and feel her fight it like a marlin fights the gleaming curved hook of the gaff?
The telephone on the bar buzzed, and the secretary picked it up on the second ring. He murmured into it.
“Oui, oui. D’accord.” And hung up. “Madam Baronne, the aircraft is refuelled and ready to depart.”
“We will leave immediately, she told him, and then to Peter, “I am sorry.”
“When will I see you?” he asked.
She shrugged, and a little shadow passed over her eyes.
“It is difficult. I am not sure I will telephone you. But now
I must go Peter. Adieu, my darling.” When she had gone, Peter stood at the windows overlooking the airfield. It was a glorious spring afternoon, the early marguerites were blooming wild along the grassy verges of the main runways, like scattered gold sovereigns, and a flock of black birds hopped amongst them, probing and picking for insects,
completely undisturbed by the jet shriek of a departing Swissair flight.
Peter ran his mind swiftly over the meeting. Carefully identifying and isolating the exact moment when she had changed. When she had ceased to be Magda Altmann and become Caliph.
There was no doubt left now. Had there ever been, he wondered, or had it merely been his wish to find doubt?
Now he must harden himself to the act. It would be difficult,
much more difficult than he had believed possible.
Not once had they been alone, he realized then always the two grey wolves had hovered around them. It was just another sign of her new wariness. He wondered if they would ever be alone together again now that she was alerted.
Then abruptly he realized that she had not said “Au revoir, my darling” but instead she had said “Adieu, MY darling’.
Was there a warning in that? A subtle hint of death for if Caliph suspected him, he knew what her immediate reaction must be. Was she threatening, or had she merely discarded him, as Kingston Parker had warned that she would?
He could not understand the desolate feeling that swamped him at the thought that he might never see her again except through the gunsight.
He stood staring out of the window, wondering how his career and his life had begun to disintegrate about him since first he had heard the name Caliph.
A polite voice at his shoulder startled him and he turned to the airport sub-manager. “They are calling the KLM flight to Brussels now, General Stride.” Peter roused himself with a sigh and picked up his overcoat and the crocodile skin Hermes briefcase that had been a gift from the woman he must kill.
here was such a volume of correspondence and urgent business piling the long desk in his new office that Peter had an excuse to put aside the planning of the preemptive strike against Caliph.
To his mild surprise he found himself enjoying the jostle and haggle, the driving pace and the challenge of the market place. He enjoyd pitting wits and judgement against other sharp and pointed minds, he enjoyed the human interaction and for the first time understood the fascination which this type of life had exerted over his brother Steven.
“Three days after arriving back at his desk, the Iranian Air Force made their first order of the Narmco Kestrel missiles. One hundred and twenty units, over a hundred and fifty million dollars” worth. It was a good feeling, and could grow stronger, could finally become addictive, he realized.
He had always looked upon money as rather a nuisance, those degrading and boring sessions with bank managers and clerks of the income tax department, but now he realized that this was a different kind of money. He had glimpsed the world in which
Caliph existed, and realized how once a human being became accustomed to manipulating this kind of money, then dreams of godlike power became believable, capable of being transmuted into reality.
He could understand, but could never forgive, and so at last,
seven days after his return to Brussels, he forced himself to face up to what he must do.
Magda Altmann had withdrawn. She had made no further contact since that brief and unsatisfactory hour at Orly Airport.
He must go to her, he realized. He had lost his special inside position which would have made the task easier.
He could still get close enough to kill her, of that he was certain. just as he had the opportunity to do so at Orly.
However, if he did it that way it would be suicidal. If he survived the swift retribution of her guards, there would be the slower but inexorable processes of the law. He knew without bothering to consider it too deeply that he would be unable to use the defence of the Caliph story. No court would believe it. It would sound like the rantings of a maniac without the support of Atlas or the Intelligence systems of America and Britain. That support would not be forthcoming of that he was certain, If he killed Caliph they would be delighted, but they would let him go to the guillotine without raising a voice in his defence. He could imagine the moral indignation of the civilized world if they believed that an unorthodox organization such as Atlas was employing assassins to murder the prominent citizens of a foreign and friendly nation.
No. He was on his own, completely. Parker had made that quite clear. And Peter realized that he did not want to die. He was not prepared to sacrifice his life to stop Caliph not unless there was no other way. There had to be another way, of course.
As he planned it he thought of the victim only as Caliph never as Magda Altmann. That way he was able to bring a cold detachment to the problem. The where, the when, and the how of it.
He had complicated the task by replanning her personal security,
and his major concern when he did so had been to make her movements as unpredictable as possible. Her social calendar was as closely guarded as a secret of state, there were never any -forward press reports of attendance at public or state events.
If she were invited to dine at the tlysee Palace, the fact was reported the day after, not the day before but there were some annual events that she would never miss.
Together they had discussed these weaknesses in her personal security.
“Oh, Peter you cannot make a convict of me.” She had laughed in protest when he mentioned them. “I have so few real pleasures you would not take them from me, would you?” The first seasonal showing of
Yves St. Laurent’s collections, that she would never miss or the
Grande Semaine of the spring racing season which culminates with the running of the Grand Prix de Paris at Longchamp. This year she had high hopes of victory with her lovely and courageous bay mare, Ice
Leopard. She would be there. It was absolutely certain.
Peter began to draw up the list of possible killing grounds, and then crossed off all but the most likely. The estate at La Pierre Benite, for instance. It had the advantage of being familiar ground for Peter. With a soldier’s eye he had noticed fields of fire across the wide terraced lawns that dropped down to the lake; there were stances for a sniper in the forests along the far edge of the lake, and in the little wooded knoll to the north of the house which commanded the yard and stables. However, the estate was well guarded and even there the victim’s movements were unpredictable.
It would be possible to lie in ambush for the week when she was in
Rome or New York. Then again the escape route was highly risky,
through a sparsely populated area with only two access roads both easily blocked by swift police action.
No, La Pierre Benite was crossed from the list.
In the end Peter was left with the two venues that had first sprung to mind the members’ enclosure at Longchamp or Yves St.
Laurent’s premises, at 46 Avenue Victor Hugo.
Both had the advantages of being public and crowded, circumstances favouring pickpockets and assassins, Peter thought wryly. Both had multiple escape routes, and crowds into which the fugitive could blend.
There were good stances for a sniper in the grandstands and buildings overlooking the members” enclosure and the saddling paddock at
