Bloodline (18 page)

London.

Friday, November 2.

Five p.m.

Alec Nichols was alone in the club sauna when the door opened and a man walked into the steam-filled room, wearing a towel around his waist. He sat down on the wooden bench, next to Alec. “Hot as a witch’s tit in here, ain’t it, Sir Alec?”

Alec turned. It was Jon Swinton. “How did you get in here?”

Swinton winked. “I said you was expectin’ me. He looked into Alec’s eyes and asked, “You
was
expectin’ me, wasn’t you, Sir Alec?”

“No,” Alec replied. “I told you I need more time.”

“You also told us your little cousin was going to sell the stock, and you’d give us our money.”

“She—she changed her mind.”

“Ah, then you’d better change it back for her, hadn’t you?”

“I’m trying. It’s a question of—”

“It’s a question of how much more horseshit we’re going to take from you.” Jon Swinton was moving closer, forcing Alec to slide along the bench. “We don’t want to get rough with you ‘cause it’s nice to have a good friend like you in Parliament. You know what I mean? But there’s a limit.” He was leaning against Alec now, and Alec slid farther away from him. “We did you a favor. Now it’s time to pay us back. You’re gonna get hold of a shipment of drugs for us.”

“No! That’s impossible,” Alec said. “I can’t. There’s no way—”

Alec suddenly found that he had been crowded to the end of the bench, next to the large metal container filled with hot rocks. “Be careful,” Alec said.

Swinton grabbed hold of Alec’s arm and twisted it, forcing it toward the bed of rocks. Alec could feel the hair on his arm begin to singe.

“No!”

The next instant his arm was pressed down onto the rocks, and he screamed with pain and fell to the floor in agony. Swinton was standing over him.

“You find a way. We’ll be in touch.”

Berlin
.

Saturday, November 3

Six p.m
.

Anna Roffe Gassner did not know how much longer she would be able to stand it.

She had become a prisoner in her own home. Except for the cleaning woman who came in for a few hours once a week, Anna and the children were alone, completely at Walther’s mercy. He no longer bothered to conceal his hatred. Anna had been in the children’s room as they listened together to one of their favorite records.

“Welch ein Singen, Musizieren, Pfeifen, Zwitschken, Tiriliern…”

Walther had stormed in. “I’m sick of that!” he had yelled.

And he had smashed the record, while the children cowered in terror.

Anna had tried to placate him. “I—I’m sorry,
Walther. I—I didn’t know you were home. Can I do something for you?”

He had walked up to her, his eyes blazing, and he said, “We’re going to get rid of the children, Anna.”

In front of them!

He put his hands on her shoulders. “What happens in this house must be our secret”
Our secret. Our secret. Our secret.

She could feel the words reverberating in her head, and his arms started to crush her until she could not breathe. She fainted.

When Anna woke up, she was lying in her bed. The shades were drawn. She looked at the bedside clock. Six
P.M
. The house was quiet. Too quiet. Her first thought was of the children, and terror swept through her. She rose from the bed on shaky legs, and stumbled over to the door. It was locked from the outside. She pressed her ear hard against the panel, listening. There should have been the sounds of the children. They should have come up to see her.

If they had been able to. If they were still alive.

Her legs were trembling so hard that she could barely walk to the telephone. She breathed a silent prayer, then picked it up. She heard the familiar dial tone. She hesitated, dreading the thought of what Walther would do to her if he caught” her again. Without giving herself a chance to think, Anna began to dial 110. Her hands shook so badly that she dialed a wrong number. And another. She began to sob. There was so little time left. Fighting her growing hysteria, she tried again, willing her
fingers to move slowly. She heard a ringing, then miraculously a man’s voice said,
“Hier ist de Notruf der Polizei.”

Anna could not find her voice.

“Hier ist der Notruf der Polizei. Kann ich Ihnen helfen?”

“Ja!”
It was a high-pitched sob.
“Ja, bitte! Ich bin in grosser Gefahr. Bitte schicken sie jemanden—”

Walther loomed in front of her, ripping the telephone out of her hand and hurling her against the bed. He slammed down the receiver, breathing hard, tore the cord out of the wall, and turned to Anna.

“The children,” she whispered. “What have you done with the children?”

Walther did not answer.

The Central Division of the Berlin Kriminal Polizei was located at 2832 Keithstrasse in a district of ordinary-looking apartment houses and office buildings. The emergency number of the
Delikt am Mensch
department was equipped with an automatic hold system, so that a caller was unable to disconnect until the line had been electronically released by the switchboard. In this way every number calling in could be traced, no matter how brief the conversation. It was a sophisticated piece of equipment of which the department was proud.

Within five minutes of Anna Gassner’s telephone call, Detective Paul Lange walked into the office of his chief, Major Wageman, carrying a cassette player.

“I would like you to listen to this.” Detective Lange pressed a button. A metallic male voice said,
“Hier ist der Notruf der Polizei. Kann ich Ihnen helfen?”

Then a woman’s voice, filled with terror.
“Ja! Ja, bitte! Ich bin in grosser Gefahr. Bitte schicken sie jemanden—”

There was the sound of a thud, a click, and the line went dead. Major Wageman looked up at Detective Lange. “You’ve traced the call?”

“We know whose residence it came from,” Detective Lange replied carefully.

“Then what’s the problem?” Major Wageman demanded impatiently. “Have Central send a car to investigate.”

“I wanted your authority first.” Detective Lange placed a slip of paper on the desk in front of the major.

“Scheiss!”
Major Wageman stared at him. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, Major.”

Major Wageman looked down at the slip of paper again. The telephone was listed in the name of Gass-ner, Walther. Head of the German division of Roffe and Sons, one of the industrial giants of Germany.

There was no need to discuss the implications. Only an idiot could miss them. One wrong move and they would both be walking the streets, looking for a job. Major Wageman thought for a moment and then said, “All right. Check it out. I want you to go there yourself. And walk on fucking eggs. Do you understand?”

“I understand, Major.”

The Gassner estate was in Wannsee, an exclusive suburb in southwest Berlin. Detective Lange took
the longer Hohenszollerndamm instead of the speedier autobahn, because the traffic was lighter. He went through the Clayalle, past the CIA building, hidden behind half a mile of barbedwire fences. He passed the American Army Headquarters and turned right on what was once known as Road One, the longest road in Germany, running from East Prussia to the Belgian border. On his right was the Brücke der Einheit, the Bridge of Unity, where the spy Abel had been exchanged for the American U-2 pilot Gary Powers. Detective Lange turned the car off the highway into the wooded hills of Wannsee.

The houses were beautiful, impressive. On Sundays, Detective Lange sometimes took his wife out here, just to look at the outside of the houses and the grounds.

He found the address he was looking for and turned into the long driveway leading to the Gassner estate. The estate represented something more than money: it represented power. The Roffe dynasty was big enough to make governments fall. Major Wageman had been right: he would be very careful.

Detective Lange drove to the front door of the three-story stone house, got out of the car, took off his hat and pressed the doorbell. He waited. There was the heavy hanging silence of a house that has been deserted. He knew that was impossible. He rang again. Nothing but that still, oppressive silence. He was debating whether to go around to the back when the door unexpectedly opened. A woman stood in the doorway. She was middle-aged, plain-looking, wearing a wrinkled dressing gown. Detective Lange took her for the housekeeper. He pulled
out his identification. “I’d like to see Mrs. Walther Gassner. Please tell her Detective Lange.”

“I am Mrs. Gassner,” the woman said.

Detective Lange tried to conceal his surprise. She was totally unlike his image of the lady of this house.

“I—we received a telephone call at police headquarters a short time ago,” he began.

She watched him, her face blank, disinterested. Detective Lange felt that he was handling this badly, but he did not know why. He had a feeling that he was missing something important.

“Did you make that call, Mrs. Gassner?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered. “It was a mistake.”

There was a dead, remote quality to her voice that was disturbing. He remembered the shrill, hysteircal voice on the tape recorder half an hour earlier.

“Just for our records, may I ask what kind of mistake?”

Her hesitation was barely perceptible. “There was—I thought that a piece of my jewelry was missing. I found it.”

The emergency number was for murder, rape, mayhem.
Walk on fucking eggs.

“I see.” Detective Lange hesitated, wanting to get inside the house, wanting to find out what she was covering up. But there was nothing more he could say or do. “Thank you, Mrs. Gassner. I’m sorry to have troubled you.”

He stood there, frustrated, and watched the door close in his face. He slowly got into his car and drove off.

Behind the door Anna turned.

Walther nodded and said softly, “You did very well, Anna. Now we’re going back upstairs.”

He turned toward the stairway, and Anna pulled out a pair of shears that had been concealed in the folds of her dressing gown and plunged them into his back.

Rome.

Sunday, November 4.

Noon
.

It was a perfect day, Ivo Palazzi thought, for visiting the Villa d’Este with Simonetta and their three beautiful daughters. As Ivo strolled through the fabled Tivoli Gardens arm in arm with his wife, watching the girls race ahead from fountain to splashing fountain, he idly wondered whether Pirro Ligorio, who had built the park for his patrons, the D’Este family, had ever dreamed how much joy he would one day give to millions of sightseers. The Villa d’Este was a short distance northeast of Rome, nestled high in the Sabine Hills. Ivo had been there often, but it always gave him a feeling of special pleasure to stand at the very top level and look down on the dozens of sparkling fountains below, each one cunningly designed, each one different from the others.

In the past Ivo had taken Donatella and his three sons here. How they had adored it! The thought of
them made Ivo sad. He had not seen or talked to Donatella since that horrifying afternoon at the apartment. He still remembered vividly the terrible scratches she had inflicted on him. He knew what remorse she must be going through, and how she must be longing for him. Well, it would do her good to suffer for a while, as he had suflered. In his mind he could hear Donatella’s voice, and she was saying, “Come along. This way, boys.”

It was so clear it seemed almost real. He could hear her say, “Faster, Francesco!” and Ivo turned and Donatella was in back of him, with their three boys, moving determinedly toward him and Simonetta and the three girls. Ivo’s first thought was that Donatella had happened to be here at the Tivoli Gardens by coincidence, but the instant he saw the expression on her face, he knew better. The
putana
was trying to bring his two families together, trying to destroy him! Ivo rose to the occasion like a madman.

He shouted to Simonetta, “There’s something I must show you. Quickly, everybody.”

And he swept his family down the long winding stone steps toward a lower level, pushing tourists aside, casting frantic glances over his shoulder. Above, Donatella and the boys were moving toward the steps. Ivo knew that if the boys saw him, everything was lost. All it needed was for one of them to shout “Papa!” and he might as well drown himself in the fountains. He hurried Simonetta and the girls along, not giving them a chance to pause, not daring to let them stop for an instant.

“Where are we rushing to?” Simonetta gasped. “What’s the hurry?”

“It’s a surprise,” Ivo said gaily. “You’ll see.”

He risked another quick glance back. Donatella and the three boys were out of sight for the moment. Ahead was a labyrinth, with one set of stairs leading up and another leading down. Ivo chose the stairs going up.

“Come along,” he called to the girls. “Whoever gets to the top first gets a prize!”

“Ivo! I’m exhausted!” Simonetta complained. “Can’t we rest a minute?”

He looked at her in shock.
“Rest?
That would spoil the surprise. Hurry!”

He took Simonetta’s arm and dragged her up the steep steps, his three daughters racing ahead of them. Ivo found himself gasping for breath. It would serve them all right, he thought bitterly, if I have a heart attack and die right here. Goddamn women! You can’t trust any of them. How could she do this to me? She adores me. I’ll kill the bitch for this.

He could visualize himself strangling Donatella in her bed. She was wearing nothing by a flimsy negligee. He ripped it off and began to mount her, while she screamed for mercy. Ivo could feel himself getting an erection.

“Can we stop now?” Simonetta begged.

“No! We’re almost there!”

They had reached the upper level again. Ivo took a hasty look around. Donatella and the boys were nowhere in sight.

“Where are you taking us?” Simonetta demanded.

“You’ll see,” Ivo said hysterically. “Follow me!” He shoved them toward the exit.

Isabella, the oldest girl, said, “Are we leaving, Papa? We just got here!”

“We’re going to a better place,” Ivo panted. He
glanced back. Coming into sight, climbing the stairs, were Donatella and the boys.

“Faster, girls!”

A moment later Ivo and one of his families were outside the gates of the Villa d’Este, racing toward their car on the large square.

“I’ve never seen you like this,” Simonetta gasped.

“I’ve never been like this,” Ivo said truthfully. He had the motor going before the car doors were closed, and he raced out of the parking lot like the devil was pursuing him.

“Ivo!”

He patted Simonetta’s hand. “I want everybody to relax now. As a special treat I’m—I’m taking you to lunch at the Hassler.”

They sat at a picture window overlooking the Spanish Steps, with Saint Peter’s looming gloriously in the distance.

Simonetta and the children had a marvelous time. The food was delicious. Ivo could have been eating cardboard. His hands were trembling so badly that he could hardly hold his knife and fork. I can’t stand much more of this, he thought. I’m not going to let her ruin my life.

For he had no doubt now that that was exactly what Donatella intended to do.
Il giuoco è stato fatto.
The game was up. Unless he could find a way to give Donatella the money she was demanding.

He had to get it. It did not matter how.