was bland but there could have been the slightest trace of South Africa.
When Underberg sat in the chair indicated, Deaken realized his face was almost completely shadowed in the effort to put the office in better light. Deaken glanced at his wristwatch. Underberg was ten minutes early. The man looked again around the office, more critically this time. Deaken had no doubt he could manage lunch with Karen. He would probably have time to plait several yards of paperclips. Except that he didn’t have sufficient for several yards. He normally collected these from incoming mail. It was thoughtless not to have accepted the brochures from the answering service and American Express this morning.
“You didn’t make it clear in your telephone call what exactly it was that I could do for you, Mr Underberg,” said Deaken.
“I didn’t know then,” said the man. “Now I do.”
“What is it?”
“Negotiate for me,” said Underberg. “Negotiate something very difficult. And special.”
Deaken felt a spurt of interest. He took one of the painstakingly sharpened pencils from the coffee cup, wrote “Underberg” on the pad, underlined it twice and then looked up.
“Why don’t we talk about it and I’ll see if 1 can help?” he said.
“Oh, I think you’ll be able to help.”
Deaken inscribed a third line beneath the man’s name. “How?” he said, mildly irritated by the man’s attitude.
“Do you know Adnan Azziz?”
Deaken frowned briefly, then he remembered. “The Saudi Arabian?”
“Arms dealer,” continued Underberg. “The biggest.”
“Yes,” said Deaken, “I know of him.”
“He kills people,” said Underberg. “Not directly; he never does anything directly.”
Deaken leaned forward over his desk, hand against his forehead to shield his face as much as possible from the other man. The words had an ominously familiar ring. He had appeared in civil-rights trials, either as the leading defence advocate or as the supporting advisory counsel to lawyers of the country, in Germany and America and Chile and Nicaragua and Turkey and Ireland and South Africa. And so often his involvement had begun with a meeting like this and with words like these. Not me, he thought. I can’t do it anymore. I’ve lost the enthusiasm, I’ve lost the anger. I just want to be left alone.
“I don’t think this is for me,” he said.
“Oh, yes, it is,” said Underberg.
Deaken’s apprehension tightened.
“I know all about you, Richard Deaken,” said Underberg. “I know that in South Africa your father is a leading member of the Nationalist government, a predicted cabinet minister, which he would have been much sooner if it wasn’t for the embarrassment of having a famous son. Up to a year ago there wasn’t a better-known civil-rights lawyer than you anywhere in the world; not many people simultaneously get the cover story in Time and Newsweek, you know. What’s happened in the last year? Lost your taste for fighting?’’
“Who are you?” demanded Deaken.
The man smiled, baring his teeth again, and stretched back in the chair.
“The man you’re going to work for.”
“Get out,” said Deaken.
“You’re going to negotiate for me with Adnan Azziz,” said Underberg, his voice measured and confident.
Deaken stood up. “Please get out of my office.”
Underberg settled farther in his chair. “We have information that Adnan Azziz has completed an arms deal worth something like $50,000,000 with terrorists in Angola and Namibia. It goes beyond RPG rocket launchers, up to wire-controlled tank and antipersonnel carrier missiles, which we presume the Soviet advisers intend to operate, because the SWAPO guerrillas certainly haven’t got the ability. Thousands of AK-47 rifles and tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition. And not just communist weapons. We know there are crates of American Armalite rifles, again with tons of ammunition…”
“I don’t want to know,” said Deaken. He was still standing and felt vaguely ridiculous.
“It’s important that you know,” said Underberg, like a patient schoolmaster.
“I’ve already told you I won’t take instructions,” said Deaken with growing exasperation. “For God’s sake, get out of my office.”
“It’s for a massive assault in Namibia,” continued Underberg, as if the lawyer hadn’t interrupted. “We think it’s timed for mid-July. We’ve no definite date, but we know that’s the month. We’ll find out soon enough.”
“For what?” Deaken’s question was automatic, without proper thought.
Underberg’s teeth showed, in his piranha smile. “To stop it happening, of course,” he said. “It’s scheduled to be their big show, the one that will finally sway public opinion against South Africa in favour of the United Nations’ initiative. They’re even going to invite the world’s press, to report it. Only it won’t quite be the story they expect.”
Deaken sat down. Underberg obviously had no intention of leaving, and there was no way he could make him.
“We’ve infiltrated SWAPO up to here,” said Underberg, putting his hand beneath his chin. “We’re going to mount a counteroffensive they couldn’t imagine possible and annihilate the whole movement in one decisive battle.” He shifted, trying both for effect and a more comfortable position in the cramped chair. “Because we’re going to have helicopters and tanks and guns and rifles and missiles and they’re going to be grabbing for bows and arrows and spears.”
“You said they’d purchased $50,000,000 worth of weaponry,” said Deaken.
“Which they’re never going to see,” said Underberg. “You will get Azziz to deflect the shipment.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Everything’s been thought out very carefully, Mr Deaken. It’ll work, exactly as we intend it to.”
Deaken shook his head. This wasn’t the sort of job he had hoped to impress Karen with at lunch.
“Azziz has a son of eighteen,” said Underberg. “A very attractive, if indulged, child. This morning he was kidnapped on his way to join his father for his summer vacation.”
“Jesus Christ!” erupted Deaken. “You know I can’t listen to any of this. You’re mad.”
“No,” said Underberg. “Just determined.”
“I could have you arrested the moment you leave here.”
For the first time the man’s amusement seemed genuine. “It’ll take the police or any other force hours to get here, even if they believed you. By which time I could be halfway across Europe. I understand your attitude… 1 really do. I actually feel sorry for you.”
“I told you once to get out,” said Deaken, burned by an awareness of utter impotence. “Now I’m telling you again. Get out of this office. I don’t believe a word you’ve said, but I still intend informing the police.” He snatched at the telephone, immediately aware that he didn’t know what number to ring; the instrument growled demandingly in his ear.
“Put it down,” said Underberg. “No one can get through to you if the receiver is off the rest.”
Deaken remained with the receiver held before him. Underberg reached over the desk and depressed the telephone rest. The growling stopped. “Put it down,” said the man again. “Please.”
Slowly Deaken did what he was told.
“Thank you,” said Underberg. He looked at his watch. “No harm will come to the boy,” he said, his voice even and conversational. “You’re to assure Azziz of that. If he does what we want, his son will be released unharmed and quite safe.”
The telephone jarred into the room. Deaken jumped. It was too early for Karen, far too early.
“Shouldn’t you answer it?” said Underberg.
Deaken obeyed.
“Richard,” said a voice he recognized at once as Karen’s. “I’m with two men. They came to the apartment just after you left and said you wanted to see me… so I went… they’ve told me to telephone you…”
Deaken tried to swallow, against the sensation in his throat.
“I’ve come a long way in a car… I’m frightened,” said his wife’s voice. “What’s happening, Richard?”
They drove fast, anxious to cross the border, the speedometer needle registering the permitted maximum on
