Blood Ties (3 page)

"My bookend nieces," he said to Dawn. "Inger
and Ingrid. This is Miss Frank."

Dawn held out both hands, which seemed the logical mode of
greeting. They grasped her hands lightly and curtsied.

"I'm the one with the little birthmark here,"
Ingrid said, pointing to her cheek.

"But sometimes she covers it with makeup," Inger
pointed out, giggling. There was an odd mixture of Spanish inflection amid the
English accent. And a touch of precociousness.

"They belong to my brother Rudi."

"Mummy and Daddy are having breakfast in the dining
room," Ingrid said.

"Then we're going to play tennis," Inger said,
with exactly the same inflection as if the remarks came from the same person.
They skipped away, their shoes making hollow echoing sounds.

"They're cute," Dawn said.

"And bratty," he whispered.

"You have the suite directly below your
father's," the manager said, leading them to a caged dome-shaped elevator.

"As soon as you are settled, the Baron will expect
you," Hans said to Albert as they ascended. The titled reference to the
father was distinctly different from his own and the others. The Baron was the
Baron.

"Of course," Albert replied.

An arched wooden door opened to their suite, a rectangle,
windowed on four sides, but divided into two rooms, a sitting room and a
bedroom. A bowl of fruit was placed next to a bouquet of flowers on the table.
A sideboard held a forest of glistening bottles and glasses. The manager rubbed
his hands together and bowed as he backed out of the room.

"If he clicks his heels again, I'll die," Dawn
whispered. But it was too late, the little departure ceremony was exactly as
the greeting.

"Anything. Anything at all..." The words faded as
the door closed.

When he had gone, he watched her survey the room, the eyes
darting into the brightness. A tapestry covered a wall between the arched
windows, depicting a Knights' battle, the Teutonic Order's colors on shields
and banners. Even the furniture had a heroic look.

He followed her into the bedroom. It was dominated by a
high, massive four-poster bed with a heavy carved wood frame hung with red
damask.

"Jesus Christ!"

"Not his. About twelve hundred years too early."

She turned toward him, mischievous. He understood the
coquetry and tried avoiding the challenge by averting his eyes, looking out
into the sun-filled court. Moving toward him, her hand brushed his cheek.

"My father will be waiting," he said, but not as
firmly as he wished. He pitied her now, and himself, for having to dissimulate.
Resisting the compulsion to disengage, he let her put her arms around him,
hesitating briefly, then returning the embrace.

"Hold me," she said. Obeying her, he pressed her
closer. She was the alien here. Her breath was light and warm against his
cheek.

"I must go," he said, loosening his grip.

"Yes," she agreed. He knew she had hinted at
more, had wanted to make love. When she was insecure, frightened, she yearned
for it, requiring a more gentle performance on his part.

"Later," he said, squeezing her arms and
releasing her. But she had detected the hollowness of the rejection, the
deadening of his interest, and her eyes reflected it.

"You wanted to come..." he began, almost as a
rebuke. "I get tense here."

"Of course," she said, turning away.

He wished he could still love her, he thought, irritated by
his own indifference. Then, shrugging, he passed through the sitting room and
let himself out of the door.

Perhaps it will come back again, he decided hopefully,
unable to shake off the growing loneliness.

Baron Charles von Kassel sipped his morning tea, replacing
the cup on the silver bed tray with fragile white trembling fingers. He wore a
rumpled velvet dressing gown, the ubiquitous "VK" symbol embroidered
over one pocket. Overstuffed feather pillows propped him up in the ornate
antique bed.

His sister Karla, the Countess von Berghoff, faced him
above a length of oriental rug, his mother's face replicated in her. Her gray
hair was carefully piled in its "receiving" coiffure. Normally, in
the intimacy of their suite it would hang in a long braid. She was the middle
one, in the early seventies now, but her organs had withstood the destruction
of chronology better than his. Her heart still pounded vigorously, providing
enough energy to propel her massive figure. Age had not yet dissolved her
flesh. The Baron was merely a shadow of her, although once his bones had held
the same bulk, proving again the durability of women.

But he did not begrudge her her health. A von Kassel did
not cower in the face of the abyss. A von Kassel needed no blindfold to fall
into the pit. Not when he had done his duty. And the Baron had done that. He
had passed his tissue through the tunnel of time. There was contentment in that
knowledge. Now, merely a few loose ends to be neatly tied and he could rest
easy, joining the formations of his forebears.

"Who has come?" he asked. It was a repetition of
the same question he had asked when she had first arrived from her adjoining
bedroom. Patiently, she recounted the report of the family's arrival, which the
manager, Hans, had transmitted to her by telephone.

"And Albert?"

"He will be coming soon. Garth has gone to meet him at
the Frankfurt airport."

"And the dinner tonight?"

"It has been arranged."

"And the meeting tomorrow?"

"Also arranged."

"And the picnic in the mountains?"

"Of course." She betrayed no impatience with his
repetition.

"The Russian?" he asked after a deep sip of tea,
betraying again his reluctance over inviting her.

"She will soon come." He felt her look of rebuke
and the long familiar sigh that preceded a patient condescending explanation.

"Wolfgang was our brother." The words began as a
litany and he decided he would not waste the energy to interrupt her.
"Despite his politics, his disloyalty, his disregard of the family, he was
blood. There is the child to be considered. The child is a von Kassel...."

"We have quite enough von Kassels," he said,
unable to contain himself.

"It was Wolfgang himself who wrote. After all those
years in the Soviet Union without a word." She was, he observed,
relentless in defense of their action.

"She is a fortune hunter. And he was a bastard, a
communist bastard." He had already surrendered to the idea and this was
merely a last gasp of defeat in the face of her victory. But then, Karla always
won the final battle. He could not resist a thin smile.

"You will be good?" she asked.

Charles nodded, sipped again from his tea cup. The brief
stab of anger had injured him and a spasm of pain gripped his chest. He knew
she had seen it. There was no escaping Karla's riveting bird's eyes. She stood
up, reached for the little gold pillbox and put it in front of him. The keeper
of his medicines, he did not know how he could survive without her
ministerings. Both nurse and pharmacist to him, she knew the catalogue of his
drugs and their doses down to the last milligram.

He took two tiny pills and let them dissolve under his
tongue. Always under the onslaught of even the briefest spasm, his courage
wavered. Not yet. Not now. There is still this and that to do. Holding the
reunion six months in advance had given him an agony of indecision. But his
body told him that there was little time left. His flesh was melting and the
muscles of the heart pumped precariously.

"I still say we should never have consented," the
Baron said when the pain subsided. The "we" was pointed, meant to be
sarcastic. All of their decisions had been joint. Between them they were point
and counterpoint. It had always been that way.

"You'll only make yourself sick again," Karla
warned.

"We owed him nothing. He made his choice."

A flash of anger stimulated more pain. And he remembered
his own reaction to his brother's letter from Moscow. He was dying, the letter
had said, in the vaguely familiar hand. He did not ask forgiveness for himself.
Only for them, his wife and child. Wolfgang was, after all, their brother. He
knew their weakness. The blood. They hadn't heard from him since 1929. Then,
suddenly, a few months ago, the letter. Later, they had received the
acknowledgment of his death and with it an appeal.

"You are my son's only family. He is, after all, a von
Kassel. It was his father's wish that he not be estranged," Wolfgang's
wife, Olga, had written, pointing out that the boy was only ten.

So young, he had thought. Obviously, Wolfgang, the oldest,
who had died in the late seventies of his life, had married a younger woman.
Perhaps the Bolsheviks had not yet corrupted the child. That had been Karla's
main argument. How he hated the Bolsheviks! It was they who had administered
the coup de grace to the von Kassels in Estonia. They had survived everything
but the Bolsheviks. The Germans, the old Balts, the Poles, the Slavs, even the
Czar's lackies. They had bartered their freedom for eight centuries. But the
Bolsheviks.... At least their worldwide mischief was profitable for the family.
That, of course, was merely business.

In the end they had invited his brother's wife to the
reunion, although he hoped that the authorities would not let her leave. But
she had managed it somehow, proving how good a Bolshevik Wolfgang must have
been. They only let out people they were sure of.

"I am prepared to tolerate her," he assured
Karla, dismissing the subject for the moment. There were higher priorities in
his mind. The matter with Rudi was far more pressing.

"Albert must be told," the Baron said. "By
me. Before he sees Rudi."

"I told Hans that he is to come here immediately,"
Karla assured him.

"I cannot understand it," Charles said.

"Perhaps Rudi was lying." It was another familiar
theme.

"The von Kassels are beyond moral judgments," he
said. Why should any von Kassel care about the type of brokered goods? Weapons are
weapons. It was the bedrock of their business. What did it matter whose hands
possessed the means of destruction?

"I have a source of plutonium," Rudi had said,
having flown to him secretly a month ago from Buenos Aires, without Albert
knowing, despite the fact that Albert was the acknowledged business helmsman.
"And I have a buyer. What more is required?"

"And Albert has rejected it! But why?" the Baron
had asked.

"That, Father, is the enigma."

The Baron had pondered the revelation in a long silence. Karla
had listened quietly in the house which they shared in Baden-Baden and he had
looked at her for guidance. But she had remained implacable. For Rudi, he knew,
it was a major challenge, a gauntlet thrown down.

Rudi was sweating. The heat from the fire had lit his face,
bathing it in yellow light.

"Whatever his explanation, Father, it is not adequate.
This is the biggest deal in our history. What is it our business where it
lands, or who uses it? That was never our business. Let them blow themselves to
Kingdom come."

The Baron had nodded his approval. Ideologies. Motives. To
their business such considerations were anathema. The sign of approbation had
given Rudi courage.

"We are talking of a staggering profit." Rudi did
not mention a figure and the Baron did not press for it. "It is, after
all, a rather scarce commodity." He shifted his weight nervously and again
wiped his forehead. "American, probably. There is some reportedly missing.
But, that is not our business," he added quickly. "Nor should we care
who gets it and what they do with it."

"You should have told Albert you were coming to
me," the Baron admonished.

"He would have stopped me."

Rudi had hesitated, watching the face of his expressionless
aunt. His own face was rotund and under the vest his paunch had grown larger.

"He would have made a subjective judgment, based on
me, rather than the business facts."

"That's absurd," the Baron said. Rudi's lower lip
had trembled.

"Well then," Rudi said. "It is certainly the
other. That's why I came here, Father. The rejection of the deal, my deal, is
not the real reason for my coming. I am troubled about the other. At first I
thought, 'Oh, it is the usual put-down of fat Rudi.' Then I decided there is
more to this than my own..." He hesitated again and swallowed.
"...paranoia."

"What other?" the Baron asked, hoping his second
son would not grow maudlin.

"The idea that we must not get involved in nuclear
weaponry, that we must not be responsible for the destruction of the human
race."

"He said that?"

"Yes, Father."

"The human race?"

"Yes, Father."

"We are now the keepers of the human conscience?"
the Baron snickered. "We are arms dealers not moralists."

"I argued those points. But they made little
headway."

"A tiny bullet or a hydrogen bomb. There is no
difference. No difference at all. A commodity. Merchandise. If this is true,
Albert is getting soft in the head." The Baron tapped his fingers on the
armrest of the chair, his anger growing.

"You must calm yourself," Karla interjected.

"If this is so, then you see—he is taking the very
heart out of the business."

"There was no moving him, Father. I brooded over it. I
realized what a big step it would be—to come here. If he had rejected the idea
on business grounds. That would be another matter. The other is, well, deeply
disturbing."

"You are certain?" the Baron asked.

Rudi flushed. He had never been subtle, and was easily
insulted.

"Would I have come here if I thought otherwise?"

Charles observed his son's defensiveness. If only his body
had not faltered, he thought. He would have taken command again. Surely, not
Albert! Not like Siegfried. In the end would there be only Rudi?

"All of you have underestimated my business acumen. It
is my own deal. It is the biggest deal in the history of the von Kassels. Huge
profits. Payment in gold. The sellers trust me. And I found the buyers."

It was not the first time that the sale of atomic products
had come up within the family. But atomic weapons and fuels were controlled,
never available through von Kassel sources. One must seize opportunities.

"But why...?" the Baron began, still trying to
fathom Albert's motives.

"Perhaps he has lost his courage," Rudi said,
determined to make the point of his own daring.

"Albert?"

"It is not jealousy, Father," Rudi pleaded,
revealing the truth of it. But suspecting his father's interpretation he added,
"And even if it were, Albert's actions are suspect. Dangerous, maybe, for
our future." The implication resounded in the room.

The Baron listened patiently, probing beyond the words.

"What are you suggesting?" he asked.

"We must put it on the table," Rudi said.
"At the reunion. It must be resolved ... one way or another." The
tone, for Rudi, was uncharacteristically ominous.

"Of course," he mumbled, remembering his
grandfather's old admonitions: We are not God. All weapons are inert. When we
begin to think we are responsible we are doomed.

Rudi brightened. He had made the desired impact. He walked
to the decanter and poured himself a brandy, as if in celebration. The Baron
watched him, the soft back and shoulders so reminiscent of Helga. How could
Rudi know that this resemblance was the real handicap? But time, as von Kassels
knew, did not fade old images. Time was the infinite tunnel in his mind, bored
out of the solid rock of blood and tissue, encasing all the memories of the
race. There, in the endless void, he could be the sweating Knight encased in
armor, his eyes surveying the blood-soaked fields of Tannenberg or, earlier, in
the heat of a Syrian desert, wielding the curved scimitar into the hard sinew
of an infidel's neck, the boiling blood scarlet fountain rising in a plume and
spilling on the parched earth.

Time. The Baron was the guardian of time. And, because of
that, all the raw memories of his wife's betrayal could be resummoned in the prosaic
movement of his second son. Surely, Rudi had sensed what the Baron had failed
to articulate.

Worse, it was a weakness to feel love. Love of progeny
could create dangers, his grandfather had assured him. Von Kassels must bend
nature to the collective will. There is no need of love, the old man had said,
only continuity. That was all. One must be dispassionate about one's creations.
He had not understood that until later. "Do not love me," his
grandfather had intoned.

His oldest, Siegfried, seemed a betrayal from the
beginning. Where were the warrior genes of the von Kassels? He shook his head
as if the question required a visible answer. Was it possible that even Albert
could not lead the family interests into the future?

"Thank you, Father," Rudi had said, the gratitude
unduly fawning. If only he could see inside my head, the Baron had thought,
irritated by his son's revelation. It had spoiled the prospect of a peaceful
death.

Karla rose from the chair, walking across the room to peer
out of the arched watchtower window.

"It is misty below," she said, preempting his
question.

"But you have told Hans?" he repeated. She turned
and looked at him sternly. He nodded and emptied his teacup, leaning back
heavily on the propped pillows.

He must have dozed. When he opened his eyes, a tall woman
had materialized at the foot of his bed. Eyes, partially hidden behind high
slavic cheekbones, watched him. The youthful aspect of the face surprised him
and, for the moment, the drugged mind cleared. Karla must have been trying to
reach him earlier, for he knew instantly that it was the Russian woman.