(1982) The Almighty

by Irving Wallace

  T feel that way.’

  Dr. Scharf rose. ‘Very well. Let’s try it once a week, on this day and time.’

  ‘Much better,’ said Armstead.

  Dr. Scharf followed him to the door. ‘Incidentally, about what I mentioned earlier, I meant it as a compliment,’ he said.

  ‘Meant what?’

  ‘That you were able to let go of your father today.’

  ‘Fuck him,’.Armstead said, and he yanked open the door and went out.

  In his office, Armstead had divested himself of his jacket and was about to start for his desk when the door opened and Harry Dietz put his head in. ‘Estelle said you were back,’ said

  Dietz. ‘I spoke to Ramsey and Weston. They’re in Paris, at the Plaza Athenee. They’re standing by for your call.’

  ‘Get them for me,’ Armstead ordered. ‘Let me speak to Nick first.’

  ‘Done,’ said Dietz, and he closed the door.

  Armstead dropped into his leather swivel chair and ran his eyes over the row of telephone messages on his desk blotter. Most of them were from newspaper and television executives and editors around the country - from his own chain as well as friendly rivals - congratulating him on his series of stunning beats the past few days during the unexpected kidnapping and safe release of the king of Spain. Pleased, Armstead plucked them off his desk, placed one on top of another, and set the small pile aside but in view.

  The I CM on his computer telephone sounded, and he heard Dietz on the speaker. ‘Edward, I’ve got Nick Ramsey on hold.’

  ‘Fine. I’ll take it.’ Armstead sat still a moment, reviewing the overall pattern of his grand design. Satisfied, he lifted the phone receiver. ‘Hello, Nick.’

  ‘Hi, Mr. Armstead. Thanks for getting me out of Spain.’

  ‘Whenever we put you in a spot where it gets too hot, it is our duty to get you out.’

  ‘And congratulations on those tremendous beats.’

  ‘We’re going right on from there,’ Armstead promised. ‘There are two events taking place in the next two weeks that I want to give special coverage. I want you to handle one, and Victoria to handle the other. I’m splitting you up for the time being.’

  ‘Whatever you say, sir.’

  ‘I want you to go to Tel Aviv and prepare for the meeting that’s going to take place between the Israeli prime minister and the president of Egypt in Cairo.’

  ‘That’s in two weeks,’ Ramsey said.

  ‘I want you in Israel first, cranking up on it. Could be a crucial meeting. There may be some violence attending.’

  He listened for Ramsey to contradict him, but Ramsey only murmured, ‘Might be.’

  Armstead smiled to himself. Ramsey had been tamed. ‘Burrow in for a couple of weeks,’ Armstead said. ‘Our bureau’s doing only straight stuff. I want some color. Give me

  several backgrounders for our next two weekend issues - the prime minister himself, those in his cabinet who disagree with him, public opinion in Israel, and a dramatized version of the issues to be laid on the table. Got it?’

  ‘Got it,’ said Ramsey.

  ‘Okay, when the prime minister leaves Tel Aviv for Cairo, you leave with him. You’ve been accredited for the press plane. Stay put in Cairo for a series of sidelights on the meetings. And keep your eyes open for new input to be used in our terrorist series.’

  ‘Will do.’

  ‘After those Mideast meetings, I’ll route you elsewhere. As for Victoria, I’m assigning her to Geneva - I’d better tell her myself.’

  ‘She’s right here, panting to get her turn.’ ‘Put her on.’ Armstead took a cigar stub off his glass tray and lighted it. He heard Victoria say something inaudible to Ramsey and then take over the telephone. ‘Mr. Armstead. Victoria here.’

  ‘Look, Victoria, I’ve got an immediate assignment for you. I don’t know if Nick has told you.’ ‘He hasn’t had the chance.’

  ‘I’m going to let you fly by yourself for the next week or two. I’m sending Nick to Israel. I want you in Switzerland tomorrow. Geneva, to be specific’ ‘Sounds good.’

  ‘You mean parting is not such a sweet sorrow?’ ‘I’ll miss him, Mr. Armstead. He’s so helpful. But I’d really welcome a chance on my own.’

  ‘Okay, here it is. You know about the Non-Nuclear Nations Conference set for next week in Geneva?’ ‘I’m up on the basics.’

  ‘The specifics will be waiting for you in your room at the Hotel Beau-Rivage. Your assignments will be spelled out for you. The Non-Nuclear Nations Conference starts four days from now at the Palais des Nations, officially the office of the United Nations at Geneva. The secretary-general, Herr Anton Bauer of Austria, the United Nations head man, will arrive in Geneva three days from now. The last of the delegates from the twenty-five countries most likely to have nuclear weapons in the next five to ten years will also be

  arriving. The agenda for the conference will be in your briefing folder. It should have all the information you require -‘

  ‘I appreciate that.’

  ‘Yes, our Zurich bureau and the United Nations protocol officer will be providing you with all you require. Now let me tell you what we need for the Record. I want two advance features - the first on the Palais des Nations and the specific council chamber where the delegates will be seated and the conference will be held. File that by phone tomorrow night on the regular dictating system. Just notes. We’ll get up the story at this end. The day after tomorrow, I want you to tour the Hotel Intercontinental, the hotel where Anton Bauer and his staff will be staying, and write up the details on his accommodations, his suite, and file directly with me or with Harry Dietz, whichever of us is handy.’

  ‘The complete story?’ Victoria interrupted.

  ‘Complete notes. Repeat, that’s to be done day after tomorrow. Late afternoon your time. The day after that is when Bauer arrives. You don’t have to cover that. Our bureau people will be on hand.’

  ‘Anyone from the bureau I should meet?’

  ‘Not this time. You’re strictly on your own. They’ve been there a long time, and I don’t want you prejudiced by what they know or influenced by what they take for granted. I want the advance stories fresh, as seen through your eyes. Your third day in Geneva is a free day. Give you a chance to mingle with delegates, look around the city. But on your fourth day, I want you in the press gallery, covering the preliminaries. Straight news, if any. After that, we’ll play it by ear. We’ll see how much reader interest there is in the coverage. If anything I’ve said is unclear to you, it will be defined in the package of material in your room. Now get yourself to Geneva by noon tomorrow. You’ve been preregistered at the Beau-Rivage. Good luck.’

  It was a short flight from Paris by Swissair to Geneva, and only a three-mile drive from the Aeroport de Cointrin to the hotel, and Victoria arrived at the Beau-Rivage in midmorning.

  She and Ramsey had parted late last night before her room

  at the Plaza Athenee and they had both been quiet and a trifle glum - she, because of the sudden separation, and he, she suspected, because of having to go to the Middle East. Neither Tel Aviv nor Cairo was his favorite place.

  There had been an awkwardness, too, last night outside her room. She had desperately wanted to invite him inside, and into her bed and body. Dissolute and cynical though he was, so different from Victoria herself in so many ways, she had found him more and more attractive as they traveled together, was drawn by his handsomeness, his Sydney Carton demeanor, his masculine scent, his downbeat but amusing charm. She had wanted to possess him, own him, but she had not been able to get up the nerve to be the aggressor. She had hoped against hope that he would invite himself in for a nightcap, one for the road, but if he had considered it he had let the moment pass. As in Paris earlier, as in San Sebastian and St-Jean again, he had sent her to bed with a chaste kiss on the forehead and a squeeze of her arms, except last night he had added, ‘We’ll see each other soon.’

  Preparing for bed, undressing, she had wo
ndered why, obsessively wondered why he was not with her. She had never known a man not to desire her. This was a first. It was also a first in another way - because she desired him. She knew that she would not rest until she found out why he resisted her. Only just before sleep arrived did her curiosity about Ramsey give way to the more immediate concern of going it alone. But this morning, alighting from her taxi a few feet from the blue canopy of the Hotel Beau-Rivage entrance on Rue Fabri, she had put aside thoughts of Ramsey and overcome the fear of being on her own, allowing herself to be stimulated by a new adventure and opportunity.

  Having paid the driver, standing by while the doorman removed her suitcase, typewriter, and briefcase from the trunk of the taxi, she could see the rise of the six-story hotel with its rolled-out yellow awnings shading ornate wrought-iron balconies and, across from the hotel, a wide promenade area with flower beds and green benches and, beyond that under a dazzling golden sun, a smooth blue carpet of water stretching across the river. She had never been in Geneva before. She had expected something more austere, but what she could see was soft and lovely.

  She went inside.

  She crossed the tasteful lobby past pink marble pillars to the reception desk. Armstead had, indeed, taken care of everything.

  Five minutes later she was in her deluxe single room, patterned blue carpeting, light blue bedspread on the wide bed, blue window drapes drawn apart so that she could see a magnificent mountain - probably Mount Blanc - in the distance. Fresh chrysanthemums stood in a porcelain vase on a glass-topped table between two brown armchairs, and on the bureau rested a silver bowl of ripe fruit with plates, a fruit knife and napkins beside it. In front of the bowl an oversized manila envelope, bulging, and written across it in red crayon: For Ms. Victoria Weston, Personal, Hold for Arrival.

  Ridding herself of her coat, Victoria carried the parcel to the bed, untied it, and carefully extracted the contents. There were a number of cardboard folders, each labeled, one containing material on the Palais des Nations, another with brochures on the Hotel Intercontinental, another with Xeroxed papers listing the nations and delegates attending the conference, another holding a biography of the secretary-general of the United Nations, Anton Bauer, another offering maps of Geneva and environs, as well as a typed telephone list of personnel in the city who might be useful. Armstead had left nothing to chance.

  Eager to announce her presence before her lunch break, Victoria moved along the side of the bed to a cabinet that held a telephone on its top and a built-in radio below. She lifted the receiver and asked for the protocol officer’s secretary at the Palais des Nations.

  Efficiently, she was advised to appear promptly at two o’clock if she wanted to take the first of several afternoon tours of the Palais.

  Satisfied, on schedule, Victoria began to undress. There would be time for a bath and a leisurely lunch in the terrace restaurant overlooking the blue water. There would be time enough during the meal to read the material in several of her background folders.

  Stripped of all her clothing, she posed naked to catch herself fully in the mirror above the bureau. She inspected her long blond hair, pouting lips, bony broad shoulders,

  straight full breasts with nipples centered in pink areolas the size of half dollars, the indentation of her navel, the slender hips and fleshy thighs encasing the triangular mound of light pubic hair.

  Surely Nick Ramsey could not think her a child.

  Surely he had no idea of what he was missing.

  Wrenching her mind back to the work that awaited her, she went into the tiled bathroom and ran the water in the short, square tub.

  Where was the story here in this neutral clean enclave of plenty? A handful of nations, each with the technology to produce nuclear weapons, about to be admonished by the head of the United Nations that they must promise restraint in an era of disarmament. Yes, a story, but one that was old hat. What she wanted was a new explosive story, something that would make everyone in New York sit up.

  Where was a king of Spain?

  Where a terrorist group?

  Did anything ever happen in Switzerland?

  Before lunch, Victoria had arranged for the rental of an auto, and after lunch the Jaguar was ready along with explicit instructions from the concierge on how to reach the Palais des Nations.

  Once she was on the curving Avenue de la Paix, she watched for the building set well above the street that would have two red crosses on the sign topping its sloping roof. The CICR or Comite International de la Croix Rouge, the headquarters of the International Red Cross. Immediately past it and across from it, she had been told, was the visitor’s entrance to the Palais des Nations. The instructions were excellent. She identified the CICR building, and past it she spotted the booth that sold tickets for the Palais tours. She drove past the rambling modernistic Palais structure and then turned off the Avenue de la Paix.

  Victoria had no trouble finding a parking place on a nearby side street. She hurried back to the ticket booth, where she showed the attendant her press pass. Immediately she fell in behind a stream of tourists walking toward the door of the reception room, where she had been advised to meet up with her press tour.

  Several groups were already gathered inside, and in one, many of the persons seemed to be armed with notepaper and pens or pencils. Victoria approached it, certain it must be the assembled press tour, and she was right. After a five-minute wait, when two others joined the group, the guide in charge, a tall, young Frenchwoman, was satisfied that everyone expected was on hand. To make sure, she read the roll aloud from the clipboard she held. In English, she read the person’s name, the newspaper or magazine or television station the person represented, and the country each came from. Victoria was surprised by the variety of nations that had sent special reporters - reporters from Israel, Japan, Italy, Sweden, Pakistan, Romania, Turkey, two from Austria and, nearly at the bottom of the roll call, ‘Victoria Weston, New York Record, United States.’

  The guide tucked her clipboard under an arm. ‘We are all here so we can begin,’ she announced in French. ‘This is unusual, but I will give my descriptions in French, English, and German, so please be understanding. We wish to serve everyone reporting on the Non-Nuclear Nations Conference.’ She cleared her throat and continued. ‘We are now in the new wing of the old League of Nations Building, officially the Palais des Nations. This new wing, added in the year 1973, enlarged our facade length from 400 meters to 575 meters, and gave to this European headquarters of the United Nations an additional ten conference rooms and seven hundred offices. If you will come with me, we will proceed,’

  Victoria and the others followed their guide through a maze of corridors until they reached a long hallway, one wall lined with plastic-covered brown sofas set between the marble pillars. ‘Over five thousand international meetings take place here annually,’ the guide explained as they walked. ‘It is by far the busiest meeting place in the world.’

  Now they were led into the gallery of an attractive and stately council chamber. Looking down, they could see rows of black seats, similar to bucket seats, facing the speaker’s table where the secretary-general would be addressing the conference. Victoria learned that the glassed-in section at the rear of the room, above the delegates’ seats, would hold members of the simultaneous-translation staff. Above that was the balcony where they were sitting, the press and

  visitors’ gallery, which was surrounded by powerful wall murals of gold leaf on sepia painted by Spanish artist Jose Maria Sert. The murals, Victoria realized, depicted the end of wars and the birth of peace.

  The guide encouraged them to ask any questions that they might have about the Non-Nuclear Nations Conference that would start in three days. Victoria had one question: What is the purpose of the conference? The guide had a prepared answer: To persuade those countries most advanced in nuclear technology to limit its application to domestic energy needs. Anton Bauer was lending his personal prestige to the meeting to bring about a treaty t
o supplement the nuclear weapons freeze already agreed upon by the United States and the Soviet Union.

  When the questions had ended, the group was led through more corridors and down various flights of steps until they reached the souvenir shop. After browsing for a while, most of the group emerged from the building and strolled across a path toward a flagpole flying the blue United Nations flag. Victoria was instandy entranced by the landscape - a rolling green lawn, in the center of the lawn what appeared to be a giant bronze or gold sphere set above a reflecting pond, and behind the monument an array of hoary cedar and cypress trees backed by the shining waters of the Lake Geneva.

  Victoria pointed. ‘That gold ball - I can’t figure out what it stands for?’

  ‘I was just reading about that,’ said the young woman next to her. ‘What you see in the center is the Woodrow Wilson armillary sphere - an ancient astronomical instrument; the rings represent the positions of the planets. This was a gift from the United States, dedicated to the memory of President Wilson and his efforts on behalf of permanent peace.’

  Victoria gazed at the globe in wonder. Fifteen minutes later, she was walking back to her car with her notes.

  One contradiction was clear to Victoria and it bewildered her.

  The assignment was dull, dull, dull.

  Yet, Armstead was shrewd.

  It didn’t make sense at all.

  Once in her car, starting back to the Beau-Rivage, she made up her mind not to resist or be difficult. It was a job to be

  done, and she would dutifully phone New York and report what she had seen. Tomorrow’s assignment, she hoped, would be better.

  As it turned out the following morning, tomorrow’s assignment proved to be worse.

  Victoria had always prided herself on her imaginative ability to turn anything, no matter how static, no matter how unpromising, into a readable story. But the notes for this second story that Armstead had ordered her to prepare - raw material for an advance feature on the luxurious Hotel Intercontinental in Geneva, and the accommodations that Anton Bauer would have here - baffled her. Bauer himself, from what she had read, might be a good story. This dynamic, athletic blond Austrian, from a poor family and with a background in music, had worked his way up until he became a leading international diplomat and currently head of the United Nations. He could be written about. But his hotel in Geneva? His accommodations in that hotel? Impossible.