The Power (53 page)

March looked up as Sara entered the Oval Office. He didn't like her expression.

'Very bad news, boss. Just heard about it.'

'Heard about what?'

'Harmer. Who gave you that large sum of money, then said he needed it back to pay off a bank loan. I guess he sure did.'

'What the hell are you talking about? Give, Sara.'

'Harmer committed suicide a few hours ago. Took a
load of sleeping pills, then drank a lot of bourbon.'

'So.' March spread his hands, exposing their hairy
backs. 'Problem solved.'

'If you say so.'

'Are you hinting he left a note?'

'For his wife, yes, he did.'

March leaned forward. 'C'mon. We'd better find out
what he said in that note.'

'I know. I rang his wife to offer
my
sympathies. I also
said you were shocked and sent
your
deepest sympathies.'

'Great. Don't have to write my own dialogue with you
to do it for me. Just a moment. What did the note say?'

'The usual thing. He was so sorry, he loved her dearly, but the pressure of his responsibilities had proved too big a burden. She read it out to me over the phone before she broke down in a flood of tears.'

'Bye-bye Mr Harmer. It happens. All is well.'

'I hope so. I do hope so, Brad. For your sake.'

The Three Wise Men were assembled in Senator
Wingfield's study. Again the curtains were closed, concealing the grounds of the estate. The lights were on. The
banker and the elder statesman had been called urgently
to the Chevy Chase mansion by Wingfield, who looked
grim. He stared round the table at his guests.

'I am sorry to summon you here at such short notice,
but the situation inside the Oval Office is not improving.'

'I heard about Harmer's suicide,' the banker com
mented. 'That's a big loss to the party. He not only
contributed generously himself - more important still, he
was a genius at fund-raising.'

'Let's face it,' said the elder statesman, gazing at the
Senator through his horn-rimmed glasses, 'politics is a mobile situation. Harmer must have managed his affairs
badly. He's replaceable.'

'I have a personal letter from Harmer,' Wingfield
informed them. There was an edge to his cultured accent.
'I know the real reason why Harmer took his life. Read
that...'

He tossed a folded sheet of high-quality notepaper on
the table. The statesman read it first before handing it on
to the banker.

Dear Charles: By the time you read this I'll have gone to a better place. I hope. Bradford March asked me to loan him fifteen million dollars. Don't know what this large sum was
for. I did so. When I wanted it back to repay a bank loan
on demand he refused to speak to me. Sara Maranoff
phoned his message. The money was no longer available. Go to hell was the real message. Maybe I'm going there. Someone has to stop the President. Only The Three Wise
Men have the clout.

'What could March have wanted that money for?' quer
ied the banker.

'We'll probably never know,' the statesman told him. 'I
hold the same view. It's not enough - for impeachment.'

'That letter could be passed to the
Washington Post,'
the banker suggested.

'Definitely not,' Wingfield said quietly. 'Ned, can't you imagine how March would play it? He'd get handwriting
experts to prove it was a forgery. Then he'd rave on about
a conspiracy - about how the three of us were trying to be
the power behind the throne. Give him his due, he's a
powerful orator. He'd destroy us. It's not enough for us to
make a move.'

'Then what the hell is?' burst out the banker.

'Cool it,' the elder statesman advised. 'Politics is the art of the possible. I worked on that basis when I held the
position I did under a previous president.'

'There's the business about him dismissing the Secret
Service,' the banker continued, his anger unquenched. 'I
understand he has a bunch of his own thugs guarding him
now. Unit One, or some such outfit.'

'Which is the paramilitary force I told you about at an
earlier meeting,' Senator Wingfield said quietly.

'It's against all tradition,' protested the banker.

'Bradford March is breaking a lot of traditions, Ned,'
Wingfield reminded him. 'Which is another popular move
in the present mood of the American electorate. We can
only wait.'

'For what?' demanded the banker.

'For something far worse, Ned. Pray to God it doesn't
surface...'

The tall figure of Jeb Galloway created distorted shadows on the walls of his office as he paced restlessly. Sam, his
closest aide and friend, watched him, undid the jacket
button constraining his ample stomach.

'Heard from your mystery man in Europe yet, Jeb?' he
asked.

'Not a word. I think he's on the run.'

'Which means someone is running after him. Which means someone over there knows he exists. You're play
ing with fire. This gets back to March and he'll smear you
for good. He's an expert. Part of how he got where he is.
Trampling over other people's bodies. That's politics.
March is the original cobra at the game.'

'There's no way anyone can connect my informant with me. And there's a safe way he can contact me - if he's still
alive.'

'I think you should forget him, Jeb,' Sam warned.

'No. I have a duty. To the American people.'

Tweed was proved right when he passed through the
Swiss, then the French, frontier controls at Basle station.
The counters were deserted, the shutters closed; no one
was on duty.

He boarded the Strasbourg express with Paula and found
an empty first-class compartment. The whole train was
nearly empty close to eleven in the morning. Behind them

Newman followed, the two Walthers belonging to Nield
and Butler tucked inside his belt at the back. Cardon
brought up the rear. At eleven precisely the express
moved off.

'That conversation you had with Jennie Blade which
you told me about,' began Paula, facing Tweed in a
corner window seat. 'I've given it a lot of thought.'

'And your conclusion?'

'Jennie worries me. Has anyone except her seen this
mysterious Shadow Man with the wide-brimmed hat? Has
Gaunt?'

'It was the one question I forgot to ask him,' Tweed
admitted. 'Although he didn't seem to take it seriously.
Why?'

'Because if no one else has seen this Shadow Man how
can we be sure he exists?'

'You've forgotten something,' Tweed reminded her.
'Old Nosy in Zurich gave us exactly the same description
of a man who'd left the building shortly after Klara was
garrotted.'

'Maybe Jennie was close by in the Altstadt when we
were there. Saw a man like that leaving that building.'

'You're stretching supposition to breaking point.'

'Jennie
was
in Zurich at the time. We know that.'

'True.' Tweed sounded unconvinced.

'You know something?' Paula leaned forward. 'When a
woman persists with trying to persuade a man of something he can eventually come to believe her.'

'Like you're persisting now,' he told her. 'Sowing a few doubts in my mind.'

, 'Who do you think is behind all these brutal murders?'
Paula asked, changing the subject. 'Have you any idea
yet?'

'A very good idea. Go back to the beginning. Blowing up our headquarters in Park Crescent with a huge bomb.
The timer for the bomb - a more sophisticated device
than Crombie had ever seen. The fact that there are so
many Americans swarming over Switzerland - all hold
ing diplomatic passports. The fact that when Joel Dyson
arrived at Park Crescent to hand over copies of the film
and the tape Monica saw inside his suitcase American
clothes - which suggests he'd just arrived from the
States. The fact that our PM seems to be in the palm of
the American President. All that has happened suggests
limitless sums of money, a huge hostile organization. All
that adds up to
power -
great power. Work it out for
yourself. It's frightening.'

'You don't sound frightened,' she observed.

'
I
am not. I'm indignant, determined. The garrotting
of Helen Frey and Klara was bad enough - although sometimes it's a risk of their trade. But Theo Strebel was
a nice chap, didn't deserve to be shot. And that's curious
and significant - two women garrotted, a man shot by
someone he
knew.'

'How do you know that?'

'Think of the precautions he took when we arrived -
how we had to say who we were before he'd admit us.'

'I don't see the significance,' Paula confessed.

On a seat across the aisle Newman sat listening. He'd
removed the two Walther automatics from behind his
back. They now rested inside the pockets of the trench
coat folded beside him.

Their owners, Butler and Nield, had hired cars in
Basle for future use in the Vosges. It would have been
risky taking firearms by car past a frontier post. They
were now racing along the A35 autoroute to Colmar
where they'd wait for Tweed and his team at the Hotel
Bristol.

Cardon was seated in his usual strategic position at
one end of the long compartment. Armed with his
Walther, he could see any stranger approaching from
either direction. He appeared to be asleep but his eyes
never left the back of Tweed's head.

The express had stopped at St Louis, later at Mulhouse.
Then it raced along to the distant stop of Colmar. Paula gazed out of the window to the west on the stretch from
Mulhouse to Colmar. The Vosges were coming into view in the distance.

The sun was shining brilliantly again and the range,
snowbound to midway down its slopes, showed up
clearly. They'd be driving up into those mountains soon. Why did she find them sinister on this lovely morning?
They swooped up and down in great saddlebacks with
here and there a prominent summit. They looked so
dreadfully lonely, Paula thought, so remote from the
villages amid vineyards on the lower slopes.