The Predator

by Denis Pitts

  The two men walked down the flower-lined garden path and the general climbed into the back of the Landrover and tapped out a message, using one finger, on the terminal.

  OVER THE ISLAND OF SARK, 1810

  As Becker returned from the flight deck, the technician handed him a piece of paper. The message was: PRESTO SATISFACTORY.

  He handed the message back and sat down in the control room.

  “Then we are in business,” he said.

  *

  The man in the tan suede jacket turned north in the modern city center of Abbeville and felt faint vibrations from the cobblestones under the air-cushioned suspension of the Citroen. He was quickly out of the town and driving fast along the secondary road to the sea.

  The road was free of other traffic and the whole expanse of salt flats and poor grazing land would have been deserted but for a few fishermen dotting the banks of the small rivers that helped to swell the Somme estuary.

  It took him ten minutes to reach the nondescript seaside town of Le Crotoy, which sits at the mouth of the estuary, surrounded by endless beaches of fine white sand. It is a town enlivened during the summer months by large crowds of tourists and vacationers. It is notable only for the facts that Joan of Arc was arrested there by the British and that it has the best seafood restaurant in northern France.

  Two weeks previously, le saison had finished and, with that peremptory way of the French, the shutters had slammed down, the awnings were removed and the Dubonnet umbrellas hidden away for the winter. The bourgeois traders headed south, away from the wild winter gales, and left the town deserted except for a handful of farmers and fishermen.

  Only the Hôtel de la Baie stayed faithful to the pilgrims who traveled hundreds of miles to eat there.

  The driver of the Citroen parked the car on the public lot opposite the hotel. It was drizzling and he slung a Burberry raincoat over his shoulders as he got out and looked over the sea wall.

  Two weeks ago there would have been a small fleet of yachts in the estuary. Today there was only one. Its size, and the brilliance of its white hull, dominated the grayness of the day. It was a motor cruiser, fifty-five feet long, low and graceful in the water.

  The man was obviously expected. Even as he locked the car, a crewman in a black jersey, white duck trousers and yellow boots had boarded an inflatable rubber dinghy that had been streaming in the fast wake behind the cruiser. He started an outboard motor. The man walked down the beach, his feet making a deep impression in the soft, wet sand.

  He noted, with satisfaction, that there were several other sets of fresh footprints.

  *

  The Adriatic gale had lost none of its force when the Italian admiral made a series of racing gear changes on the Fiat and swung into the large piazza in the town of Cesena.

  The bar centrale by the railway station is reputed to sell the best coffee in Italy; and here he sat at a yellow-plastic-topped table and ordered a cappuccino and a glass of Strega liqueur. The waiter was putting a white paper tablecloth over the plastic as another man came into the bar. He was a big man with a bull-like chest and a slightly comic-opera bearing. He sported a dramatically huge mustache. He ordered an espresso, then shook hands warmly with the admiral.

  The two men waited for their drinks before talking. The new arrival was obviously impatient to speak and drummed his fingers on the table.

  The admiral said reflectively: “So here begins the revolution. In a bar by a railway station. Hitler did it in a beer cellar. Did you know that Mussolini was born just up the road from here?”

  *

  In Munich, the tall, blonde, extraordinarily handsome woman almost ran to the Mercedes waiting outside the heliport. The driver of the car slid across the steering wheel to the passenger seat as she climbed in.

  The engine was already running and she took the big car through the crowded city streets with precision and speed, cutting between the green buses and yellow trams with only inches to spare. It was a virtuoso performance; her passenger sat pale and trembling, his eyes closed for half the journey.

  She turned briskly across the main street, narrowly avoiding two trucks, into the maze of smaller roads that make up the Schwabing district of the city. At the foot of a new block of offices in the Blaustrasse, she plunged the car at a reckless speed down a long spiral entry way to a garage that had been moled out eight stories under the block.

  At the lowest level, she did not bother to park but got out quickly and took a small suitcase from the back seat. There was a green metal door built into the wall. She inserted a computerized plastic key into a slot and it slid open immediately. With the same urgency she had shown since receiving the very first bleep, the woman walked through a dimly lit corridor and used the same key to enter a vast underground chamber. There was a well in the center of this room, and on an outsized table in the well was a map of West Germany. Every army base was clearly marked on it, together with figures that showed the number of troops and kind of equipment.

  She was the only person in the room, which was silent except for the whisper of air conditioning. The lighting was dimmed, but it was possible to see a large desk at the center of the balcony surrounding the well.

  It was here that she sat. The desk had more the appearance of a theater organ. The equipment in front of her was simple. On one side was a Centra monitor; in front of her was a console with a number of switches and dials and a microphone; to her right was a nine-inch television screen.

  She pushed several of the switches forward. And then she started speaking in that otherwise empty chamber.

  Her voice had the strident, imperious quality of the German aristocrat.

  “This is Largo,” she said. “Please acknowledge.”

  A number of green lights flashed on the console in front of her.

  “Thank you,” she replied. “Please listen carefully. As you will have gathered, the message is Symphony. We have two hours to complete the mobilization. And we have eight hours to reach the primary objectives. I must stress that this is not an exercise. I repeat, this is not an exercise. The NATO maneuvers on Luneberg Heath end in twenty-four hours. It is essential that by then all British, German and other European bases be neutralized and secured.

  “There must be no engagement with American or Warsaw Pact countries at any time. I repeat, there must be no engagement with the forces of countries other than those mentioned in your assignments.

  “This control room will be fully staffed thirty minutes from now. I shall expect the maximum information from all Largo divisions at intervals of fifteen minutes from then.”

  She released the switches and the green lights went out. She pushed another key and the subterranean room was suddenly flooded with light.

  She tapped out a message on the terminal. It read: LARGO SATISFACTORY.

  9

  He had not dreamed that any house could be so alive and merry, so filled with sudden pleasures, as this chateau. Jean-Paul was like a jackdaw uncaged, stocking an empty treasure chest inside him with all the shiny minutiae of discovered happiness.

  From the very beginning, he was given few chances to remember or even think about what he had just been through. Or, indeed, about any of his past life.

  On his first morning in the chateau, he was awakened by a relentless knocking on his door. He heard the girl shouting at him in an urgent voice.

  “Come on, sleepyhead, there’s work to be done. And don’t think I’m going to saddle your horse. Come on, lesson starts in five minutes. Have your bath afterward because you’ll be all smelly from the ponies.”

  She was wearing old cotton slacks, an open-necked blue shirt and a worn riding jacket, and her silky blond hair streamed down below her shoulders.

  At the stables, she held the bridles of two sleek horses.

  “I did saddle yours,” she said. “But I won’t do it again. This is Louise and she’s yours, so look after her. And this is Armand and he’s mine. He’s wild, especially in this cool weathe
r. Yours is docile.”

  The stables lay by a field of winter stubble, and the scent of the resting soil was pungent in the morning air. She spoke to him in a slightly bossy voice, which he did not mind because she also spoke as though she had known him all her life.

  “I’ve never ridden a horse, miss,” he said, a little ashamed.

  “Well, you’re going to. It’s easy. And don’t call me miss.”

  She helped him onto the pony and held the reins and looked up at him.

  “Just look at you,” she said in a voice clearly gained from her own riding teacher. “You look like a sack of potatoes. Come on, let me see a straight back. No, straighter than that.”

  She adjusted his stirrups and handed him the reins and showed him how to hold them in his fingers.

  “Now don’t look frightened. We’re not going galloping. Just relax and don’t worry. She’s a nice friendly horse and she won’t throw you.”

  Claudine mounted the stallion, and it turned violently several times, alarming Jean-Paul by the surprising power it showed. Then she managed to hold it still.

  An hour later, his thighs and legs aching, yet supremely happy, he groomed the pony under the girl’s critical eye. She brushed down the stallion and talked nonstop.

  “You’ll love Papa, he’s quiet and nice and he reads a lot. Mama is crazy. Nice crazy, but crazy.

  “I’ve been told not to ask you about prison. Did they beat you? Did they feed you bread and water?

  “I like it here, but I like the farm in Brittany best. That’s where all the best horses are. Brush harder than that; they’ve got to gleam.

  “And then we go to Épernay to taste the champagne. Papa makes lovely champagne, did you know? And then it’s horrible old Paris and school and the governess, Juliette; she’s awful and bosses me about. No, you don’t just hang the tack up like that. Use some polish, it’s over there. Papa says that you’ll have to go to school. You’ve never been to school, have you? I can’t stand it. English verbs and German vocabulary. I can’t understand them or anything else.”

  She rubbed at a piece of leather until it was burnished perfectly.

  “Papa says that you speak five languages. Is that true? You’ll have to teach me. I’m dumb.”

  As they walked back to the house, he heard the sound of a piano.

  “Mama,” she said. “She practices four hours every day. Doesn’t matter where we are. Always a piano. She once played for the Queen of England. And then she married Papa. She’s very good, better than me. That’s Liszt she’s playing. Do you like pop? She hates it. I love it. Don’t tell Papa that I asked about prison.”

  Jacques d’Isigny was eating breakfast on the terrace when they got back to the chateau. He kissed his daughter and shook Jean-Paul’s hand.

  “How was it?” he asked.

  “All right, I suppose,” said Claudine. “He can’t ride horses and he doesn’t say very much.”

  *

  He was presented with a birthday.

  “Well, everyone has a birthday, silly,” said Claudine. “Papa’s is in September, mine is in April, and Mama was born in July. So you ought to be in January, which spaces us all out nicely. Let’s say you’re going to be fifteen. What’s your lucky number?”

  “I haven’t got one.”

  “Everyone has a lucky number. Mine is twenty-seven and you can borrow mine. January twenty-seventh is your birthday, and that means that we’ll have a party in a few days’ time. Most French people just celebrate on the day of the saint they’re named for, but we celebrate the real birthdays too. What would you like for your birthday?”

  *

  They gave him their name.

  The family had returned to Paris. Claudine was at school and came home only on weekends. Jacques d’Isigny spent long hours at the bank; in the evening, he usually read or listened to music.

  There had been a long debate about Jean-Paul’s education; and the parents decided finally that he should have a private tutor to help him catch up before they enrolled him at school. They selected an earnest young postgraduate from the Sorbonne who weekly produced superlative reports on the progress of his charge.

  Jean-Paul became very close to Madame d’Isigny. He saw much more of her than he did of the others; she was warm and loving and likely at any time to embrace him in a vast hug. There was a curious affinity between them which he did not quite understand. It was customary for Jean-Paul to finish his studies in the silence of the library at four o’clock each afternoon and to have tea with Eva d’Isigny in the music room when she had finished practice at the Bechstein grand.

  The music room overlooked the Hippodrome de Longchamps and the gray River Seine. It was the most pleasing of all the many rooms in the big stone house in the Bois. It reflected the cheerful, extrovert quality of Madame d’Isigny.

  On one particularly dark afternoon, the sky granite with rain clouds, he found her playing a soft, sad folk melody by Bartok. He stood by the concert grand, turning the pages of the music at the nods of her head and trying to decipher the meaning of the symbols on the paper.

  She finished, rose from the piano stool and kissed him. Then she walked gracefully across the room and drew the long curtains on the day outside.

  “You like Bartok? He was a refugee, too. I am a refugee. And so are you,” she said.

  “Is that why you took pity on me?” he asked.

  “No, not really. It was Claudine’s idea. She said you had a special kind of face, whatever that meant. And she was missing her brother badly.”

  “I have often wondered. Am I very like him? Is that why?”

  “Not at all. He was tall and very dark and very headstrong. Like me. He was speed-mad. I knew from the moment he bought that racing car that he would die in it. We Hungarians all have second sight. We know things. Just as I knew when you came into that room in the prison that you would come to live with us.”

  She poured him tea from a Georgian silver service. Her eyes were distant and sad. It was the first time the dead son had been mentioned between them, and he wondered how much it might have hurt her.

  “Can you really see into the future?” he asked.

  “No, I only feel the future,” she said. “I feel strongly about you. One day you will be very important, Jean-Paul. Very influential, that I do feel.”

  That weekend they drove to the d’Isigny stables in northern Brittany. They watched Claudine gallop a spirited three-year-old filly which had been entered for the English Derby the following June.

  As she disappeared into the winter’s gloom, Jacques d’Isigny put his arm around Jean-Paul’s shoulder and said, “Come for a walk.”

  The grass was wet underfoot and dotted with the last of the autumn leaves. A sea fog was creeping over the cliffs nearby.

  “Jean-Paul, I must tell you that I was very doubtful about the decision I made when you first came into our lives,” said d’Isigny.

  The boy sensed that something important was coming. He said nothing and looked down at the grass.

  “It was not easy, especially at a time when we had been cast into a terrible grief by the death of Marcel. But everything which has happened since confirms that I was right to listen to my wife in particular.”

  D’Isigny said nothing for what seemed to be an eternity. Then, almost casually: “You are happy with us, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, monsieur.”

  “You are sure?”

  “Yes, monsieur.”

  “If you are not happy with us, please believe me that you would never, ever have to go back to that life.”

  “I understand, monsieur. I am very happy.”

  “And so are we,” said the banker. “Now I will say what I have to say. Jean-Paul, we would like to adopt you as our son. I have taken the liberty of drawing up the necessary legal papers and I will be honored if you will agree to take the name of d’Isigny. Will you?”

  When he turned to look at the boy, d’Isigny saw that he was weeping — and nodding vig
orously.

  BORDEAUX, 1900

  They had pierced the black night in a direct trajectory from rocky Ushant to the flat, marshy Gironde, and now the men in the aircraft were busy. A constant stream of signals came now from all parts of Europe to be classified, decoded, logged and processed in microseconds by the Centra system.

  Becker watched the pattern emerge with a calm confidence ... a family hotel in England, a motor cruiser off Normandy, an underground garage in Munich and a bar in Cesena. He smiled at the incongruity. Others were meeting in equally varied parts of Europe.

  As they began to move, the computer would track them and record their progress through the night, and, finally, it would decide whether the operation was a success or a total disaster.

  It had been planned for such a long time. He had always talked of it as the “last contingency” but he had always known that it would happen. The surprising thing, even now, was that it was not ultimate power which he sought. There would be no question of his being driven in triumph tomorrow along the Champs Élysée or laying wreaths on the Emperor’s Tomb. What, then, had impelled this final burst of megalomania? Or was it madness? He assumed so. He had assumed, from the moment years before when he had felt terrible spasms of hatred and vengeance in a hospital in Elba, that he was deranged.

  But was it madness that had built up the Becker Group, that had built that paradise on the mountain, that treated his employees with such concern and consideration?

  There was a desperate desire for vengeance, certainly. But the cold, calculating fury which had possessed him on that island and which had gnawed at his soul for so long had now become an intellectual rather than an emotional torment.

  Tonight and tomorrow would see the elimination of terrorist movements and private political armies by his own army, which was assembling even now on the ground below. There would be no whimpering liberal politicians to plead their cause, for it would be a night of wholesale arrest of such men — as well as of those communists and radicals who had so often threatened the entire structure of the Becker Group.