The Eden Inheritance (50 page)

‘I came because I wanted to. I'm here with you – that's as it should be.' She squeezed his hand. ‘There's no more to be said on that subject – right?'

He sighed.

‘I suppose not, I'm an old man now who can't even argue with his own little girl. But now that you are here there are other things that need to be said. Things I can no longer keep from you under the circumstances.'

His face had grown very serious – even allowing for the pain that racked his once handsome features she saw it, and felt a qualm of apprehension. He had said something of the kind last night, now again it was almost the first thing on his mind.

‘What things, Daddy? What's it all about?'

‘About me and Fernando and Jorge. About Madrepora itself.'

‘Madrepora!'

‘Yes.' His fingers tightened around hers. ‘I'd like you to leave now, Lilli, and go back to New York, but I don't suppose you will. Which is why I have to tell you. You must leave as soon as I am dead. And you must not come back again.'

She stared at him in disbelief.

‘Why? This is my home!'

‘No,
liebling
, it
was
your home – whilst I still retained control here. Already the power has passed to Jorge. When I am gone – and Fernando too – Jorge will be omnipotent. I don't want you to be tainted or put at risk.'

‘Daddy, you heard me tell Jorge last night to get out of my life. You must believe I meant it.'

‘I'm afraid, my darling, it is not that simple. As Jorge himself pointed out, when I am gone new arrangements will have to be made concerning the business. I think he may try to involve you and that is the last thing I want.'

A puzzled frown creased her forehead. Was Otto rambling because of his illness or the drugs that controlled the pain? She decided to humour him.

‘I know absolutely nothing about running a hotel and less about the export of bananas and batique cloth wear. Jorge knows that.'

A harsh sound, halfway between a sigh and a mirthless laugh, escaped Otto's dry lips and his fingers tightened on hers.

‘You don't understand, Lilli. That is not the business.'

So – he was wandering. Lilli's heart sank.

‘Yes, Daddy, it is,' she said gently. ‘That and your rare stamps.

You have managed all these things for more than twenty years now. You have just forgotten, that's all.'

‘No!' There was fire suddenly in the tired voice. She looked at him sharply. His eyes were blazing in his wasted face; he did not look – or sound – like a man who was wandering. Lilli felt a sharp qualm of misgiving.

‘What, are you talking about Daddy?'

‘The batique cloth wear, the bananas, the stamps, they are just a cover, Lilli, a front for the
real
business. The whole of Madrepora as you see it is a sham,
liebing.
I established them all, together with Grandfather Vicente and Uncle Fernando, for quite a different reason.'

Her head was spinning.

‘I don't understand. A different reason? What different reason?'

‘Cocaine.' He said it so softly, on a mere breath, that at first she scarcely heard, let alone comprehended, and he repeated it, more loudly, his eyes holding hers so that there could be no mistake. ‘Cocaine, Lilli. That is the real business of Madrepora.'

For a full half-minute she stared at him. Her mouth bad fallen open, her eyes gone blank with surprise.

‘Cocaine. You mean …
drugs
?'

‘Of course. Madrepora is a staging post for the Cordoba/Sanchez cartel. It's conveniently placed for both South America, where the coca is grown, and the marketplace in Miami.' A brief smile touched his lips. ‘I'm afraid,
liebling
, that the hotel and the local exports would never keep us in the style to which you have always been accustomed. Cocaine is big business. There is a great deal of money in it, more money than you could ever imagine, and the further down the line of distribution you go, the greater the profits. We realised that years ago, long before many of the other drug barons. Our operation was far more sophisticated than theirs in the early years – whilst they were still exporting hydrochloride or even cocaine base, we saw the value of cutting closer to home – and taking the profits that the others were allowing to slip through their fingers. Madrepora was set up as a base for that purpose. The stuff arrives here in kilo packages of pure cocaine, we cut it with lactose to make twice that amount then ship it on to Miami, where Jorge's trading company cuts it again before passing it on to the retailer.'

Lilli shook her head like a sleeper emerging from a dream.

‘All that happens here – on Madrepora? But where? How?'

‘We have laboratories in undersea tunnels on the north-east corner of the island. There are miles of them – the perfect place. No one but a local would know about them and we have always ensured that no one but authorised personnel goes there.‘

‘That's why you forbade me …'

‘I didn't want you to know about it, Lilli. I thought it safer that way. Now I have come to the conclusion that it's safer that you
should
know.'

‘Why?'

‘Firstly because of Jorge. You have to know the sort of man he is – totally, utterly ruthless. Drug-trafficking does that to people – there is so much at stake. In Jorge's case, of course, he was already a bad lot. That is most likely why he has made such a success of the business your grandfather and his father started.'

‘But Daddy, I've already told you – I've finished with Jorge!'

‘You say that now,
liebchen
. I'm not so sure it's the whole truth. In any case, it's no longer just Jorge that makes the whole business so dangerous. Things are beginning to get very misty in the world of drug-trafficking. The other operators are waking up to the fact that the really big money is to be made when it comes to distribution. They are all starting to want to set up wholesale networks in the United States, just like ours. But greed is a hard master. No one wants to share territories. Already they are beginning to fight for them. Soon there will be all-out war.'

‘I don't understand …'

‘And thank God you don't, Lilli. Murder, massacre, gang warfare on a scale not seen since Chicago in the twenties and thirties, that's what I am talking about.'

‘But surely here on Madrepora …'

‘Nowhere will be safe if they decide to challenge our supremacy. Certainly you would not be safe. You are my daughter, heiress to my share of the empire. If you were also Jorge's woman that risk would double and treble and quadruple over and over again just like the value of the coca leaves.' He leaned forward, turning his hand on hers so that his fingers gripped her wrist. ‘Your future is taken care of, Lilli. You have no need to worry about that. The money I've made over the years is safe in a Swiss bank account – you'll find all the papers in my desk. Go to my lawyer in Berne. He will arrange for it to be made over to you, and I promise you'll never want for anything again. But you must leave Madrepora and never come back. If you stay here the same thing will happen to you as happened to your mother. And I can't bear the thought of that.'

Lilli's head was spinning. She could scarcely believe what she was hearing – that all her life she had been surrounded by the intrigue and intricacies of a drug-trafficking cartel and never for one moment suspected it. Nothing in her world was as she had thought it to be and in her shock and confusion she did not even stop to wonder what Otto meant when he said that she would die as her mother had died. Only one thing stood out starkly above all the others. Her father was dying and she could no longer escape the fact. He had accepted it, calmly and philosophically, and he was setting his affairs in order as best he could whilst some lucidity and strength was spared to him. And, even now, caring for her as he always had done, making her welfare his first priority, even if that meant telling her things about his lifestyle which in the past he had preferred to keep secret.

‘Oh Daddy!' she whispered.

Again his fingers tightened on her wrist.

‘Promise me, Lilli. You will go, straight away, if not sooner …'

‘I don't know …' For all his insistence she was reluctant to make a deathbed promise she was not sure she could keep. ‘I know I've been away for a long time now, but everything that means anything to me is here. All my memories … everything.'

‘Memories go with you wherever you are. And you can take whatever personal things you want. They wouldn't be interested in those. And your treasures, of course, we mustn't forget those. Lilli's triptych and all the other things.'

Suddenly her mind was winging back across the. years to another conversation, less final than this one, yet no less frightening to the child she had once been. ‘ I have to go away, Lilli. Remember these treasures are worth a king's ransom. One day you will love them as I do. And if hard times should ever come …' Obviously, valuable as they were, the treasures were worth only a fraction of what he was now able to leave to her, but then they had been her insurance for the future as well as a part of her world, the artefacts that could be counted as currency as well as valued for their beauty and because he loved them. She remembered how afraid she had been that day at his seriousness, how she had wanted to cling to him in case he, like her mother, should disappear for ever. But that cloud had quickly passed. Childlike, she had rushed on with her life and everything had been all right. Her father had gone away – perhaps on some business trip to do with the drug-trafficking, she now realised – but he had come back. This time there would be no happy ending. Tears stung her eyes and she turned her head so that he would not see them.

‘Perhaps you should get them shipped now, Lilli,' he said, ‘ Send them to New York whilst you still can. I'd like to think they were safe for you to enjoy. They have given me so much pleasure over the years.'

‘I'll see what I can do, Daddy,' she said, but she was thinking: Begin to strip the house before he has even drawn his last breath? I couldn't do that!

‘Good, good,' His fingers were going lax on her wrist now, the effort of this long and tiring conversation which had cost him so much taking its toll. ‘I'm going to have to rest now, Lilli. Perhaps you would ask Basil to come in.'

He sank back against the pillows, eyes half closed, face gaunt but peaceful. He seemed to have forgotten that he had failed to extract that final promise from her, or perhaps, with exhaustion overcoming him, he had taken refuge in the fact that he had done what he could. He had, at long last, told her the truth about Madrepora. Now all that was left was to convince her of the dangers that threatened her here.

Otto, who had once ordered the death of other men's children without so much as flinching, Otto, whose dealings in narcotics over these past years had helped to bring about the death and destruction of many more, was suffused – obsessed even – with the desire to protect his own daughter. It had become a religion with him now. It was all that was left to him.

The telephone on Jorge Sanchez's desk shrilled its usual stuttering alarm.

Jorge swore, stretching over the sheaf of papers spread out before him to reach it. The papers were documents relating to his Miami company – Caribbean Trading – and doctoring them took up a great deal of his time and attention – a job he did meticulously in spite of the fact that officials and policemen like Garcia at both ends of the operation were in his pay. One never knew when some new high-flier might appear and take an interest. Such a nuisance could always be dealt with, of course. Overzealous customs officers and their like had been known to disappear, just as, in Miami, less-than-loyal colleagues or rival dealers were likely to be found hogtied, riddled with bullets and stuffed in garbage bags or cardboard boxes, but here on Madrepora it was preferable not to have to resort to such extremes. Generally speaking, neatly prepared logs and ledgers and a good working relationship with officials and carabinieri made such violence unnecessary, and although Jorge was far from squeamish in such matters he preferred it when things ran smoothly.

Annoyed though he was at the interruption, Jorge's tone was silky smooth as ever as he answered the telephone.

‘Jorge Sanchez.'

‘It's me – Pedro Somoza.'

Somoza was the overman in charge of the labourers who transported the pure cocaine to the laboratories for cutting and supervised its shipping once it had been dealt with.

‘Somoza. What can I do for you? No problem with this morning's consignment, I hope?'

‘No, that came in as arranged. But someone was watching.'

The man's voice was guttural and jerky and Jorge sighed mentally. Somoza was an inveterate cocaine-user himself and the drug sometimes made him paranoid. If he got any worse he would have to be replaced. A pity, since he was good at his job, but there it was.

‘Someone watching,' he repeated, somewhat cynically. ‘Watching what?'

‘When we were unloading the truck. He was up on the cliffs. I can't be sure but I think it was that new pilot.'

Jorge stiffened, his lips tightening around his cigar.

‘Who saw him – you?'

‘No, the truck driver. He reported it to me. I thought you should be told.'

‘Yes, thank you, Somoza. You did right. Keep your eyes skinned and let me know if anything else suspicious occurs. There'll be an extra something in your pay packet if you do.'

‘Understood, boss.'

Jorge replaced the receiver, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully. Perhaps this time Somoza wasn't just being paranoid. He was the second person in as many days to mention the new pilot's interest in things that should not concern him, and Jorge did not care for the implication. Could it be that Guy de Savigny was working for another of the cartels that were springing up and trying to encroach on their territory – or was even an agent for the Drug Encorcement Agency? Well, if so, he would be dealt with – and fast. Jorge had no intention of letting anything – or anyone – interfere with the smooth running of his organisation.