A Clear and Present Danger Read online

  Slayton decided to take his time with this assailant, reasoning that the appearance of a hard struggle might end his test all the sooner. He knew it would be no contest. Slayton could have disarmed the man with a single swift chop from a foot or hand.

  The Frenchman lunged in close to Slayton, slashing toward his midsection. Slayton sucked his stomach in, allowing only a rip in his shirt.

  As the Frenchman’s arm moved away, Slayton lurched, catching the tip of his knife against the top of the Frenchman’s right forearm, opening a gash.

  The Frenchman stepped back and licked at his wound, an evil threat forming in his eyes. He danced back and forth, parrying in and out, trying to open cuts in Slayton.

  With lightning speed, Slayton again caught the Frenchman on the rebound, this time opening a wound on his chest. The Frenchman now flew at him in a berserk rage. It was what Slayton had known would come; he knew he must end the fight.

  Slayton sidestepped the bull rush of the Frenchman. With his free hand, Slayton caught him full in the stomach. His opposite elbow then slammed down hard on the back of his attacker’s head. He heard the Frenchman’s throat fill with blood as he fell to the ground.

  Slayton was on top of him quickly. He pulled the Frenchman’s knife away from him and flung it over the edge of the plain. Then he held his own blade across the Frenchman’s throat, ordered him to stand, and marched him back to his starting point.

  After releasing this third vanquished man, Slayton broke through the line and confronted the older man smoking the black cigarette.

  Slayton paid no attention to Sigrid, though she stood next to the man who clearly was the leader, by dint of his age and bearing.

  The leader nodded at Slayton, approvingly, but said nothing.

  Slayton stunned him by saying, “I have the privilege of speaking to the Wolf?”

  Fifteen

  ANDORRA

  Yes, he looked like the image of the grainy photographs he had seen in Winship’s office, magnified photographs of the man, never identified, who was in Dealey Plaza, in Dallas, in November of 1963. But Slayton couldn’t be absolutely sure. He also looked like quite a changeling.

  He was of medium height, just under six feet. A man of middle years, perhaps nearing fifty-five. His age was the most difficult to detect. His physique was that of a twenty-five-year-old athlete, though his eyes had seen much of the world’s horrors, too much for an athlete of twenty-five.

  His hair was close-cropped, and he was clean-shaven. A thin line of scar tissue ran from the tip of his chin down under his jaw toward his throat. The memento of an old bit of combat, perhaps on the occasion of running across some band of murderous Bedouins while trekking across the breathless hamada—desert as hard-packed as superheated concrete, a place for devils to battle.

  And this man was very clearly a devil. He had not a scrap of humanity in his expression. It was the look of a relaxed jackal, his appetite for flesh quelled, for the moment.

  He wore the old Legionnaire uniform, his kepi gleaming white atop the black leather brim, red-fringed epaulets squaring off his shoulders. Above a small row of military decorations worn over his heart was the round shield of the Légion Etrangère. Slayton read the words, emblematic slogan of the French Foreign Legion: Legio Patria Nostra—the Legion is Our Fatherland.

  Slayton knew full well, of course, that this was no authorized encampment of the Foreign Legion. He knew this was the lair of the Wolf, the international outlaw and renegade Legionnaire.

  He would let the Wolf explain himself, however. He would bide his time, waiting until he knew how to end his menace. Or if he could end it. In his distinct favor was the fact that the Wolf had not the slightest idea who Ben Slayton was. Nor did he care. Evidently, he was interested these days in assembling his notion of what the modern-day Légion Etrangère should be, a force for reforming the world in the image of its self-proclaimed leader.

  “Monsieur, will you kindly join me. Inside.” The Wolf pushed open a small door at the side of one of the castle columns, and Slayton followed.

  When he was seated, the Wolf spoke again to Slayton. who sat opposite him at a round wooden table at the center of a small room that had been fashioned into a wine cellar of sorts.

  “It is early yet, but I wish to drink to your bravery even now at this hour,” the Wolf said. An aide who looked to be Khmer appeared with a bottle and two goblets, which he set down between the two men.

  When the bottle was uncorked, the Wolf spoke.

  “An appellation contrôllée red called Réserve Legion Etrangère. Ha! These Legionnaires today. They all live at the home near Aix-en-Provence and they work on pottery. They make ashtrays in the form of the kepi, yes? And when they die, there are the funerals in the Legion’s cemetery, full of lights and cypress trees at the edge of Mont-Sainte-Victoire. Ha!”

  “The cemetery,” Slayton said. “It was a favorite subject of Cézanne, was it not?”

  “So, you are not merely a man who is good with his hands and feet. You are educated. You know of Cézanne.”

  “I know of many things. I don’t know why I am here and I expect you’re going to tell me. Now, please.”

  The Wolf chuckled and poured the wine. He tasted his, allowing it to roll about his tongue before swallowing.

  Then the Wolf’s eyes narrowed.

  “I am a man who looks at your face,” the Wolf said, his voice a cold grating sound, “and I decide what your name is to be. We are men who need new names. We have trouble with our old ones, our real ones. We have problems in our pasts we would rather forget, or at least rather not talk about.

  “That is the way it is here. That is the way it was, in the old days of the Legion. Not today. The old ways are practiced only here, under my command.

  “I select my men on the basis of their technical abilities today as well as their abilities at hand-to-hand, yes? You passed the first test. Now, what have you to offer me in the way of technical ability? You are an educated man.”

  “Tell me first why I should offer you anything.”

  “It is your choice, of course. You may offer me some thing or you may die. Your hands and your feet are not so fast as the bullet.”

  Slayton stalled, sipping at his wine slowly, infuriating the Wolf, whom he knew to be an irritable, impatient man; dangerous, to be sure, but weak where Slayton was strong.

  “Speak to me!” the Wolf finally blurted.

  Slayton grinned.

  “You failed once before because of that temper,” he said to the Wolf. “But only once. You have since carried out your work well.”

  The Wolf’s face turned to stone. “Please tell me more,” he said.

  “You were part of an elite band of Legionnaires and you attempted a coup d’etat against Charles DeGaulle. You and your men, traitors to France, were marched out of your headquarters at Sidi bel Abbès in Algeria by the French authorities. You were to be imprisoned at Devil’s Island.

  “As you were marched out, on your way to a life in prison, you and your men burst into defiant song.”

  The color rose in the Wolf’s cheeks. Slayton watched him react. The Wolf regarded his captive with new respect. How had this American drifter learned of his-background?

  “It was I,” said the Wolf, “who led the singing. It was, of course, the song of the little sparrow, Piaf—‘Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien.’

  “Did you know it was I who began it?”

  “Not until now,” Slayton said, “though it isn’t as important as the fact that you were the only man to have escaped the Devil’s Island punishment.”

  “I killed my guards with my bare hands,” the Wolf said. “Today, I might be able to do the same. I don’t know.

  “Tell me, how is it you know of my history?”

  “I listen carefully. I know of the legend. In the city of Andorra, I connected the legend to a name. Simply the ‘Wolf.’ Tell me who you are.”

  Slayton correctly estimated the Wolf for a talkative man when the su
bject came to himself. What man wasn’t, who held control of a private army?

  “My life was something of the tragedy of the little sparrow herself. When my father left us—that was when we lived in Marseilles—there was illness and there were accidents that cost us what little money we had. My mother became alcoholic, I had a brother who stupidly was drawn into heroin use; he even had me using it for a time. Until I killed him.

  “When that happened, I had to run. I had to live on the road, by my wits and little else.”

  “And of course, you discovered the Legion,” Slayton said.

  “Of course. Living on the run is living life on the seedy outer circle. It is living life without fascination, without interest in anything beyond the merest survival. Life is a flaccid world for a man who runs from his past. The Legion is the perfect answer, the perfect chance for new life, protected from an accountability to classic stupidities of one’s youth.

  “The Legion will save a man from many sorts of despair, my friend; the Legion will return a man’s pride. Or, I should say, it did.

  “We live now in a world of nations run by puny little runts instead of men. We live in a time when these whippets tell us that our national glories are no longer worthy, that we must as national policy recognize ‘rights,’ so-called, of inferior peoples.”

  “And is that why,” asked Slayton, “you attempted to assassinate DeGaulle? Because he had presided over the independence of Algeria? Because he signed the cease-fire in 1962?”

  “Yes. You are also correct as concerns my temper. I was discovered, you see, because my temper was so out of control that I spoke of my desire to murder DeGaulle, the man who would let Algeria go.”

  “But you never made that mistake again?”

  “Never. If a man knows my mind and I think he may be dangerous to me by that knowledge, I kill him.”

  “You could keep your own counsel.”

  “It pleases me to kill.” The Wolf let an evil smile play across his face. “And a man should not keep his feelings pent up inside him, do you not agree?”

  “Would you care to get something more off your chest?” Slayton asked. “How do you manage to sustain this little army of yours?”

  “I can tell you. Why not? You will either join with me or you will die, after all.”

  Slayton was quite sure he spoke sincerely.

  “Cigarette?” The Wolf extended his pack of black Tunisians. Slayton declined.

  “We have friends,” the Wolf said, blowing a puff of the acrid smoke across the table. “Friends from the old Legion. These are men who have left to become important businessmen. Not only in France. In many countries of the world, including your own United States, my young friend.

  “Our friends have certain mutual interests, a certain philosophy we here share. A philosophy of glory, of the survival of the fittest.”

  “And you oppose those who stand in the way of your philosophies?”

  “Naturally. We are the Legion of old. We are kept as the old Legion was kept. For those times when armies need to be dispatched to deal with irritations without any great moral warfare on the home from. Do you understand?”

  “Murder, Incorporated.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “An Americanism. Forget it. Go on, please.”

  “You said ‘murder.’”

  “Do you deny murdering people?”

  “I do not deny killing weaklings or those who would allow the rule of weaklings. But you must know something about what you call ‘murder,’ young man. You must understand that there are interesting and instructive distinctions between killing and murder.

  “We’re taught that the Commandment of Moses—I don’t know which one—reads, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ But in fact, the literal translation from the Hebrew reads, ‘Thou shalt not do “murder.”’

  “There is, you see, a point in law that further distinguishes. We call this homicide justifiable and that homicide unjustifiable. In Latin, it is malum in se, evil in itself, as opposed to malum prohibitum, something that is wrong only because there is a law against it.”

  Slayton’s head was spinning. He heard what the Wolf had to say, understood it, but knew he was face to face with the most dangerous sort of man, a charismatic maniac. He knew Winship was very probably correct in his assumption that the Wolf was associated in some ugly way with those rogues of the C.I.A. who could easily be implicated in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. In fact, the Wolf was probably the assassin who got away, leaving Lee Harvey Oswald to take the full punishment. After all, it was only a year earlier that he attempted the DeGaulle assassination.

  His talk of murder versus killing, his overblown attempts at rationalizing his own monstrosity, and his obvious support from a variety of men who were fascists in their own way added up to a certainty in Slayton’s mind: the Wolf had been responsible for orchestrating the deaths of two members of the U.S. Congress and the attempt on the life of Vice President Bush.

  There had been signs for years that someone among the world’s terrorists would make some effort to unify guerrilla fighters the world over. It was the obvious future of warfare, short of nuclear holocaust. A beast no longer had the need of a huge standing army. He would need only a loyal group of fanatical brutes, willing to share in his booty, willing to live the life of a rich outlaw gangster, feeding off the voluntary or involuntary support of shortsighted industrialists and politicians. It was precisely how Adolf Hitler had organized himself.

  “Sir,” Slayton said, as the Wolf lit up another black Tunisian, “I am at your command.”

  The Wolf nodded.

  “Of course you are. one way or another. But you still have not told me what you have to offer to me. We are all specialists here, you know.”

  “I offer you a working knowledge of military aircraft, you have seen that I am able to take down any of your men—”

  “You are not who you seem to be!” the Wolf shouted, his fist slamming down to the table. “I will find out who you are.”

  Slayton felt the blood run cold in his veins.

  Sixteen

  ANDORRA

  “Who is this American?”

  Anthony asked it of Sigrid as they drove slowly down the narrow road from the castle into the city. She shifted into the lowest gear, easing the Maserati through a series of ruts.

  “An interesting possibility.”

  “Did you sleep with him?”

  She took her eyes off the road, a path, actually, made by some ancient herd of goats, and glared at him.

  “If you dare say a word of your filthy suspicions—”

  “You can’t threaten me. If I was to say anything, you know he would kill you.”

  She looked away, back to the road, angrily.

  “Do you remember Turin, my little fraulein?”

  She refused to speak to him.

  “Are you too overcome with tender memories, my dear? The memory of our little stop along the way? The inn outside of Trieste?”

  She reached the highway and then turned to him, her voice loud and threatening.

  “I never should have let that happen. You’re a swine, Anthony. I tell you, I will find some way of getting rid of you. You don’t have much reason to be smug.”

  Anthony laughed at her.

  “Just get us to the bank, Sigrid. We’ll finish our business as soon as we can and then… who knows? Maybe we’ll have time for a noon-time rest before we have to head back.”

  The Wolf was without benefit of aides or guards. It was only he and Slayton, seated now in the Wolf’s study. The Wolf had, however, a .45-caliber revolver pointed at Slay-ton’s heart.

  “Now, let me say this just once more,” the Wolf said. “I find it hard to believe you’re an itinerant television crate maker. Your talk is good. You’re an educated man, both by the book and by the street. Someone taught you well. If you’re an American government agent, be assured that I shall soon know. I have certain connections there.”

  “C
.I.A.?” Slayton chanced.

  The Wolf said nothing.

  “Sure. You’re C.I.A. Lots of people back home wonder if the Company is ever going to be on our side, which is a good question. Look, I’m telling you the truth. I’m not anybody’s agent. And I withdraw my offer to fall in with you. I think you’re stark, raving mad.”

  The Wolf stood up and walked to where Slayton sat. He clouted him on the side of the face with his revolver, then stepped quickly back. The Wolf had seen Slayton’s speed, and was afraid of being overpowered.

  “Listen, cockroach,” the Wolf said, “I’ll know soon enough. I have a man here with C.I.A. background. Yes. He’ll have a look at you and then we’ll see.”

  If it were true, Slayton knew his life wasn’t worth anything. He quickly calculated that the Wolf’s man must be the man who had poisoned Senator Samuels. It was one thing to fool a man like the Wolf, whose vanity and megalomania could be used against him; it was quite another to fool someone trained by the C.I.A. A spook was sure to spot him.

  “And if I clear your next hurdle, what then? Am I taken into the club here? Or will you make some further claim against me? Can’t you just accept the fact that I’m an overeducated, burned-out old hippie Vietnam vet? I mean, that could be a fair candidate for the Legion.”

  The Wolf considered his argument. It had a sensible ring to it. That he couldn’t deny.

  “We’ll wait here and we’ll see,” the Wolf said, glancing at his wristwatch. He lit another black Tunisian.

  “Yes, we shall see. Meanwhile, tell me more about your plans to… what did you say you were going to do with your friends out there?”

  “We’re building a new order,” the Wolf said. “A new order of valorous men. And women. We will assist those who should be running the world’s important nations.”

  “How exactly would you accomplish this?”

  “By demonstrating our capabilities, of course. Already, my friend, we have made impressive strikes. The country we are most interested in—yours, namely—has been shocked to its foundations.”