Breath of Hell (Harry Bauer Book 8)

by Blake Banner

  “Bob, welcome aboard! Let’s see if we can satisfy your curiosity today.” He gave my shoulder a manly slap. “First, I think, something to refresh you. Then allow me to give you a tour of the boat, and after that, lunch. How say you?”

  There was not a trace of the colonel. I did my best to ignore the fact and offered them both a big grin.

  “I say that sounds just fine. Do you think your man can make a Vesper martini?”

  “Shaken not stirred? Don’t tell me you are a fan of James Bond!” He laughed, like it was all he needed to confirm me as an idiot. That suited me down to the ground.

  “An arrogant elitist who kills without flinching and is irresistible to women—what’s not to like? But if Bond had been based on anyone real, he would have been with the Special Boat Service.”

  “Perhaps you’re right, but fortunately, he is not real.”

  He led me through plate-glass doors into a large, luxurious lounge with oak-paneled walls, overstuffed cream leather sofas and armchairs and Persian rugs on a parquet floor. At the far end there was a fully stocked bar with a guy in a cream jacket chopping up limes and lemons. Yushbaev addressed him.

  “Peter, we want one ounce of vodka, three ounces of Gordons gin, half of one ounce of Lillet Blanc.” He turned to me. “The Kina Lillet is no more, as I am sure you know.” He turned back to Peter. “Now you will shake this over ice, and serve with a coil of lemon peel. Am I right, Bob?”

  “You’re not wrong. Do you have an encyclopedia of trivia in your head?”

  He chuckled with an ounce of smugness, three ounces of self-satisfaction and half an ounce of ain’t-I-just-great. “I am afraid I have an IQ of one hundred and sixty plus an eidetic memory. Tell me something once and I will not only remember it, I will fully understand it and suggest ways to improve it.”

  He gave one of those big, Russian laughs and we watched the barman, Peter, put together an almost genuine Vesper martini, shaken not stirred. Peter handed it over and Marianne addressed Yushbaev.

  “I have already seen this yacht a hundred times, Gabbie. You show Bob. I am going to take the sun.”

  He shrugged and led the way. Beyond the bar there was a mahogany door with beveled glass panes, and through that an impressive mahogany staircase rose and split into two spirals, one to the right and the other to the left. Before we climbed it he gestured beyond the stairs. “Forward, past the stairs and down the passages, we have the state dining room and the library. We have over five thousand books here. But we will start at the bridge. I think it will be of more interest to you.”

  I was trying to orient myself and imagine what would be happening when the mines detonated. I saw a door over to the right of the stairs and pointed.

  “I guess that leads to the engine room.”

  “And storage.” He spoke as he climbed, without looking back. “You were curious about the staterooms. We haven’t got four like your friend from Texas, only two. But we find them satisfactory.”

  We’d come to the top of the stairs and here there was another lounge with a bar. This one had a domed glass ceiling and glass walls.

  “It’s quite fun to have drinks here when there is a full moon or a storm.” He pointed toward the prow, where there were sliding glass doors beyond which was an open deck with a swimming pool, and then the large, white structure of the bridge. “Nobody goes up there except me, the captain and his first mate. We have technology up there that is not yet known on the market.”

  “Yeah? What kind of technology? GPS? Satellite positioning…?”

  “No, we have all that, of course, Bob, but this is mainly security: laser technology, electronic surveillance, heat and movement sensors. I would like to show you, Bob, seriously, but it is highly confidential stuff.”

  I thought I caught something in his tone, but he smiled and turned toward the stern. An archway led through to a lounge area with scattered tables, sofas and armchairs, and just to the left as we went through there was a sliding steel door.

  “Through there you have the crew’s cabins and recreation area, toilets and so forth, and here is the elevator which takes us up to the staterooms. It is the only form of access, and to activate it, your biometrics must be registered in the central computer.”

  “So once you’re up there nobody can get to you.”

  He pressed his hand against a plaque in the wall and nodded at me. “Correct.”

  I laughed. “But if the system fails, you can’t get down either.”

  “The system doesn’t fail, Bob.” The door slid open and he gestured me into an elevator car that was eight-foot square of high-polish wood with art deco inlays and hand-carved mirrors. I stepped inside, the doors closed and we began to rise. “But if it ever did, we have lifeboats and an independent power source with which to run radio, radar, GPS…”

  The doors slid open and he smiled at me again.

  “Our technology really is cutting edge, Bob. More than cutting edge.”

  We stepped out into what looked like a luxurious hotel lobby from the turn of the last century. It was carpeted in deep burgundy and had a vast chandelier hanging from the ceiling. There were chairs in the same color that looked eighteenth century and probably were. They sat against the walls that were lined with silk. There were gilt mirrors and what looked to my inexpert eye like Old Masters on the walls. A single passageway led from the room. He led me to it.

  “Here on the right is my suite, which I call the Emperor’s Chambers. I share it with Marianne. I will show it to you in a moment. Here on the left is the Empress’s Suite.”

  Maybe I shouldn’t have, but I was getting tired of listening to him. So I smiled and said, “And that’s where the colonel sleeps?”

  Something happened to his eyes. They were not warm things to begin with, but suddenly they became Antarctic.

  “Yes,” he said. “She is feeling indisposed today, so she will not be joining us. Come, have a look at the Emperor’s Chambers.”

  The double walnut doors to his Emperor’s Suite probably cost as much as my TVR. They were twelve foot tall and the handles and hinges were of solid gold. He pushed them open and we entered what was to all intents and purposes a Rococo drawing room. The only thing missing was a bunch of pampered, lily-white fops in wigs, with painted lips. Maybe that would come after lunch. There was even a marble fireplace with eighteenth-century sofas and chairs positioned about it. One door—a smaller version of the walnut affairs that gave access to the suite—gave onto a bedroom which was more of the same, with a vast, mahogany four-poster with ruby velvet drapes, and another gave access to a large, semicircular terrace where the furniture was more Star Trek than Baroque. The same was true of the en suite bathroom in the bedroom, which was all toffee-colored marble and deep blue glass with concealed lighting.

  “So, Bob, how does it compare with your friend’s superyacht?”

  “It’s very impressive, Gabriel.” I took a little stroll, looking around, peered into the bedroom again, then at the terrace, thinking of the colonel just fifteen or twenty paces away, locked in the Empress’s Chambers. I smiled at Yushbaev, thinking I could kill him in a couple of seconds, blow the lock on her door…

  “I do not anticipate anybody being stupid enough to attempt to break in and steal from the Bucephalus, but if they did,” he paused and smiled, like he was trying to convey to me that he knew I might try something that stupid, “the problem is not so much getting in. After all, you only need to board it and enter, don’t you? No,” he shook his head, “the problem is leaving again once you are onboard. The whole ship locks down into separate compartments, and unless your biometrics are recorded in the central computer, you are a prisoner.”

  I laughed. “Well I assure you that the only thing I want to take from your yacht is your food and your wine, and some damned fine memories. So I hope you’ll let me go home after lunch.”

  “I would not dream of keeping you a moment longer than you are comfortable. Shall we go and have lunch?”


  We retraced our steps, taking a couple of detours to see the other swimming pool, the tennis court, the small cinema and the Star Dome, which was a reinforced glass dome at the very top of the yacht, which was equipped with waterbeds where, according to Yushbaev, you could get stoned, listen to Pink Floyd and lie flying above the stars.

  “It is a unique experience. If we had more time I would invite you to try it.”

  “Yeah, sounds like fun. Do I take it you’re leaving soon, then?”

  “Tomorrow. Unfortunately I have business to attend to back home.”

  When we got back to the saloon, the table had been set for lunch. Marianne was still out on a deckchair taking the sun, with huge sunglasses making her look like a particularly attractive ant, and Ben Macleod, in white slacks and a white shirt, was leaning on the doorjamb with a glass in his hand, trying not to look like he was ogling her. He wasn’t doing a great job. He glanced at us, said something to her, and came to join us. Through the glass door I saw her sigh and get to her feet to come in.

  We didn’t talk while we took our places and a couple of his goons in white jackets served us with prawn cocktails and ice-cold Krug in frosted glasses. When they were done and had withdrawn, leaving the ice bucket by his right elbow, he said unexpectedly:

  “I don’t give a fuck about anybody else’s rules.”

  I picked up my fork. Marianne continued to display a complete lack of expression or interest, but Ben smiled at me, like he was trying to pretend Yushbaev had said something witty. Something told me this was not a new theme of conversation.

  I speared a prawn and said, “I’d guess once you have a billion sterling in the bank, you don’t need to give a fuck about other people’s rules. Or am I missing the point?” Before he could answer I decided to annoy him for a bit by stealing the scene. “Did you know that in Aramaic ‘camel’ and ‘rope’ are the same word? ‘Gml’ spelt G-M-L. Which casts a whole new light on the whole passing through a needle business, right?” I grinned at him and laughed. “Maybe even you can go to heaven, huh. Gabbie?”

  He cleared his throat and stared at me. Marianne paused in her chewing to stare at me too, and Ben frowned a “what the hell are you doing” frown. I ignored them and skewered another prawn.

  “I mean, let’s face it,” I gave a small laugh, “putting a camel through the eye of a needle is something you are never going to do. It just ain’t gonna happen, right? But a rope? Now here the metaphor changes completely. Because all you have to do now, is strip away all the excess.”

  The three of them fell back to eating. After a moment Yushbaev asked, “And who defines what is excess?”

  “Well, I guess there are a couple of different ways to answer that. In Texas they’d tell you, ‘God decides that, boy.’ But I suspect, you being a man of a philosophical turn of mind, might answer, ‘I am the god of my own universe, therefore I decide.’”

  He paused with a prawn halfway to his mouth and raised his eyes to stare at me. I continued to ignore him.

  “And then,” I pressed on, “there is the objective view which my Jeet Kune Do teacher keeps repeating to me.”

  Marianne surprised me by asking, without irony, “And what’s that?”

  “That heaven is not a place but a state: the state of Nirvana, and the only way to achieve that is by detachment. So every thread of that rope is excess.”

  Yushbaev managed to express utter loathing with a complete lack of expression for three whole seconds. Then he returned to his prawns and said, “Yes, well, as I said, I don’t give a fuck about anybody else’s rules. I am rich enough and powerful enough to make my own Nirvana.”

  Nine

  “Listen to me,” he said, and raised his index finger. “There is no good or evil, there is no right or wrong. This is not just a controversial opinion. It is a fact. And any man or woman who can face this fact, assimilate it,” he paused and stared hard at me, “I mean really assimilate it, the way you assimilate the fact of gravity, the need to eat and drink, and shit, any man or woman who can do this—assimilate this reality that there is no right or wrong, has the potential to become a god.”

  I tried hard not to yawn. He’d brought out his ego to show it off so we could all admire it and say how it was the biggest, shiniest ego we had ever seen. Just like his boat. But I didn’t really feel like admiring his ego or his boat, so I stifled the yawn, shrugged and said, “Maybe that is a useful attitude, but I think there is something much more important if a person wants to achieve real power.”

  He gave an indulgent laugh. “If I were looking for a teacher on how to become truly powerful, I think I might pick the billionaire over the…”

  He gestured at me with an open palm, like Hamlet showing Horatio Yorick’s skull.

  “Incognito,” I said, and smiled. “I am an incognito. You actually have no idea how poor or rich I am. You can guess, if you like, but you don’t actually know.”

  He sat back in his chair and arched an eyebrow. “All right, Bob, it is always wise to listen. So tell me, what is this thing that is so important for somebody seeking power?”

  I stuck a prawn in my mouth, gave my head a little twitch while I chewed and drained my glass. I handed him my empty glass and sighed.

  As he refilled it I said, “I’d go further. I’d say it is the essential, fundamental nature of power. I am not a philosopher like you, Gabriel. But this is something I have observed in the world. True power is the ability to inflict violence. Violence is at the heart of all power. For that reason violence is the most valuable commodity on this planet. He who controls violence, controls everything.”

  He sat back in his chair again and said simply, “Oh,”

  “I would say that is a cardinal truth. So to be really powerful you need three things. You need to be physically able to inflict violence, you need to understand the importance of violence, and you need to be willing to use it.”

  Marianne had stopped eating and was watching me very closely. Ben was frowning hard at a prawn. Yushbaev picked up his glass and cleared his throat.

  “And you say you are not a philosopher. I confess I am surprised, Bob. I did not expect to hear a thing like that from you. It is a deep truth.”

  I made a circle in the air with my finger, indicating our surroundings.

  “You did not achieve all of this, Gabriel, without deploying violence from time to time.”

  He gave a small shrug. “Sometimes as a threat, sometimes as the real thing. But you are quite right, my power rests on the ability to strike if I have to.”

  I glanced at Marianne and smiled at her. She still hadn’t worked out how to use her face muscles. Ben said, “Sometimes, I guess, violence can take the form of a hostile takeover bid, a repossession, aggressive competition in the marketplace.”

  Yushbaev nodded. “Of course, but think more deeply, Ben. If you open a supermarket in the same street where mine is, what is to stop me from smashing your windows, burning down your store, even shooting you and your staff?”

  “Well, in the civilized world at least, there is the police.”

  “Bah!” He raised both hands in a gesture of contempt. “So, I shoot the police too. What is to stop me?”

  Ben laughed. “Well, you take on the state and I’m afraid you’re on a losing ticket, because the government can deploy a hell of a lot more hardware and men than you can.”

  Yushbaev spread his hands. “So, you see, you have illustrated Bob’s point. You can fight through the courts, take out injunctions, compete as aggressively as you like, and yes, they are forms of violence. But the bottom line is, when you use the resources allowed or offered by the law, those resources are backed by the implied threat of violence in the forms of the police and the army. The state always reserves to itself the right to use violence. Because, as Bob has explained to us, violence is the source of all true power.”

  “Which,” said Marianne, addressing first me and then shifting to Yushbaev, “makes violence a very profitable business.”
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br />   I asked, “You trade in weapons, Gabriel?”

  “I trade in all sorts of things, Bob, and I certainly don’t shy away from weapons. The business is, if you will forgive the pun, a minefield, but if you have the right contacts, it is surprising how easy it can become. The secret is knowing whom you can buy from, and whom you can sell to.” He spread his arms wide in an expansive gesture. “Let’s say you want to buy a couple of tanks from me, but treaties and regulations signify that I am not allowed to sell them to you. But I can sell them to a company in Marianne’s country. Now, these treaties that bind me do not affect Ben’s country because he is a nasty, poor Third World dictatorship. So I sell my tanks to the company in Marianne’s country, who then sells them to a company you have set up in Ben’s country, and that company sells them to you.”

  “Expensive and roundabout.”

  Ben nodded. “Yes it is, but the chances are that you and I have either oil, cocaine or some kind of high-value mines, and as well as cash, we can offer concessions and rights that long term are of more value than just money. An expert player who knows how to play these markets can wind up making vast sums.”

  I made a face that said I found what he was saying interesting, but added, “Dangerous game though. I heard Charles Cavendish was into that kind of business, and rumor has it he was assassinated.”[6]

  Both Marianne and Ben stared at Yushbaev. He went very still. The goons in the white jackets came and removed the plates and replaced them with four broiled legs of spring lamb in eucalyptus and honey sauce. The wine was a Barón de Chirel Almanzor by Herederos de Marques de Riscal 2012, which I knew came in at around eight hundred bucks a bottle. When they were done Yushbaev spoke again.

  “Charles was a close friend of mine. He died in a boating accident.”