Shibumi

eh?'

'Not so rich as you might imagine. In the first place his 'stunts' are expensive to set up. This is particularly true when he has to neutralize the government of the country in which the stunt takes place. He does this through the information brokerage of a man we have never been able to locate—a man known only as the Gnome. The Gnome collects damaging facts about governments and political figures. Hel buys this information and uses it as blackmail against any effort on the part of the government to hamper his actions. And this information is very expensive. He also spends a lot of money mounting caving expeditions in Belgium, the Alps, and his own mountains. It's a hobby of his and an expensive one. Finally, there's the matter of his chateau. In the fifteen years since he bought it, he has spent a little over two million in restoring it to its original condition, importing the last of the world's master stonemasons, wood carvers, tile makers, and what not. And the furniture in the place is worth a couple of million more.'

'So,' Mr. Able said, 'he lives in great splendor, this Hel of yours.'

'Splendor, I guess. But primitive. The chateau is completely restored. No electricity, no central heating, nothing modern except an underground telephone line that keeps him informed of the arrival and approach of any strangers.'

Mr. Able nodded to himself. 'So a man of eighteenth-century breeding has created an eighteenth-century world for himself in splendid isolation in the mountains. How interesting. But I am surprised he did not return to Japan and live in the style he was bred to.'

'From what I understand, when he got out of prison and discovered to what degree the traditional ways of life and ethical codes of Japan had been 'perverted' by Americanism, he decided to leave. He has never been back.'

'How wise. For him, the Japan of his memory will always remain what it was in gentler, more noble times. Pity he's an enemy. I would like your Mr. Hel.'

'Why do you call him my Mr. Hel?'

Mr. Able smiled. 'Does that irritate you?'

'Any stupidity irritates me. But let's get back to our problem. No, Hel is not as rich as you might imagine. He probably needs money, and that might give us an angle on him. He owns a few thousand acres in Wyoming, apartments in half a dozen world capitals, a mountain lodge in the Pyrenees, but there's less than half a million in his Swiss bank. He still has the expenses of his chateau and his caving expeditions. Even assuming he sells off the apartments and the Wyoming land, life in his chateau would be, by his standards, a modest existence.'

'A life of... what was the word?' Mr. Able asked, smiling faintly to himself at the knowledge he was annoying Diamond.

'I don't know what you mean.'

'That Japanese word for things reserved and understated?'

'Shibumi?'

'Ah, yes. So even without taking any more 'stunts,' your—I mean, our Mr. Hel would be able to live out a life of shibumi.'

'I wouldn't be so sure,' Starr interposed. 'Not with nookie at a hundred K a throw!'

'Will you shut up, Starr,' Diamond said.

Not quite able to follow what was going on here, the PLO goatherd had risen from the conference table and strayed to the window, where he looked down and watched an ambulance with a flashing dome light thread its way through the partially congealed traffic—as that ambulance did every night at precisely this time. Starr's colorful language had attracted his attention, and he was thumbing through his pocket English/Arabic dictionary, muttering, 'Nookie... nookie...' when suddenly the Washington Monument and the wide avenue of cars vanished, and the window was filled with a blinding light.

The goatherd screamed and threw himself to the floor, covering his head in anticipation of the explosion.

Everyone in the room reacted characteristically. Starr leapt up and whipped out his Magnum. Miss Swivven slumped into a chair. The Deputy covered his face with a sheet of typing paper. Diamond closed his eyes and shook his head at these asses with which he was surrounded. Mr. Able examined his cuticles. And the First Assistant, absorbed in his technological intercourse with Fat Boy, failed to notice that anything had happened.

'Get off the floor, for chrissake,' Diamond said. 'It's nothing. The street-scene film has broken, that's all.'

'Yes, but...' the goatherd babbled.

'You came down in the elevator. You must have known you were in the basement.'

'Yes, but...'

'Did you think you were looking down from the Sixteenth Floor?'

'No, but...'

'Miss Swivven, shut the rear projector off and make a note to have it repaired.' Diamond turned to Mr. Able. 'I had it installed to create a better working environment, to keep the office from feeling shut up in the bowels of the earth.'

'And you have been capable of fooling yourself?' Starr snapped his gun back into its holster and glared at the window, as though to say it had been lucky... this time.

With ruminantial ambiguity, the goatherd grinned sheepishly as he got to his feet. 'Boy-o-boy, that was a good one! I guess the joke was on me!'

Out in the machine room, Miss Swivven threw a switch, and the glaring light in the window went out, leaving a matte white rectangle that had the effect of sealing the room up and reducing its size.

'All right,' Diamond said, 'now you have some insight into the man we're dealing with. I want to talk a little strategy, and for that I would as soon have you two out of here.' He pointed Starr and the PLO goatherd toward the exercise and sun room. 'Wait in there until you're called.'

Appearing indifferent to his dismissal. Star ambled toward the sun room, followed by the Arab who insisted on explaining again that he guessed the joke had been on him.

When the door closed behind them, Diamond addressed the two men at the conference table, speaking as though the First Assistant were not present, as indeed in many ways he was not.

'Let me lay out what I think we ought to do. First—'

'Just a moment, Mr. Diamond,' Mr. Able interrupted. 'I am concerned about one thing. Just what is your relationship to Nicholai Hel?'

'How do you mean?'

'Oh, come now! It is evident that you have taken a particular interest in this person. You are familiar with so many details that do not appear in the computer printout.'

Diamond shrugged. 'After all, he's a mauve-card man; and it's my job to keep current with—'

'Excuse me for interrupting you again, but I am not interested in evasions. You have admitted that the officer in charge of the interrogation of Nicholai Hel was your brother.'

Diamond stared at the OPEC troubleshooter for a second. 'That's right. Major Diamond was my brother. My older brother.'

'You were close to your brother?'

'When our parents died, my brother took care of me. He supported me while he was working his way through college. Even while he was working his way up through the OSS—a notoriously WASP organization—and later with CIA, he continued to—'

'Do spare us the domestic details. I would be correct to say that you were very close to him?'

Diamond's voice was tight. 'Very close.'

'All right. Now there is something you passed over rather quickly in your biographic sketch of Nicholai Hel. You mentioned that he required, as a part of his pay for doing the Peking assignment that got him out of prison, the current addresses of the three men involved in beating and torturing him during his interrogation. May I presume he did not want the addresses for the purpose of sending Christmas cards... or Hanukkah greetings?'

Diamond's jaw muscles rippled.

'My dear friend, if this affair is as serious as you seem to believe it is, and if you are seeking my assistance in clearing it up, then I must insist upon understanding everything that might bear upon the matter.'

Diamond pressed his palms together and hooked the thumbs under his chin. He spoke from behind the