Wilbur Smith - C08 Golden Fox

by C08 Golden Fox(Lit)

  "Out hunting, of course." 'Are there any nice ones, Nanny?" 'Yes, but they are all married. You shoulda brought your own, Miss. Bella." Nanny paused. 'Come to think of it, there is a new one that got no wife." Then she shook her head. 'You won't like him." 'Why not?" 'He got no hair on his head,' Nanny cackled merrily. 'What you'd call an eggshell blond." Nanny was correct. He didn't tickle Isabella's fancy, although he had a kind and rather sensitive face and beautiful Jewish sloe eyes. His bald head was a damper. It was tanned and freckled like a plover's egg with a thick fringe of dark curls around the back in the style of Friar Tuck. He was talking to Garry on ' the wide front stoep.

  Isabella felt good when she came down for pre-dinner cocktails. She had managed an hour's sleep after the hot bath. She was wearing a deceptively simple blue silk sheath with a risque dicolletage whose cunning cut and drape caught the eye of every man present, married or not.

  She went to Garry immediately. She hadn't seen him for months. 'My big teddy bear.' She hugged him.

  With his arm still around her waist, Garry introduced them. 'Bella, this is Professor Aaron Friedman. Aaron, this is my baby sister, Senator Doctor Isabella Courtney." 'Oh, come on, Garry!' she protested modestly at his use of all her titles, and took Aaron Friedman's hand. It was fine-boned but strong, the hand of a pianist or a surgeon.

  "Aaron is on a sabbatical from the University of Jerusalem." 'Oh, I love Jerusalem,' Isabella told him politely. 'In fact, I love Israel. It's such an exciting vibrant country, so steeped in history and religion." She gave him another minute of her attention, then she moved down the veranda to find her father. He had three of the prettiest wives grouped around him, giggling at his wit.

  "My beautiful daddy.' She kissed him, and then took her place beside him with her arm linked through his in a proprietorial fashion. She knew just how good they looked together. As usual the two of them swiftly became the centre of the elegant little gathering.

  They sipped their champagne and laughed and chatted and flirted, while a flamboyant Karoo sunset lit the gaunt kopies with a ruddy glow and set the clouds on fire.

  One of the men mentioned casually: 'I was listening to the radio while I dressed. It seems that the Ethiopians have forced Haile Selassie to abdicate." 'Damned fuzzy-wuzzies, bunch of bandits and Shufta,' said another. 'I was there with the Sixth Division during the war - we went the hard way, on foot, while Shasa was swanning around in his Hurricane." Shasa touched the black eye-patch. 'We called it Abyssinia then. We went to keep an eye on them, and dashed if I didn't leave one of mine behind."

  They laughed, and somebody else remarked: 'Haile Selassie was a marvelous old fellow really. Wonder what will happen now." 'The same as the rest of black Africa - chaos and confusion and communism, murder and mayhem and Marxism." There was a general murmur of agreement, and they dismissed the subject and turned their attention to the splendour of the final moments of the sunset.

  The night fell with the suddenness of a stage curtain, and immediately the evening chill struck through their light clothing. With perfect timing, the dinner-gong chimed. Centaine rose from her seat at the end of the veranda to lead the entire party through the french windows into the long dining-room, where candlelight glinted on silver and crystal, and polisheawalnut glowed with a precious antique lustre.

  Isabella found her place-card and checked those on each side of her: Garry and Aaron Friedman.

  Damn, she thought. She had noticed him mooning after her ever since Garry had introduced them. It was natural that Nana would pair her with the only single male in the company.

  Aaron hurried across to hold her chair for her. As he seated her, she set herself the task of being pleasant. She soon discovered that he was a delightful conversationalist with a droll sense of humour that amused her.

  She no longer noticed his bald head.

  Garry had been occupied with his dinner partner but now he turned and leant forward to speak to Aaron across Isabella.

  "By the way, Aaron, if you really have got to be back at Pelindaba by Monday afternoon, I'll fly you up in the Lear.) As the significance of the casual mention of that name struck her, Isabella felt her cheeks chill. The nuclear research institute was based at Pelindaba.

  "Are you all right, Bella?' Garry was watching her with concern.

  "Of course I am." 'For a moment you looked quite strange." "Nonsense, Garry. You are imagining things.' But she was thinking furiously as Garry and Aaron made their arrangements. By the time Garry turned his attention back to his own partner, she had gathered herself.

  "I have neglected to ask you what discipline you teach, Professor." "Won't you call me Aaron, Doctor)' She smiled. 'Only if you call me Isabella, Professor." 'I am a physicist, Isabella, a nuclear physicist. Very boring, I'm afraid." 'That's not fair on yourself, Aaron.' She touched his wrist lightly. 'It's the science of the future, in war and in peace." Still touching him, she turned one shoulder and leant towards him so that the sheer silk of her dicolletage fell away from her bosom. She wore no bra. When his eyes changed their direction of gaze and opened very wide, she knew that he was staring at her nipple. She gave him two seconds more before she straightened up, ending the show, and she lifted her fingers from his wrist.

  In those two seconds Aaron Friedman had undergone a profound change. He was now a man bewitched.

  "Where is your wife, Aaron?' she asked.

  "My wife and I were divorced almost five years ago." 'Oh, I'm so sorry." She lowered her voice to a husky murmur and let her sympathy show in her eyes, staring deeply into his.

  Later that evening, while preparing for bed, Isabella sat in front of her dressing-table and regarded herself in the mirror as she creamed away the last traces of her makeup.

  "Israel, Pelindaba, nuclear physics. she murmured. 'It just has to add up to one big bang." Not a month had passed during the past two years in which she had not been able to send some intelligence to her masters. Most of it was routine reports and minutes of meetings. But this could at last hasten her next meeting with Nicholas.

  During dinner Aaron had professed a great love of horses and riding - but, then, he would probably have declared a fascination with polar exploration and munching razorblades if he thought that was what she wanted to hear.

  She would soon see how well he sat a horse. They had a date to ride out at dawn tomorrow morning.

  "How far will you go?' Isabella asked herself in the mirror. She thought about it carefully before she answered. 'Well, he is terribly amusing and quite sweet, and they do say that men with bald heads have a tremendous libido.' She pulled a face at herself in the mirror. 'You are a terrible little tart, aren't you? A regular Mata Hari." When she was fourteen years old her brother Sean had taught her a smutty rhyme about Mata Hari. How did it go? She cast her mind back.

  "She learnt the location Of a very secret station On the point of emission In the twenty-third position."

  When she had asked him what 'emission' meant, Sean had sniggered dirtily and darkly. She had been obliged to look it up in the dictionary, which didn't do much to clarify the issue. She smiled at her unintended pun.

  "Would you actually go that far?'she demanded of herself and grinned again.

  "Well, perhaps not as far as the twentythird. The second or third position should do the trick quite nicely.' Beneath the flippancy she knew she would do anything for Nicky and Ram. en.

  Dawn was still only a pale promise in the east when she went down to the stables the following morning, but already Aaron was waiting for her. He wore jodhpurs and riding-boots. That he had his own riding-gear was encouraging.

  The syce was already walking the saddled horses. The animals at Dragon's Fountain were seldom exercised sufficiently, and there were always fields full of lucerne and oats irrigated from the spring. They were usually full of pep. However, she had ordered the quietest old gelding in the stables for Aaron. She hoped he could manage him, and she watched uneasily as he approached his mount. She need not have worried. Aaron went
up into the saddle, and she saw immediately that he had a good solid seat and gentle hands.

  They skirted the kopie as the sun burst over the horizon. It was cool enough to make her grateful for the waxed cotton Barbour hacking-jacket she wore. The still air had that peculiar desert lambency that made her believe that she could see to the very ends of the earth.

  The vultures left their shaggy nests m the rock-cliff above them and soared on wide graceful wings overhead. Out on the plain the springbok herds were still nervous and jittery from the previous day's hunting. In their alarm they erected the snowy plumes of mane from the pouches of skin along their spines and flashed them in the bright morning sunlight as they blew away, lightly as smoke, into the purple blossoming sage. The sweet clean air seemed to fizz like champagne in her head, and she felt gay and reckless.

  Once the horses had warmed up, Isabella urged her mare into a gallop, and led them on a wildly exhilarating charge along the old dry riverbed and down to the dam. Huge flocks of Egyptian geese rose honking from the muddy brown water as they reined up on the bank.

  Isabella slid from the saddle and dabbed in theatrical distress at her eye with the end of her silk scarf. Aaron tumbled from the saddle with gratifying concern.

  "Are you all right, Isabella?" 'I seem to have something in my eye." "May I look?" She turned her face up to him. He cupped it gently in his hands and stared into her eye.

  "I don't see anything." She blinked her long dark lashes, and the early sunlight 28e splintered into myriad pinpoints of pure sapphire in the depths of her iris.

  "Arc you sure?' she asked. His breath was sweet, and his body odour was clean and manly. She stared back into his eyes. They were dark and shining as burnt wild honey.

  He touched her lower lid, gently massaging the eyeball through the skin.

  "How does that feel?' he asked, and she blinked again.

  "You have a magic touch. That's much better, thank you.' And she kissed him with wet and open lips.

  Aaron shuddered with shock, then recovered swiftly and seized her round the waist. She pressed her hips forward and let him explore the inside of her mouth with his tongue for a few seconds. Then the moment she felt the flare of his loins she broke away.

  "I'll race you back to the stables.' She laughed her husky sexy laugh at him and went up into the saddle with a lithe bound. The gelding was no match for her chestnut mare and, besides, she had two hundred yards' start.

  Over the next three days, she made Aaron Friedman's life an exquisite torment. She touched his thigh under the dinner-table. She let him have a good grope while they were playing water polo in the swimming-pool that was fed directly from the spring. Innocently she adjusted her bikini top in front of him while they lay on the lawn and he read Shelley to her. When he helped her up into the back of the hunting Land-rover she gave him a glimpse of the transparent Janet Reger panties that she had donned for the occasion. When they danced on the veranda, she rotated and oscillated her hips in lewd and lazy circles. Trapped between them was something that felt like the handle of a cricket bat.

  On the night before he left Dragon's Fountain to fly back to the Transvaal with Garry, she allowed him to see her up to her room and say goodnight to her in the corridor outside the door of her suite. Without breaking the kiss he manoeuvred her until her back was pressed firmly against the wall and her skirt was up around her waist. Once he hit his stride he was really rather masterful.

  Isabella liked that and soon found she was almost as breathless as he was.

  She didn't really want him to stop. Her first impression had been intuitive; with those fingers he should have been a concert pianist, his touch was light and artistic. Unwittingly she found herself on the very threshold.

  "Won't you leave your door unlocked tonightt he whispered into her ear.

  With an effort she roused herself from a trance of lust and pushed him away.

  "Are you crazy?' she whispered back, smoothing down her skirt with trembling fingers. 'The house is crawling with my family - my father, my brother, my grandmother, my nanny." 'Yes, I'm going crazy - you're driving me mad. I love you. I want you. It's torture, Bella. I can't go on like this." 'I know,' she said. 'Me, too. I'll come up to Johannesburg." 'When? Oh, tell me when, my darling." 'I'll telephone you. Leave me your number."

  Isabella was serving on the Senate committee of inquiry into civil service pensions. She and the two other members of the committee were taking evidence in the Transvaal the following month. She drove up to Johannesburg mi the Porsche. She stayed with Garry and Holly in their lovely new home in Sandton and telephoned Aaron at the Pelindaba Institute the morning she arrived.

  She drove out to fetch him, and they dined at a chic little restaurant.

  Over the crayfish cocktails she sounded him out discreetly about his work at the nuclear research institute.

  "Oh, it's all terribly boring really. Anti-particles and quarks.' He was genially evasive. 'Did you know that the name originated from a James Joyce quotation, "Three Quarks for Muster Mark", and should be pronounced "Quart" 'How fascinating.' She touched his thigh under the table, and he seized her hand. 'What you do must be very hard,' she said.

  "Yes.' He moved her fingers a few inches higher. 'It is, rather." 'I see what you mean.' She widened her eyes. 'Do you really want to go dancing after dinner?" 'We could go back to my place for coffee." 'I'm not all that hungry. The crayfish was very filling. Let's skip the second course,' she suggested.

  "Waiter. The bill, please." Aaron had a flat in the apartment-block in the residential compound of the institute. Although the security was not nearly so strict as in the main research and reactor area of the facility, Aaron was obliged to show his pass at the gate and Isabella had to go with him into the security office to sign the visitors' book and fill in all her particulars, including telephone number and residential address. The guard looked knowing and smug as he issued her a visitor's pass.

  She had been much too long without love, and Aaron was an immensely satisfying lover. At first he was gentle and patient. Then as her passion mounted under his lips and cunning fingers, he became forceful and demanding. He pushed her to the edge half a dozen times and then held her back at the very brink until she screamed with exquisite frustration.

  When at last she plunged over the top he went with her, and let her down softly on the other side. He held her and caressed her and murmured flatteries until she glowed with contentment and asked with a happy little sigh: 'What is your birth-sign?" 'Scorpio." 'Ah, yes - Scorpios are always wonderful lovers. What date?" 'November the seventh." In the morning they made breakfast together, scrambled eggs and laughter. When she saw him off to work at the door of the flat, she was dressed in one of his pyjama-tops with the sleeves rolled up and the shirt trailing to her knees.

  "I'll sort things out with the guard at the main gate - you don't have to leave until you are ready.' He kissed her. 'In fact, if you were still here at lunchtime, I wouldn't mind a bit." 'No chance.' She shook her head. 'I've got work to do today." As soon as he was gone she double-latched the door. The safe was in his study. She had looked for it as soon as she entered the flat the previous evening. There had been no attempt to conceal it behind panelling. It stood four square beside his desk. It was a heavy expensive jeweller'squality Chubb with a six-numeral combination lock.

  She sat cross-legged in front of it.

  "November the seventh,' she mumbled, 'and he's about forty-three or forty-four years old. That makes it or 1932." She got it on the fourth try. Aaron hadn't even been as cunning as Shasa, who had at least inverted his birthdate.

  "Why are so many truly brilliant men such nalve idiots?' she wondered.

  Before she swung the thick steel door open, she ran her finger around the door-seal. There was a tiny scrap of Sellotape across one hinge. "Not such an idiot." Aaron obviously liked working at home. The safe was neatly packed with files, most of them the familiar Armscor green.

  From the day that Red Rose had been g
iven this assignment at Madrid Airport, Isabella had begun a study of nuclear weapons and their development.

  She had stopped over for two extra days in London and spent them in the reading-room at the British Museum. She still had her card from her student days. She had requested and read every book that was listed under the subject in the library catalogue and filled two notebooks with her scribbles. For a lay person, she was now exceptionally well versed in the mysteries of the most dreadful process that man's infernal intelligence had yet devised.

  The green Armscor file on top of the pile was stamped with the bighest security-clearance. The copies were limited to eight, of which this was number four. The eight names with clearance to the files were listed on the cover and included the Minister of Defence and the commanderin-chief of the defence forces, her father as chairman of Armscor, Professor A. Friedman and four others who, judging by their scientific qualifications, were all scientists.. One of the names she recognized as the head electrical engineer at Armscor who was often a guest at Weltevreden. No wonder her father had never allowed her to see one of these files.