Collington nodded. Hassan hadn’t wasted the intervening days since their last meeting.
‘Have it changed,’ said Hassan, simply.
‘Changed!’ Collington’s control slipped, momentarily, at the demand. It was the silver corner, all over again. But this time Hassan was sure of the odds. He was probably buying into bullion already, because whatever happened gold wasn’t going to slump. And any sort of interruption in the South African release would cause a jump. Hassan intended to recover far more than this lost £100,000,000. He was a greedy bastard.
‘A commitment to reserves, instead of a sale, has happened before, many times,’ said the Arab.
There was a sudden confidence about the man, Collington decided. ‘Not when a release date has been fixed,’ he said. ‘It’ll cause a fluctuation.’
‘Only temporary.’
Which was all that Hassan would want, Collington thought. ‘I can’t give any assurance,’ he said.
Hassan’s face registered an artificial look of sadness. ‘It’s the demonstration that my government seeks,’ he said. ‘Without it I doubt that they will be interested in continuing these negotiations.’
All Collington’s previous satisfaction evaporated. Hassan had him trapped and knew it. ‘It is unorthodox,’ he protested.
‘So is the conversation we are having,’ said Hassan.
‘There will need to be a channel through which we can maintain contact.’
‘This embassy has proved satisfactory, up to now,’ pointed out Hassan.
‘I’ll return to South Africa tomorrow,’ said Collington.
‘Yes,’ said Hassan, assuming complete supremacy. ‘The release is scheduled for a week from now. You’ll have to hurry.’
Collington was on his feet before he remembered Wall’s foresight in providing a gift. He took the boxes from his briefcase and said to the Arab: ‘I would be honoured if you would accept these, as a token of our continued friendship and association.’
Hassan stood, reaching out with almost childlike eagerness for the gift. The greed was obvious in everything, Collington thought.
‘I would like you to accept something from me,’ reciprocated Hassan. From a side drawer in the desk he produced a single box and Collington took it, smiling his thanks.
He opened it in the car. It was a watch, over-ornate and heavy, the band as well as the body in solid gold. Collington knew he would nave to wear it when he met Hassan again: he’d feel seif-conscious, he decided.
‘Are they amateurs!’ raged Moreton. ‘Idiotic, goddamn amateurs!’
‘We never had any reason to believe it was official,’ defended Englehart, concerned at the degree of the man’s fury. ‘It was a good bet that they’d meet again either at the hotel or his place.’
Moreton, who had been striding around the room in his anger, leaned forward over his desk at the CIA section head. ‘We’re not betting here,’ he said softly. ‘This isn’t penny ante poker in the boys’ locker room. This is business: big, serious business. And even now you haven’t realised what the embassy meeting means, have you?’
Englehart frowned, trying to understand.
‘You said it, for Christ’s sake!’ exploded Moreton. ‘The embassy visit makes it official. So what, officially, is Saudi Arabia’s Oil Minister doing with a multi-national business set-up like SAGOMI?’
‘That’s what we’ve got to find out,’ said Englehart.
‘That’s what you’ve got to find out,’ corrected the Treasury Secretary. ‘And you’ve got to do it a damned sight better than you have done so far.’
It was whip-crack-and-jump time, recognised Englehart. Which was why, by the time the SAGOMI company plane returned Collington from England, a squad of twenty men had been drafted to Pretoria to put him under twenty-four-hour surveillance.
Chapter Twenty
The impending gold release imposed a time limit, and as it was the weekend it meant Collington having to see Metzinger at the farm, instead of the office. Collington drove preoccupied, still unable to decide what Metzinger was attempting by suborning Ann Talbot. Collington realised he would have to be careful not to over-respond. The Afrikaner opposition was an admitted, open fact. So there was a certain understandable logic in what Metzinger appeared to be trying to establish, creating a system from which he might discover advantages that could be used to continue their pressure for control. And now he was forewarned, Collington calculated that he had the advantage.
He certainly felt he needed one. And not just with Metzinger. He was unsure if Hannah would have agreed so readily to see him, if it hadn’t been for his meeting with Paul. Certainly her attitude seemed to have changed from what it had been immediately before he went away. There had been no hostility in her voice when he’d telephoned; rather it had been a flat, blank neutrality.
The road looped and began running parallel to the perimeter fence of Metzinger’s property. It was a huge farm, one of the biggest in the province. Metzinger’s father had started it, just after the end of the First World War, but it had been much smaller then. It had been Metzinger who had expanded it to its present size and raised the quality of his cattle to championship level. In everything he did, Metzinger had to be the best, reflected Collington.
Collington parked in the shade of the barn in which Metzinger housed his Voortrekker wagons and walked across the intervening courtyard to the main house. Creeper had been encouraged to grow in such a way that it matted across the front of the house, and Collington thought it resembled an English country home. He didn’t imagine Metzinger would have welcomed the comparison.
Collington had telephoned ahead and Metzinger was waiting for him, in the study off the main vestibule of the farmhouse. Even at weekends the man wore a business suit, a tie and a stiff, white-collared shirt. There were drinks on a tray beside the desk for visitors. Collington declined the invitation, wanting to conclude the meeting as soon as possible; he had only three hours before he was due at Parkstown.
‘Was it successful?’ demanded Metzinger.
‘It could be,’ said Collington. Until he learned completely of Metzinger’s intention there was every point in apparent co-operation. Metzinger leaned intently across the desk as Collington recounted everything that had happened during his meeting with Hassan. Metzinger reacted first at the size of the commission that Collington had offered and then at the method Hassan had stipulated to prove that the approach had government approval.
‘Couldn’t we have offered less money?’ said Metzinger.
‘The figure was important,’ said Collington. ‘That was the amount he lost in the silver speculation with R.L.Bains.’
Metzinger nodded, accepting the argument, and said, ‘So he’d want the commission up front, in advance of anything we might earn?’
‘We didn’t become as detailed as that,’ said Collington. ‘But I imagine that is what he would expect.’
‘He would have our money and we’d have no guarantee of completion. They could renegue on the whole deal if they chose.’
‘I think that’s being overly suspicious,’ said Collington. ‘I said that’s what he would expect, not what we would agree. His desperation is in our favour. I’d be prepared to give him half, no more. So they would have to go ahead for him to get the rest. And the necessity of a formal contract came from him before I had to introduce it. If we had their signatures on paper, they’d have to go through: they couldn’t risk the embarrassment of any open litigation.’
‘It wouldn’t be their signatures,’ said Metzinger. ‘Surely they will set up front companies to provide us, just as we intend covering ourselves.’
‘That would cover them against any casual business enquiry,’ agreed Collington. ‘But not the sort of investigation we could afford to mount if they attempted to pull out once the deal had been made. The risk of exposure would still be there.’
‘I don’t like the method they demand for proof of government involvement,’ said Metzinger, moving on. ‘It’s gim
micky.’
‘It’s Hassan’s idea,’ said Collington. ‘He’s a crook.’
‘Gambling on a rise?’ queried Metzinger.
‘Unquestionably,’ said Collington. ‘But it’s that or nothing.’
‘We’d benefit, too,’ said Metzinger. ‘Any upward movement in gold carries our share value up.’
He sat back expansively in his chair and Collington wondered if the man pictured on the wall behind him, a sepia-tinted print of a Boer, standing stiffly upright with a barrel-loading rifle beside him, were Metzinger’s grandfather. According to Walter Simpson’s account, the man had been one of de Wet’s raiders, the mounted guerrilla group that had arguably caused the greatest British casualties during the Boer War.
‘It’s gone surprisingly well, hasn’t it?’ said Metzinger, coming as close as he ever would to praise.
‘Now I think we should raise it at a full board meeting,’ said Collington. ‘I don’t think it’s ethical to continue any longer like this.’
Metzinger jerked up a warning hand. ‘Let me consult first,’ he said. ‘We’ve done nothing yet but open up the most tentative negotiations. The potential is too great to risk any premature discussion. No one is going to criticise you for secrecy, if you present a signed and sealed agreement.’
‘I think I should be involved in the government discussions,’ pressed Collington.
‘So do I,’ agreed Metzinger, at once. ‘I’ll make the point.’
A clock sounded somewhere in the room and Collington realised they had been talking for an hour.
‘To affect the change in date of the gold release, there will have to be talks this week,’ said Collington.
‘Of course.’
‘You’ll suggest expanding the discussions then?’
‘Yes,’ promised Metzinger.
‘And get a decision about involving the board?’
‘That too.’
Collington made a show of consulting his watch. ‘I’ve another appointment, back in Pretoria,’ he said.
Metzinger rose with him, walking him to the door. ‘I appreciate your coming all the way out here at a weekend,’ he said.
‘I thought it was necessary, in view of the time.’
Metzinger nodded. ‘I’ll try to arrange a meeting for Monday,’ he said. ‘That should allow a sufficient period for any withholding announcement to be made.’
A perfectly ordinary business discussion, decided Collington, entering his car. He wondered what Metzinger’s reaction would be if he learned that Ann Talbot had left the company.
Even though he knew there was little chance of his being late, Collington still drove fast and arrived early at Parkstown. Hannah wasn’t on the porch to greet him this time.
The houseboy showed him to the drawing-room and Collington stood looking out over the undisturbed swimming-pool and the grounds beyond. It was still his, he supposed. He felt no sense of possession. Or pride, either. It had to be a character fault, not to feel anything. There was no purpose in working at anything, unless there was a reason for the activity. Without a focus for achievement, the labour became robot-like. So why did he do it? Why had he ever done it? Why hadn’t he been content to remain on a railway station at Richmond? He would probably have been a stationmaster by now – maybe at one of the major London terminals, with a top hat to wear for visits by royalty. The station-master at Richmond had had one, wrapped in tissue and protected in its box, in the hope of further promotion.
He heard the door and turned to face Hannah as she entered. She hadn’t made any concessions for the weekend any more than her father. She was wearing a severely cut, tight-fitting suit in muted grey. The stockings were grey, too, and she was wearing spectacles instead of her usual contact lenses. They were the heaviest she owned, horn-rimmed, and Collington decided there was a psychological reason for it. Whether consciously or not, she had worn them to create a barrier between them.
‘Hello Hannah,’ he said.
‘Hello.’
It was the same voice as on the telephone, empty of expression. He wondered if she would offer her cheek to be kissed, as she had done before. He moved back further into the room, towards her. She moved away from him to one of the side chairs.
‘Have you been offered tea?’
‘I didn’t want anything.’
‘Did you see Paul?’
She’d blame him, Collington knew. No matter how he attempted to explain it, the fault remained his and there was no way he could minimise it. It was selfish to want to try, he accepted. But it wasn’t the blame he sought to avoid: it was any further deterioration in her feelings for him.
‘Well?’ she said impatiently.
He told her simply and chronologically, avoiding nothing, because he decided that if she later discovered that he had withheld something, it would make the situation worse. At the end, when he was telling her of his interview with the headmaster, colour began to flush her cheeks and he saw her hands tighten along the arms of the chair.
‘Jesus!’ she exploded, when he finished. ‘What the hell have you done?’
She was being irrational, confusing her feelings about his admission of adultery with what had happened with the child, but there was no point in trying to make her understand that. Or in arguing, either.
‘Perhaps I made a mistake in saying anything at all,’ he said. ‘I thought it best at the time. So did you.’
‘What did you say? What have you told him?’
‘About what?’
‘Us!’
‘Nothing more than I had already. I thought there had been enough harm, without wanting to raise his hopes by saying we might get back together.’
He thought she was about to challenge that but she didn’t, just shook her head in some private thought. Then she said: ‘He still thinks we’re separated?’
‘Yes.’
‘So he’s going to go on buggering about and risking his common entrance?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Collington, feeling a sense of helplessness. ‘I suppose that’s the obvious conclusion.’
‘I hope you’re proud of all this!’ she said.
‘I told you the last time how sorry I was, and if you want me to, I’ll say it again. I regret it, probably more than I’ve ever regretted anything in my life, and if I could go back and change it all, then I would. But I can’t. So all I can do is try to repair it, as best I can.’ As he spoke, Collington’s head was bowed, and he became aware that his hands were shaking. ‘I saw Ann in London,’ he took up.
‘Ann?’
He hadn’t given her a name, remembered Collington. ‘The woman I told you about …’ He looked up at her. ‘It’s all over,’ he said. ‘Finished. She’s even leaving the company.’
‘Just like that,’ said Hannah, snapping her fingers.
Collington was finding it very difficult to control his temper. There had to be a limit to her reproaches. ‘How else can it be, for Christ’s sake!’ he said. ‘I cheated, OK. And now I’m being honest, completely and utterly one hundred per cent honest. There isn’t any different way that I can say sorry. I love you and I want to come back …’ He held his hands out towards her. ‘Now it’s down to you. Now it’s time for you to decide if pride and hurt or whatever are more important than anything else.’
‘I don’t know,’ Hannah said. ‘I just don’t know any more. About anything.’
Soviet sleepers of Brigitte re Jong’s calibre work under a system of clearly defined restrictions. One of the most stringent is that contact shall always come from Moscow, never to it. But it was becoming increasingly difficult for Brigitte to maintain this instruction. Twice in the past week she had purchased gold on a margin and twice had to surrender before settlement, because of insufficient funds to complete. She’d made a profit on each transaction, but she didn’t want to develop a reputation within the trade as a speculator. If more money wasn’t made available to her soon, she would have to disregard the basic rule and protest through the embassy
to Moscow.
There would be annoyance, she knew: a rebuke, maybe. But it was ridiculous expecting her to continue as she was. The whole scheme was collapsing.
Chapter Twenty-One
Metzinger decided he had done well during the farmhouse meeting with Collington. He was confident that he had completely concealed his confusion at what the Saudis wanted to indicate that the approach had government support, advancing the arguments and objections that Collington would have expected.
But he had been confused because even as Collington was speaking he accepted there was no way he could arrange the sort of manœuvre required to maintain the conviction in Collington’s mind that there was official backing. It was fortunate that it had been a weekend, with Saturday night and all of Sunday to consider it. By Monday, Metzinger wasn’t confused any more. By Monday he had concluded that the theatricality of the situation couldn’t be better suited to his purpose.
Knoetze came forward from his desk the moment Metzinger entered, leading him away from any indication of officialdom towards lounging chairs and a settee against the windows which had a view of the SAGOMI skyscraper.
‘Your call was intriguing,’ said the South African security chief.
‘I hope you didn’t mind me coming through at a weekend.’
‘It’s been several weeks since we found that South African gold was being bought by the Soviet Union,’ reminded Knoetze. ‘And apart from the information that came from you, about the reason for the Russian purchases, we’ve made no progress whatsoever. So I certainly didn’t mind the call.’
It irritated him, having to show any sort of subservience to Metzinger, but Knoetze was sure he was concealing his real feelings.
Metzinger looked away from the other man as if there were an embarrassment. ‘I want you to understand something,’ he said. ‘I want you to remember it and I want it made clear to anyone else in the government to whom you speak about this.’
He looked back to Knoetze, who nodded encouragingly. ‘What is it?’ he asked.
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