He spread out along the length of the sofa, and then stood up again and decided to give the Red Sox one more try. The game was tied 4-4 at the bottom of the fifth, and he decided to watch the Sox pitch one more inning, whether Anne hated him or not. Mack ended up watching it through eight, when the Sox finally managed a 9-5 lead and he decided he’d better read the magazine in case Harry showed up early in the morning.
He switched off the television and sat down again on the sofa, turned inside the publication to the spot where Harry had placed a little yellow sticker, and there before him was the face of Henri Foche, alongside a big black headline that read:
THE NEW LEADER OF THE GAULLIST PARTY—THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF FRANCE?
The main story read:
France is preparing to welcome to the Elysée Palace the most right-wing president certainly since Giscard and probably since de Gaulle. Henri Foche, the forty-eight-year-old native of Brittany, has accepted the party leadership and will fight the election three months from now under the banner of “Pour la Bretagne. Pour la France.” For Brittany. For France.
Heavy industry all over Europe will feel the draft. Insiders say he has already made up his mind on a drastic cut in imports. “If it can be made in France, it will be made in France” is one of his most quoted slogans. He is expected to install an immediate ban on imported coal and steel, which will send a very chill blast through the industrial heartlands of Romania and parts of Germany.
Of course, many French politicians are advising against this quasi-protectionist policy, reminding him that even the American president who tried to protect U.S. steel had finally been forced to change his mind. But France is different. These kinds of “Viva la France” outbursts from French leaders strike a chord that is echoed nowhere else in the free world.
The French parliament long ago decided to wean itself off foreign oil with a massive nuclear power program, which today provides France with almost 80 percent of its electricity.
Monsieur Foche is believed to have a heavy interest in the French shipping industry, although details of his business activities have traditionally been very well concealed. But he has recently made major political speeches in the shipyards around Brest and Saint-Nazaire, all of them assuring the workers that new ships—passenger, freight, or navy frigates—will be cut from French steel.
Nothing will be imported. The French shipping industry, and indeed the French Navy, will rely solely on French-built vessels, from aircraft carriers to submarines.
There followed almost two columns of detail about Foche’s politics, his flirtation with capital punishment, and his determination to reduce taxation.
The story finished with the following paragraph:
Whether you agree with him or not, Foche has struck a nerve in France. Left-wing and liberal moderates in Paris society are openly nervous of the fire-eater from Brittany, who cares nothing for advice.
At the bottom of the story was an arrow pointing overleaf, and there, printed in a box, white type on black, was a rundown of Foche’s reputed business interests. It was plain the researchers had come up with little. Nonetheless, there was a paragraph in the middle of the box that stated,
Henri Foche is believed to hold a significant interest in the guided-missile corporation Montpellier Munitions, located in Orléans, along the Loire Valley.
There was not one word of confirmation, save to assure readers that two of the biggest holdings in Montpellier were recorded under the names of Paris law firms, the inference being they were front men for Henri Foche.
The article continued:
Montpellier is, of course, the French arms factory suspected of manufacturing the banned tank-busting missile, the Diamondhead. But last night a spokesman for the corporation said, “We do make an advanced version of Aerospatiale’s MILAN-5, but we know nothing of the Diamondhead, and certainly would not dream of exporting such a missile to anyone in the Middle East after an official ban by the United Nations.”
Mack Bedford read it all with some interest, but his attention was mild compared to the moment when he glanced over to the right-hand page and saw a large picture showing three men standing beside a black Mercedes-Benz outside the Montpellier factory. The caption below pointed out that the man in the center was Henri Foche himself. But Mack Bedford did not need the caption. He took one look at the photograph and almost jumped off the sofa, because there, right before his eyes, was a familiar balding, middle-aged Frenchman in a pinstriped suit, complete with the bright scarlet handkerchief in the breast pocket of the jacket.
Mack Bedford had spotted the man and his clothes distinctly, through binoculars on the far side of the Euphrates River, just before his friends were incinerated by a Diamondhead missile. In that split second, standing alone in his own living room, Mack realized that he, above all other men, knew that Henri Foche was the mastermind behind the most hated guided missile on earth. He, Mack, had seen him plainly, in sharp focus, standing with the Arab terrorists across the river. He’d been peering through the sights of the missile launcher, for Christ’s sake. Mack had watched those turbaned killers talking to Foche in the moments before the Diamondheads had ripped across the water and smashed into his tanks, burning his men alive. That was him, Foche, standing there, large as life, with a black Mercedes at his beck and call, and several Arab missile men hanging on his every word. Mack had watched him, with his own eyes. And he’d never forget that scarlet handkerchief, sharp beneath the desert sun.
The answers to a thousand questions posed by the reporters suddenly sprang into focus. Was Foche the owner of Montpellier Munitions? Of course he was. Had they made the Diamondhead and sold it to Iran? Of course they had. And were they still doing it? Given this morning’s shattering news bulletin? In Mack Bedford’s mind there was no doubt.
Yes, they fucking well were.
And who could he tell? Who would listen? No one was the answer to that. And into the mind of the former SEAL commander, there began creeping forward a thought that he had never in his most unlikely dreams considered possible.
Once more the images of his best friends stood starkly before him. The SEAL team gunner, Charlie O’Brien, who died in the tank with Billy-Ray Jackson; Chief Frank Brooks and Saul Meiers, who never had a chance when the second tank was hit. In his mind he could see only the searing blue chemical flames as they demolished the best people he had ever known. That unusual crackling sound as the heat devoured everything inside the cockpits and then melted the fuselage of the tanks. The Diamondhead was a weapon from the dark core of hell, a man-made, laboratory-honed missile that belonged to the black arts.
For a few moments he just stood staring at the face of the man who produced it—Henri Foche, who, in just a few short seconds, had become not just a politician who was somehow going to close down the local shipyard. He had become the most hated figure in Mack Bedford’s life, in the entire chronicle of Mack Bedford’s life.
He rolled up the magazine and stuffed it in his pocket. He paced back and forth across the room, checked to see the final score at Fenway Park, and then had one more look at the pictures of Henri Foche. This was the man he had somehow pledged to have assassinated on behalf of Harry Remson. He’d been doing his best for almost a week, but hitherto for no reason. Certainly not a personal one. Just Harry’s determination to save his shipyard. But now things had changed. Very drastically.
Again he put the magazine in his pocket, and he walked out to the hall table and picked up the car keys. Then he selected a small piece of paper from a notepad and scribbled ten numbers on it. He left the house and wondered whether he should drive, because the hours of the wolf were upon him. Carelessly, he dismissed the thought, and strode up to the garage, hauling open the door and firing up the Buick. He eased out of the garage, then hit the gas, swerving out of the drive, hurling gravel.
Upstairs, Anne was curled up on the bed with just a quilt over her. She was not asleep and heard the car start.
Oh, my God, he’s left me. Oh, my God!
She flung off the quilt, ran to the open window, and yelled through the screen,
“Mack! Mack! Darling Mack! Please, please, don’t go!”
But she was not in time. She watched the car hurtle out of the drive and disappear. And she just stood there, repeating over and over, “Darling Mack, please don’t go, please don’t go. Don’t leave me. You can’t leave me. No one could ever love you like I do.” But no one was listening. She was used to that.
Mack sped through the quiet coastal road to the western end of the town, and was making about seventy-five miles an hour as he flashed past the gates of Remsons Shipbuilding. Still racing, he reached Harry’s drive and pulled in, almost sideswiping a stone lion that was supposed to be on guard at the gate. He glanced at his watch, just eleven o’clock. Harry might be in bed . . .
but he’ll get up for this.
Mack pulled up outside the front door and without hesitating hit the front doorbell. Hard. There was no answer for at least two minutes, and then a light was switched on in the front hall and the door was pulled open.
Harry stood there in a very snazzy dressing gown, dark red velvet, with the golden crest of the shipyard on the breast pocket. “Jesus, Mack,” he said. “Do you know what the time is?”
“Of course I do. You don’t think I’d be knocking on your door at 2300 hours if it wasn’t important, do you?” Mack knew Harry loved to converse in the language of the bridge. “One hour before eight bells, right? End of the First Night Watch.”
Harry chuckled. “Come on in, buddy,” he said. “Let’s have a glass of Scotch whisky.”
They walked to Harry’s study, and the shipyard boss poured them each a double shot from a crystal decanter. He opened the fridge door below and selected a bottle of club soda, from which he topped off each glass. “Your good health,” he said.
“And yours,” replied Mack.
“And now perhaps you’ll tell me what’s so important you need to be here at six bells? Before the watch change!”
Both men chuckled. They’d been going through this routine since Mack first joined the navy.
“Harry, you understood my reluctance to continue with our highly illegal project this morning? And you said all I needed to do was provide you with the telephone number of a competent assassin who would carry out your wishes and take out Henri Foche?”
Harry nodded, and Mack handed him the piece of paper on which were written the ten numbers. Harry stared at the 207 area code. “Jesus,” he said. “This is a local Maine number.”
“It’s closer than that,” said Mack. “It’s mine.”
CHAPTER
7
Harry Remson did not know whether to stand up and cheer or reach for his
blood-pressure pills. Men have won the Olympic 200 meters with heart rates slower than Harry’s was at this particular moment. He tried to remain calm, considered, and businesslike. He took a long pull on his Scotch and soda. “Mack,” he eventually said evenly, “are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“I believe so, Harry. I’ve fired Raul, who I don’t trust one inch, and I’m volunteering to undertake the contract myself, for the same money.”
Harry stood up and walked across the room to refresh his dwindling drink. He lifted up the decanter, but before he poured, he said quietly, “It’s Tommy, isn’t it, Mack? You’ll do it for Tommy.”
“Mostly,” replied the former SEAL commander.
“That’s good,” said Harry. “Anyone can be a hired killer. But it takes a real man to put his life on the line for his little boy.”
“I guess you know the situation, about Switzerland and everything?”
“I do. I was talking to your dad yesterday. They want a million, right? To do the operation—the bone marrow?”
“That’s their price. Fixed. No extras, and a room for Anne for up to six months if necessary. One million U.S. dollars.”
“Mack, they just got it. If you’ll take this on, I’m coming up with the first million right away. I’ll have it wired from the account in France, direct to the clinic. Book their tickets.”