'Sit down,' he ordered, and took the armchair facing her. He unfolded
the fax and then looked up at her. 'Mrs. Street has worked fast. In my
fax, I suggested that she rang my stockbroker in the city. We are three
hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time, so it seems that she must have
caught him before he left his office. Anyway, she has all the
information I asked for.'
'Stop it, Nicky, or I will tear my bodice and scream and cause a
scandal. Tell me!'
He rustled the pages, and then read. 'Pegasus Exploration is registered
on the Sydney Stock Exchange in Australia with a share capital of twenty
million-'
'Don't go through all the details,' she pleaded. 'Just name the man.'
'Sixty-five percent of the shares in Pe asus are owned by Valhalla
Mining Company,' he continued imperturbably, 'and the remaining
thirty-five percent are owned by Anaconda Metals of Austria.'
She had given up pleading with him and sat forward in her chair,
watching him with a fixed gaze.
'Both Valhalla and Anaconda are fully-owned subsidiaries of HMI, Hamburg
Manufacturing Industries. All the shares in HMI are owned by the von
Schiller family trust, the sole trustees of which are Gotthold Ernst von
Schiller and his wife, Ingemar.'
'Von Schiller,' she repeated softly, still staring at him.
'Duraid had him on his list of possible sponsors. He must have read the
Wilbur Smith book - I know it has been translated into German. He
probably contacted Duraid just the way that you did. But he was not put
off as easily as you were by Duraid's denials.'
'That's the way I read it also, Nicholas nodded. 'It would have been
easy to sniff around the Cairo museum, and find that Duraid and you were
working on something big. The rest of it we know only too well.'
'But how did he move Pegasus into Ethiopia so quickly?'she demanded.
'That must have been a stroke of luck on von Schiller's side - the luck
of the devil. Geoffrey tells me that Pegasus obtained a concession to
prospect for copper from President Mengistu five years ago, just before
he was ousted. Von Schiller was already in place, even before he heard
about the scrolls. All it involved was moving the base camp down from
the north where they were working and relocating it on the escarpment of
the Abbay gorge, to be ready to take advantage of any fresh
developments. We will probably find his dirty tricks that Jake Helm is
one of his heavies, specialist that he sends to any of his trouble spots
around the world. It's apparent that he has Nogo in his pocket.
We waltzed right into their arms.'
Royan looked thoughtful. 'It all makes sense. As soon as Helm reported
our arrival to his master, von Schiller must have ordered him to set up
the shufta raid on our camp. Oh, sweet heaven, I hate him. I have never
laid eyes on him, but I hate him more than I thought I was capable of
hating anything or anybody.'
'Well, at least we know now who we are dealing with.'
'Not altogether,' she demurred. 'Von Schiller must have had a man in
Cairo. Somebody on the inside there.'
'What is the name of your minister?' Nicholas wanted to know.
