The Road to Gandolfo: A Novel

  Evacuation!

  The château was to be deserted!

  Then what the hell was MacKenzie going to do?

  Stew in his cigar juice, that’s what he was going to do!

  It was merely a question of logistics and execution.

  Goddamn! Logistics and execution! He was beginning to think like the Hawk! And have the confidence of the Hawk! Be bold! Be outrageous! Take fate by the balls and …

  Shit! Before anything could happen, he had to get dressed. He raced through the French doors into the room. Ginny stirred and moaned a little and then buried her head farther into the eiderdown quilt. He stepped out of the torn underwear, and crossed quietly to his suitcase which was on an overstuffed armchair against the velour-covered wall.

  It was empty.

  There wasn’t a goddamn thing in his suitcase.

  He looked around for the closet.

  Closets. There were four.

  Empty. Except for Ginny’s dresses.

  Shit!

  He ran as quietly as possible to the sculptured door and opened it.

  Sitting across the wide hallway was the black beret with the gold front tooth and catlike eyes which were now focused on Sam’s lower extremities. In the confusion that, perhaps, was understandable. The sneer was not.

  “Where are my clothes!?” whispered Devereaux, partially closing the door, leaning against it.

  “In the launtree, mein Herr,” replied the black beret in an accent formed in some Swiss canton run by Hermann Göring.

  “Everything?”

  “Courtesy of Château Machenfeld. All was dirty.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Sam tried to keep his voice low. He did not want to wake Ginny. “Nobody asked me—–”

  “You were asleep, mein Herr,” interrupted the black beret, grinning suggestively, his gold tooth gleaming. “You were very tired.”

  “Well, now I’m very angry! I want my clothes back. Right away!”

  “I cannot do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “It is the launtree’s day off.”

  “What? Then why did you take them?”

  “I told you, mein Herr. They were dirty.”

  Sam stared at the catlike eyes across the hallway. They had narrowed ominously; and the gold tooth was no longer seen because the grin had disappeared, replaced by an adamant mouth. Sam closed the door. He had to think. Quickly. As Mac would say, he had to weigh his options. And he had to get out.

  He did not consider himself a brawler, yet he was not a physical coward. He was a pretty big fellow, and regardless of what Lillian said in Berlin, he was in fair shape. Still, all things considered it was a good guess that the black-bereted maniac across the hall could beat the shit out of him. Even naked, he could not leave by the stairs.

  Option One considered and rejected.

  That left the windows, more specifically the small balcony beyond the French doors. He grabbed his shorts off the floor, put them on, held them up, and walked silently outside. The room was three stories off the ground, but directly below was another balcony. With sheets, or drapes, tied together he could make it with reasonable safety.

  Option Two was feasible.

  He went back inside and studied the drapes. As his mother in Quincy would say, they were spring drapes. Silk, billowy, not strong. Option Two was fading. Then he looked at the bed sheets, ignoring the inviting sight of Regina who was now more outside the eiderdown quilt than under. If the sheets were combined with the drapes, this would probably hold him. Option Two was reemerging.

  Battle dress.

  That was a problem. There was nothing but dresses.

  So, assuming Option Two succeeded and he reached the ground, he had Options Three and Four to consider. And as he considered them there was a sinking feeling in his stomach. He could race around Machenfeld in underwear that kept falling down to his ankles or he could put on one of Ginny’s Balenciaga prints and hope the zipper held.

  A man running around spreading alarms in disheveled underwear, or a Paris original, was not likely to be taken too seriously. There might even be Options Five and Six to contend with: be locked up, or be raped.

  Shit!

  He had to keep his head; he had to get hold of himself and think things out. Slowly. He could not allow a minor item like clothing to stand in the way of evacuation. What could the Hawk do? What was that goddamned term he used so frequently?

  Support personnel! That was it!

  Sam raced back out on the balcony. The man in the chefs hat was still checking off items on his list. It’d probably take him a week.

  “Psssst! Psssst!” Devereaux leaned over the railing, remembering at the last instant not to let go of the underwear. “Hey you!” he whispered loudly.

  The man looked up, startled at first, then smiled broadly. “Ahh! Bonjour, monsieur! ça va?” he shouted.

  Sam held his finger to his lips. “Shhh!” He gestured for the chef to come closer.

  He did so, carrying his papers, making a last notation as he walked. “Oui, monsieur?”

  “I’m being held prisoner!” whispered Devereaux with solemn urgency and much authority. “They’ve taken my clothes. I need clothes. And when I get down I want you to get everyone who works here into the kitchen. I’ve got some very important things to say. I’m a lawyer. Avocat.” The man in the chef’s hat cocked his head. “Je ne comprends pas, monsieur. Desirez-vous le petit déjeuner?”

  “Who?—No. I want clothes. See? All I’ve got is this, these.” Sam stretched his torn undershorts so they could be seen between the rails; then he pointed to his legs. “I need pants, trousers! Right away. Please!”

  The expression on the man’s face changed from bewilderment to suspicion. Perhaps even distaste mingled with hostility. “Vos sous-vêtements sont très jolis,” he said, shaking his head, turning back toward the patio and the crates of food.

  “Wait! Wait a minute!”

  “The chef is French, mein Herr, but not that French.” The voice came from below, from the balcony directly underneath. The speaker was an immense, bald man with shoulders nearly as wide as the depth of the railing. “He thinks you are making a most peculiar offer. I can assure you he’s not interested.”

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “My name is unimportant. I leave the château when the new master of Machenfeld arrives. Until then his every instruction is my command. His instructions do not include your clothing.”

  Devereaux had an overpowering urge to let his shorts fall and copy Hawkins’s action on the roof of the diplomatic mission in Peking, but he controlled himself. The man on the balcony below was huge. And obviously couldn’t take a joke. So instead he leaned over and whispered the words conspiratorially.

  “Heil Hitler, you fucker!”

  The man’s arm shot forward; his heels clicked like the bolt of a rifle. “Jawohl! Sieg heil!”

  “Oh, shit!” Sam turned and walked back into the room. In exasperation, he kicked off his shorts. Then he absently studied them as they lay on the floor. Perhaps it was the angle of the fabric, he was not sure. But suddenly they looked strange.

  He bent down and picked them up.

  Christ! What games?

  The elastic waist had been cut deliberately in three places! The incisions were incisions, not tears. There were no loose threads or stretched cloth. Someone had taken a sharp instrument and sliced the goddamn things! On purpose. Immobilizing him by the simplest method possible!

  “Lawdy! What’s all that shoutin’ about?” Regina Greenberg yawned and stretched, modestly pulling the eiderdown quilt over her enormous breasts.

  “You bitch,” said Devereaux in quiet anger. “You devious bitch!”

  “What’s the matter, honeychile?”

  “Don’t ‘honeychile’ me, you Southern retardant! I can’t get out of here!”

  Ginny blinked and yawned again. She spoke with calm authority. “You know, Mac once said something that’s been a comfort to me all t
hrough the years. He said, when the mortars are falling all around you and things look terrible—and, believe me, there were times when the world looked pretty terrible to me—he said, think of the good things you’ve done, the accomplishments, the contributions. Don’t ponder your mistakes or your sorrows; that only puts you in a depressed state of mind. And a depressed state of mind is not equipped to take advantage of that one moment that could arise and save your ass. It’s all a question of mental attitudes.”

  “What the hell has that bullshit got to do with the fact that I don’t have any clothes?”

  “Not an awful lot, I guess. It’s just that you sounded so depressed. That’s no way to face the Hawk.”

  Devereaux started to answer blindly, angrily. Then he stopped, looked at the sincerity in Ginny’s eyes and began again. “Wait a minute. ‘Face the Hawk.’ You mean you want me to fight him? Stop him?”

  “That’s your decision, Sam. I only want what’s best for everyone.”

  “Will you help me?”

  Ginny was pensive for a moment, then replied firmly. “No, I won’t do that. Not in the way you’re thinking. I owe MacKenzie too much.”

  “Lady!” burst out Devereaux. “Do you have any idea what that lunatic is up to?”

  Mrs. Hawkins number one looked at him with an expression of suddenly imposed innocence. “A lieutenant doesn’t question a general officer, Major. He can’t be expected to understand the intricacies of command—–”

  “Then what the hell are we talking about?”

  “You’re a smart fellow. The Hawk wouldn’t have promoted you if you weren’t. I just want him to have the finest advice he can get. So he can do whatever it is he wants to do the best way possible.” Ginny rolled over under the eiderdown quilt. “I’m really very sleepy.”

  And Devereaux saw them on the bedside table next to her head.

  A pair of scissors.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “Sorry about the clothes,” said the Hawk in the huge drawing room. Sam glared and retied the curtain sash he used as a belt around the eiderdown quilt. “You’d think the laundry would have more than one key, wouldn’t you? These big fancy places don’t trust anyone; shows the kind of house guests they must be used to, I suppose.”

  “Oh, shut up,” mumbled Devereaux, who found it necessary to double-loop the sash because the silk kept slipping. “The laundress will be here in the morning, I presume.”

  “I’m sure of it. She’s one of the few who go home at night. To the village. That’ll change, of course; there’ll be a lot of changes.”

  “Just tell me there’ll be one change and I’ll go back and have dinner with Azaz-Varak.”

  “Come on now, Sam, you’ve got a one-track mind. Let’s get on to other things. You sure you don’t want a shirt and a pair of trousers? Just take me a minute to go upstairs …” Hawkins made a gesture past a dozen or so overstuffed, antimacassared armchairs toward the great hall.

  “No! I don’t want anything from you!—I take that back. I do want something. I want you to call off this crazy business and let me go home!”

  MacKenzie bit off the chewed end of his cigar, spitting it between the feet of a suit of armor. “You will go home, I promise you that. The minute you centralize the company finances and make a few deposits that can be tapped under certain conditions, I’ll drive you to the airport myself. That’s the word of a general officer.”

  “It’s the reasoning of a brain soaked in linseed oil! Do you have any idea what you’re asking me to do? That’s not chopped liver you’re talking about, it’s forty million dollars. I’m marked for life! They’ll have a record sheet on me in every Interpol headquarters and police station in the civilized world! You don’t put your name on forty million dollars’ worth of bank transfers and expect to go back to a normal law practice. Word gets out.”

  “That’s not so, and you know it. All that Swiss banking stuff is confidential.”

  Devereaux looked around to make sure no one else was within hearing. “Even if it’s supposed to be, it’s not going to be once a … certain attempt is made to snatch a … certain person in Rome! And that’s all it will be! An attempt! You’ll have your ass in a net, and every contact you’ve made since China will be put under a microscope and my name will surface and so will forty fucking million dollars in Zurich and that’s the ballgame!”

  “Now, goddamn, boy, we’ve been over that! Your job’s finished now. Or will be soon’s you take care of the money. You don’t have to be involved anymore. And you’re clean, son. You’re a hundred percent Clorox!”

  “I’m not.” Devereaux choked as he whispered and clutched the eiderdown quilt. “I just told you: The minute you’re nailed, I’m nailed!”

  “For what? Say you happened to be right—which I don’t for a second consider remotely possible—what can they nail you for? Banking funds for an old soldier who told you he was raising money to support an organization dedicated to spreading religious brotherhood? Let me ask you a question, Mr. Attorney. Could you, under oath, testify to any wrongdoing?”

  “You’re insane!” broke in Sam, stumbling slightly as he stepped forward. “You told me! You’re going to kidnap—–” Devereaux stopped and made charade-like gestures that included hauling a body over his shoulder and the sign of the cross.

  “Well, hell, boy, there are oaths and there are oaths! Be reasonable. Anyway, that’s hearsay. Not admissible.”

  Sam closed his eyes; he began to understand what martyrdom was all about. He continued, his whisper strained but controlled. “I walked out of those archives with that fucking briefcase chained to my wrist!”

  “Outside of that,” mumbled MacKenzie. “Anyhow, that’s army stuff; neither of us has much use for the army. Anything else?”

  Devereaux thought. “Circumstantially, it’s the mother-loving end. There hasn’t been a single aboveboard transaction.”

  “That’s subjective,” said Hawkins, shaking his head, confirming his own judgment. “There’s been no violence; no one’s lied. No theft, no collusion. Everything voluntary. And if the particular methods seem unusual, that’s the prerogative of every individual investor, as long as he doesn’t infringe on the rights of others.” Mac paused and held Sam’s eyes. “There’s something else, too. You said yourself that a lawyer’s first responsibility was to his client, not abstract moral dilemmas.”

  “I said that?”

  “You surely did.”

  “That’s not bad—–”

  “It’s goddamned eloquent, that’s what it is. You’ve got a silver tongue in your head, young man.”

  Sam stared back at the Hawk, trying to see beneath his guile. But it wasn’t guile; he meant what he said. And since personal sincerity was the momentary leveler, Devereaux decided to be personally sincere.

  “Listen to me,” he said quietly. “Say you go through with this—this insanity, because that’s what it is, you know. Say you really do it. You actually kidnap the pope and get away with it. Even for a few days. Do you know what might happen? What you could trigger?”

  “Surely do. Four hundred million green samolians from four hundred million howling mackerel snappers. No offense intended, just a harmless phrase.”

  “No, you gung-ho son of a bitch! There’d be international revulsion! And recrimination. And then mainly accusations! Governments would point their fingers at other governments! Presidents and chairmen and prime ministers would use blue lines and red lines and then very hot lines. And before you know it, some asshole recites a code from a tiny black box in a briefcase because he didn’t like what some other asshole said. Jesus, Mac! You could start World War Three!”

  “Goddamn! Is that what you’ve been thinking about?”

  “It’s what I’ve tried not to think about.”

  Hawkins threw his cigar into the cavern that was the Machenfeld fireplace and stood arms akimbo, a flame dying in his eyes. “Sam, boy, you couldn’t be farther from the truth. You know, son, war isn’t what it used
to be. Hasn’t any spirit to it anymore. Bugles and drums, and men caring for men, and hating an enemy because he can hurt the things you love. That’s all gone now. Now it’s buttons and shifty-eyed politicians who blink a lot and wave their hands without meaning very much. I hate war. I never thought I’d hear myself say it, but I’m saying it and learning it now. I’d never allow a war.”

  Devereaux bored into the Hawk’s eyes; he would not let MacKenzie look away. “Why should I believe that? Everything you’ve done reeks of con. Immense con. Why should a war stop you?”

  “Because, young man,” replied Hawkins quietly, returning Sam’s stare in full measure, “I just told you the truth.”

  “All right. Suppose you provoke one without meaning to?

  “Goddamn! Now you’re pushing me too far!” MacKenzie strode from the fireplace to a second suit of armor to the right of the mantel. The face piece was open so he slammed it shut. “I put in damned near forty years and got fucked by the plastic men! Your words, boy! Now, I don’t feel sorry for myself because I knew what I was doing and was accountable for my actions! But, goddamn, don’t ask me to feel sorry for them or be accountable for their stupidity!”

  So much for personal sincerity, thought Devereaux. Like Options One, Two, Three, and Four in the morning, it was shot to hell. This time in a burst of self-righteousness. There was nothing for it but to find another way. One would present itself, Sam was convinced of that. The Hawk had a way to go before the pontiff of the Catholic Church blessed the edelweiss at Machenfeld. Something would turn up; and Option Seven—Options Five and Six happily avoided—was coming into focus. For the moment he had to calm MacKenzie down and under no circumstances lose his confidence. And then Mac did have a point. A legal point.