commercial flight, but it carried neatly in a quick-release shoulder holster.
He had felt theatrical and melodramatic at first, but with a little sober thought had convinced himself that to follow on Caliph’s tracks unarmed was shortening the odds against himself.
Now it was becoming habit, and he was barely aware of the comforting shape and weight in his armpit, until Magda spoke.
“I am close to dying from thirst,” she went on, and they racked their skis and went into the jovial warmth and clouds of steam that billowed from one of the coffee shops that lined the main street.
They found a seat at a table already crowded with young people,
and they ordered glasses of steaming hot GUhuvin.
Then the four-piece hand thumped out a popular dance tune and their table companions swarmed onto the tiny dance floor.
Peter raised a challenging eyebrow at her and she asked with amusement, “Have you ever danced in ski boots?”
“There has to be a first time for everything.” She danced like she did everything else,
with complete absorption, and her body was strong and hard and slim against his.
It was completely dark as they climbed the narrow track above the village and went in through the electronically controlled gate in the protective wall around the chalet.
It was somehow typical of her that she had avoided the fashionable resorts, and that externally the chalet seemed not much different from fifty others that huddled in the edge of the pine forest. There was patent relief amongst her entourage at her return, and she seemed almost defiant at their concern as though she had just proved something to herself but still she did not change from her sports clothes before disappearing into the office suite on the first floor with her two male secretaries. “I work better with men,” she had explained to
Peter once. As Peter dressed in slacks, blazer and silk roll neck after a scalding shower, he could still hear the clatter of the telex machine from the floor below, and it was an hour later when she called him on the house telephone.
The entire top floor was her private domain and she was standing at the windows looking out over the snow- fuzzed lights of the valley as he entered.
She wore green slacks tucked in aprs-ski boots, and a blouse of the same colour, a perfect match for her eyes. The moment Peter entered, she pressed a concealed switch and the curtains slid silently closed, then she turned to him.
“A drink, Peter?“she asked.
Not if we are going to talk.”
“We are going to talk,” she said positively, and indicated the soft squashy leather armchair across from the fireplace.
She had resisted the traditional Swiss cuckoo-clock and knotty pine decor, and the carpeting was thick Wilton to match the curtains,
the furniture low and comfortable but modern, sporty and good fun, the very best made to appear natural and unaffected, blending easily with the modern art on the walls and abstract sculpture in marble and grained wood.
She smiled suddenly at him. “I had no idea that I had found myself a gifted Sales Director for Narmco - I really am impressed with what you have done in so short a time.”
“I had to establish a plausible coven” Peter deprecated the compliment. “And I used to be a soldier the job interests me.”
“You English!” she told him with mock exasperation.
“Always so modest.” She did not seat herself but moved about the room; although never at rest, neither did she give the feeling of restlessness. “I am informed that there is to be a definite NATO
testing of Kestrel after almost two years of procrastination.”
Kestrel was Narmco’s medium-range ground-to-ground infantry portable missile.
“I am further informed that the decision was made to test after you had met with some of your former colleagues.”
“The whole world runs on the old boy system-” Peter chuckled, “you should know that.”
“And you are on old boy terms with the Iranians?” She cocked her head at him.
“That was a small stroke of luck. Five years ago I was on a staff college course with their new military adviser.”
“Luck again.” She smiled. “Isn’t it strange that luck so often favours those who are clever and dedicated and who move faster than the pack?”
“I have had less luck in other directions, Peter pointed out, and immediately there was no trace of laughter left upon her lips nor in the emerald eyes,
but Peter went on.
“So far I have been unsuccessful with the contact we spoke about on our last meeting-” They had discussed the possibility of access to the Atlas computer link, of requisitioning a printout on’Caliph’from the Central Intelligence bank, if there was one programmed.
“As I explained, there was the one remote possibility of access,
somebody who owed me a favour. He was of no help. He believes that if there is a “Caliph” listing, it’s blocked and buzzed.” Which meant that any unauthorized requisition would sound an alarm in intelligence control.
“We’d trigger a Delta condition in Atlas if we put in a printout requisition.”
“You did not give him the name?” Magda asked sharply.
“No. No names, just a general discussion over dinner at Brooks’s but all the implications were there.”
“Do you have any further avenues ?”
“I think so. One more, but it’s a last resort,” Peter said.
“Before we come to that, though, perhaps you can tell me if you have anything further from your sources.”
“My sources-” Magda had never made more explicit descriptions, and Peter had instinctively known not to pry.
There was a certain finality to the way she said it. “My sources have been mostly negative. The seizure of the Netherlands Embassy in
Bonn was unconnected with Caliph. It was exactly what it purported to be South Moluccan extremists. The hijackers of Cathay Airlines and
Transit Airlines were both enthusiastic amateurs, as evidence the methods and the outcome ” She smiled drily and drifted back across the room to touch the Hundedwasser collage that hung on the side wall,
rearranging the hang of the frame in an essentially feminine gesture.
There is only one recent act that has the style of Caliph.”
“Prince
Hassled Abdel Hayek?” Peter asked, and she turned to face him,
thrusting out one hip with her hand upon it, the nails very red against the light-green cloth and the marquise cut diamond sparkling.
“What did you make of it?” she asked. The Prince had been shot dead, three bullets of .22 calibre in the back of the head while asleep in his rooms on the Cambridge campus. A nineteen-year-old grandson of
King Khalid of Saudi Arabia, not one of the particular favourites of the king, a bespectacled scholarly youth who seemed content to remain outside the mainstream of palace power and politics.
There had been no attempt at abduction, no sign of a struggle, no evidence of robbery the young Prince had no close friends nor apparent enemies.
“It does not seem to have reason or motive,” Peter admitted.
“That’s why I thought of Caliph.”
“The deviousness of Caliph-” Magda turned away and her haunches rippled under the elastic of her green slacks.
There was no ruck line of panties, and her buttocks were perfect spheres, with the shadow of the deep cleft between them showing through the thin material. Peter watched her legs as she paced, realizing for the first time
