The Bannerman Effect (The Bannerman Series) (42 page)

She was looking up, but not toward him. It was the delivery van that had caught her attention. Selly heard the splash of water. He saw her turn, fingers to her lips, toward someone still unseen. The splashing stopped. Selly scanned the pool area. Then he saw it. A hiker's backpack. No, two. Stashed in the shadows of the hedge. He relaxed. Now he understood. Trespassers. Sneaking a morning swim, a welcome freshwater bath, in the pool of a shuttered house. The sound of the van, stopping so near, had alarmed one of them. But now it was leaving. Erna had paid for the delivery. He could hear her on the stairs, bringing his newspaper. Quietly, soundlessly, Selly opened the screen and stepped inside. He stood there, watching. Soon he was rewarded.

A young girl, judging by her figure, was doing a lazy silent backstroke toward the far corner of the pool. The morning sun glistened off her flat stomach and the creamy mounds of her breasts. She reached the corner. She stopped there, arms draped along the tiled edges. Her legs and stomach sank from view but not the breasts. They floated, buoyed by the water. She was smiling now. Seductively. Her tongue working the edges of her lips. Enticing the other hiker to her.

Another splash. Barely heard. The sound of wading. Ripples spread from its source. More nakedness appeared. A back this time, and a tight little buttocks. She was quite slender. But for the tan lines of a swimsuit's halter she might have been a young boy. She was swimming, toward the other, in a slow, tantalizing breaststroke. The other was smiling. No. It was more than that. An invitation. A seduction. Her lips were parted. Her tongue worked their
edges.
Now her head fell back. It began a slow, rolling motion as the swimmer drew nearer.

“Erna,” he whispered.

“Get them,” Martin Selly said hoarsely. “Bring them.”

“Lesbians? For you?” The German pinched her face. But her own eyes were glistening.

“The water there is old and dirty. They will want a bath.”

“They will not come,” the prostitute said. “Not now. Drugs will not bring them. They want only each other.”

“They are trespassers,” he reminded her. “Take Amal with you. Say that we own that house and that you have brought a policeman. Let them see a gun on his belt. Say we intend only to question them, search their belongings in case they have stolen from us, and then they will be free to leave Marbella.”

“But you must let them leave,” she warned. “This place is too small. They would be found, and Grassi would know.”

“Get them,” he said through his teeth.

By the time Ronny Grassi had settled his bar bill it was nearly three in the morning. He had not returned to his boat. Better, he'd decided, to stay at the Puente Romano. Less likely to miss anything. The decision had probably saved his life. For aboard
Temptress,
a sixty-foot trawler of teak and chrome, B. J. Tucker was waiting for him.

The first mate, who had stitched and cauterized his ear and splinted his thumb, lay unconscious on the deck of his cabin, slowly suffocating, his windpipe crushed by a forearm blow seconds after Tucker had risen to see the results in a mirror.

There were no other crew on board, save the ship's cook. They were on shore leave, prowling the brothels of Malaga. Only a single guard had been posted and he had stationed himself at the foot of the wharf. Grassi had underestimated him. He would pay for it.

Tucker tried the door to the crew's quarters. It was locked. But he could hear the cook snoring loudly. The cook would keep. Tucker found the gun locker. He pried it open and smiled. There were two assault rifles, M-16s, two TEC-9 machine pistols, an M-203 grenade launcher, and a drum-loaded automatic shotgun meant for sweeping the deck of an unfriendly vessel. He chose one of the machine pistols, studied its workings, then took two magazines, each containing thirty-six rounds. He inserted one of these and fed the chamber. He put the other in his belt. Moving quietly, he stepped from the storage cabin and climbed to the main salon where he found a bottle of vodka that would ease the throbbing where his ear had been and the pain of his ruined hand. With the vodka under his arm, he climbed on to the flying bridge. From it, twenty feet above the dock, he could see the entire waterfront of Puerto Banus. And the access road where Grassi's car must enter. He sat heavily into a swivel chair and turned it in that direction.

He waited.

He fired without looking.

“In a pig's ass,” she said sweetly.

Inside the aircraft, strapped into a leather seat, a robe covering legs too small for the rest of him, was an equally elegant and bearded older man whose expression, directed at her father, was equally smug. Her father could only grumble.

Two hours flight time. Enough to ask and answer many questions. Susan answered those she could, about Westport and the events that led to her departure. Then the conversations turned private. She sat first with Elena. They spoke in whispers that were punctuated by grins. A few times, they laughed aloud. Lesko's ears began to bum.

The copilot served a light breakfast. Susan took it with Urs Brugg, at his request. He gestured toward the rear of the plane where her father now sat with his niece. He asked Susan if she approved. She hardly knew how to answer. She had never before seen her father with a woman other than her mother. She had never seen any woman, including her mother but excepting herself, regard him with such obvious affection and respect. She certainly liked Elena, she said, and she was glad for her father, the difference in their backgrounds notwithstanding. It was no greater than that between herself and Paul. Time would tell.

At the airport outside Malaga, two Bell Jet Ranger helicopters awaited them. The younger Bruggs took one, the rest of the party took the second. It seemed no more than minutes before the first settled down on a concrete pad at a place where a white man-made breakwater said “Roman Bridge” in Spanish. Susan's aircraft hovered above the gentle surf as the younger Bruggs, their hands concealed within raincoats, stepped away from their helicopter and awaited the approach of two other men, one thickset, dressed in a blazer and white slacks, the other slight and balding, dressed in a floral-print shirt, shorts, and sandals.

“KGB?” Susan's eyes widened. “As in Russian?”

Urs Brugg smiled. “As you see, he does not have horns.”

“But why is he here? Does Paul know him?”

“He is strictly an observer. He knows of Paul but they have not met. He is an admirer. Do not be concerned.”