Wild Justice (34 page)
Authors: Wilbur Smith
âGo on,' Parker instructed.
âThe calls were to a French number. Rambouillet 47 â 87 â 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.
âNo.' He shook his head, and opened his eyes. âI'm not going to believe it.'
âIt'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 â but now he was merely waiting for Peter to recover from the shock. He knew the contents of the red file almost by heart.
speed reading and was able to assimilate each typed double-spaced page at a glance â 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 â 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 â made special only by the woman who bore them.
Parker turned the file back to himself and began to speak quietly.
âWhen 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. âColin 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 â believe it or not â the Russians. Between the
four countries we have been able to at last piece together the woman's historyâ' He broke off. âRemarkable woman,' and shook his head in admiration. âQuite 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 â 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.'
four countries we have been able to at last piece together the woman's historyâ' He broke off. âRemarkable woman,' and shook his head in admiration. âQuite 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 â 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. âI 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 turned to make herself irresistible to Peter â and afterwards she had given the gentle lie to them with the skill and devilish cunning of her hands and mouth and body.
âYou 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 Yorkâ' Kingston Parker paused and frowned at Peter. âThis 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 â that was the ultimate skill.
He did not answer Parker's question. âGo 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.
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.
âI told you that even as a child she showed special talents. In languages, mathematics â her father was an amateur mathematician of some importance â chess and other games of skill. She attracted attention. Especially she attracted attention because her father was a member of the Communist Partyâ' Parker broke off as Peter lifted his head in sharp inquiry. ââ 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 â there still remains a mystery around his death. Neither the French nor the Russians are forthcoming on the subject. â Anyway, after his death, Magda Kutchinsky was cared for by these friends. It seemed she was passed on from family to familyâ' Kingston Parker slid a postcard-sized photograph from a marbline envelope and passed it across the table to Peter, â 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.
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.
âYou 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.
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.
âYes. 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 â and Magda Kutchinsky went back to Poland.' Parker spread his hands. âIt was easy as that.'
âThe missing years,' Peter said, and his voice sounded strange in his own ears. He cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably under Parker's piercing but understanding gaze.
âNo longer missing, Peter. We have been fed a little glimmering of what happened during those years â and we have been able to fill in the rest of it from what we knew already.'
âThe Russians?' Peter asked, and when Parker nodded, Peter went on with a bitter tang to his voice. âThey seem to be very forthcoming, don't they? I have never heard of them passing information â at least not valuable information â so readily.'
âThey have their reasons in this case,' Parker demurred. âVery good reasons as it turns out â but one will come to those in due course.'
âVery well.'
âThe 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 élite 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 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 élite 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.
âThe 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 élite 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.
âAt 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 â that and much else, all of it taught by experts â flying, skiing, weapons, the rudiments of electronics and mechanical engineering and every other skill that a top-class agent might have to call upon.
âShe was the star of her course and emerged from it much as the woman you know. Poised, skilled, beautiful, motivated â and deadly.
âAt 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. ââ 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 â nor of unlimited power.'
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. ââ 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 â nor of unlimited power.'
Kingston Parker broke off, leaned across the table towards Peter. He seemed to change direction then, smiling an inward knowledgeable smile, as though pondering a hidden truth.
âGreed 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 powerâ' He saw the protest in Peter's expression. ââ 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 â 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 â 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:
âI digress. Forgive me,' and turned to Colin Noble. âDo 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 â 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 â 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.
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 â 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.
âSo she arrived back in Paris and it fell at her feet. It was a triumphant progress.' Kingston Parker prodded in the file with his free hand, spilling out photographs of Magda â Magda dancing in the ballroom of the Elysée Palace, Magda leaving a Rolls-Royce limousine outside Maxim's in the rue Royale, Magda skiing, riding, beautiful, smiling, poised â and always there were men. Rich, well-fed, sleek men.
âI told you once there were eight sexual liaisons.' Kingston Parker used that irritating expression again. âWe have had reason to revise that figure. The French take a very close interest in that sort of thing, they have added to the list.' He flicked over the photographs. âPierre Hammond, Deputy Minister of Defenceâ' And another. âMark Vincent, head of mission at the American Consulateâ'
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