Diamondhead (26 page)
Authors: Patrick Robinson
Tags: #Suspense, #Fiction, #Political, #Thrillers, #Weapons industry, #War & Military, #Assassination, #Iraq War; 2003-
Harry had put down the phone close to tears. And now Judd had laid off the steelworkers as instructed. And he, Harry, somehow had to provide them all with a ray of hope. And that ray of hope rested, he knew, in the breech of a sniper rifle, aimed by one of Raul’s murdering bastards or, at least, someone comparable.
“Guys,” he said, “I don’t guess it would do much good for me to explain how I feel, and how sorry I am. Like you, I never thought this day would come. All I can say is that I am still doing everything I can to save that next French order. I can promise nothing, because we are right now dead in the water. But I have one last trick to pull, involving an extremely awkward meeting in France. It might lead to something. But it might not. Meantime, I have paid all of you three months’ money, and your bonuses for hull number 718 are safe. You’ll get those start of next year. And, as you know, your pensions, however big, however small, are safe here at Remsons. None of you will get one dollar short.
“But before you leave, I have one small request. Don’t any of you bail out on me or the yard or the town for a month. Because I just might pull this off in France. And right then I’m going to need you back. And if that happens, we’ll have a party they’ll hear in Bath.”
A few of the men clapped; a few grinned. But most of the older ones stood stoically before the chief, resigned to their fate.
Harry said simply, “I’m going to miss you guys. Every one of you. For me this is like the breakup of a family.” He turned away and walked back into the yard, too distraught to continue.
Mack walked with him, while Judd stayed to talk to the men. The two international conspirators, joined now in a bond of clandestine intrigue, made their way to the office that overlooked the drydock.
Mack went in first, while Harry stayed outside the door, speaking to his secretary. The lieutenant commander stood for a few moments looking down at the French warship, and then he turned to a small framed poem on the wall, a verse by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The title was painted in an elegant, old-fashioned script—“The Building of a Ship.” Beneath it were the lines:
Build me straight, O worthy master!
Staunch and strong, a goodly vessel,
That shall laugh at all disaster,
And with wave and whirlwind wrestle.
This was the creed of Remsons, words that inspired Maine shipbuilders back to the age of the clipper ships, which, for sailors at least, were forever the greatest sailing vessels of all. They kept building them right here on the Kennebec until the close of the nineteenth century.
Harry came into the office, all business now. No time for sadness. “What does he say, Mack? Did he turn us down?”
“No,” said Mack. “He did not. He just said he needed a day to talk to his colleagues. I guess he meant the serial killers he employs to carry out this kind of high-risk contract.”
“What’s your latest take on it?”
“Oh, I don’t doubt he’ll say yes. It’s going to cost you two million. I don’t think they’d do it for less. And in a way we don’t want them to. When you’ve hired guys to do the unthinkable, it’s gotta be an address changer. Otherwise, why should they do it?”
“Okay, let’s say they accept—what then?”
“Well, we have to get fifty thousand for expenses to them. And that’s a major worry, because we have to assume Switzerland is watertight.”
“I’m happy with that end of the security. What I remain unhappy about is that 50 percent down payment. Because it remains a hell of a way to make a million bucks. Take the money and never even try; run no risk. That’s what they could do. Just walk away with the mill, and never speak to us again.”
“Don’t think I haven’t considered that, Harry. And you’re right. It is a problem. But in the end, that’s our risk. Theirs is getting shot by Foche’s security guys. According to Raul, we’re in it together, and we have to have some trust in each other.”
“Okay, I’ll tell you what, Mack. Let’s see what they come up with. Meantime, I’ll get the fifty grand into Switzerland, ready to be passed on to the lawyer for pickup. When that’s in place we’ll decide whether to go ahead.”
“We’re not going anywhere without it,” replied Mack. “Because each side has a very definite objective. We want someone dead; they want big money to carry it out.”
“When’s the call, tomorrow morning?”
“Yup.”
“Keep me posted.”
Mack’s next stop was in the center of town, 342 Main Street, the New England Savings and Loan. The bank manager had agreed to see him, but neither man was very hopeful anything could be worked out.
The manager, Donald Hill, was relatively new, had come up from a branch in Massachusetts, west of Boston. He hated Maine, loathed the cold, disliked the ocean, had a wife who was allergic to seafood, and considered all Down-Easters to be rustic clamheads. Also, he missed seeing the Red Sox and could hardly wait for a big-city promotion. On a manager-customer charm scale of 1 to 10, he had not yet made the chart.
“Mr. Bedford,” he said unnecessarily, “this is a very large sum of money you wish to borrow. And your assets are not, shall we say, substantial. One house, owned in partnership with your wife, and a two-hundred-thousand-dollar mortgage hanging over it on a twenty-year basis. If my bank advanced you one million dollars and you managed to pay back ten thousand a year, or two hundred a week, without interest it would take you a hundred years. From our point of view, that would not represent a sound loan policy.”
Mr. Hill hit the buttons on his calculator. “If we gave it to you on a 6 percent rate, it would never be repaid unless you won the state lottery, which from our point of view would be unacceptable.”
Mack Bedford gazed at him steadily. “Sir,” he said, “I have a little boy who is dying. He will die, unless I can get him to Switzerland for an extremely rare and difficult operation. The cost will be one million dollars. I am asking New England Savings and Loan for the money to save my boy. My U.S. insurance will not cover foreign medical treatment.”
“I understand the difficulty, Mr. Bedford, but I am afraid my company cannot be responsible for every hard-luck story that comes through the door. You are asking for the impossible.”
“For you this is so little,” said Mack. “But for me it is life and death. Would you consider asking your board of directors if they would speak to me? My full name is Lt. Cdr. Mackenzie Bedford, United States Navy SEAL, holder of the Navy Cross.”
Mr. Hill looked up and nodded. “Sir, I would be more than happy to do so. I will speak to our Public Affairs Department and get some kind of recommendation from them. I mean, to whom you should speak. It may mean a trip to Boston.”
“Sir, I would gladly meet in the Hindu Kush if I thought it would help.”
“The where?”
“It’s the back end of the Himalayas. Not a bad place to get shot, since you mention it.”
Donald Hill sensed he was out of his depth with this tall SEAL commander with the Down-East accent. And he decided to terminate this curiously embarrassing interview. He stood up and said, “Lieutenant Commander, I hope we can come up with something. Even in a bank as big as this one, there are still times when other considerations take precedence over purely financial matters. Don’t lose heart.”
“I won’t,” replied Mack. “It’s not broken yet.”
He walked out of the bank and retraced his footsteps toward home. It was lunchtime now, but he did not know whether Anne and Tommy were back, or even if the little boy had been detained at the hospital.
The sun had vanished behind a great rolling cloud bank, and there would be no fishing tonight, even if Tommy made it home. There was a weather front forecast to come in from the southwest over the Gulf of Maine, and in his seaman’s bones he could feel the change, the slight alteration in wind direction, the cooler air, and the obvious onset of rain.
Mack walked on down to the shore, not to the fishing spot, just to a little cove with a pebble beach and granite rocks holding back the dark, encroaching pines. He picked up a few stones and hurled them hard, one by one, watching them bounce at erratic angles off the beach. He could see the chop building down on the estuary, and a fishing boat was making all speed to an upstream harbor, like a rust-colored seabird racing back to the nest. Mack guessed her helmsman had decided against the weather. The big SEAL considered that a shrewd decision. Behind the trawler he could see huge clouds rising far astern, and they were not white; they were pewter, with trails of falling mist behind them. Rain and rising wind, heading onshore. Not good, with a rising sea surging toward the granite rock guardians of the land.
There were still bright patches of light, the sun giving this July day one last chance. But Mack never thought of the land, not on days like this when the weather turned with such sudden venom. He thought of the ships out there, of those too far distant to make landfall by the evening. And he thought of the great white pillar of the Sequin light, still catching the dying rays of the sun, as the fishermen came slogging home against the hard sou’wester.
He was not a man accustomed to prayer beyond the confines of the family pew at the Congregational church. But today he looked up at a great gap in the cloud bank, perhaps at the final bright rays of the day, before the gray clouds engulfed everything. He envisioned his God in a faraway kingdom beyond the seething skies. He prayed for Tommy, and he prayed for the shipyard and the people who worked there. He prayed for the souls of his lost buddies, the guys who fell that day by the Euphrates River. And, as a last resort, he prayed that Raul’s men would successfully assassinate the Frenchman Henri Foche.
This was, so far, a sad day, and it was about to get sadder. When Mack reached home, Anne was preparing coffee, but he could see she had been crying. Without a word he took her in his arms and held her close, and once more he felt her body racked with sobs. It took her a full minute to ask the question. “Tommy’s worse,” she said. “What did the bank say?”
“Well, they didn’t throw me out. But they did point out that if they let me have the loan at 6 percent, the interest on the money would be sixty thousand a year. That’s without paying off the principal.”
Anne tore herself away and dried her eyes on a dishcloth. But when she turned around, they were blazing. “The interest!” she shouted. “The interest! Our beautiful little boy is dying, and all they can talk about is the interest on their money? Who the hell are these people—
Nazis?
”
Nazis?
”
Mack was more measured. “I guess we have to accept that Tommy is not their little boy. And they hear a hundred tough stories like ours every day. Anyway, they did offer one shred of hope. Donald Hill, the manager, told me there were certain unusual circumstances when other considerations were taken into account, not just the cash. He promised to speak to his public affairs people and then the directors. He told me not to lose heart.”
Anne walked back across the kitchen and put her arms around him. “Everyone needs hope, darling Mack. Even when there’s hardly any left. It’s just that Dr. Ryan was so depressed about the whole thing. He said Tommy’s particular strain of ALD was almost entirely exclusive to boys of his age. And when it took hold, it could move very rapidly.”
“He’s not still there, is he?”
“No, I brought him home and put him to bed. But something happened at the hospital that I think was very bad. Tommy had an absolute tantrum, the worst I have seen. He threw a teddy bear across the room, and then tried to rip its head off. That wasn’t even the worst part. It happened with Joyce—you know, the nurse he likes so much. But Dr. Ryan came in immediately. I was trying to calm Tommy down, but I heard what the doctor said to Joyce.”
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