Empress Bianca (52 page)

B
edlam reigned, as Bianca stepped out of the apartment’s private exit and onto the street that Friday evening. The whole place was crawling with soldiers in riot gear and gas masks. Policemen were barking orders as fire fighters pulled hoses through the lobby of the Assurance Meridien, adjoining the Banco Imperiale Building; and there to record it all was the press, in the form of television cameras, reporters, photographers and sound recorders. While local television crews were beaming news of the fire to European and American audiences, CNN was broadcasting it worldwide.

Before the fire had even been put out, the story had become an international
cause célèbre
far in excess of anything Bianca had anticipated; but, being highly instinctive, she was quickly able to assess the danger of the situation once confronted with it. As soon as she saw the throng of journalists, therefore, she recognized that they posed a danger unless she could contain - and hopefully, direct - their interest.

Before the police had even succeeded in clearing a path through the throng of humanity milling around, so that they could usher the grieving
widow into the back of her waiting Rolls Royce for the short trip to the helipad for her to catch her helicopter back to L’Alexandrine, Bianca made up her mind to retain John Lowenstein’s services as her press spokesman. ‘I need an animal tamer to stay on the back of this tiger,’ she told herself, ‘otherwise it will devour me.’

With that in mind, she telephoned Mary van Gayrib on the car phone and ordered her to get in touch with the king of PR and put him on the job immediately. This being a weekend, Mary had to track him down to his Southampton retreat, but he immediately returned Bianca’s call, catching her while she was in the air en route to L’Alexandrine.

‘John,’ Bianca said in her most matter-of-fact tone, ‘we can’t speak for long. It’s dangerous for me to be talking at all on a cellular while I’m in the air. But we don’t have a moment to spare. I need you onboard as my spokesman to deal with the press. I could hardly believe the interest this assassination has generated. If you saw the number of media people outside the Banco Imperiale Building, you’d think Philippe was Princess Diana. I have a feeling we’re going to need your expertise in dealing with them. Would you be insulted if I asked you to come onboard for a retainer of…what shall we say…$100,000 a month, for a period of a year, at the end of which we can review the situation and see if we continue with the retainer or terminate it?’

In all his years in public relations, John Lowenstein had never been offered such generous terms so willingly. The speed with which he accepted owed more to his anxiety to agree before Bianca changed her mind than to any concern over a cellular telephone interfering with the flight mechanism of the helicopter. ‘I’m mindful of what you said about the dangers of using a cell phone while flying,’ he said nevertheless, ‘so I’ll simply say “yes” to your terms. Do you want me to get in touch with my contacts right now and start to field questions, or do you want me to wait until you’re back at L’Alexandrine?’

‘Start right now,’ Bianca said. ‘Line up a few journalists who are well disposed towards us, and I’ll phone you when I get home. I should be there in half an hour, but, as Philippe would have said, we mustn’t give the press a chance to find us uncooperative, otherwise they might make mischief in the absence of positive input from our side.’

‘Right you are. Call me when you get home.’

‘I will.’

No sooner had John Lowenstein disconnected from Bianca than he made the first of a multitude of telephone calls, offering his contacts in the media access to Bianca together with the ‘inside story’ on ‘the Death in Andorra’, as the affair was quickly becoming known in the media, before he even knew what Bianca’s version was.

Once Bianca arrived back at L’Alexandrine she headed for the safety of her bedroom, where there were no monitors or electronic equipment to detect any of her movements, and telephoned John with the story of Frank Alderman and a botched assassination attempt, enabling him to put out a line heavily weighted in favour of his client: the grieving and unfortunate widow who had unsuccessfully and poignantly tried to get her husband to release himself from the bunker that became his death trap. John emphasized the role the police had played and even went to the lengths of speaking to, and getting quotes from, the officer who had stood beside his client while she implored her husband to open the door. Although John did not know it, Bianca was mightily relieved when he informed her that he wanted to stress the part played by the Andorran police: not, in fact, that he wished to protect Bianca against any gossip that might ensue but because it made for a more dramatic and newsworthy piece.

Relieved that John Lowenstein was preserving her interests by disseminating a story casting her in a favourable light, Bianca next turned her attention to maintaining her liberty against any encroachments she might not have foreseen. The lessons she had learned from Ferdie’s death had come back to mind; and she realized that she had to take steps to silence the staff, especially as the press might induce them to indiscretions, with God knew what consequences. As soon as she hung up she dialled Juan Gilberto Macias on his cell phone in Mexico. ‘Juan, it’s me,’ she said, knowing she needed no further form of identification.

‘I just turned on CNN and saw you leaving Banco Imperiale…’

‘I need you here with me. Right now. We don’t have a moment to spare. Charter a jet and get to Nice by tomorrow at the latest. I’ll have the helicopter pick you up from there.’

‘It’s done,’ he said.

‘I need you to come up with a formula for muzzling the staff,’ she continued. ‘As you can see, the media sharks have entered my pond, and frankly, I don’t trust my minnows not to turn into piranhas. You know
what servants are like. I needn’t remind you of all the trouble the Mexican servants were the last time a husband of mine died tragically. I really can’t go through another trauma like that, just because of a servant’s idle chatter.’

‘I’ll have something ready for you within the hour.’

‘Good. And phone me back as soon as you know when you’re arriving.’

‘Done,’ he said.

While Juan’s secretary organized the charter of a jet to fly him from Mexico City to Nice, he worked on a draft confidentiality agreement which was comprehensive in its simplicity, preventing each person who signed it from ever ‘speaking or otherwise conveying information about or in any manner whatsoever communicating information about and/or pertaining to the late Philippe Mahfud and/or his widow, Bianca Mahfud…for a consideration of $100,000’. This document, which ran to only two double-spaced A4 sheets, was short, sweet and to the point. By the time he handed it over to his secretary for typing and faxing to L’Alexandrine, Bianca had also been exerting herself at her end. She needed someone capable and trustworthy to deal with the myriad enquiries and arrangements that had to be attended to; and there was, she knew, no better assistant on earth than Philippe’s secretary, Gisele.

It was hard for this efficient and decent woman to believe that Monsieur, of whom she had grown so fond, was dead and that he had died in so terrible a manner. As she applied herself to typing up the draft confidentiality agreement that Juan had sent through on one of the three computers still housed in Philippe’s office overlooking the helipad at L’Alexandrine, Gisele consoled herself with the thought that she still had a link to him through his family: for who had Madame turned to in her hour of need? This, Gisele knew, was small consolation in the circumstances, but at least she was still a part of Monsieur’s way of life; and at least she could continue to serve him in death with the same loyalty and ability as she had done in life.

This loyalty would ultimately work to Bianca’s detriment.

Having transferred the confidentiality agreement onto the computer, Gisele, believing that its purpose was to protect Monsieur’s professional and personal secrets, consulted her list of the employees who would be required to sign it. There were the three nurses, their three male helpers,
eleven security guards, and the eighteen household staff at both the Andorra apartment and L’Alexandrine.

Noting that each employee would receive the sum of $100,000, to be paid into a bank account of their choice anywhere in the world, she decided to offer to sign the agreement herself. After all, why shouldn’t she and the other secretarial staff also benefit, especially as their jobs would most likely now be coming to an end?

‘There’s no need for you to sign it,’ Bianca said sweetly, seeing exactly what Gisele’s motive was, ‘but if you want to, you can.’

‘If the secretaries don’t sign it as well, Madame, it will cause friction between the employees,’ Gisele explained, widening the net on behalf of her assistants.

‘Very well,’ said Bianca, recognizing that the willingness of the secretaries to sign something they had not been asked to would encourage those members of staff who might otherwise have had objections. ‘Let them sign it as well.’

In truth, Gisele’s actions were prudent, for, as she suspected, all the secretaries were due for the chop: Bianca having already decided to terminate the employment of Philippe’s office staff at the first opportunity. Those who signed the confidentiality agreement would therefore receive a bonus additional to the redundancy payments they could expect at the termination of their contracts. As far as the widow was concerned, the only minions she would be paying thereafter would be those who owed allegiance only to her.

By the time Juan Gilberto Macias arrived at L’Alexandrine at 15.47 on Saturday, May 27 1999, every single employee had signed the confidentiality agreement. Bianca was now safe from leaks to the press - or so she imagined.

Having provided the mechanism for containing the flow of information from the Mahfud camp, Juan then turned his attention to the rather more important matter of dealing with Frank and the authorities in Andorra. These had to be made to realize that the richest widow in their country deserved the deference that was her due. ‘I want justice,’ Bianca had said to Juan, employing the kind of doublespeak that had concealed her motives over the years. Although it was a necessary part of the game to pretend that Juan accepted at face value the meaning of the words, as they walked around the garden at L’Alexandrine, Bianca gave her lawyer
his instructions in typically obscure but, to him, fathomable style. ‘My husband was the fairest man alive, as you know only too well. I want you to get confirmation from the police of the reason why Frank set the fire. If it emerges that he really was trying to help Philippe, as Etienne Reynaud, the chief of police, says he’s been saying since coming out of surgery…Whether it was the drugs or not, I don’t know, but it turns out he’s admitting setting the fire himself and that there never were any Russian Mafia hitmen… He simply used Philippe’s fears to warn him about the dangers his security system was creating for him… If Etienne’s comments are accurate, see that the way is paved for Frank to be treated with the leniency he deserves. After all, the poor man is as much a victim in this as Philippe or myself: he never intended to cause my darling husband’s death. You know how to handle this sort of thing…and remember, Juan, money is no object,’ she said, dropping the hint that she was ready to pay a sizeable bribe, ‘I’d rather pay someone $2,000,000 to see that an innocent man is spared than save the money and see someone punished for a crime he did not intend to commit.’

‘Leave it all to me,’ Juan replied, understanding the subtext only too well, ‘and we’ll see that justice is done.’

‘If you find out that Frank is as innocent as Etienne says he is,’ Bianca continued, ‘and if you manage to get the authorities to arrive at a deal which ensures justice for him, I’ll see that you receive a suitable bonus.’

Juan, who over the years had become a rich man from the work he had done for Philippe and Bianca, remained silent, a small smile playing on the corner of his lips.

‘I was thinking of something along the lines of $5,000,000,’ Bianca said.

Juan, wrongly suspecting that the reason why Bianca was so anxious to protect herself was that she was afraid that Philippe’s death might reopen an investigation into that of Ferdie Piedraplata, surmised that this might well be the last major deal she would ever call upon him to strike on her behalf. He was consequently aware not only of how much Bianca needed his negotiating skills to preserve her position but also how necessary it was to obtain maximum recompense for himself. Nor was he the Mahfud lawyer for nothing. There were few tricks he hadn’t learned from that past master of negotiating wizardry, Philippe Mahfud. So, instead of driving up his demands, he skilfully deflected Bianca’s attention away from his
intentions by saying amiably: ‘Bianca, I’m happy to do it for nothing, in honour of Philippe’s memory.’

‘I know how fond of Philippe you were,’ Bianca replied, rightly interpreting the statement as a negotiating device but wrongly concluding that he suspected her of being involved in another husband’s death. ‘But I also know you have expensive tastes and, since I’ve dragged you all this way from home, I thought it would only be considerate to offer you a bonus. But, if you don’t want one, I won’t force it upon you. Shall we scrap the idea?’

‘We don’t have to scrap it entirely,’ he responded smoothly. ‘Why don’t we say a bonus of $4,500,000 and fees of $7,500,000 to cover the negotiations with the suspect and the authorities?’

‘Your charges are becoming rather excessive, Juan,’ Bianca said, convinced by this demand that he definitely suspected her of involvement in Philippe’s death, ‘but one of the things I’ve always liked about you is your utter ruthlessness where your interests and those of your clients are concerned. That’s what makes you such a good lawyer. Philippe thought so too.’

‘Philippe and I always shared a refreshingly honest approach to deals.’

‘Yes, Philippe valued your lack of pretence. That, and the fact that you always obtained the desired result.’