The Pirate

by Harold Robbins

  He rose to his feet and walked over to the desk. “Get the necklace from the safe,” he told Carriage. He slipped the velvet-covered box into his jacket pocket and walked to the door of the aircraft. He looked back at Carriage. “I will see you on the boat at eleven o’clock.”

  Carriage nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  Jabir was waiting for him at the foot of the ramp. “The car is waiting to take you to the speedboat, master.”

  The big black Rolls limousine was on the field beside the plane. Standing next to the car was Raoul and a man in the uniform of the French customs service. The man touched his cap in a semisalute. “Vous avez quelque chose pour déclarer, monsieur?”

  Baydr shook his head. “No.”

  The douanier smiled. “Merci, monsieur.”

  Baydr got into the car. Jabir closed the door behind him and got into the car beside the driver. The motor started and the car swung around and headed for the western tip of the airfield.

  The San Marco was there, tied to a rickety old pier. Two sailors and the first officer of the yacht were waiting for him. The first officer saluted as he got out of the car. “Welcome back, Mr. Al Fay.”

  Baydr smiled. “Thank you, John.”

  A sailor held out his hand and Baydr took it as he stepped down into the speedboat. Jabir followed, then the sailors. Baydr moved forward and stood behind the controls.

  The first officer held up a yellow slicker and cap. “I have some wet gear here, sir. There’s a bit of wind and this baby kicks up quite a spray.”

  Silently, Baydr held out his arms as the sailor helped him into the slicker. Jabir picked up a slicker and got into it, as did the sailors. Baydr turned back to the controls and touched the starter button. The engine sprang into life with a roar that shattered the night. Baydr looked back over his shoulder. “Cast off.”

  The sailor nodded and snapped the tie line. The rope jumped up from the post like a rippling snake and the sailor pushed the boat away from the pier. “All clear, sir,” he said, straightening up and coiling the rope at his feet.

  Baydr threw in the clutch and the big speedboat began to move slowly forward. Gently Baydr advanced the throttle and headed the boat out to sea. Effortlessly, it slipped through the water. Baydr sat down and fastened the seat belt across his lap. “Tie yourselves in,” he said. “I’m going to open her up.”

  There was the sound of movement behind him, then the first officer’s voice shouted over the roar of the engine. “All ready, sir.”

  Baydr moved the throttle all the way up. The boat seemed to climb out of the water in a sudden forward surge and the spray from the bow made an incandescent arch over their heads. The wind whipped his face and he bared his teeth in a grimace as he caught his breath. A glance at the speedometer told him they were already doing forty knots. He almost laughed aloud as he turned the wheel gently to head the boat for Cannes. The strength of three hundred and twenty horses at his fingertips, the wind and water tearing at his face. In some ways it was better than sex.

  ***

  The telephone began to ring in Ali Yasfir’s apartment. The pudgy Lebanese waddled to the telephone and picked it up. “Yasfir.”

  The American voice crackled in his ear. He listened for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, of course. It will be my pleasure. I am looking forward to meeting with his excellency.” He put down the telephone and waddled back to his friends.

  “It is done,” he announced with satisfaction. “We are to meet on his boat tonight.”

  “That is good for you,” the slim, dark Frenchman on the couch said. “But it still does not solve our problem.”

  “Pierre is right,” the American in the brightly colored sport shirt said. “My contacts in America have a greater problem.”

  Ali Yasfir turned to him. “We understand and we’re doing all we can to resolve it.”

  “You’re not doing it fast enough,” the American said. “We’re going to have to do business with other sources.”

  “Damn!” Pierre said. “Just when we had the processing plants operating smoothly.”

  “And there has been no shortage of the raw material,” Ali said. “The farmers have come through. The harvest has been good. And deliveries to the plants here have been without interference. It seems to me, Tony, that we’re bearing the brunt of a breakdown in your own delivery system. The last two major shipments from France have been intercepted in the United States.”

  The American’s face hardened. “The leaks came from here. Otherwise the Feds never would have got on to them. We’re going to have to find another route into the country.”

  “From South America,” the Frenchman said.

  “It won’t help,” Tony said flatly. “We did that the last time and it was picked up. If it starts here, we’re in trouble.”

  Ali looked at the Frenchman. “The leak has to be in your organization.”

  “Impossible,” the Frenchman said. “Every man working for us has been checked and rechecked.”

  “We may have no choice,” Ali said. “We cannot keep financing your operation if the merchandise can’t get to the market.”

  The Frenchman was silent for a moment while he thought. “Let’s not be hasty,” he said finally. “We have a shipment leaving this week. Let’s see what happens.”

  Ali Yasfir looked at the American. The American nodded. Ali turned back to the Frenchman. “D’accord, Pierre. We will wait and see.”

  After the Frenchman had gone, Tony looked at Ali. “What do you think?”

  Ali shrugged. “Who knows what to think?”

  “He could be selling us out,” Tony said. “The stuff’s still getting into the West Coast. We’re paying premiums to the mobs out there just to get enough to keep us in business.”

  “Their merchandise comes from Indochina?” Ali asked.

  Tony nodded. “And it’s cheaper than ours.”

  Ali shook his head. “With good reason. Our costs would be lower too if we were financed by the CIA.”

  “That’s only one part of the problem,” Tony said. “The hot item in the States now is coke. And that’s where we’re weak.”

  “We’ve been looking into that,” Ali said. “I have some contacts in Bogotá and will be going there myself next week.”

  “The boys will be glad to hear that. We’d rather stay in business with you than go looking for new partners.”

  Ali rose to his feet. The meeting was over. “We’re going to be in business together for a long time.”

  He walked to the door with the American. They shook hands. “We will meet in New York at the beginning of next month.”

  “I hope things will improve by then.”

  “I’m sure they will,” Ali replied. He shut the door behind the man, bolted it and placed the chain across the latch. He went from the door directly to the bathroom, where he fastidiously washed his hands and dried them. He then went to the bedroom door and knocked softly.

  The door opened and a young girl stood there. Her olive skin, dark eyes and long black hair belied her modern St. Tropez studded jeans and shirt. “Is the meeting over?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Would you like a cold drink?”

  “Do you have a Coke?”

  “I’m sure,” he answered. He went into the kitchen and brought a Coca-Cola from the refrigerator. He poured it into a glass and handed it to her.

  She drank thirstily. “When will we be leaving?” she asked.

  “We’re booked on tomorrow’s plane for Beirut,” he answered. “But there might be a delay.”

  She looked at him questioningly.

  His eyes met her gaze directly. “I have a meeting with your father tonight.”

  A startled expression came into her eyes. “You’re not going to give me away?” She put the drink down. “They promised me he would not know. I would not have left the school in Switzerland otherwise.”

  “It has nothing to do with you,” he reassured her. “Your father suspects nothing. We have some business
with him.”

  “What kind of business?” Her tone was suspicious.

  “Your father handles many investments for us. He has entrée into areas that we could not penetrate otherwise. He can also purchase supplies and material that we cannot.”

  “Does he know that it is for the cause?”

  “Yes.”

  A strange expression crossed her face.

  “He is a sympathizer,” Ali said quickly.

  “I don’t trust him!” She was vehement. “My father sympathizes with nothing but money and power. The suffering of people and justice mean nothing to him.”

  “Your father is an Arab,” he said stiffly.

  She stared at him. “He is not! He is more Western than Arab. Otherwise he would not have divorced my mother to marry that woman. It is the same with his business. How much time does he spend with his own people, in his own land? Two weeks out of the year? It would not surprise me to discover that he even trades with the Israelis. He has many Western friends who are Jewish.”

  “In his own way your father has done much for the cause.” Ali found himself defending a man he had never met. “Our battle cannot be won by soldiers alone.”

  “Our battle will be won by those who are willing to spill their blood and give their lives, not by men like my father whose only interest lies in the profits he can make.” Angrily she stamped back into the bedroom and slammed the door behind her.

  He knocked on the door. “Leila,” he said gently. “Leila, would you like me to order some dinner?”

  Her voice came faintly from the room. “Go away. Leave me alone. I’m not hungry!” A faint sound of sobbing came through the wooden panels of the door.

  He stood there indecisively for a moment, then went to his bedroom to dress for dinner. The young were filled with ideals. To them everything was black or white. There were no shadings in between. It was good and it was bad.

  But he was not in the business of passing judgment. Causes were not run on ideals alone. The young never knew that it took money to make things happen. Money to buy their uniforms, to feed them, to give them guns and weapons and training. Modern warfare, even guerrilla warfare, was expensive. And that was the real reason so much time had been spent indoctrinating her. They had used her resentments against her father until she had reached the point where she was ready to commit herself physically to the Fedayeen. It was not just for what she herself could do. There were many other girls who could have performed as well.

  But none of the others had a father who was among the richest men in the world. He felt a sigh escape his lips. By the day after tomorrow she would be in a training camp in the mountains of Lebanon. Once she was there and under their control perhaps Baydr Al Fay would be more amenable to some of the plans he had already rejected. She would be better than a gun pointed at his head.

  CHAPTER 4

  “Your call to the United States is ready, Mr. Carriage,” the hotel operator said in English.

  “Thank you,” Dick said. There was a whine and series of clicks, then a voice came on. “Hello,” Dick said.

  There were more clicks then a buzzing sound. “Hello, hello,” he shouted. Suddenly the line cleared and he heard his wife’s voice.

  “Hello, Margery?” he shouted.

  “Richard?” she sounded doubtful.

  “Of course, it’s Richard,” he snapped, strangely annoyed. “Who did you think it was?”

  “You sound so far away,” she said.

  “I am far away,” he said. “I’m in Cannes.”

  “What are you doing there?” she asked. “I thought you were working.”

  “Jesus, Margery, I am working. I told you the chief was planning to spend the weekend here for his wife’s birthday.”

  “Whose birthday?”

  “His wife’s,” he shouted. “Oh, forget it, Margery. How are the kids?”

  “They’re fine,” she said. “Only Timmy has a cold. I kept him out of school. When are you coming home?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “The chief’s got a lot of things going.”

  “But you said it would only be for three weeks this time.”

  “Things piled up. It’s not my fault.”

  “We were better off when you worked for Aramco. At least then you came home every night.”

  “I also made a lot less money,” he said. “Twelve thousand a year instead of forty.”

  “But I miss you,” she said; there was the faint edge of tears in her voice.

  He softened. “I miss you too, darling. And the kids.”

  “Richard,” she said.

  “Yes, dear?”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m just fine,” he said.

  “I worry all the time. It seems to me that you’re always flying, that you’re never in one place long enough to get proper rest.”

  “I’ve learned to sleep on the plane,” he lied. “I’m just fine.” He reached for a cigarette with his free hand and lit it. “At any rate we’ll be here until Wednesday. I’ll be able to catch up by then.”

  “I’m glad,” she said. “Will you come home soon?”

  “As soon as I can,” he said.

  “I love you, Richard.”

  “I love you,” he said. “And give the kids a big kiss for me.”

  “I will,” she said. “Goodbye.”

  “Goodbye, darling.” He put down the phone and took a long drag at his cigarette. He looked around the hotel room. It seemed strangely empty and sterile. Hotel rooms everywhere in the world were alike. They were designed so that you could not feel you belonged.

  He wished he were more like Baydr. Baydr seemed to belong anywhere he put himself down. Strange rooms and strange places seemed to have no effect on him. Of course, he had his own homes or apartments in most of the major cities. New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Paris, London, Geneva, Beirut, Teheran. But even when he did stay in a hotel he had a way of changing the room to fit his own style.

  Perhaps it was because he had spent all of his life in foreign lands. When he was a boy his father had sent him to school in England, then to college in the States, first Harvard Business School, then Stanford. In a curious manner, his life had been planned for him even before his birth. A first cousin to the reigning Emir and the only male descendant of his family, it was only natural that they would entrust him with their business affairs. With the development of the oil leases, the money had begun to flow into their coffers. And the family’s investments were turned over to Baydr because they could not bring themselves to trust the Westerners. In addition to the basic differences in philosophy and religion, there had been too long a history of colonial oppression. Rich to begin with, Baydr became even richer. Just on commissions alone his income began to run in excess of five million dollars a year and he controlled an international investment fund of over five hundred million dollars. And perhaps the most curious part of it all was that he conducted his business without a centralized organization. In each country there was a small group of employees reporting directly to him. In the end he made all the decisions. He was the only one who knew where it was all going. Now after two years, Dick was beginning to get a feel of the scope of the operation but still he found each day would bring some new development that would take him by surprise.

  The first time that he realized that Baydr might be involved in Al-Ikhwah was when he had seen the cable signed by Abu Saad, the group’s financial representative. He had always thought that Baydr, with his basic conservatism, frowned upon the Fedayeen’s course of action, that he had thought it more harmful than helpful to the Arab cause. Yet, he appeared to be doing business with them. Carriage was bright enough to know that there had to be a reason. Something was happening of which only Baydr was aware. He wondered what it could be. But there was no way he could guess. In time, he would find out. When Baydr was ready to disclose it.

  Carriage looked down at his wristwatch. It was almost ten o’clock. Time to get dressed and go to t
he yacht. Baydr liked him to be around when there was business being done.

  ***

  Baydr stopped at the connecting door between their staterooms. He stood for a moment in thought, then walked back to his dressing table and picked up the velvet-covered jewel case. His slippers were noiseless in the deep pile of the rug. The only sound was the rustle of his polished cotton jellaba as he crossed into her room.

  The room was in total darkness except for the light spilling through the open doorway. He saw her huddled form hidden beneath the sheets. Softly, he closed the door and went to the bed and sat down. She didn’t move.

  After a moment, he spoke. “Jordana.”

  There was no sign that she had heard him.

  “Are you awake?” he whispered.

  There was no answer. He leaned forward and placed the jewel case on the pillow beside her head, then got to his feet and started back to the door. As he reached for the knob, the lights suddenly came on. He blinked and looked back.

  She was sitting up in the bed, her long blond hair spilling down over her white shoulders and full rose-tipped breasts. She didn’t speak.

  “I thought you were asleep,” he said.

  “I was,” she answered. “Did you have a good flight?”

  He nodded. “Yes.”

  “The boys will be glad to see you,” she said. “Will you be able to spend some time with them this trip?”

  “I plan to be here until Wednesday,” he said. “Perhaps tomorrow we can take them down to Capri and spend a few days there.”

  “They would like that,” she said. She threw off the sheets and stepped out of the bed. Her robe lay over a chair and she picked it up. In the mirror at the far end of the stateroom, she saw him watching her. “I have to dress for the party,” she said, turning toward him as she slipped into her robe.