'A certain kind of coward would. A coward who was afraid of his cowardice.'
Diamond laughed thinly. 'You really hate me, don't you?'
'Not at all. You're not a person, you're an organization man. One couldn't hate you as an individual; one could only hate the phylum. At all events, you're not the sort to evoke such intense emotions as hate. Disgust might be closer to the mark.'
'Still, for all the disdain of your breeding and private education, it is people like me—what you sneeringly call the merchant class—who hire you and send you out to do their dirty work.'
Hel shrugged. 'It has always been so. Throughout all history, the merchants have cowered behind the walls of their towns, while the paladins did battle to protect them, in return for which the merchants have always fawned and bowed and played the lickspittle. One cannot really blame them. They are not bred to courage. And, more significantly, you can't put bravery in the bank.' Hel read the last information card quickly and tossed it on the stack to be refiled later. 'All right, Diamond. Now I know who you are and what you are. At least, I know as much about you as I need to, or choose to.'
'I assume your information came from the Gnome?'
'Much of it came from the person you call the Gnome.'
'We would give a great deal to know how that man came by his intelligence.'
'I don't doubt it. Of course, I wouldn't tell you if I knew. But the fact is, I haven't the slightest idea.'
'But you do know the identity and location of the Gnome.'
Hel laughed. 'Of course I do. But the gentleman and I are old friends.'
'He's nothing more or less than a blackmailer.'
'Nonsense. He is an artisan in the craft of information. He has never taken money from a man in return for concealing the facts he collects from all over the world.'
'No, but he provides men like you with the information that protects you from punishment by governments, and for that he makes a lot of money.'
'The protection is worth a great deal. But if it will set your mind at rest, the man you call the Gnome is very ill. It is doubtful that he will live out the year.'
'So you will soon be without protection?'
'I shall miss him as a man of wit and charm. But the loss of protection is a matter of little importance to me. I am, as Fat Boy must have informed you, fully retired. Now what do you say we get on with our little business.'
'Before we start, I have a question I want to ask you.'
'I have a question for you as well, but let's leave that for later. So that we don't waste time with exposition, allow me to give you the picture in a couple of sentences, and you may correct me if I stray.' Hel leaned against the wall, his face in the shadows and his soft prison voice unmodulated. 'We begin with Black Septembrists murdering Israeli athletes in Munich. Among the slain was Asa Stern's son. Asa Stern vows to have vengeance. He organizes a pitiful little amateur cell to this end—don't think badly of Mr. Stern for the paucity of this effort; he was a good man, but he was sick and partially drugged. Arab intelligence gets wind of this effort. The Arabs, probably through an OPEC representative, ask the Mother Company to erase this irritant. The Mother Company turns the task over to you, expecting you to use your CIA bully boys to do the job. You learn that the revenge cell—I believe they called themselves the Munich Five—was on its way to London to put the last surviving members of the Munich murder away. CIA arranges a spoiling action in Rome International. By the way, I assume those two fools back in the house were involved in the raid?'
'Yes.'
'And you're punishing them by making them clean up after themselves?'
'That's about it.'
'You're taking the risks, Mr. Diamond, A foolish associate is more dangerous than a clever opponent.'
'That's my concern.'
'To be sure. All right, your people do a messy and incomplete job in Rome. Actually, you should be grateful they did as well as they did. With a combination of Arab Intelligence and the CIA competence, you're lucky they didn't go to the wrong airport. But that, as you have said, is your concern. Somehow, probably when the raid was evaluated in Washington, you discovered that the Israeli boys were not going to London. They carried airline tickets for Pau. You also discovered that one of the cell members, the Miss Stern with whom you just took dinner, had been overlooked by your killers. Your computer was able to relate me to Asa Stern, and the Pau destination nailed it down. Is that it?'
'That roughly is it.'
'All right. So much for catching up. The ball, I believe, is in your court.'
Diamond had not yet decided how he would present his case, what combination of threat and promise would serve to neutralize Nicholai Hel. To gain time, he pointed to a pair of odd-looking pistols with curved handles like old-fashioned dueling weapons and double nine-inch barrels that were slightly flared at the ends.
'What are these?'
'Shotguns, in a way of speaking.'
'Shotguns?'
'Yes. A Dutch industrialist had them made for me. A gift in return for a rather narrow action involving his son who was held captive on a train by Moluccan terrorists. Each gun, as you see, has two hammers which drop simultaneously on special shotgun shells with powerful charges that scatter loads of half-centimeter ball bearings. All the weapons in this room are designed for a particular situation. These are for close work in the dark, or for putting away a roomful of men on the instant of break-in. At two meters from the barrel, they lay down a spread pattern a meter in diameter.' Hel's bottle-green eyes settled on Diamond. 'Do you intend to spend the evening talking about guns?'
'No. I assume that Miss Stern has asked you to help her kill the Septembrists now in London?'
Hel nodded.
'And she took it for granted that you would help, because of your friendship for her uncle?'
'She made that assumption.'
'And what do you intend to do?'
'I intend to listen to your proposal.'
'My proposal?'
'Isn't that what merchants do? Make proposals?'
'I wouldn't exactly call it a proposal.'
'What would you call it?'
'I would call it a display of deterrent action, partially already on line, partially ready to be brought on line, should you be so foolish as to interfere.'
Hel's eyes crinkled in a smile that did not include his lips. He made a rolling gesture with his hand, inviting Diamond to get on with it.
'I'll confess to you that, under different conditions, neither the Mother Company nor the Arab interests we are allied with would care much one way or another what happened to the homicidal maniacs of the PLO. But these are difficult times within the Arab community, and the PLO has become something of a rallying banner, an issue more of public relations than of private taste. For this reason, the Mother Company is committed to their protection. This means that you will not be allowed to interfere with those who intend to hijack that plane in London.'
'How will I be prevented?'
'Do you recall that you used to own several thousand acres of land in Wyoming?'
'I assume the tense is not a matter of grammatical carelessness.'
'That's right. Part of that land was in Boyle County, the rest in Custer County. If you contact the county clerk offices, you will discover that there exists no record of your having purchased that land. Indeed, the records show that the land in question is now, and has been for many years, in the hands of one of Mother Company's affiliates. There is some coal under the land, and it is scheduled for strip-mining.'
'Do I understand that if I cooperate with you, the land will be returned to me?'
'Not at all. That land, representing as it does most of what you have saved for your retirement, has been taken from you as a punishment for daring to involve yourself in the affairs of the Mother Company.'
'May I assume you suggested this punishment?'
