A Woman Involved Read online

  He squeezed her knee.

  She continued bleakly: ‘I got him downstairs. I somehow got him into the car. The front passenger seat. Then … Then I didn’t know where to take him.’ She shook her head. ‘Where? And where was I going to run to afterwards? The mobs. The curfew. The army would be at the airport. Then I knew the only place I could run to was the Governor’s house.’ She breathed deep. ‘So I drove the car into town.’

  ‘The Russian car?’

  She nodded. ‘It was dark now. I drove without lights. If I was stopped, I was going to say I was taking an injured comrade to the hospital.’ She sighed deeply. ‘I took back roads, through the shacks. Everything was deserted because of the curfew. But then I could hear the sounds of mobs. I stopped the car in a lane. I pulled the towel off his head. I … I had the presence of mind to remember my fingerprints. I wiped the steering wheel. Then I abandoned the car …’

  Morgan sighed grimly. ‘Then?’

  ‘Then I walked. Through the back streets. Then up the hill, to Government House.’

  ‘And nobody challenged you?’

  ‘No. All the action was several blocks away.’

  ‘Did anybody see you abandon the car?’

  ‘It was a dark lane. Nobody would have seen me until I was a hundred yards away.’ She added: ‘I hope.’

  ‘What did you do with the towel?’

  ‘I threw it down a drain. Half a mile away.’

  ‘And the gun is the one you were pointing at me?’

  She nodded.

  He picked it up, and put it in his pocket. ‘We must get rid of that. At the bottom of the ocean.’

  She looked at him. ‘But the Russian embassy knows one of their men went to my house. What’s going to happen?’

  He took a tense breath.

  ‘I’m not a lawyer. But with all the mayhem on this island, one dead Russian is not particularly surprising. And even if you are implicated, you have the argument of self-defence.’

  ‘Do you think the Revolutionary Army will listen to that?’

  ‘There’s not going to be any Revolutionary Army after this, the Yanks aren’t here on a goodwill tour.’ He ran his hand through his hair. ‘And the things from the safe?’

  She waved her hand. The handgrip stood in the corner.

  ‘Have you read the documents?’

  She nodded.

  ‘And? Is there anything significant? That the Russians would be so interested in?’

  ‘No.’ He knew she was lying. She said: ‘There’s Max’s will. Unsigned, by the way. In which he leaves everything to me.’

  ‘What about the keys? What locks are they for?’

  She said, ‘Probably his safety-deposit boxes. They’re not labelled.’

  He put his finger on her chin and turned her face to him. He said: ‘What is it the Russian wanted to know?’

  She held his eye. ‘I’ve told you – No.’

  He hardly cared, as long as he was with her.

  ‘Can I look through those documents?’

  She demanded, ‘Why?’

  ‘Because the Russians are after you. Because you know something that Max knew. I want to know what that is.’

  She demanded again, ‘Why?’

  He didn’t care a damn about his assignment, or about deceiving her – all he was worried about was her safety. ‘So I know what we’re up against, Anna! The Russians have tried once to kidnap you, to get this information. After they’d got it they might have murdered you! I need to know what they’re after so we can evade them next time.’

  Her eyes were steady. She said slowly:

  ‘The British sent you to get the same information, didn’t they?’

  He hardly cared what lies he told her.

  ‘Bullshit! My job is over! I gave the Americans my local knowledge, and we’ve secured Government House! The only reason I need to know what Max told you is to protect you!’ She looked at him grimly. He went on: ‘You’ve got to tell me sometime, Anna! Because when you’re off this island you’re coming to live with me. And if I’ve got to deal with Russians I need to know why.’

  Her nerves near breaking; she said softly:

  ‘Oh, no, Jack – I can’t live with you. I’m not involving you in this.’ She clenched her fist in her lap. ‘I’m not letting you fight my battles for me. When we get off this island I’ve got my own thing to do and I’m going to politely disappear until it’s done.’

  He said: ‘You’re not going anywhere without me, Anna.’

  She clenched her fist. ‘I’m a marked man! – I’m red-hot, and they’ll kill you too if you’re in their way!’

  It was all still staggering to him. He held up both hands, to calm her. Outside there was the thud of gunfire. He said:

  ‘We’ll cross the bridges as we come to them …’ He sighed angrily. ‘All right, now, why don’t you try to sleep?’

  She closed her eyes.

  ‘I haven’t slept for days.’ She breathed, ‘Will you stay here if I sleep? And guard that handgrip?’

  The handgrip. ‘Yes, of course.’

  She massaged her forehead. She said, ‘And you’ll examine the contents, I suppose.’ She shrugged wearily. ‘You won’t find anything. Because I’ve destroyed it. But the keys must be guarded.’

  He frowned at her. ‘What have you destroyed?’

  She shook her head, rubbing her forehead. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Of course it matters! Or the Russians wouldn’t be after it.’

  Her nerves cracked and she cried: ‘One page from his notebook! Containing a list of numbers, that’s all!’

  ‘Numbers? Of what? Safety-deposit boxes?’

  She cried, ‘Of course! If you were Max where else would you keep something that could destroy the whole Roman –’

  She opened her eyes, aghast. She stared at him; then she dropped her head, and held it.

  ‘Oh God, forgive me …’ she whispered.

  Morgan stared at her. Destroy the whole Roman what? The whole Roman Catholic Church? … She sat tensely, then she flung her head up. She waved her hand angrily at the bag.

  ‘Go ahead! The box numbers are listed in his will, anyway.’

  He frowned. ‘But, if the numbers are listed in the will, why did you destroy the numbers in the notebook?’

  Suddenly tears were glistening.

  ‘All the numbers except two are listed in the will! And those are the numbers I’ve destroyed! They are in my head! I memorized them!’

  ‘But tell me why …’

  She cried at him: ‘Because I’m going to destroy what’s in those two boxes, that’s why!’

  And she threw herself on the mattress and put her hands over her face. She sobbed once. And he came down beside her and put his arms around her. She cried: ‘I’m not going to tell anybody … I’ll die first, like God’s Banker hanging from Blackfriars Bridge! … And if you try to take me anywhere I’ll fight you tooth and nail!’ …

  His exhausted mind was racing. God’s Banker hanging from Blackfriars Bridge in London? Two months ago? The Italian banker? … He held her, his mind fumbling.

  ‘I won’t try to take you anywhere you don’t want to go.’

  She lay, racked, sobbing her exhaustion into her hands; he held her, and oh God he hated this whole stinking business; then she twisted in his arms.

  ‘Do you swear?’

  His heart turned over for her. ‘Yes.’

  She lay still a moment; then she sat up abruptly. She looked at him hard. ‘And you’re not here to trick me – do you swear to that?’

  He said: ‘I swear it …’

  11

  Over at old Pearls airport there was still scattered gunfire as the Marines mopped up the Revolutionary Army and the Cubans. The Rangers were still clearing the new airfield of the earth-moving equipment and spikes under sniper fire; they hot-wired the bulldozers and steamrollers and they used them as tanks to charge Cuban positions, and there were running battles and counter-attacks, and all
the time the thudding of the mortars and the stench of cordite. The Revolutionary Army retreated back through the town, commandeering houses for defence positions and setting up barricades; they swarmed around the True Blue medical campus, and the American students lay low in their rooms, the bullets smashing and whining and ricocheting everywhere. And now helicopter gun-ships came clattering through the sky to take on the People’s Revolutionary Army surrounding Government House, but first they had to take on the anti-aircraft guns at Fort Frederick and Fort Ruppert, and the thudding and thundering and clattering and chattering filled the sky and shook the windows.

  Upstairs, Anna Hapsburg was in an exhausted sleep at last.

  Once upon a time, when he was a schoolboy, Jack Morgan had been deeply religious, and a Catholic. But university and the rough-and-tumble of the Navy had changed that. He found he could no longer believe in a God who would damn him to eternal flames, if only because no twentieth-century judge would sentence anybody to such a punishment for anything; nor could he believe in a God who logged up millions of prayers a minute like a mighty computer and tried to rearrange the world on request, if only because such a God cannot be persuaded to change His mind because, being omniscient, He already knew whether He was going to change His mind or not. And so Jack Morgan, scientist, had reluctantly become an atheist. But then he had the good fortune to meet Anna Valentine and read a book called Summa in Theologica, written in the fourteenth century. And, to his relief, the good Saint Thomas had proved to him, through pure, invincible Aristotelian logic, that a God existed – even if he could not, by logic, prove what kind of God He was. And Morgan had been able to believe again. It was a long way from the Holy Roman Church that he used to believe so completely, but Jack Morgan had the comfort of being able to pray again, at least in homage.

  But it was different for Anna Hapsburg. She believed completely.

  He looked at her. She lay on her stomach, one leg bent, her long hair matted across her face.

  Her beloved Roman Catholic Church? Was that what this secret, this Nazi file was all about? ‘Something that could destroy the whole Roman …’ she had said. And she had been aghast that it had slipped out.

  An important Western institution, Brink-Ford had said.

  Well, if the authority of the Catholic Church were suddenly destroyed, many governments would be in trouble. Latin America – the power of the Church there was enormous, it was the opium of the masses. If the Russians had the ability to undermine the Catholic Church, to destroy its authority, it would enormously help their policy of world-wide revolution, of ‘liberating the world from the capitalist yoke’.

  Morgan dragged his hands down his face. But all this was guess-work.

  He was too tired to think straight. Oh, to sleep. To just take her in his arms and sleep, sleep, sleep. But he could not. It had all been go go go, so much action, so much tension, that the enormity of it hadn’t fully sunk in until now. The Russians had sent a man to get her and she had killed him … And if she hadn’t she would probably be dead herself now – the information extracted from her, her body dumped midst the ruins out there. And if the British couldn’t get the information out of her politely? He was bloody sure they’d get it somehow. And then what? Do they just turn her loose afterwards, to tell every newspaper what the terrible British had done to her, to shout her story from the rooftops? Including perhaps the very information they so desperately wanted to get their hands on. Or did even the pukka British make sure people didn’t talk?

  God, it was like a bad dream. Gone was the euphoria of finding her, of knowing she was safe for the moment.

  Something Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyons, a Nazi war criminal, knew.

  Something the Catholic Church had done during the Second World War?

  Collaborated with the Nazis? But it was common knowledge that the Catholic Church had not raised its voice to stop the Nazi extermination of the Jews, that the Pope of that time made a concordat, a live-and-let-live deal with Hitler to ensure that the Holy Roman Church was allowed to survive. But would that, so long after the event, shake the Church to its foundations, destabilize the Western world?

  Something that God’s Banker had died over? …

  He gave an exhausted sigh and looked down at the contents of her handgrip, spread on the floor.

  The notebook. Passports. The will. Some share certificates. Some newspaper and magazine articles. A wad of money. The keys.

  The passports. Three. At least one was false. It was an American passport, it bore Max’s photograph, but it was in the name of Maxwell Constantine. The next was Grenadan, the other West German, both in Max’s real name. It was not very unusual that he should have had two nationalities. But why the false American passport? It had a good number of immigration stamps in it, but mostly Max had used the German passport. Morgan had made a list of every entry and exit stamp in eyery passport, and had arranged them in date order. Max had travelled a good deal. South America, United States, Europe. Morgan could not remember the date when God’s Banker had been found hanging from Blackfriars Bridge but Max had been to England several times every year.

  The will. It left everything to ‘my darling wife, Anna Louise Hapsburg, on condition that she does not remarry nor cohabit with any man …’

  What did all that mean? Morgan knew nothing about wills, but were those conditions legally enforceable? When would she get the inheritance? – only after she had not remarried nor cohabitated? How long would she have to wait to prove her virtue? And if, having inherited, she then remarried or commenced to live in sin, would she then be disinherited?

  But it showed an insecure, jealous man – who would try to intimidate his wife. Was such a man to be believed if he claimed to have something that could destroy the Roman Catholic Church? Or was he so unstable that he invented his story? The bastard had once concocted a terrifying case against him …

  Morgan stared across the room.

  No. She believed it. And so did the British who had sent him here. And the Americans. And the Russians.

  Attached to the will was a schedule of principal assets. The man was extremely wealthy. Real estate, shares, bonds. There was a list of safety-deposit boxes, and the banks in which they were. Banks in Miami, Venezuela, Liechtenstein, and London.

  Morgan squeezed his eyes.

  But the microfilm or file probably was not in any of those banks. It was probably in one of the other banks listed on the page that she had torn from the notebook. And even if he found out which banks those were, how do you get into a man’s safety-deposit box?

  He sighed, and picked up the keys again.

  Some of them had numbers stamped on them, some of them were blank. Some of the box numbers mentioned in the will corresponded with numbers on keys. So, at least some of the keys were eliminated. But that didn’t help much.

  And then the cash. Twenty thousand dollars.

  That was a lot of money to Jack Morgan, but not to Max Hapsburg. Why shouldn’t he keep twenty thousand bucks in his safe, in case he had to jump on an aeroplane suddenly?

  Yes, but twenty thousand? All in used fifty-dollar bills? It made a bulky wad. Why not travellers cheques? In case he had to run and be anonymous? Not leave a trail of travellers cheques and credit card deals for the authorities to follow?

  That left the newspaper and magazine cuttings.

  They all concerned the Third World debt. Max was mentioned in several pieces. In short, most Third World countries, including Grenada, were in serious trouble because they had borrowed so heavily at high interest rates. They could not repay their loans, partly because of mismanagement, waste and corruption, and partly because the commodities which they produced had recently dropped drastically in value. The dollar was too high, the interest rates too high; the loans were now crushingly burdensome and the terms should be renegotiated. Some debtor countries were threatening to declare themselves bankrupt, to form a cartel, defy the banks and refuse to pay; but saner countries, and leading figures lik
e Max Hapsburg, had dissuaded them from this suicidal course for the time being. There were lists of big banks and the frightening amounts they had loaned and could not recover. The overall picture was frightening; if the crisis was not resolved, if the debtor countries did not repay the loans, many big Western banks would go bankrupt. So millions of depositors would lose their money, the bankrupt banks would have to call in the other loans they had made so many industries would go bankrupt too, so millions of workers would become unemployed and unable to repay their debts – in short, there would be an international depression which would make the Wall Street crash of 1929 look like a Sunday-school picnic. And the inherent political dangers were spelled out.

  If the debtor countries did not improve their economies, if the masses were kept poor, as in most of South America, if a strong, sensible middle class did not emerge, these countries were vulnerable to communist-inspired revolution. Russia stood to gain everything from this economic crisis. If the Western banks collapsed because of the Third World debt, it could bring about the collapse of the capitalist system the Russians were working for. And, in the final result, it was the capitalist system which was to blame. Greed. The banks were to blame, for greedily lending vast sums of money at high interest rates to these corrupt banana republics during the good times of high commodity prices …

  Morgan stared across the gloom. Outside were the sounds of war. ‘I’d rather die like God’s Banker … ’

  So banking, high finance, had something to do with this Nazi secret that could destroy the Roman Catholic Church, to quote Anna, this important institution that could destabilize the West, to quote Brink-Ford. And so Vatican banking might be involved. And God’s Banker hanging from Blackfriars Bridge might look like suicide, but obviously Anna knew he had been murdered …

  Murdered by whom? By Max Hapsburg?

  By the Vatican? He could hardly believe that.

  And murdered for what? What had God’s Banker gone to London for? For the secret which Max Hapsburg possessed? The same secret that was now locked in Anna’s head?