The Marchand Woman

“You’ve been busy. What else have you found?”

“We’re still about thirty bricks short of a full load but we’re getting there,” Crobey told him. “These two buddies who’ve been working for us on Carole’s payroll have talked to several of the National Guardsmen in that outfit. Not rat-pack types but other chaps in the same unit. It seems the first lieutenant in command of that particular platoon is one Emil Draga, age twenty-four, graduate of the University of Florida at Coral Gables.”

“The name sounds familiar.”

“The family name ought to. Try this on—Jorge Vandemeer Draga-Ruiz.”

“Ah. The boy’s father?”

“Grandfather. The old boy’s pushing ninety.”

Anders looked at Carole Marchand. She hadn’t spoken for a long time. Between the bucket seats her hand lay across Crobey’s; Anders marked that and drew its meaning. He said to her, “That could be the source of the police clout you were looking for.”

“I know.”

Carole Marchand said, “What if we asked him a few hard questions at the end of a gun?”

Anders smiled a little at her naïveté. “I’m sure that man’s guarded by a security system as heavy as a medieval baron’s moat. You’d never get within half a mile of him.”

“We could get him to come to us,” Crobey said.

“How?”

“Leave that aside a minute. The question is, if we get the old goat under a gun, do you go along with it or do you blow the whistle on us? He’s a powerful old bastard. He’s probably got four senators and a dozen congressmen in his pocket.”

“And that’s supposed to scare me off?”

“It’s the kind of thing that’ll cost you your job and your pension.”

“I doubt that. These old Cuban families aren’t that influential anymore. They’ve turned into White Russian emigrés—nobody pays that much attention to them.”

“Draga’s just a little bit different from most of them,” Crobey said. “To the tune of maybe three hundred million dollars.”

Anders kept glancing fitfully up the street toward the Mendez-Rodriguez house, reassuring himself that no one was going in or out. He said, “I’d be happier if we had better evidence the old man’s involved. Suppose we get him under a gun, as you say—suppose he turns out to be the wrong man? Suppose he doesn’t know anything about this business? We’ll have made ourselves an enemy strong enough to blast us out of Puerto Rico permanently. Then what happens to the hunt for Rodriguez?”

Carole Marchand said, “Harry and I are willing to take the chance. We believe Jorge Draga has got to be the power behind Rodriguez.”

“A minute ago you were accusing the CIA of jumping to conclusions on the basis of flimsy fragments.”

“All right, the shoe’s changed feet—we bought your reasoning. Why shouldn’t you buy ours?”

Anders picked at a ragged fingernail. Carole Marchand said, “You can get out of the car right now if you like. We’ll do this by ourselves if we have to. But we’re a little short of manpower and we could use your help. I thought, in view of what happened to Rosalia, you might be inclined to throw in with us.…”

The last of the day’s sunlight was creeping up toward the low roofs across the street. The two young baseball players had disappeared—gone inside for di

Crobey said, “The two blokes I’ve been using here are Cubans. They owe me favors and I’ve been collecting. But they hate Castro. I don’t think we ought to depend on them to help us do anything except collect information. I’m sure they won’t go up against Rodriguez in a firefight—there’s a limit to their obligations to me. They wouldn’t have strung along this far except that Carole’s paying them good money. What I’m doing is giving you the full picture. Odds against. There’s only the three of us, unless you can recruit people from the agency.”

“Not much chance of that. I couldn’t do it without O’Hillary getting wind of it.”

Carole Marchand said, “Then it’s just three of us. If you’re in.”

“And just two of you if I’m not. What happens then? How can you fight him by yourselves?”

Her reply was a defiant stare.

“I think you’re nuts.” He looked at Crobey. “She’s nuts. I never thought you were. What’s in this for you? I hope it’s enough to pay your funeral expenses.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve arranged to sell my body to science.”

“Come on, Harry. If I buy in, how do I know you won’t disappear when we need you?”

“I trust him,” Carole Marchand said.

“Sure—but you’re infatuated with him.”

It only made her smile, a reckless bawdy sort of grin. She was, he thought, a remarkably likable woman. Clearly she had captivated Crobey; and he found that to be an amazing thing.

Anders sighed out a long exasperated breath. His chin dropped toward his chest and he contemplated the veins in the backs of his hands. He made a few faces and glimpsed the tail ends of various rationalizations and in the end he said, “All right. How do we get our hands on Draga?”

Chapter 16

She felt cramped in the truck seat—too many hours of sitting. The night was muggy and the shirt was pasted to her; she felt unclean. She said, “What if someone has to pee?”

“You go in the bushes, ducks.”

The armory was a low pink stucco shoebox. A high chainlink fence enclosed a paved yard on which squatted two dark green tanks, their cleated treads glistening under the lights, and several trucks and Jeeps. Beyond the armory the road rolled away through open fields.

Anders, in the back seat, yawned audibly. It was the only sound any of them made until Carole shifted in her seat to ease her rump. They had run out of conversation more than an hour ago.

Harry seemed imperturbable but she’d detected signs of unease in Gle

Along both shoulders of the dusty road cars were parked—she’d counted forty-odd. Crobey had told her to ignore the rest, they were only interested in one of them. Nobody intended to start a fight with the entire platoon.

She felt conflicting pulls toward Anders. There was an urge to comfort him; but something else held her back—a lingering distrust. He was one of them, the apparatchiks. She dealt with his kind all the time: the people who ran the studios. A movie executive was a sorry creature whose guiding principle was fear: “Let’s take another meeting. We want to keep our options open.” Things were stalled forever by their dithering. And in the end the decision usually was negative; very few heads of production had ever been fired for turning down a project. It was always safer to say no. Soon Anders might begin to remember he was an organization man. He had never altogether forgotten it: I’d be happier if we had better evidence.…

Harry’s hand dropped casually upon her shoulder and she tipped her cheek against his knuckles, wondering what would become of them.

There was a plan of sorts—she wasn’t sure she had faith in it. The first step was to isolate the old tycoon and force information out of him. That was dicey, as Harry put it. But if they could pry the location of Rodriguez’s hiding place out of the old man then they would keep the old man on ice while they made their way to what Harry with a straight face had designated as the Bad Guy’s Hideout.

The weapon of Harry’s choice was gas and they’d spent nearly twenty-four hours and the major part of Carole’s cash to obtain cartons of Mace canisters, tear-gas grenades and the military handcuffs that now crowded the rear compartment of the Bronco beside Anders’ seat. Ballistic arms were there as well—the light automatic guns Harry had been disassembling in Santana’s house—but if they had to resort to those they would fail. The guns were only for defense: to cover a ru

She stirred, lifted Harry’s hand off her shoulder and tried to read the luminous dial of his diver’s watch. “How much longer, for God’s sake?”