Kennedy’s Ghost

‘If it’s a letter, it might simply contain instructions, or it might contain a note from Paolo. What you have to remember is that whatever he writes will have been dictated to him.’

And if it’s a package … Francesca had heard the stories and read the newspaper articles.

‘If it’s a package it might contain an audio or video tape of Paolo. Either way he’ll probably sound or look bad. You don’t worry about that. They’ll have made him sound or look that way.’

‘What about other packages?’ Francesca allowed the fear to grow.

‘The key thing to remember is that packages are also part of the bargaining process,’ Haslam told them all, but talked to her in particular. ‘Packages are one of the ways the kidnappers will put pressure on you. Therefore they might contain something which is blood-stained, they might even contain a part of a body. In ninety-nine per cent of cases the blood is fake and the body part didn’t come from the victim.’

How can you tell me this? Francesca stared at him. How can you do this to me? Yesterday you helped me, protected me, gave me strength. But today you’re taking it all from me, today you’re treating me worse than Umberto treats me.

‘The other part of the communication is you to them.’ Haslam took them to the next stage. ‘You obviously can’t phone them, so you tell them you want to speak with them by placing adverts in newspapers. You put a specified advert in and they then know you’re waiting at the telephone at the appointed time. It’s also a way of you telling them to get in touch with you after a prolonged period of silence from them.’

‘Why silence?’ Umberto.

‘Because silence is another weapon; sometimes kidnaps go for weeks without contact.’

This wasn’t what the chairman would want to hear – Rossi glanced at Umberto then back at Haslam. So begin thinking it through now, begin to plan what he could use and how he could use it. Work out how he could hide behind Haslam and how he could use Haslam when the crunch came with the chairman.

‘Anything else?’ Umberto again.

‘The first is your personal security. Double or triple kidnappings are not common, but not unknown. Marco is an obvious target when he makes the pick-ups, but he also has a certain inbuilt protection as he’s part of their communication system with you.’

‘The next?’ Umberto stared at him, elbows on the table, chin resting on his hands and eyes unblinking.

‘We’ve said that the bank will keep as low a public profile as possible.’

‘So?’

‘If the Mercedes driver and bodyguard outside belong to BCI, it might not be the sort of profile the bank wants.’

‘We’ll sort it out.’ And meeting over. It was in the way Umberto Benini snapped shut the file. ‘If you would leave us so that we might consider what you have just told us.’

The family meeting which followed lasted little more than thirty minutes. As he and the Beninis left, Rossi took Francesca’s hand.

‘I know what Haslam said about not offering too much too quickly, but if it means getting Paolo out, the bank will pay whatever it takes.’

A good man to have by your side, Umberto Benini knew, the right man to rely on.

‘Thank you.’ Francesca tried to smile and went to the window, watched as the cars pulled away.

She had been right about Haslam. The bastard had told them to put a price on Paolo’s life, had almost gone further. Had only just stopped short of telling her to think about how much she was prepared to pay and of suggesting that there might be a moment when she should abandon Paolo to the vultures. At least Umberto was adamant that they wouldn’t give in, at least Rossi had said the bank would pay whatever it took.

The telephone rang.

Oh God no, she thought; please God no, she prayed. She turned and began to call for the housekeeper then remembered she hadn’t asked the woman to stay. Why hadn’t she listened to Haslam when he’d asked if she’d be all right by herself? Why hadn’t he asked her again tonight?

She made herself pick up the phone.

‘Hello, Mama, it’s me.’

She sank into the chair and fought back the tears as her younger daughter asked after her father, heard herself lying.

‘And where’s Gisella?’

‘Riding. Do you want her to phone you when she gets in?’

‘That would be nice.’

The evening was slipping away. She stared out of the window and told herself it was time for bed.

The telephone rang again. Francesca smiled and picked it up. ‘Gisella,’ she began to say. ‘Good to hear you. How was the ride … ?’

* * *

The Benini kidnap was going well, Vitali decided: the banker was safely concealed in the fortress which was Calabria, and the family had been waiting long enough to be feeling the strain.

It was eleven in the morning, the light playing through the window on to the large wooden desk in the centre of his office; the telephones on the left, fax and computer on the right, and the recording equipment and mobile phone in the drawer. The mobile rented and paid for through a false name and bank account to which he could not be linked, in case the carabinieri broke the organization’s security and tried to trace him. Plus the scrambler which he would use because mobiles were notoriously insecure.

He was alone, as he always was at this time of day. He opened the drawer, clipped on the scrambler and dialled the first number.

‘Angelo. This is Toni.’

Angelo Pascale was in his mid-thirties, thinly built so that his suits hung slightly off his shoulders, and lived in a two-room flat up a spiral staircase off a courtyard close to Piazza Napoli, in the west of the city. He had never met the man he knew as Toni, but Toni paid well and on time, and as long as Toni was in the kidnap business then there was always work for people like himself.

He clipped on the scrambler and keyed in the code Toni told him.

‘Tonight, nine o’clock.’ Vitali gave him the address. ‘I’ll phone again at ten.’ He ended the call and sat back in the chair.

So how much?

The going rate was between 450 and 500 million lire and the first demand was around either five or ten miliardi, so that was what they would be expecting. Nobody would pay that much, of course, but after deducting his expenses even 450 million would still show a good profit.

He leaned forward again and dialled the number of the negotiator, again using the scrambler. In the old days it had been anonymous calls to faceless people waiting at public telephones. Some organizations still used the old techniques, he supposed, but a man had to move with the times.

‘Musso, it’s Toni.’ Mussolini was good, not as good as Vitali himself had been, but still one of the best. Mussolini was not his real name, but it was what the man called Toni called him, and what the negotiator called himself when he spoke to the families of Toni’s victims. ‘Tonight, nine o’clock.’ He gave him the telephone number.

So how much? He was still rolling the figures in his head. The fact that the bank carried a kidnap insurance meant that a consultant would already be involved. And if a consultant was involved he would already have told the family about the going rates and the opening demands, so that was what the family would be expecting, would have forgotten that the consultant would have told them the figures were only guidelines.

‘Open at seven.’

Miliardi, Mussolini understood. Interesting figure.

‘The victim is called Paolo Benini, the number is his town apartment. Wife Francesca, who’ll probably take the call. Otherwise father Umberto or younger brother Marco. I’ll call again at nine-thirty.’

Angelo Pascale left the flat at one, collected the Alfa, checked the tuttocittà, the city map which came with the telephone directory, and drove to Via Ventura.

The street was busy and the shops and pavements crowded, mostly with young people and all of them apparently with money. The address was towards the bottom on the left, a number of parking places just visible when he stood outside the address. He drove up and down the street for twenty minutes till one of those he required came vacant, and went for a cappuccino in the Figaro. At five he noted the cars parked outside the block, again an hour later. From six he logged the movements of every car leaving or arriving at the address, paying special attention to those left at the front.

Mussolini was in position by eight-thirty. He would use a public telephone, because if the carabinieri were trying to trace the call it would get them nowhere. And he would switch locations: Central Station tonight, perhaps the airport the night after. Places a businessman would pass unnoticed.

The recording equipment was in his briefcase. At eight fifty-five he went to one of the kiosks in the marble mausoleum which was the ground floor of Central Station, confirmed that the phone was working, placed the suction cup of the cassette recorder on to the mouthpiece, and checked the time. Punctuality was not only a virtue, he had long understood, it was also a tool.

It was nine o’clock.

He inserted the phone card and punched the number.

‘Gisella. Good to hear you.’ It was as if the woman had been expecting someone else, as if she was talking to a child. ‘How was the ride?’

‘Signora Benini.’

Francesca almost froze. ‘Yes.’

‘We have him. If you want to see him again we want seven miliardi.’

Her mind was numb, refusing to function, the thoughts suddenly spinning and the brain struggling to navigate through the shock. Oh Christ what should she say, dear God what should she do? The script – it was as if she could hear Haslam’s voice – just read the script. We’ll re-write the script slightly, Umberto was telling her, just to make it right, just to make it proper; don’t tell Haslam though, just keep it to ourselves. We’ll pay anything to get Paolo home with you and the girls, the banker Rossi was telling her, let’s just make sure we get him back.

‘Seven miliardi, Francesca,’ Mussolini told her again. ‘Otherwise you never get him back.’

Don’t even think, Haslam’s voice was telling her, calming her, just read the script. A clean phone – it was as if she could hear him – make sure you get across the number and the time. She was shouting the number, almost screaming the number. Seven-thirty in the evening, she was telling him. ‘Is Paolo alive, tell me how he is. Let me speak to him.’ She was scrabbling for the script, still saying the number and the time.

‘Seven miliardi, Francesca.’ Mussolini’s voice was calm but assertive. ‘That’s what you pay if you want to see him again.’

Now that she had started saying the number she couldn’t stop. How much, her mind was still asking. Seven miliardi. Oh my God. Not even the bank could pay that, she began to say. She was still saying the number, telling the man on the phone that she’d try but the bank wouldn’t go that high. Realized that the kidnapper had put the phone down.

Her entire body was shaking. She stood for two full minutes, the telephone in her right hand, the fingers of her left holding the cradle down, and her entire body convulsed. Then she told herself to breathe deeply and keyed the number of her father-in-law.

‘They’ve called,’ was all she managed to say.

Haslam was crossing the Piazza Duomo when the pager sounded. He used the telephones on the edge of the square and called the control, then Umberto Benini.

‘Meeting in an hour at Signora Benini’s apartment,’ Benini told him, and rang off.

No explanation, Haslam thought; there was only one reason for Umberto to call him mid-evening, though. Not Francesca’s apartment, not even my son’s or my daughter-in-law’s apartment. The man’s son has been kidnapped, he reminded himself; therefore give him time to come to terms with that fact and with what he has to do. At least Umberto hadn’t given anything away on an open phone.

When he arrived the cars were parked outside and the others were seated round the table. Francesca white-faced and fingers wrapped tight round a cognac; Umberto Benini at the head of the table, Marco saying nothing; Rossi apparently summoned from a function and wearing an immaculate evening suit, the white silk scarf still round his neck.

The cassette recorder was in the centre of the table, and the script which he had written for Francesca was in front of Umberto Benini. He took his place opposite the father.

‘Signora Benini received the call at nine o’clock.’ Benini led the discussion. ‘The kidnappers want seven miliardi.’ Not the five or ten you said – the stare conveyed the message. ‘The signora managed to pass on the number of the clean phone, plus the time.’

‘Good.’ Haslam nodded then looked at Francesca. ‘The first call is always the worst. You were here by yourself?’

She nodded.

‘Then you’ve done better than anyone could expect.’

He turned back to Umberto.

‘You’ve listened to the tape?’

Of course you’ve listened to it, the tape was the first thing you checked after you’d talked to Francesca, though you might not have told me because you’ve rewound it. Because you called the others before you called me, made sure they got here first.

The father pressed the play button.

‘Gisella. Good to hear you. How was the ride?’

‘Signora Benini.’

Haslam heard the change in Francesca’s voice as she realized and saw the tightening of her face as she listened now, saw her age Christ knew how many hundreds of years.

‘Yes.’

They listened in silence. When the conversation was finished they listened again, then Haslam turned to her. ‘You really did do well, much better than we could have expected.’

You really didn’t do that badly, he wanted to tell, but you’d have done better if you hadn’t received conflicting instructions.

‘Francesca managed to get over the number of the clean phone, and the time she’ll be there. The first thing we have to decide now is who goes with her. Marco is the courier, therefore if anything is to be collected at any time it makes sense that he’s there to take the message.’

And …

‘If the kidnappers have done their research properly, which they seem to have, they’ll already know that he’s Paolo’s brother and might even have chosen him to be the go-between.’

Marco, they agreed.

‘When they phone tomorrow, the key thing is that Francesca insists on proof that Paolo is alive. We want this anyway, but it also gives her a way of not replying to the kidnapper’s ransom demand. We’ll work on the script later. In the meantime Francesca needs the question that the kidnappers will put to Paolo.’

‘Anything else?’ Umberto Benini asked.

‘Only one. The cars. I appreciate that tonight was an emergency, but the Mercedes is outside again.’

Vitali’s call to Mussolini was at nine-thirty precisely, the call scrambled and Vitali recording it.

‘How’d it go?’

‘Well. She was expecting another call, possibly from one of her daughters, and was therefore disoriented. You want to hear it?’

Of course he wanted to hear, Vitali thought. ‘Why not.’

The woman was frightened and confused, which was normal, yet she had been controlled enough to pass on the number of a clean phone and the time she would be there. Which suggested that a consultant was already involved.

‘Sounds good. Make the call tomorrow. I’ll phone at eight.’

Thirty minutes later he placed the call to Angelo Pascale, noting the car models and numbers the stake-out read to him.

The Saab belonged to Benini’s father and the BMW to his brother – the details had been part of his research. The Mercedes hadn’t been seen before, but the fact that there was a bodyguard in it, and that the man it had taken away had left the flat with Umberto Benini, suggested that it was someone from BCI. It was interesting that the bank was so open about its involvement.

The dark wrapped round her, suffocating her. Francesca lay still with fear and tried to see the light, saw only the tallow yellow of the lamp and the shadows flickering against the wall of a cave. Thank God I didn’t panic on the phone, she thought; thank God Haslam told me I did all right; thank God I didn’t let Paolo down. Paolo’s face was looking at her, his eyes searching for her and his voice calling out her name. Hold on, she tried to tell him, we haven’t forgotten you, soon you’ll be free again. The cave was cool but the night was hot and oppressive around her. She tried to fight it off, to pull the layer of fear from her face. It was two in the morning, the clock ticking by the bedside. She sat up and reached for a glass of water, sipped it slowly, then lay down again.

The sounds came from the darkness, the glow of the lamp, then the silence of the warders bringing him his food. Paolo Benini waited till they had gone then began to eat, not minding if the liquid of the soup splashed down the front of his shirt or if the remnants of the bread fell on to the floor. When he had finished eating he sniffed at the buckets, tried to remember which he had urinated in, then drank from what he hoped was the other.

Some time it would come to an end, of course. The bank carried kidnap insurance, and the bank would have paid anyway.

Every client wanted an efficient service, every client wished to avoid the red tape which might hinder their activities, and everyone bent over backwards to satisfy them. That was what banking was all about. Arab money, Jewish money, it made no difference. Money from the Middle or Far East, from Russia or America, it didn’t matter. Except sometimes someone wanted a little more, which brought the bank an extra commission. But to get that commission the bank needed someone like Paolo Benini to set everything up, someone like Paolo Benini to make sure it was all in order and to sort out any problems which might arise. And the more clients who were happy the more custom came to the bank and the happier the bank was. Especially with the extras they were able to charge and the clients were prepared to pay.

You’re clutching at clouds in the sky, the voice tried to tell him. You’re thinking of things you did in the past, rather than what you have to do to survive the present.

Part of the groundwork had already been done before, of course, but it had been he, Paolo Benini, who had structured and developed it. Especially in the United States. He who had suggested they look for one of the small regional banks in danger of collapse in the eighties, buy it up but conceal the ownership, then make it profitable and use it as a front for BCI’s black operations. He who had faced up to the conventional thinkers on the board and rejected the various banks which they had suggested, especially those with connections in Florida because those were the sort of places investigators from organizations like the US Federal Bank and the Justice Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration automatically looked to, because those were the sort of places already being used to launder money. He who had suggested they go west, look for a nice little bank in a nice little town where no one would suspect. A bank which no one knew was in trouble and with a president who could be persuaded to bend the rules to maintain the financial standing of the bank in general and himself in particular. He, Paolo Benini, who had personally chosen First Commercial of Santa Fe, and he, Paolo Benini, who had made the arrangements.

Forget all that, the voice told him, forget what’s gone before. Just work out where you are and who you are. What you should be thinking about are Francesca and the girls, because they are the ones who will save you, who will provide the anchor which will moor your mind to some kind of sanity.

And just after he had arranged the takeover of First Commercial of Santa Fe, he and Myerscough had met – it was as if his brain was flicking between television channels.

Why was he thinking of Myerscough, the voice asked him.

Because Myerscough ran Nebulus, because Nebulus was the last account he had checked in London, and because he had therefore thought that Nebulus might be the subject of the fax he had received at the hotel. Except, of course, that the fax hadn’t been genuine.

If any of his clients found out, however … If ever it became public knowledge, even within the limited public of that corner of the banking world, even within BCI itself, that he had been kidnapped … Therefore the bank would do everything in its power not just to secure his release, but to achieve it quickly.

You’re still deluding yourself – the voice was fainter now, almost gone. Look at yourself, at the mess you’re in. Food spilled on the floor and down your clothes and urine on your trousers. You don’t even know which bucket you’re urinating and defecating in and which you’re drinking from. No wonder the rat came feeding.

The feet shuffled from the black, the lamp appeared, the guards removed the remnants of his food, and he was alone again.

4

Cath was curled beside him.

It was a long time since they’d met at Harvard, since they’d got to know each other in their final year. Then they’d gone their separate ways, she to law school and he, when his number had been drawn, to Vietnam. And that would have been the end of it. Except that once, during R and R, he’d written her; when he finally came home he’d found her number and called, and she’d visited him in hospital. Halfway through his own spell at law school they’d married; the night he’d got his first job she’d cooked him a candlelit dinner. Two years later she’d stood at his side when he’d run for his first public office.

Donaghue swung out of the bed, switched off the alarm before it woke her, and went to the bathroom. When he returned the bed was empty and the smell of breakfast was drifting up from the kitchen.

It was five-thirty. He started the Lincoln, waved back as she watched him from the front door, and drove to National airport. Twenty minutes later he was on the shuttle to La Guardia.

Pearson woke at six-thirty, showered, shaved and dressed. Evie was still asleep, her legs sticking out from under the duvet and her hair across the pillow.

The house was on 6th SE, half a block from Independence Avenue and ten minutes’ walk from the Hill. They’d bought it for a knock-down price, then sweated God knows how many weekends and holidays to get it as they wanted, had somehow squeezed the renovation between her professorship at Georgetown and his job on the Hill.

When he went upstairs she was still half asleep.

‘See you tonight.’

She rolled over so he could kiss her.

‘Be good.’

The morning was already warm; he left the house, crossed Independence, and turned left on East Capitol Street. In front of him the white dome of the Hill glistened in the early light. By seven thirty-five he had collected a coffee and doughnut from the basement canteen and was at his desk checking his electronic mail. At eight-thirty he briefed the morning meeting.

‘Senator Donaghue’s in New York for a fund-raising breakfast. He’ll be back at ten. Terry to collect him from National. Ten-thirty he meets a business delegation, Jonathan has the details. At eleven he’s in the Senate; Barbara in charge of TV and radio interviews after. Eleven forty-five he’s at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial; family paying their respects.’

For years now the families of the MIAs, the servicemen missing in action in Vietnam, had been campaigning in the hope that some of them might still be alive. Donaghue had championed their rights for greater information on reported sightings whilst cautioning against excessive hope. Six months earlier photographic evidence had been produced supposedly showing MIAs in a village in North Vietnam. One week ago they had been proven to be forgeries. Now the family of one of the men was coming to pay their respects at the polished black granite memorial in Constitution Gardens, and had asked Donaghue to join them, even though they were not from Donaghue’s state.