A Spider in the Cup (Joe Sandilands Investigation) (40 page)

“Further instructions given?”

“None given. You don’t talk to a dead man. I guess if I’m allowed to get back to the hotel I can slit my wrists in a hot bath in the approved senatorial manner but I don’t think I’ll be given that choice. Bullet? Knife in the ribs? Perhaps they’ll drown me in the duck pond? Whatever they’ve got planned—they’re out there and they’re watching me. Probably just waiting for you to back off and give them space. They can’t count on you being unarmed. They wouldn’t think you could be so stupid.”

He gave a grunting laugh. “So—the seedhead has been chopped off and left to rot in the ditch. What you did with the roots seems hardly to matter. But I’d still like to hear, Joe. Ah, here comes our tea. I’ll pour while you tell me.”

Heavy of heart, Joe told him how he’d cornered Swinton and snatched the mask from him. “And underneath, there was a very ugly mug,” he said. “A pop-eyed bigot. You’d probably find the same applied if we could get hold of any one of the Nine Men who direct and inspire him.”

“Not going to happen now. Forget it. If they let you. I don’t know for certain but I’m afraid they may have put you in the same slot as me, Joe. They’ll have noted we’ve got close. Someone who knows the extent of their devilry will not be tolerated. Can you get away? I mean just walk away now?” His voice was earnest, his eyes discreetly observing the lie of the land as he wielded the teapot. “I’m not taking you down with me. Look—put your cup down, visit the gents’ and find a back way out of this place. I’ll cover for you. Choke on a bun … start a fight with the waitress or something.”

This was an offer they both knew Joe was never likely to accept, but, like Kingstone, he had assessed his surroundings. He’d concluded that a busy teashop in a park in Kensington, in earshot of a
royal residence and in full view of seven children and at least three pram-pushing, uniformed nannies was probably not the place they’d choose to carry out a double killing. Even so, as two little boys raced around their table playing tag, Joe decided this was not a protection they would want to be using. Time to move on.

“What I’m saying is—get out. Leave the whole scene for a while. Go find your girl in France.”

“Listen, Cornelius, I booked you two cabins on board the
Olympic
. Openly, in your name: Senator Kingston plus one aide.” Quietly he added, “Also, an alternative: I’ve conjured up less grand accommodation, but anonymous and more secure, on a British naval frigate on its way to New York. I was owed a favour. I’ll lay on a police launch to pick you up and transfer you at eleven
P.M
. tonight at Waterloo Bridge. I’ll escort you down there. Don’t bring luggage. What you stand up in will do. Just make sure it’s not a tuxedo again.”

“Sounds intriguing. If only … But, Joe, you didn’t say—what about you? Can you get away?”

“I wrote out my resignation this morning. It’s getting to be a bit of a habit. But you can at least tell me why my career and possibly my life is to end like this. A chap likes to know these things. I don’t want to disappear with a huge question mark over my head. Or in it. You claim I ‘know the extent of their devilry.’ Not sure I do. I’m pretty fed up with boxing shadows, tearing off masks and finding bogey-men underneath. Are you ever going to tell me what the
carrot
was, Cornelius? I’ve seen the stick they dealt out for myself but it would truly be interesting to hear what they were offering you.”

Kingstone’s shoulders slumped and his words, when he could force them out, could have come from the grave: “The presidency. They were offering me the presidency.”

A
fter a very long pause, Joe finally said: “I’m missing something here, Cornelius. You live in a democracy. At the most, nine men have no more than nine votes. How are they going to guarantee the other hundred millions when the time comes in four more years?”

“By skipping the election altogether. And they’re not going to wait that long. More like four weeks than four years. They despise democracy. They particularly don’t favour Roosevelt’s style. It’s a coup they’re planning. The press will soften up the public by running a campaign to denigrate the president. He has his physical weaknesses, were you aware?”

“The paralysis? That’s hitting below the belt, isn’t it? He manages admirably.”

“He can no longer stand to make his speeches without the aid of a strengthened lectern. They can make that look very bad. Last year the veterans made a nuisance of themselves …”

“The Bonus Boys. Yes. I know about that.”

“It gave the Nine Men the idea of using military force against their own people. Triggering a civil war. Another civil war. But this one will be contained and stage-managed. A fire in a bucket. The regular army is small—only half a million men. Poorly paid and disaffected but trained and ready to go when someone blows
the whistle. They weren’t happy about the way they were used to put down the protest by the vets—their brothers-in-arms. Our Nine friends looked around for an army man soldiers could respect and they came up with me. I had the added advantage of being close to the president. The plan was to surround Washington with a ring of steel and keep the lid on while the president’s friend declared in some sorrow that the president, for reasons of ill health, was no longer able to carry on. He would continue in name only and pass the management of affairs to his trusted second in command—yours truly, who also happens to go down well with the Praetorian Guard.”

“Good Lord! They’re modelling themselves on the Emperor-making regiment of Roman times?”

“Yes! They’ve made a study of power. They know their history and they rather admire the Roman style of getting things done. Then you divert some of the cash that is considered to be wasted on the lower classes and the unemployed and pass it straight to the Praetorians to keep them sweet.

“Their problem is—and I let them know it—they’d misjudged their man. This president’s strong-willed and he has guts. ‘He’d never agree to it. You’d have to put a gun to his head,’ I told them.”

“How did they propose to deal with that?”

“They’d put a gun to his head. ‘Sign away your powers or else.’ ”

“To caretaker president Kingstone, whom we all know and trust?” Joe sighed. “You’d be holding the pen, Cornelius, but tell me …” his leaden delivery told that he already knew the unwelcome answer, “Who would be holding the gun?”

“Armiger. We were to work as a pair. He’s accepted by the president’s team—he could have got close enough. William was, literally, to put the gun to his temple. And he might have had to use it. Roosevelt would, I believe, have called their bluff.”

“How did Armiger come to their attention?”

“FBI career. I think he took a leaf out of his boss’s book and
actually has something on Hoover himself. He gets all the recommendations he needs.”

“If the coup were to succeed, what then? For your country? For the world?”

“You know what happened to the Roman Empire. More of the same. Internally: the death of democracy. Bread and circuses for the plebeian class and leave the serious governing to us patricians. Externally: outright war against Russia is first on the agenda. A spectacular win against a perceived enemy goes down well at home. Catch the Russians while they’re exhausted from the war and quarrelling amongst themselves—makes military sense at least. Just to be sure, they’d form alliances with those countries of Europe that see things their way. Those who can be persuaded or bribed: Britain and Germany. Britain will do anything to retain her Empire. Allow her more destroyers, bigger caliber cannon and undisputed world trade routes and she’s your ally for life. Germany is already arming and spoiling for a fight to retrieve their national honour, they reckon. This new Chancellor of theirs, Hitler, they see as no more than a drill sergeant. They’ll let him shout and stamp and generally lick the country into shape and then move in the commander general they’ve got waiting in the wings.”

“Ah! Enter Heimdallr, heir to the throne of the Norse Gods,” Joe muttered.

“Prussian father, but raised in America, remember.”

“They’re after world domination.”

“Continued world domination,” Kingston corrected.

“How did you get in so deep, Cornelius? I remember you speaking those lines of Mark Antony’s:

You saw it for what it was.”

“And I saw myself as that traitor—unless I was slick enough to pull out before I hit the buffers. I went along with them to get to the bottom of it. I figured I was always going to be a sacrifice. No way out for me from the moment I had an inkling of what they were about. I thought I’d take down as many of them as I could. Useless to pick them off one at a time. Might as well chop the head off the Hydra. Another one grows straight back in its place. The Nine-Headed Hydra! The Nine Men. They’d just elect another rich crook to join their game. They probably have a waiting list.”

“A Herculean task all right.”

“And Hercules has the answer. Don’t hack ’em off one at a time. Set the field on fire when the wind’s in a favourable direction and burn up the body. I planned that when the right moment came I’d tell the president what was intended. By then I’d have names and proof of conspiracy.

“I have them!” He turned to Joe the strained martyr’s face he’d seen before. “I have a feeling I’ll go down in the same bonfire I’m planning but, by God, I’ll set a match to this load of infected lumber! Just make sure there’s an ocean between us when I start playing with fire, Joe. This knowledge you have is damn dangerous but—not knowing—that might be even worse. I figured you’re a man who’d rather look a monster in the face.”

“Hold tight, Cornelius! You did the right thing. The only thing. But now you have to get back and blow the gaffe at once. Tell the president the whole filthy tale. Give him all the names you have, no matter how unlikely they may sound. He has to know. There’s nothing more you can do. They may try the same stunt again with some other poor sap holding the gun to the presidential head. At least, if warned, he’ll know what to expect.”

In their earnest conversation, heads together over the table, they hadn’t heard the silent approach.

“Have you paid the bill?” Armitage lowering over them wanted to know.

“Yes,” Joe said.

“Good. Wouldn’t want any waitress coming shrieking after you when you do a runner. Get on your feet and hoof it to those trees over there. We’ve got company. The sort of company we don’t want anywhere near these kids. I’ll watch your back. Either of you armed?”

They shook their heads and Armitage’s eyes gleamed with disdain. “Go!” he said. They went.

A moment later, Colt in hand, he beckoned them to move ahead of him down the path, deeper into the park. In the distance a child screamed with excitement at the pond and the band began to tune up for its afternoon performance. Normality only served to exaggerate their strange situation. “Here, we’ll regroup here,” Bill said.

“Here” was an uncomfortable place to halt and circle the wagons, Joe thought. A stand of elm trees surrounded them in a druidic formation. Thick underbrush beyond on the perimeter could be concealing a platoon. Joe had the uncomfortable feeling of being thrust into an arena. He looked about him trying to locate the danger Armitage was aware of. He found himself doing an awkward little soft shoe shuffle with Kingstone, each trying to get in front of the other as a shield, neither knowing from which direction an attack would come. He would have laughed had he not been alarmed by Armitage’s expression of cold determination. He remembered it from the war. It usually heralded some fearful barrage of noise and shot and a feat of physical prowess on the sergeant’s part. It had been etched on the face that leaned over his wounded body in the mud of Flanders, cursing him for an idiot, before dragging him, under fire, to safety.

“Backs to a tree and keep well away from each other.”
Armitage used a gesture of his Colt to indicate the direction in which they should move. A regulation protection procedure but Joe was fighting back an anxiety that threatened to paralyse him. Who was out there? A single gunman or a firing squad? What on earth had spooked Armitage? Was all this defensive posturing necessary? He was about to call his old sergeant to heel when his sharp ears caught a sound on the path behind them. A movement? A footfall on the beaten earth of the path? He strained to listen. The sound was not repeated. But, behind Armitage, a shrub rustled in a stirring of air that seemed not to affect the leaves on the trees above.

Before Joe could call a warning to watch his back, Bill put a finger to his lips, telling him to remain silent. He stood smiling grimly at them. He drew a second gun from his pocket, holding it in his left hand. The spare. Joe recognised it as a .22 pistol. Probably the one he’d used on Natalia. “That’s better. That’s good. Now we won’t be interrupted. I’m going to do something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.”

He moved swiftly towards Kingstone and, deftly reversing the heavy Colt, he smashed it into the man’s face. Kingstone collapsed groaning onto the ground, blood beginning to flow from his mouth and nose. Still conscious, Joe thought, as the eyes flashed up at him briefly in appeal. But badly hurt. He’d been too startled to move his head back with the blow and he’d taken a cruncher.

“What the hell …!” Joe made to dash to the senator’s aid.

“Back off!” The Colt, right way round again, emphasised the command.

“Bugger you, Bill! What are you up to?”

“Carrying out an execution. And you’re going to help. This toe rag’s a traitor. Hadn’t you worked it out? And I thought you were smart! I tried to warn you. My firm’s had their eye on him for months. I’ve been charged with sorting out the problem. On foreign soil for choice. And if a British and highly respected
copper finds he has to kill a renegade resisting arrest, there’ll be no comeback for the FBI. This is big, Sandilands and it stinks. More convenient for my government to contain the whole sorry mess and dispose of it well away from home.”