The Road to Gandolfo Read online

  “Except that he almost made it.” Sam crossed to an armchair and sat down with his bourbon. The lieutenant followed him.

  “Your head IG investigator in Saigon will fly his reports directly to you in Tokyo. Take them with you to Peking. They’ve got a lot of real dirt.” The young officer smiled his genuine smile. “Just in case you need some final stickum for the coffin.”

  “Gee, you’re a nice kid. Ever meet your father?” Sam drank a great deal of his bourbon.

  “You mustn’t personalize it, Major. It’s an objective operation and we have the input. It’s all part of the—–”

  “Don’t say again—–”

  “… game plan.” Lodestone swallowed the words. “Sorry. And anyway, if you do personalize it, what more do you want? The man’s a maniac. A dangerous, egotistical madman who’s interfering violently with peaceful pursuits.”

  “I’m a lawyer, Lieutenant, not an avenging angel. Your maniac made several contributions to other—game plans. He’s got a lot of people in his corner. I met with eight—four—this afternoon.” Sam looked at his glass; where did the bourbon go?

  “Not any more, he doesn’t,” said the officer flatly.

  “He doesn’t what?”

  “Whatever constituency he had will disappear.”

  “Constituency? He’s a politician?” Sam decided he needed another drink. He couldn’t follow this Buster Brown any longer. So why not get really drunk?

  “He peed on the Stars and Stripes! That’s a Peoria no-no!”

  “Did he really reach?”

  “We’re sending you to China,” continued Lodestone, overlooking the question, “in the fastest way possible. Phantom jet aircraft over the northern route, stops in Juneau and the Aleutians, into Tokyo. From there a supply carrier to Peking. I’ve brought all the papers you need from Washington.”

  Devereaux mumbled into his bourbon. “I don’t like moo goo gai pan and I hate egg rolls.…”

  “May I suggest you get some rest, sir? It’s almost twenty-three hundred and we have to leave for the airbase at oh four hundred. You take off at dawn.”

  “Wish I’d said that, Lodestone. Nice ring to it. Five hours. And you’re down the hall but not in here.”

  “Sir?” The young man cocked his head.

  “I’m going to give you an order. Go away. I don’t want to see you until you come to sew in my name tags.”

  “What?”

  “Get the hell out of here.” And then Sam remembered and his eyes—though slightly glazed—were laughing. “You know what you are, Lieutenant? You’re a pricky-shit. A real, honest-to-God pricky-shit. Now I know what it means!”

  Four hours.… He wondered.

  It was worth a try. But first he needed another drink.

  He poured it and walked to the writing desk and laughed at the Peking telephotos. The son of a bitch had flair, no question about it. But he was not at the desk to look at the photographs; he opened the drawer and took out his notebook. He turned the pages and did his best to focus on his own handwriting. He walked to the telephone by the bed, dialed nine, and then the number on the page.

  “Hello?” The voice was magnolia-soft and Sam could actually smell the oleander blossoms.

  “Mrs. Greenberg? This is Sam Devereaux—–”

  “Well, how’re you?” Regina’s greeting was positively enthusiastic; there was no attempt to conceal her pleasure that the caller was a man. “We were all wondering which one you’d call. I’m really flattered, Mayjor! I mean, actually, I’m the elder stateswoman. I’m really touched.”

  Her husband was probably out, thought Sam through the bourbon, warmed by the memory of her challenging, translucent shirt.

  “That’s very kind of you. You see, in a little while I’m going to go on a long, long trip. Over oceans and mountains and more oceans and islands and …” Jesus! He hadn’t figured out how to put it; he hadn’t really been sure he could dial her number. Goddamn bourbon fantasies! “Well, it’s sheecrit—secret. Very covert. But I’m going to talk to your—namesake?”

  “Of cawsse, lover! And naturally, you didn’t get half a chaynce to ask all those important government questions. I understand, I really do.”

  “Well, several items came up, one in particular—–”

  “It usually does. I do believe I should do all I can to help the government in its delicate situation. You’re at the Beverly Hills?”

  “Yes, ma’m. Room eight twenty.”

  “Wait a sec.” She put her hand over the receiver, but Sam could hear her calling out. “Manny! There’s a national emergency. I have to go to town.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Major! Major Devereaux! Your phone is off the hook. That’s a no-no.”

  An incessant, ridiculously loud knocking accompanied Lodestone’s nasal screams.

  “What the gawd-almighty hell is that?” asked Regina Greenberg, nudging Sam under the covers. “It sounds like an unoiled piston.”

  Devereaux opened his eyes into the visual abyss of a hangover. “That, dear patron saint of Tarzana, is the voice of the evil people. They surface when the earth churns.”

  “Do you know what time it is? Call the hotel police, for heaven’s sake.”

  “No,” said Sam, reluctantly getting out of bed. “Because if I do, that gentleman will call the joint chiefs of staff. I think they’re scared to death of him. They’re merely professional killers; he’s in advertising.”

  And before Devereaux could really focus, hands had dressed him, cars had driven him, men had yelled at him, and he was strapped into an Air Force Phantom jet.

  They all smiled. Everyone in China smiled. With their lips more than their eyes, thought Sam.

  He was met at the Peking airfield by an American diplomatic vehicle, escorted by two flanking Chinese army cars and eight Chinese army officers. All smiling; even the vehicles.

  The two nervous Americans that came with the diplomatic car were attachés. They were anxious to get back to the mission; neither was comfortable around the Chinese troops.

  Nor did either attaché care to discuss very much of anything except the weather, which was dull and overcast. Whenever Sam brought up the subject of MacKenzie Hawkins—and why not? he had relieved himself on their roof—their mouths became taut and they shook their heads in short, lateral jerks and pointed their fingers below the windows at various areas of the automobile. And laughed at nothing.

  Finally Devereaux realized they were convinced that the diplomatic car was bugged. So Sam laughed, too. At nothing.

  If the automobile was fitted with electronic surveillance, and if someone was listening, thought Devereaux, that person was probably conjuring up a picture of three adult males passing dirty comics back and forth.

  And if the ride from the airfield seemed strange to Sam, his half-hour meeting with the ambassador at the diplomatic mission in Glorious Flower Square was ludicrous.

  He was ushered into the building by his cackling escorts, greeted solemnly by a group of serious-faced Americans who had gathered in the hallway like onlookers in a zoological laboratory—unsure of their safety but fascinated by the new animal brought in for observation—and propelled quickly down a corridor to a large door that was obviously the entrance to the ambassador’s office. Once inside, the ambassador greeted him with a rapid handshake, simultaneously raising a finger over his slightly quivering moustache. One of the escorts removed a small metal device about the size of a pack of cigarettes and began waving it around the windows as though blessing the panes of glass. The ambassador watched the man.

  “I can’t be sure,” whispered the attaché.

  “Why not?” asked the diplomat.

  “The needle moved a touch, but it could be the loudspeakers in the square.”

  “Damn! We have to get more sophisticated scanners. Scramble a memo to Washington.” The ambassador took Sam’s elbow, leading him back to the door. “Come with me, General.”

  “I’m a major.”

  �
�That’s nice.”

  The ambassador propelled Sam out of the office, across the corridor to another door, which he opened, and then preceded Devereaux down a steep flight of stone steps into a large basement. There was a single light bulb on the wall; the ambassador snapped it on and led Sam past a number of wooden crates to another door in the barely visible wall. It was heavy and the diplomat had to put his foot against the surrounding cement in order to pull it open.

  Inside was a long-out-of-use, walk-in refrigerator, now serving as a wine cellar.

  The ambassador entered and struck a match. On one of the racks was a candle, half burned down. The ambassador held the flame to the wick, and the light swelled flickeringly against the walls and the racks. The wine was not the best, observed Devereaux silently.

  The ambassador reached out and yanked Sam into the center of the small enclosure and then pulled the heavy door almost shut, but not completely.

  His lean, aristocratic features accentuated by the wavering flame of the candle, the ambassador smiled apologetically.

  “We may strike you as a touch paranoid, but it’s not the case at all, I can assure you.”

  “Oh, no, sir. This is very cozy. And quiet.”

  Sam tried to return the ambassador’s smile. And for the next thirty minutes he received his last instructions from his government. It was an appropriate place to get them: deep underground, the surrounding earth inhabited by worms that never saw the light of day.

  Armed with his briefcase and no courage whatsoever, Devereaux walked out the mission’s white steel door, to be greeted by a Chinese officer who waved at him from the foot of the path. Sam saw for the first time the evidence of wreckage—large splinters of wood, several angle irons—lying about on the lawn.

  The officer stood outside the border of the property and grinned a flat grin. “My name is Lin Shoo, Major Deveroxx. I will escort you to Lieutenant General Hawkins. My car, should you please.”

  Sam clinbed into the back seat of the army staff vehicle and settled back, his case on his lap. As opposed to the nervous Americans, Lin Shoo was not at all inhibited about talking. The subject quickly became MacKenzie Hawkins.

  “A highly volatile individual, Major Deveroxx,” said the Chinese, shaking his head. “He is possessed by dragons.”

  “Has anyone tried reasoning with him?”

  “I, myself. With great and charming persuasion.”

  “But not with great or charming success, I gather.”

  “What can I tell you? He assaulted me. It wasn’t proper at all.”

  “And you want a full-scale trail because of that? The ambassador said you were adamant. A trial or a lot of hazzerai.”

  “Hazzerai?”

  “It means trouble. It’s Jewish.”

  “You don’t look Jewish.…”

  “What about this trial?” interrupted Sam. “Are the charges centered on assault?”

  “Oh, no. That would not be philosophically consistent. We expect to suffer physically. Through struggle and suffering there is strength.” Lin Shoo smiled; Devereaux didn’t know why. “The general will be tried for crimes against the motherland.”

  “An extension of the original charge,” said Sam, making a quiet statement.

  “Far more complex, however,” replied Lin Shoo, his smile fading into resigned depression. “Willful destruction of national shrines—not unlike your Linkolon Memorials. He escaped once, you know. With a stolen truck he ran into the statuary on Son Tai Square. He is now charged with defacement of venerated artistic craftsmanship—the statuary he ran into was sculptured after the designs of the chairman’s wife. And there can be no counterargument concerning drugs for this. He was seen by too many diplomatic people. He made great sums of noise in Son Tai.”

  “He’ll claim extenuating circumstances.” No harm in testing, thought Devereaux.

  “As with assault, there is no such thing.”

  “I see.” Sam didn’t but there was no point pursuing it. “What could he draw?”

  “How so? Draw? The sculpture?”

  “Prison. What sort of prison sentence? How long?”

  “Roughly four thousand, seven hundred and fifty years.”

  “What? You might as well execute him!”

  “Life is precious to the sons and daughters of the motherland. Every living thing is capable of contribution. Even a vicious criminal like your maniac imperialist general. He could have many productive years in Mongolia.”

  “Now just hold on!” Devereaux changed his position abruptly to look Lin Shoo full in the face. He could not be sure, but he thought he heard a metallic click from the front seat. Not unlike the springing of a pistol’s safety catch.

  He decided not to think about it. It was better that way. He returned his attention to Lin Shoo.

  “That’s crazy! You know that’s just plain dumb! What the hell are you talking about? Four thousand—Mongolia?” Devereaux’s attaché case fell out of his lap; he heard—again—the metallic click. “I mean, let’s be reasonable …” Devereaux’s words drifted off nervously. He picked up the leather case.

  “These are the legitimate penalties for the crimes,” said Lin Shoo. “No foreign government has the right to interfere with the internal discipline of its host nation. It is inconceivable. However, in this particular case, perhaps, it is not entirely unreasonable.”

  Sam paused before speaking; he watched the scowl on Lin Shoo’s face return slightly, ever so slightly, to its previous polite, unhumorous smile. “Do I detect the beginnings of an out-of-court settlement?”

  “How so? Out of court?”

  “A compromise. Do we talk about a compromise?”

  Lin Shoo now allowed the scowl to float away. His smile came as close to being genial as Devereaux could imagine. “Please, yes. A compromise would be enlightening. There is strength, also, in enlightenment.”

  “And maybe a little less than four thousand years in Mongolia—in the compromise?”

  “Fraught with possibilities. Should you succeed where others have not. After all, it is to our mutual advantage to reach a compromise.”

  “I hope you know how right you are. Hawkins is a national hero.”

  “So was your Speeroo Agaroo, Major. Your President said so himself.”

  “What can you offer? Dispense with the trial?”

  Lin Shoo dropped his smile, too suddenly for comfort, thought Sam.

  “We cannot do that. The trial has been announced. Too many people in the international community know of it.”

  “You want to save face, or do you want to sell gas?” Devereaux sat back; the Chinese officer did want a compromise.

  “A little of both is a compromise, is it not?”

  “What’s your little? In the event I can get Hawkins to be reasonable.”

  “A reduction of the sentence would be one consideration.” Lin Shoo’s smile returned.

  “From four thousand to twenty-five hundred years?” asked Devereaux. “You’re all heart. Let’s start with probation; I’ll concede acquittal.”

  “How so? Probation?”

  “I’ll explain later; you’ll like it. Give me some real incentive to work on Hawkins.” Sam fingered the top of his attaché case, tapping his nails on the leather. It was a silly thing that usually split adversaries’ concentration and sometimes produced a hasty concession.

  “A Chinese trial takes many forms. Long, ornate, and quite ritualistic. Or very short, swift, and devoid of excess. Three months or three hours. I can, perhaps, bring about the latter—–”

  “That and probation, I’ll buy,” said Sam quickly. “That’s incentive enough to make me want to work real hard. You’ve got a deal.”

  “This probation. You will have to define more legalistically.”

  “Basically, you not only save face and sell gas, but you can show how tough you are and still be heroes in the world press. All at the same time. What could be better than that?”

  Lin Shoo smiled. Devereaux wondered b
riefly if there wasn’t more understanding beyond that smile than the Chinese cared to show. Then he dismissed the thought; Lin Shoo distracted him by asking a question and answering it before Sam could speak.

  “What could be better than that? Having General Hawkins out of China. Yes, that would be better.”

  “What a coincidence. Because that’s one insignificant part of probation.”

  “Really?” Lin Shoo looked straight ahead.

  “You, I can handle,” said Sam, almost reflectively. “I’ve still got to worry about Brand X.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  The cell could be seen clearly through a single pane of unidirectional glass embedded in the heavy steel door. There was a western-style bed, a writing desk, recessed overhead lights, both a desk lamp and bedside light, and a large rug on the floor. There was an open door on the right wall that led to a small bathroom, and a horizontal clothes rack on the left. The room was no more than ten feet by twelve feet, but all things considered, far grander than Sam had visualized.

  The only thing missing was MacKenzie Hawkins.

  “You see,” said Lin Shoo, “how considerate we are; how well appointed are the general’s accommodations?”

  “I’m impressed,” replied Devereaux. “Except I don’t see the general.”

  “Oh, he is there.” The Chinese smiled and spoke softly. “He has his little games. He hears the footsteps and conceals himself on either side of the door. Twice the guards were alarmed and made ill-considered entrances. Fortunately, there were several to overcome the general’s strength. Now all the shifts are alerted. His meals are delivered through a slot.”

  “He’s still trying.…” Sam chuckled. “He’s something.”

  “He is many things,” added Lin Shoo enigmatically as he approached a webbed circle beneath the unidirectional glass and pushed a red button. “General Hawkins? Please, General, show yourself. It is your good and gracious friend, Lin Shoo. I know you are beside the door, General.”

  “Up your ass, slant eyes!”

  Lin Shoo released the button momentarily and turned to Devereaux. “He is not always the essence of courtesy.” The Chinese returned to the speaker and pushed the button again. “Please, General, I have a countryman of yours with me. A representative of your government. From the armed forces of your nation—–”