Black Gold

by Paul Kenyon

  "But, John!" protested Harvey Amberson III, president of Amberson Cosmetics. "This is a three-million-dollar campaign we're putting together! Where are you going?"

  "Golf date," Farnsworth said succinctly. "At Camberly." He touched the stem of his watch. "Got to hurry."

  He was gone from the room before anyone could protest further. Dutton, the agency man, said, "Cool bastard, isn't he? He knows he's got us over a barrel."

  They all glanced instinctively at the storyboards and layouts piled on the table. There were several mockups of cans of hair spray. Amberson picked up one of the cans. The hand-lettered label read: Net Worth. The girl on the label was a ravishing brunette in a low-cut black gown. You could tell by looking at her that she was expensive.

  "The Baroness Penelope St. John-Orsini," Danforth said. "Can't we do without her?"

  "No," Amberson said. "She can do without us."

  "And Farnsworth knows it," Dutton said. "Golf date, he says. I thought I knew every course in the New York area. Where the hell is Camberly?"

  Amberson gave him a peculiar look. "England," he said.

  * * *

  There was a maroon Rolls-Royce with a Japanese chauffeur waiting at the front entrance. A frustrated policeman was eyeing it longingly, fingering a thick sheaf of parking tickets. Every car on the block was ticketed except Farnsworth's.

  "JFK International, Tommy," Farnsworth said, climbing in. "There's a British Airways flight to London in forty minutes. Can you make it?"

  The Rolls purred, and then it pulled smoothly into traffic. Tom Sumo picked up the phone with his free hand. "I'll call ahead and get you on it," he said.

  Farnsworth settled back in his seat. He was a distinguished-looking man in his late fifties, with an aristocratic beak of a nose and a neat gray mustache. There was a distinct air of command about him. Now he was business manager for International Models, Inc., the organization he'd built for the Baroness Penelope St. John-Orsini, but under three presidents he'd had a hand in creating the CIA. the DIA, and the NSA. A fourth president had called him out of retirement to create another, smaller, more deadly organization. Theoretically, it fell under the jurisdiction of NSA.

  Theoretically.

  Sumo was heading across Fortieth Street toward the Queens Midtown Tunnel, scaring the wits out of the rush-hour traffic. The Rolls' progress was followed by a symphony of squealing brakes and angry horns. Farnsworth took another look at his wristwatch.

  It was one of those expensive new toys, a digital watch with a liquid crystal display instead of hands that went around. When you pressed the stem, glowing numerals told you the time. He pressed the stem.

  It still said thirteen hundred hours. Only now it was blinking. They were getting impatient.

  Farnsworth pulled out the little bar in the back seat and poured himself a Scotch on the rocks. Thirteen was a bad number. He wanted to be ready for it.

  He sighed and turned on the little television set built into the bar.

  "Key here," he said.

  A lean, handsome man in an old tweed sport jacket looked out of the screen at him. Behind him were banks of computers. "Are we in business?" he said.

  "We've been in business for three minutes," Farnsworth said. "I beeped Coin as soon as I got your signal. What's on your mind, General?"

  "Is this transmission secure?"

  Farnsworth sighed again. "What do you see, General?"

  "I'm talking to something that looks like a dinosaur. Tyrannosaurus Rex, I believe. With very long teeth. The jaws open and close when you talk."

  Farnsworth raised his eyebrows at Tom Sumo. Sumo caught the gesture in the rearview mirror.

  "I taped some footage from an old Japanese monster movie," Sumo grinned. "Fed it into the scrambler. It was less complicated than programming the computer with a human face and lip-synching every syllable."

  "And what do I sound like, General?" Farnsworth said.

  "A little like the Andrews Sisters. You're talking in three-part harmony."

  "That answer your question about security?"

  "Where are you right now, Key? Washington? Madagascar? The moon? And who are you?"

  "You don't want to know that, General," Farnsworth said softly.

  The general shook his head ruefully. "I suppose I don't," he said.

  It had been set up that way. Nobody at NSA knew who the contact called "Key" was, not even the director. And nobody except "Key" and his small, murderous band knew the identity of the very special agent called "Coin." Even the computer at NSA's headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland, knew "Key" only as an electronic address. He could be anywhere on the planet.

  The scrambled signals were bounced off NSA's communications satellites, the ones designated MESTAR, for Message Storage and Relay. MESTAR punched imaginary buttons, millions and millions of them all over the world, until one of Key's computers opened the door. There was a computer busy in the Rolls-Royce right now, sorting the signals that flowed two ways through the television set and pickup. It was disguised as a little refrigerator in the built-in bar. When it wasn't otherwise occupied, it made ice.

  On a television screen in a maximum security room at Fort Meade, a giant saurian stood over the ruins of a cardboard city. Little model airplanes swarmed around the reptilian head, spitting machine-gun fire. The monster's tail twitched, knocking over more of the cardboard skyscrapers. The giant jaws opened, showing wicked rows of teeth.

  "All right, General," it said in a voice like the Andrews Sisters, "brief me."

  * * *

  They reached the British Airways departure gate just in time. The Japanese chauffeur handed the bag of golf clubs to the tall man with the gray mustache and said, "Play the number seven Dunlop."

  Farnsworth nodded and slung the baa over his shoulder. His only other luggage was his attache case.

  "Get in your taps, Tommy," he said, "then meet me in London tomorrow."

  Sumo groaned. "I just got back from London yesterday!"

  "Well, then," Farnsworth said pitilessly, "you'll cancel out your jet lag, won't you?"

  "Have a heart," Sumo said.

  Farnsworth laughed. "I'm a monster. Don't blame me. It was your idea."

  He got through the gate without any trouble. The golf bag triggered the metal detector alarm, but the guard let him pass after a cursory examination of the clubs. He never thought to look at the balls.

  * * *

  "Watch your swing," Tony said.

  He came up behind Penelope and, leaning over her shoulder, put his hands over hers She shrugged him off and got another grip on the golf club.

  "You watch it, darling," she said. "From about ten feet away."

  He backed off amiably. "Take your game seriously, do you?"

  "Games are meant to be taken seriously, darling," she said. "It's life that isn't."

  She looked out across the Camberly Heath fairway, an impossibly green carpet of rolling grass under a glorious blue sky. She could just make out the flag at the first hole in the distance.

  "It's a better course at Saint Andrews," he said. "I have a membership there. If you'd change your mind and come up with me to Scotland, we could stop off for a game."

  "Sorry, darling, we've been all through that."

  She took a casual stance behind the ball and tried a couple of practice swings. She was wearing a white pleated skirt and blue blazer, and a little peaked cap that had been run off for her by Scott Barrie. It was only seven in the morning, but she looked as fresh as if she'd had a proper night's sleep. Tony, pouch-eyed, had grumbled at the hour, but she'd insisted.

  He shaded his eyes and squinted. "You can get there in about three good strokes if you're lucky," he said. "Don't try to get past that sand trap on the first drive. It's tricky."

  She looked at him pityingly and whacked the ball without seeming to look at it. There was a swirl of white pleats and a flash of long tanned legs, and the ball sailed through the sky toward the flag, four hundred yards away.

 
; "Lucky shot," he said. "You must have caught a gust of wind."

  "It wasn't luck," she said.

  Tony was a good golfer. He got over the first trap with one clean, powerful drive. Two more shots got him past the rest of the devious hazards provided by Camberly at the first hole and bounced him to within a dozen feet of the cup. He turned toward her, grinning.

  "One good putt should do it, then. I don't see your ball anywhere."

  "Look in the cup."

  He gave her a smug smile and humored her. A moment later the smile had vanished. He handed her ball to her and said, "I don't believe it."

  "You'd better believe it, darling. That makes a hundred pounds you owe me. So far."

  By the time they reached the eighth hole, he was grim. "Are you sure you're not cheating?"

  She laughed. "You've watched every move I've made."

  "I should have believed you when you told me your handicap."

  "I'll take you to dinner tonight, darling."

  Her caddie, a leathery little gnome named Soames, approached. "Watch this one, mum," he said. "There's a narsty dogleg over the lake, and then there's that woods and scrub."

  She took his advice gravely, and said, "Thank you, Soames. I'll ease back a bit."

  "Control, mum, that's the word."

  She gave it a nice easy loft over the water and saw it land precisely in the elbow of the dogleg. Tony sliced his ball and got stuck in the sand at the edge of the lake. She left him there with the two caddies and hurried ahead while he dug himself out.

  Her ball was lying perfectly for a straight drive to the next hole. She walked over to it and waited. Tony was still digging away. Soames was strolling leisurely toward her along the lakeshore, taking his time. He was about a hundred yards away.

  There was a plop at her feet, and another ball was lying there on the grass next to hers. She bent over to have a look. It was a Dunlop number seven.

  "Hit me into the rough," the ball said.

  "I beg your pardon," Penelope said.

  "That patch of woods over to your left," the ball said impatiently. "Aim for the big oak tree."

  Penelope looked over her shoulder. Soames was getting closer. She couldn't simply bend down and pick up the extra ball. It would look like an attempt to cheat. Soames would suspect her of improving the lie of the ball. Death and torture was one thing, but there was nothing worse in this world than the contempt of a caddie.

  Casually, without changing her posture, she hooked a toe under her own ball. A quick flip sent it up under her skirt. She caught it between her thighs. She was standing in the same position when Soames arrived. He glanced at the talking golf ball and said, with approval, "Aye, that were a proper drive, mum. That were the right place to tuck it."

  Tony's ball arrived a few minutes later, and Tony came puffing after it. "Go ahead," he said. "After all the strokes I used, you've got this hole, and good luck to you."

  She minced into position, the hidden ball hard between her thighs. She sighted along the green.

  "Better spread your feet," Tony said indifferently. "You won't have any sort of drive with your legs together like that."

  "Shut up, love," Penelope said peevishly. She took a great whack at the ball. It flew, out of control, into the rough. Soames and the other caddie watched with disbelief as it bounced against a big oak tree and fell into a patch of scrub.

  "I warned you, sweet," Tony said.

  "Damn!" she said, as if she meant it.

  "I'll meet you up at the ninth hole, love," Tony said. He took a long, easy swing that sent his ball straight down the narrow corridor between the hazards.

  Soames made as if to follow her into the woods, but she said, "You can wait for me here, Soames. No need for you to thrash around in the underbrush after me. Just give me the pitching wedge."

  " 'Ere you are, mum," he said, handing her the club. She walked with short steps into the woods. Soames watched her thoughtfully. She kept the ball between her thighs until she was hem-high in the shrubbery, then released it. Some other golfer would find it sometime.

  She poked around the underbrush in the vicinity of the big oak, getting her legs scratched. A small voice said, "Here I am." She turned her head and saw the ball lying in a little patch of moss.

  "I wonder why you didn't say ouch when I hit you," she said.

  "What, and embarrass you?" John Farnsworth stepped out from behind the oak tree, out of Soames' line of sight. He was wearing plus-fours and a tweed cap and a gray mustache that was a good deal bushier than the real one under it. There was a golf club slung negligently over his shoulder, its handle probably concealing the antenna he'd used to talk through the ball.

  She combed the vegetation, pretending to be searching for the ball. "Talk fast, John," she said. "I can't stay here too long."

  He glanced in the direction of the tiny figures trudging toward the ninth hole. "That the Cavendish chap?" he said.

  "Yes, why the interest?"

  "In oil, isn't he?"

  "Among other things."

  "One of his competitors just had a bit of bad luck, I understand. Their offshore drilling rig in the North Sea is bringing up some kind of fishy slime instead of oil."

  She continued poking around for the ball. In the distance, Soames shifted his feet. She hoped he wasn't going to decide to be helpful.

  "You're going to tell me that Tony might have had something to do with it," she said. "I already know about that." She told Farnsworth about the telephone call she'd bugged.

  "That's very helpful, Penny. We'll have Sumo put your friend Sir Tony into the computer analysis. He may be connected with the problem."

  "What problem?" She stole another glance at Soames. He was starting to walk toward her.

  He gave her the bare outlines in two minutes. "CIA thinks it's the Russians," he finished. "We'll check that out ourselves, of course. But I'm inclined to think that the NATO disaster was just a by-product of what happened at the Rotterdam refinery."

  "So do I, John," she said. "Otherwise, the Russians would have made some move by now. SPOILER seems to be interested in money. Very large quantities of money."

  Soames was coming around the bend of the lake. Farnsworth stepped hastily back behind the tree. Penelope made a great show of having found the ball. She hacked away at it with her club. Soames slowed his pace, his bright, interested eyes fixed on her. The little bastard was counting her strokes.

  "I'll meet you tonight," the little white ball said to her. "Sumo will be in from New York at eleven. He's been doing a little preliminary digging. We'll have a computer terminal set up in the embassy basement."

  She wrinkled her nose. "Why not my townhouse?"

  "There's someone I want you to meet. He won't know who we are. He'll probably assume we're CIA. Let's keep it that way."

  "Anything you say, darling."

  She drew back her club for a hefty swing.

  "Wait a minute," the ball said. "How soon can you assemble the rest of the team?"

  "They're on their way, darling," she said, and swung. The ball soared high into the air, clear of the trees and underbrush, and landed back on the green. Soames followed its flight and noted where it fell. He signaled his approval with a grave nod.

  She played the number seven Dunlop the rest of the game, getting snatches of additional briefing from Farnsworth whenever the others were out of earshot for a moment. Soames was clearly puzzled about the way her game had suddenly deteriorated after the ninth hole, at the number of bad slices that sent her ball into bunkers and bushes. Once Tony came up behind her more swiftly than she had expected.

  "Talking to your ball, are you?" he said. "That won't help."

  "It needs a little coaxing, darling," she said.

  He laughed. "As long as it doesn't talk back."

  She wasn't beautiful anymore. The night guard at the side entrance of the embassy hardly bothered to look at her as she hurried with awkward steps across Upper Grosvenor Street toward him. She could i
magine what he was seeing: a tall, stooped, homely girl with mousy brown hair and protruding teeth, dressed in dowdy tweeds. The contact lenses had turned her luminous green eyes to a muddy brown. Her breasts were lumpy. Her ankles were thick.

  "Sorry, Miss," the guard said. "The embassy's closed."

  She hugged the armful of file folders she was carrying. "Mr. Armstead called me," she said tentatively. "He wants me to do some typing. He says it's a rush job that has to be ready by morning."

  "Do you have a pass, Miss?"

  She fumbled in a worn leather shoulder bag. One of the file folders dropped. When she bent to pick it up, she dropped another one. The guard made no move to help her. She rummaged in the bag, getting more and more flustered, then produced a plastic card.

  "Here it is," she said.

  He looked at it. "All right, Miss. Go straight through. Mr. Armstead's on the second floor."

  He was wrong. Mr. Armstead was in bed with a beautiful redhead named Fiona. She'd keep him busy all night.

  The Baroness walked through the dark corridors and found her way to the basement. There was a narrow steel door set in the brick wall near the boiler room. She knocked.

  The door opened a crack. A pair of cautious eyes peered out. She hit the edge of the door with her shoulder and bowled him over. When she was sure it was Sumo, she let him up.

  He was still Japanese, but he'd turned himself into a frail old man with gray hair and a beard. "You don't take any chances, do you?" he said, grinning at her.

  "Neither does Mr. Armstead," she said.

  She looked over to where Farnsworth was standing. If Sumo had made himself older, Farnsworth had made himself younger, darkening his mustache and hair, filling in some of the lines in his face with makeup. He looked enough like the real Armstead to have gotten by the night guard without comment.

  He was pointing an ugly blue automatic pistol at her. He kept pointing it till he'd verified her identity.

  "Thanks for holding your fire, John," she said.

  "I had all the time in the world," he said, putting the gun away.

  "No you didn't," she told him. She showed him the tiny, gold-plated Bernardelli VB automatic she'd had aimed at his heart all the while. It wasn't much larger than a pack of cigarettes, and it was hidden by her palm.