Hammerhead

by Peter Nicholson

  I could feel his contempt withering the pages of the novel I’d been reading the other day. Sure, the plot was a load of balls, espionage entertainment not equal to my depth or the world’s depth, but it was optimistic about humanity. Though I didn’t believe a word of it, perversely, its meaning might be true.

  Perhaps I agreed with Anton. But we were on the side of the angels, weren’t we. When I was alone again, I tried to organise my clippings and files into some kind of order. It was late, and I was tired from trying to put together all the pieces in this particular puzzle.

  Since we lived in great comfort in Hohentor, above the other residents who had no idea there was a floor given over to our deliberations, we were at ease to disport ourselves through the large rooms each of us occupied. Renovations had also enabled a few balconies to be added to the superstructure. Charles was a great believer in space bringing ideas and ideals to fruition. We had our own lift, our own food; it was an ideal situation.

  I left my desk with its attempts at classification and lay down on my bed. For some reason an image of Nietzsche came to mind. Perhaps The Hammer concept was turning in my head. He was not a member of the herd. I knew the great philosopher believed in a personal liberation that would create a new morality. I had always felt the deepest sympathy for Nietzsche, even though I didn’t believe in some of the ideas he espoused. For example, could we ever get beyond the concepts of good and evil? Wasn’t I, right at this moment, fighting for good? But I knew Nietzsche was a courageous soul who had tried to pursue truth at a shocking cost to his own mental and physical health.

  Behind my fluttering eyelids, in that uncertain space between waking and dreaming, I could see Nietzsche going on one of his lonely peregrinations to the mountains, up to the edge of a glacier. There the great head looked down on the world and stared into the abyss of human destiny, through all the old conventionalities, to an attempted revaluation of all values. What loneliness. What rapture and intellectual bliss, if only for moments. And then the descent through alpine meadows to the comforts of Sils-Maria and the struggle to reconcile life and mind, art and philosophy.

  His life was heroic. How much a man like that, because of his pure heart and intellectual greatness, must endure. Finally, he had to give away his mind, his last rational action, perhaps—trying to protect a horse being mistreated. An act of love. But here we were, in the midst of catastrophe. Nietzsche was dead. We were living and all the old philosophies were no longer equal to our time.

  I opened my eyes. The image of the philosopher had been so clear.

  And then I fell asleep again, and this time I didn’t remember my dreaming.

  Thérèse asked me to meet her the following day. I went to her room and found her there with her Greek friend who had been such a mysterious presence to me. She finally introduced him. He was tall, reserved, with searching eyes. His hands were elegant with very smooth skin, not likely a worker’s hands. A scholar’s, perhaps?

  ‘I have heard a great deal about you David.’

  ‘I try to do my best,’ I replied.

  ‘Thérèse has told me a little of your exploits. They sound quite exciting.’

  ‘Too exciting at times. I wouldn’t recommend them to anyone else.’

  I was wary even though I knew everyone in Hohentor had full clearance—you simply didn’t get into the private lift unless you had authority direct from Charles. However, I hadn’t had time to get to know everyone in the organisation, so I was still careful when I met people for the first time.

  ‘Now, I believe I can help you with Sumner Priestnall. I think you have an interest in him?’

  I sat back, somewhat surprised.

  ‘Don’t be concerned. I am with the surveillance side of things here, and we are aware of what goes on in the team units. Priestnall has been very active in the last year. It seems he is intent on making one last financial killing from his contacts in the criminal classes. You know my background. Well, I happen to know Priestnall will be in Skyros next month. I thought you might like to follow up this lead.’

  Charles would like this, surely. He had final approval on all operations, in consultation with Dame Enid and a few others. And having heard the sound files from the Berlin villa before we blew it up, I knew just how compromised Priestnall was—he knew many of the members of the diplomatic service and was thus privy to top secret information. Given his character, this made him susceptible to bad influences. Priestnall had risen through the system to an advantageous position, and he was now abusing his power to extort money from the likes of Carascaolo.

  I was tempted. But Greece was a long way from Munich. It was largely a matter of logistics. Could The Hammer get any equipment we might need there? We certainly couldn’t take what we needed with us. It would be something of a gamble, and I knew Charles only liked guaranteed outcomes.

  ‘I will have to talk to Charles about this,’ I replied, ‘but I am certainly interested.’

  A web of criminal intent stretched around the globe, and if you broke a part of it in one place, soon enough new parts would be woven into a country’s social fabric, Vienna, Melbourne, Berlin, or any city you cared to name. Somewhere there would be the germ of discontent in someone not happy to appropriate wealth honestly. How different from the world wide web of loquacity and disclosure now pouring through computer screens and into minds, an unstoppable flow of text and images bypassing all the accustomed barriers. If some of the information imparted was trite, a far more important thing was happening—people were getting closer to truth than they had ever been allowed to. I knew criminals were using the net to steal banking data, but I also knew people who never had access to so much knowledge before could now utilise it. Surely, as with Gutenberg, this was a revolutionary moment.

  Yes, I would go to Skyros, if allowed. I felt pleased with that decision. I had finally developed a taste for the kind of pursuit I would once have run from.

  I thanked them and left. I would see Charles to ask him about the possibility of an operation in Skyros.

  Sylke. Father. Vella. Roy. Salto. Shevchenko.

  Corpses all.

  I paused at the threshold of what I knew would be more mayhem.

  Thérèse and I fell on the bed. It had been a while since our last series of encounters of the libidinous kind. Now it was happening again, and often.

  Sometimes we were quick; at other times we spent an afternoon winding down to sleep. You could fall into strange patterns of response since at any moment you might be off to some dangerous spot from which … I didn’t want to think about that.

  Thérèse snuggled close to me and said she wanted to tell me about her life. I lay on my back and listened. It was a tragic story that, for reasons I couldn’t fathom, reminded me of the recent bushfire season back home.

  The last summer had been filled with footage of fires engulfing anything they got close to. Hundreds of people had lost their homes. If you looked at the country afterwards you could see how capricious they were. Sometimes a house would have survived while everything around it was charcoal. The winds that built up during these conflagrations carried embers across the canopy of trees and began further fires, intensifying the heat. People who have experienced them say the sound is terrifying. Firstly, you are engulfed in hot, black smoke. Next comes a shrieking, splintering sound. Then you either escape or you are doomed.

  So, Thérèse told me about her background. Her personal inferno included difficulty fitting in at school, her mother’s suicide, getting mixed up in local council corruption when her father wanted to develop some land. I felt guilty about bringing these memories to the surface. Her mother’s fate went hardest with her, a depressive illness that wouldn’t respond to treatment.

  I turned to her and we made love again.

  ‘Charles says he’s thinking about the Skyros idea. Would you like to come with me? I think we could manage it. Priestnall is going there for holidays, though who knows what he might really be up to.’

  I was
annoyed with Anton after I’d been to see Charles as he had clearly told him he didn’t think we, and especially me, were ready for such an assignment. However, since Anton needed a break—he was going mountain climbing—and others weren’t available, it would have to be Thérèse and I who would be the ones chosen. Charles thought about it—he despised politicians who turned against the state—and finally decided we could go, just so long as we resorted to something quiet. We would come and we would go, a married couple doing their tour of the Greek islands. It would be simple. Charles’ rationale was never to get involved with something he knew others could handle more effectively. If he found there was a vendetta amongst any of the groups he was interested in, he left them to get on with it. Invariably, vendettas produced a satisfactory result. Then The Hammer decided how to finish off those who survived. Still, Charles couldn’t work out why the Americans hadn’t corralled Priestnall.

  Greek islands for beginners. Neither of us had been there before, so it was time to do some quick reading. After a few coffee table books replete with whitewashed houses set against brilliant skies, I felt a Byronic urge to wander through Greek landscapes, snacking on olives and feta. Skyros was the largest of the islands in the Sporades. Priestnall must have been going on a genuine holiday because we had no intelligence information anything untoward would be occurring. Maybe it was just another woman, or man, the usual thing. Thérèse and I looked through many books about the islands to make sure we had sufficient knowledge of the distances and geographies involved. One thing I had learnt from Anton was to always have an escape route meticulously planned. This was problematical because the island was a fair way from Athens. We thought we would have to catch the ferry from Athens to Kimi and then on to Skyros. Returning via the same route would probably be safer too, rather than using a plane.

  The next thing we had to think about was the method of demise for Priestnall. We’d already been told not to utilise anything bulky. What could we do? Florian made a suggestion.

  Ricin.

  A meteorite of disbelief crashed through my skull as Florian explained that ricin seeds came from the castor plant. The seeds were very attractive and some people made them into necklaces they were then unfortunate enough to chew. Death could follow within days, preceded by spasms, foaming at the mouth and diarrhoea. Malicious neighbours had even fed these seeds to cows in some agrarian areas to gain financial advantage. Florian convinced us ricin would be right here even though I was aghast at the idea. He insisted I could carry a specially-prepared capsule in the lining of one of my jackets.

  ‘You must be extremely careful handling this substance,’ Florian warned us. ‘I would suggest putting the ricin into one of his meals, preferably a spicy meat dish of some kind. Carelessness will put you on a slab in the Leichenhalle.’

  ‘No exit,’ I half-joked.

  Florian didn’t find it amusing and told me to read up on the ricin murder of Markov by the Bulgarian secret police. Thérèse and I would play the newly-wed couple abroad on our treaclemoon. Could we manage it? I thought so, but Charles asked us to come and see him to go over what we’d planned when we were ready.

  When we went to Charles he was not in a good mood. On television, the Secretary-General of the United Nations was giving one of his careful, earnest explanations as to why another bloodbath had occurred but the UN couldn’t get involved. This was the kind of statement Charles deplored, and this time he was shouting at the screen. Why all the emotion? Perhaps because for the first part of his life he lived in a very different manner. He had inherited money. When you do that maybe you don’t really appreciate the value of hard work. I think it was when he met Roy that things started to change. The gambling in Monaco and London stopped, as did the endless partying, and Charles dropped a lot of his friends, many of whom were just hangers-on. It wasn’t too much longer afterwards when Charles and Roy came up with their idea for a new kind of political organisation, purchasing Hohentor and leasing it to the ostensible owner, the count; beginning to find the right people; getting the money situation worked out—where I came in.

  But just now we heard a lot of invective.

  Charles threw himself violently into his chair and started tearing up pieces of paper, trying to calm down.

  We outlined how we thought we should proceed and he seemed pleased with our plan. Charles wasn’t vindictive, and he would never authorise an operation simply because he didn’t like the person or people involved. He hated Priestnall and looked on him as, in some ways, the least palatable kind of person. The business world provided many examples. Whereas he could, perhaps, understand the mullahs and third world tyrants who got themselves tangled in the skeins of international politics, what he could not tolerate, and despised, were people who had the benefit of a liberal Western education but who still gave in to their lesser selves. Charles was a man of the world. He knew money was often needed to encourage people in the right direction, but he wouldn’t countenance the unlawful pursuit of revenue or consorting with criminals.

  He was happy to give Priestnall the thumbs down.

  We had to assume the honeymoon act right from boarding the plane in Germany, just to be on the safe side. In truth, we didn’t have to act all that hard, because we already felt like a couple.

  Priestnall was due in Skyros the following week. We thought we should get to the island beforehand and put ourselves about.

  I picked up one of the airline magazines as the flight attendant went through the safety procedure instructions. One of the movies they were showing was a disaster film, hardly comforting viewing for those of a nervous disposition. Once we were away I studied the map showing the path of our flight. All the places I didn’t know, the people I could never meet. I adjusted my chair, thinking how extraordinary my life had become. People have a fondness for conspiracy theories, but I was living the fact. Some actually believed they had been abducted by aliens, operated on, then returned to Earth, or thought the moon landing had been faked in a film studio. Others asserted that the pyramids had been brought to Egypt from outer space or knew Diana had been killed by internal security forces. Here I was carrying out death sentences on criminals. I still had my hands on the financial tiller, but things had changed so much for me in the last few months.

  I surreptitiously felt for the capsule in the lining of my jacket.

  Suddenly, I felt bad, very bad. What was I doing here? What was the sense of all these harsh non sequiturs?

  The moment passed.

  Athens was marvellous, except for the traffic. The hard light hit you as soon as you got off the plane, together with a certain lightness of being. It really was different here in the Aegean. We enjoyed wandering through the city looking at the ancient sites. How beautiful were their proportions; how subtle the colours of the faded stone, never mind their original brilliance; how noble the intentions of the architects. I liked a lot of modern architecture but thought some of it an almost criminal act perpetrated on a bamboozled and captive public. I remembered the first time I went to the famous Mies van der Rohe art gallery in Berlin, supposedly one of the triumphs of the modernists. What a dismal experience that was, and how impractical a gallery with its sculpture garden inaccessible for part of the year because of winter weather.

  Art. People could take it or leave it. Putting up buildings where there wasn’t room to live on a human scale was another matter. And practicality. How did it come to be that anyone thought it a good idea to have a waterfall running underneath your loungeroom. Yet that was the case at Fallingwater, where Frank Lloyd Wright had built a house hailed around the world, but where you couldn’t keep books because of the damp. People with vested interests kept braying about this kind of building so that, in the end, you protested silently as they waxed lyrical. Such a contrast to what we saw here in front of us, still a living, human space that made known the possibility of the presence of the divine. One automatically became something of a votive ancient, if you had a splinter of sensibility, the moment you se
t eyes on the Parthenon.

  After a few days in Athens we felt acclimatised, started dressing down and, as a result, got sunburnt. But we couldn’t stay in this mode for long. We’d already made enquiries about the ferry trip to Kimi and worked out our schedules. If we returned to Athens within the week we could be back in Munich by the end of the month. We booked our tickets and prepared for the boat trip.

  Travelling through the Aegean to the islands is as good as the travel brochures say, as long as you aren’t prone to seasickness. Unless you are on one of those large vessels designed for wealthy tourists, you use smaller boats that get you very near the action.

  We reached Kimi and then sailed on to Skyros.

  I felt I had travelled more than mere physical distance.

  We finally docked—and arriving seemed like an ascent to something more primitive and demanding, yet more alluring too. Our hotel wasn’t too close to the centre of things. We wanted to be able to come and go in the hire car we booked previously without many people noticing us. I hoped we hadn’t been followed. Once we were settled in our rooms, we thought we had better start exploring the various beaches we’d previously noted to see what possibilities might be offered by their topography.

  Sunglasses were essential, just like in Australia, otherwise you would quickly develop a squint setting hard on the face, making it look like stone. We wore hats too. I was pleased with our preparations. Given the seriousness of our intentions, I couldn’t remember enjoying myself so much. Thérèse told me I had to be wary of such feelings. She said they could make me careless and more inclined to take risks. It was true. The bouzouki music did get beneath my reserve, the olives and lemons unhinging the senses, opening new crevices in the soul, both the easy-going and the closed-up side of me. Just this morning there was an intoxicating moment, the sun on my face, vines tangling on a broken wall, rinsing my blood with ferocious Aeschylean poetry.