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Authors: John R. Maxim

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BOOK: The Bannerman Effect (The Bannerman Series)

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His daughter was well, he told her. What's more, he knew that Elena had protected her. Lesko stammered as he acknowledged this. He could not, Elena knew, quite bring himself to express gratitude. It was in his tone and manner nonetheless.

“Listen,” he said. “Susan, my daughter, is on her way over there. She's going skiing with this guy. His name is Paul Bannerman. The story is he owns a travel agency in Westport, Connecticut. Do you know him, by any chance?”

“No,” she answered. “The name means nothing to me.”

“What about Palmer Reid?”

She frowned. “How are you involved with him?”

“Not me,” he said. “The Bannerman guy. I had a friend make some calls. He asked a few people what they had on Bannerman and all of a sudden this CIA guy, Reid, gets very interested in why he's asking. Next thing I know, my friend disappears, but not before he tells me you used to know Reid.”

”I knew him. Yes.” One of those Americans in suits and ties. The worst of them. A loathsome man. She told Lesko what she thought of Reid. Very powerful. He seemed to answer to no one. Thought to be unstable. He and his people had extorted millions from the
trafficantes
in retum for protection from raids and from competitors.

“One more name. Did you know a Robert Loftus?”

She did. “He worked for Reid. Not . . . comfortably, I think. That was my impression.”

“That's what I hear, too. I've been leaning on him pretty good.”

“This man, Bannerman,” she asked. “You think he works for Reid as well?”

“Loftus says no. He says there's bad blood but that's all he'll tell me for now. I'm trying to piece it together but in the meantime I don't want Susan caught in the middle of anything. I'm just finding things out, otherwise I would have broken the guy's legs before I let him take off with her.”

“But you believe that Bannerman is involved in drugs. This is why you called?”

”I called because . . . you're in Switzerland, Susan's on her way ... it just seemed worth a shot.”

”I see.”

Lesko hesitated. He'd begun to stammer again. “Anyway.” He cleared his throat once more. “People tell me he isn't. They say he's straight. But they say it in a funny way, you know what I mean? Like there's more to Bannerman than they want to let on they know.”

”I can make inquiries. Do you wish me to do so?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

“Where will your daughter be staying?”

The line fell silent.

“As you wish.” She tried not to sound hurt.

“Look . . . Elena.”

“Never mind, Mr. Lesko.”

“Will you listen?” She heard the sucking in of breath, the choosing of words. “It's not like I think you'd—it's just— sometimes I get a little nervous where my daughter is concerned.” Another pause. Another breath. “They got an apartment in a town called Klosters.” He gave her the address.

“Thank you, Mr. Lesko.”

“Like I said, I know you protected her. If I knew a way, I'd make it up to you.”

“It is forgotten.’* Another long silence. “And what of you, Mr. Lesko? You are well?”

“Not too bad. I'm not a cop anymore.”

”I know. I have inquired. You are a man not easily forgotten, Mr. Lesko.”

”I don't meet too many like you either.”

“Well . . . good-bye.”

“Wait a second If I need to call you again, how do I get you?”

“As you did this time, I think. Call my cousin Josef.”

“Direct dialing would be quicker.”

“Perhaps . . . perhaps it is best we keep some distance between us, Mr. Lesko.” To be in communication with him, this easily, even after two years, she was not prepared for it.

”I guess.” He was trying to envision her. A small woman who looked bigger because she stood with her back straight and her chin high. Guts of a bandit. Very classy. Eyes that looked right at you and were a little sad. Pretty. Shiny black hair that kind of flowed down one side of her face and across her throat. A real good, honest face considering the kind of shit she was into. “Listen . . . Elena . . .”

“Yes?” Her voice was soft, expectant. But he had no idea what he wanted to say to her. Or why he wanted to keep her on the phone.

“You take care of yourself, okay?”

He heard a sound. Like words begun, then bitten off.

“Mr. Lesko,” she said finally, “we have friends in Klosters. They are reliable people.”

“Yeah?”

“If you wish it, I can have them look after your daughter while she is here.”

Lesko hesitated, but only for a beat. “She can't know about it, okay? She'd have me for breakfast if she knew.”

“She will not be told.”

“Then, yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I'd appreciate that.”

“Good-bye, Mr. Lesko.”

“Okay . . . well, good-bye Elena.”

It was a small favor, easily done. She broke the connection and dialed the number of Uncle Urs. He would place a call or two. The Klosters police would agree to keep an eye on Lesko's daughter. Perhaps he would send Josef as well. Then he would ask one of his friends with Interpol to see what, if anything, they could learn about a man named Paul Bannerman. Simple enough.

And yet her hand was shaking.

She did not know what caused it more. The sound of Lesko's voice. Or the name of Palmer Reid.

Two days later, Urs Brugg had learned everything and not enough about Paul Bannerman.

His contact at Interpol, a man he had known since their days at the university, was curiously reticent. He would say only that whatever file that might have existed was not criminal in nature and that the man's activities, therefore, were of no “official” interest to Interpol.

His choice of words, Urs Brugg realized, was deliberately tantalizing. They were those of a man who was already saying more than he should.

“Who, then,” he asked, “would have a file, whatever its nature?”

“You have friends with the intelligence services? Ask them.”

“Which intelligence services? The Swiss?”

“Any of them. But to save time, do not ask about Paul Bannerman. Ask about Mama's Boy.”

Urs Brugg had heard the name. And the whispers. “Paul Bannerman works for this Mama's Boy?”

“Paul Bannerman
is
this Mama's Boy.”

By the end of the second day, Urs Brugg had filled the better part of his scratch pad with facts, rumors, legends, and probable lies about the man. The composite that emerged was awash with contradictions. So gray, so unknowable was the overall picture that, Urs Brugg concluded, it was probably clouded by design.

The most balanced view, curiously, came from the KGB station chief in Bern, a man with whom he occasionally played chess. He told Urs Brugg what he could of Bannerman's history. A dangerous man, certainly, but one who kept his word when given. A contract agent,
loyal to no
particular flag although some bias in favor of the United States must be assumed. Hardly a friend of Soviet interests but even less so to those of the Central Intelligence Agency.

He was said to have retired. Withdrawn from the field. Returned to America. Many of his agents simultaneously vanished from sight. They were said to be with him. Wanting only to be left in peace. No one believed this, the KGB least of all. Two things argued against it. One was that a Soviet defector, a colonel in the GRU, once Mama's Boy's opposite number, had gone with him to America and Bannerman had effectively resisted all efforts to interrogate him. The other was that Bannerman had apparently chosen a known CIA training facility as his new home and had brazenly appropriated it. In the KGB's view, it was inconceivable that either of these would be tolerated by the United States government unless there was a very substantial quid pro quo in the offing. If Urs Brugg could shed some light on its nature, his chess companion told him, the KGB would consider itself in his debt.

Urs Brugg considered all this. But he was soon distracted. Because the same two days later, two boys, hiking with their dog up a snowy mountain path near Klosters, chanced upon the beaten and comatose body of Susan Lesko.

_-_5-

Elena's telephone chirped. She bolted for it before her maid could dry her hands. Behind her, her evening meal lay untouched.

“Uncle Urs,” she closed her eyes. “What have you learned?”

“The girl is alive, but barely,” he told her. “Elena. It was done with cocaine.”

“Cocai—” Elena gasped. “But the police said she was beaten.”

“She was, into unconsciousness,” he told her. “Then the powder was forced into her mouth. There are finger marks of a gloved hand across her cheek. It forced her to swallow or to suffocate.”

Elena sank into a chair. “But will she survive?”

“The doctor in charge is hopeful but not optimistic. Much depends on the amount she ingested. The cold may also have helped by slowing her metabolism. Still, she is in a deep coma. The next twenty-four hours will tell.”

“Uncle Urs,” she swallowed hard and lowered her voice. “Please tell her doctor that the girl must be examined for the presence of a suppository. It will be made of cocaine. It is intended as insurance.”

A brief silence on the line. His distaste, that his niece would know such things, was palpable. ”I will see to it,’* was all he said.

“This Paul Bannerman,” she asked, “He is at the hospital?” The question was asked with bitterness. But for him, the girl would still be in New York. Working. Meeting decent boys. She would be with her father. And Elena would not have failed him.

“He is there now, yes. He seems to have brought at least two bodyguards of his own with him. A man named Russo and a woman named Benedict. The police have picked them up for questioning. It was the woman, Benedict, who assaulted Josef.”

Josef had been in Klosters when Bannerman and the girl arrived. On the second day, when heavy snow had closed the ski lifts, the girl had taken the train to visit the shops of nearby Davos. She had gone alone. Josef followed. A woman, an American, had intercepted him in Davos. It seemed that she too had been sent to protect the girl. Each saw the other as a possible assassin. A tragedy of errors. In interfering with Josef, the Benedict woman caused both of them to lose sight of Lesko's daughter. She was left unprotected. The killers, clearly, had been waiting nearby for their opportunity. It came as a gift.

“Elena,” he asked, “Do you know who did this thing?”

She took a breath and let it out. “No. Not yet.”

“But, Elena, it was done with cocaine,” he said gently. “To kill in that manner is to send a message. Whatever else this Bannerman might have been, I am assured that he had no involvement whatsoever with drug traffickers. Not even as their enemy. Could the girl have been involved in drugs?”

“Impossible,” she answered flatly. Not Raymond Lesko's daughter.

“Then it must be said. You were involved, as their associate. The father was involved, as their enemy. If the girl herself is innocent, and if this attack was a message, that message must have been meant for either you or the father. Is this not so?”

“Perhaps,” she said slowly. ”I do not think so.”

“Tell me why.”

“Because a message is pointless unless its meaning is clear. If this was done because of me, or because of Lesko, they would have called me within the hour to boast of it, to hear my anguish. It is their way.”

“Do we then conclude,” Urs Brugg asked, “that it must have been done because of Bannerman?”

“If that is so, why this method? Why cocaine? You said he had no connection with it.”

“There is one common thread,” he reminded her. “It is your former associate, Palmer Reid.”

Elena fell silent as she considered the suggestion. Palmer Reid. Even the name, when mouthed, formed the beginnings of a sneer. Lesko had spoken of a connection between Reid and Bannerman. Uncle Urs had confirmed it. But their relationship was far from what Lesko may have imagined. By all accounts, they despised each other.