The Road to Gandolfo: A Novel

  All supplies, equipment, transportation, and services would be expedited in complete confidentiality by Les Châteaux Suisse des Grands Siècles and consigned to branch offices in Zermatt, Interlaken, Chamonix, or Grenoble. Any and all deliveries of consequence to Le Château Machenfeld would be made between the hours of midnight and 4 A.M. Drivers, technicians, and laborers, where possible, would be from the ranks of the Shepherd Company’s brotherhood, who would be sent down from Le Machenfeld to the branch offices. In the absence thereof, only employees of Les Châteaux Suisse who had no less than ten years acceptable service with the firm would be assigned the deliveries.

  All payments were to be made in advance, based on book retail value, with a surcharge of 40 percent for the confidential services of Les Châteaux Suisse.

  “That’s a lot of percent,” said MacKenzie.

  “It’s a very wide boulevard,” replied D’Artagnan. “We don’t avail ourselves to those who drive in narrow streets. We think our consultation fee is ample proof of this.”

  It was, thought the Hawk. The “consultation fee”—applied against whatever lease was arrived at, if a lease was signed—was $500,000.

  “You do mighty fine work, Mr. D’Artagnan,” said Hawkins, taking up a fountain pen.

  “You’re in good hands. In a few days you will, as it were, vanish from the face of the earth.”

  “Don’t worry. Everybody I know—that’s everybody—will be extremely grateful never to hear from me again. Seems I generate complications.” The Hawk laughed quietly to himself. He signed his name: George Washington Rappaport.

  D’Artagnan left with MacKenzie’s treasurer’s check drawn on the Cayman Islands’ Admiralty Bank. The amount was for $1,495,000.

  The Hawk picked up a handful of photographs and walked back to the hotel sofa. As he sat down, however, he knew he could not dwell on the majesty of Machenfeld. There were other immediate considerations. Machenfeld would be worthless without the personnel to train within its borders. But former Lieutenant General MacKenzie Hawkins, twice winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor, knew where he was going and how to get there. Ground Zero was several months away. But the journey had begun.

  He wondered how Sam and Midgey were doing. Goddamn, that boy was getting around!

  The helicopter descended, dropping straight down and causing torrential clouds of sand to blast up in increasingly furious layers from the desert floor. So thick was the enveloping storm that the only way Sam knew they had landed was the jarring thud of the undercarriage as it met and was swallowed by the dunes.

  They had been in the air somewhat longer than had been anticipated. There had been a minor navigational problem: The pilot was lost. It had to be the pilot since it was unthinkable to admit the possibility that the eagle’s tent of Azaz-Varak was in the wrong place. But at last, they saw the complex of canvas below.

  The sand settled and Peter Lorre opened the hatch. The desert sun was blinding. Sam held Madge’s arm as they stepped out of the aircraft; if the sun was blinding, the sand was boiling. “Where the hell are we?”

  “Aiyee!” “Aiyee!” “Aiyee!” “Aiyee!”

  The screams were everywhere, and from everywhere there was rushing movement. Turbaned Arabs, their sheets flying in the wind like a hundred white sails, raced out of the various tents toward them. Peter Lorre and Boris Karloff flanked Sam, gripping his arms as if displaying an animal carcass. Madge stood in front, somewhat protectively, thought Devereaux uncomfortably, as though she were about to give instructions to a slaughterhouse butcher. The racing battalion of sheets and turbans formed two single lines that created a corridor leading slightly uphill in the sand to the largest of the tents, about fifty yards away.

  Peter Lorre’s nasal shriek filled the air. “Aiyee! The eye the falcon! The hurler of lightning! The god of all khans and the sheik of all sheiks!” He turned to Sam and screamed even louder. “Kneel! Unworthy white hyena!”

  “What?” Devereaux wasn’t arguing; he just thought the sand would melt his trousers.

  “It is better to kneel,” said the deep-throated Boris Karloff, “than to find yourself standing on stumps.”

  The sand was, indeed, uncomfortable. And Sam, in an instant of real human concern, wondered what Madge was going to do; she wore a very short skirt above her desert boots. He squinted and looked at her.

  He need not have indulged in human concern, he thought. Madge was not kneeling at all. Instead she had moved slightly to the side and was standing erect. She was spectacular.

  “Bitch,” he whispered.

  “Keep your head,” she answered quietly. “That’s meant figuratively—I think.”

  “Aiyee! Behold the prince of thunder and lightning!” shrieked Peter Lorre.

  There was movement at the tent at the end of the corridor of abus and turbans. Two minions swept back the front flap and prostrated themselves on the ground, their faces in the sand. From the shadowed recesses emerged a man who was a major disappointment, a walking anticlimax, to the dramatic preparations for his entrance.

  The prince of thunder and lightning was a spindly little Arab. Peering out from the shrouds was about the ugliest face Devereaux had ever seen. Below the outsized, narrow, hooked nose, Azaz-Varak’s lips were curled—actually curled—so that his thick black moustache seemed fused to his nostrils. The pallor of his skin (what could be seen) was a sickly beige, which served to emphasize the dark, deep circles under his heavy-lidded eyes.

  Azaz-Varak approached, lips pressing, nostrils sniffing, head bobbing. He looked only at Madge. When he spoke there was a certain authority in his whine.

  “The wives of the lion’s lair, the royal harem—none understand the awesome responsibilities that befall my generous person. Would you like a camel, lady?”

  Madge shook her head with a certain authority of her own. Azaz-Varak continued to stare.

  “Two camels? The airplane?”

  “I’m in mourning,” said Madge respectfully but firmly. “My wealthy sheik passed away just after the last crescent moon. You know the rules.”

  The heavy-lidded eyes of Azaz-Varak were filled with disappointment; his curled-up lips smacked twice as he replied. “Ahh, it is the awesome burdens of our faith. You have two crescents of the calendar to survive. May your sheik rest with Allah. Perhaps you will visit my palaces when your time has passed.”

  “We’ll see. Right now, my escort is hungry. Allah wants him to protect me; he can’t do that if he faints.”

  Azaz-Varak looked at Sam as though studying the preslaughtered carcass. “He has two functions, then. One worthy, one despicable. Come, dog. To the eagle’s tent.”

  “That’s where the food is, isn’t it?” Devereaux smiled his best, most ingratiating smile as he scrambled to his feet.

  “You will partake of my table when our business is concluded. Pray to Allah that it is finished before the northern snows come to the desert. Did you bring the unmentionable agreement?”

  Devereaux nodded. “Did you bring any hot corned beef?”

  “Silence!” shrieked Peter Lorre.

  “Lady,” said Azaz-Varak, addressing Madge, “my servants will see to your every wish. My palaces are lovely; you would like them.”

  “It’s tempting. We’ll see where I am in a month or so.” She winked at Azaz-Varak. His lips went through a series of wet pressings before he snapped his fingers and proceeded toward the eagle’s tent.

  The minutes stretched into quarter hours, those to the inevitable hour, and then two more of them. Devereaux honestly believed he had reached the end. A promising legal career was being snuffed out, starved out, in the middle of some godforsaken stretch of desert, seventy miles south of a ridiculously named place called Tizi Ouzou in North Africa.

  What made the ending so ludicrous was the sight of Azaz-Varak poring over each sentence of the Shepherd Company’s limited partnership papers, with eight to ten screeching Arabs looking over his shoulder, arguing vehemently among themselves. Every page w
as treated as though it were the only page; every convoluted—and unnecessary—legalism torn apart for a meaning that was not there. Sam saw clearly the terrible irony: the esoteric, legalistic nonsense that was the essence of every lawyer’s livelihood was keeping him from his own survival.

  An insane thought went through his pained brain: if all legal documents were written to be understood between meals—all meals postponed until said understanding was clear—the state of justice would be on a much higher plane. And most lawyers of his acquaintance out of work.

  Every now and then one of Azaz-Varak’s ministers would carry over a page and point to a particular paragraph, asking him in excellent English what it meant. Invariably Devereaux would explain that it was a standard clause—which invariably it was—and not important.

  If it was not important, why was the language so confusing? Only significant items were in confusing words; otherwise there was no need for the confusion.

  And, too, good things were stated clearly; unworthy things were often obscured. Did standard mean unworthy?

  And so it went. Until at one point Sam screamed.

  Nothing else; he simply screamed.

  Azaz-Varak and his gaggle of ministers looked over at him. They nodded as if to say, “Your point is well taken.” And then went back to screaming at each other.

  At the instant the darkness started to cloud his vision, his last look at living things, thought Sam, he heard the words, whined by the sheik of sheiks.

  “The northern snows have reached the desert, unspeakable one. These foul papers are like camels’ prints in storms of sand: They are without meaning. Not any meaning that would bring the wrath of Allah, or certain international authorities. My generous, all-knowing person has signed them. Not that I subscribe to the despicable suggestions made to my ear, but only to help unite the world in love, you hated dog.”

  Azaz-Varak rose from the mountain of pillows beneath him. He was escorted to a screened-off section of the enormous tent by several hunched-over ministers and disappeared beyond the silks.

  Peter Lorre came up to Sam, the limited partnership agreement in his hands. He gave it to Devereaux and whispered, “Put this in your pocket. It is better that the eye of the falcon not fall on it again.”

  “Is falcon edible?”

  Perplexed, the tiny Arab looked at Sam. “Your eyeballs are swimming in their sockets, Abdul Deveroo. Have the faith of the Koran, first paragraph, book four.”

  “What the hell is that?” Sam could hardly speak.

  “ ‘The feasts were brought among the unbelieving infidels and no longer were they unbelieving.’ ”

  “Does that mean we eat?”

  “It does. The god of all khans has ordered his favorite: boiled testicle of camel braised with the stomach of desert rat.”

  “Aiyeeeeee!” Devereaux blanched and leaped up from the floor of the eagle’s tent. The spring had been sprung; there was nothing left but self-annihilation. The end was at hand; the forces of destruction called for his finish in an explosion of violence.

  So be it. He would meet it swiftly. Surely. Without thought, only blinding fury. He ran around the pillows and over the rugs and out onto the sand. It was sundown; his end would come with the orange sun descending over the desert horizon.

  Boiled testicles! Stomach of rat!

  “Madge! Madge!”

  If he could only reach her! She could bring back news of his demise to his mother and Aaron Pinkus. Let them know he died bravely.

  “Madge! Where are you?!”

  When the words came he felt stirrings of bewilderment that were contradictory to the last thoughts of those who were about to perish.

  “Hi, sweetie! Come on over. Look what I’ve got here. It’s a gas!”

  Sam turned, his ankles deep in sand, his caked lips trembling. Fifty yards away a group of Arabs were gathered around the front of the helicopter, all peering into the pilot’s cabin.

  In a trance of confusion, Devereaux staggered toward the bewildering sight. The Arabs squealed and grumbled but let him through. He gripped the ledge of the window and peered inside. It was easy; the aircraft had sunk into the dune upon landing.

  It was not his eyes, however, that were assaulted. It was his ears.

  There was a continuous, deafening crackle of static from the helicopter’s panel that filled the small enclosure like jack hammers in a wind tunnel. Madge was in the copilot’s seat, her blouse neckline lowered another several buttons.

  Then he heard the words riding through the static and Sam froze, his hunger and exhaustion replaced momentarily by a kind of hypnotic terror.

  “Midgey! Midgey, girl! You still there?”

  “Yes, Mac, still here. It’s just Sam. He’s finished with what’s-his-name.”

  “Goddamn! How is he?”

  “Hungry. He’s a very hungry boy,” said Madge, expertly manipulating switches and dials on the radio panel.

  “There’ll be plenty of time for rations later. An army travels on its stomach, but first it’s got to evacuate the fire zone! Before it gets its ass shot off! Does he have the papers?”

  “They’re sticking out of his pocket—–”

  “He’s a fine young attorney, that boy! He’ll go far! Now, get out of there, Midgey. Get him to Dar el Beida and on that plane for Zermatt. Confirm, and over and out!”

  “Roger—confirm, Mac. Out.” Madge whipped through several dozen switches as though she were a computer programmer. She turned her face to Devereaux and beamed. “You’re going to have a nice rest, Sam. Mac says you really deserve a vacation.”

  “Who? Where … ?”

  “Zermatt, sweetie. It’s in Switzerland.”

  PART

  III

  The smooth-running corporation is largely dependent on its executive personnel, whose backgrounds and allegiances are compatible with the overall objectives of the structure and whose identities can be submerged to the corporate image.

  Shepherd’s Laws of Economics:

  Book CXIV, Chapter 92

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Cardinal Ignatio Quartze, his thin, aristocratic features bespeaking generations of noblesse oblige, stormed across the rugs of his Vatican office to the large balconied window overlooking St. Peter’s Square. He spoke in fury, his lips compressed in anger, his nasal voice searing like the screech of a bullet.

  “The Bombalini peasant goes too far! I tell you he is a disgrace to the college which—God help us all—elevated him!”

  The cardinal’s audience was a plump, boyish-looking priest who sat, as languorously as his habit allowed, in a purple velvet chair in the center of the room. His pink cheeks and pursed, thick lips bespoke, perhaps, a less aristocratic background than his superior but not less a love of luxury. His speech was more a purr than a voice.

  “He was and remains only a compromise, Cardinal. You were assured his health would not permit an extended reign.”

  “Every day is an extension beyond endurance!”

  “He has certain … humilities that serve us. He has quieted much hostile press. The people look upon him warmly; our worldwide contributions are nearly as high as they were with Roncalli.”

  “Please! Not that name! What good is a treasury that expands and contracts like a thousand concertinas because the Holy See subsidizes everything he can put his fat peasant hands on! And we don’t need a friendly press. Division is far better to solidify our own! Nobody understands.”

  “Oh, but I do, Cardinal. I really do—–”

  “Did you see him today?” continued Quartze as if the priest had not spoken. “He openly humiliated me! In audience! He questioned my African allocations.”

  “A patently obvious ploy to appease that terrible black man. He’s forever complaining.”

  “And afterward he tells jokes—jokes, mind you—to the Vatican guard! And waddles into the museum crowds and eats an ice—eats an ice, mind you—offered by some Sicilian brood mare! Next he’ll drop lira in the men’s room an
d all the toilet seats will be stolen! Such indignities! What he does to the bones of St. Peter! They will turn to dust!”

  “It cannot be very long, my dear Cardinal.”

  “Long enough! He’ll deplete the treasury and fill the Curia with wild-eyed radicals!”

  “You are the next pontiff. The negative reactions of the broad middle hierarchy support you. They are silent, but resentments run deep.”

  The cardinal paused; his mouth curved slightly downward as he stared out into the square, his jaw jutted forward below the dark hollows of his deep-set eyes. “I do believe we have the delegates. Ronaldo, get me the plans for my villa at San Vincente. It calms my nerves to study them.”

  “Of course,” said the priest, rising from the purple chair. “You must remain calm. And when summer comes you will be rid of the Bombalini peasant. He will stay at Castel Gandolfo for at least six weeks.”

  “The plans, Ronaldo! I’m very upset. Yet in the midst of chaos, I remain the most controlled man in the Vatican—–The plans, you transvestite!” screamed the cardinal.

  The moment the papal aide with the ever present clipboard left the room, Pope Francesco I got out of the elevated, high-backed, white velvet chair (a repository that would have frightened Saint Sebastian) and sat next to the lady from Viva Gourmet on the couch. He was struck immediately by the beauty of her voice; it was warm and lilting. Very lovely. It befitted such a healthy looking woman.

  The aide had suggested that the interview be limited to twenty minutes. The pontiff had suggested that it should end when concluded. The lady journalist had reddened slightly with embarrassment, so Giovanni put her at ease by switching to English and asking her if she thought there was a market for clipboards with crucifixes painted on the undersides. She had laughed while the aide, who did not understand English, stood by the door, the clipboard clutched to his breast like a plastic stigmata.

  The aide would have to be replaced, thought the pope. He was another young prelate seduced by the pretensions of Ignatio Quartze. The cardinal was too obvious; he was moving his charges into the papal apartments before the papal funeral was arranged. But Francesco had made up his mind. The Church was not going to be left in the pontifical hands of Ignatio Quartze. To begin with, they held the chalice at Mass as though wringing the neck of a chicken.