The Road to Gandolfo (21 page)

The Buffalo Corporation collected rents from all over the city.
And
if the Israeli major—who was in ordnance and supply—confirmed a report the Hawk had received from some old Cambodian buddies in the CIA, the Buffalo Corporation was also in another business. One that held most unfortunate implications for the owner of said Buffalo
Corporation, insofar as he was the very Arab who scared hell out of the realtors in St. Thomas.

The report was simple; all MacKenzie needed was one military official to corroborate it. For the CIA boys learned that a major expeditor of petrochemicals and fuel for the army of Israel during the Mideast war was a little-known American company called the Buffalo Corporation.

Sheik Azaz-Varak not only owned half the real estate in Tel Aviv, but at the height of the conflict, he fed the Israeli war machine so the maniacs in Cairo wouldn’t damage his investments.

It was the sort of information that simply demanded a long-distance call, thought MacKenzie Hawkins. To the sheikdom of Azaz-Kuwait.

Devereaux appreciated the sympathy from the Air France stewardess, but he would have appreciated food more. There were no supplies in the galley of the 727, a conditiion that would be corrected in Paris. Apparently—and there was no way to be sure he understood correctly—the Boche catering trucks that serviced Air France had been tied up in a Russian-induced traffic jam on the autobahn, and what had been left in the galley had been stolen by the Czechoslovakian ground crew in Prague. And besides, the food was better in Paris.

So Sam smoked cigarettes, caught himself chewing bits of tobacco, and tried to concentrate on the doings of MacKenzie Hawkins. His seatmate was some kind of Eastern religious, perhaps a Sikh, with brown skin tinged with gray, a very small black beard, a purple turban, and darting eyes that were as close as a human’s could be to those of a rat. It made thinking about MacKenzie easier; there would be little conversation on the trip to Paris.

Hawkins had raised his third ten million. And now there was an Arabian sheik who was the fourth and final mark. Whatever it was that MacKenzie had culled from the raw files had the effect of thermonuclear blackmail. Christ!
Forty million!

What was he going to
do
with it? What kind of “equipment
and support personnel” (whatever the hell
they
were) could possibly cost so much?

Granted one did not kidnap a pope with a dollar and a quarter in his pocket, but was it necessary to cover the Italian national debt to do it?

One thing was certain. The Hawk’s plan for the kidnapping included the exchange of extraordinary sums of money. And whoever accepted such sums were
ipso facto
accessories to the most outrageous abduction in history! It was another avenue he, Sam, could explore. And a pretty good one at that. If he could obtain the names of even a few of Mac’s suppliers, he could scare them right out of the picture. Certainly the Hawk was not going to say to someone:
Yes, I’ll buy that railroad train because I’m going to kidnap this pope fellow and it’ll be a big help.
No, that was hardly the way of an experienced general officer who had drugged half the pouch couriers in Southeast Asia. But if he, Sam, reached that same someone and said:
You know that train you’re selling to that bearded idiot? It’s going to be used to kidnap the pope. Have a good night’s sleep
—well, that was something else again. The train would not be sold. And if he could prevent a train from being sold, perhaps he could prevent other supplies from reaching the Hawk. MacKenzie was army; lines of supply were paramount to any operation. Without them whole strategies were altered, even abandoned. It was military holy writ.

Yes, reflected Devereaux, gazing out into the German twilight from the foodless Air France plane, it was a very decent avenue to explore. Coupled with his first consideration—finding out how the Hawk intended to pull off the kidnapping, and the second consideration—finding out what specific blackmailing material MacKenzie held over his investors, the suppliers were a third, powerful ingredient. In preventive medicine.

Sam closed his eyes, conjuring up visions of long ago. He was in the basement of his home in Quincy, Massachusetts. On the huge table in the center of his room was his set of Lionel trains, going around and around, weaving in and out of the miniature shrubbery and over the tiny
bridges and through the toy tunnels. But there was something strange about the sight. Except for the engine and the caboose, all the other vehicles were marked identically: “Refrigerator Car. Food.”

At Orly Airport, the passengers to Algiers were told to remain on the plane. For Devereaux nothing mattered once he saw the white truck pull up alongside the aircraft and men in white coats transferring immaculate steel containers into the galley. He even smiled at Rat Eyes beside him, noticing as he did so that his seatmate’s purple turban had slipped somewhat over his brown forehead. Sam might have said something—he’d learned long ago that even strangers appreciated it when you told them their zippers were open—but since several other turbaned acquaintances who’d boarded at Orly had come up to pay their respects and had said nothing, Devereaux felt it wasn’t his place. Besides most of the other purple turbans seemed a touch lopsided. Perhaps it was a custom indigenous to the particular religious sect.

Regardless, all Sam could think about were the immaculate steel trays, now securely in the Air France galley broilers, sending out deliriously inviting wafts of
escalope de veau, tournedos, sauce Béarnaise
, and, if he was not mistaken, steak
au poivre
. God was in his heaven and on Air France as well. Good Lord! Devereaux vaguely calculated the hours since he’d eaten: It was nearing thirty-six.

Unintelligible words droned over the cabin loudspeakers; the 727 taxied out onto the field. Two minutes later they were airborne and the stewardesses went about the business of distributing the most meaningful literature Sam could think of: menus.

His order took up more time than anyone else in the cabin. This was partially due to the fact that he salivated and had to swallow as he spoke. There followed an agonizing hour. Normally it was not agonizing to Sam, for it was taken up with cocktails. But today he could not drink. His stomach was too empty.

At length, dinner approached. The stewardess went down the aisle spreading the miniature tablecloths, placing the napkin-enclosed silverware, and reconfirming the choice
of dinner wines. Sam could not help himself; he kept craning his neck over the edge of the seat. The scents from the galley were driving him crazy. Every odor was a banquet to his nostrils; the juices ran down his throat at each recognizable smell.

And naturally it had to happen.

The weird looking Sikh beside him lunged from his seat and unraveled his purple turban. Out of the cloth fell a large, lethal revolver. It crashed to the deck of the aircraft; Rat Eyes lunged down, retrieved it, and screamed.

“
Aiyee! Aiyee! Aiyee! Al Fatah! Al Fatah! Aiyee!
”

It was the signal; a screeching symphony of “Aiyees” and “Fatahs” could be heard behind first class, throughout the tube of the long fuselage. From somewhere in his trousers, Rat Eyes pulled out an extremely long, murderous looking scimitar.

Sam stared numbly. In complete defeat.

So the man wasn’t a Sikh. He was an Arab. A goddamn fucking Palestinian Arab.

What else?

The stewardess now faced the murderous blade; the barrel of the huge pistol was jammed between her breasts. She did her best, but the terror could not be concealed.

“On the wires! On the wires to your captain!” screeched the Palestinian. “This aircraft will proceed to Algeria. This is the wishes of Al Fatah! To Algiers! Only Algiers! Or you will all die.
Die! Die!
”

“
Mais, oui, monsieur
,” screamed the stewardess. “The aircraft
is
proceeding to Algiers!
That
is our destination, monsieur!”

The Arab was crestfallen. His wild, piercing eyes became temporary pools of dull mud, the frustration conveyed by the tiny dots of questioning chaos in the center of the mud.

Then the eyes sprang back once more to the vivid, cruel, violent exuberance.

He slashed the air with the huge scimitar and waved the pistol maniacally.

His demonic, defiant screams were worthy of shattering the high-altitude glass, but fortunately did not.

“
Aiyee! Aiyee! Arafat!
Hear the word of
Arafat!
Jewish
dogs and Christian pigs! There will be no food or water until we
land
!
That is the word of Arafat!
”

Deep within the recesses of Sam’s subconscious a small voice whispered:
You’re fucked, babe
.

The stage manager winced; two violins and three horns went sour during the crescendo of “Musetta’s Waltz.” The act’s finale was ruined. Again.

He made a note for the conductor who he could see was smiling blissfully, unaware of the grating dissonance. It was understandable: the man’s hearing wasn’t so good anymore.

As the stage manager looked out, he saw that the spotlight operator had dozed off again; or had gone to the toilet. Again. The shaft of light was angled down, immobile, into the pit—on a confused flautist—instead of on Mimi.

He made a note.

On the stage itself was another problem. Two problems. The swinging gates into the cafe had been hung upside down, the pointed tops inverted so that they vee’d up from the floor, providing the audience a clear view behind the scenery where numerous bare feet were being rubbed and not a few extras scratched themselves in boredom. The second problem was the step unit on stage left; it had become unhinged so that Rodolfo’s leg plummeted down into the open space causing his tights to rip up to his crotch.

The stage manager sighed and made two more notes.

Puccini’s
La Boheme
was being given its usual performance by the company.
Mannaggia!

As he finished putting three exclamation points after his twenty-sixth note of the evening, the assistant box-office manager approached his lectern and handed him a message.

It was for Guido Frescobaldi, and because any distraction
was preferable to watching the remainder of the act, the stage manager unfolded the paper and read it.

Instantly, involuntarily, he caught his breath. Old Frescobaldi would have a fit—if it was possible for Guido to
have
a fit. There was a newspaper reporter in the audience who wanted to meet with Frescobaldi after the performance.

The stage manager shook his head sadly, recalling vividly Guido’s tears and protestations when the last (and only) newspaper reporter interviewed him. There were two reporters actually: a man from Rome and a silent Chinese colleague. Both Communists.

It was not the interview that had upset Frescobaldi, it was the article that came out of it.

Impoverished Opera Artist Struggles for Peoples’ Culture as Cousin, the Pope, Lives in Indolent Luxury off the Honest Sweat of Oppressed Workers!

That had been for openers. The front page headlined the story in the Communist newspaper,
Lo Popolo
. The article had gone on to say that diligent investigative reporting on the part of
Lo Popolo
’s journalists—ever alert to the inequities of capitalism’s unholy alliance with savage organized religion—had uncovered the crass injustice done to this look-alike relative of the world’s most powerful and despotic religious leader. How one Guido Frescobaldi sacrificed for his art while his cousin, Pope Francesco, stole everyone blind. How Guido contributed his great talent for the good of the masses, never seeking material rewards, satisfied only that his contributions uplifted the spirit of the people. So different from his cousin, the pontiff, who contributed nothing but new methods to extract money from the frightened poor. Guido Frescobaldi was the earthly saint; his cousin the subterranean villain, no doubt with orgies in the catacombs, surrounded by treasures.

The stage manager did not know a great deal about Guido’s cousin, or what he did in the catacombs, but he did know Frescobaldi. And
Lo Popolo
’s reporter had etched a portrait that was somewhat at variance to the Guido they all knew. But it was
this
Guido the world outside of Milan read about.
Lo Popolo
stated in an editorial that the
shocking story was to be reprinted in all the Socialist countries, including China.

Oh, how Frescobaldi had screamed! His roars had been the protestations of a thoroughly embarrassed man. The stage manager hoped that he could catch Guido during the act change and give him the message, but it was not always easy to find Guido during an act change. And it was useless to put the note in his dressing room for he would never see it.

For the role of Alcindoro was Guido Frescobaldi’s moment in the operatic sun. It was his single triumph in a lifetime devoted to his beloved
musica
. It was proof that tenacity really did overshadow talent.

Guido was usually so moved by the events on stage—as well as his own performance—that he waddled in a trance behind the scenery until the confusion of an act change was over, his eyes invariably moist, his head held high in the knowledge that he had given his all for the audience of La Scala Minuscolo, the fifth-string company of the world-renowned opera house. It was both a training ground and a musical cemetery, allowing the inexperienced to flutter their vocal wings and the over-the-hill to stay occupied until the Great Conductor summoned them to that glorious festival in the sky.

The stage manager reread the note to Guido. In the audience that night was a lady journalist named Signora Greenberg who wished to chat with Frescobaldi. He had been recommended to her by no less a distinguished source than the United States Army
Information Servizio
. And the stage manager knew why this Signora Greenberg included the recommendation in her note. Ever since the Communists wrote that terrible article, Guido refused to talk to anyone from the newspapers. He had even grown a huge walrus moustache and beard to lessen the likeness between himself and the pontiff.