JC2 The Raiders Read online

  HAROLD ROBBINS

  THE RAIDERS

  POCKET BOOKS

  For my wife Jann, with all my love.

  You don't have to deserve your mother's love. You have to deserve your father's. He's more particular.

  — Robert Frost

  No man is a hero to his valet.

  — Madame Comuel

  Or to his father.

  — Jonas Cord

  PROLOGUE

  PEOPLE HAVE RECURRING DREAMS. Jonas cord had them. Memories are often distressing. Dreams, bringing memories to life, are worse; emotions that are dull in memory come back sharp and tormenting in dreams.

  The one that came most often began with the words "Jonas — my son."

  "Jonas — my son," his father had muttered as he toppled into his son's arms, dead of an abrupt, massive stroke. One moment Jonas Senior was a powerful, domineering man. The next moment he was dead.

  He had died without ever having told his son he loved him, or that he was proud of him. He had died without ever hearing any such words from his son. The old man and the young man loved each other, but neither could ever bring himself to say so, and neither ever felt confident of it. Jonas resolved he would never let things be that way with a son of his own — if he ever had one.

  It was Rina who first made it clear to him that his father had cared for him. Rina: the young, voluptuous Rina. Jonas had almost hated his father over Rina. He had decided to marry her and had announced his decision to Jonas Senior. His father had opposed the marriage on the ground that the boy was too young to marry; and he had blocked it in the most effective way he possibly could, by marrying her himself. Jonas had called the old man a fool who had fallen for a scheming, avaricious gold digger.

  Within hours after his father's death, Rina had explained that the old man had not been a fool at all. He had demanded a prenuptial agreement from her, in which she accepted a settlement but would not inherit stock in the Cord family businesses. If she had borne the old man a child, that child would have inherited stock and Jonas would have had to share control. During a whole year of marriage to the luscious and licentious Rina, the old man had resolutely avoided getting her pregnant — to preserve Jonas's status as sole heir.

  The next person who made Jonas understand his father was Nevada Smith, the best and wisest friend either of the Jonases ever had. The leathery, straight-spoken Nevada Smith had shown up at the Cord ranch one day sixteen years before the death of Jonas Senior and asked if there was a job for him. There wasn't, but Jonas Senior was a man who sized up other men quickly; and he had hired Nevada to teach his little boy to ride and shoot — in short, to make a man of him. After Jonas Senior died, Nevada moved on. He starred in his own Wild West show and then became a major star of Western pictures. But he remained a friend and saw Jonas often. He told Jonas things the old man should have told him.

  Jonas never told anyone else, but he pledged himself that if ever he had a son, the boy would know he loved him, would know it all his life, would know it before it was too late.

  * * *

  In another dream that often came, the year was 1945, twenty years after the death of his father, and Jonas was proudly and exuberantly flying The Centurion, the huge fiberglass-hull flying boat in which he had invested seventeen million dollars of the assets of what the Wall Street Journal called "the Cord Empire." It had been at the time the biggest airplane ever built, designed to carry an entire company of soldiers with two light tanks and all the other equipment they would need to invade a Japanese-held island.

  The conventional wisdom was that he could never get the thing to lift off the water, but he was in the air. The Centurion was one more example of how Jonas Cord — no longer ever called Jonas Cord Junior — repeatedly defied expert opinion, went his own way, and made things work the way he wanted them to work.

  For example, at the time of his death, Jonas Senior had been about to launch the parent company. Cord Explosives, into the manufacture of an exotic new product said to have thousands of potential uses in industry and in consumer goods. For want of a better name, the product was called plastics. Jonas had picked up on this idea and carried it forward. Cord Plastics was one of the biggest names in the industry. A Cord company manufactured airplanes, and another ran an airline. Cord Productions had made movies for some years, but later Jonas had decided to get out of that business and use the soundstages as rental properties.

  For the test flight of The Centurion, Amos Winthrop, Jonas's father-in-law, who had supervised the building of the plane, sat in the co-pilot's seat. They had taken off, and the huge plane was flying, but suddenly everything went wrong. In the dream it was as if the plane had been rigged backward. If he turned the yoke to lower the right wing, the left wing dipped. If he shoved in the left rudder pedal, the plane turned right. And then the engines began to fail, one by one ...

  Then, invariably, the telephone rang. It rang once, just once, enough to wake him and interrupt the dream, mercifully sparing him from having to relive what had really happened in 1945 — the failure of the engines one by one, the plunge into the sea, his escape from the buckled fuselage with doors jammed shut, shoved through a port by Amos, who was himself too fat to squeeze through, and finally the sinking of The Centurion, carrying the older man down with it.

  Two weeks later, while Jonas was still in the hospital recovering from injuries he had suffered in the crash, the atomic bomb brought the war with Japan to an end; and Jonas had to give up plans to build Centurion II. Fortunately, Cord Aircraft had also just delivered to the Air Force its first jet fighter. The luck of Jonas Cord, someone commented acidly.

  A son. He'd never had a son. He had been married twice, twice to the same woman. Monica Winthrop. By a sad, stupid error he had decided that the daughter she bore, Jo-Ann, was not his. He left Monica, and she divorced him. Fourteen years passed before he learned he had been wrong. Then, thank God, it was not too late. He remarried Monica and happily accepted Jo-Ann as his daughter. Jo-Ann said she wanted a little brother, but five years of trying had not yet produced one. The fault wasn't his. He had established a trust fund for a daughter born to his secretary in 1948. It was Monica's fault. Doctors said there was something funny about her. Monica was forty-three, a pregnancy was not impossible, just unlikely, and if they really wanted another child they should keep trying.

  Anyway, he had bought a home in Bel Air, and Jo-Ann was going to college at Pepperdine. Monica had not given up her career and spent a lot of time in New York — as he spent a lot of time flying here, there, and the other where — but they were together enough to have plenty of chances to make something happen.

  Jonas was happy. He insisted to himself that he was happy. Why shouldn't he have been? He had inherited Cord Explosives and built it into a billion-dollar conglomerate that was still growing. He was notoriously successful. He had the luck of Jonas Cord. He was forty-seven years old and had done just about everything he had ever wanted to do in life —

  Except that he had never told his father he loved him and never heard his father say it to him. And he had never had a chance to make it right in some sense by treating a son of his own a different way.

  1

  1951

  1

  AN ODDITY OF THE RECURRING DREAM ABOUT The Centurion was that the telephone ring that interrupted it always happened forty-seven minutes past the hour. It could be 1:47, 2:47, or 3:47; but when he woke and looked at the clock it was always forty-seven past something.

  This was not the same. The telephone did not ring once. It persisted. And when he opened his eyes and looked at the clock, the time was 2:06.

  The phone had rung maybe six times when he picked it up. He was groggy. He'd eaten well, drunk a little more than usual, and h
ad finished the evening with a round of good sex with Monica. Waking was not easy.

  "Yeah ... ?"

  "Jonas, this is Phil."

  "You know what time it is?"

  "What time you think it is in Washington? Listen to me. A friend — never mind who — woke me up to read me a highly confidential document. Plan on a visit from a United States marshal. He'll be early. He means to get to you before you leave the house."

  Jonas switched on the bedside lamp. He lifted himself to a sitting posture. He was stark naked. He didn't own such a thing as a pair of pajamas, and it took a cold night in a badly heated bedroom to make him sleep in his underclothes.

  "Phil ... What the hell are you talking about?"

  "The airline hearings, for Christ's sake! They've issued a subpoena for you. They want to grill your ass, Jonas. You didn't appear voluntarily in response to their request, so— "

  "Bunch of two-bit politicians want to make names for themselves by cross-examining Jonas Cord."

  "Maybe. But they're United States senators, and they've got subpoena power. If you don't show, you're in contempt of Congress. People have gone to jail for contempt of Congress."

  "I hold Congress in complete contempt."

  "You're not in the world's best position, Jonas. If those contracts for gate positions in New York and Chicago were in fact rigged the way — "

  "Phil. Never mind. I know what they accuse me of. I don't want to talk about it."

  "Yeah? Well, if the senators subpoena you to talk about it, you're going to have to talk about it. You don't have any choice."

  "Except one," said Jonas.

  The lawyer was silent on the phone for a moment, then said, "As your lawyer, I can't advise you to take that option."

  "As my friend ... ?"

  "That's why I called you in the middle of the night."

  "I'll be in touch, Phil. I won't tell you where I'm going. If they ask, you really don't know. But I'll be in touch."

  Monica had wakened, had sat up, and was squinting curiously at him. She was naked, too, as Jonas noted in a quick appreciative glance. Her boobies, that had always been a pleasure to look at and fondle, had grown plumper and more rotund since she had gained a little weight in her late thirties. Her belly was cute and roly-poly now, like a smooth little melon riding in the bowl of her pelvis. Her legs remained thin and sleek, and she had put on no new flesh around her neck or jawline. Her dark-brown hair, now pillow-tousled, framed her face, which was as strong as always, maybe a little stronger as the years had imposed character.

  "Do I hear that you're going somewhere?" she asked.

  "I have to scram for a while," said Jonas. "A marshal is coming to serve me a subpoena. A couple of senators want to grill me in the Senate airlines hearings. I really don't want to testify. I can't afford to testify."

  "What have you done?" she asked.

  "Nothing illegal," he said acerbically, annoyed that she would even suggest he'd done something crooked. "Competent counsel have advised me at every step. But congressional investigators like nothing more than making a businessman look bad, particularly if the businessman is one who gets newspaper coverage. They might even pressure the Justice Department into going for an indictment. I have done nothing illegal and would be acquitted for certain — but that would be after an ordeal of two or three years."

  "But what are you going to do?"

  "I'm just going to make myself unavailable for a while."

  Monica sighed and glanced around their bedroom, at new furniture she had not yet grown accustomed to think of as hers. "I can't believe this! Goddammit! We've only been in Bel Air four months. Jo-Ann is just getting settled in at Pepperdine and — "

  Jonas was out of bed now and was dressing. "This has got nothing to do with where we keep a home or where Jo-Ann goes to school. You're staying here. Both of you. Those bastards might force me to duck their process server, but they're not forcing us out of our home or Jo-Ann out of her university."

  Monica got out of bed. She reached for a lavender dressing gown with white lace trim — not quite sheer but not quite modest either. She pulled it on.

  "How long is this going to last?" she asked.

  "Not very long," he said. "I can get it straighted out in a few weeks, maybe two or three months. The lawyers will talk for me. I've got a few political contacts, after all."

  "Why don't you just accept the subpoena and face it?" she asked.

  She picked up a pack of cigarettes from the night table on her side of the bed, shook out a Tareyton, and lit it with a paper match. "If you've got nothing to hide — "

  "I didn't say I have nothing to hide. I said I haven't done anything illegal. This kind of thing — a congressional hearing, maybe having to defend myself in court — could damage some of my businesses. Severely."

  "More than skipping?" she asked skeptically, even a little scornfully.

  He zipped up his pants. He smiled wryly. "Business people will see skipping as smart."

  "But — "

  "Look. If I'm compelled to testify, I'll have to tell how things are done. Inter-Continental Airlines wasn't built by chance. You have to be smart. You have to find ways and means of doing things. We have business secrets. Understand? Do you understand, Monica? It's business."

  "Is there something wrong with your SEC reports, Jonas?" she asked.

  "Not unless the smartest lawyers on Wall Street have fouled them up. And taxes ... Our accountants are meticulous. We don't fudge on taxes."

  "What could they indict you for? You said they might indict you. What would that be for?"

  "Inter-Continental has been getting good gate slots at major airports. Do you understand that? An air terminal can only receive so many flights a day. There are only so many gates. Some of the airlines we shut out are furious and have suggested we rig contracts, that we pay kickbacks, and so on. No one can prove we do. The truth is, we don't. But we do have ways of — Well. You can see what I mean. Another question is: Do we make deals with other airlines, violating the anti-trust laws? Again, no. But it's not all cut-and-dried stuff, not black and white. They'd love to grill me. Some of them would love to tie me up in knots for two or three years."

  "Jonas ... This is the same damned thing that — "

  "Look," he interrupted firmly. "A U.S. marshal may be here to serve me before dawn. I've got to throw a few things in a briefcase and get going."

  "Where?" she asked. "Where the hell will you go?"

  "The marshal will ask, and you can answer very honestly that you don't know. I'm not one hundred percent sure myself. I'll call you as soon as I get settled someplace and let you know."

  She followed him out of the bedroom and along the hall to his little home office. He opened a big briefcase on his desk and began to shove papers into it. He shoved in a quart of bourbon, too.

  "What am I supposed to tell Jo-Ann?" she demanded. "That you disappeared in the middle of the night, two skips ahead of a U.S. marshal? What's the kid supposed to think?"

  "Tell her the truth. Tell her just what I told you."

  "That her father's on the lam? Is that what I'm supposed to tell her? That — "

  Jonas jerked his head around. "Don't put it that way!" he barked. "Not to her. Not to yourself. Business is business, Monica, and sometimes it makes us do things we don't want to do. Jo-Ann's going to be eighteen years old before very long. She's old enough and smart enough to understand."

  Monica had carried her cigarette with her from the bedroom, and now she crushed it in the ashtray on his desk.

  "Monica, I'm sorry," he said. The lavender dressing gown that didn't quite conceal, didn't entirely reveal, clung to her hips and reminded him of the firm smoothness of her buns, which he had been fondly caressing only hours ago. "I wish I could take you with me. We'll be together again as soon as possible."

  "Sure," she grunted. "You walked out on our first honeymoon. Business called. What else have you missed? Anniversaries. Birthdays. Even Christmas afternoo
n last year. Business called."

  He had withdrawn from the conversation. He grabbed up his briefcase and walked out of the room.

  She followed him downstairs, toward the door. His Cadillac convertible sat in the circular driveway before the house. He opened the door and tossed in the briefcase.

  Then he came back to kiss her.

  "Baby, it won't be long," he promised. "I'll probably be on the phone with you tomorrow."

  She accepted his kiss, but accepted was the right word for it; she was not hungry for it, and she was rigid in his arms. He patted her shoulder and her backside.

  "Tomorrow. I'll call you tomorrow if I possibly can."

  "Sure," she whispered, resigned.

  "Monica, I'm sorry. What the hell else can I say?"

  "Nothing."

  He broke away from her and strode to the car.

  2

  Monica stood outside for a while, first watching the red taillights of the Cadillac disappear, then looking up at the points of starlight in an unusually clear sky. A tangle of emotions suffused her, and she was not sure if she wanted to cry or curse. Or both.

  Damn him. Damn Jonas Cord! He had abandoned her on their honeymoon ... because of a business emergency, he'd said. Then he'd got it in his head that Jo-Ann was not his daughter. When he learned the truth he had begged them to return to him. After fourteen years. And she, like a fool, had gone back to him. Because she loved him. And he said he loved her. He said they'd have another child. Lucky they hadn't.

  Because he hadn't changed. He was the same intriguing, fascinating, loving ... egocentric, insensitive, disloyal son of a bitch he had always been. He was obsessed with money and power, especially power. She couldn't compete with money and power. Neither could Jo-Ann. They always lost.