To Save a Son (49 page)

He only had one drink at the bar and refused anything in-flight, reflecting how his drinking had diminished since he'd been with Maria despite the continuing pressure. She was a wonderful woman, he decided. More than he—more than any man—could expect.

The flight landed at Kennedy, and Franks thought again how much more sensible the arrival there was this time than the last occasion when he'd arrived in the middle of an FBI crowd. The only concession to security was their clearance, so they emerged out of the Eastern terminal ahead of the other passengers on the flight.

The car was waiting, a discreet black Ford between two other Fords, equally undistinguished. Franks hesitated, waiting for some indication of which vehicle he was expected to ride in, but the black car was the obvious choice and so he made toward it. The first bullet caught him when he neared the rear door. It took away half his skull and part of his brain, so he was already dying. But so efficient was the hit that the second killer, positioned in another part of the parking lot to ensure that Franks was caught in the crossfire, got one Armelite shell into Franks' chest, caving the left lung. Another chipped his right shoulder and took away part of his arm before he fell. He was dead before he struck the ground, and because the first wound was to the head—and brain—he felt nothing.

Epilogue

There was so much evidence that a separate conference table had been moved into Ronan's office to accommodate it, and the district attorney stood over it like a miser gloating over his hoard.

“Never,” he said disbelievingly. “Never have I seen anything like it.” He turned to Waldo, who was at his shoulder. “Who would have thought that an ordinary security filming of Franks' arrival at Kennedy would have actually recorded the assassination in such a way that the identification of the killers was so easy!”

“That was part of the security,” reminded the FBI official.

There were still pictures as well, taken after the arrests at Kennedy, and attached to them were other police photographs from previous arrests. Ronan picked up the shots of the two men, gazing down at them. “Joey Aranozza and John Hanna,” he said, reading the captions as if for the first time. He looked again to Waldo. “They're not talking, of course?”

The fat man shook his head. “Not a word. They're professionals, from St. Louis. Never expected them to.”

“We don't need confessions,” said the district attorney. He leaned toward the records upon which were stored the results of all the wire tapping that the FBI had carried out since the Dukes and Pascara convictions, choosing what he wanted to hear. He depressed the tape and smiled, waiting in anticipation.

“Poppa wants it,”
said a voice.
“Poppa says he wants Franks hit and I should ask your help. I want the best, Mr. Flamini; no mistakes.”

“There've already been too many mistakes, Luigi,”
replied Flamini.
“Use Aranozza. And Hanna. I'll fix it. They'll blow the bastard away and settle the problem, once and for all.”

“I appreciate it, Mr. Flamini. I'm spreading the word throughout the families. There isn't a state in the union that doesn't have people looking for him.”

“I'll do what I can there, as well. Talk to people. Don't worry; we'll find him, soon enough.”

“My father's an old man; an old, blind man. I don't want him in prison like that
.”

“He won't be,”
promised Flamini.
“Without Franks, they haven't got anything.”

Ronan switched off the tape and said, “Who needs confessions, with that! It's all there. Everything.” He patted Waldo on the shoulder. “It was a brilliant idea, to put wires on everyone directly after the verdicts. I'm glad you persuaded me to get the warrants.”

“This time it's secure, right?” said Schultz. “No escape, no not-guilty verdicts this time?”

Ronan stopped smiling. “John!” he said. “Believe me. This time they're going to go down for life. It's conspiracy to murder, and the evidence is incontestable. This time, definitely no escape. No not-guilty verdicts.”

From the district attorney's office Waldo and Schultz went across town, to a bar just off Forty-second Street. “My celebration,” announced Waldo, getting to the bar ahead of his partner. Schultz asked for bourbon and Waldo took the same, both doubles.

They touched glasses, and Waldo said, “You heard what the man said. No escape. No not-guilty verdicts.”

“I heard what he said,” agreed Schultz. “You got them, Harry. Every one of them.”

“That's what I said I would do,” reminded Waldo. “I said I'd get every one of the bastards. They escaped me once, and it looked like they might again, and I wasn't going to let that happen.”

“You sure it's safe?” asked Schultz, allowing the worry to show.

Waldo shook his head at his partner's concern, gesturing to the barman for refills. “Everyone knows how careless Franks was: never took the program seriously. Never
intended
to. He was planning to go back to Europe and we've got the telephone intercepts from the marshal's office to prove it, if we need them. Which we won't.…” Waldo accepted the new drinks. “You just heard Luigi Pascara say on the tape that everyone was on the lookout for him, for Christ's sake! And I was careful. I put so many people between myself and the Pascara family, suggesting Florida and then Tampa, that there's no way it could ever be traced back to me. And who wants to? Ronan's got his unbreakable case: why would he want that sort of inquiry?”

“I guess you're right,” said Schultz.

They drank in silence for several minutes, and then Waldo said, “And I was right about Franks, you know. He was as guilty as hell, just like the others. I said I could smell it, and I could with that bastard. I saw to it that Pascara and Flamini wouldn't beat me again, and I saw to it that Franks got his, in a different way.”

This time Schultz bought the drinks.

He raised his glass to the other man and said, “You did well, Harry. You wrapped it all up in one neat package.”

“That's what I always intended to do,” said Waldo.

A Biography of Brian Freemantle

Brian Freemantle (b. 1936) is one of Britain's most prolific and accomplished authors of spy fiction. His novels have sold more than ten million copies worldwide, and have been optioned for numerous film and television adaptations.

Born in Southampton, on the southern coast of England, Freemantle began his career as a journalist. In 1975, as the foreign editor at the
Daily Mail
, he made headlines during the American evacuation of Saigon: As the North Vietnamese closed in on the city, Freemantle became worried about the future of the city's orphans. He lobbied his superiors at the paper to take action, and they agreed to fund an evacuation for the children. In three days, Freemantle organized a thirty-six-hour helicopter airlift for ninety-nine children, who were transported to Britain. In a flash of dramatic inspiration, he changed nearly one hundred lives—and sold a bundle of newspapers.

Although he began writing espionage fiction in the late 1960s, he first won fame in 1977, with
Charlie M
. That book introduced the world to Charlie Muffin—a disheveled spy with a skill set more bureaucratic than Bond-like. The novel, which drew favorable comparisons to the work of John Le Carré, was a hit, and Freemantle began writing sequels. The sixth in the series,
The Blind Run
, was nominated for an Edgar Award for Best Novel. To date, Freemantle has penned fourteen titles in the Charlie Muffin series, the most recent of which is
Red Star Rising
(2010), which brought back the popular spy after a nine-year absence.

In addition to the stories of Charlie Muffin, Freemantle has written more than two dozen standalone novels, many of them under pseudonyms including Jonathan Evans and Andrea Hart. Freemantle's other series include two books about Sebastian Holmes, an illegitimate son of Sherlock Holmes, and the four Cowley and Danilov books, which were written in the years after the end of the Cold War and follow an odd pair of detectives—an FBI operative and the head of Russia's organized crime bureau.

Freemantle lives and works in London, England.

A school photograph of Brian Freemantle at age twelve.

Brian Freemantle, at age fourteen, with his mother, Violet, at the country estate of a family acquaintance, Major Mears.

Freemantle's parents, Harold and Violet Freemantle, at the country estate of Major Mears.

Brian Freemantle and his wife, Maureen, on their wedding day. They were married on December 8, 1956, in Southampton, where both were born and spent their childhoods. Although they attended the same schools, they did not meet until after they had both left Southampton.

Brian Freemantle (right) with photographer Bob Lowry in 1959. Freemantle and Lowry opened a branch office of the
Bristol Evening World
together in Trowbridge, in Wiltshire, England.