by Wilbur Smith
Melissa-Jane rolled her eyes at the automobile. "Another bloated plutocrat, I expect," she muttered. It was the currently favoured term of extreme disapproval, a great advance on "grotty" which had preceded it, Peter could not help thinking as he helped his daughter unsaddle and then rub down the horses. They went up through the rose garden, arm in arm, and then laughing together into the main drawing-room.
"Peter old boy!" Steven came to meet him, as tall as his brother, and once he had been as lean, but good living had thickened his body while at the same time the strains of being a professional deal maker had greyed his hair at the temples and laced his mustache with silver bristles. His face was not quite a mirror image of Peter's, slightly more fleshy and florid but the twin resemblance was still strongly marked, and now his face was alive with pleasure.
"Thought you'd broken your bloody neck, what?" Steven carefully cultivated the bluff manner of the country squire to shield his quick and shrewd intelligence.
Now he turned to Melissa-Jane and hugged her with barely a touch of incestuous pleasure. "How did Florence Nightingale go?"
"She's a darling, Uncle Steven. I will never be able to thank you."
"Peter, I would like you to meet a very charming lady-" She had been talking to Patricia Stride, Steven's wife, and now as she turned, the winter sunshine through the bay windows behind lit her with a soft romantic aura.
Peter felt as though the earth had tilted under his feet, and a fist closed around his ribs constricting his breathing and inhibiting the action of his heart.
He recognized her immediately from the photographs in the official file during the long-drawn-out kidnapping and subsequent murder of her husband. At one stage it had seemed that the kidnappers had crossed the Channel with their victim, and Thor had gone to condition Alpha for almost a week. Peter had studied the photographs that had been assembled from a dozen sources, but even the glossy coloured portraits from Vogue and Jours de France had not been able to capture the magnificence of the woman.
Surprisingly, he saw his own immediate recognition reflected.
There was no change in her expression, but it flared briefly like dark-green emerald fire in her eyes. There was no question in Peter's mind but that she had recognized him, and as he stepped "towards her he realized she was tall, but the fine proportion of her body had not made that immediately apparent. Her skirt was of a fine wool crepe which moulded the long, stately legs of a dancer.
"Baroness, may I present my brother. General Stride."
"How do you do General." Her English was almost perfect, a low husky voice, the slight accent very attractive, but she pronounced his rank as three distinct syllables.
"Peter, this is Baroness Altmann." Her thick glossy black hair was scraped back severely from the forehead with a perfect arrowhead of widow's peak at the centre, emphasizing the high Slavic cheekbones and the unblemished perfection of her skin but her jawline was too square and strong for beauty, and the mouth had an arrogant determined line to it. Magnificent, but not beautiful and Peter found himself violently attracted. The breathless wholesale feeling he had not experienced for twenty years.
She seemed to epitomize everything he admired in a woman.
Her body was in the condition of a trained athlete.
Beneath the oyster silk of her blouse her arms were delicately sculpted from toned muscle, the waist narrow, the breasts very small and unfettered, their lovely shape pressing clearly through fine material, her clean lightly tanned skin glowed with health and careful grooming. All this contributed to his attraction.
However, the greater part was in Peter's own mind. He knew she was a woman of extraordinary strength and achievement, that was pure aphrodisiac for him, and she exuded also the challenging air of being un-attainable. The regal eyes mocked his evident masculinity with the untouchable aloofness of a queen or a goddess. She seemed to be smiling inwardly, a cool patronizing smile at his admiration, which she realized was no more than her due.
Quickly Peter reviewed what he knew of her.
She had begun her association with the Baron as his private secretary, and in five years had become indispensable to him. The Baron had recognized her ability by rapidly elevating her to the boards of directors, first of some of the group's lesser subsidiaries, and finally to that of the central holding company. When the Baron's physical strength had begun to decline in his losing battle with an inexorable cancer, he came to rely more upon her, trust well placed as it soon turned out. For she ran the complex empire of heavy industrial companies, of electronics and armaments corporations, of banking and shipping and property developments, like the son he never had. When he married her he was fifty-eight years of age, almost thirty years her senior, and she had been a perfect wife as she had been a perfect business partner.
She had assembled and personally delivered the massive ransom demanded by his abductors, against the advice of the French police, going alone and unguarded to a meeting with killers, and when they had returned the Baron's fearfully mutilated corpse to her, she had mourned him and buried him and continued to run the empire she had inherited, with vision and strength so far beyond her years.
She was twenty-nine years old. No, that had been two years ago, Peter realized, as he bowed over her hand, not quite touching the smooth cool fingers with his lips. She would be thirty-one years old now. She wore a single ring on her wedding finger, a solitaire diamond, not a particularly large diamond, not more than six carats but of such a perfect whiteness and fire that it seemed to be endowed with its own life. It was the choice of a woman of immense wealth and even greater style.
As Peter straightened, he realized that she was appraising him as carefully as he was her. It seemed that he would be unable to conceal anything from those slanted emerald eyes, but he returned her gaze steadily, knowing without conceit that he could withstand any such scrutiny; still intrigued, however, with the certainty that she had known him.
"Your name has been much in the news recently she said, as if in explanation.
There were sixteen for lunch, including Steven and Pat's three children and Melissa-Jane. It was a happy, relaxed meal, but the Baroness was seated at a distance that made it impossible for Peter to speak directly to her, and though he strained to follow her conversation, her voice was low and addressed mostly to Steven and the editor of one of the national daily newspapers who flanked her. Peter found himself fully occupied in fending off the breathless attention of the pretty but feather brained blonde on his left. She was a starlet who had married well and divorced even better.
She had been handpicked by Pat Stride. Peter's sister-inlaw was indefatigable in her efforts to find him a suitable replacement for Cynthia. Twelve years of straight failures had not daunted her in the least.
There was still time for Peter to notice that though the Baroness sipped once or twice at her wine, the level in the glass never fell, and she picked only lightly at her plate.
Though Peter watched her covertly, the Baroness never glanced once in his direction. It was only as they went through for coffee that she came directly and unaffectedly to his side.
"Steven tells me there are Roman ruins on the estate, she said.
"I could show them to you. It is a lovely walk up through the woods."
"Thank you. I do have some business to discuss with Steven before that; shall we meet at three o'clock?" She had changed into a loose tweed skirt and jacket that would have looked bulky on a shorter or plumper woman, and high boots in the same lavender tinted brown.
Under it she wore a cashmere roll-neck jersey, and a scarf of the same fine wool hung down her back. A wide-brimmed hat with a bright feather in the band was pulled down over her eyes.
She walked in silence, hands thrust deeply into the big pockets of her jacket, making no effort to protect the expensive boots from mud, thorns or damp bracken. She moved with a flowing, long-legged grace, swinging from the hips so that her shoulder and head seemed to float beside Peter, at a not much low
er level than his own. Had she not been a world leader in finance and industry, she might have made a great model, he decided. She had a talent for making clothes look important and elegant, while treating them with indifference.
Peter respected her silence, pleased to be able to step out to match her pace, as they went up through the dark dripping woods that smelt of leaf mould and cold rain, the oaks bare and moss-pelted, seeming to beseech a purple grey sky with arthritic limbs held high.
They came out on the higher open ground without having stopped once, although the path had been steep and the ground soft underfoot.
She was breathing deeply but evenly, and she had coloured just sufficiently to flatter the high Slavic cheeks.
She must be in peak physical condition, he thought.
"Here they are." Peter indicated the barely discernible grass-covered ditch that circled the hilltop. "They are not very impressive, but I didn't want to warn you in advance She smiled now.
"I have been here before," she said in that intriguing husky accent.
"Well, we are off to a flying start. We have both deceived each other at our first meeting-" Peter chuckled.
"I came all the way from Paris, she explained. "It was most inconvenient really the business I had to discuss with Sir Steven could have been completed by telephone in five minutes. What I had to discuss with you could only be done face by face-" She corrected herself immediately.
"I am sorry, face to face" It was a rare slip. Steven had been strangely insistent that Peter spend this particular weekend at Abbots Yew, and was certainly party to this encounter.
"I am flattered by the interest of such a beautiful lady-"
Instantly she frowned, and with a gesture of irritation cut short the compliment as frivolous.
"Very recently you were approached by the Narmco section of Seddler StLel with an offer to head their Sales Division," she said, and Peter nodded. Since his resignation had been accepted by the War Office, there had been many offers. "The terms of employment offered were extraordinarily generous."
"That is true."
"You prefer the cloistered academic life, perhaps?" she asked, and though Peter's expression did not change, he was taken off balance. It seemed impossible that she could know of the offer of the Chair of Modern Military History that he had been offered by a leading American university, an offer with which he was still toying idly.
"There are some books I want to read and write," Peter said.
"Books. You have an important collection, and I have read those you have written. You are an interesting contradiction, General Stride. The man of direct action, and at the same time of deep political and social thought."
"I confuse myself at times," Peter smiled. "So what chance do you have to understand me?" She did not rise to the smile. "A great deal of your writing coincides with my own conviction. As for your action, if I had been a man and in your position, I might have acted as you did." Peter stiffened, resenting any allusion to the taking of Flight 070, and again she seemed to understand instinctively.
"I refer to your entire career, General. From Cyprus to Johannesburg and including Ireland." And he relaxed slightly.
"Why did you refuse the Narmco offer? "she asked.
"Because it was presented with the unstated conviction that I could not refuse. Because the terms were so generous that they left a strange unsatisfying odour in my nostrils.
Because I believe that I would have been required to perform duties in line with the reputation I seem to have acquired since the taking of Flight 070."
"What reputation is that?" She leaned slightly towards him, and he smelled her particular aroma. The way perfume reacted upon that pet ally-smooth skin, heated by the exertion of the climb up the hill. She smelled faintly of crushed lemon blossom and clean healthy mature woman.
He felt himself physically aroused by it, and had an almost undesirable impulse to reach out and touch her, to feel the warmth and glossiness of her skin.
A man who makes accommodations, perhaps, he answered, "What did you think you might have been asked to do?" This time he shrugged.
"Perhaps carry bribes to my onetime colleagues in NATO Command, to induce them to consider favourably the products of Narmco."
"Why would you believe that?"
"I was once a decision making officer in that Command." She turned away from him and looked out across the special greens of an English winter landscape, the orderly fields and pastures, the dark wedges and geometrical shapes of the woods and copses.
"Do you know that through Altmann Industries and other companies I control a majority shareholding in Seddler Steel, and naturally in Narmco?"
"No," Peter admitted. "But I cannot say I am surprised."
"Did you know that the offer from Narmco was in reality from me personally?"
This time he said nothing.
"You are quite right, of course, your contacts with the upper echelon of NATO and with the British and American high commands would have been worth every centime of the extravagant salary you were offered. As for bribes-" She smiled then suddenly, and it altered her face entirely, making her seem many years younger, and there was a warmth and a sense of fun that he would not have suspected, this is a capitalist society, General. We prefer to talk about commissions and introducer's fees." He found himself smiling back at her, not because of what she had said, but simply because her smile was irresistible.
"However, I give you my solemn word that you would never have been expected to offer or carry, no, since Lockheed were indiscreet, it has changed. Nothing disreputable could ever be traced back to Narmco, and certainly not to the top men there. Certainly not to you."
"It's all academic now, , Peter pointed out. "I've refused the offer."
"I disagree, General Stride. The brim of the hat covered her eyes as she looked down. "I hope that when you hear what I had hoped to achieve you may reconsider. I made the error of trying to keep us at arms" length to begin with.
I relied on the generosity of the offer to sway you. I do not usually misjudge people so dismally-" and she looked up and smiled again, and this time reached out and touched his arm. Her fingers were like her limbs, long and slim, but they were delicately tapered and the nails were shaped and lacquered to a glossy fleshy pink. She left them on his arm as she went on speaking.
"My husband was an extraordinary man. A man of vast vision and strength and compassion. Because of that they tortured and killed him, -" her voice had sunk to a hoarse catchy whisper " they killed him in the most vile manner-" She stopped, but made no attempt to turn her head away, she was unashamed of the tears that filled both eyes but did not break over the lower lids. She did not even blink, and it was Peter who looked away first. Only then she moved her hand, slipping it lightly into the crook of Peter's elbow and coming beside him so her hip almost touched his.
"It will rain soon," she said, her voice level and controlled.
"We should go down." And as they started, she went on talking.
"The butchers who did that to Aaron went free, while an impotent society looked on. A society which has systematically stripped itself of defence against the next attack.
America has virtually disbanded its intelligence system, and so shackled and exposed what is left that it is powerless.
Your own country is concerned only with its particular problems, as are we in the rest of Europe there is no international approach to a problem that is international in scope. Atlas was a fine concept, limited as it was by the fact that it was a force that could only be used in retaliation and then only in special circumstances. However, if they ever suspect that it exists, the denizens of the left will mass to tear it down like a hunting pack of hyena." She squeezed his arm lightly, and looked sideways at him with a solemn slant of the emerald eyes. "Yes, General, I do know about Atlas but do not ask me how." Peter said nothing, and they entered the forest, stepping carefully, for the path was slick and steep.
"After the death of my husba
nd, I began to think a great deal about how we could protect the world that we know, while still remaining within the laws which were first designed to do that. With
Altmann Industries I had inherited a comprehensive system of international information gathering; naturally it was attuned almost entirely to commercial and industrial considerations, -" She went on talking in that low intense voice that Peter found mesmeric, describing how she had gradually used her massive fortune and influence to reach across borders closed to most to gain the overall view of the new world of violence and intimidation. " - I was not tied by considerations such as that of Interpol, forbidden by suicidal laws to involve itself in any crime that has political motivation. It was only when I was able to pass on what I had learned that I found myself coming up against the same self-destructive state of mind that masquerades as democracy and individual freedom. Twice I was able to anticipate a terrorist strike and to warn the authorities, but intention is not a crime, I was told, and both the culprits were quietly escorted to the border and turned free to prepare themselves almost openly for the next outrage. The world must wait and cringe for the next stroke, prohibited from making any pre-emptive strike to prevent it, and when it comes they are hampered by confused national responsibilities and by the complicated concept of minimum force " The Baroness broke off. "But you know all this! You have written in depth of the same subject."