and of menace such as he had never known. Was he growing too sensitive to people, to atmospheres? Perhaps Louise was right when she said he badly needed a holiday?
'Yes,' Beaurain replied as evenly as he could.
'The subject is how to co-ordinate efforts to eradicate terrorism and there should be top people there from the States and from all over Europe. Is something wrong, Baron?'
'You may well be refused admission to the conference The Baron swallowed his drink in one gulp and stared at the far wall.
'I have a specific invitation to sit in on the meeting, I don't anticipate any difficulty when I arrive there. What on earth has caused you to make such a suggestion?'
This time the banker looked directly at Beaurain. His grey eyes had a haunted look and, yes, there was fear in his expression. He used a finger to ease the stiffness of his starched collar.
'There are things you do not know, Jules. Power so enormous it is like a vast octopus which has spread its tentacles into every branch and level of western society. This morning the Syndicate sent out world-wide a signal naming ex-Chief Superintendent Jules Beaurain formerly of the Brussels police. It was a Zenith signal.'
He stood up and walked quickly to the cocktail cabinet. He refilled his glass, adding only a nominal dash of soda. Then he did something else out of character. He went behind his huge desk and sat in his chair, as though conducting a formal interview. Beaurain stood up, put his glass carefully on the desk, and began strolling slowly round the room, very erect. The Baron recognised the stance as the one Beaurain used when on duty in charge of the police anti-terrorist squad.
'Do you mind telling me,' he began, 'how you know about a signal sent by the Syndicate which, so far as I know, has not yet been proved to exist? And,' he ended with deliberate coarseness, 'what is this crap about Zenith'?
' Zenith means that the person named is to be kept under constant surveillance, that every move they make, everything they say, everyone they meet all their activities down to the smallest detail, so far as is possible must be reported to the Syndicate.'
Beaurain stopped in front of the desk and took his time lighting a cigarette, standing quite still, studying de Graer as though he were a suspect.
'I'm sorry, Jules, but I felt I must warn you…'
'Shut up! Shut up and answer my questions.'
'You cannot speak to me like that!' de Graer protested. He was standing up, his right hand close to the buzzer under his desk that would summon his secretary.
'If you press that buzzer I'll throw whoever comes in down your marble stairs. Then I'll probably break your wrist. For God's sake, are you telling me you're one of them the Syndicate?'
'No! How could you believe…'
'Then tell me how you know about this Zenith signal? Who transmitted it to you?'
'A woman phoned me. I have no idea who she is or where she is when she phones. No clue as to…'
'And why, de Graer,' Beaurain interrupted, 'do the Syndicate phone you if you're not one of them?'
'You're not going to like this…'
'I haven't liked any of it so far.'
'The Banque is a very minor shareholder in the Syndicate. That is how I have been able to pass information about them and their possible future activities to you from time to time. You know, surely, that after what I have been through I would never help them in a major way.'
After what I have been through. Beaurain had trouble not allowing his manner to soften at the banker's use of the phrase. Just over two years earlier his wife and daughter had been held hostage in the Chateau Wardin by Iraqi terrorists seeking to bargain for the release of two of their comrades held in a Belgian prison. It was just before Beaurain had given up command of the anti-terrorist squad. The negotiations had been botched, a clumsy attempt at rescuing the hostages from the chateau had led to the death of the Baron's wife and daughter.
Soon after the brutal killings the Baron had made over the Chateau Wardin and its ten thousand hectares of wild forest and hills and cliffs to Telescope's gunners and other staff. The Baron would no longer go near the place.
'It is because of what you went through,' Beaurain told him in the same distant tone, 'that I cannot understand your having anything to do with this diabolical Syndicate. You said the Banque was a very minor shareholder what does that mean, for God's sake?'
'It has contributed only a very small amount of money.'
To the Syndicate?'
'Yes now please hear me out, Jules… When I was approached it seemed a good idea to accept their offer because it gave me a pipeline into their system, a pipeline I could use to feed back data to you. And this I have done.'
'That's true. It is also true that you would never reveal the source of your information.'
'I felt you would not approve.'
'In what form was the offer made?'
The banker was beginning to sweat; tiny beads of perspiration were showing on his forehead. The atmosphere inside the luxurious office was electric and to de Graer it seemed it was becoming impossibly overheated. He made a move in the direction of the drinks cabinet, changed his mind, stood irresolutely behind his desk. Beaurain thought, he's on the edge of a breakdown. He kept his tone distant, repeating the question.
'In what form was the offer from the Syndicate made to the Banque?'
'Over my private phone God knows how they got the number. They have people everywhere.'
'Who made the offer?'
'The woman I am supposed to phone about you. Yes, Jules, for God's sake about you! I'm supposed to relay every word we have exchanged in this room.'
'The woman has a name?'
'Originally she just told me to call her Madame.'
'Her accent?'
'Flemish is the language she uses.'
'And the offer she made?'
'A shareholding in the Syndicate which would yield enormous profits for the sum we invested. Three hundred per cent annually was mentioned.'
'How do you conceal this criminal act from the other directors?'
'I paid the money in cash out of my private account.'
' You are lying, de Graer.'
The accusation was like a blow in the face to the old baron. Beaurain actually saw him flinch, his face drained of blood. He seemed to age before the ex-chief superintendent's eyes. Beaurain felt sorry for his friend, but he refused to allow it to affect his judgement. He had to break through the barrier he sensed was there.
'You dare to speak to me like that, Beaurain…'
'I know when you are lying. I've spent a lifetime training myself to know things like that. You're lying now or not telling me everything.
What really happened?'
'She threatened Yvette.'
'Who?'
'My niece, my sister's daughter. After what happened to my own child.
For God's sake, have a little pity, Jules I'm going to smash these people into the ground if it takes me the rest of my life. I just have to know where I stand with you who I can trust.'
'Hardly anyone now, I fear. And you are in great danger.'
'And the nature of the threat?' Beaurain still kept his voice a distant monotone, hoping to defuse the terror which had penetrated the heart of one of the most powerful banks in Brussels. De Graer did not reply in words. Taking a chain linked to his waistcoat he produced a ring of keys, chose one, inserted it in a desk drawer, opened it and produced an envelope which he handed to Beaurain. Beaurain took out the card inside, which at first sight seemed like a greeting card until he looked at the picture. It was primitive, crude, quite horrible and fiendishly effective. It was a drawing of a child's doll sitting up in bed. Minus a head. Blood dripped from the truncated neck.
