The Bannerman Effect (The Bannerman Series) (3 page)

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Authors: John R. Maxim

BOOK: The Bannerman Effect (The Bannerman Series)
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”I dare say.”

“And Reid would have to explain why he's conducting operations within the borders of this country. He's the one who's breaking the law, not Bannerman.”

”I take it you've been to Westport.”
”I stay in touch.”
“And you're satisfied that Bannerman and his people have no other agenda? That they're simply trying to live normal lives?”
“No question.” Clew gestured toward the Toshiba. “That's what's going to make this a hard sell. You have to realize that contract agents are people. They get tired. They get lonely. In Westport they've made friends, new neighbors, who treat them like ordinary human beings. In Europe, everyone was afraid of them. In Westport, nobody is.”
“Except, presumably, burglars, car thieves, and the odd drug pusher.”
“I'm told that such people have . . . moved along.”
“All except Palmer Reid.”
“Except Reid. Yes.”
“May I have a few more minutes with that machine?” He gestured toward the IBM.
Clew looked at his watch. “You have almost an hour before Hagler and Kaplan get here.”
“I'd like twenty minutes. Alone, if you don't mind.”
Roger Clew spent that time wandering the grounds of Briarwood, calming himself, wanting to shout out loud. The subject had been raised. It had not been rejected out of hand. It was a beginning. He balled his hands into fists and shook them, a silent cheer. He turned back toward the house.
A German shepherd, one of two, trotted by, paused to pick up his scent and then, satisfied that his odd behavior posed no threat, resumed patrolling. There were no other guards. Not on Sunday, not even Fuller's chauffeur. Only the gatekeeper. There were two household staff, an elderly couple, but they had gone to church. They would be back soon to begin preparing lunch. Clew reached the French doors off the broad flagstone terrace and stepped through, allowing one of them to slam behind him.
Barton Fuller was still at the machine. Not using it. Just staring at it. Clew cleared his throat. Fuller raised a finger, using it to beckon the younger man to his side. He brought the finger down on the plastic-covered list of commands and tapped a finger against its heading.
“Are you ready to tell me what JTR EFFECT means?” Fuller asked.
“It's not important.” Clew seemed faintly embarrassed. “Just a name I gave it.”
“Well? Tell me. That way we'll both know.”
Clew took a breath. ”I had to call it something. I call it the ‘Ripper Effect.’ ”
“As in Jack the Ripper?”
“Yes.”
“Melodramatic.” Fuller raised an eyebrow. “But apt. Random terror. Tied up an entire police force. Kept people at home nights.”
“And,” Clew added pointedly, “the Ripper was never identified.”
Fuller sipped thoughtfully from his mug. “No one else, beyond you and me, Kaplan and Hagler, would have to know?”
“And Bannerman, if he'll do it.”
“No records would be kept?”
“None.”
“No accountability?”
“You might wish to tell the president. That's up to you.”
Fuller threw him a look. He did not bother to comment. “When Hagler and Kaplan arrive, we will play platform tennis. That's all.”
“Can I tell them you'll . . .”
“You can tell them I'll think about this. If you wish, I'll say something cryptic to that effect. But the four of us will never sit down and discuss it.”
”I understand.” A sigh of satisfaction. Relief.
“It's a fascinating premise, Roger. Not just counterterrorism. Terrorists, America's own, striking back, taking the initiative for a change. But it's hardly the answer to all the world's problems. And your friend Bannerman is just one man. I assume you do not expect him to eradicate both the terrorist threat and the drug problem single-handedly.’
9
“Of course not. But he can start giving us the experience we need. Let me work with him. A test. Find out if what works in theory will work in the field.”
“And if he refuses?”
”I won't let him. He owes me.”

Fuller didn't doubt it. Palmer Reid had, however uncharacteristically, tried to harass Bannerman by legal means. Getting his passport lifted; trying to interest the IRS in his financial affairs; and demanding the arrest of Anton Zivic, a former colonel in Soviet Military Intelligence, in the country illegally and now, apparently, Bannerman's second in command. Roger Clew had blocked him at every tum. A thought struck him. “That computer of yours . . .'* He pointed with his mug. “Is Bannerman's organization in it?”

“Yes.”
“And is Reid's?”
Clew hesitated.
”I thought so.”
Clew remained silent.
“No further action, Roger. No experiments. No computer games. Do nothing at all. I've said I'll think about it, and I will.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why aren't you arguing?”
“The truth? This is already more than I'd hoped for. I was afraid you'd ask me to resign.”

”I still might. You're a very good man, Roger, but you may have spent too many years with Mama's Boy. I hope it hasn't damaged you.”

“He says the same thing about my years in Washington.”
Fuller frowned. “You took an oath. He didn't.”
”. . . Yes, sir.”

“May I hold on to that laptop for a few days? I'd like to become more familiar with some of these groups.”

“Sir, if someone should get into this room—”

“Take the list of commands. I've memorized them.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yes, Bart,” Fuller corrected him. “The meeting is over.”

The Ripper Effect, indeed, mused Barton Fuller, retuming to his painting. The Ripper was small potatoes compared to some of Bannerman's crowd. As Roger knows perfectly well. Why not call it The Bannerman Effect and be done with it?
The Bannerman Effect.
“Oh, Cassie,” he whispered. “What have we created, you and I?”

-
2-

Harry Hagler arrived. Irwin Kaplan appeared moments later. The platform tennis was subdued, played almost in silence until Fuller, true to his word, held up his serve long enough to indicate that he had seen the proposal and had not at once summoned the FBI or a State Department psychiatrist. It was enough.

Clew did not stay for lunch. He would not have been able to bear it. He doubted that Barton Fuller would be an especially attentive host that day either. His briefing of Hagler and Kaplan, held in the parking lot of a nearby Dunkin' Donuts, was punctuated by the smacking of Hagler's fist into an open palm. Irwin Kaplan merely sighed. Kaplan was always sighing.

Hagler—red haired, thick-set, pugnacious, the face and temperament of a saloon brawler. Irwin Kaplan—paunchy, balding, thoughtful, cautious yet relentless. The pit bull and the bloodhound, Clew called them. Different men, different styles. But both excellent. Personal reputations: superb. Prior achievements: stunning. Record of accomplishment in their current jobs: dismal.
Especially Hagler. In two years, not one of his offensive strategies aimed at terrorist organizations or at freeing hostages had been implemented. Only his defensive measures. And only those deemed politically safe. He had hoped for a positive change with the coming of a new administration. But it, if anything, was worse. No more of that ludicrous ”make-my-day” posturing but no air strikes either. Just lots of earnestness, niceness, wringing of hands. It was humiliating.
Kaplan had at least put people in prison and had seized billions in drugs, cash,boats, planes, and Florida real estate. But he was, as even he realized, just a finger in the dike. No more. He despaired for the country in which his two young daughters must grow up. His vision of it frightened him. Made him sigh. Made him angry. It had taken Roger Clew many lunches with Kaplan, many walks along the Potomac, and an entire summer of tennis matches, making little progress with him, before he realized that the way to reach Kaplan was through his children. Within days of that revelation, shortly after their return to junior high school, their principal, acting on an anonymous tip, found vials of crack in both their lockers. They denied any knowledge of them, of course. And Kaplan believed his children. He knew that the drugs had been planted, perhaps by a schoolmate, perhaps by someone who wanted to cause him pain. It made him angry. Another step forward.
The three shook hands in the Dunkin' Donuts lot. Patience, Clew told them. Just a little further, a push here, a push there, and nobody will be able to stop it.
At his townhouse on N Street in Georgetown, Roger Clew tapped out the digital code that disconnected the alarm system and another that permitted him to open his safe.

From the safe, he drew out a Toshiba that was a duplicate of the one he'd left with Fuller and a file of hard 3½-inch disks. He selected a disk marked “auto-repair records” and booted it into the machine. He scanned past the repair records, some genuine, some fictitious, until he came
to the
most recent entry. Now he typed in an access code. The repair records blinked off and a file titled “Westport” appeared on the screen.

He hit the “scroll” button, then sat back as the machine scanned a series of files on Bannerman and his people, occasionally stopping the scroll as a photo appeared. There were nine, counting Bannerman, who were positively identified as being in Westport. He had photographs of the nine, mostly passport photos, plus a few others taken over the years, always with a telescopic lens.

Clew had no purpose in calling up his Westport file. Except to see them. To count them. To be with them. He scrolled upward again, stopping to linger over each of the photographs. Anton Zivic. He smiled. The only extant photograph, as far as he knew, and he had it. Dapper little man. Cultivated. Looks more like an Italian sports-car maker than a Russian. Very smart. Once Ðannerman's enemy, now his right hand.
Billy McHugh—huge, Bannerman's monster, the most frightening of the bunch, had been with Bannerman the longest. Carla Benedict—who likes to play with men, get laid by them, before she kills them. Janet Herzog—never says much, just kills them. John Waldo—once a Navy seal, still likes to work at night. Glenn Cook—ex-FBI, Bannerman's long-distance shooter. These last five, between them, Clew reflected, have probably killed more people than smallpox.
Clew went on, stopping at Gary Russo. Dr. Russo. Their resident surgeon. Also their interrogator. Could make a stump talk, they say. Reputed to be Carla's boyfriend, more or less. Hard to imagine, Clew thought, unless he could also make a stump come. Otherwise, it has to be like fucking a black widow, saying so far so good.
Molly Farrell. The nice one. The youngest. Been with Bannerman since Iran, probably his closest friend after Billy. Also the hardest to figure. Comes from money. Radcliffe grad, nationally ranked college tennis player. Went abroad for her junior year. Something happened. Clew never knew what. But five years later she's making bombs and tapping phones for Bannerman. Now a Westport saloonkeeper. Runs a restaurant called Mario's which is more or less their headquarters.
There were at least four more, Clew was reasonably sure. Bannerman wouldn't say. Not even to him. It was another reason why Reid had not dared to raid Westport in force. Reid could never be sure of getting all of them. Any he missed would vanish. And then they would begin hunting him. There were few things that frightened a man more than the knowledge that he was being stalked by someone who lived only to kill him.
Clew stopped at Bannerman's most recent photograph. It was taken, like the others, with a telephoto lens. He had just left a restaurant on Manhattan's Upper West Side, smiling at some remark made by a female companion whose face, except for a bit of her hair, had been cropped. Clew sat back and studied him.
Clew shook his head. It's amazing, he thought. On the surface, as nice a guy as you could want to meet. Soft spoken. Never swears. A good face. His mother's looks, but rugged. A scar high on one cheek that probably drives women crazy. Not that he'd notice. Or know what to do about it if he did. Almost forty years old and he's still basically a klutz with women, straight ones, anyway. Sticks mostly with his own kind. Says it's just as well, says he's never won an argument with a woman. Molly, Clew suspected, probably takes care of his needs from time to time. What are friends for?

Anyway, he's more of a man's man, really. Good guy, good neighbor. The kind who would not only lend you his tools but would probably drop whatever he's doing and come over to help you. You want company watching a Yankees game on TV or you want to play some one-on-one in your driveway? Call Bannerman. You got troubles? Someone screwing you over and you want a sympathetic ear? Call Bannerman. Good listener, never lectures. The best part is, just talking to Bannerman has a way of making your troubles disappear. The guy who's harassing you suddenly seems to lose interest. Maybe he woke up in the night to see Billy McHugh leaning over his face. Next thing you know, he's a recluse, hardly leaving his house anymore which, by the way, is suddenly up for sale.

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