Wilbur Smith's Smashing Thrillers

by Wilbur Smith

If you don't like my theories, you must have one of your own."

  "You are asking me to believe it was all a coincidence; that O'Shaughnessy just happened to run into an old enemy who just happened to tip us off twenty-four hours before the deadline for Melissa-Jane's hand to be amputated. Then it just so happened that we reached Laragh at exactly the same moment as O'Shaughnessy was pulling out and making a run for it. Is that what you want me to believe?"

  "Something like that,"Colin admitted.

  "Sorry, Colin. I just don't like coincidence."

  "Shoot!" Colin invited. "Let's hear how it really happened."

  "I don't know," Peter grinned phicatingly. "It is just that I have this feeling that Caliph doesn't deal in coincidence either. I have this other feeling that somehow Gilly O'Shaughnessy had the death mark on his forehead from the beginning. I have this feeling it was all part of the plan."

  "it must be great fun to have these feelings." Colin was prickling a little.

  "But they sure as hell aren't much help to me.) "Take it easy." Peter held up one hand in surrender. "Let's accept tentatively that it happened your way, then-"

  "But?"Colin asked.

  "No buts not until we get some more hard evidence-"

  "Okay, buster." There was no smile on Colin's face now, the wide mouth clamped in a grim line. "You want hard evidence, try this one for size-"

  "Hold it, Colin," Parker shot in quickly, authoritatively.

  "Wait for a moment before we come to that." And Colin Noble deflated with a visible effort, the cords in his throat smoothing out and the line of mouth relaxed into the old familiar grin as he deferred to Kingston Parker.

  "Let's backtrack here a moment," Parker suggested. "Peter came up with the name Caliph. In the meantime we had picked up the same name but from an entirely different source. I promised Peter I would tell him about our source because I think it gives us a new insight into this entire business." He paused and tinkered with his pipe, using one of those small tools with folding blades and hooks and spikes with which pipe smokers arm themselves. He scraped the bowl and knocked a nub of half-burned tobacco into the ashtray, before peering into the pipe-the way a rifleman checks the bore of his weapon. Peter realized that Parker used his pipe as a prop for his performances, the way a magician distracts his audience with flourishes and mumbo jumbo He was not a man to underestimate, Peter thought again for the hundredth time.

  Kingston Parker looked up at him and smiled, a conspiratorial smile as if to acknowledge that Peter had seen through his little act.

  "Our news of Caliph comes from an unlikely direction or rather, considering the name, a more likely direction.

  East. Riyadh to be precise. Capital city of Saudi Arabia, seat of King Khalid's oil empire. Our battered and beleaguered Central Intelligence Agency has received an appeal from the King following the murder of one of his grandsons. You recall the case, I'm sure--Peter had a strange feeling of deji-vu as he, listened to Kingston Parker confirming exactly the circumstances that he and Magda Altmann had discussed and postulated together, was it only three weeks before?

  You see the King and his family are in a very vulnerable position really. Did you know that there are at least seven hundred Saudi princes who are multimillionaires, and who are close to the King's affections and power structure? It would be impossible to guard that many potential victims adequately. It's really damned good thinking you don't have to seize a hostage with all the attendant risks. There is virtually an unlimited supply of them walking around, ripe for plucking, and an inexhaustible supply of assassins to be either pressured or paid to do the job, just as long as you have the information and leverage, or just enough money. Caliph seems to have all that."

  "What demand has been made upon Khalid?"Peter asked.

  "We know for certain that he has received a demand, and that he has appealed to the CIA for assistance to protect and guard his family.

  The demand came from an agency or person calling himself Caliph. We do not know what the demand is but it may be significant that Khalid and the Shah of Persia have both agreed that they will not support a crude oil price increase at the next pricing session of OPEC, but on the contrary they will push for a five per cent decrease in the price of crude."

  "Caliph's thinking has paid off again," Peter murmured.

  "It looks like it, doesn't it." Parker nodded, and then chuckled bitterly. "And once again you get the feeling, as with his demands to the South African Government, that his final objective is desirable even if the way he goes about procuring it is slightly unconventional, to say the least."

  "To say the very least," Peter agreed quietly, remembering the feel of Melissa-Jane's fever-racked body against his chest.

  "So there is no doubt now that what we feared, is fact.

  Caliph exists-" said Parker.

  "Not only exists, but flourishes," Peter agreed.

  "Alive and well with a nice house in the suburbs." Colin lit the stub of his cheroot before going on. "Hell! He succeeded at

  Johannesburg. He is succeeding at Riyadh where does he go from there why not the Federation of Employers in West Germany? The Trade Union leaders in Great Britain? Any group powerful enough to affect the fate of nations, and small enough to be terrorized as individuals."

  "It's a way to sway and direct the destiny of the entire world you just cannot guard all the world's decision makers from personal attack, Peter agreed. "And it's no argument to point out that because his first two targets have been South Africa and the oil monopoly, then the long term results will be to the benefit of mankind. His ultimate target will almost certainly be the democratic process itself.

  I don't think there can be any doubt that Caliph sees himself as a god. He sees himself as the paternal tyrant. His aim is to cure the ills of the world by radical surgery, and to maintain its health by unrestrained force and fear." Peter could remain seated no longer. He pushed back his chair and crossed to the windows, standing there in the soldier's stance, balanced on the balls of his feet with both hands clasped lightl behind his back. There was an uninspiring view of the high barbed-wire fence, part of the airfield and the corrugated sheet wall of the nearest hangar.

  A Thor sentry paced before the gates with a white MP helmet on his head and side arm strapped to his waist. Peter watched him without really seeing him, and behind him the two men at the table exchanged a significant glance.

  Colin Nobleasked a silent question and Parker answered with a curt nod of affirmative.

  "All right, Peter," Colin said. "A little while back you asked for hard facts. I promised to give you a few." Peter turned back from the window and waited.

  "Item One. During the time that Gilly O'Shaughnessy held Melissa-Jane in Laragh, two telephone calls were made from the Old Manse. They were both international calls.

  They both went through the local telephone exchange. The first call was made at seven p.m. local time on the first of this month.

  That would have been the first day that they could have reached the hideout. We have to guess it was an "All Well" report to the top management. The second call was exactly seven days later again at seven o'clock local time precisely. To the same number. We have to guess that it was another report, "All is still well". Both calls were less than one minute in duration. Just time enough to pass a prearranged code message-" Colin broke off and looked again at Kingston Parker.

  "Go on," Parker instructed.

  "The calls were to a French number. Rambouillet 47-87-47." Peter felt it hit him in the stomach, a physical blow, and he flinched his head, for a moment closing both his eyes tightly. He had called that number so often, the numerals were graven on his memory.

  "No." He shook his head, and opened his eyes. "I'm not going to believe it."

  "It's true, Peter," Parker said gently.

  Peter walked back to his seat. His legs felt rubbery and shaky under him. He sat down heavily.

  The room was completely silent. Neither of the other two looked directly
at Peter Stride.

  Kingston Parker made a gesture to Colin and obediently he slid the red box file, tied with red tapes, across the cheap vinyl topped table.

  Parker untied the tapes and opened the file. He shuffled the papers, scanning them swiftly. Clearly he was adept at speed reading and was able to assimilate each typed double spaced page at a glance but now he was merely waiting for Peter to recover from the shock. He knew the contents of the red file almost by heart.

  Peter Stride slumped in the steel-framed chair with its uncushioned wooden seat, staring sightlessly at the bulletin board on the opposite wall on which were posted the Thor rosters.

  He found it hard to ride the waves of dismay that flooded over him. He felt chilled and numbed, the depth of this betrayal devastated him, and when he closed his eyes again he had a vivid image of the slim, tender body with the childlike breasts peeping through a silken curtain of dark hair.

  He straightened in his seat, and Kingston Parker recognized the moment and looked up at him, half closing the file and turning it towards him.

  The cover bore the highest security gradings available to Atlas Command and below them was typed:

  ALTMANN MAGDA IRENE. Born KUTCHINSKY

  Peter realized that he had never known her second name was Irene.

  Magda Irene. Hell, they were really ugly names made special only by the woman who bore them.

  Parker turned the file back to himself and began to speak quietly.

  "When last you and I met, I told you of the special interest we had in this lady. That interest has continued, unabated, since then, or rather it has gathered strength with every fresh item of information that has come to us." He opened the file again and glanced at it as if to refresh his memory. "Colin has been very successful in enlisting the full co-operation of the intelligence agencies of both our countries, who in turn have been able to secure that of the French and believe it or not the Russians. Between the four countries we have been able to at last piece together the woman's history-" He broke off.

  "Remarkable woman," and shook his head in admiration. "Quite incredible really.

  I can understand how she is able to weave spells around any man she chooses. I can understand, Peter, your evident distress. I am going to be utterly blunt now we have no time nor space in which to manoeuvre tactfully around your personal feelings. We know that she has taken you as a lover. You notice that I phrase that carefully.

  Baroness Altmann takes lovers, not the other way around. She takes lovers deliberately -and with careful forethought. I have no doubt that once she has made the decision, she accomplishes the rest of it with superb finesse." Peter remembered her coming to him and the exact words she had used. "I am not very good at this, Peter, and I want so badly to be good for you." The words had been chosen with the finesse that Kingston Parker had just spoken of. They were exactly timed to make herself irresistible to Peter and afterwards she had given the gentle lie to them with the skill and devilish cunning of her hands and mouth and body.

  "You see, Peter. She had special and expert training in all the arts of love. There are probably few women in the Western world who know as much about reading a man, and then pleasing him. What she knows she did not learn in Paris or London or New York-" Kingston Parker paused and frowned at Peter. "This is all theory and hearsay, Peter.

  You are in a better position to say just how much of it is false?"

  The ultimate skill in pleasing a man is to fuel his own belief in himself, Peter thought, as he returned Parker's inquiring gaze with expressionless eyes. He remembered how with Magda Altmann he had felt like a giant, capable of anything. She had made him feel like that with a word, a smile, a gift, a touch that was the ultimate skill.

  He did not answer Parker's question. "Go on please, Kingston," he invited. Externally, he had himself completely under control now. His right hand lay on the table top, with the fingers half open, relaxed.

  "I told you that even as a child she showed special talents. In languages, mathematics her father was an amateur mathematician of some importance chess and other games of skill. She attracted attention. Especially she attracted attention because her father was a member of the Communist Party-" Parker broke off as Peter lifted his head in sharp inquiry. i - I'm sorry, Peter. We did not know that when last we met. We have learned it since from the French, they have access to the party records in Paris it seems, and it was confirmed by the Russians themselves.

  Apparently the child used to accompany her father to meetings of the Party, and soon showed a precocious political awareness and understanding. Her father's friends were mostly party members, and after his death there still remains a mystery around his death.

  Neither the French nor the Russians are forthcoming on the subject. Anyway, after his death, Magda Kutchinsky was cared for by these friends. It seemed she was passed on from family to family" Kingston Parker slid a postcard-sized photograph from a marbline envelope and passed it across the table to Peter, from this period." It showed a rather skinny girl in short skirts and dark stockings, wearing the yoked collar and straw bonnet of the French schoolgirl. Her hair was in two short braids, tied with ribbons, and she-held a small fluffy white dog in her arms. The background was a Parisian summer park scene, with a group of men playing boule and chestnut trees in full leaf.

  The child's face was delicately featured with huge beautiful eyes, somehow wise and compassionate beyond her age, and yet still imbued with the fresh innocence of childhood.

  "You can see she already had all the markings of spectacular beauty." Kingston Parker grunted, and reached across to take back the photograph. For a moment Peter's fingers tightened instinctively; he would have like to have kept it, but he relaxed and let it go. Parker glanced at it again and then slipped it back into the envelope.

  "Yes. She attracted much interest, and very soon an uncle from the old country wrote to her. There were photographs of her father and the mother she had never known, anecdotes of her infancy and her father's youth. The child was enchanted. She had never known she had an uncle.

  Her father had never spoken of his relatives, but now at last the little orphan found she had family. It took only a few more letters, exchanges of delight and affection, and then it was all arranged. The uncle came to fetch her in person and Magda Kutchinsky went back to Poland." Parker spread his hands. "It was easy as that."

  "The missing years," Peter said, and his Voice SOLinded strange in his own ears. He cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably under Parker's piercing but understanding gaze.

  "No longer missing, Peter. We have been fed a little glimmering of what happened during those years and we have been able to fill in the rest of it from what we knew already."

  "The Russians?" Peter asked, and when Parker nodded, Peter went on with a bitter tang to his voice.

  "They seem to be very forthcoming, don't they? I have never heard of them passing information at least not valuable information so readily."

  "They have their reasons in this case," Parker demurred.

  "Very good reasons as it turns out but one will come to those in due course." "Very well." The child returned with her uncle to Poland, Warsaw.

  And there was an extravagant family reunion. We are not certain if this was her real family, or whether the child was provided with a foster family for the occasion. In any event, the uncle soon announced that if Magda would submit to examination there was an excellent chance that she would be provided with a scholarship to one of the elite colleges of the USSR. We can imagine that she passed her examination with great distinction and her new masters must have congratulated themselves on their discovery.

  "The college is on the shores of the Black Sea near Odessa. It does not have a name, nor an old school tie. The students are very specially selected, the screening is rigorous and only the brightest and most talented are enrolled. They are soon taught that they are an elite group, and are streamed in the special direction that their various talents dictate. In Magda's
case it was languages and politics, finance and mathematics. She excelled and at the age of seventeen graduated to a higher, more specialized branch of the Odessa college. There she was trained in special memory techniques, the already bright mind was honed down to a razor edge. I understand that one of the less difficult exercises was to be given access to a list of a hundred diverse items for sixty seconds. The list had to be repeated from memory, in the correct order, twenty-four hours later." Parker shook his head again, expressing his admiration.

  "At the same time she was also trained to fit naturally into upper-class international Western society. Dress, food, drink, cosmetics, manners, popular music and literature, cinema theatre, democratic politics, business procedures, the operation of stocks and commodities markets, the more mundane secretarial skills, modern dancing, the art of lovemaking and pleasuring men that and much else, all of it taught by experts flying, skiing, weapons, the rudiments of electronics and mechanical engineering and every other skill that a top-class agent might have to call upon.

  "She was the star of her course and emerged from it much as the woman you know. Poised, skilled, beautiful, motivated and deadly.

  "At the age of nineteen she knew more, was capable of more, than most other human beings, male or female, twice her age. The perfect agent, except for a small flaw in her make-up that only showed up later. She was too intelligent and too personally ambitious." Kingston

  Parker smiled for the first time in twenty minutes. Which of course is a pseudonym for greed. Her masters did not recognize it in her, and perhaps at that age it was only latent greed. She had not yet been fully exposed to the attractions of wealth nor of unlimited power."

  Kingston Parker broke off, leaned across the table towards Peter. then seemed to cLinge direction then, smiling an inward knowledgeable stude, as though pondering a hidden truth.

  "Greed for wealth alone belongs essentially to the lower levels of human intelligence. It is only the developed and advanced mind that can truly appreciate the need for power-" He saw the protest in Peter's expression. No, no, I don't mean merely the power to control one's own limited environment, merely the power of life and death over a few thousand lives not that, but true power. Power to change the destiny of nations, power such as Caesar or Napoleon wielded, such as the President of the United States wields that is the ultimate greed, Peter. A magnificent and noble greed." He was silent a moment, as though glimpsing some vision of splendour. Then he went on: "digress. Forgive me," and turned to Colin Noble. "Do we have some coffee, Colin? I think we could all do with a cup now. Colin went to the machine that blooped and gurgled and winked its red eye in the corner, and while he filled the cups, the charged atmosphere in the room eased a little, and Peter tried to arrange his thoughts in some logical sequence. He looked for the flaws and weak places in the story but could find none instead he remembered only the feel of her mouth, the touch of her hands on his body. Oh God, it was a stab of physical pain, a deep ache in the chest and groin, as he remembered how she had coursed him like a running stag, driving and goading him on to unvisited depths of his being. Could such skills be taught, he wondered, and if so, by whom? He had a horrifying thought of a special room set on the heights above the Black Sea, with that slim, vulnerable tender body practising its skills, learning love as though it were cookery or small arms practice and then he shut his mind firmly against it, and Kingston Parker was speaking again, balancing his coffee cup primly with his pinky finger raised, like an old maid at a tea party.