Descent from Xanadu (14 page)

“Will do,” Merlin said and rang off.

Judd punched the button next to the bed for the nurse and turned off the television set. A moment later, Bridget came into the room.

“Mr. Crane?” she asked.

“Pull these needles out of my arms and help me out of this bed to the shower,” he said.

“I can’t do that without Dr. Zabiski’s order,” she answered.

“Then call her,” he ordered.

She looked at him hesitantly.

“Now,” he said peremptorily.

The door closed behind her. A few moments later the telephone rang.

“The nurse relayed your request, Mr. Crane,” the little woman began. “Is it genuinely important?”

“Yes,” he replied crisply.

“Very well,” she said. “But I’ll want to be with you when they withdraw the equipment and to make very certain that you are perfectly well. I’ll dress and be in your room in ten minutes. Meanwhile, the nurse will prepare you.”

A moment later Bridget came into the room. She was holding a tray with a hypodermic needle covered by a towel. “Lie on your side,” she said. “You get this one in your butt.”

“What is it?” he asked.

“I’m just the nurse,” she parried. “I’m not supposed to discuss what it is, just that the doctor’s ordered it.”

He turned on his side as she pulled the sheet from him. He felt the cool wetness of the alcohol swab, then the slight prick of the needle.

“Lie still,” she said. “This is a long one.”

“Shit,” he said.

She laughed.

“Sadist,” he said. He paused for a second. “I think I’m getting a hard-on. How about sucking it a little?”

She laughed again, withdrawing the needle, then placing a button-shaped Band-Aid on his buttock. “No way,” she said. “It’s your fault. You were the one in a hurry. I think the shot is to take care of it for you.”

He rolled back against the pillows and looked up at her. “Bridget,” he smiled. “There’s always something taking away the joy of life.”

“Rest quiet for a moment,” she said. “I’ll bring you freshly squeezed orange juice.”

“I’d rather have a cherry Coke.”

“You’ll have orange juice,” she said, closing the door behind her.

***

He sat on the edge of the bed, his legs dangling over the side. Dr. Zabiski finished checking his blood pressure. “Good. One-twenty over eighty-five.”

She gestured to a lab nurse who tied a coil around his arm. Quickly, expertly, the nurse drew four test tubes of blood and left them in a portable spirometry machine.

She held a plastic tube to him. “Take a deep breath, then blow out.” He did as she asked. “Now, another, this time even deeper.” She waited for him to fill his lungs. “Blow out as strong as you can, please,” she ordered.

From the corner of his eye, he could see her studying the television screen at the foot of the bed. He pushed until his lungs were wholly deflated. He fell back, gasping for air.

“Good,” the little doctor said. “Just one more test, if you will, please.” Another assistant rolled what looked like an electrocardiogram machine to the bed. “Lie back,” she ordered. “This will be very quick. It’s electronic.”

The man attached the usual small cups to his legs and chest. He punched the usual buttons and studied the usual tape as it emerged from the machine. Judd raised his eyes to find the doctor reading the same tape on a television screen. After the tape was complete and the assistant had removed the cups and was gone, Dr. Zabiski turned to a handset in her palm. She touched the keys; two banks of television screens on the wall sprang to life at her command.

Symbols flashed across the screens, verticals and horizontals, dancing in unison and parting gracefully in patterns of green and yellow, an ensemble in an abstract ballet. Judd looked at her. “What’s all that?”

“Blood analysis,” she said. “The whole business, every drop in you, how it’s doing everywhere in the body.” She paused only for a moment, then nodded. “You’re doing well.”

“Can I grab a fast shower?”

“No,” she replied flatly. “I want you to take things slowly. Bridget will give you a sponge bath, then we’ll help you up. I’ll want you in a wheelchair for a while before you begin to move around. Remember, you’ve been in bed almost three weeks and you must get used again to simple things like gravity and standing up. I don’t want you falling down unnecessarily.”

“You’re the doctor.”

“So I have to tell you, I’d like to be present at your side during your meeting. I wouldn’t like not being there if you had to handle some kind of stress and found yourself—your body—in trouble.”

“What could happen?”

“Who knows? We’re in terra incognita, a totally unknown land, Mr. Crane. Don’t ever forget that.”

He looked at her silently for a time. He knew she must have known what was holding back his assent.

“Believe me,” she added earnestly. “I have no interest whatsoever in any of your private affairs.”

“I know that, Doctor,” he said. “But if, as you said, all the tests check out, what could happen that I’d need you right then and there?”

“Possibly nothing,” she said. “But I am your doctor and I have a responsibility to you. Maybe I’m being overcautious, but I would rather be that way and end up on the side of error.”

He thought for another moment. “Okay,” he said. “But I’m beginning to feel like a baby who needs watching every minute.”

“Judd, how do you think I feel?” she said softly. “In a strange kind of way, you
are
my baby. Right now, there isn’t another mother in the world who could have created a child like you.”

***

“You’re looking good,” Merlin said.

“Feel good,” Judd replied. He rolled the wheelchair closer to the conference table in the sitting room next to his hospital bedroom.

Fat Eddie smiled. “That Irish nurse you have is prime.”

Judd chuckled. “The story of my life. The stuff is always around when I can’t get to it.”

Merlin looked at Dr. Zabiski sitting in the corner of the room away from the conference table. Judd pointed a finger in her direction. “It’s okay. We can talk.”

Merlin opened his attaché case and took out a computer printout. He placed it across the table before Judd. “I haven’t all the information yet, but I’m convinced our access code has been breached.”

Judd looked at him with surprise. “What makes you think that?”

“Little things,” Merlin replied. “The printouts keep coming out always perfect. Never a mistake. Usually quite a few errors show up.”

“Hunch?” Judd asked.

“Mainly.”

“I’ll buy it,” Judd said. “Change the code.”

“I’m glad you agree,” Merlin said. “I’ve already asked Computer Central to do it, but I need your initials to put it into effect and make it official.”

“You’ve got it,” Judd said.

Merlin handed him a sheet of paper and a pen. Judd initialed it. There were two carbons. He held one copy for himself, the other copy Merlin put into his attaché, the original was placed in an envelope to be placed in the Computer Central director’s safe.

“What else?”

Merlin gestured to the printout in front of Judd. “That’s the first printout from the South and Western Savings and Loan Association taken of our accounts since the court approval.”

“Yes?”

“Look at page two. Deposits on hand in noninterest-bearing accounts, which includes checking held in individual names. Two hundred million dollars. Look down to supplement two, page two, names and amounts for each account. Eleven names, each held in various amounts, spread among the one hundred and fifteen branches. I’ve had Security check out the names. Four Cubans, five Colombians, two Peruvians, all reputed to be gentlemen very important in the narcotics trade.”

Judd looked down at the printout without comment. After a moment, he looked up to Merlin. “Perhaps we should change the name of the bank to the South and Western Laundry Company.”

Merlin didn’t smile.

“How much of this money is insured by the FDIC?” Judd pursued.

“At a hundred thousand in each account at every branch, I make it one hundred fifteen million dollars.”

“Whoever they are, they are not stupid,” Judd said.

“I agree,” Merlin said. “We ran a check on individual deposits. Each deposit came in around nine thousand dollars or less. That means, of course, the bank didn’t have to report it to the Treasury.”

Judd nodded. “Smart. But routine with the trade practice, right?”

“Standard operating procedure. What do we do?” Merlin asked.

“Report it to Treasury,” Judd said without hesitation. “They’ll take it from there.”

“The publicity could blow the bank away,” Merlin said. “We could go down four hundred million dollars.”

“Then what do you suggest?” Judd asked with a wry smile.

“We could quietly order the accounts closed and return the deposits to the owners.”

“That would be compounding the felony,” Judd said. “One thing I learned from my father and also from Uncle Paul—never try to improve an unimprovable situation, because sooner or later you get buried in shit. You take the beating you have to and go on as best you can.”

Merlin was silent.

“Who was in charge of this situation?” Judd asked.

“McLaren, president of Crane Financial Services.”

“And he’s said nothing about this?”

“Nothing that we ever heard.”

“Nothing in the files?”

“Nothing.”

“Fire him,” Judd said, his eyes cobalt-blue ice. He remained silent for a long moment before he spoke again. “Is there anything else I should know about?”

“Li Chuan,” Merlin said, and resumed at Judd’s nod. “He went into the lude business on his own and ran it through our accounts.”

“Number two cannon fired,” Judd said emotionlessly. “Would you like to go for three?”

Merlin seemed embarrassed. He glanced at Dr. Zabiski still seated in the chair across the room. He hesitated but finally nodded.

The little doctor rose from her chair. “You seem to be doing all right,” she said to Judd. “I won’t be upset if you’d like me to leave now.”

Judd shook his head. “No. You might as well go through the whole silly mess with me.”

Merlin glanced from her to Judd. “Sofia,” he began. “She’s in Havana. So is Li Chuan. And also, Nicolai Borovnik, the number three man in the KGB. We have Security on them but we haven’t received any reports from them yet.”

Judd looked at the doctor. “Did you know anything about this business of your assistant and the KGB man?” he asked coolly.

The little woman met his eyes squarely. “No. This is completely new to me. But I do know that Borovnik and she have been lovers and that Borovnik at one time tried to divorce his wife to marry her. It was when the divorce was not approved that she volunteered to work for me.”

Judd looked at her curiously. “In that case why should she go to all the trouble now to meet him in Havana?” he asked.

“I’m guessing,” she said. “But I’d think he wanted to tell her about Brezhnev.”

“Leonid himself? The top man of the top men?” Judd was surprised and made no attempt to hide it.

“Yes,” she said. “He was to be the next patient assigned to her.”

“Then she’ll not be returning?” Judd asked dryly.

“She’ll come back,” the doctor said simply.

“Despite the Chairman?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And the Politburo?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And the KGB?”

“Yes, sir.”

“She can pull that kind of clout?”

“It’ll take more than clout. But she’ll manage.”

“Why, Doctor?”

“There is one very important test that only she can complete.”

“Which she can’t assign to someone else?”

“That’s right.”

“What would that be, Doctor?”

“An abortion,” Dr. Zabiski said quietly. And added, “Her own.”

He stared at her. “You mean that she’s one of the—”

“Yes, sir,” the doctor answered.

“Why didn’t she tell me?”

“She didn’t want to.”

“Why would she do it?” He saw a tiny light flash in a corner of the doctor’s eye. “You know the answer to that, of course?”

“I do.”

“Then tell me why, Doctor.”

“I cannot, Mr. Crane.”

“Even if I ask you nicely, Doctor?”

“Even if you order me, sir.”

“Doctor’s confidentiality, that it?” Judd said.

“Yes, sir. Thank you for understanding.”

“I accept it, but don’t understand it.”

“I can tell you this: it was at her insistence. She demanded to be one of the volunteers.”

Judd took a very deep breath, a faint trace of a grin creasing the corners of his mouth. But, finally, all he could do was to exclaim, “Shit!”

20

The restaurant was in a hacienda located in an ancient residential area at the outskirts of Havana. Its cuisine was comparable to any in Paris or New York, but it was unknown, however, to 99.99 percent of the Cuban people. This was a restaurant only for the elite of Castro’s world, as well as their guests. Old-fashioned large tables, with white damask napery, gold and silver cutlery, French Baccarat glassware, English bone china edged in gold set around low flower arrangements. Each table gave a soft golden glow from its small table candles. And, perhaps even more important, each round table was set far from the others. When even more privacy was required, the alcove around the table could be wholly enclosed by dark burgundy velvet drapes.

Sofia was the only woman at an open table of six. Nicky and Li Chuan sat on either side of her. Next to Nicky sat a heavy-set man, Karpov, one of the KGB at the Russian embassy. Across the table from her sat their host, Santos Gómez, a slim tall Cuban in his thirties, wearing the two stars of a major general on the open collar of his field uniform. Between him and Li Chuan was a small Chinese man in a gray business suit, Doy Sing, who was the unofficial representative of the People’s Republic of China, which had no official embassy in Cuba.

Dinner had begun at midnight and it was now almost one-thirty in the morning as the waiters brought the coffee, Napoleon cognac and the ever-proffered cigars. Finally, they closed the drapes, to ensure the group’s privacy.

Li Chuan sipped nothing but his coffee. When he rose he did not have to wait for the group’s total attention. “My words may shock you, comrades,” he began, “but we are here to talk of power, not theoretical power, but real, effective power. Let me begin by saying power today in this world of ours is not political. Neither communism nor capitalism mean anything. Power is simply money, and the greatest earner of money at this time is energy. Oil and gas. That is the source of the strength of the countries of the Middle East and the OPEC bloc. And energy represents the power of the United States because they have foreseen all this and have gained control of those energy-producing countries.