Wilbur Smith's Smashing Thrillers (185 page)

The silence seemed to tingle after the great crashing chords of sound.

"General Stride," Kingston Parker greeted him. "Or may I still call you Peter?"

"Mr. Stride will do very nicely," said Peter, and Parker made an eloquent little gesture of regret, and without offering to shake hands indicated the comfortable leather couch across the room.

"At least you came," he said, and as Peter settled into the couch, he nodded.

"I have always had an insatiable curiosity."

"I was relying on that," Kingston Parker smiled. "Have you breakfasted?"

"We've had a snack,"Colin cut in but Peter nodded.

"Coffee then," said Parker, and spoke quietly into the intercom set, before turning back to them.

"Where to begin?" Parker combed the thick greying hair back with both hands, leaving it even more tousled than it had been.

"Begin at the beginning," Peter suggested. "As the King of Hearts said to Alice."

"At the beginning-" Parker smiled softly. All right, at the beginning I opposed your involvement with Atlas."

"I know."

"I
did not expect that you would accept the Thor command, it was a step backwards in your career. You surprised me there, and not for the first time." A Chinese manservant in a white jacket with brass buttons carried in a tray. They were silent as he offered coffee and cream and coloured crystal sugar and then, when he had gone, Parker went on.

"At that time, my estimate of you, General Stride, was that although you had a record of brilliance and solid achievement, you were an officer of rigidly old-fashioned thought. The Colonel Blimp mentality more suited to trench warfare than to the exigencies of war from the shadows the kind of wars that we are fighting now, and will be forced to fight in the future." He shook the great shaggy head and unconsciously his fingers caressed the smooth cool ivory keyboard, and he settled down on the stool before the piano.

"You see, General Stride, I saw the role of Atlas to be too limited by the original terms of reference placed upon it. I did not believe that Atlas could do what it was designed for if it was only an arm of retaliation. If it had to wait for a hostile act before it could react, if it had to rely entirely on other organizations with all their internecine rivalries and bickerings for its vital intelligence. I needed officers who were not only brilliant, but who were capable of unconventional thought and independent action. I did not believe you had those qualities, although I studied you very carefully. I was unable to take you fully into my confidence." Parker's slim fingers evoked a fluent passage from the keyboard as though to punctuate his words, and for a moment he seemed completely enraptured by his own music, then he lifted his head again.

"If I had done so, then the conduct of your rescue operation of Flight 070 might have been completely different. I have been forced radically to revise my estimate of you, General Stride and it was a difficult thing to do. For by demonstrating those qualities which I thought you lacked, you upset my judgement. I admit that personal chagrin swayed my reasoned judgement and by the time I was thinking straight again you had been provoked into offering your resignation-" "I know that the resignation was referred to you personally, Doctor Parker and that you recommended that it be accepted." Peter's voice was very cold, the tone clipped with controlled anger and Parker nodded.

"Yes, you are correct. I endorsed your resignation."

"Then it looks as though we are wasting our time here and now." Peter's lips were compressed into a thin, unforgiving line, and the skin across his cheeks and over the finely chiselled flare of his nostrils seemed tightly drawn and pa leas porcelain.

"Please, General Stride let me explain first." Parker reached out one hand to him as though to physically restrain him from rising, and his expression was earnest, compelling. Peter sank back into the couch, his eyes wary and his lips still tight.

"I have to go back a little first, in order to make any sense at all." Parker stood up from the piano and crossed to
the rack of pipes on the work table between the hi-fi equipment.

He selected one carefully, a meerschaum mellowed to the colour of precious amber. He blew through the empty pipe and then tramped back across the thick carpet to stand in front of Peter.

"Some months before the hijacking of 070 six months to be precise, I had begun to receive hints that we were entering a new phase in the application of international terrorism. Only hints at first, but these were confirmed and followed by stronger evidence." Parker was stuffing the meerschaum from a leather wallet as he spoke, now he zipped this closed and tossed it onto the piano top. "What we were looking at was a consolidation of the forces of violence under some sort of centralized control we were not sure what form this control was taking." He broke off and studied Peter's expression, seemed to misinterpret it for utter disbelief, for he shook his head. "Yes, I know it sounds far-fetched, but I will show you the files. There was evidence of meetings between known militant leaders and some other shadowy figures, perhaps the representatives of an Eastern government. We were not sure then, nor are we now. And immediately after this a complete change in the conduct and apparent motivation of militant activity. I do not really have to detail this for you. Firstly the systematic accumulation of immense financial reserves by the highly organized and carefully planned abduction of prominent figures, starting with the ministers of OPEC, then leading industrialists and financial figures-" Parker struck a match and puffed on his pipe and perfumed smoke billowed around his head.

So that it appeared that the motivation had not really changed and was still entirely self gain or parochial political gain. Then there was the taking of 070. "I had not confided in you before and once you were on your way to Johannesburg it was too late. I could do nothing more than try to control your actions by rather heavy-handed commands. I could not explain to you that we suspected that this was the leading wave of the new militancy, and that we must allow it to reveal as much as possible. It was a terrible decision, but I had to gamble a few human lives for vital information and then you acted as I had believed you were incapable of acting." Parker removed his pipe from his mouth and he smiled; when he smiled you could believe anything he said and forgive him for it, no matter how outrageous. "I admit, General Stride, that my first reaction was frustrated rage.

I wanted your head, and your guts also. Then suddenly I began using my own head instead. You had just proved you were the man I wanted, my soldier capable of unconventional thought and action. If you were discredited and cast adrift, there was just a chance that this new direction of militancy would recognize the same qualities in you that I had been forced to recognize. If I allowed you to ruin your career, and become an outcast an embittered man, but one with vital skills and invaluable knowledge, a man who had proved he could be ruthless when it was necessary-" Parker broke off and made that gesture of appeal. I am sorry, General Stride, but I had to recognize the fact that you would be very attractive to-" he made an impatient gesture I do not have a name for them, shall we just call them "the enemy". I had to recognize the fact that you would be of very great interest to the enemy. I endorsed your resignation." He nodded sombrely. "Yes, I endorsed your resignation, and without your own knowledge you became an Atlas agent at large. It seemed perfect to me.

You did not have to-act a role you believed it yourself.

You were the outcast, the wronged and discredited man ripe for subversion."

"I don't believe it," Peter said flatly, and Parker went back to the work table, selected an envelope from a Japanese ceramic tray and brought it back to Peter.

It took Peter a few moments to realize that it was a Bank Statement Credit Suisse in Geneva the account was in his name, and there were a string of deposits. No withdrawals MAde or debits. Each deposit was for exactly the same amount, the net salary of a major-general in the British Army.

"You see," Parker smiled "you are still drawing your Atlas salary. You are still one of us, Peter. And all I can say is that I am very sorry indeed that we had to subject you to the pretence but it seems it was all worth while." Peter looked up at him again, not entirely convinced, but with the hostility less naked in his expression.

"What do You mean by that, Doctor Parker?"

"It seems that you are very much back in play again."

"I am Sales Director for Northern Armaments Company," he said flatly.

"Yes, of course, and Narmco is part of the Altmann Industrial Empire and Baron Altmann and his lovely wife are, or rather were, an extraordinarily interesting couple.

For instance, did you know that the Baron was one of the top agents of Mossad in Europe?" impossible," Peter shook his head irritably. "He was a Roman Catholic. Israeli intelligence does not make a habit of recruiting Catholics."

"Yes," Parker agreed. "His grandfather converted to Catholicism and changed the name of the family home to La Pierre Brute. It was a business decision, that we are certain of, there was not much profit in being Jewish in nineteenth-century France. However, the young Altmann was much influenced by his grandmother and his own mother. He was a Zionist from a very early age, and he unswervingly used his enormous wealth and influence in that cause right up until the time of his murder. Yet he did it so cunningly, with such subtlety that very few people were aware of his connections with uda ism and Zionism.

He never made the mistake of converting back to his ancestral religion, realizing that he could be more effective as a practising Christian." Peter was thinking swiftly. If this was true, then it all had changed shape again. It must affect the reasons for the Baron's death and it would change the role of Magda Altmann in his life.

"The Baroness?" he asked. "Was she aware of this?"

"Ah, the Baroness!" Kingston Parker removed his pipe from between his teeth, and smiled with reluctant admiration. "What a remarkable lady. We are not certain of very much about her except her beauty and her exceptional talents. We know she was born in Warsaw. Her father was a professor of medicine at the university there, and he escaped to the West when the Baroness was still a child. He was killed a few years later, a traffic accident in Paris. Hit and run driver, while the professor was leaving his faculty in the Sorbonne. A small mystery still hangs around his death. The child seems to have drifted from family to family, friends of her father, distant relatives. She already was showing academic leanings, musical talent, at thirteen a chess player of promise then for a period there is no record of her. She seems to have disappeared entirely. The only hint is from one of her foster mothers, a very old lady now, with a fading memory. "I think she went home for a while she told me she was going home."" Parker spread his hands. "We do not know what that means. Home?

Warsaw? Israel? Somewhere in the East?"

"You have researched her very carefully," Peter said. What he had heard had left him uneasy.

"Of course, we have done so to every contact you have made since leaving Atlas Command. We would have been negligent not to do so but especially we have been interested in the Baroness. She has been the most fascinating, you understand that, I am sure." Peter nodded, and waited. He did not want to ask for more. Somehow it seemed disloyal to Magda, distrustful and petty but still he waited and Parker went on quietly.

"Then she was back in Paris. Nineteen years of age now a highly competent private secretary, speaking five languages fluently, beautiful, always dressed in the height of fashion, soon with a string of wealthy, influential and powerful admirers the last of these was her employer, Baron Aaron Altmann." Parker was silent then, waiting for the question, forcing Peter to come to meet him.

"Is she Mossad also?"

"We do not know. It is possible but she has covered herself very carefully. We are rather hoping you will be able to find that out for us."

"I see."

"She must have known that her husband was a Zionist.

She must have suspected that it had something to do with his abduction and murder. Then there are the missing six years of her life from thirteen to nineteen, where was she?"

"Is she Jewish?" Peter asked. "Was her father Jewish?"

"We believe so, although the professor showed no interest in religion and did not fill in the question on his employment application to the Sorbonne. His daughter showed the same lack of religious commitment we know only that her marriage to the Baron was a Catholic ceremony followed by a civil marriage in Rambouillet."

"We have drifted a long way from international terrorism," Peter pointed out.

"I do not think so." Kingston Parker shook his big shaggy head. "The Baron was a victim of it, and almost as soon as you one of the world's leading experts on militancy and urban warfare as soon as you are associated with her there is an assassination attempt, or an abduction attempt made on the Baroness." Peter was not at all surprised that Parker knew of that night on the road to La Pierre Benite it was only a few days since Peter's arm had been out of the sling.

"Tell me, Peter. What was your estimate of that affair? I have seen an excerpt of the statement that you made to the French police but what can you add to that?" Peter had a vivid cameo memory of the Citroen that had followed him out of Paris, and then almost simultaneously the tearing sound of automatic fire in the night.

"They were after the Baroness," Peter said firmly.

"And you were driving her car?"

"That's right."

"You were at the place at the time that the Baroness usually passed?"

"Right "Who suggested that? You?"

"I told her that the car was too conspicuous." "So you suggested taking it down to La Pierre enite that night." "Yes." Peter lied without knowing why he did so.

"Did anybody else know that the Baroness would not be driving?" "Nobody." Except her bodyguards, the two chauffeurs who had met them on their return from Switzerland, Peter thought.