To Save a Son (40 page)

“I'd better go,” said Franks.

“Yes,” she agreed, “I meant—”

“It doesn't matter,” cut off Franks, not wanting her embarrassed with a hurried apology.

“Hear from you tomorrow, then?” she said.

“Or maybe I'll get back.”

“Yes.”

“Good night.”

“Good night.”

Franks replaced the telephone but remained looking at it, wondering the reaction if the line was tapped. Damn them, he thought again. It didn't encroach on or endanger any case they were trying to make so it was none of their business. He should telephone Tina. But why? He knew from Maria how the old man was, and he knew from experience what would happen if he and Tina started—or tried to start—talking. Tomorrow would be soon enough. Despite his earlier resolution, Franks ordered brandy and sat with me drink, watching the late night Manhattan news. The grand jury hearing was the lead item, and mere was a jostled film of him being taken into the building surrounded by FBI men, led by Tomkiss. The reporter estimated that the hearing would last another week before the jury reached any decision and ended with still pictures of Flamini, Dukes, and Pascara. The newscast would have reached Scarsdale and Franks wondered if Maria was watching. He considered calling again, to ask, but decided against it.

The second day Franks concentrated more upon the jury than he did upon the district attorney, who questioned him, anxious for some reaction or facial indication that might let him know how this group of independent people—the first group of independent people so far to consider the evidence—would regard his part in it. The test was a difficult one. For the most part, now completely accustomed to their surroundings—some, Franks suspected, actually enjoying me albeit hidden notoriety of comprising a grand jury that led television newscasts—the jurors showed no obvious response. But he thought two of the women in the front row looked suspiciously at him as the facts emerged, and a refined, scholarly looking man behind them also appeared to doubt Franks' unawareness of what happened. Franks tried hard not to become unsettled by the impression. Because after all, that was the extent of it—just an impression—and to attempt some sort of explanation in addition to answering Ronan's questions risked making himself appear someone needing a defense instead of exoneration. Increasingly Franks found the restraint a problem, burning—actually red-faced—at the admission of stupidity, conscious how difficult—how frighteningly, horrifyingly difficult—it would be for these uninvolved, unknowing people to decide impartially that he
was
innocent. By the third day of his evidence Franks was nervous and trying hard not to show it, permanently red-faced and knowing how bad it made him look, like the perspiration he couldn't seem to control, even though the air conditioning of the room was good.

He telephoned Tina once and Maria each evening, and at the conclusion of his evidence lunched with Ronan and said he knew it hadn't looked very good.

“It looked fine,” assured the district attorney.

“Sweating and blushing?”

“Wouldn't an innocent man—having to admit a mistake—sweat and blush?”

Franks thanked the man for his reassurance, but he didn't believe it. He asked if he could return to Scarsdale now that his evidence was over and Ronan said he'd prefer it if he waited, in case there were some last-minute queries that needed clarification. That night Franks called both Tina and Maria to explain why he was remaining in the city; the conversation with his wife was brief and perfunctory, that with Maria protracted and rambling, neither willing to break the contact and repeating themselves, talking of inconsequential things, just to keep the call going.

It took a full twelve days to present the case to the grand jury. On the thirteenth, the jury returned indictments against each of the three men on every charge for which the district attorney sought prosecution. The formal arrests and declarations of innocence from Pascara, Dukes, and Flamini became a major news story. The media obtained the details, once the indictments were officially returned, and Franks' photograph and all the known biographical material accompanied the stories, in the newspapers and on television. The coverage extended to England, and Franks journeyed to Manhattan on the average twice and sometimes three times a week to have Rosenberg physically with him when he telephoned or telexed his London managers and the various boards.

Lawyers for Pascara and Flamini and Dukes sought bail, which in each case was set at one million dollars, despite objections to their release from custody by Ronan. When the men were freed, Ronan moved for a hearing date under the Speedy Trial Act. Franks was relieved; every discussion with the directors had caused British nervousness at the effect on the business of the concerted and unremitting publicity.

That nervousness came near to something like paranoia three weeks after the conclusion of the grand jury hearings when an apparently accidental explosion—which everyone knew wasn't accidental—destroyed the main engine room of the Caribbean cruise liner, causing five hundred passengers to be evacuated in lifeboats in their nightclothes. It crippled the sailing program for six months. And a week after that a bacillus appeared in the food being served in all their Italian hotels, and in four in France, creating a salmonella outbreak that caused the death of an eight-year-old child in Venice and of an elderly couple in Rome. Italian health authorities closed down eight of the company's hotels and a total of two thousand holidays were lost, in addition to the one thousand that were canceled by people themselves, no longer prepared to risk the vacation.

The snatched times that he could spend with Maria became Franks' only escape from the daily increasing pressures. He stopped caring whether the Scarsdale household or even the FBI protectors knew about it, concerned only to keep it from David and Gabriella. He knew from her openly hostile attitude that Elizabeth was aware of the affair. Tina never made any open accusation.

About the time of the explosion aboard the liner, Maria was with the Scargos. Tina was home. She withdrew one night to the solitary bedroom he'd suggested she occupy that first time, when the affair began. Tina offered no explanation and Franks didn't seek one. The situation continued for a month, and then the decision came from England about the children's schooling.

With deep regret, but bound as they were by their very necessary primary duty to the well-being of their schools, the principals were unable to accept the return of Gabriella or David. Both felt quite confident that adequate and alternative schooling would be available, and that the children would fulfill the promising ability they had so far shown.

Tina was home the day the letters came. She read them, unspeaking, and then looked up at him. “I think it's time a lot of things were sorted out.”

“Like what?” said Franks.

“For a start, I want to know everything about this protection program. All I've heard so far is what you understand it to be. I want someone else to explain it to me; I don't care who, just someone who knows.”

“And then?”

“I'm going to decide what to do.”

“It's too late for a choice,” said Franks.

“It might be for you,” said Tina. “I don't think it is for me.”

They traveled into Manhattan for the meeting because it was the easiest place for everyone to gather. The original intention was to hold it in Rosenberg's office, but then Ronan offered his chambers, which were larger, and they accepted. Rosenberg came with Waldo from the FBI and someone Franks hadn't met before, a man named Myer Berenson, from the U.S. Marshals Service.

It was the first time Ronan and Franks had met since the sabotage to the ship and the hotels. The district attorney said at once, “I'm sincerely very sorry about what's happened. You understand there's nothing I could have done—no precaution I could have initiated—to stop it happening?”

“Yes,” said Franks.

“Let's talk about what precautions you are capable of,” insisted Tina. She had dressed carefully for the encounter, in a businesslike suit, and for the first time in weeks there was about her no resigned acceptance. Instead, her demeanor was brisk and forceful.

“What exactly is it you want to know, Mrs. Franks?” asked Ronan gently.

“Everything about the protection program,” said Tina.
“Everything.”

Ronan looked curiously to Franks and then, as he had on the first occasion, toward Waldo, and said, “Would you like to set it out again?”

Now Waldo looked questioningly at Franks and then, as he had on the earlier occasion, recounted all the details. Tina listened, tensed forward on her chair, head slightly to one side. Although he was sure he'd made everything already clear to her, Franks had the impression that she was as incredulous as he had been when he first heard it. Her reaction, when the melting-fat man finished, was very controlled, however.

“A new identity?” she queried.

“The name has already been chosen by your husband,” reminded Waldo. “Isaacs.”

“And a new home?” she went on.

“Anywhere of your choice in America,” said Waldo. “Your being an American citizen, there's no residency difficulty for your husband.”

“So overnight we become Mr. and Mrs. Isaacs, in some part of America that we don't know. New bank accounts, new Social Security. Everything.”

“Yes,” said Ronan.

“I've explained all this,” said Franks, beside her. “Every bit of it.”

“What about the staff at Scarsdale?” said Tina, ignoring Franks. “What about Elizabeth?”

“Elizabeth?” frowned Ronan.

“She's been with the children since they were born; she is practically part of the household.”

“You must understand something, Mrs. Franks,” said Berenson. He was an angular, sharp-boned man with a pronounced southern accent. “The object of the program—the entire point of it—
is
protection. Which means cutting links absolutely.”

“You're telling me that we'd have to get rid of Elizabeth? Dismiss her after all these years?”

“I'm saying that would be the safest thing to do,” said Berenson. “I'm aware from conversations with Mr. Waldo and Mr. Ronan of arrangements your husband has made in Switzerland. Had I been asked before they were made, I would have advised against them, secure and privileged though I understand those arrangements to be. I would have thought your brother's death would have been proof enough of the determination of these people. If that isn't, then surely what's happened to the cruise liner and to the hotels in Europe is warning enough.”

“What
is
that warning?” said the woman. “Spell it out for me.”

Berenson looked awkwardly at the district attorney and then at Waldo, as if he were seeking some support. Then he said, “It's a very simple warning, Mrs. Franks Either your husband—and to a much lesser extent you yourself—withdraws from this case or they will destroy you, one way or another.”

“My father is very ill,” said Tina. “My mother is absolutely dependent upon him. At the moment I'm spending as much time with him as possible. How often, after I become Mrs. Isaacs, would I be able to visit him?”

“It would be extremely difficult,” said Ronan, coming in to relieve the pressure on Berenson.

“How
often?”
demanded Tina.

“Not at all, for a long time,” said Berenson. “A very long time. These people will be aware of what's happened to your father. It would be an obvious place to concentrate, to trace you and your husband through some contact.”

“Are you telling me
never?”

“I said a very long time, Mrs. Franks.”

Tina turned away from the angular man, toward the bulging Waldo. “You're familiar with the scheme?” she said. “Been involved in actual cases of protection?”

“Yes, ma'am,” said Waldo cautiously.

“Were kids involved?”

“Once.”

“How old?”

“It was a boy. He was about nine, I guess.”

“Like David then?”

“About the same,” agreed the FBI man.

“So tell me how it's done,” seized the woman. “Tell me how you get a nine-year-old boy and explain it all to him. Explain it so that he doesn't think his mother has gone out of her mind and start telling it to anyone who'll listen as a joke. Tell me how you do that without creating some kind of mental disturbance?”

Always her objection, from the very first, remembered Franks. Had she ever intended to go along with it? Or hadn't she believed him when he'd tried to explain to her what it would be like?

“I agree it won't be easy,” said Ronan, coming to the rescue again.

Tina turned to the district attorney. “Easy! You got any kids, Mr. Ronan?”

The man nodded, shifting in his chair under the attack. “Two boys and a girl.”

“Do you think you could do it?” said Tina. “You think you could convince them to take a new name and a new home and a new school and never tell the other kids what they'd done or where they'd been before? Make them understand they'll never again see their grandparents or anyone else that they've known, apart from their parents who have a new name as well?”

“I've agreed it won't be easy,” said the lawyer.

“That's trite and you know it, Mr. Ronan,” said Tina. “I'd say it would be impossible. Maybe some people enter this program and it works for them; maybe they've got funny minds and funny kids. I don't think it will work for me. Or the children.”

Ronan came anxiously forward in his chair. “Mrs. Franks,” he said, still gentle-voiced, “you're established now as a state witness in a case about to come to trial. You're pledged to cooperate. The alternative would be for me to subpoena you. I don't want to call you before the court as a hostile witness.”