Blood Ties (26 page)

The suite still held an aura of Dawn's presence, as if it
were tangible evidence of her refusal to disappear quietly. In the end, he had
not denied her her farewell moment. It had been an incredible, preposterous
revelation. Then why could he not take refuge in its incredibility?

He had tried to reach Olga by telephone, but there was no
answer. Then he had tried to sleep, but had also failed at that. What he needed
was to get away from this place, even for a few hours. Perhaps he might take
Olga to dinner in the town.

When he heard the knock on the door, he welcomed the
intrusion. It was Adolph. He stepped inside the sitting room. He had the fat
man's grace, a soft step. Often Albert had imagined him in the sexual embrace,
the tub of flesh gorging greedily on the carcass of some tight-assed youth. But
he knew there was much more to Adolph than met the eye, as if the fat and the
homosexuality were merely a natural ruse to deflect penetration. Of all the von
Kassels in the business, Adolph could be relied upon to consummate the most
delicate deals. His turf being Asia, he was expert in the subtleties of doing
business with Orientals, a talent that married deviousness with respect—the
more devious, the more respect.

"You seem agitated, Albert," he said.

"You have something on your mind, Adolph?" Albert
asked, countering the probe with another question.

"I only suspected it this morning. Now it is
confirmed." Adolph did not sit down.

"What are you talking about?"

"Rudi. The plutonium."

"That." His mind tried to focus on it.

"It's a fait accompli," Adolph said, the usual
patina of calm strangely missing. His cousin was uncharacteristically worried.
"The material has been sold and moved. The gold has already been delivered
to Buenos Aires."

"To Buenos Aires?" He could not believe it. The
Unstable South American banking system was rarely used by the family, certainly
not for something of this size. All transactions moved through Swiss, German,
or American sources.

"That is not possible," Albert stammered. Adolph
held up two fat hands.

"We paid dearly for the information."

"But it makes no sense." He remained stunned,
searching for logic in his brother's actions. Whatever their differences, no
family member ever acted alone.

"Perhaps he could not stall the transaction. Perhaps
he felt that he must act by himself. To prove himself."

Yes, that would be it, Albert agreed.

"Two hundred and fifty million in gold," Adolph
sighed. "And there is more."

"Still more?" Nothing, after all, was simple.

"The gold is from Russian stocks."

"Russian?" Another odd turn. The Russians were
glutted with plutonium. Of all the earth's treasures plutonium was in long
supply. Their Siberian uranium deposits were abundant and their technological
facilities for conversion highly sophisticated.

"So you see there are mysteries within
mysteries." Adolph rubbed his hands together, more in nervousness than in
satisfaction.

"He talked of a South African and Saudi partnership.
Why then the Russian gold?"

"And that is merely the good news," Adolph said.
He sank heavily in a chair.

Albert tried to reason it out. It was not uncommon, after
all, to discover that their goods were paid for with indirect Russian
complicity. Wilhelm, from his Swiss vantage could always monitor such
transactions, and, through expert use of conversion and arbitrage, mask the
point of origin. Gold to sterling, then to yen, finally to German marks or
Swiss francs. But with something of this magnitude, with such obvious political
overtones?

"So while you were luxuriating in your
self-righteousness, little Rudi was being the family Machiavellian,"
Adolph continued with a chuckle.

"I was rather enjoying it," Albert said, sensing
the hysteria that lay just beneath the surface of his fat cousin.

"Yes, I know. I have been assailed by it sometimes
myself. But I have found a remedy for it." He winked, his meaning clear.
"In the end, there are only the senses. And your own pleasures." He
patted his ample belly.

At the moment, he envied Adolph's sensual gluttony. He at
least had some refuge, some secret control over his inner life. For Albert
there was no escape. Not now. The burden of the von Kassel legacy lay heavy on
his shoulders. Now he knew why he had been surrendering so easily. Rudi's
ascendency could ease the burden, would free him from the von Kassel
responsibility. Whatever the truth of Dawn's assertion, the family conditioning
was strong.

"The question now is not whether Rudi will run the
family, the business, but whether his actions have destroyed it." Adolph
paused and shook his head. "The stupid asshole. Actually, the entire
affair was achieved with the collusion of the Americans. You didn't think for
one moment that the nuclear club was ready to allow new members. Not this way.
The fact is that the Americans did indeed lose some of their plutonium stocks.
Stolen. Very clever, the thieves. They had no ideology. Just wanted to amass
some filthy lucre. Entrepreneurs, like us. Oh, the thieves were honorable. They
made their connection with Rudi." Adolph paused. "The buyer's
connection was where the hitch was. The Americans and Russians were simply
waiting for it to surface."

"But the gold passed. The transaction was made."
Despite himself, Albert was drawn in.

"More bait."

"A quarter of a billion dollars profit in gold?"

"A trifle. The objective is to retrieve all of the
materials. Not just part of it. There is more missing. Rudi was certain your
father would approve his action. And any delay might ruin the deal. The sellers
were getting edgy. Naturally, he did not reckon we would find out before he was
ready to tell us. That is understandable. One must have the wisdom of the
Orient."

"Please Adolph. No homilies."

"I am sorry, cousin. But, you see, I am still on the
good news."

"My God."

"The Saudi-South African connection was also a
fabrication. He had invented that. Perhaps he thought he was being clever. The
Saudis, after all, would have run to the Americans."

"So who was the supposed buyer?"

Adolph smiled, "Amedou Nsemo."

Albert swallowed deeply, tamping down his rage.

Nsemo was an African demagogue who had waged a war of
genocide against any group that opposed him. He was the scourge of that
continent. "He was willing to sell plutonium to a madman?"

"I am only repeating my intelligence."

"Are you sure the information is correct?"

"Really, cousin." There was never any question
about Adolph's information. In his world, money bought everything but eternal
life.

"Rudi must have thought himself rather clever. It was,
after all, a logical buyer. Someone so ridiculous. And out of the orbit of
either the Russians or the Americans.

"So you see, we have now lost the confidence of the
superpowers. We can no longer be trusted as middlemen. Your stupid brother has
put the von Kassel head in a great big vise. After they find out who the
thieves are, they will snuff us out like a candle. We have stepped over the
line."

Watching his cousin's chins vibrating like jelly with
outrage, Albert felt the sharp edge of his fear. It surprised him to find his
indifference so paper-thin. The von Kassel empire operated at the discretion of
the superpowers. Whatever the degree of intrigue, they still operated within
the parameters of what was acceptable. One did not go beyond the pale by
putting the means for a mini-Armageddon in the hands of someone beyond their
control.

"And they have intercepted the shipment?"

"Of course."

"And the additional batch?"

"It is probably in the process of being negotiated.
Otherwise..." Adolph put forward his fat palms in an illustrative gesture.
"...kaput."

"So there is time?"

"Only Rudi knows that," Adolph sighed.
"Perhaps he was so encouraged by this morning's meeting that he has
already made his move." There was an unmistakable tone of admonition.

"While you were indulging yourself in moral
superiority, Rudi was erecting our burial pyre."

The rebuke, he knew, was meant to test his will. But his
mind was already jumping with possibilities, the instinct of command strong.

"Perhaps Rudi contrived it this way?" Uncertainty
and doubt fled, or at least were postponed. The moral position had blinded him
to the practical realities. His father had not let him run the business for
nothing. The sin of pride, he thought, a shaft of humor mellowing the danger.

"I thought of that, cousin," Adolph shrugged.
"That he would deliberately court the danger to show his courage. Thumb
his nose at the Americans and the Soviets."

"Knowing that he had the trump card. The knowledge of
the thieves, the source of the commodity. Keeping them dangling for years ...
or trading the knowledge for greater gain."

"Rudi is not that smart," Adolph shrugged,
removing a gold cigarette case from a inner pocket, offering one to Albert, who
declined. He lit a long cigarette in a light-brown wrapper, breathed in the
smoke, then contemplated the glowing ash at the end. Opium tipped, Albert knew.

"To calm the nerves, cousin." He closed his eyes.

"And even if he did not contrive it in that way any
confrontation would set off the circumstances. He would hold us hostage to his
own obsession."

"To be the Boss."

"Exactly."

"Sibling rivalry," Adolph sighed. "Nature's
revenge. I have always assumed that nature's way was the work of the devil ...
so I have chosen the unnatural." The opium was taking hold. He was growing
perceptibly distant.

"I am afraid you have a full plate now, cousin,"
Adolph said, raising his bulk from the chair. His eyes had become glassy, the
lids heavy. Walking to the door, he paused, then looked back.

"Everything ends. Perhaps that is the most natural thing
of all."

No, Albert protested to himself, feeling engulfed again in
the tide of the endless river. He knew then that he had not the will to swim to
shore.

"Not yet," he whispered. "We are not
finished yet."

To be alone was unbearable. Albert had tried Olga's room
repeatedly, angered by her absence and his own impatience with himself. Had the
possibility of the family's disintegration suddenly cured his moral cancer? It
surprised him to see the strength of the idea in himself. He had almost
succumbed to the suggestion that Dawn had tried to implant. So here is the
evidence, he decided. The most important thing in his life was the preservation
of the von Kassels. The sense of family. And he knew that he would do anything,
anything, to preserve it.

Tomorrow would be the family picnic, the pagan rite of
familial affiliation, another of his father's symbolic rituals. And then, they
would have to confront the unavoidable.

The shadows lengthened across the floor. He did not want to
be alone in the dark. Not now. He ran from the suite, avoiding the elevator,
down the stairway, where the ancient musk was still carefully preserved,
through the deserted lobby into the cooling air.

But he did not head for the main doorway, going instead
through the exit to the inner courtyard. Outside, the light was diminishing
softly and the green of the shrubbery had reached its chromatic fullness. His
eyes sought the place where the dead woman had sprawled on the ground. He could
still see the indentation made by the lifeless body. Seeing the spot again,
picturing the woman's troubled mask of death, made the confrontation with his
own hypocrisy palpable. He had rejected the plutonium deal with such inner
purity of heart, and yet, almost casually, had agreed to participate in a conspiracy
to hide a woman's body. How easy it was to deal with death when you were ten
times removed. And all for the sake of the von Kassels.

He stood watching the spot, shivering as he thought of the
woman's cold grave in the high mountain lake, food for the exotic fish and
fauna.

But something he could not deny nagged at him. Looking up,
he could see the low parapet clearly. Why choose this place, this moment, to
end ones life? Dawn's words floated back. "Now she has returned to topple
the whole house of cards.... "Returned?

He started to move away, denying himself even the hint of
revelation. But as he turned, a flash of red struck his vision, a spot in the
monochromatic landscape. Blood! He was drawn to it.

It was a considerable distance from where the woman had
landed. Stopping, he saw the red object, the swastika in faded gold stamped on
its face. Brambles bit his fingers as he reached for it, drawing it upwards.
Hesitating, he let it rest in his palm while he contemplated its face. An old
Nazi passport.

Even before he opened it he knew what he would find. The
picture was barely distinguishable. But the name was quite clear. Helga von
Kassel.

With the passport tucked in an inner pocket, and his hand
constantly reassuring him that it was, indeed, still there, Albert had moved
upward along the mountain trail. By concentrating on the soft ground, still
visible in the fading light, he was able to pick out the path most recently
used. He could see the fresh marks of footsteps and other signs indicating that
the manager had done his work and returned.

"Fraud!" he cried, as he moved upward. The word
echoed in the stony wilderness. Reaching back in time as he continued his
climb, he tried to pick at his memory for some clue to her existence. Alone in
the United States during those first days at school, he had concocted the idea
that his birth had killed her, that he had been sent away because of that. He
could remember the pain of that bitter fantasy.

Once Siegfried, in a malicious fit of rebellion, suggested
that Aunt Karla had really been their mother.