can only piece together like a jig puzzle pardon, a jig-saw puzzle.” She corrected herself swiftly. “But this is what must have happened. Caliph contacted Aaron with a proposition.
It was a very simple proposition. He was invited to become a partner of Caliph. Aaron was to make a substantial financial contribution to Caliph’s war-chest, and to place his privileged knowledge and lines of influence at Caliph’s disposal. In return he would have a hand in engineering Caliph’s brave new world. It was a miscalculation On Caliph’s part, perhaps the only mistake he has made up to now. He had misjudged Aaron Altmann. Aaron turned him down flat but much more dangerously Caliph had made the mistake of revealing his identity to Aaron. I expect that he had to do that in an effort to convince Aaron. You see, Aaron was not a man who would indulge in a game of code names and hidden identities. That much Caliph had divined correctly. So he had to confront Aaron face to face, and when he discovered that Aaron would not join in a campaign of murder and extortion no matter how laudable the ultimate ends Caliph had no choice. He took Aaron, killed him after torturing him hideously for information that could have been useful, mainly information about his
UM I Mossad connection I imagine. Then he persuaded me to pay the ransom. He won two major tricks with a single card.
He silenced Aaron, and he gained the twenty-five million for his war-chest.”
“How did you learn this? If only you had explained to me before ” Peter heard the bitterness in his own voice.
“I did not know it when we first met, please believe me. I
will tell you how I learned it, but please be patient with me. Let me tell it as it happened.”
“I am sorry, “he said simply.
“The first time I heard the name “Caliph” was the day I delivered the ransom. I told you about that, didn’t I?”
“Yes.”
“So we come now to your part. I heard of you for the first time with the Johannesburg me hunt down Caliph. I found out about you, Peter. I was even able to have a computer printout on you-” She paused, and there was that mischievous flash in her eye again. “- I will admit to being very impressed with the formidable list of your ladies.” Peter held up both hands in a gesture of surrender.
“Never again,” he pleaded. “Not another word agreed?”
“Agreed.”
She laughed, and then, “I’m hungry, and my throat is sore again with all this talking.” They crossed the island again, with their bare feet baking on the sun-heated sand, and went back on board the Chris, craft.
The chef had stocked the refrigerator with a cornucopia of food,
and Peter opened a bottle of Veuve Cliquot champagne.
“You’ve got expensive tastes,” he observed. “I don’t know if I
can afford to keep you on my salary.”
“I’m sure we could arrange a raise from your boss,” she assured him with the twinkle in her eyes.
In tacit agreement they did not mention Caliph again until they had eaten.
There is one other thing you must understand, Peter.
I am of Mossad, but I do not control them. They control me. It was the same with Aaron. Both of us were and are very valuable agents,
possibly amongst the most valuable of all their networks, but I do not make decisions, nor am I able to have access to all their secrets.
“Mossad’s single-minded goal is the safety and security of the state of Israel. It has no other reason for existence. I was certain that Aaron had made a full report to Mossad of Caliph’s identity,
that-he had detailed the proposition that Caliph had proposed and I
suspect that Mossad had ordered Aaron to cooperate with Caliph-“
“Why?” Peter demanded sharply.
“I do not know for certain but I can think of two reasons.
Caliph must have been such a powerful and influential man that his support would have been valuable.
Then again I suspect that Caliph had pro-Israeli leanings, or professed to have those leanings. Mossad finds allies where it can,
and does not question their morals. I think they ordered Aaron to cooperate with Caliph but-“
“But?” Peter prompted her.
“But you do not order a man like Aaron to go against his deepest convictions, and under that forbidding exterior Aaron Altmann was a man of great humanity. I think that the reason for his agitation was the conflict of duty and belief that he was forced to endure. His instinct warned him to destroy Caliph, and his duty-” She shrugged, and picked up her fluted champagne glass, twisting it between those long slim fingers and studying the pinpricks of bubbles as they rose slowly through the pale golden wine. When she spoke again she had changed direction disconcertingly.
“A thousand times I had tried to discover what was so different between you and me than with the other men I have known. Why none of them could move me and yet with you it was almost instantaneous—”
She looked up at him again as though she was still seeking the reason.
Of course, I knew so much about you. You had the qualities I admire in another human being, so I was disposed favourably but there are other qualities you cannot detail on a computer printout nor capture in a photograph. There was something about you that made me ” She made a helpless gesture as she searched for the word. You made me tingle.”
“That’s a good word, Peter smiled.
“And I had never tingled before. So I had to be very sure.
It was a new experience to want a man merely because he is gentle and strong and-” she chuckled, ” just plain sexy.
You are sexy, you know that, Peter, but also you are something else-” She broke off. “No, I am not going to flatter you any more. I
do not want you to get swollen ankles-” mixing the French idiom quaintly with the English, and this time not correcting herself. She went straight on. “Caliph must have realized that I had recruited a dangerous ally. He made the attempt to kill you that night on the
Rambouillet road-“
“They were after you,” Peter cut in.
“Who, Peter? Who was after me?”
“The Russians by that time they knew you were a double agent.”
“Yes, they knew-” She cocked her head and narrowed her eyes. “I had thought about it, of course, and there had been two previous attempts on me, but I do not think the attempt on the Rambouillet road was Russian.”
“All right, Caliph then, but after you not me,” Peter suggested.
“Perhaps, but again I do not think so. My instinct tells me they had the right target. They were after you.”
“I would have to agree,”
Peter said. “I think I was followed when I left Paris that evening-“
and he told her about the Citroin. I think they knew that I was alone in the Maserati.”
“Then we accept it was Caliph,“she stated flatly.
or Mossad, Peter murmured, and her eyes slowly widened, turning a darker thoughtful green as Peter went on.
“What if Mossad did not want an Atlas man getting close to their star agent, they didn’t want you to have an ally in your hunt for
Caliph? What if they just didn’t want me cluttering up the carefully rehearsed scenario?”
“Peter, it’s very deep water-” and there are packs of sharks.”
“Let’s leave that night on the Rambouillet road for the moment,” she suggested. “It merely complicates the story I am trying to tell you.”
“All right,” Peter agreed. “We can come back to it, if we have to.”
“The next significant move was the abduction of
Melissa-Jane,” she said, and Peter’s expression changed, becoming flat and stony.
