Hamp said, 'That's just the beginning. Is there a drink around here?'
Frank groaned low protest but continued to hold his peace. He was almost completely at sea.
Somehow, the Graf must have signalled, since Sepp materialized at a door leading to the back. He bowed and said, '
The mercenary head looked at Hamp, who said, 'Cognac, preferably.'
Frank sucked breath in and groaned again.
The Graf said, 'A bottle of the
'
'He won't need the goddamn glass,' Frank muttered.
While Sepp was gone, Margit looked at Hamp strangely.
She said, 'For some reason, I get the impression that your complexion is lighter than I had at first thought.'
Hamp said, offhandedly, 'Few American blacks are full-blooded. We have been interbreeding for centuries. One of my grandmothers was a Scot. Before that, I have no idea how many of my ancestors were at least partly white.'
'But—your skin,' she said, frowning.
'That will be all, Fraulein,' the Graf growled.
Sepp entered with an ancient squat bottle and a glass centered on a gold tray. He set the tray on the end table next to the couch on which Hamp sat. The cork had already been removed. Hamp poured with satisfaction. Sepp bowed and withdrew.
Hamp sampled the aged cognac with his nose and sighed. 'Damn good brandy,' he said, sipping.
Frank rolled his eyes upward in appeal to greater powers.
Lothar von Brandenburg said coldly, 'And now, sir, we come to the balance of your deal.'
It was then that Peter Windsor re-entered the room. He carried his submachine gun. With all eyes upon him, he took a chair, one that dominated the room.
'That would hardly seem necessary, Peter,' the Graf said.
'I jolly well hope not, Chief, but I don't like these two.'
The Graf shrugged it off and looked back at Hamp. 'Well.sir?'
Hamp said, 'When Frank receives his inheritance, I will turn over to you fifty million pseudo-dollars. With it, you can settle down in Switzerland, or wherever else you choose, and announce the, ah, bankruptcy of Mercenaries, Incorporated and your retirement. I would suggest that you take along a dozen or so of your best men, although in Switzerland you should be quite safe. For centuries, avidly sought politicians and others have retired there in high- security villas and lived their lives out in safety.'
'Fifty million pseudo-dollars!'
'Take it or leave it,' Hamp said, pouring more brandy.
The mercenary head scoffed. 'I have never even heard of a black, anywhere in the world, who commanded that amount of credit.'
Peter looked at Hamp and said, 'You look paler,' as though unbelieving. 'And I still think you look like some- body I've met before. And your voice, too…' He let the sentence dribble away.
The Graf said, 'Please, Peter, do be quiet. Well, sir?' This last to Hamp.
Hamp reached into his pocket, brought forth a folder, and tossed it to Margit's lap. 'A numbered account in the Grundsbank, in Geneva. Check the balance.'
Margit, her face unrevealing as usual while on duty, went to a set of drawers against the wall and opened one of the top ones. Her back was to them. There seemed to be no question but that the Graf was in a position to check the balance of even a numbered account.
After a few minutes of pregnant silence, she turned and said, 'The account is considerably higher than the amount mentioned.'
The Graf, much of his commanding presence erased, said, breathing deeply, 'What else? Confound it, I know there is something else!'
'Oh, yes,' Hamp told him, putting down his glass. He bent forward and removed his contact lenses. His eyes, which he directed at Peter Windsor, were a dark blue. 'Surprise, surprise,' he said. 'Show me a bathroom and I'll get the black out of this hair. It looks even prettier, reddish.'
The Englishman goggled. 'Jeremiah Auburn!' he croaked.
They were all staring now. His complexion was that of a tanned southern European. He fished up into his nose with the nails of his little fingers and brought forth two oval spreaders of metal, his nose losing its broadness.
'But… the news broadcasts and the reports from my operatives…' Windsor got out.
The Graf roared, 'What in the name of God is going on!'
Jerry looked at him with all the emptiness of death in his eyes. He took up the brandy bottle as though to pour again, but before he did he said, 'The man who was murdered on the Riviera last night was my brother, James Auburn. You asked me what else; this is what else. I want the man who ordered the death of my twin.'
Peter Windsor was on his feet. He sneered, 'Are you out of your bloody mind?' He flicked the safety stud on the gun and held it at the ready, but now he turned to his employer of many years. 'You would have taken him up, wouldn't you?
You would have sold us all out for his fifty million! Well, thank you very much, but I'm taking over. You'll be washed up with the World Club, but that won't reflect on me. There's still Chase and Moyer who'll back me. And Sheila Duff-Roberts, who has more say about what goes on in the Central Committee than anyone else. It was she who got together with Harrington Chase and suggested the elimination of that McGivern girl and then Auburn, here. She's with me. If I finished you off now, Lothar, I can blame it on Auburn and Pinell and the organization won't question it.'
His eyes left the red face of the enraged Graf and went to Margit, who had been sitting through it all, her face noncommittal. 'Where do you stand, Fraulein? With me, or with this has-been sod? I can use you in taking over.'
Margit cleared her throat softly. 'Very dramatic, Peter, and ordinarily I'd have to think about it, perhaps. But as things stand that gun is inoperative.'
He chopped out a vicious laugh. 'An old trick, Margit old thing, but it won't work. It's loaded, all right. I check that out every day or two. I checked again just before I came back in here. You've taken your stand, you bloody fool.'
Margit said mildly, 'I didn't say it wasn't loaded. I said it wasn't operative. I didn't like to see the thing around, so I had Sepp take out the firing pin, some time ago.'
Peter Windsor swore and pulled the trigger. And then stared down in dismay at the unresponding weapon.
The Graf was on his feet, spry for his age. He turned and dashed for a small cabinet set up against the huge window which dominated the whole side of the room. He grabbed for the top drawer.
But Peter, tennis-trim, bounded after him and, even as he went, reversed the gun. The Graf spun, a small Gyro-jet pistol in hand. Too late. Windsor crashed the gun butt into his solar plexus, sending him reeling backward and into the window and, screaming shrilly, through it in a shower of shards. His thin screams, unbecoming to one of the Grafs image, continued as he plunged downward.
Sepp came into the room quietly, an antique 9mm Luger in his right hand. He took in the scene, his Germanic face politely questioning, still playing the obsequious butler.
Peter snapped, 'Sepp, cover these two!' He waved his disabled submachine gun at Frank and Jerry.
Sepp turned to Margit Krebs and his eyebrows went up. 'Fraulein?' he said.
'Shoot him,' she said flatly. 'He just killed the Graf. He'll do the same to us, given the chance.'
Peter Windsor yelled, 'No!' even as Sepp brought up the automatic and shot him exactly once in the middle of the chest.
Frank, walking like a robot, went over to the window through which Lothar von Brandenburg had plunged. For the briefest of moments he looked out over the superb view of mountain peaks and river. Then his eyes went down.
