Golden Fox

by Wilbur Smith

  The two of them met again an hour later in the Bodeguita del Medio. It was the most famous bar in the old city. There was sawdust on the floor, and the tables and chairs were scarred and battered. The walls were pitted and scratched with the graffiti and signatures of the famous and the ordinary: from Hemingway to Spencer Tracy and Edward, Duke of Windsor, they had all drunk here. Their faded yellowed photographs were tacked into plain wooden frames that hung, fly-spotted and askew, upon the grubby walls. The long narrow room was thick with smoke. The cacophony of a portable radio blaring ‘Bembé’ folk music and the shouted tiddly conversation of the customers covered their own quiet discussion.

  They sat in the furthest corner, with a mojito on the table in front of each of them. The condensation ran down the glasses and formed wet rings on the wood, but neither of them touched the drinks.

  ‘Comrade, the time is almost ripe,’ Ramón said, and Abebe nodded.

  ‘The lion of Amhara has grown old and toothless; his son is a weak indulgent idiot. The nation groans under his tyranny and hungers in the worst famine and drought for a hundred years. The time is ripe.’

  ‘There are two things we must avoid,’ Ramón cautioned. ‘The first is an armed revolution. If the army rises and executes the emperor immediately, you will be passed over. You are still too junior in rank. One of the generals will seize power.’

  ‘So?’ Abebe asked. ‘What is the solution?’

  ‘A creeping revolution,’ Ramón told him, and it was the first time Abebe had ever heard the term used, though he would not admit it.

  ‘I see,’ he murmured, and Ramón went on to enlighten him.

  ‘The Derg must call Haile Selassie to account and demand his abdication. As you say, the old lion has lost his teeth. He is isolated and out of touch. He must comply. You will use all your influence in the Derg, and I will exert all of mine.’

  The Derg was the Ethiopian parliament, an assembly of all the tribal and army chiefs, the heads of government departments and the religious elders. The entire body had been infiltrated by the Marxist products of the University of Addis Ababa. Most of them were under the direct influence of Ramón’s fourth directorate. All of them had accepted Getachew Abebe as their leader.

  ‘Then we will put in place a provisional military-based junta and I will arrange to move in a considerable Cuban force. With this we will consolidate your position. When it is secure we will be ready for the next step.’

  ‘What will that be?’ Abebe asked.

  ‘The emperor must be eliminated,’ Ramón told him. ‘To prevent a royalist backlash.’

  ‘Execution?’

  ‘Executions are too public and too emotional.’ Ramón shook his head. ‘He is a sick old man. He will simply die, and then . . .’

  ‘And then an election?’ Abebe interjected, and Ramón looked at him sharply. Only when he saw the cynical smile on the Ethiopian’s thick purple lips did he smile thinly.

  ‘You startled me, comrade,’ Ramón admitted. ‘For a moment I thought you were serious. The very last thing we want is an election before we have chosen the new president and the form of government. Nowhere have the masses ever been capable of governing themselves; even less have they been able to choose the persons who should govern them. It is our duty to make that choice for them. Later, much later, after you are declared president of a Marxist socialist government, we will hold a controlled and orderly election to confirm our choice.’

  ‘I will need you in Addis, comrade,’ Abebe told him. ‘I will need your guidance and the strong right hand of Cuba to see the struggle through the dangerous and exciting days ahead.’

  ‘I will be there, comrade,’ Ramón promised him. ‘Together, you and I will show the world how a revolution should be conducted.’

  There were always risks, Ramón thought, but they had to be weighed carefully against the possible rewards. Then all possible precautions must be taken to minimize those risks.

  It was time for Red Rose to be given access to the child, just as she had been given time to make the initial bonding after Nicholas’s birth. She had been allowed then to feel the child feeding at her breast, and to come to know every exquisite detail of the tiny body, but that had been three years ago, and the bond would be weakening. Ramón had used the threat video, the photographs and the reports from clinic and nursery school to reinforce her maternal instincts. However, three years was a long time, and he sensed that his control over Red Rose was weakening.

  She must be rewarded for delivering the authentic Siemens radar report, and taught that co-operation was the only possible avenue open to her. On the other hand, she must not be stimulated to attempt some wild endeavour. She was a strong and wilful personality. She possessed a dangerous spirit, a core of strength that Ramón sensed would be difficult to shatter. She could be cowed, but could she ever be completely subjugated? He was not yet certain. She had to be played with extreme delicacy.

  She must not be tempted to believe that this meeting with Nicholas was an indication of leniency. She must be taught that she was held in the trap by bands of steel.

  Ramón had considered all the possible adverse reactions that the visit might generate. The most likely was that Red Rose might conceive some foolhardy idea of escaping with the child or planning a rescue.

  He had taken precautions against this. The hacienda was remote. It was the property of a member of the Spanish Communist Party who was on a visit to New York with all his family. Ramón had moved a section of KGB staff in to cover the meeting.

  There were twelve guards strategically placed in and around the hacienda. All of them were armed. The weapons had come in the diplomatic bag to Madrid, along with the two-way radios and the drugs that might be needed if Red Rose became dangerously hysterical on seeing her son.

  He had chosen Spain for the meeting for a good reason. Red Rose must never be allowed to know where Nicholas was being kept. Ramón was fully aware of the power and influence of the Courtney family. If Red Rose went to her father, and they knew where the child was being held, then they might hire mercenaries or prevail upon the South African security services to mount some kind of kidnap attempt.

  She must be led to believe that Nicholas was being held here in Spain.

  It was quite logical, of course. Nicholas had been born here. She knew Ramón was Spanish. The last time she had seen the boy was in Spain. She had no reason to think that he had been transferred to another country, especially not across the Atlantic Ocean.

  They had come in on the Aeroflot flight from Havana to London and transferred to Iberian Airways from Heathrow. After the meeting, Adra and the child would return the same way with two KGB bodyguards, while Ramón flew south to Ethiopia.

  Ramón stood at the shuttered window in the bell-tower of the hacienda. Through the slats he looked down at the red-tiled roof that was mellowed and spotted with a century’s accumulation of lichen and mosses. The building was of traditional design. Its thick white plastered walls were built around a central courtyard. In the centre of the lawned courtyard was a swimming-pool. An ornamental date palm stood at each corner of the pool. Below the long graceful fronds of each palm hung bunches of ripening yellow fruit.

  From his position in the tower Ramón could survey not only the courtyard, but also the fields and vineyards surrounding the hacienda. However, he was concealed by the wooden shutters. There were vehicles concealed in the walled lanes that divided the vineyards. They were ready to react to his radio command and cut off any escape-route. Ramón had placed eight guards around the estate and at windows overlooking the courtyard. One of these was armed with a sniper’s rifle, and another with a dart-gun, but he did not really believe there would be a call for them.

  What with air fares and the personnel involved, the entire operation had been extremely costly. However, he had been able to use guards and vehicles from the Russian embassy in Madrid, and the owner of the hacienda had not required any payment. Ramón felt again that sour burn in his stomach
when he thought of the parsimony of the finance section and the time that he had to spend filling in expense-sheets and justifying each item to one of the accountants.

  How could an accountant ever understand the necessities and priorities of field-operations? How much more could be achieved without this continuous audit to which he was subjected? What price could they place on a nation brought into the fold of Soviet socialism?

  The soft crackle of the radio interrupted these unpleasant speculations.

  ‘Da? Yes?’ He spoke Russian into the microphone.

  ‘This is Number Three. The vehicle is visual.’ That was the guard at the far end of the lane on the south side of the estate.

  Ramón crossed to the southern window in the tower. He could see the pale yellow dust of the approaching car spreading over the vineyards.

  ‘Very well.’ He went back to his original position, and nodded to the female signals clerk from the embassy. She sat at the electronic console, with the directional microphone trained down into the courtyard. Every word or sound uttered in the courtyard would be recorded, and the meeting would be filmed on videotape.

  There were, of course, voice-activated microphones and concealed cameras in every room of the hacienda that Red Rose might enter, including the toilets and bathroom. Ramón had requisitioned this equipment from the embassy in Madrid. The voice-prints and up-to-date photographs would be a nice little spinoff from the main object of the operation.

  The car came into view as it turned into the gates of the estate. It was a blue Cortina with diplomatic plates, and it drew up at the front door of the hacienda.

  Isabella Courtney was the first to alight, followed by the female embassy guard who had escorted her from the airport. Isabella paused on the paved driveway and looked up at the shuttered windows of the tower, almost as though she sensed his gaze upon her. Ramón picked up his binoculars and studied her upturned face.

  She had changed quite dramatically in the years since he had last seen her. There were few vestiges of the silly flighty girl remaining. She was a mature woman now. There was poise and determination in the way she carried herself. Her features seemed to have firmed. She was thin, too thin. There were dark smudges below her eyes. Even from this distance he could make out the first faint chiselling of life’s hardship and care at the corners of her mouth, and a new hard line to her jaw. There was a tragic air about her, a sense of suffering that appealed to him. She was not as pretty, but considerably more attractive and interesting than he remembered her.

  Quite unexpectedly the thought that this was Nicholas’s mother occurred to him, and in the next instant he felt a stab of pity for her. The treachery of his emotion made him angry, and he crushed down the sense of pity. He could not remember ever having such a soft and enervating feeling towards a subject before, not even when they were in the interrogation-cells below the Lubyanka, or on the torture-racks in the Congo jungle. His anger turned upon himself, and then upon her. She was responsible for inducing that momentary weakness. He shielded his anger, the way he might cup his hands around a match-flame on a windy night.

  Isabella thought she had glimpsed an obscure movement beyond the shuttered window in the high tower, but it must have been her imagination.

  The woman who had escorted her touched her arm and said in only slightly accented English: ‘Come. We will go in.’

  Isabella lowered her gaze from the bell-tower to the carved teak front door just as it swung open. There was another female waiting for them. Isabella buttoned the jacket of her grey business-suit as though it might protect her like a coat of mail. She drew back her shoulders and went in through the doorway.

  The interior was gloomy and cool. There were worn sombre-coloured rugs on the flagged floor and dark heavy furniture. The doors were black oak studded with iron. The windows were shuttered and barred. The house had a brooding and forbidding atmosphere that made her pause in the entrance-hall.

  ‘This way!’ The woman led her into a small antechamber off the main hall. Her escort followed her, carrying the single suitcase and the large parcel that Isabella had brought with her. She placed the suitcase and parcel on a heavy oak table then locked the door.

  ‘Keys.’ She held out her hand, and Isabella searched in her handbag and gave them to her.

  Methodically the two women went through the contents of the suitcase. It was obvious that they had been trained for the task. They unfolded each item of clothing and examined the seams and linings. They opened each jar of cosmetics and probed the creams and ointments they contained with a knitting-needle. They palpated every tube and removed the batteries from the electric shaver which Isabella used on her under-arm hair. They tested the heels on her spare pair of shoes and the lining of the case. Then they turned their attention to the wrapped parcel. It contained the gift that she had brought for Nicholas. One of them reached for her handbag, and Isabella handed it over. They went through it with as much care.

  ‘Please to remove clothes.’ Isabella shrugged and began to undress. They took each item as she removed it and examined it minutely. They removed the shoulder-pads from her jacket and examined the lining of her bra.

  When she was entirely naked one of the women ordered: ‘Lift the arms.’

  She obeyed, and then to her horror one of the women slipped a surgical rubber glove on to her right hand and dipped two fingers into a pot of Vaseline.

  ‘Turn around,’ she ordered.

  ‘No.’ Isabella shook her head.

  ‘Do you want to see the boy?’ the woman asked heavily, holding up her two gloved fingers glistening with Vaseline. ‘Turn around.’

  Isabella shivered and felt the goose pimples rise on her arms.

  ‘Please,’ she whispered. ‘I give you my word. I’m not hiding anything. This isn’t necessary.’

  ‘Turn around.’ The woman’s voice did not change. Slowly Isabella turned her back.

  ‘Bend over,’ the woman said. ‘Put your hands on the table.’

  She leant forward and gripped the edge of the table hard.

  ‘Move your feet apart.’

  Isabella realized that she was being deliberately humiliated. She knew that it was all part of the process. She tried to close her mind to it, but she gasped as she felt the woman’s fingers slide into her and she started to pull away.

  ‘Stay still.’

  She bit down on her lip, and closed her eyes. The examination was leisurely and thorough.

  ‘All right.’ The woman stepped back. ‘Get dressed.’

  Isabella found tears upon her cheeks. She took a Kleenex from the pocket of her jacket and wiped them away. They were tears of fury.

  ‘Wait here.’ The woman stripped the glove from her hand and threw it into the wastepaper-bin.

  The two of them left the room and locked the door.

  Isabella dressed quickly and sat down on the bench. Her hands were shaking. She clenched them into fists and thrust them into the pockets of her jacket.

  They kept her waiting for almost an hour.

  Ramón had watched the search and the physical examination on the small screen of the remote video camera.

  The camera had been carefully positioned to give him a full view of Isabella’s face during the entire process. What he could see of her expression gave him cause for disquiet. He had hoped, but not truly expected, to cow her completely. Instead he saw that cold fury in her eyes, the stubborn reckless line of her clenched jaw. He studied her carefully, leaning closer to the screen. Was that fury murderous or suicidal? He could not be certain.

  At that moment Isabella glanced up and looked directly at the lens of the concealed camera. She recognized the camera for what it was, and he saw her take control of herself. A veil fell over those glittering dark blue eyes, and her expression smoothed into blank neutrality.

  Ramón straightened up. He sighed. As he had suspected all along, this subject could not be pushed beyond a certain point. He sensed that the point was very close now. She was on the v
ery edge of rebellion. It called for a change of tactics. Very well; he was prepared for that. A change was often good procedure; it confused and unsettled the subject. Ramón was always flexible and versatile.

  He turned away from the screen and called softly: ‘Bring the child.’

  Adra came through from the next room, leading Nicholas by the hand.

  Ramón studied him as carefully as he had the boy’s mother. Adra had washed his hair for him that morning. His curls, shiny and springing, tumbled on to his forehead. She had dressed him in a plain short-sleeved shirt and short cotton trousers. His limbs were slim and smoothly tanned, his lips were a sensitive pink and his brows were darkly curved over his huge solemn eyes. He would break any mother’s heart.

  ‘Do you remember what I told you, Nicholas?’

  ‘Sí, Padre.’

  ‘You will meet a very kind lady. She likes you very much. She has a present for you. You will be nice to her and you will call her “Mamma”.’

  ‘Is she going to take me away from Adra?’

  ‘No, Nicholas. She has come only to talk to you for a while and give you a present. Then she will go away. Will you be nice to her? If you are, Adra will let you watch a Woody Woodpecker video this evening. Would you like that?’

  ‘Yes, Padre.’ Nicholas smiled happily at the promise.

  ‘Off you go now.’

  Ramón turned back to the shuttered window and looked through the slats. In the courtyard below one of the KGB women was leading Isabella out into the sunlight. She pointed to the bench beside the swimming pool, and her voice was amplified through the directional microphone that the signals clerk trained on her.

  ‘Please to wait here. The child will come to you.’

  The woman turned away, and Isabella went to the bench. She sat down, took a pair of sunglasses from her handbag and placed them over her eyes. From behind the dark lenses she studied her surroundings covertly.

  Ramón depressed the transmit button on his two-way radio. ‘All stations, this is Number One. Full alert. The contact is in progress.’