by Wilbur Smith
The caption below the photograph had them attending the opening of an exclusive new Parisian discotheque – again this was not Magda Altmann’s habitual territory, but she was smiling brilliantly at the tall handsome German, so obviously enjoying herself that Peter felt a stinging shaft of emotion thrust up under his ribs. Hatred or jealousy – he was not certain – and he slapped the magazine closed and returned it to its rack.
In the impersonal antiseptically furnished suite he stripped and showered, and then standing naked in the small lounge of the suite he poured himself a whisky. It was his third that evening.
Since the kidnapping he had been drinking more than ever before in his life, he realized. It could exert an insidious hold when a man was lonely and in grave doubt. He would have to begin watching it. He took a sip of the smoky amber liquid and turned to look at himself in the mirror across the room.
Since he had been back in Brussels, he had worked out each day in the gymnasium at the NATO officers’ club where he still had membership, and his body was lean and hard with a belly like a greyhound’s – only the face was ravaged by strain and worry – and, it seemed, by some deep unutterable regret.
He turned back towards the bedroom of the suite, and the telephone rang.
‘Stride,’ he said into the mouthpiece, standing still naked with the glass in his right hand.
‘Please hold on, General Stride. We have an international call for you.’
The delay seemed interminable with heavy buzzing and clicking on the line, and the distant voices of other operators speaking bad French or even worse English.
Then suddenly her voice, but faint and so far away that it sounded like a whisper in a vast and empty hall.
‘Peter, are you there?’
‘Magda?’ He felt the shock of it, and his voice echoed back at him from the receiver; there was the click before she spoke again, that switch of carrier wave that told him they were on a radio telephone link.
‘I have to see you, Peter. I cannot go on like this. Will you come to me, please, Peter?’
‘Where are your
‘Les Neuf Poissons.’ Her voice was so faint, so distorted, that he asked her to repeat it.
‘Les Neuf Poissons – The Nine Fishes,’ she repeated ‘Will you come, Peter?’
‘Are you crying?’ he demanded, and the silence echoed and clicked and hummed so he thought they had lost contact, and he felt a flare of alarm so his voice was harsh as he asked again. ‘Are you crying?’
‘Yes.’ It was only a breath, he might have imagined it.
‘Why?’
‘Because I am sad and frightened, Peter. Because I am alone, Peter. Will you come, please will you come?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘How do I get there?’
‘Ring Gaston at La Pierre Bénite. He will arrange it. But come quickly, Peter. As quickly as you can.’
‘Yes. As soon as I can – but where is it?’
He waited for her reply, but now the distances of the ether echoed with the sound of utter finality.
‘Magda? Magda?’ He found himself shouting desperately, but the silence taunted him and reluctantly he pressed a finger down on the cradle of the telephone.
‘Les Neuf Poissons,’ he repeated softly, and lifted the finger ‘Operator,’ he said, ‘please get me a call to France Rambouillet 47 – 87 – 47.’ And while he waited he was thinking swiftly.
This was what he had been subconsciously waiting for, he realized. There was a feeling of inevitability to it, the wheel could only turn – it could not roll sideways. This was what had to happen.
Caliph had no alternative. This was the summons to execution. He was only surprised that it had not come sooner. He would see why Caliph would have avoided the attempt in the cities of Europe or England. One such attempt well planned and executed with great force had failed that night on the road to Rambouillet. It would have been a warning to Caliph not to underestimate the victim’s ability to retaliate – for the rest, the problems would have been almost the same as those that Peter had faced when planning the strike against Caliph herself.
The when and the where and the how – and Caliph had the edge here. She could summon him to the selected place – but how incredibly skilfully it had been done. As he waited for the call to Rambouillet, Peter marvelled at the woman afresh. There seemed no bottom to her well of talent and accomplishments – despite himself, knowing full well that he was listening to a carefully rehearsed act, despite the fact that he knew her to be a ruthless and merciless killer, yet his heart had twisted at the tones of despair in her voice, the muffled weeping perfectly done, so he had only just been able to identify it.
‘This is the residence of Baroness Altmann.’
‘Gaston?’
‘Speaking, sir.’
‘General Stride.’
‘Good evening, General. I was expecting your call. I spoke to the Baroness earlier. She asked me to arrange your passage to Les Neuf Poissons. I have done so.’
‘Where is it, Gaston?’
‘Les Neuf Poissons – it’s the Baroness’s holiday island in the Îles sous le Vent – it is necessary to take the UTA flight to Papeete-Faaa on Tahiti where the Baroness’s pilot will meet you. It’s another hundred miles to Les Neuf Poissons and unfortunately the airstrip is too short to accommodate the Lear jet – one has to use a smaller aircraft.’
‘When did the Baroness go to Les Neuf Poissons?’
‘She left seven days ago, General,’ Gaston answered, and immediately went on in the smooth, efficient secretarial voice to give Peter the details of the UTA flight. ‘– The ticket will be held at the UTA check-in counter for you, General, and I have reserved a non-smoking seat at the window.’
‘You think of everything. Thank you, Gaston.’
Peter replaced the receiver, and found that his earlier exhaustion had left him – he felt vital and charged with new energy. The elation of a trained soldier facing the prospect of violent action, he wondered, or was it merely the prospect of an end to the indecision and the fear of unknown things? Soon, for good or for evil, it would be settled and he welcomed that.
He went through into the bathroom and pitched the whisky that remained in his glass into the handbasin.
The UTA DC 10 made its final approach to Tahiti-Faaa from the east, slanting down the sky with the jagged peaks of Moorea under the port wing. Peter remembered the spectacularly riven mountains of Tahiti’s tiny satellite island as the backdrop of the musical movie South Pacifc that had been filmed on location here. The volcanic rock was black and unweathered so that its crests were as sharp as sharks’ fangs
They arrowed down across the narrow channel between the two islands, and the runway seemed to reach out an arm into the sea to welcome the big silver machine.
The air was heavy and warm and redolent with the perfume of frangipani blossoms, and there were luscious brown girls swinging and swaying gracefully in a dance of welcome. The islands reached out with almost overpowering sweetness and friendliness – but as Peter picked his single light bag out of the hold luggage and started for the exit doors, something unusual happened. One of the Polynesian customs officers at the gate exchanged a quick word with his companion and then politely stepped into Peter’s path.
‘Good afternoon, sir.’ The smile was big and friendly, but it did not stretch as far as the eyes. ‘Would you be kind enough to step this way.’ The two customs men escorted Peter into the tiny screened office.
‘Please open your bags, sir.’ Swiftly but thoroughly they went through his valise and crocodile-skin briefcase; one of them even used a measuring stick to check both cases for a hidden compartment.
‘I must congratulate you on your efficiency,’ said Peter, smiling also, but his voice tight and low.
‘A random check, sir.’ The senior officer answered his smile. ‘You were just unlucky to be the ten thousandth visitor Now, sir, I hope you won’t object to a body search?’
‘A body search?’ Peter sna
pped, and would have protested further, but instead he shrugged and raised both arms. ‘Go ahead.’
He could imagine that Magda Altmann was as much the Grande Dame here as she was in mother France. She owned the entire island group, and it would need only a nod to have an incoming visitor thoroughly searched for weapons of any sort.
He could imagine also that Caliph would be very concerned that the intended victim should be suitably prepared for execution, lest he should inadvertently become the executioner.
The one customs officer checked his arms and flanks from armpit to waist, while the other knelt behind him and checked inside the outside of his legs from crotch to ankle.
Peter had left the Cobra in the safe deposit box in the Hilton in Brussels. He had anticipated something like this, it was the way Caliph would work.
‘Satisfied?’ he asked.
Thank you for your co-operation, sir. Have a lovely stay on our island.’
Magda’s personal pilot was waiting for Peter in the main concourse, and hurried forward to shake his hand.
‘I was worried that you were not on the flight.’
‘A small delay in customs,’ Peter explained.
‘We should leave immediately, if we are to avoid a night landing on Les Neuf Poissons – the strip is a little difficult.’
Magda’s Gates Lear was parked on the hardstand near the service area, and beside it the Norman Britten Tri-Islander looked small and ungainly, a stork-like ugly aircraft capable of the most amazing performance in short take-off and landing situations.
The body of the machine was already loaded with crates and cartons of supplies, everything from toilet rolls to Veuve Cliquot champagne, all tied down under a wide-meshed nylon net.
Peter took the right-hand seat, and the pilot started up and cleared with control, then to Peter:
‘One hour’s flying. We will just make it.’
The setting sun was behind them as they came in from the west and Les Neuf Poissons lay like a precious necklace of emeralds upon the blue velvet cushion of the ocean.
There were nine islands in the characteristic circular pattern of volcanic formation, and they enclosed a lagoon of water so limpid that every whorl and twist of the coral outcrops showed through as clearly as if they were in air.
‘The islands had a Polynesian name when the Baron purchased them back in 1945,’ the pilot explained in the clearly articulated rather pedantic French of the Midi. ‘They were given by one of the old kings as a gift to a missionary he favoured and the Baron purchased them from his widow. The Baron could not pronounce the Polynesian name so he changed it—’ The pilot chuckled. ‘– The Baron was a man who faced the world on his own terms.’
Seven of the islands were merely strips of sand and fringes of palms, but the two to the east were larger with hills of volcanic basalt glittering like the skin of a great reptile in the rays of the lowering sun.
As they turned onto their downwind leg, Peter had a view through the window at his elbow of a central building with its roof of palm thatch elegantly curved like the prow of a ship in the tradition of the islands, and around it half-hidden in luscious green gardens were other smaller bungalows. Then they were over the lagoon and there were a clutter of small vessels around the long jetty which reached out into the protected waters – Hobie-cats with bare masts, a big powered schooner which was probably used to ship the heavy stores such as dieseline down from Papeete, power boats for skiing and diving and fishing. One of them was out in the middle of the lagoon, tearing a snowy ostrich feather of wake from the surface as it ran at speed; a tiny figure towed on skis behind it lifted an arm and waved a greeting. Peter thought it might be her, but at that moment the Tri-Islander banked steeply onto its base leg and he was left with only a view of cumulus cloud bloodied by the setting sun.
The runway was short and narrow, hacked from the palm plantation on the strip of level land between beach and hills. It was surfaced with crushed coral. They made their final approach over a tall palisade of palm trees. Peter saw that the pilot had not exaggerated by calling it a little difficult. There was a spiteful crosswind rolling in and breaking over the hills and it rocked the Tri-Islander’s wings sickeningly. The pilot crabbed her in, heading half into the wind, and as he skimmed in over the palm tops, closed the throttles, kicked her straight with the rudders, lowered a wing into the wind to hold her from drifting and dropped her neatly fifty feet over the threshold, perfectly aligned with the short runway so she kissed and sat down solidly; instantly the pilot whipped the wheel to full lock into the crosswind to prevent a ground loop and brought her up short.
‘Parfait!’ Peter grunted with involuntary admiration, and the man looked slightly startled as though the feat deserved no special mention. Baroness Altmann employed only the very best.
There was an electric golf cart driven by a young Polynesian girl waiting at the end of the strip amongst the palm trees. She wore only a pareo wrapped around her body below the armpits, a single length of crimson and gold patterned cloth that fell to mid thigh. Her feet were bare, but around her pretty head she wore a crown of fresh flowers – the maeva of the islands.
She drove the golf cart at a furious pace along narrow winding tracks through the gardens that were a rare collection of exotic plants, skilfully laid out, so that there was an exquisite surprise around each turn of the path.
His bungalow was above the beach with white sand below the verandah and the ocean stretching to the horizon, secluded as though it were the only building on the island. Like a child the island girl took his hand, a gesture of perfect innocence, and led him through the bungalow, showing him the controls for the air-conditioning, lighting and the video screen, explaining it all in lisping French patois, and giggling at his expression of pleasure.
There was a fully stocked bar and kitchenette, the small library contained all the current best-sellers, and the newspapers and magazines were only a few days old. The offerings on the video screen included half a dozen recent successful features and Oscar winners.
‘Hell, Robinson Crusoe should have landed here,’ Peter chuckled, and the girl giggled and wriggled like a friendly little puppy in sympathy
She came to fetch him again two hours later, after he had showered and shaved and rested and changed into a light cotton tropical suit with open shirt and sandals.
Again she held his hand and Peter sensed that if a man had taken the gesture as licence the girl would have been hurt and confused. By the hand she led him along a path that was demarcated by cunningly concealed glow lights, and the night was filled with the murmur of the ocean and the gentle rustle and clatter of palm fronds moving in the wind.
Then they came to the long ship-roofed building he had seen from the air. There was soft music and laughter, but when he stepped into the light the laughter stopped and half a dozen figures turned to him expectantly.
Peter was not sure what he had expected, but it was not this gay, social gathering, tanned men and women in expensive and elegant casual wear, holding tall frosted glasses filled with ice and fruit.
‘Peter!’ Magda Altmann broke from the group, and came to him with that gliding hip-swinging walk.
She wore a soft, shimmering, wheaten-gold dress, held high at the throat with a thin gold chain, but completely nude across the shoulders and down her back to within an inch of the cleft of her buttocks. It was breathtaking for her body was smooth as a rose petal and tanned to the colour of new honey. The dark hair was twisted into a rope as thick as her wrist and piled up onto the top of her head, and she had touched her eyes with shadows so they were slanting and green and mysterious.
‘Peter,’ she repeated, and kissed him lightly upon the lips, a brush like a moth’s wing, and her perfume touched him as softly, the fragrance of Quadrille flowering with the warmth and magic of her body.
He felt his senses tilt. With all he knew of her, yet he was still not hardened to her physical presence.
She was cool and groomed and poised
as she had ever been, there was no trace at all of the confusion and.fearsome loneliness that he had heard in those muffled choked-down sobs from halfway across the world – not until she stepped back to tilt her head on one side, surveying him swiftly, smiling lightly.
‘Oh, chéri, you are looking so much better. I was so worried about you when last I saw you.’
Only then he thought he was able to detect the shadows deep in her eyes, and the tightness at the corners of her mouth.
‘And you are more beautiful than I remembered.’
It was true, so he could say it without reserve, and she laughed, a single soft purr of pleasure.
‘You never said that before,’ she reminded him, but still her manner was brittle. Her show of affection and friendliness might have convinced him at another time, but not now. ‘And I am grateful.’
Now she took his arm, her fingers in the crook of his elbow, and she led him to the waiting group of guests as though she did not trust herself to be alone with him another moment lest she reveal some forbidden part of herself.
There were three men and their wives: an American Democrat senator of considerable political influence, a man with a magnificent head of silver hair, eyes like dead oysters, and a beautiful wife at least thirty years his junior who looked at Peter the way a lion looks at a gazelle and held his hand seconds longer than was necessary.
There was an Australian, heavy in the shoulder and big in the gut. His skin was tanned leathery and his eyes were framed in a network of wrinkles. They seemed to be staring through dust and sun glare at distant horizons. He owned a quarter of the world’s known uranium reserves, and cattle stations whose area was twice the size of the British Isles. His wife was as tanned and her handshake was as firm as his.