A Death in Geneva (40 page)

Starring had eaten lightly from the food Sullivan had had catered. The shape, the theme of the message he was striving for, was starting to emerge. Heartwood—heartwood, exactly. The president's optimism, his perspective, waving off the critics . . . the Lincoln quote played in his thoughts. He pulled the stopper from the middle crystal decanter on the sideboard, poured half a glass of sherry. Resuming his stroll, he caught his reflection in one of the gilded swan mirrors on either side of the mantle at the east end of the room. The reality threatened his inspiration. He departed the drawing room for the coolness of the circular, marble-tiled front hall. A sip of sherry rested on his tongue. His eyes followed the curve of the wooden doors.

The architectural details were extraordinary, the rectangles branching from the circle in which he was standing, the drawing room to his right, the dining room adorned with the china and the pastels of the first owner, the hidden doorway, half open, leading to the narrow, zigzagging upward triangle of the servants' stairway, and, in front of him, the grand sweep of the main, oval stairway.

The rear double doors of the Octagon were open to the night. The silhouette of his armed chauffeur, the one concession he had granted his staff, was rocked back in a chair enjoying the endless succession of color bursts and the echo of the rocket shell explosions bouncing from the curved glass façade of the modern architectural headquarters towering behind the Octagon.

Starring stepped forward into the well and gazed upward through the half-light radiating from the second floor to the glint of the single chandelier suspended in the darkness. He traced the elegant, white spindled bannister from the post at his side to the top of the third-floor landing.

Having replenished his sherry, Starring started up the stairs, counting them in his mind . . . fourteen to the first landing, another eleven, the end of the carpeting, the hard wood of the second floor. What burdens Madison bore up these stairs, night after night . . . incredible to contemplate . . . Towerpoint today, as big as all of Madison's America!

The hallway flickered in the stuttering red reflections of a skyborne snaking dragon. He crossed into the Treaty of Ghent Room, the mansion's circular study directly over the front hall. A fresh, snapping staccato of showering golds and greens commanded the sky, bounced through the glass of half-shuttered windows and played again off the polished surface of the fish-eye mirror above the white mantle.

Starring drew back the wooden chair, took a seat at the circular wooden table, ringed with pull drawers, in the very center of the room. It was here, in the elegance of this chamber, so refined with its central chandelier, white ceiling, white ornamental cornice, green wall hangings, and golden drapes that James Madison had signed the Treaty of Ghent ending that war. Here, Madison and Monroe, comforted only by the victory at New Orleans, had weighed the balanced words crafted by the U.S. and British delegations in Ghent, carried across the Atlantic to New York, then overland to Washington, to this room, a treaty no better than the war, but a treaty that had brought that war to an end at last.

Starring slid his hands across the smooth surface of the table, took up the text of Madison's second inaugural address from the stack of papers assembled for the evening, and reread the principles and the course that Madison had set for his young nation once again at peace. “. . . to foster a spirit of independence . . . to respect the rights and authorities reserved to the States and to the people . . .” Towerpoint, the heartwood of America. He sipped from the sherry and began to write.

The two women had not spoken during the short ride from the White House to the hotel. In the lobby, Leslie Renfro had slipped into the first shop, until Sullivan was on her way upstairs. With the secretary out of the way, she crossed to another of the many lobby boutiques and purchased a pair of sunglasses and a fashionable straw hat, which she immediately put on. At the front desk, she obtained a street map, which she took with her into the elevator.

In the Towerpoint suite, one of the three bedroom doors bordering the sitting room was already closed. Two dozen long-stemmed roses gave fragrance to the surroundings. The fourth side of the suite opened into an alcove with a dining table spread with trays of wine, cheeses, and a pyramidal bouquet of fresh fruits. The third bedroom, separated from Sullivan's by the larger middle room, bore her name, Renfro. Behind the closed door, she charted her route, left the hotel to time it, then returned to await the evening.

At 9:00 P.M. she departed again. In sixty minutes, the pride of his empire would be destroyed. He would be dead, and terror would strike millions. This trilogy of ordained fate drummed with the steps taking her with the flow of the last of the fireworks' throng down Connecticut Avenue, through Farragut Square, beneath the bronze of the victorious admiral.

The crowd was being filtered between white wooden barricades erected by the police to block auto traffic. Instinctively, she turned a block before she had planned, the alarm of the agents in the afternoon still ringing in her head. Separated now from the crowd, she glanced at the street signs, crossed, heading south on Eighteenth. Beyond Pennsylvania Avenue, the street was deserted. A police patrol car rounded the corner, headed toward her. Her eyes straight ahead, she kept her pace; the patrol rolled by.

With the downhill slope of the final blocks, she slowed. Noise . . . a group of young people, drunk, crossed behind her. The dark gray stone of the tall building on her left gave way to a closed, heavy iron gate marking the beginning of the Octagon's grounds. On the far side of this gate, a high brick wall ran with only one opening, a smaller, closed wooden door, to the mansion.

The shine of the limousine caught her eyes as she dashed across the ivy border for the cover of the wall beneath the first chrysanthemum aerial display. Kneeling, she eased the machine pistol from her bag, fitted the silencer, clicked the loaded magazine home, and shifted the firing lever from safe to single shot. With the Skorpion half hidden by her shoulder bag, she eased back, studied the wall. The driveway gate was too heavy, too exposed, too distant. She returned to the wooden door. The
thut
of a silenced bullet bursting the light, interior padlock, was lost in the machine-gun snapping of half a dozen silver-and-crimson aerial bombshells. She slid through the door, easing it closed behind her.

With the next skyburst, she saw the shrub-bordered path to the Octagon's rear door.

“Hey! Who goes?” The chauffeur jumped to his feet, toppling the chair off the brick steps.

“Jake, Jake”—her voice was friendly, soft, reassuring—“it's Leslie, Leslie Renfro; no cause for alarm.”

“Miss Renfro, what the hell are you doing here? Strict rules tonight, no visitors.” His hand had left his weapon. He knew her voice. He saw her young face at the same moment the elongated barrel leveled against his chest. A second
thut,
little more than the rush of an African blowgun, then a third, and she stepped across his body into the rear hall. The bag eased from her shoulder; she stood silently, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the interior light. The Octagon was without a sound . . . no . . . easing forward into the stairwell she heard a book being closed, the rustle of paper. He was on the second floor.

Her left hand ran before her up the banister railing, guiding her up the steps, to the level and turn of the landing, and the rise of the second flight. She stood in the doorway of the room where he worked for nearly a minute before he turned, sensing her presence.

“Miss, Miss Ren—Leslie?” His mind was centuries in the past, his pen on the future, at the moment he focused on the woman who had penetrated his solitude. The light of the chandelier fell across her face, the shadow of her neck, the flesh at the opening of her white blouse. His physical attraction for her had been intense from the first evening they had met aboard his ship in Malta. She had frozen his most subtle advances. His good judgment had prevailed, but his attraction remained strong.

“Leslie, you're looking lovely this evening, my young friend. What are you doing here? Where on earth did you find that gun?” His eyes had traveled from the vee of her blouse, to the skirt he had never known her to wear before, to the incredible weapon she cradled in her bare arms. He rose, offering to take it from her. His face suddenly lined with concern. “Has there been some trouble, at the hotel . . . on the street? You're alright?”

“Sit down, Thomas Starring.” It was 9:30 P.M. The fireworks splashed with mounting intensity against the glass of the Treaty of Ghent Room. Her voice was deep in its dark, ordering tone, her words so unexpected that he retook his chair before realizing he had accepted her command.

“In half an hour, Thomas Starring, your
Towerpoint Mayan
will be blown apart with a force that will shatter the entire Chesapeake Bay. In half an hour, a mine will destroy your
Towerpoint Partner
. A third mine will blow your catamaran. You must know that now, Thomas Starring. In half an hour, you will be dead.”

He looked at the muzzle of the gun aimed at him, raised his eyes to study hers, his hands planted on the arms of the chair. She's drunk . . . some sort of breakdown . . . too much pressure today, the visit, the rushed pace of early dives . . . too young for all of that. Good God, always the unexpected!

“Leslie, put that gun down, over here on this table.” He half rose again. “Jake!” His voice carried out into the rest of the mansion. “Jake will take that for you. We'll get Sullivan down here to help. Everything will—”

A single bullet ripped through the priceless rug beneath his feet. “Sit down, Thomas Starring. When you are dead, we will publish our report to the world. We will tell the people of your crimes and of your punishment. The world will rejoice at your death and the destruction of your empire. You are the ultimate criminal, Thomas Starring. Your sister paid for her crimes. You will now pay for yours—after you have written your confession.”

Starring's face was set, the gray eyes flashing, his thoughts surging in anger now at this interloper who threatened him. “Jake!” He could not understand the lack of response, until the ugly automatic weapon waving him back to his seat gave him the answer. He reached slowly across the desk for the brass letter opener. A fresh kaleidoscope of colors sparkled through the mottled glass.

“Push it away, on the floor!” The machine pistol trained on his hand.

“See here, Miss Renfro”—his voice was at its sternest, the boom he sent across the board room—“I have absolutely no idea what has brought on this sickness, these hallucinations. You need help. I want to get you that help. Frankly”—his lips were apart, teeth set—“frankly I am annoyed. I want you to leave immediately! You have inexcusably intruded. Please go!”

“Take a fresh sheet of paper, Thomas Starring. We have twenty minutes.” His hand drew back from the blunt knife. She swept it away. “Write!”

“Yes.” He was subdued, placed a sheet in front of him, studied her more with his mind than his eyes. “Miss Renfro, you mentioned my sister—”

“She was in a white suit that night, Thomas Starring. The bullets from this gun entered her brain, her nose, her jaw, her throat, and the cavity where there was no heart. Does that confirm your top secret reports of her capital punishment? Justice was not served. She did not confess before she died.”

Renfro, or someone close to her, had killed Connie! Goddamnit! He did not sense fear, rather a challenge to be met. He burned. He
had been taken. She was not the innocent . . . she . . . Christ, hard to know, hard to fit it all together . . . but that gun. He had been briefed, Don't resist. The expert on hostage survival reappeared in his mind, the Trade Center briefings. . . . “What would you like me to write?”

“Confession, all capital letters, at the top of the page.” She moved one step closer, to monitor.

“Confession? . . . Yes.” He penned the word in large letters, “Yes?”

“I, Thomas Madison Starring, confess the crimes for which I am about to die . . .”

Don't resist . . . the briefings, the words of the expert . . . where the hell is that damned chauffeur . . . dead? “You know my middle name?”

“Do not talk, Thomas Starring. Read what you have written.”

He read the line.

She resumed. “. . . to murder, to imperialist repression . . . and to the most vile criminal acts against the innocent people of the world. . . .”