He put his glass down behind him and clapped his hands together. ‘Garçon!’ he yelled, in an accent which made it sound like ‘gersin’. His good eye swivelled back and fixed on the younger of the two men, who was watching him warily.
‘SAS?’ the tall man said suddenly, in English.
‘More or less,’ said the other. ‘Except they didn’t give us a label.’
‘Exclusive, eh?’ The tall man nodded, then turned again and cried, ‘Hey, garçon! Encore! Lazy dago bastard,’ he muttered, and pulled up a chair. ‘Captain Packer, isn’t it?’ — he pronounced it ‘Pecker’ — ‘I’m Sammy. Good to meet you, soldier.’ He held out a smooth hand. ‘Full name’s Samuel David Ryderbeit — but that’s strictly off the record. Over the last fifteen years the name Ryderbeit’s become a dirty word in just about every respectable country in the world.’ He gave a sidelong leer at the second man. ‘Eh, Charlie Boy?’
Charles Pol grinned, his thighs bulging over the sides of the chair. The barman sauntered in with a bottle of pastis and a jug of water. ‘Tell him to bring two more glasses and leave the bottle,’ said Ryderbeit, still in English. Pol translated the order, while Ryderbeit’s good eye turned again on Packer. ‘How far’s the fat man here put you in the picture, soldier?’
Packer told him, in one sentence — a top assassination job, target as yet unknown, fee of half a million pounds.
Ryderbeit sneered into his empty glass: ‘That’s a bloody sight more than I’m getting! Five times more, to be exact. I’m just the hired heavy — so you must be bloody good!’ His body leaned forward from the waist. ‘Just how good?’
Packer said nothing. The waiter came back and poured their drinks. Packer put a hand over his glass and asked for a Perrier.
‘TT, are we?’ Ryderbeit cackled, his good eye shining out of his hooked face, which had a slightly greenish complexion and was totally hairless. His appearance suggested gypsy blood; though Packer deduced from his name that he might be Jewish; while his accent — clipped, almost prim, with the occasional uncertain drawl of the expatriate — was South African.
When Packer still said nothing, Ryderbeit downed his drink, and aggressively poured himself another, adding very little, water this time. ‘I asked how good you were.’
‘Good at what?’
Ryderbeit’s eyelid drooped. ‘Don’t play funny with me, soldier. Killing, of course. What’s your score?’
‘Didn’t Monsieur Pol tell you?’
Ryderbeit sighed. ‘He said around sixty. Chinks and wogs mostly — but they hardly count. Not in my book, anyway. I’ve killed hundreds — mostly munts. But I’ve also killed a few whites. Ever killed a white man, soldier?’
‘No,’ said Packer. ‘What’s your form, Ryderbeit?’
‘Fat Man didn’t tell you?’
‘I prefer to hear it from you.’ Beside them, Pol sat sipping his pastis.
Ryderbeit said, ‘I started the serious stuff in the Congo back in ’62. Flew for Tshombe’s Air Force in Katanga. And when that bust up I did a spell with Black Shramm’s boys. That was rough, bloody rough — for the other side, I mean. For us it was a laugh all the way! Then there was Commando Four.’
‘And then?’
‘I knocked around — tried my hand at a bit of civilian life, in Europe, then in the Middle East. Usual game, getting hold of a few rich suckers and selling them things that didn’t exist. Then I got a bit over-ambitious and tried to sell an obsolete US aircraft carrier to the Syrians. I got rumbled on that one and had to get out fast. I went East. Finished up flying out of Laos, dropping rice — and a few other things — for Air America, the CIA’s private airline.’
Packer sipped his Perrier. ‘I didn’t think the Americans took on mercenaries out there?’
‘Like hell they didn’t! The Yanks are good boys — they all drink milk and pay their income tax and are in bed by ten every evening.’ He poured himself another drink. ‘It was about that time I met up with this bastard —’ he grinned and jabbed a thumb in the direction of Pol, without looking at him — ‘and we pulled off a beautiful caper out of Saigon. Seized a planeload of greenbacks worth about two billion dollars. We were all set up for the big time, only Fat Man here had other ideas. The whole fucking lot finished up in North Vietnam and I spent the next year in a stinking Hanoi gaol sewing army tunics. I only got out when the final curtain came down on Indo-China, and they chucked me out into Burma, and the Burmese chucked me into India, then the Indians tried to chuck me back into South Africa, only Jo’burg Immigration took one look at my poor bloody passport and I was on the next plane out to Angola. Want me to go on?’
‘You’re Rhodesian, aren’t you?’
‘Originally. But I reckoned I had enough problems without being officially classified as a rebel against Her Majesty your bloody Queen. I’ve had a lot of nationalities in my time. At the moment I’m an Israeli — thanks to some nifty paperwork by Charlie Boy here.’
‘And you’ve never been back to Rhodesia?’
Ryderbeit shrugged. ‘Too many troubles. Wife troubles, mostly. Up there, and down in Jo’burg. You ever been married, soldier?’
Packer shook his head. There was a pause. The Rhodesian refilled his and Pol’s glasses, then deliberately offered the bottle to Packer. ‘Have some. It’s good!’ His eye glittered.
Packer shook his head.
‘I never trust a man who won’t drink,’ Ryderbeit said slowly. ‘Unless there’s a bloody good reason.’
‘There’s a reason,’ said Packer, trying to decide just
