Snow had appeared, like a distant wreath of cloud, as the Mercedes plunged into an alley of cypress trees that ended between high white walls. A man of the same size and shape as the driver squeezed between the wall and the car, slipping his carbine down beside his leg. He stared in at Packer as though he were a piece of luggage; nodded to the driver and withdrew.
The car slid under an archway in which a steel door had automatically opened. It closed behind them and the inside of the car was flooded with neon. Packer made to open the door and found that he was locked in. The driver released him, and he stepped out into a garage where he counted half a dozen long black cars and three jeeps painted with desert camouflage.
The driver motioned him towards the door of a lift. Inside, the man pushed the bottom of five buttons and they began to move downwards. He stood, legs slightly apart, hands at his sides, facing the door; his only movement came from the shoulders, in slow heaves like a man doing breathing exercises. He smelled of camphor.
They stopped, and Packer walked out into the cool sunlight. Shallow steps of white marble curved down to a patio, walled in on one side with green glass, and open on the other with a parapet overlooking the ridges of mountain rising to the snow. In the middle of the patio was a kidney-shaped swimming pool in which a girl in a polka-dotted bikini and a flowered bathing hat was basking face-down on a lilo. At a corner of the pool, three men sat in wicker chairs round a table on which stood an opened bottle of champagne.
As Packer stood shading his eyes against the light, one of the men below raised his arm, and a familiar voice reached him like a clear bell. ‘Ah, mon cher! Welcome to your new home! You had a good journey? They looked after you at the airport? Meet my two friends.’
Packer reached the foot of the steps and walked round the pool, where the girl had drifted away so that he could not see her face. Her body was small, well-rounded, lightly tanned; she reminded him, with a stab of bitterness, of Sarah. He reached the table where there was a fourth, empty chair.
‘Messieurs, I would like to present le Capitaine Packer —’ Pol’s fat little fingers closed tightly round Packer’s wrist — ‘Mon Capitaine, I present to you my good friends and associates, Monsieur Shiva Steiner, and le Docteur Zak.’
Shiva Steiner nodded; otherwise the two men did not move. They were a strikingly incongruous pair: Steiner, in a grey mohair suit matching the colour and texture of his hair, exuded an aggressive opulence, while Dr Zak’s old thin body was exaggerated by a loose striped pyjama-like costume, with no collar or tie. He had large sad eyes and hair like wire wool.
Pol drew Packer down on to the vacant chair and beamed at him, his silk suit shining under the filtered green sunlight like fish scales. ‘So? You have no complaints?’
‘No. But I’ve got some questions to ask.’
Pol chuckled and his fingers played a trill along Packer’s arm. ‘Of course you have, mon cher! I too have questions to ask.’
‘Right, down to business. I made a deal with you, and we signed a contract in Aalau, and then things started to go wrong. You disappeared, for a start. Let’s begin there.’
Pol shifted his buttocks with a crackle of cane. He reminded Packer of a porpoise, benign and playful, ready at any moment to splash into the pool. ‘I left for an excellent reason, mon cher — to save my life.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Because I had no wish to advertise my fear.’ Pol removed his hand from Packer’s arm and poured himself some champagne. He was the only one who was drinking. He looked at Packer and smiled. ‘I can offer you coffee or mint tea.’
‘Neither. Charles, you left Sammy and me in a very awkward situation back in Switzerland.’
‘It was an agreed situation. We had discussed it fully in Klosters before I left. You were to proceed with the plan, as arranged. Unfortunately, the Ruler played a trick for which you cannot be blamed.’
‘Sammy was right, of course,’ said Packer. ‘The Ruler knew our whole drill from the start. And the only way he could have known was from you. He had a stand-in propped up on that T-bar like a red, white and blue target — but what for? To see if you and I carried out his orders, and I’d shoot Sammy? A pretty devious way of proving a point. And risky, too.’
‘The Ruler is a very devious man,’ replied Pol. ‘He is also prepared to take risks — provided they are calculated risks. This one was, and it paid off. No publicity — no scandal.’
‘The Ruler may be devious,’ said Packer, ‘but so are you. You hired Sammy for this operation because he was being a nuisance to you and you wanted him on a leash. So you paid him enough to keep him happy — and it doesn’t take much to keep Sammy Ryderbeit happy, as long as he’s given a gun and can play with it. As for you, I still don’t know what passed between
