I. counter where he again requested a ticket.

“Name, please?”

“Harold Gosden.”

“Valid passport, please?” He flipped it open. Her eyes flicked only momentarily toward the document, then back to the emerging printout of her computer. “How will you be paying, please?'

“Francs, Swiss francs.”

She slipped the ticket into its folder, took his money and gave him his change. “Thank you. Have a good flight.”

The Maltese islands appeared off the port wing, three yellow sand and limestone tablets in the blue of the Mediterranean; first Gozo, tiny Comino, to the southeast the main island of Malta.

“There it is, Sullivan. Your first trip, isn't it?” He didn't wait for an answer. “Starring's new school for oceanographers and retired pirates—Catholic country, Sullivan. You're going to be right at home. Here, change seats.” He stepped into the isle. She shifted to the window, and he leaned over her, peering out at the coastal cliffs, looking inland across the rocky fields, gaining his bearings.

“There! Dead in the center, Malta's old walled capital—Mdina—dates back to the Roman occupation more than a thousand years ago. Catacombs there; the cathedral was destroyed by an earthquake, rebuilt in the 1700s. But that's current events; there are temples here dating back to 4000 B.C.

The plane was descending. He sat back for a moment, then leaned toward the window again. “Dry here, very dry. They have crops, but they have to scratch. See that stone archway running off to the east—the aqueduct—old waterworks running into Valletta. Can't see the harbor, off on the other side. There's an excitement about this place, Sullivan, the fortifications, the battles.”

The U.K.I. flight touched down hard on the Luqa Airfield runway, rose slightly, then settled. Twelve rows behind the two Americans, Head adjusted his sunglasses and caressed his mustache. Only half awake, he ignored the first efforts at conversation by the elderly man seated beside him. He pulled the necktie in his jacket pocket partway out, stuffed it back. The passport, letters . . . Henry Cranston, student . . . airline ticket, Gosden? . . . bloody mistake at the other end . . . name's Cranston . . . get your bloody act together. He worked the wad of documents back into the pocket, organized his thoughts for the Maltese authorities.

Starring and his secretary had already been ushered through the arrival formalities and departed for the harbor in his Continental convertible by the time that Head cleared customs and immigration. No questions, everything in order. A warm breeze blew through the open windows of the bus carrying him to Valletta. He studied the dashboard, which the driver had transformed into a religious shrine. One skirmish over . . . new war just beginning . . . bloody bus. He slid further down into the seat turning sideways toward the window, his arms crossed tightly in front of him to protect the wound.

Chapter 3

F
our miles north of Luqa Airfield, near St. Julian's on the northeast coast of Malta, Oswald Tooms sat on the terrace of the Malta Hilton savoring an ale. The first swallow produced a guttural growl of satisfaction. His eyes followed a speedboat skimming along the coastline just beyond the surf, pulling two water-skiers weaving back and forth across the wake, ducking under the towlines as they crossed, their solo skis trailing arching rooster tails of water.

“Speechmaking ain't easy,” he remarked to no one in particular, “not when you're inside and this spectacle is out here.” The canopied tables were crowded with participants enjoying a break in the afternoon's session of the Oceanic University of the World Conference.

“I should not think that speechmaking would be bearable when the words are those of a hypocrite.” The young woman who had taken a chair beside his leaned forward to place a manila envelope on the terrace tiles. As she spoke, the graceful line of her breast was exposed by the half-buttoned front of her denim shirt.

“I'm not smart enough to be a hypocrite, just wise enough to say what folks don't want to hear. It makes the game more interesting, stirs up the real debate, keeps me in touch with all manner of people.” He took in the long tanned legs beneath the white shorts, the shoulders, unusually broad, on her lean figure. She had a small nose and a cleanly defined jaw, almost a boyish look, strengthened
by her tousled, sun-bleached brown hair and by a fine scar, etched against her tan, running from beneath the right eye down across the cheek.

“You see, Athena, or is it Diana,” he read the tag L
ESLIE
R
ENFRO
M
ALTA
on her shirt, continued in his deep southern voice, “if we are all agreed at the start, there's no reason to get together in the first place, is there? Cigarette?” She declined with a shake of her head. He speared one for himself with thick fingers. “A beer, gin and tonic? Lent's over.”

“Coffee, thank you, with cream.”

“I gather you have my name. Oswald Tooms, O.T., call me Oats—in the employ of Thomas Madison Starring, this conclave's patron saint and benefactor. I see your name tag, now. Is it Miss Renfro, or Mrs. . . . or Ms.—titles getting as bad as the academic bullshit, if you'll pardon the expression.”

“Leslie Renfro, Dr. Tooms. I know quite well who you are, and you are a very shrewd speaker.”

“Leslie Renfro, a pleasure. Twelfth address this year, Leslie; they're improving, vintage wine—”

“I found your speech insulting, Dr. Tooms. The people in this conference are dedicated to the future of the ocean environment.” She fingered the white periwinkles around her neck. “And you deride their efforts. You condone and assist in the destruction of the oceans.”

“The folks here”—he chuckled—“are a traveling company of actors permanently between engagements, a hand-to-mouth gang that survives on all manner of misguided grants and the largesse of some well-to-do folks who don't mind a steady dose of flattery. . . .”

“Are you aware, Dr. Tooms, of the number of people who have died in Italy alone in recent years from cholera?” She sat straighter. “Cholera contracted from contaminated shellfish? Are you aware—or do you find it more convenient to ignore—the quantities of mercury and radioactive waste that are dumped into the Mediterranean each year? Have you really dismissed the mercury poisonings in Japan? Do you know just how many people are contracting dysentery, hepatitis, and typhoid fever when they swim in the Mediterranean?”

“I make my living from this sea, Dr. Tooms.” Her eyes were intent on his face. He lazily shifted his gaze to the skiers. “And, you and your people are destroying that living! If it lines your pockets, you
condone . . . anything at all! Raw sewage? You love it. Toxic wastes, tanker oil, of course—”

“Black coffee?” A spoon rattled on the saucer as the old, olive-skinned Maltese waiter served them.

“Coffee, yes indeed—with cream, right, Princess? Keep on talking.” Tooms poked his bar tab toward the waiter, slid down in his chair, relaxed, his fingers clasped across his ample stomach. “I like the trim of your sails, Miss Renfro. Usually when a lady gets fired up she gets the trembles and shakes, but you're as steady as a tanker loaded to the Plimsoll, makes listening worthwhile.”

Tooms gave her his broadest whiskered smile, breathed a contented sigh, and crossed his ankles. He had the physique of a fireplug, five feet six, barrel chested, and heavily muscled with a layer of fat. He wore his black hair in a brush cut which contrasted with his lordly, graying goatee. Eyeglasses on a cord lay across his shortsleeved safari shirt; tan shorts, black socks, and brown, crepe-soled canvas shoes completed his rig.

Leslie sipped from her coffee as she watched an Indian incline his turbaned head toward Tooms and deliver effusive congratulations. The admirer moved on to another table. “It is estimated, Dr. Tooms, that between ten and fifteen million tons of oil are deliberately dumped into the oceans by tankers each year, and—”

“Tankers are like dairy cows, Princess. They provide the juice to keep civilization on the move, cars rolling, houses warm, bakeries baking . . . of course, they do leave a few cow pies.”

“Millions of tons of oil, Dr. Tooms, represent an equal quantity of toxic hydrocarbons, carcinogens, poisonous compounds that linger and systematically contribute to the irraparable long-term devastation of the entire marine resource food chain. A single spill off a coastal marsh wipes out everything: the invertebrates, shellfish, fish, and plant life. It permeates the sediment and, as you well know, Dr. Tooms, it lingers and goes on killing. It breaks down very slowly, if at all, and its toxicity remains.”

The shadow of a single cloud drifting beneath the sun added to the brilliance of her green eyes. Tooms traced a path through the sweat of his bottle, wiping the cool moisture on his brow. “What I like about you, Miss Renfro, is the artful way you make your point.”

She swung toward Tooms, her voice cool and even. “The point is self-evident. You have given a paper ridiculing this conference, chastising
universities, governments, and international organizations for their so-called misguided efforts to dominate ocean affairs, which you consider best left to private enterprise. You certainly must find it expedient to do so, given that you are in the pay of Towerpoint—”

“Aha! Now that's better; a clean and simple charge of prostitution.” The waiter hovered at the table again, flicked at an invisible crumb, shuffled the ash tray. Tooms indicated another round. “I won't deny it.” He sat up, checked his watch, leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped.

“You know, Princess, I've been around the water a goodly number of years. Way back before you mounted this crusade, I was soaking wet eighteen hours a day sliding around open decks as an able-bodied deckhand”—he banged his stomach and laughed—“on a salmon purse seiner working the North Pacific. I'd migrated there from my apprenticeship on shrimp boats in the Gulf. Up in the Pacific, we worked places like Tongass Narrows, Bristol Bay, the Skeena and Frazer systems . . . a nice part of this earth . . . forty-eight pounds of fish to the standard case of canned salmon. In a good season, the Pacific fleet would land three-and-a-half million cases of that plump salmon . . . chinooks, chums, pinks, silvers, reds.”