prepared to accept my warning. However, all he would do would be to ask me to give him the name pass it to him along his usual communications channel. That would be it.”
“You would refuse to pass the information except face to face. You will protest that the information is much too sensitive. You would protest that your personal safety was at stake. What would be his reaction?”
“I would expect him to put pressure on me to divulge the name. If you resisted?”
“I suppose he would have to agree to a meeting. As you have pointed out, it is his major obsession. But, if he met me face to face, his identity would be revealed anyway.”
“Think, Steven. You know how his mind works.” It took a few seconds, then Steven’s expression changed, consternation twisting his lips as though he was in pain.
“Good God of course. If I forced him to a face-to-face meeting,
I would be highly unlikely to survive it.”
“Exactly,” Peter nodded.
“If we baited it with something absolutely irresistible, Caliph would have to agree to meet you but he would make arrangements to have you silenced immediately, before you had a chance to pass on his identity to anyone else.”
“Hell, Peter, this is creepy. As you told me earlier today, I am fat and out of condition. I wouldn’t be much of a match against Caliph.”
“Caliph would take that into consideration when deciding whether to meet you or not,” Peter agreed.
“It sounds like suicide,” Steven persisted.
“You just signed on to be tough,” Peter reminded him.
“Tough is one thing, stupid is another.”
“You would be in no danger until you delivered the message. Caliph would not dare dispose of you until you delivered your message,” Peter pointed out. “And I
give you my word that I will never call on you to go to an assignation with Caliph.”
“I can’t ask for more than that, I suppose.” Steven threw up his hands. “When do you want me to contact him?”
“How do you do it the contact?”
“Advert in the Personal column,” Steven told him, and
Peter grinned with reluctant admiration. Neat, efficient and entirely untraceable.
“Do it as soon as you can,” Peter instructed.
“Monday morning, “Steven nodded, and went on studying his brother with a peculiarly intent expression.
“What is it, Steven?”
“I was just thinking. If only Caliph had been somebody like you, Peter.”
“huh?” For the first time Peter was truly startled.
“The warrior king utterly ruthless in the pursuit of the vision of justice and rightness and duty.”
“I am not like that.” Peter denied it.
“Yes, you are,” Steven said positively. “You are the type of man that I hoped Caliph might be. The type of man we needed.” Peter had to presume that Caliph was watching him.
After his murder of Baroness Altmann, Caliph’s interest would be intense. Peter had to act predictably.
He caught the early Monday flight back to Brussels, and before midday was at his desk in Narmco headquarters.
Here also he was the centre of much interest and power play
Altmann Industries had lost its chief executive and there were strong undercurrents and court intrigues already 4 afoot. Despite a number of subtle approaches Peter stayed aloof from the struggle.
On Tuesday evening Peter picked up the newspaper from the news-stand in the Hilton lobby. Steven’s contact request was in the small-ads section.
children of Israel asked counsel of the Lord, saying, shall I go up again to battle? judges. 20:23.
The quotation that Caliph had chosen seemed to epitomize his view of himself. He saw himself as godlike, set high above his fellow men.
Steven had explained to Peter that Caliph took up to forty-eight hours to answer.
Steven would wait each day after the appearance of the personal announcement at his desk in his office suite in Leadenhall Street, from noon until twenty minutes past the hour. He would have no visitors nor appointments for that time,
and he would make certain that his direct unlisted telephone line was un-engaged to receive the incoming contact.
There was no contact that Wednesday, but Steven had not expected one. On the Thursday Steven paced restlessly up and down the antique silk Kirman carpet as he waited for the call. He was already wearing the jacket of his suit, and his bowler and rolled umbrella were on the corner of the ornate French ormolu desk that squatted like some benign monster beneath the windows which looked across the street at Lloyds
Exchange.
Steven Stride was afraid. He acknowledged the fact with direct self-honesty. Intrigue was part of his existence, had been for nearly all of his life but always the game had been played to certain rules.
He knew he was entering a new jungle, a savage wilderness where those few rules ceased entirely to exist. He was going in over his head;
Peter had pointed out to him that this was not his way, and he knew
Peter was right. Peter was right, and Steven was afraid as he had never been in his life. Yet he knew that he was going ahead with it.
He had heard that it was the mark of true courage to be able to meet and acknowledge fear, and yet control it sufficiently to be able to go ahead and do what duty dictated must be done.
He did not feel like a brave man.
The telephone rang once, too loud, too shrill and every nerve in his body jumped taut and he found himself frozen, paralysed with fear in the centre of the beautiful and precious carpet.
The telephone rang again, the insistent double note sounded in his ears like the peal of doom, and he felt his bowels filled with the hot oily slime of fear, hardly to be contained.
The telephone rang the third time, and with an enormous effort he forced himself to make the three paces to his desk.
He lifted the telephone receiver, and heard the sharp chimes of the interference from the public telephone system.
Stride: he said. His voice was strained, high and almost shrill,
and he heard the drop of the coin.
The voice terrified him. It was an electronic drone, inhuman,
without gender, without the timbre of living emotion, without neither high nor low notes.
“Aldgate and Leadenhall Street,“said the voice.
Steven repeated the rendezvous and immediately the connection was broken.
Steven dropped the receiver onto its cradle and snatched up his bowler and umbrella as he hurried to the door.
His secretary looked up at him and smiled expectantly.
She was a handsome grey-haired woman who had been with Steven ten years.
“Sir?” She still called him that.
I’m popping out for half an hour, May,” Steven told her.
“Look after the shop, there is a dear.” And he stepped into his private elevator and rode down swiftly to the underground garage where his Rolls was kept, together with the private vehicles of his senior executives.
In the elevator mirror he checked the exact angle of his bowler, a slightly raffish tilt over the right eye, and rearranged the bloom of the crimson carnation in the buttonhole of the dark blue Savile Row suit with its faint and elegant chalk stripe. It was important that he looked and acted entirely naturally during the next few minutes.
His staff would remark on any departure from the normal.
In the garage he did not approach the dark-maroon Rolls-Royce which glowed in the subdued lighting like some precious gem. Instead he went towards the wicket gate in the steel roll-up garage door, and the doorman in his little glassed cubicle beside the door looked up from his football pools coupons, recognized the master and
