SHAH-MAK
Charles Pol Espionage Thrillers
Book Four
Alan Williams
For Claire Rawcliffe
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
ALSO BY ALAN WILLIAMS
CHAPTER 1
The lower slopes of the Gotschnagrat were empty in the late January sun. Most of the sightseers were foreign tourists, still in their goggles and knitted caps, lips smeared white against snow burn, who had been cleared off the ski slopes half an hour earlier. There were a few locals from the village of Wolfgang, midway between Klosters and Davos, together with a discreet showing of Swiss police in their pale grey capes. In front of the crowd, at the foot of the ski run, stood a row of dark men in square-shouldered overcoats and astrakhan hats, hands deep in their side pockets.
The man swept over the last crest of snow. His skis smacked down as he executed a neat Christie before cutting round, half squatting on his haunches, swooshed back in a spray of powdered snow, and came to a halt a few feet from the row of men in overcoats, who took their hands from their pockets and clapped.
A blue Cadillac with smoked windows slid up to the edge of the road with a soft thump of chains. It stopped long enough for the man to snap off his skis and jump inside, before being driven away in the direction of Klosters. A perceptive observer might have noticed that its wheels left unusually deep ruts in the snow. Three more cars appeared, gathered in the men in overcoats, and sped off in the wake of the Cadillac. All four cars carried diplomatic plates and Swiss Zollamt registration numbers.
From what the spectators had been able to glimpse of the man, he was slim, rather small, with a good head of dark silver hair and a beaky profile under wraparound mirror glasses. He had been wearing a red, white and blue plastic anorak over a white polo-necked sweater and black skiing trousers.
The road was closed for five minutes until the convoy of cars had reached the steep track leading up to the large chalet, ‘Le Soupir du Soleil’, which stood concealed by trees 200 metres above Klosters. Here the ritual of arrival and departure was more pronounced. Men drifted out from behind conifers and banks of snow and surrounded the cars in a silent assembly, each facing in a different direction. More men whisked the doors open, bowing low as the silver-haired man stepped out of the Cadillac and walked across the snow-swept forecourt and up a flight of shallow granite steps.
The entrance hall, of plain, dark-stained pine, was dominated by a bronze effigy above the stairs of a huge hybrid bird with the spread tail of a peacock, the talons of an eagle, and the head of a serpent spitting fire. Privileged guests to the chalet rarely noticed that the peacock fan was a spray of blue sapphires, the serpent’s eye an emerald the size of a gull’s egg, and the flames from its mouth rows of rubies.
A servant, in a white uniform buttoned to the throat, removed the man’s skiing boots, while a second servant brought him a pair of embroidered slippers and a glass of apricot brandy. He swallowed the drink in a gulp; then walked, still in his wet plastic jacket, up the carpeted staircase and along a corridor to a sauna, which was equipped with two telephones — internal and external lines — and a UHF radio.
Half an hour later, dressed in a loose-sleeved silk housecoat, he sat behind a wide desk reading through a stack of that day’s international newspapers — the American, British and French in the originals, the Italian and German ones from translated résumés. He had replaced his wraparound glasses with horn-rimmed spectacles, which magnified his cold, oily-black eyes; and he read intently, systematically, pausing to make notes in pencil. When he had finished the last page he touched a button under the table and a chunky man in a black suit appeared, bowed, and gathered up the heap of papers. The man behind the desk said, ‘I am ready to see him.’
The retainer bowed again. ‘Your Imperial Highness, I regret that the gentleman has not yet arrived.’
‘He should have been here an hour ago. What explanation do you have?’
‘A telegram, Your Imperial Highness —’ the man bowed even lower this time — ‘has informed us that there is fog at Zürich. The gentleman’s plane has been obliged to land at Geneva.’
For a fraction of a second an expression of petulant anger crossed the face behind the desk. And in that instant it became an ugly, frightening face: the black unblinking eyes under their thick brows, as glossy as horses’ hair; the fleshy nose deeply etched into the sides of his high cheekbones; the thin, determined mouth — a hard face, a noble face, a face known throughout the world, admired, feared and reviled; now, in that moment, changed to the face of a spoilt, spiteful playboy with too much money and too much power — grown bored with both.
He recovered quickly. ‘Bring me some coffee and tell Lutz to join me for chess.’
The retainer bowed three times and backed out of the room, opening the door behind him without turning. Two minutes later a blond man appeared carrying a chess set. His face was pale
