Deaken's War

by Brian Freemantle

  Erlander saw the other man frown and smiled at the doubt. “Dawn then,” he said. “I want to get rid of this cargo as soon as I can.”

  There was a workers’ cafe in the docks and from one of its windows a man had patiently watched the loading. He was dressed in overalls, like other customers, but appeared uncomfortable with his dress and his surroundings. He was an African. His name was Edward Makimber.

  3

  Richard Deaken sat hunched forward over the desk, staring fixedly at the other man. He was sick with anger and impotence, the feeling of nausea churning through him, sour in his mouth. He was aware, too, of something else. He was frightened.

  “Where is she?”

  “Not in Geneva.”

  “Bastard!”

  “Don’t be stupid,” said Underberg. “I give you my word she won’t be harmed … or bothered in any way.”

  “What good is your word?”

  “It’s all you’ve got.”

  “Why?” pleaded Deaken desperately. “Why me? If you’ve got the boy, why not deal with Azziz direct?”

  Underberg shook his head. “It wouldn’t work half as well. It’s been carefully planned.”

  Deaken looked away from the patronizing, self-satisfied man. Think; he had to think! Like the trained lawyer he had once been; still was. Christ, he was frightened!

  “It won’t work,” Deaken said. He took up one of his sharpened pencils, tracing squares on the paper in front of him as he arranged his argument. “Let’s say I get through to Azziz. And let’s say he believes me and diverts the shipment. So what? He’ll have met the demands, he gets his son back and then all he’s got to do is assemble another shipment. You said yourself he’s the biggest there is; he’s got the resources.”

  Underberg laughed. “But that’s precisely why you’re involved. Why we’ve got your wife.”

  Deaken thought how he would like to smash his fist into that face, not just once but over and over again.

  “A second shipment doesn’t matter,” Underberg said. “I’ve already told you the SWAPO buildup is underway for an assault in July. Once it’s stopped, there won’t be time for Azziz to arrange another. But he’ll try something, he’s the sort of man who has to. Which is why you’re so essential. We need someone in the middle. Someone who can report every move. We don’t want to negotiate in the dark.”

  The emotion surged through Deaken, making him shake; his legs were tightly together, feet braced against the floor, his hands pressed against the desk top.

  “It would be natural for you to try and hit me,” anticipated Underberg, in his even, unmoved voice. “I’d feel the same way myself, if I were you. But don’t try it—I’d knock the shit out of you.”

  Deaken’s eyes flooded at his own helplessness. “Don’t hurt her,” he begged. “Please don’t hurt her.”

  “I’ve already promised you that.”

  Deaken pushed his hand across his face. Where was the cohesion to his thoughts, the logic that had made him best of his year at Rand University? “How do we keep in touch? Where do I go?”

  Underberg reached into his inside pocket. “There’s an air ticket to Nice. The evening flight,” he said. “Azziz is in Monte Carlo …” From an opposite pocket the man extracted an envelope. “Money,” he said. “We know you haven’t got any and you’ll need it …” The third item was a single sheet of paper. “Telephone numbers,” listed Underberg. “The first is a public kiosk on the quayside at Monte Carlo, the Quai des Etats-Unis. The second is of the Bristol Hotel. If you haven’t been to Monte Carlo before, it’s on the boulevard Albert.”

  “There’s got to be more than that!” protested Deaken.

  Underberg shook his head. “Contact will always come from us, never from you. Be by that quayside kiosk at noon every day. If it’s engaged for any protracted length of time, or broken for some reason, then go to the Bristol at four the same afternoon and we’ll call you there—nothing will ever go wrong with the telephone system of a hotel like the Bristol.”

  It made them absolutely secure, Deaken realized. “I want to know something,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Does my father know anything about this?”

  “Nothing,” insisted Underberg. “And there must be no contact between you—we’d know, if there were. You’ll be watched, all the time. You won’t know, but we’ll always be around.”

  “When will I get Karen back?”

  “When we’re satisfied.”

  “You control me as long as she’s safe,” said Deaken. “If anything happens to her, your pressure goes …” He stopped, unsure of the threat. Then he said, “If anything does happen to her, I’ll hunt you down. Wherever and however, I’ll hunt you down and kill you.”

  “Of course you will,” said Underberg calmly.

  Karen Deaken walked apprehensively into the farmhouse, staring about her warily. Her hair was straggled and she had been crying. She looked crumpled and small beside the huge-bellied, bearded man who had brought her from Switzerland, through the same unhindered crossing at Basel. At once Levy crossed the room towards her.

  “You mustn’t be frightened,” he said soothingly. “Everything is going to work out all right. I promise.”

  “Fear never hurt anybody,” said the bearded man, whose name was Solomon Leiberwitz.

  “Stop it!” Levy said to him. To Karen he said, “Don’t worry.”

  She looked at him. He smiled. She responded, nervously, then realized what she was doing and straightened her face. “What do you want?”

  Levy gestured towards the bench alongside the fireplace where Tewfik Azziz sat. “For the moment,” he said, “just for you to sit next to him, over there.”

  “What for?”

  “We want to take your photograph,” said the Israeli. “Together.”

  4

  Adnan Mohammed Azziz was a man conscious of his importance and content with the security and respect it accorded him. He was one of a number of men—another was his country’s oil minister—born outside the dynastic hierarchy of brothers and cousins of the Saudi monarchy, but accepted within it and even accorded the honorary title of Sheik because he was a successful traveller, in both directions, across the bridge between the isolated, religiously dominated court of Riyadh and the commercial elbow-jostle of the West. His unique and peculiar empire had been founded by his father, who by camel pack had supplied the weapons that enabled Ibn Saud to surge in from his nomad’s camp, storm a desert fort and establish his as the predominant family in a kingdom where oil was yet to be discovered. The father had taught the son and Adnan Azziz had been a diligent pupil, not just in a goatskin tent, but later, after the oil came, at Oxford and then the Business School at Harvard. A dynasty created by arms never forgets their necessity, even when the tradition changes from muzzle loaders and Lee Enfields to radar systems, missiles and supersonic jet fighters. Azziz served his country well and himself better. With seemingly inexhaustible funds at his disposal he arranged payment by percentage of what he purchased, and began his very first negotiation fully aware of the commission that would be available from the grateful manufacturer. He was neither greedy nor careless, remembering his father’s teaching that a man fortunate to enjoy curds every day misses them all the more when they are denied him. He traded hard but always fairly, never leaving dissatisfied the seller with whom he dealt or the purchaser for whom he acted. Another of his father’s teachings was that the gold merchants of the souk frequently began as copper beaters: Azziz applied for and was granted court permission to act for others, expanding his expertise and influence to the benefit of his country, and his fortune to the benefit of himself.

  It took him twenty years to become the largest and most successful independent arms dealer in the world. In so doing, Adnan Azziz became a truly international man, as comfortable in a galabeeyeh in his palace overlooking the Red Sea near Jedda as he was hosting a cocktail party, at which he only ever drank orange juice, in his penthouse on the cor
ner of New York’s Fifth Avenue and 61st Street or in his Regency town house in South Audley Street, running parallel with London’s Park Lane.

  But he was most comfortable of all aboard the Scheherazade. It was a large, white, elaborate and sophisticated yacht, 4000 tons in weight, diesel-powered and with a crew complement of fifty. They were as specialized as the vessel in which they served. Six men were employed to operate communication equipment equal to that of American naval cruisers and necessary to maintain constant and uninterrupted liaison with Azziz’s world-spanning business links; part consisted of two computers and a location-and-fix device programmed for orbital navigational satellites. The fifty did not include the ten-man team necessary to service, maintain and fly the stern-housed Alouette nor the immediate legal staff, at least two of whom were normally in constant attendance wherever Azziz was domiciled at any time.

  They were led by an American named Harry Grearson, who was with Azziz when the panicked telephone call came from Zürich airport. The open emotion came entirely from Switzerland; the nature of his business had taught Azziz complete control, even when being told of the abduction of his only son. His voice kept to a monotone when he recounted the conversation to Grearson in the stateroom of the yacht.

  “Who are they?” Like his employer, the lawyer remained quiet-voiced.

  “There was no indication, apart from the fact that they spoke Arabic as well as English,” said Azziz. He was an imposing man, tall and full-bodied, the stature increased by the fact that the weight was not indulgence but muscle. He wore white ducks, a blue short-sleeved shirt and was completely naked of any jewellery, even a wristwatch.

  “You’ve informed the police?”

  “No,” said Azziz at once. “We were warned not to.”

  “That’s a mistake,” said Grearson.

  “Better this way,” insisted the Arab. “I’ll meet the demand, whatever it is.” Tewfik’s mother had died in childbirth, and despite taking three more wives, as Azziz was allowed by Moslem law, his four other children were all daughters.

  “What have you told your people to do?”

  “Fly back here, so I can question them more fully.”

  “There was nothing left in the car … no note or letter?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “It shouldn’t have happened, not with three of them.”

  “I know,” said Azziz. “So do they.”

  “Would any Arab faction have cause to attack you?”

  Azziz shrugged. “I don’t know of a particular reason. 1 supplied the Shah, so the Iranian fundamentalists could regard me as an enemy.”

  “They don’t have the organization,” judged Grearson.

  Azziz lifted the internal telephone, dialled the communications room and asked to be told the moment the Alouette radioed landing instructions.

  “It could be purely criminal, without any political implications,” said Grearson. He was a lean, grey-haired man who wore rimless glasses which he was constantly adjusting, arranging them back and forth along the bridge of his long aquiline nose. He never wore anything but a business suit; today it was dark blue and waistcoated and seemed incongruous in the surroundings of the yacht. “Do we get him back ourselves?”

  “We’ll need someone,” Azziz agreed.

  “Who?”

  “Professionals,” decided Azziz. “Soldiers. But not yet. Let’s see what they want. It might not be necessary.”

  The internal telephone purred softly. Azziz listened, without talking, and then said to the lawyer, “They’re here.”

  Led by Williams, the three men who had failed to prevent Tewfik Azziz’s kidnap came single file into the stateroom. The American was clearly nervous, the Bedouins terrified.

  “Once more,” demanded Azziz. “What happened?” The voice was still quiet.

  Williams started hurriedly but Azziz stopped him at once, ordering him to begin again; and this time neither Azziz nor Grearson interrupted. When Williams had finished Azziz told the Bedouins to recount their version in Arabic. It took longer, because of the two men’s fear and because they interrupted each other in the telling.

  When they finished Azziz interrogated Williams and the Bedouins, to ensure the stories matched and that nothing had been missed.

  “Eight men then?” he said.

  “That I counted,” confirmed Williams. “There could have been more in charge of transport.”

  Remembering Williams’s Green Beret service, Grearson said, “Any indication that they were military?”

  Williams thought about the question. “Obviously it had been carefully planned, but I didn’t get a marked impression of drilling.”

  “The medical gun is intriguing,” said Grearson. To Williams he said, “The three of you recovered almost simultaneously?”

  Williams nodded agreement. “Within a moment or two of each other. About an hour.”

  For Grearson’s benefit, Azziz said, “I’ve asked about any accent in the Arabic that was spoken. They say it could have been Palestinian or Jordanian: maybe even Iraqi.”

  Grearson grimaced. “Too wide,” he said.

  “No liberation group would have cause to do it,” said Azziz. “I’ve supported them, with both money and weanons.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Williams. “Very sorry.”

  Azziz looked steadily at the man for several moments. Then he said simply, “Yes.”

  “I think we should inform the police,” said Grearson again.

  “We’ll wait,” said Azziz.

  “For how long?” asked the lawyer.

  “As long as it takes,” said Azziz with Arab fatalism.

  It was another five hours. The package had been delivered by hand to the harbour office at Monte Carlo and was brought back in the yacht’s tender, doing the evening mail run. Grearson saw that Azziz’s hands were quite steady as he slit it open. It was a coloured Polaroid picture of Tewfik Azziz and a woman neither of them recognized, sitting stiffly upright on a bench alongside what appeared to be a wide fireplace. A flash had been used in what must have been quite strong sunlight, so the picture was overexposed.

  “Just a photograph?” queried Grearson.

  Azziz turned it over. “A name,” he said. “Richard Deaken. With what appear to be some letters of qualifications.”

  Grearson took the photograph. “It’s a lawyer’s degree,” he identified immediately. “Several, in fact.”

  While Grearson was examining the picture, the Arab opened the second letter to arrive that night, scanning it briefly. “It’s the school report,” he said softly. “They’re confident of his getting into Cambridge.”

  As he spoke Richard Deaken was disembarking at Nice airport from the evening flight from Geneva. Six hours had elapsed since the confrontation with Underberg and he still felt confused.

  They had been identified to each other when the photograph was taken and separated immediately afterwards, both locked in separate bedrooms at either end of the house. In each a securing bar closed the outer shutters across the outside of the windows, which had been screwed down so that it was impossible to open them, even slightly. Into the frames, steel bars had bean newly fitted. A portable toilet was set in the comer of each room, and each had a washstand, with a flower-decorated bowl and matching pitcher. The wardrobes were empty, except for hangers.

  When they were fetched for the evening meal, Karen was sitting on the very edge of the bed, staring towards the door. Azziz was asleep, so he was the last to enter the downstairs room. Only Levy sat down with them at the table.

  Azziz stretched up to look into the tureen and said, “Is this meat kosher?”

  “No,” said Levy.

  “I want to be sure.”

  “Don’t eat it if you don’t want to,” said the Israeli. “There’s plenty of cheese and fruit.”

  He offered the dish to Karen. She had combed her hair and applied some fresh lipstick but her eyes were still red. She hesitated and then ladled a small amount onto her plate
; it was lamb, flavoured with just the right amount of garlic. Levy helped himself and then pushed the tureen towards Azziz. The boy stared at a piece of meat he had manoeuvred onto his ladle, and then served himself.

  The wine was local, in an unmarked bottle. Levy gestured towards Karen’s glass. She hesitated again and then nodded. Indicating a jug. Levy said to Azziz, “I assumed you’d want water.”

  “Why is Mrs Deaken involved in this?” demanded Azziz.

  “Her husband is necessary,” said Levy. He broke some bread from a stick.

  “What’s happening to Richard?” she blurted.

  “Nothing,” Levy said gently. “He’s working … doing a job, that’s all. He’s quite safe.”

  Azziz put more of the stew onto his plate, then looked across the table at the man. “Is it new Jewish strategy to fight with women?”

  Levy pushed aside his plate, cut a portion of goat’s cheese and then took an apple to eat with it. He looked down, concentrating upon peeling the fruit. “Our argument isn’t with you,” he said. “Nor with Arabs even, not directly.”

  Azziz frowned and said, “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s not necessary for you to,” said Levy.

  “How long are you going to keep me here?” said Karen. She wished her voice had been stronger.

  “No longer than we have to,” said Levy. “A few days I hope, that’s all.”

  “And me?” asked Azziz.

  “The same.”

  After the meal there was coffee, freshly ground and as good as everything else. They remained at the table to drink it.

  “Tomorrow there will be some books,” promised Levy. “And games. I’m getting a backgammon set.” He looked at Karen. “Do you play?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Pity.” Levy turned to the Arab. “You’ll be allowed out into the garden to exercise. Watched, of course. And not together.”

  “One acting as hostage for the other?” seized the boy.

  “Yes,” said Levy simply. “We don’t want to hurt you, either of you.”

  “Unless absolutely necessary,” goaded Azziz.