Hands of the Traitor (15 page)

"But she was wrong."

"Yes, she was wrong."

Zoé stayed silent for a few minutes as
they drove back to town. Then she turned sideways in the passenger
seat and put her hand on his shoulder. "Would you like me to come
with you to France?"

She asked the question so
naturally.

He stopped the car and stared at Zoé. Her
perfume was amazing; it worked like an aphrodisiac. Not that he
needed one. A sedative might be more appropriate -- thanks to Zoé
still being involved with someone called Florian. He found himself
wondering what Zoé would look like in twenty, thirty years. He knew
what Louise would look like; he'd met her mother.

"What are you thinking about,
Matt?"

He bet Zoé's mother looked slender and
graceful. It was funny, the older he got, the more he became
conscious of the need to have some thought for the future. A few
years ago it was how a girl looked now that counted, not the sight
she might become one day. Mrs. Habgood had probably looked okay
once -- no, probably not. Not that he could ask Ken.

"Well, do you want me to come to
France or not?"

"Are you sure?" Perhaps he'd not
answered straight away because he was uneasy about making a
commitment so soon after finishing with Louise. He tried not to
sound too hesitant; tried not to sound like a tongue-tied
adolescent setting up his first date.

"But separate rooms."

"If that's what you want,
Zoé."

She nodded. "It's what Florian would
want."

Chapter
12

JASON HEINMAN
looked down through
the rapidly thinning cloud at the flat fields and drab rows of
houses on the approach to Heathrow. It was probably raining down
there. His father was getting him over to England on some damn fool
errand, making him come by scheduled airline rather than use the
company jet. The company had to save money, so his father said.
Anyway, business class on United Airlines was a damn sight safer
than the DCI Gulfstream.

His father had bought the Gulfstream
II as a company airplane eleven years ago, and it had seemed old
then. It replaced an even older propeller aircraft, in order to
save a refueling stop in the Azores on the regular trips to DCI in
Geneva. One day the Gulfstream would stop over the Atlantic for
good, and with any luck his father would be on board at the time.
That way he'd be a president with full fiscal powers, able to get
at DCI money to clear his debts with Hammid Aziz.

He flicked through his passport and
visa, ready for immigration. Jason Becker Heinman. At least this
trip to England had got him out of the States, away from Aziz and
the unexpected demand for repayment. The deadline set by Aziz ran
out today.

The aircraft wheels bumped on the wet
tarmac with a succession of screeches. While his fellow travelers
breathed a sigh of relief, even a silent prayer at a safe
touchdown, Jason thought of the aggravation his father was giving
him. The old man was up to something.

"ARE YOU getting out of the company at
last?" Jason leaned back in the leather rear seat as the chauffeur
swung the stretched Mercedes out of the airport approach towards
the M4 and the center of London.

His father who had come to meet him
sounded unexpectedly scornful. "And let you get your hands on
company money? Not while I'm still alive. And it's about time you
chopped that thing off the back of your head. Who the hell ever
heard of a fifty-year-old president of a company wearing a pony
tail? The damn thing's even going gray."

He stared at his father. Things had been
tense for years, but he'd learnt to handle the relationship. Could
his father know about his problem with Aziz? "Forty-nine-year-old
president," he retorted.

The Mercedes accelerated past a filthy
white van that had been hogging the overtaking lane in the pouring
rain, oblivious to the chauffeur's flashing headlights. The van
driver showed the derisory two fingers so typical of the
British.

"So what do you want me to do?" Jason
tried to conduct a rare, sensible conversation with his father. He
put his favorite fawn baseball cap on his lap and ran his fingers
through the strands of his pony tail. He hadn't realized it was
going gray.

"There's something you have to know.
I'll tell you at the hotel." His father lowered his voice so the
driver would be unable to hear. "Something called the Berlitzan
Project."

"Never heard of it."

"There's no one left in DCI who has.
It belongs in the past."

"But not any more?"

"You've got it in one,
Jason."

At the hotel he knew what to expect.
His father's suite was luxurious, while he had the injured man's
room near the top. Being company president counted for
nothing.

"It was okay for Miller. No point in
bothering the desk clerk," his father explained.

But he was having none of it. He
stormed downstairs to discover that the hotel only had one
executive suite, the one which his father had already taken. But he
could have a choice of two decent sized rooms on the top floor.
Superior rooms, the woman at the desk called them. He told the
clerk to transfer his luggage to whichever room had the better
view, and returned to his father.

He sat in his father's suite and
looked around. It wasn't envy, but he felt angry that his father
always seemed to come out on top in any business arrangement. The
old fool was never going to hand over full power while he was
alive. "So, DCI has troubles."

"Serious troubles, Jason. We're facing
a major crisis."

"You mean with Miller in
hospital."

"Hell no. CEOs seem to make a habit of
crashing cars. I've learnt to live with that one."

"What's the problem then?"

"Business confidence. The financial world
could desert us if news of the Berlitzan Project gets out -- just
when we're ready to announce our cancer relief drug."

"You'd better tell me."

"We made a poison gas in the last war.
Secretly, of course. We called it Berlitzan oil."

Jason shrugged. "So what? Many
companies made poison gas. I can think of a few famous names in
Germany straight off. It's not exactly done them any
harm."

"It was a clever concept. Your
grandfather got the idea from stink bombs. DCI was selling it to
the Nazis."

His father had gone mad. "DCI
was selling
stink bombs
to the Germans?"

"There's no need for sarcasm, Jason.
Tell me, what makes a guy walk into a crowded shopping mall and let
fly with a pump-action twelve gauge?"

Jason shrugged. "He's some sort of
psycho?"

"Okay, then what makes a man go kill
his family one night with an axe?"

"Stress?"

"You've got it, Jason. It's called a
stress syndrome. In its mildest form, you get a guy behind you at
the lights who keeps blasting his horn. Then everyone joins in. Or
there's a violent argument in the line at the supermarket checkout.
One person triggers a chain reaction. I bet you've seen
it."

"Every day. I haven't a clue why it
happens. What am I supposed to be, some sort of shrink? No doubt
you have the answer?"

His father nodded. "DCI had the
answer. Berlitzan oil was powerful stuff."

"You're one daydreaming son of a bitch,
Father." Jason laughed in disbelief. "You're not going to tell me
that every time a maniac takes a few pot shots in a public place,
he's been popping some DCI pill."

"The accident at the Nazi missile site
finished it. DCI could have been a world leader at the end of the
war. Some of the Berlitzan oil is still buried near the town of
Saint Somer in northern France. In small gold
cylinders."

Jason jumped to his feet. "Not that
Dutchman with the knife?"

"That's what I think. Hell, I don't
know. Something happened with the Dutchman. It's been happening on
this planet ever since there have been people. Push someone a
little too far and they explode."

"What are you saying: all lunatics
since the Stone Age have been getting a whiff of your Berlitzan
stuff?"

"You don't need to be a stress
counselor to know there's tension bubbling below the surface. A
supermarket line. A traffic jam. Not in everyone of course. A dog
barks all through the night, or a baby cries too long. The anger is
already there, just waiting for someone to snap."

"Bit cynical, aren't you?" grinned
Jason.

"Think what happens when a group's out
drinking beers together. It's how riots start. Alcohol breaks down
the natural inhibitions that hold us back from going
crazy."

He considered his father's words.
"And?"

"Give a hundred people a sniff of
Berlitzan oil. Only two or three need be affected to cause mayhem.
The rest get caught up in the anger."

"You smell it? Like
pheromones?"

"Maybe the modern equivalent would be food
additives. The wrong sort can work havoc in an allergic child.
Imagine if that kid could ingest all those chemicals in one go.
Hell, think what your mother used to be like with PMS." His father
laughed uneasily at the memory. "Something unbalances the system,
that's all I know."

"My grandfather was helping the
Germans?"

"He got killed when he took me to France
in forty-four. The Nazis were planning to launch two flying bombs
that night, aimed at London, with six gold cylinders of Berlitzan
oil in each."

"Would the cylinders break on
impact?"

"The Germans were trying to perfect a
device that would puncture the cylinders when the motor cut, and
spray the contents just before the bomb exploded. Not easy with
such a heavy impact."

"So what were you and grandfather
doing in France?"

"We wanted to make sure the Germans
didn't keep anything back for analysis. We were boarding a small
plane to get out of France in a hurry, and I realized a French girl
had stolen the samples. Then the shooting started. Scared the hell
out of me. That's how I got these injuries to my arm and
chin."

Jason had to laugh. "Not very
patriotic wounds, were they? Anyway, what girl are you talking
about?"

"I guess she'd be my age now. Miller
read about her in the local paper. An old soldier has started
talking about her in hospital. He was there, Jason. That old
soldier was there. He killed my father. The whole thing sure jogged
a memory. Sophie Bernay. A French name. The camp hostess." Out came
the white handkerchief to wipe his sweating palms. "I wasn't even
twenty-one. The whore hid the oil in the ground."

"And you think whenever some maniac
goes berserk, they've found one of your gold cylinders?"

"Of course not. Some people are always
ready to go over the top. That was the key to the Berlitzan
Project. All we needed was a trigger. Berlitzan oil finished the
job."

Jason turned himself sideways in the
luxurious armchair. The idea hadn't gelled yet, but he could feel
something coming. "If it's gone for good, why the
panic?"

"The soldier's grandson is a PI, and
he's ferreting out all he can. You have to help me,
Jason."

"This is a busy time for DCI, what with
the release programmed for the cancer drug. I've got TV interviews
booked in the States. I don't have time to run around cleaning up
your mess. I rely totally on Simon Urquet to sort out problems.
After all, he's the company lawyer."

"Urquet's in Geneva right now. Anyway,
the less people who know about this the better. That's why I need
your help."

Jason stood up. The luxurious hotel
armchair already felt uncomfortable. "How am I meant to run the
company without a CEO? It's your fault Miller's in hospital. I
should be in New York right now, not racing round Europe like some
blue-assed fly."

"You've got personal
debts."

"What the hell business is it of
yours?"

"You can't hide things like that. You
should never have got involved with a man like Aziz."

"Aziz?"

"Hammid Aziz, the arms dealer.
Remember, your sins will find you out, as the preacher used to
say."

"They sure found you out, you old
hypocrite. So what's the deal?"

"I pay Aziz off, and you sort this one
out for me."

He turned to his father in mock disgust.
"I hope you're not going to ask me to kill an old man
now."

"Hell no, he's senile." His father
twisted the handkerchief around his fingers. "I'm more worried
about the French woman, Sophie Bernay. I want you to go to France
and find out if she remembers anything about me. You can do what
Miller did and say you're a reporter."

"Miller's got two broken
legs."

"Then be careful."

"You sure it was an accident with
Miller?"

"Hell, boy, I don't know." His father
sounded angry. "Seems he never made a bend in the
highway."