by Wilbur Smith
Caliph had no alternative. This was the summons to 3.38 execution. He was only surprised that it had not come sooner. He would see why Caliph would have avoided the attempt in the cities of Europe or England. One such attempt well planned and executed with great force had failed that night on the road to Rambouillet. It would have been a warning to Caliph not to underestimate the victim's ability to retaliate for the rest, the problems would have been almost the same as those that Peter had faced when planning the strike against Caliph herself.
The when and the where and the how and Caliph had the edge here.
She could summon him to the selected place but how incredibly skilfully it had been done. As he waited for the call to Rambouillet,
Peter marvelled at the woman afresh. There seemed no bottom to her well of talent and accomplishments despite himself, knowing full well that he was listening to a carefully rehearsed act, despite the fact that he knew her to be a ruthless and merciless killer, yet his heart had twisted at the tones of despair in her voice, the muffled weeping perfectly done, so he had only just been able to identify it.
"This is the residence-of Baroness Altmann."
"Gaston?"
"Speaking, sir."
"General Stride."
"Good evening, General. I was expecting your call. I spoke to the Baroness earlier. She asked me to arrange your passage to Les Neuf Poissons. I have done so."
"Where is it, Gaston?"
"Les Neuf Poissons it's the Baroness's holiday island in the Iles sous le Vent it is necessary to take the UTA flight to Papeete-Faaa on Tahiti where the Baroness's pilot will meet you. It's another hundred miles to Les Neuf Poissons and unfortunately the airstrip is too short to accommodate the Lear jet one has to use a smaller aircraft."
"When did the Baroness go to Les Neuf Poissons?"
"She left seven days ago, General, "Gaston answered, and immediately went on in the smooth, efficient secretarial voice to give Peter the details of the UTA flight. " The ticket will be held at the UTA check-in counter for you, General, and I have reserved a nonsmoking seat at the window."
"You think of everything. Thank you, Gaston." Peter replaced the receiver, and found that his earlier exhaustion had left him he felt vital and charged with new energy. The elation of a trained soldier facing the prospect of violent action, he wondered, or was it merely the prospect of an end to the indecision and the fear of unknown things? Soon, for good or for evil, it would be settled and he welcomed that.
He went through into the bathroom and pitched the whisky that remained in his glass into the hand basing.
The UTA DC 10 made its final approach to Tahiti from the east, slanting down the sky with the jagged peaks of Moorea under the port wing. Peter remembered the spectacularly riven mountains of Tahiti's tiny satellite island as the backdrop of the musical movie South Pacific that had been filmed on location here. The volcanic rock was black and un weathered so that its crests were as sharp as sharks fangs.
They arrowed down across the narrow channel between the two islands, and the runway seemed to reach out an arm into the sea to welcome the big silver machine.
The air was heavy and warm and redolent with the perfume of frangipani blossoms, and there were luscious brown girls swinging and swaying gracefully in a dance of welcome. The islands reached out with almost overpowering sweetness and friendliness but as Peter picked his single light bag out of the hold luggage and started for the exit doors, something unusual happened. One of the Polynesian customs officers at the gate exchanged a quick word with his companion and then politely stepped into Peter's path.
"Good afternoon, the smile was big and friendly, but it did not stretch as far as the eyes. "Would you be kind enough to step this way." The two customs men escorted Peter into the tiny screened office.
"Please open your bags, sir." Swiftly but thoroughly they went through his valise and crocodile-skin briefcase; one of them even used a measuring stick to check both cases for a hidden compartment.
"I must congratulate you on your efficiency," said Peter, smiling also, but his voice tight and low.
"A random check, sir." The senior officer answered his smile.
"You were just unlucky to be the ten thousandth visitor. Now, sir, I hope you won't object to a body search?"
"A body search?" Peter snapped, and would have protested further, but instead he shrugged and raised both arms. "Go ahead." He could imagine that Magda Altmann was as much the Grande Dame here as she was in mother France. She owned the entire island group and it would need only a nod to have an incoming visitor thoroughly searched for weapons of any sort.
He could imagine also that Caliph would be very concerned that the intended victim should be suitably prepared for execution, lest he should inadvertently become the executioner.
The one customs Officer checked his arms and flanks from armpit to waist, while the other knelt behind him and checked inside the outside of his legs from crotch to ankle.
Peter had left the Cobra in the safe deposit box in the Hilton in Brussels. He had anticipated something like this, it was the way Caliph would work.
"Satisfied?" he asked.
"Thank you for your co-operation, sir. Have a lovely stay on our island." Magda's personal pilot was waiting for Peter in the main concourse, and hurried forward to shake his hand.
"I was worried that you were not on the flight."
"A small delay in customs," Peter explained.
"We should leave immediately, if we are to avoid a night landing on Les Neuf Poissons the strip is a little difficult." Magda's Gates
Lear was parked on the hardstand near the service area, and beside it the Norman Britten Tri Islander looked small and ungainly, a stork-like ugly aircraft capable of the most amazing performance in short take-off and landing situations.
The body of the machine was already loaded with crates and cantons of supplies, everything from toilet rolls to Veuve Cliquot champagne, all tied down under a wide meshed nylon net.
Peter took the right-hand seat, and the pilot started up and cleired with control, then to Peter: "One hour's flying. We will just make it." The setting sun was behind them as they came in from the west and Les Neuf Poissons lay like a precious necklace of emeralds upon the blue velvet cushion of the ocean.
There were nine islands in the characteristic circular pattern of volcanic formation, and they enclosed a lagoon of water so limpid that every whorl and twist of the coral outcrops showed through as clearly as if they were in air.
"The islands had a Polynesian name when the Baron purchased them back in 1945," the pilot explained in the clearly articulated rather pedantic French of the Midi. "They were given by one of the old kings as a gift to a missionary he favoured and the Baron purchased them from his widow.
The Baron could not pronounce the Polynesian name so he changed it-" The pilot chuckled. " The Baron was a man who faced the world on his own terms." Seven of the islands were merely strips of sand and fringes of palms, but the two to the east were larger with hills of volcanic basalt glittering like the skin of a great reptile in the rays of the lowering sun.
As they turned onto their downwind leg, Peter had a view through the window at his elbow of a central building with its roof of palm thatch elegantly curved like the prow of a ship in the tradition of the islands, and around it half-hidden in luscious green gardens were other smaller bungalows. Then they were over the lagoon and there were a clutter of small vessels around the long jetty which reached out into the protected waters Hobie-cats with bare masts, a big powered schooner which was probably used to ship the heavy stores such as dieseline down from Papeete, power boats for skiing and diving and fishing. One of them was out in the middle of the lagoon, tearing a snowy ostrich feather of wake from the surface as it ran at speed; a tiny figure towed on skis behind it lifted an arm and waved a greeting.
Peter thought it might be her, but at that moment the Tri-Islander banked steeply onto its base leg and he was left with only a view of
cumulus cloud bloodied by the setting sun.
The runway was short and narrow, hacked from the palm plantation on the strip of level land between beach and hills. It was surfaced with crushed coral. They made their final approach over a tall palisade of palm trees. Peter saw that the pilot had not exaggerated by calling it a little difficult. There was a spiteful crosswind rolling in and breaking over the hills and it rocked the Tri-Islander's wings sickeningly. The pilot crabbed her in, heading half into the wind, and as he skimmed in over the palm tops, closed the throttles, kicked her straight with the rudders, lowered a wing into the wind to hold her from drifting and dropped her neatly fifty feet over the threshold, perfectly aligned with the short runway so she kissed and sat down solidly; instantly the pilot whipped the wheel to full lock into the crosswind to prevent a ground loop and brought her up short.
Tarfait!" Peter grunted with involuntary admiration, and the man looked slightly startled as though the feat deserved no special mention. Baroness Altmann employed only the very best.
There was an electric golf cart driven by a young Polynesian girl waiting at the end of the strip amongst the palm trees. She wore only a pa reo wrapped around her body below the armpits, a single length of crimson and gold patterned cloth that fell to mid thigh. Her feet were bare, but around her pretty head she wore a crown of fresh flowers the ma eva of the islands.
She drove the golf cart at a furious pace along narrow winding tracks through the gardens that were a rare collection of exotic plants, skilfully laid out, so that there was an exquisite Surprise around each turn of the path.
His bungalow was above the beach with white sand below the verandah and the ocean stretching to the horizon, secluded as though it were the only building on the island. Like a child the island girl took his hand, a gesture of perfect innocence, and led him through the bungalow, showing him the controls for the air-conditioning, lighting and the video screen, explaining it all in lisping French patois, and giggling at his expression of pleasure.
There was a fully stocked bar and kitchenette, the small library contained all the current best-sellers, and the newspapers and magazines were only a few days old. The offerings on the video screen included half a dozen recent successful features and Oscar winners.
"Hell, Robinson Crusoe should have landed here," Peter chuckled, and the girl giggled and wriggled like a friendly little puppy in sympathy.
She came to fetch him again two hours later, after he had showered and shaved and rested and changed into a light cotton tropical suit with open shirt and sandals.
Again she held his hand and Peter sensed that if a man had taken the gesture as licence the girl would have been hurt and confused. By the hand she led him along a path that was demarcated by cunningly concealed glow lights, and the night was filled with the murmur of the ocean and the gentle rustle and clatter of palm fronds moving in the wind.
Then they came to the long ship-roofed building he had seen from the air. There was soft music and laughter, but when he stepped into the light the laughter stopped and half a dozen figures turned to him expectantly.
Peter was not sure what he had expected, but it was not this gay, social gathering, tanned men and women in expensive and elegant casual wear, holding tall frosted glasses filled with ice and fruit.
"Peter!" Magda Altmann broke from the group, and came to him with that gliding hip-swinging walk.
She wore a soft, shimmering, wheaten-gold dress, held high at the throat with a thin gold chain, but completely nude across the shoulders and down her back to within an inch of the cleft of her buttocks. It was breathtaking for her body was smooth as a rose petal and tanned to the colour of new honey. The dark hair was twisted into a rope as thick as her wrist and piled up onto the top of her head, and she had touched her eyes with shadows so they were slanting and green and mysterious.
"Peter," she repeated, and kissed him lightly upon the lips, a brush like a moth's wing, and her perfume touched him as softly, the fragrance of Quadrille flowering with the warmth and magic of her body.
He felt his senses tilt. With all he knew of her, yet he was still not hardened to her physical presence.
She was cool and groomed and poised as she had ever been, there was no trace at all of the confusion and fearsome loneliness that he had heard in those muffled choked-down sobs from halfway across the world not until she stepped back to tilt her head on one side, surveying him swiftly, smiling lightly.
"Oh, cheri, you are looking so much better. I was so worried about you when last I saw you." Only then he thought he was able to detect the shadows deep in her eyes, and the tightness at the corners of her mouth.
"And you are more beautiful than I remembered." It was true, so he could say it without reserve, and she laughed, a single soft purr of pleasure.
"You never said that before," she reminded him, but still her manner was brittle. Her show of affection and friendliness might have convinced him at another time, but not now. "And I am grateful." Now she took his arm, her fingers in the crook of his elbow, and she led him to the waiting group of guests as though she did not trust herself to be alone with him another moment lest she reveal some forbidden part of herself.
There were three men and their wives: an American Democrat senator of considerable political influence, a man with a magnificent head of silver hair, eyes like dead oysters, and a beautiful wife at least thirty years his junior who looked at Peter the way a lion looks at a gazelle and held his hand seconds longer than was necessary.
There was an Australian, heavy in the shoulder and big in the gut.
His skin was tanned leathery and his eyes were framed in a network of wrinkles. They seemed to be staring through dust and sun glare at distant horizons. He owned a quarter of the world's known uranium reserves, and cattle stations whose area was twice the size of the British Isles.
His wife was as tanned and her handshake was as firm as his.
The third man was a Spaniard whose family name was synonymous with sherry, an urbane and courtly Don, but with that fierce Moorish rake to his thin features. Peter had read somewhere that the sherry and cognac ageing in this man's cellars was valued at over five hundred million dollars, and that formed only a small part of his family's investments.
His wife was a darkly brooding Spanish beauty with an extraordinary streak of chalk white through the peak of her otherwise black hair.
As soon as the group had assimilated Peter, the talk turned back easily to the day's sport. The Australian had boated a huge black marlin that morning, a fish over one thousand pounds in weight and fifteen feet from the point of its bill to the tip of its deep sickle tail, and the company was elated.
Peter took little part in the conversation, but watched Magda Altmann covertly. Yet she was fully aware of his scrutiny; he could see it in the way she held her hand, and the tension in her whole long slim body, but she laughed easily with the others and glanced at Peter only once or twice, each time with a smile, but the shadows were in the green depths of her eyes.
Finally she clapped her hands. "Come, everybody, we are going to open the feast." She linked arms with the senator and the Australian and led them down onto the beach.
Peter was left to cope with the senator's wife, and pushed her bosom against his upper arm and ran her tongue lightly over her lips as she clung to him.
Two of the Polynesian servants were waiting beside a long mound of white beach sand, and at Magda's signal they attacked it with shovels, swiftly exposing a thick layer of seaweed and banana leaves from which poured columns of thick and fragrant steam. Below that was a rack of banyan wood and palm fronds which suspended the feast over another layer of seaweed and live coals.
There were exclamations of delight as the aroma of chicken and fish and pork mingled with those of breadfruit and plantains and spices.
"Ah, a success," Magda declared gaily. "If any air is allowed to enter the bake we lose it all. It burns, poof! And we are left with only charcoal." While they feasted and
drank the talk and laughter became louder and less restrained, but Peter made the single drink last the evening and waited quietly not joining the conversation and ignoring the blandishments of the senator's wife.
He was waiting for some indication of when and from what direction it would come. Not here, he knew, not in this company. When it came it would be swift and efficient as everything else that Caliph did.
And suddenly he wondered at his own conceit, that had allowed him to walk, entirely unarmed and unsupported, into the arena selected and prepared by his enemy. He knew his best defence was to strike first, perhaps this very night if the opportunity offered. The sooner the safer, he realized, and Magda smiled at him across the table set under the palm trees and laden with enough food to feed fifty. When he smiled back at her, she beckoned with a slight inclination of her head, and then while the men argued and bantered loudly, she murmured an apology to the women and slipped unobtrusively into the shadows.
Peter gave her a count of fifty before he followed her.
She was waiting along the beach. He saw the flash of her bare smooth back in the moonlight and he went forward to where she stood staring out across the wind-ruffled waters of the lagoon
He came up behind her, and she did not turn her head but her voice was a whisper.
"I am so glad you came, Peter."
"I am so glad you asked me to." He touched the back of her neck, just behind her ear.
The ear had an almost elfin point to it that he had not noticed before and the un swept hair at her nape was silken under his fingertips. He could just locate the axis, that delicate bone at the base of the skull which the hangman aims to crush with the drop. He could do it with the pressure of thumb and it would be as quick as the knot.
am so sorry about the others," she said. "But I am getting rid of them with almost indecent haste, I'm afraid." She reached up over her shoulder and took his hand from her neck, and he did not resist.
Gently she spread the hand, and then pressed the open palm to her cheek. "They will leave early tomorrow. Pierre is flying them back to Papeete, and then we will have Les Neuf Poissons to ourselves just you and I-" And then that husky little chuckle." And thirty-odd servants." He could understand exactly why it would be that way.