by Wilbur Smith
Shasa and Elsa were still keeping up appearances and exercising elaborate decorum, even to the extent of occupying separate, but interconnecting, suites on the top floor of Maison des Alizes. The family thought this little charade was hilarious. They were all waiting for the two of them in the gazebo on the lawn above the fish-pools when they came down for evening cocktails.
Elsa had bathed Shasa and anointed his bruises and scrapes, so he looked very dapper and refreshed, and limped only slightly as they strolled down the front steps together. He was dressed in a cream tropical silk suit with a crisp new eye-patch, and she wore a full-length gauzy chiffon with a frangipani spray in her hair.
"Look at the little devils. Do you really believe that they are just jolly good pals?' Garry demanded with a twinkle in his eye, and Isabella and Holly had to cling to each other for support. Even Centaine covered her smile with the Japanese fan and turned away to speak to one of the engineers.
Isabella had every reason to be at Maison des Alizes even though the Senate was in session. She was on the board of directors of Capricorn Chemicals.
Since the trip to Chizora Concession when she had first learnt of the Cyndex project, Isabella had shown a sudden interest in CCI. She had succeeded in having herself appointed to the Senate standing committee on agriculture, and after that it had required only a few subtle hints for Garry to offer her a seat on the CCI board. She had rapidly become an active and valuable addition to the management team of Capricorn and had never missed a meeting of the board. She had taken a particular interest in the Cyndex project, and Garry had naturally included her in this gathering.
Garry had also seized the opportunity of bringing Holly and the children along for an unscheduled holiday. Although he would be heavily occupied with the technical discussions, he hoped to be able to spend some time each day with his family. Holly had been complaining recently that they saw so little of him, and the children were growing up so quickly that he was missing a big slice of their childhood. These days Centaine Courtney-Malcomess never missed a chance to be with her great-grandchildren, and she had insisted on boarding the Lear when it took off from Lanseria private airport outside Johannesburg.
Indeed, so large had been the family contingent and the weight of their luggage that the other Capricorn directors had been obliged to catch the next commercial flight.
Maison des Alizds was bursting at the seams, every bed was occupied and they had set up two extra cots in the nursery for the babies. Centaine had borrowed extra trained staff from La Pirogue, the five-star beach resort just down the coast at Flic and Flac to deal with the invasion. Then she had sent the Lear back to Johannesburg to bring in supplies of such essentials as Imperial caviare and vintage Krug and fresh fruit and baby-foods that were unobtainable on the island.
The Krug was flowing freely now as Shasa and Elsa joined the party under the frivolous fretwork roof of the gazebo. There was an exuberant orgy of kisses and handshakes and back-slapping and happy cries of greeting.
Elsa had been presented to Centaine only briefly the previous evening when the old lady arrived at Maison des Alizes. Even though Centaine had been tired by the long jet flight, they had warmed to each other immediately.
Centaine had squinted at her in that particular way she had when she was concentrating deeply. Then her eyes had straightened and she had smiled and held out her hand.
"Shasa has told me many good things about you, but I suspect that's not half of it,' she said in Italian, and Elsa had smiled with pleasure at the compliment and at Centaine's command of her language.
"I did not know you spoke Italian, Signora Courtneymalcomess." 'There is still much we have to learn about each other,' Centaine nodded.
"I look forward to that,' Elsa replied. They had recognized kindred spirits and now, under the gazebo, Elsa moved naturally to Centaine's side and kissed her cheek.
Well, Centaine thought complacently as she took Elsa's arm, Shasa took long enough to find this one, but she was well worth waiting for.
Garry's children were chasing eich other around the gazebo, and their shrieks and howls detracted a little from the sophisticated ambience of the gathering.
"I must admit,' Shasa remarked as he regarded his grandchildren balefully, 'that I'm becoming more like Henry the Eighth every day - I prefer small children in the abstract." 'As I recall, at that age you were every bit as bad,' Centaine rallied immediately to the defence of her brood of great-grandchildren, but at that moment a particularly piercing squeal made Shasa wince.
"For that one alone you would have boiled me in oil. Mater, you are in danger of becoming a doting greatgranny." 'They'll soon have enough of it,' Centaine smiled down on them fondly.
"Not before I do, I assure you,' he muttered, and went off to where Bella was chatting to the Pignatelli engineers.
Isabella had set out to be charming to the German director, and by this time he was throwing off sparks. For Isabella there was a bizarre sense of unreality about the scene. She felt like an actress in a Franco Zeffirelli movie. The gleaming ivory house, the weird shapes of the trees and tropical plants, the gigantic fronds of the Royal Victoria waterlilies floating on the ponds and the shoals of multicoloured ornamental carp sailing beneath them, all contributed to a fantastic dreamlike setting. The laughter and the disjointed enigmatic conversations in different languages and the cries of the children were all so inconsequential when set against the true reason for this gathering.
There was Nana holding court like a dowager empress, and Holly and Elsa Pignatelli wearing precious chiffons and silks that cost a working man's wages for a year. While somewhere far away her little Nicholas dressed in combat camouflage and played with the ghastly weapons of war, with soldiers and terrorists for companions.
Here she flirted with this balding middle-aged man who looked like a grocer or a barman, but who was in reality the purveyor of death in one of its least attractive guises. 4eo Here she smiled at her big teddy bear of a brother and linked arms with her beloved father while she conspired to betray them both, and her country to boot. Here was the shell, the beautiful, groomed, intelligent, successful young woman, fully in control of her destiny and the world around her. While within was the terrified confused creature, suffering and bereaved, the pawn of powerful shadowy forces in a game that she did not understand.
"One day at a time,' she warned herself. 'One step at a time.' And the next step was the Cyndex project.
Perhaps this would be the ultimate endeavour that Ramsey had promised her.
Once she had given them the Cyndex project, perhaps they would be able to escape from the web - she, Ramsey and Nicholas. Perhaps then the nightmare would end.
The conference began the following morning in the dining room of Maison des Alizes. They sat beneath the revolving punkah fans at the long walnut table which extended to seat thirty persons and they talked about death. They discussed the mechanics and the chemical structure of death. They argued the packaging and the quality control and the cost-efficiency of death, as though talking about manufacturing potato crisps or face cream.
Isabella steeled herself to show no reaction mthe things she heard discussed at the long table. She had learnt never to underestimate the powers of observation of her brother Garry. Behind the horn-rimmed spectacles and bluff genial facade he missed very little. She knew that he would pick up any sign of horror or revulsion that she showed. That would probably be the end of her involvement in the project.
The Pignatelli technicians had prepared a dossier. The copies were contained in untitled but handsome pigskin folders which were placed on the dining-room table in front of each of them. The dossier was exhaustive and covered every aspect of the problem of manufacturing, storing and deploying the nerve gas.
Werner Stolz, the technical director, took them through the dossier a paragraph at a time. As horror unfolded on horror, read out in Werner's clipped sibilant German accent, Isabella found that she had to exercise all her self-control to keep he
r expression neutral and businesslike.
"Cyndex is a volatile gas consisting of an organophosphorus compound of the Alkylphosphonic Fluoridic Acid Group. Gases of this composition are known as G agents and include Sarin and Soman.
"However, Cyndex has desirable features that differ distinctly from these older types of nerve gas...' As he enumerated these features Isabella was appalled by his choice of the adjective 'desirable', but she nodded thoughtfully and kept her eyes on the dossier.
"Cyndex has a unique and highly aggressive combination of properties.
These are high toxicity, rapid action, percutaneous effectiveness as well as absorption through the lungs and mucous membrane of the human body.
Other advantages are high cost-effective ratios. By reason of its dual chemical structure, it is safe to manufacture, store and handle. Once the two agents which make up* Cyndex are mixed, the gas becomes highly unstable and has an extremely short effective lifespan. Thus it is more readily controlled in the field. After the elimination of the threatened population, the treated terrain can be more swiftly taken under friendly control." He beamed down the table at them benignly. 'I would like now to discuss each of these properties in greater detail. Let us take the question of toxicity. Cyndex in either vapour or aerosol form absorbed through the lungs has an LDI dosage' - he smiled apologetically - 'which means that it will kill fifty percent of the threatened population of moderately active adult men in two minutes, and a hundred percent of the population in ten minutes. This is not significantly more rapid than Sarin, but it is in its percutaneous effect that Cyndex comes into its own. It is absorbed much more rapidly through the skin, the eyes, the nose, the throat and the digestive system than Sarin. One microlitre of Cyndex - and I remind you that is a millionth part of a litre - applied to naked skin will incapacitate a man in two minutes and kill in fifteen minutes. This is approximately four times more potent than Sarin. Although atrophine injected intravenously within thirty seconds may inhibit the process and reduce some of the symptoms, it will not arrest spontaneous collapse of the respiratory system and subsequent death by suffocation. I will come later to the specific symptoms of exposure to the agent, but let us now discuss the cost of manufacture. Please turn to page twelve of the dossier." They obeyed like schoolchildren, and Werner Stolz went on: "You will see from the bottom line of our estimate that at this point in time the plant will cost in the region of twenty million US dollars and the direct cost of manufacture will amount to twenty dollars per kilo." Isabella wondered, even in the stress of listening to these horrific details, why the use of newspeak cliches such as 'bottom line' and 'this point in time' annoyed her so. I wish he would speak plain English, she thought, as if that would somehow make the facts more palatable. Werner was still speaking.
"Translated into comparative terms that means that the entire plant would cost the same as a single Harrier jet fighter from British Aerospace and the cost of manufacture of a stock of Cyndex sufficient to ensure the defence of the country for twelve months would be equivalent to the purchase of fifty Sidewinder air-to-air missiles..." 'That's an offer we just can't refuse,' Garry chuckled, and Isabella felt a stab of hatred for him that shocked her with its intensity.
How can he joke about something like this? She dared not look up at him. He might have read her thoughts. Werner nodded and smiled agreement with Garry.
"Of course, Cyndex needs no special vehicle for dissemination. Ordinary crop-sprayer aircraft such as those in day-to-day use in agricultural situations can be readily adapted for the purpose. The gas may also be delivered by artillery projectile. The new G5 long-range howitzer being developed at present by Armscor would be ideal." At noon they broke for a swim in the pool and a buffet lunch on the terrace. The discussion dwelt largely on Elsa and Shasa's recent visit to the Salzburg Festival where Herbert von Karajan had directed the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. They went back into the dining-room to listen to a description of the symptoms of Cyndex poisoning.
"Although it has never been tested on human subjects, we have determined that the symptoms of a moderate exposure to Cyndex aerosol will not differ greatly from other G agent nerve gases,' Werner told them. 'These would commence with a sensation of tightness in the chest and difficulty in breathing, followed by copious running of the nose and a burning, stinging pain in the eyes and a dimming of vision." Isabella felt her own eyes begin to sting in sympathy, and she dabbed at them surreptitiously.
"As these symptoms become progressively more intense, there will be heavy salivation and frothing at the mouth, sweating and trembling, nausea and belching, sensations of heartburn and stomach cramps which will lead swiftly to projectile vomiting and explosive diarrhoea. These will be followed by involuntary urination and bleeding from the mucous membrane of the eyes, nose, mouth and genitalia. Trembling, twitching and giddiness and muscle cramps will lead to paralysis and convulsions.
"However, the immediate cause of death will be total collapse of the respiratory system. Cyndex owes its superior toxicity to the ease with which it penetrates the bloodbrain barrier in the central nervous system." They were silent and subdued for a full minute after Werner finished, and then Garry asked softly: 'If Cyndex has never been used on human subjects, how do you anticipate these symptoms?" 'Initially by extrapolation with the effects of other G
agent nerve gases, Sarin in particulan', Wemer Stolz paused, for the first time showing some sign of embarrassment. 'Thereafter the gas was tested on primate subjects.' He cleared his throat. 'Chimpanzees were used in laboratory tests." With an effort Isabella prevented herself making some gesture of disgust and outrage. However, her horror became almost uncontrollable as the director went on remorselessly: 'We found, however, that chimpanzees are extremely expensive laboratory animals. You are fortunate in that you have access to an almost unlimited supply of cheap and entirely satisfactory laboratory animals in the shape of Papio ursinus, the chacma baboon, which is indigenous to South Africa and still occurs there in large numbers." 'We aren't going to test on live animals?' Isabella's voice was shrill even in her own ears, and immediately she regretted the outburst and tried to recover her poise. "I mean, is it really necessary?" They were all staring at her now, and she flushed with anger at her own lack of self-control. It was Garry who broke the silence.
He spoke lightly, but there was a steely glint behind the lenses of his spectacles. 'The baboon is not my favourite animal. I have seen them kill the newborn lambs at Camdeboo to eat the milk curds in their-stomachs. Nana will tell you about their depredations on her roses and vegetable garden.
I am sure we all share your distaste and your reluctance to see unnecessary suffering inflicted on any living thing.' He paused. "However, in this instance we are considering the defence of the country, the safety of our nation - and the expenditure of many millions of Courtney money." He looked across at Shasa, who nodded agreement.
"The short answer is, I am afraid, yes. We must test. Better that some animals should die than our own people. It is not a pretty thought, but it is essential. I'm sorry, Bella. If it offends you, then you don't have to have anything further to do with the project. You can resign your seat on the Capricorn board and we'll say no more about it. We will all understand and respect your feelings." 'No.' She shook her head. 'I understand the necessity. I'm sorry I raised the subject.' She realized how close she had come to letting Nicholas and Ramsey down. Their safety and freedom were worth any price she might be forced to pay. She forced herself to smile and speak lightly: 'You don't get rid of me that easily. I'll keep my seat, thank you very much." Garry studied her face for a second longer, then he nodded. 'Good. I'm glad we have settled that.' And he turned his full attention back to Werner Stolz.
Isabella composed her expression into one of polite attention and clasped her hands in her lap. 'This is one project that Red Rose will have no qualms about reporting,' she promised hcrself.
Isabella sent the Red Rose despatch three days after she arrived back in Cape Town.
Over the years a routine had developed between her and the forces that controlled her. When she had information she sent a Red Rose telegram to the address in London and usually within twenty-four hours she received instructions for a dead drop. These always took the same form. She was given the time and location at which to park her Porsche. The location was always a public car park. Sometimes the Parade at the old fort, or a drive-in cinema, or one of the large supermarkets in the suburbs.
She wrote out her message on sheets of the one-time pad and left them in an envelope under the driver's seat with the door unlocked. When she returned to the Porsche half an hour or so later the envelope was missing. When they had a message or instructions for her the same method was employed, except only that when she returned to the 4ee Porsche there was an envelope containing typed instructions under the driver's seat.