The Road to Gandolfo: A Novel

  “How much time do we have before we reach Zermatt?” he asked.

  “Enough,” she replied, smiling. She began unbuttoning her silk blouse. “And we’ll know. It’s the last stop.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Hawkins registered at Zurich’s Hotel D’Accord with a counterfeit passport. He’d purchased it in Washington from a CIA agent who realized the courts would not let him write a book when he retired; the man also offered a selection of wigs and hidden cameras but MacKenzie demurred. On settling into the room, his first act was to go right down to the lobby again and negotiate with the head switchboard operator: cash for cooperation. Since the cash was one hundred dollars, it was agreed that all his calls and cablegrams would be routed through her board.

  He returned to the room and spread the seven dossiers (his final selections) over the coffee table. He was immensely pleased. These men were the most devious, experienced provocateurs in their fields. It was now merely a question of enlisting them. And MacKenzie knew he was an exceptionally qualified recruiter.

  Four he knew he could reach by phone. Three by cable. Admittedly, the telephone contacts would be difficult, for in no case would one call find the expert in. But he would reach them by using various codes from the past. One call would be made to a Basque fishing village on the Bay of Biscay; another to a similar coastal town in Crete. A third would be placed to Stockholm, to the sister of the espionage expert who was currently living as a minister of the Scandinavian Baptist Church. The fourth call would be to Marseilles where the man sought was employed as a tugboat pilot.

  And the geographical diversity! In addition to those he could reach by telephone (Biscay, Crete, Stockholm and Marseilles), there were the cablegrams: to Athens, Rome, and Beirut What a spread! It was an intelligence director’s dream!

  MacKenzie took off his jacket, threw it on the bed, and withdrew a fresh cigar from his shirt pocket. He chewed the end to its proper consistency and lighted up. It was just nine-fifteen; the afternoon train to Zermatt was at four-fifteen.

  Seven hours. Now that was a good omen if ever one existed! Seven hours and seven subordinate officers to recruit.

  He carried the three dossiers to the desk and arranged the files in front of the telephone. The cablegrams would be sent first.

  At precisely twenty-two minutes to four the Hawk replaced the telephone and made a red check mark on the dossier titled Marseilles. It was the last of the phone contacts; he needed only two replies—to the cables to Athens and Beirut. Rome had responded two hours ago. Rome had been out of work longer than the others.

  The calls had gone smoothly. In each case the initial conversations with the middlemen—and women—had been reserved, polite, general, almost abstract. And with each MacKenzie employed just the right words, quietly, confidentially. Each expert he had wanted to reach called him back.

  There had been no hitches with anyone. His proposals were couched in the same universally understood language; the term yellow mountain the springboard. It was the highest score an agent could make for himself. The yellow mountain figure was a “five hundred key” with advance funds banked against contingencies. The security controls included “inaccessible clearinghouses” that maintained no connections with international regulatory agencies. The time factor was between six and eight weeks, depending on the “technological refinements called for in the sophisticated engineering process.” And finally, as leader, his own background encompassed wholesale service to entire governments in most Southeast Asia, proof of which could be confirmed by several accounts in Geneva.

  He had done his research well. To a man, they all needed to mine the yellow mountain.

  Hawkins got up from the desk and stretched. It had been a long day and it wasn’t over yet. In twenty minutes he would have to leave for the railroad station. Between now and then he would speak with the switchboard operator and give her instructions for those callers who might try to reach him. The instructions would be simple: he had reserved the room for a week; he would return to Zurich in three days. The callers could contact him there, or leave numbers where they could be reached. MacKenzie did not want to return to Zurich, but Athens and Beirut were exceptional recruits.

  The telephone rang. It was Athens.

  Six minutes later Athens was in.

  One more to go.

  The Hawk moved his untouched luggage to the door and repacked his briefcase, leaving Beirut’s dossier in a separate, easily accessible spot. He looked at his watch: three minutes to four. There was no point in procrastinating any longer. He had to leave for the station. Returning to the desk he dialed the switchboard operator and told her he wanted to leave a few simple instructions—–

  The operator interrupted politely.

  “Yes, of course, mein Herr. But may I take them later? I was about to ring your room. An overseas call has just come in for you. From Beirut.”

  Goddamn!

  Sam opened his eyes. The sun was streaming through the huge French doors; the breeze billowed the drapes of blue silk. He looked around the room. The ceiling was at least twelve feet high, the fluted columns in the corners and the intricately carved moldings of dark wood everywhere bespoke the word “château.” It all came into focus. He was in a place called Château Machenfeld, somewhere south of Zermatt. Outside the thick, sculptured door of his room was a wide hallway with Persian prayer rugs scattered over a glistening dark floor, and muted candelabra on the walls. The hallway led to an enormous winding staircase and a proliferation of crystal chandeliers above a great hall the size of a respectable ballroom. There, among priceless antiques and Renaissance portraits, was the entrance—gigantic double doors of oak opening on a set of marble steps that led to a circular drive large enough to handle a funeral for the chairman of General Motors.

  What had Hawkins done? How did he do it? My God. Why? What was he going to use such a place for?

  Devereaux looked at the sleeping Regina, her dark brown hair lying in waves over the pillow, her California-tanned face half buried under the eiderdown quilt. If she had any answers, she wouldn’t tell him. Of all the girls, Ginny was the most outrageously manipulative; she had orchestrated him right down to the moment of sleep. Partially, granted only partially, because he was fascinated by her. There was a will of steel beneath the soft magnolia exterior; she was a natural leader who, as all natural leaders, took delight in her leadership. She used her gifts, mental and physical, with imagination and boldness, and a considerable dash of humor. She could be the strong moral proselytizer one moment, and the lost little girl in the middle of burning Atlanta the next. She was the laughing, provocative siren in the plantation moonlight, and with the flick of a switch, a conspiratorial, whispering Mata Hari giving orders to a suspicious looking chauffeur in the shadows of the Zermatt railroad station.

  “Mack Feldman’s ass is in the bitter seltzer!”

  To the best of Sam’s recollection those had been the words Ginny had whispered to the strange man in the black beret, with the gold front tooth, whose catlike eyes riveted themselves to the front of her blouse.

  “Mac’s in felt!” had been the whispered reply. “His sight’s in an auto bomb’s flower pot!”

  With that less-than-articulate rejoinder, Ginny had nodded, grabbed Devereaux’s arm, and propelled him into the Zermatt street.

  “Carry your suitcase in your left hand and whistle something. He’ll turn into an alley and we’ll wait at the corner for him to bring out the car.”

  “Why all the nonsense? The left hand. The whistling—–”

  “Others are checking. To make sure we’re not being followed.”

  The Orient Express syndrome was being somewhat overdone, Sam had thought at the time, but nonetheless he’d switched the suitcase to his left hand and started whistling.

  “Not that, you ninny!”

  “What’s the matter? It’s some kind of hymn—–”

  “Over here it’s called ‘Deutschland Uber Alles’!”

  He?
??d switched to “Rock of Ages” as another man, this one in a real Conrad Veidt overcoat complete with velvet lapels, came up to Regina and spoke softly.

  “Your warts are in the wagon.”

  “Mack Feldman’s ass surely has sweet sheckles,” she had answered quietly, rapidly. And within seconds a long black automobile raced out of the dark alley and they had climbed in.

  That was how the tortuous, two-hour drive had begun. Miles of winding, uphill roads cut out of the Swiss mountains and forests, intermittently illuminated by the eerie wash of moonlight. Until they reached some kind of massive gate that wasn’t a gate; it was an honest-to-god portcullis. In front of a moat.

  A real moat! With heavy planks and the sounds of water below. Then another winding, uphill road that ended in the enormous circular drive in front of the largest country house Sam had seen since he toured Fontainebleau with the Quincy Boy Scouts. And even Fontainebleau didn’t have parapets. This place did, certainly high and definitely stone, with the sort of cutout patterns one associated with Ivanhoe.

  Quite a place, Château Machenfeld. And he had only seen it at night. He wasn’t sure he wanted to see it in daylight. There was something frightening about the mere thought of such a massive edifice when related to one MacKenzie Hawkins.

  But where did the château fit in? What was it for? If it was going to be the son of a bitch’s command post, why didn’t he just rent Fenway Park and be done with it? It had to take an army of minions to keep the place running; minions talked. Ask anyone at Nuremberg or in Sirica’s courtroom.

  But Regina wouldn’t talk. (Of course, she wasn’t a minion; in no way did the word fit.) Yet he had tried. All the way down from Zurich—well, perhaps not every moment—and half the night in Machenfeld—perhaps less than half—he had done his best to get her to tell him what she knew.

  They had sparred verbally, each talking obliquely, neither coming to grips with any positive statements that could lead to any real conclusions. She admitted—she had no choice—that all the girls had agreed to turn up in the right places at the right times so that he, Sam, would have company and not be led into temptations that could be debilitating on such a long business trip. And have someone trustworthy to take messages for him. And watch out for him. And where the goddamned cotton-pickin’ hell was the harm in that? Where was he going to find such a concerned group of ladies who had his best interests at heart? And kept him on schedule?

  Did she know what the business trip was about?

  Lawdy, no! She never asked. None of the girls asked.

  Why not?

  Landsakes, honey! The Hawk told them not to.

  Couldn’t any of them draw … certain inferences? I mean, my God, his itinerary wasn’t exactly that of a New England shoe salesman.

  Honeychile! When they were married to the Hawk—individually, of course—he was always involved with top-secret army things they all knew they shouldn’t ask questions about.

  He wasn’t in the army now!

  Well-live-and-die-in-Dixie! That’s the army’s fault!

  And so it went.

  And then he began to understand. Regina was no patsy. None of the girls was. Fall guy was not in their collective vocabulary. If Ginny, or Lillian, or Madge, or Anne knew anything concrete they weren’t about to say so. If they perceived a lack of complete integrity, each put on blinders, and her own particular activity remained unrelated to any larger action. None certainly would discuss anything with him.

  There was another problem in the midst of the Hawk’s insanity: Sam genuinely liked the girls. Whatever the whack-a-doo furies were that drove them to do MacKenzie’s bidding, each was her own person, each an individual, each—God help him—had an honesty he found refreshing. So, if he did spell out what he knew, the instant he did so they were accessories. To a conspiracy. It didn’t take a lawyer to know that. What was he thinking about; he was a lawyer.

  As of this … point in time … each girl was clean. Maybe not like a hound’s tooth; maybe not even like a wino’s bridgework, but legally it could be argued that each had operated in a vacuum. There was no conspiracy under the circumstances.

  Thank you, Mr. Defense Attorney. The bench suggests that you reclaim your tuition from law school.

  Sam got out of the ridiculously oversized, canopied bed as quietly as possible. He saw his shorts halfway across the room toward the French doors, which was where he was heading, anyway, and briefly wondered why they were so far from the bed. Then he remembered, and he smiled.

  But this was morning, a new day, and things were going to be different. Ginny had given him one specific to hang onto: Hawkins would arrive by late afternoon or early evening. He would use the time until then to learn whatever he could about Château Machenfeld. Or more precisely, what the Hawk was planning for Château Machenfeld as it related to one Pope Francesco, Vicar of Christ.

  It was time for him to mount his own counterstrategy. Hawkins was good, no question about it. But he, Sam Devereaux from the Eastern Establishment’s Quincy-Boston axis, wasn’t so bad, either. Confidence! Mac had it; so did he.

  As he put on his shorts, the obvious first move in his counterstrategy came into focus. It wasn’t just obvious, it was blatant; bells rang! Such an extraordinary place (mansion, estate, compound, small country) as Machenfeld would demand an unending series of supplies to keep it functioning. And suppliers were like minions, they could see, and hear, and bear witness. The Hawk’s proclivity for massiveness could be the most vulnerable aspect of his plans. Sam had considered disrupting Mac’s supply lines as one of his options, from a military point of view, but he had no idea how positively logical it was. It might be all he needed.

  He’d circulate rumors as massively dangerous, as gigantically outrageous, as the sight of Machenfeld itself. He’d start with the servants, then the suppliers, then everyone else who came near the château, until a state of isolation was brought about and he could come to grips with a deserted Hawkins and—what the hell was that noise?

  He walked rapidly to the French doors and through them to the small balcony beyond. It overlooked the rear of Château Machenfeld. He assumed it was the rear; there was no circular drive below. Instead, there were gardens in spring bloom, with graveled paths and latticed arbors and scores of small fishponds carved out of rock. Beyond the gardens were green fields that merged into greener, darker forests, and in the distance were the majestic Alps.

  The noise continued, spoiling the view. He could not, at first, determine where it came from, and so he squinted in the sunlight. And instantly wished to hell he hadn’t. Because he could now see what was making the noise.

  One, two, three … five, six … eight, nine! Nine assorted—insanely assorted—vehicles were slowly going down a dirt road that bordered the fields, progressing south toward the surrounding forests.

  There were two long black limousines, a huge earth-moving bulldozer, an outsized tractor with pronged forks in front, and five—goddamn it, yes, five motorcycles!

  It didn’t take a lot of imagination to get the picture. The Hawk was about to enter maneuvers! He had bought himself his own personal papal motorcade! Plus equipment that could shove the ground around into any design he liked: The route of said papal motorcade!

  But he hadn’t even arrived at Machenfeld! How the hell was he able to—and what the hell was that?

  In his anger and confusion, Devereaux gripped the balcony, shaking his head in frustrated bewilderment. His eyes were arrested by an extraordinary sight fifty yards away.

  Within a kind of patio, outside a pair of open doors that looked like the entrance to some sort of enormous kitchen, stood a large man wearing a chef’s hat, who was in the process of checking off items from a thick sheaf of papers in his hands. In front of the man was a mountain of crates and cartons and boxes that must have reached the height of fifteen feet!

  Lines of supply, shit!

  There wasn’t anything left in Europe for Hawkins to buy. There was enough food down ther
e to eliminate half the famine on the Ganges! The son of a bitch had requisitioned enough rations for an army, goddamn it, an army setting out on a two-year bivouac!

  Limousines, motorcycles, bulldozers, tractors, food for the entire Lost Battalion! Sam’s counterstrategy move number one was shot to hell by a parade of nine idiotically assorted vehicles and some gasping eccentric in a chef’s hat.

  The only state of isolation in the foreseeable future was from any and all lines of supply. They were totally unnecessary.

  That left the minions. The dozen or so servants that had to be around to keep Machenfeld afloat. Kitchens, gardens, fields (that probably meant barns, maybe livestock), and at least thirty to forty rooms with cleaning and waxing and polishing and dusting. Christ! There had to be a staff of twenty!

  He’d begin right away. Perhaps with the drivers of the nine vehicles; convince them to get the damn things off the château’s grounds before it was too late. Then he’d rapidly go from one group of servants to another. Let them know in ominous terms, which meant legal terms, that if they knew what was good for them they’d get the hell out of Machenfeld before all the agents of Interpol descended.

  All the food in Switzerland wouldn’t do the Hawk any good if there was no one on the premises. To run the premises. And a few well-chosen words to those manning the vehicles, words like “international violations,” “personal accountability,” and “life imprisonment,” would surely cause that stream of motorcycles and limousines and trucks to barrel-ass back over the moat into safer territory.

  Sam was so preoccupied with his new strategy that he wasn’t really aware that his undershorts kept sagging, causing him to hold them up with a free hand. He was forced to be aware of it now because as he gripped the railing his shorts had plummeted down to his ankles. Swiftly, he retrieved his modesty, noting with a degree of self-satisfaction that the games with Ginny Greenberg must have been pretty damned exciting indeed. But it was no time for pleasant reminiscence; there was work to do. His watch read nearly eleven; he hadn’t realized he’d slept so long—the games were not only exciting, but exhausting. He had barely five or six hours to get everybody out. Such a large staff of servants probably had lots of personal belongings. That would mean transportation, perhaps more complicated than he had considered. But one thing had to be clear: when the minions left the grounds of Machenfeld, they were not to return. For any reason. Anything less would weaken his basic premise: Machenfeld was a threat to everyone who remained, therefore no one was to do so.