Dead Bishops Don't Lie, page 1
DEAD BISHOPS DON’T LIE
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André K. Baby
Although this novel makes references to certain historical facts, such as the unresolved death of so-called “God's banker” Roberto Calvi and the existence of the ultra-right-wing organization called “Gladio”, its content is entirely fictitious.
Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to events or geographical locales, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. Copyright 2012 by André K. Baby
To Louise
Prologue
March 6, 2005, 2:17 a.m. Saas Fee, Switzerland.
The dry snow squeaked under Vasiliev’s heavily burdened boots. It reminded him of Irkutsk. Sweat stung the corners of his eyes and trickled down his unshaven cheeks. His thick sealskin coat hindered his grip, and Vasiliev felt the man’s limp body begin to slip from his shoulder.
“How much further?” said Vasiliev.
“Up a bit, past the Hotel Bristol,” replied Kurganski, his voice strained.
Once more Vasiliev shrugged, strengthening his hold on the arm draped behind his neck.
As they crossed the town’s small plaza, shouldering the unconscious priest between them, someone emerged from the darkness.
“Let me talk,” whispered Kurganski.
“Gruetzi,” said the man in Swiss-German.
“Ja, hallo,” grumbled Kurganski, staggering like a drunk.
“Good party, ja?”
“Jawohl, now time to go home.”
“Need some help?”
“No, we’re fine,” said Kurganski.
“Sure?”
“Ja.” Kurganski straightened to his imposing height, his bulky fur coat adding pounds to his solid frame. After a moment’s hesitation, the man turned away and disappeared into the night.
“He saw your face,” said Vasiliev.
“No way. I can barely see yours.”
“I…Let’s leave him here. In this cold, he’ll be dead by morning.”
“And if he isn’t?”
Vasiliev didn’t reply. There was no reply. The contract was clear: deliver and terminate. Before he dies, he must suffer. Again, he strengthened his grip on the priest’s limp arm and they pressed on.
“Almost there,” said Kurganski.
Moments later, they stopped before the metal door of the Alpine Express cable car’s entrance and put Salvador down. Vasiliev reached into his pocket and took out the passkey, as Kurganski shone the flashlight onto the door’s lock. His hand shaking, Vasiliev inserted the passkey and tried to turn it. The key didn’t budge. He jiggled it. Nothing. He removed it and tried again. “I’m sure…It’s got to…”
“Here. Let me try,” said Kurganski, handing Vasiliev the small LED light. “There.” The lock clicked open.
Behind them, Salvador started to moan.
“Quick. Get the Desflurane,” said Kurganski.
Vasiliev took out the small bottle from his pocket, opened it, and put it to the priest’s nostrils. Salvador fell unconscious again.
Slowly, they dragged Salvador up the staircase onto the platform of the Telebenne’s landing area. In the darkness, Vasiliev could just make out a red cable car, its door ajar. They stopped and set Salvador down on the concrete floor, as Vasiliev tried to catch his breath.
“Get the rope,” said Kurganski.
“Give me a second. What’s the rush?”
“And have him come to again?”
Vasiliev groped his way to the far wall and took the coiled safety rope off its hook. Suddenly, he heard a loud metal clang and spun around.
“Damn,” said Kurganski, clumsily picking up the long ladder and carrying it to the edge of the concrete platform. He raised the ladder and rested it onto the thick metal cable. “There. Now we strip him.”
They kneeled down and began removing Salvador’s parka, when suddenly the priest struggled to free himself.
“Shit,” Kurganski shouted.
As Vasiliev stared, too startled to move, Kurganski pinned Salvador down onto the floor and grabbed his wrists.
“Relax priest, you’re going nowhere,” he said. Releasing Salvador’s left wrist, Kurganski punched him hard in the face once, twice, three times. Two uppercuts to the chin and Salvador lay still, eyes rolled back. “There. That’s better,” said Kurganski as he got up, rubbing his sore fist. He eyed Vasiliev. “Thanks for the help. Give me the rope.”
“Sorry, I…I didn’t…”
“Give.”
Kurganski tied the rope tightly around Salvador’s bare chest and threw the loose end around the cable near the ladder. They pulled him up until his head reached the cable, then secured the rope to the walkway’s metal railing.
“Now the knife,” Kurganski said.
Vasiliev groped in his coat pocket and took out a short, sheathed knife.
“The plaque.”
Vasiliev took out the small wooden plaque, a small cord tied to both ends.
Kurganski grabbed it and up looked towards Salvador, dangling helplessly from the cable. “Now priest, time’s up.”
Chapter 1
The day before.
One doesn’t go to Saas Fee to be seen. No chinchilla-clad mistresses or resculpted wives parade their apparel of dead animals for the rich to assess and the not-so-rich to envy. In the village, no Mercedes, Maseratis or Jaguars prowl the streets. All are abandoned anonymously in the tiered parking lot at the village’s entrance. In fact, Saas Fee allows no cars at all. The rich, unless they’ve reserved the rare electric cart, humbly schlep their luggage through the streets along with the riff-raff, clerks, and car salesmen. In this quiet village tucked between Switzerland’s highest peaks there is no Ritz, no Sofitel, not even a Condotel. Instead, visitors stay in cozy pensions and villas, whose gently sloping roofs and wooden verandas blend gracefully into the surrounding foothills, where the owner makes you breakfast, teaches you to ski and, at night, drinks you into oblivion. Here, action rings louder than money: hikers hike, climbers climb, skiers ski, hard. No Versace, Louis Vuitton, Cartier, or Gucci. For those feeling the deprivation too painfully, there’s always Saint Mo’s, Crans-Montana or Gstaad. Nearer, Saas Fee’s wealthy neighbor, Zermatt, glistens with the sparkle of the diamond-clad Van Cleef and Arpells set.
Saas Fee feels genuine. Like Portofino did years ago, before the mega- rich decided to drop anchor one day and never left. Now, one can’t see the village for the yachts.
No, one does not come to Saas Fee to be seen. In Saas Fee, one comes to do. In Saas Fee, some come to kill.
* * *
It was one of those warm, late-winter days when time, the hastener of life, should slow. Karen stood on the small flat, watching the cumulus clouds race their shadows down the slopes of the Langfluh. She glanced across the valley to the sharp, beak-nosed Nellig, spreading its white robes against the mantle of blue.
Suddenly, the sound of a skier whooshing past dangerously close shattered her reverie. Jerk. Couldn’t you come any closer?
With a small ankle movement, Karen released her edges and pointed her skis downwards. As she gathered speed, a rush of adrenalin shot up her spine. You’re out of shape, stay in control. There’s a long way to go. She carved smooth, long turns into the dry, fast snow, still accelerating. More bite on the edges. Her thighs burned with lactic acid buildup. She had to stop. She made a wide, arcing turn and stopped at the edge of the cliff-like pitch. Below, a forbidding, mogul-infested run and its waves of ice stood between her and the welcoming safety of the far away village.
She hated moguls. One missed turn, one caught edge and those moguls would launch her into freefall, maybe a hospital bed. The painful memory of her accident resurfaced briefly. Her doctor told her she would never ski again, but six months of physiotherapy and unrelenting resolve had proven him wrong. Karen felt the nerves in her forearms tingle and the cramps of fear seize her stomach. She breathed forcefully, trying to relax, digging deep for that small dose of courage necessary to continue.
This is nuts.
Karen turned, searching for options. A few yards above her, to the right, a faded green signpost offered salvation: “Spielboden, 1.5 km.” Green meant beginner. She could swallow her pride, take an immediate right and ski a long, monotonous run to the Spielboden restaurant, half way to the village.
She started down the beginners’ trail, welcoming the relief of the battle averted. Soon she was weaving from side to side, making small, sharp turns to check her speed. The fear eased, but not the throbbing in her thighs. By the time she reached the restaurant, her cramped legs had locked. Her heavy, booted feet barely managed the four steps to the restaurant’s door. Entering the large, circular room, she forced herself into the jostle of the long lunch queue, the loud clunking of ski boots punctuating the idle chatter of the young, impatient crowd. Younger and more impatient than three years ago, she thought. The place reeked of cigarette smoke and sweat. She made her way out to the terrace, slumped into the angled chair, and bit into the dry, tasteless ham sandwich. Before her, the grandeur of the massive Allalin, Feekopf, and Alphubel filled the expanse, helping her forget briefly her aching legs. I’ll never learn. I have to start slowly. I have a whole week. Why kill myself now? A couple of espressos later, she took the lift down to the village, too tired to feel embarrassed.
* * *
The followin
After a quick breakfast, anxious to enjoy that first crowd-free run, Karen grabbed her rented skis and headed for the Alpine Express base station. As she walked past the small Romanesque church in the town’s plaza, she crossed herself discreetly. She was approaching the entrance of the base station when the sudden wail of an ambulance shattered the morning’s fragile silence. Karen started up the entrance steps, her pulse quickening with eagerness and excitement. Strange, no lineup for once. At the top, on the concrete landing, a handful of skiers had gathered and were staring at an object that appeared to be attached to the Telebenne’s cable. Karen approached, curious.
Then it hit her. The ‘object’ was a man, hanging from the cable in the shape of a cross, bound at his wrists and arms, naked except for a piece of dark cloth around his waist, his mouth gagged with tape. His legs were tied, and as she walked closer, she could see his face, eyes imploring, frozen in agony. His black hair was ruffled, and a small icicle hung from his nose. On his right side, a slanted gash pierced his translucent grey skin. Blood had run down his torso and leg onto the concrete below. Something hung from his neck, too small to be identified.
Karen went numb. She looked at the other skiers, her glance questioning. Surely this isn’t, can’t be real? People aren’t murdered in Saas Fee? The air of sadness mixed with the morbid curiosity of the man beside her confirmed the opposite. She tried to turn away, but couldn’t.
“Is he…?”
“Ja. Dead,” the man answered, almost mechanically.
She crossed herself. “God…Who…?”
The man didn’t answer. Two ski-patrollers closed off the area with metal gates, pushing back curious onlookers. A Japanese skier taking a video brushed past her, describing the macabre scene in a muted voice.
Karen shuddered. She felt dizzy. She dropped her skis and sat on the concrete floor. She willed herself not to be sick. Minutes later, two policemen carrying a ladder hurried by and set it onto the cable, next to the dead man’s body.
“Everybody out. The Telebenne is closed,” shouted one of them, waving the skiers down the steps.
Karen got up, felt her knees weaken, and grabbed the metal railing. No way I’m skiing today. Despondent, half dazed, she started trudging back to the hotel, skis on her shoulder. She barely noticed two drably dressed men, one in a sealskin coat, tugging their suitcases through the narrow cobblestone street. As the horror and sadness of the moment sank in, that special thrill of linking those smooth turns quickly faded into irrelevance. Instead, Karen felt the dull weight of a man’s cruel death pressing on the hedonistic bubble of her surroundings, bursting it. For Karen Dawson, Saas Fee’s magic had ceased to exist.
* * *
Back at the hotel, Karen tried to read, but the sight of the distorted corpse kept creeping back. She had to talk to someone. Still too early to call her mother in Vermont and the hotel bar wouldn’t open until noon. An hour later, she walked downstairs to the small dining room, decorated in Swiss pastoral, where Frau Graf was already setting the tables for lunch.
“Have you heard what happened at the cable car?” asked Karen.
“Ja,” answered Frau Graf mechanically, avoiding Karen’s gaze and focusing on the setting of the dinnerware.
“Who was he?”
Frau Graf raised a shoulder in reply and continued her work.
Murder must be bad for business, thought Karen “Have a great day,” she said, walking out in disgust.
Chapter 2
Chief Inspector François Besse of Sion’s cantonal police force had been called to the scene early that morning by one of Saas Fee’s gendarmes, a retired ski guide affectionately known to the villagers as Willi. Besse’s weekly trip from Sion to Saas Fee usually took the better part of an hour. He would drive along the valley floor and slowly witness the daunting 4000 metre peaks invade his horizon .By the time he’d reached the village, the mountains had encircled and trapped him inside a wall of granite and feldspar.
François Besse was from Geneva, where the far-away mountains were decorative, not threatening. From the beginning of his assignment at Sion, he’d noticed the stern, worried look of Saas Fee’s villagers. When they spoke, they often looked up at the peaks, not in admiration but in fear, as if to make sure the mountains hadn’t suddenly decided to crush them. On August 16, 1965, the mountains had so decided, and hurled 2000 tons of snow and ice at the villagers below. Twenty-two had died, instantly entombed in their houses of wood and brick. The mountains had exacted a heavy toll for continuous trespass.
Today, Besse threw the little Opel from side to side, swerving, passing, darting in and out of cars at double the speed limit, all to that pathetic “pin-pon” of its siren. He made it in thirty-five minutes.
* * *
At the base station, the body lay covered on a first-aid toboggan. Besse approached, and Willi gave him a small plaque, the one that had hung from the man’s neck. It read: The Lion is dead, the Dragon is wounded.
“Gruetzi, Willi. Terrible business, this. Who was he?” said Besse, looking quizzically at the plaque.
“Gruetzi, Inspector. I’m not sure, but a woman said it was the bishop staying at the Hotel Tenne. She says she and her husband had breakfast with him two days ago.”
Besse’s relaxed gait, longish hair, and thin lips under large and inquisitive eyes suggested any profession except the constabulary. He looked permanently startled. However his brown leather, thigh-length jacket, belted loosely below his former waist, and his blue and brown bow tie strangling an oversize bull neck, helped impose the authority required by his function.
Besse instructed the policeman to photograph the dead man, and as they walked briskly to the hotel, Besse began feeling increasingly nervous. Pickpockets, ski thieves, and drunks were his daily fare. He’d never headed a homicide case. His methodical mind raced, sifting to find Procedure - murder.
“Gruetzi, Phillipe. Do you have a priest or a bishop staying here?” Besse asked the hotelier, who was busy drying the orange juice glasses.
“Ja, Inspector, we have Archbishop Salvador and his chauffeur. Rooms twelve and fourteen. The archbishop is in twelve and…”
“Is this the man?” said Besse, showing the hotelier the picture.
The hotelier froze, stared silently at Besse and nodded, his mouth slack.
Besse and Willi rushed upstairs. Willi pounded on room fourteen’s oak door.
“What is it?” asked the sleepy, disheveled chauffeur, half-hiding behind the door.
“Police. Do you know this man?” said Besse.
The chauffeur dropped his eyes to the picture and recoiled in shock. He staggered back, clutching the door with both hands. “Mon Dieu.”
Besse helped the stricken man onto the edge of the bed. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, I think so. Who? Who could have done this?”
“I’m asking you,” replied Besse.
The chauffeur slowly shook his head and broke down in tears.
François Besse knew he was out of his depth. He telephoned headquarters in Berne.
Chapter 3
Vasiliev glanced at his watch: 8:32 a.m. “We’re making good time,” he said, as he drove the Fiat rental off the Lotschberg car-train.
The Saas Fee assignment was Vasiliev’s second, after his assassination of a Communist Party official turned too greedy for his own good. The new Russian oligarchs didn’t tolerate violations of their strict code, as their fathers hadn’t before them. This time, the contract was to be executed outside Russia, and Vasiliev had never travelled west of the Urals. Victor had been reassuring. A ski vacation in Switzerland would go unnoticed. Russians were everywhere, outspending each other in orgies of self-indulgence, making up for lost time. Victor’s down-payment had quashed any lingering doubts. Yet Vasiliev had not grown accustomed to his profession’s acute side-effects. After two years, the eyes of his previous victim were never far away, boring into his consciousness at the slightest occasion. He knew he would never forget the archbishop’s final look of raw fear.
