The Sandler Inquiry Part 102

"Perhaps now someone can explain how-' "Not yet," interjected Thomas.

"I beg your pardon?"

"We're here to exchange information' said Thomas, 'not to give it away.

We have one half of the Sandler story. You have the other half.

Now we're going to put them together."

"For what purpose?" buffed Whiteside with a certain hostility.

"You want the man who was printing pounds? You want the man who killed her mother, tried twice to kill her, then killed another girl in her place, the girl you were kind enough to bury?"

"I want him," said Whiteside flatly.

"Then tell us everything" pleaded Leslie.

"We'll tell our half of the story, then you tell us the rest of yours "

"The part you always held back on, " said Thomas.

"It's critical, isn't it?"

"It's also cla.s.sified British intelligence" said Whiteside with a sigh.

"On my own, I have no authority-" "Within another day the man we both want will have escaped from within our grasp," Daniels said.

"You have your choice. Help us or he escapes."

Hammond looked nervously at Thomas, feeling left out of things.

"There are official regulations about releasing information" said Whiteside.

"Break them!" ranted Thomas.

Please" Leslie begged.

Whiteside could see the scar across her throat, the one which had never healed. He glanced to Hunter, who offered no opinion or change of expression.

"All right' Whiteside finally said.

"Let's be genteel about this. Let's sit down' Gradually the four men and one woman stepped toward an aged, dusty, dining table. The room was illuminated by a pair of dim kerosene lamps set up by Hammond.

Shadows fell across the heavy, drawn curtains which dated from the 1920s. Three chairs at the oblong table remained empty. Whiteside seemed to study Leslie a final time, as if to test his senses.

She began.

"We finally all agree on whom I am' she said softly, looking from eye to eye.

"Good" she said. There's no disagreement.

She moved quickly over areas of common knowledge, her birth, the 1954 attempt on her life her relocation with the McAdam family, the subsequent attempt by the Italian in 1964, and her return trip to England in 1974.

"It was at about that time' she said, gazing at Whiteside, "that British intelligence washed their hands of me! Her voice contained residual resentment, not at all tempered by the pa.s.sage of years.

"Decisions made higher up" he offered plaintively.

"Leslie, dear, honestly, I had nothing-.

"You'll have your opportunity to speak, Peter," she snapped brusquely.

"Allow me. Please."

He nodded. She went on.

"I wasn't considered important anymore' she said.

"There'd been no threat on my life for several years, the counterfeitings of the pound by my father had ceased many years previously, I was considered . . . expendable Whiteside shook his head sorrowfully. Not expendable, he was telling himself Merely lower priority. The Sandler case had been considered closed by M.I. 6. But Whiteside was too well-mannered to interrupt again.

Thomas watched both of them. Silently. Hunter gazed at Hammond and Daniels steadily, his thick bulk wedged into the narrow dining chair once favored by Victoria Sandler.

Sounds of concrete chipping rose from the bas.e.m.e.nt. To Whiteside, for a fleeting moment, the sounds conjured up an image of Verdi's anvil chorus. He, too, was tired. Physically and emotionally.

"It was about this time in 1974 " she said, 'that a man named Robert La.s.siter approached me in London" Hammond's eyes came alive. He was the only one at the table who knew the name.

"La.s.siter said he was from the United States Treasury Department"

Leslie explained.

"He'd been dispatched by a man named Merritt, who was said to be the Director of U.S. Treasury Intelligence" . Whiteside frowned, perplexed. Hammond nodded. Hunter was impa.s.sive, Thomas so intrigued that he hardly breathed.

Leslie told her story.

La.s.siter was completely familiar with her case, he'd said. He approached her in a London restaurant near Cheapside. He'd asked if he could make a 'business" proposition to her, one which would guarantee her safety in the future.

"After all" he'd said, 'your father is still very much alive " It had taken no more than those words, plus a convincing explanation of La.s.siter's own ident.i.ty, to move Leslie McAdam. The two memories of her father were like wounds which festered, pained, but never healed.

There was always that threat, the deathly fear that he could always be standing behind her, going for the throat a third time.

Leslie McAdam, hater of violence, expert on impressionistic art, devotee of Brahms and Vivaldi, was practically obsessive on the subject of Sandler.

"What I'd like " she'd told La.s.siter, 'is seeing my father dead. Can you provide that?" she'd challenged.

His answer surprised her, astonished her, in fact.

"With your help" he'd said simply, "yes. Can do."

Already notified that she'd soon be losing her British protection, Leslie had little choice. She'd leaped from British arms to American arms, desperate for protection and willing to take it from whatever quarter offered it. And none too soon.

The forces protecting Arthur Sandler made a rare mistake, but a fatal mistake for an innocent English girl. They thought that a stenographer who worked for the Foreign Office was Leslie under a different name.

They came calling on her toward five A.M. one morning. The usual routine with the piano wire. They left her quite dead, her head almost completely severed.

"They never knew their mistake," said Leslie, 'until I surfaced after Victoria Sandler's death."