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amazing job Harry did getting back the stray Double Eagles. Pure Secret
Service."
"Did he have a son?"
"Harry? Never married. One of those guys whose whole life was the service."
"You've been very gracious with your information, Lori," I said. I didn't want
to reveal to her how tight the CIA had been in response to our efforts to get
files on Vallis, Tripping, and Strait. But a deposed Egyptian king was a
different story. "It's hard to imagine that half a century after this coup,
the CIA still considers Farouk's files a matter of national security, isn't
it? It's been hard to get the facts we need on all this."
"Ten years in exile, doin' as the Romans do," Mike said. "Wine, women, and
song. Fat and happy. Has his last supper, smokes a big fat cigar, and then
croaks at the dinner table. When you think of the fates of a lot of
monarchs-from the guillotine to the firing squad-all in all, not a bad way for
the king to die."
"That's just the official version, Mike," Lori Alvino told him. "That's the
way the newspapers played it. The fact is, Mr. Homicide Detective, King Farouk
was murdered."
31
"What the Romans needed, Mike, was a good homicide cop," Lori said. "They
rolled over on this one, big-time."
He was standing at the window, looking at the traffic going eastbound over the
Brooklyn Bridge. I knew what he was thinking, because I was trying to make the
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same kinds of connections. What was it that linked the unnatural death of an
Egyptian king in Rome back in 1965 to the murders in New York City, in the
last few days, of a Harlem dancer and the daughter of a former CIA operative?
"How'd it happen?" Mike asked.
"Most of what you know from history books and old newspaper stories is true.
The man weighed almost four hundred pounds. He smoked like a fiend, and took
medication for high blood pressure. Went out for dinner at a fancy restaurant,
in full view of a big crowd."
"Something on the menu he wasn't expecting?"
"Let me remember," she said. "I think he had a dozen oysters, a nice rich
lobster Newburg, followed by roast baby lamb, with about six side dishes, and
flaming crêpe suzettes for dessert. He lit up his Havana, and in front of a
roomful of spectators, his head fell onto the table and he dropped dead."
"Cause of death at autopsy?"
"What autopsy?" Lori Alvino asked. "That's the whole point. Nobody ordered an
autopsy. The king died of excess, they said at the time. A cerebral
hemorrhage. It seemed so obvious that people didn't question it."
"But in fact?" Mercer asked.
Lori Alvino rested her chin in her hands, propped up by her elbows, telling us
what she knew was in the official files. "There's a poison called alacontin.
Ever hear of it?"
None of us had.
"Tasteless, odorless. Causes cardiac arrest immediately, but wouldn't show up
in an autopsy."
"Why not?"
"Ask your docs how the drug works. I just read the reports, I don't do the
forensics."
"No, I mean why no autopsy?" I asked.
"On the orders of the Italian Secret Service."
"There's an Italian Secret Service?" Mike asked. "That's got to be as
effective as the Swiss navy."
"Easy, Detective," Lori said. "I've got paisans over there."
"Now we're talking 1965," Mercer said. "Who wanted Farouk dead at that point?
He'd been in exile for more than ten years by then."
"Pick your leaders. Some say the poisoner was working for the Egyptians. In a
decade, Nasser had gone from being a dashing rebel to a socialist dictator.
Loyal Egyptians talked of restoring the monarchy, bringing home the exiled
leader. Farouk's death would have been a gift to Nasser from his supporters."
"Who else?"
"The Americans, of course. And the English," Lori said. I reminded myself that
Peter Robelon's father had also been a British agent in Europe during that
period.
"Why them? Why us?"
"Because things had not gone as planned with Nasser. Our CIA and the British
intelligence agency thought, quite wrongly, that the young general was going
to be more malleable than Farouk had been. But he wasn't."
"Then why would we hurt Farouk?"
"A lot of government people thought, at the time, that Nasser would be ousted
and the Egyptian monarchy would be restored. The Brits wanted their old
outpost again in Cairo."
"So why not put a king back on the throne, and control him?" I asked.
"You got it. But Farouk hadn't worked the first time around. Now he was older,
still very undisciplined, and totally unacceptable to the Western leaders. His
son, however, was the perfect candidate."
Of course, I remembered. After Farouk had lost interest in Queenie, he had
sired a son with his young second wife.
"The boy was only a teenager, so he would need guidance from the British and
American delegations, they figured. And he'd be very appealing to the Egyptian
masses as a return of the last ruling dynasty. The U.S. could prop him up on
the throne and we'd all be back in business."
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"So Farouk's death could have been a first step in our Allied plan to regain
control of the territory, rather than a gift to Nasser from his own
followers?"
"It works either way," Lori said.
"So now, Farouk is killed, in Rome," Mercer said. "And what became of all the
treasures he had taken there?"
Lori Alvino didn't answer.
"C'mon, Lori, too late to stop talking to us now," Mike said. "The CIA?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]