‘Her Imperial Highness is in excellent health, Your Imperial Highness. The Crown Prince, also.’ Letif reached into his clammy pocket. ‘I have here a list of purchases Her Imperial Highness asked me to make for her in Geneva and Paris.’ He was speaking with a slow unctuous smile. ‘Do I have your Imperial permission to carry out these requests?’
‘You do not. You are not a valet, Marmut bem Letif. You are a public servant responsible to me and my thirty million subjects.’ For a moment the Ruler’s jaw muscles stiffened to suppress a yawn. ‘That will be all, Minister. You will leave all the State documents with my adjutant.’
Marmut bem Letif gave another three bows, feeling the sweat trickle through his glossy hair, and murmured the ancient ritual words of farewell, before opening the door behind him and backing into the sudden delicious cool outside.
Up in his room, which had the spare pinewood decor of a skiing lodge, the Minister quickly peeled off his clothes and stood for several minutes under the cold shower. Then he lifted the telephone and summoned the Ruler’s adjutant.
CHAPTER 7
The café smelled of cooked lentils and stale cigarettes. The greasy zinc-topped tables were empty except for two workmen in blue overalls, slapping playing cards down between them without exchanging a word. The barman sat under a row of bottles reading L’Equipe. From the back room came a staccato rattle, as a very tall, thin, black-haired man in a charcoal suit played a ferocious game of table football with himself. His hands, which were long and slender, manipulated the row of knobs with agility and skill, knocking the little ball back and forth with a zigzagging speed that was almost too quick to follow. The only times he paused were to take a drink from a glass of pastis on the table behind him.
He had been playing for more than half an hour when the two strangers came in. Although he was facing the door, he did not immediately look up, but went on spinning the wooden players, scoring two goals against one side, one against the other. The two men sat down opposite him and waited.
He straightened up, turned and took a deep drink, then stared at them both with a long yellow eye of astonishing brightness. His other eye was of the same cat-like colour, but with a curiously flat dead look, giving him the appearance of having a squint.
He put his glass down behind him and clapped his hands together. ‘Garçon!’ he yelled, in an accent which made it sound like ‘gersin’. His good eye swivelled back and fixed on the younger of the two men, who was watching him warily.
‘SAS?’ the tall man said suddenly, in English.
‘More or less,’ said the other. ‘Except they didn’t give us a label.’
‘Exclusive, eh?’ The tall man nodded, then turned again and cried, ‘Hey, garçon! Encore! Lazy dago bastard,’ he muttered, and pulled up a chair. ‘Captain Packer, isn’t it?’ — he pronounced it ‘Pecker’ — ‘I’m Sammy. Good to meet you, soldier.’ He held out a smooth hand. ‘Full name’s Samuel David Ryderbeit — but that’s strictly off the record. Over the last fifteen years the name Ryderbeit’s become a dirty word in just about every respectable country in the world.’ He gave a sidelong leer at the second man. ‘Eh, Charlie Boy?’
Charles Pol grinned, his thighs bulging over the sides of the chair. The barman sauntered in with a bottle of pastis and a jug of water. ‘Tell him to bring two more glasses and leave the bottle,’ said Ryderbeit, still in English. Pol translated the order, while Ryderbeit’s good eye turned again on Packer. ‘How far’s the fat man here put you in the picture, soldier?’
Packer told him, in one sentence — a top assassination job, target as yet unknown, fee of half a million pounds.
Ryderbeit sneered into his empty glass: ‘That’s a bloody sight more than I’m getting! Five times more, to be exact. I’m just the hired heavy — so you must be bloody good!’ His body leaned forward from the waist. ‘Just how good?’
Packer said nothing. The waiter came back and poured their drinks. Packer put a hand over his glass and asked for a Perrier.
‘TT, are we?’ Ryderbeit cackled, his good eye shining out of his hooked face, which had a slightly greenish complexion and was totally hairless. His appearance suggested gypsy blood; though Packer deduced from his name that he might be Jewish; while his accent — clipped, almost prim, with the occasional uncertain drawl of the expatriate — was South African.
When Packer still said nothing, Ryderbeit downed his drink, and aggressively poured himself another, adding very little, water this time. ‘I asked how good you were.’
‘Good at what?’
Ryderbeit’s eyelid drooped. ‘Don’t play funny with me, soldier. Killing, of course. What’s your score?’
‘Didn’t Monsieur Pol tell you?’
Ryderbeit sighed. ‘He said around sixty. Chinks and wogs mostly — but they hardly count. Not in my book, anyway. I’ve killed hundreds — mostly munts. But I’ve also killed a few whites. Ever killed a white man, soldier?’
‘No,’ said Packer. ‘What’s your form, Ryderbeit?’
‘Fat Man didn’t tell you?’
‘I prefer to hear it from you.’ Beside them, Pol sat sipping his pastis.
Ryderbeit said, ‘I started the serious stuff in the Congo back in ’62. Flew for Tshombe’s Air Force in Katanga. And when that bust up I did a spell with Black Shramm’s boys. That was rough, bloody rough — for the other side, I mean. For us it was a laugh all the way! Then there was Commando Four.’
‘And then?’
‘I knocked around — tried my hand at a bit of civilian life, in Europe, then in the Middle East. Usual game, getting hold of a few rich suckers and selling them things that didn’t exist. Then I got a bit over-ambitious and tried to sell an obsolete US aircraft carrier to the Syrians. I got rumbled on that one and had to get out fast. I went East. Finished up flying out of Laos, dropping rice — and a few other things — for Air America, the CIA’s private airline.’
Packer sipped his Perrier. ‘I didn’t think the Americans took on mercenaries out there?’
‘Like hell they didn’t! The Yanks are good boys — they all drink milk and pay their income tax and are in bed by ten every evening.’ He poured himself another drink. ‘It was about that time I met up with this bastard —’ he grinned and jabbed a thumb in the direction of Pol, without looking at him — ‘and we pulled off a beautiful caper out of Saigon. Seized a planeload of greenbacks worth about two billion dollars. We were all set up for the big time, only Fat Man here had other ideas. The whole fucking lot finished up in North Vietnam and I spent the next year in a stinking Hanoi gaol sewing army tunics. I only got out when the final curtain came down on Indo-China, and they chucked me out into Burma, and the Burmese chucked me into India, then the Indians tried to chuck me back into South Africa, only Jo’burg Immigration took one look at my poor bloody passport and I was on the next plane out to Angola. Want me to go on?’
‘You’re Rhodesian, aren’t you?’
‘Originally. But I reckoned I had enough problems without being officially classified as a rebel against Her Majesty your bloody Queen. I’ve had a lot of nationalities in my time. At the moment I’m an Israeli — thanks to some nifty paperwork by Charlie Boy here.’
‘And you’ve never been back to Rhodesia?’
Ryderbeit shrugged. ‘Too many troubles. Wife troubles, mostly. Up there, and down in Jo’burg. You ever been married, soldier?’
Packer shook his head. There was a pause. The Rhodesian refilled his and Pol’s glasses, then deliberately offered the bottle to Packer. ‘Have some. It’s good!’ His eye glittered.
Packer shook his head.
‘I never trust a man who won’t drink,’ Ryderbeit said slowly. ‘Unless there’s a bloody good reason.’
‘There’s a reason,’ said Packer, trying to decide just how much Ryderbeit already knew about him from Pol. ‘For that matter,’ he added, to change the subject, ‘how come you’re so trusting with Charles here — after he dropped you in the shit in Hanoi? I don’t suppose he spe
nt much time sewing tunics for the Viet Cong.’ He glanced at Pol, but the Frenchman did not seem to be listening.
‘It’s a long story,’ said Ryderbeit. ‘Let’s just say “birds of a feather”. He also owes me a lot of money — from that same skyjacking caper. That’s the reason I’m in on this deal.’
‘And what are Pol’s reasons for taking you?’
‘Because I’m the best pilot I ever met. I can fly anything, drunk or sober, short of a B52 or a supersonic strike aircraft — and that’s only because I never got the chance to try. I can also shoot straight.’
‘How straight’s that?’
‘I can hit a man in the head at over a mile, given the right gun.’
‘How much have you been told about this operation, Ryderbeit?’
‘About as much as you. And just for the record, don’t call me Ryderbeit. Sammy’s okay, but my full legal name now is Daniel Spice-Handler, born Breslau, 1935, resident of Tel Aviv. Anyway, that’s what my passport says, so it must be true.’ He emptied the last of the pastis into his glass and swallowed it neat. Packer reckoned that he had drunk three-quarters of the bottle — not counting anything he had had before they’d arrived — yet he seemed unnaturally sober.
‘Right,’ said Packer. ‘How’s your French?’
‘Ugly as sin, but it works.’
Packer turned to Pol. ‘I understood we were working with clean slates. Yet this man’s got a record that extends from Johannesburg to Ho Chi Minh City, and now he’s hiding behind a phoney passport. What’s the game?’
Pol reached out and patted Packer’s knee. ‘Do not disturb yourself, mon cher. Monsieur Sammy is an old friend. He is also what I call a “reserve force”. In an emergency you could find his talents very useful. As for his history, we have already discussed the usefulness of the double bluff in our tactics. Sammy’s record will prove an admirable distraction to our enemies.’ He gave them both a reassuring smile. ‘As former soldiers, you will both no doubt appreciate the value of diversionary tactics.’ He suddenly heaved himself to his feet and clapped his hands together. ‘Bien, mes amis! I am pleased you have made each other’s acquaintance. I will arrange for you to meet again very soon.’ He nodded at Ryderbeit, then gestured Packer towards the door.
Ryderbeit sat without moving, watching them with his one-eyed yellow glare. Only when they reached the door did he call out in English, ‘Just remember, soldier. You blow me and I’ll kill you.’
Packer followed Pol through the café without replying.
Outside, a sharp salt wind had come up, rattling the shutters down the street. From beyond the houses opposite they could smell the sea. They had left the hired Mercedes, with its Dutch number plates, a couple of hundred yards up the street, and Pol was soon walking with an effort against the wind. Neither of them spoke until they were in the car.
‘Eh alors?’ the Frenchman gasped, letting his seat back while Packer turned south on to the coast road from Berck-Plage to their hotel in Le Crotoy. ‘So what were your impressions of Monsieur Sammy?’
‘He’s either a liar or he’s mad. He may be both.’
Pol chuckled. ‘He is a very serious man, I assure you. He is also a dangerous man. I tell you, sometimes he even frightens me.’
‘What happened to his eye?’
‘Ah, a woman did it to him — a Cambodian woman in Phnom Penh. She had discovered he was being unfaithful to her, and one night she stamped her high heel into his face while he was asleep.’
Packer felt a spasm of envy — the odious notion that if he could excite such passion in Sarah, it would be worth going one-eyed for the rest of his life.
‘You can do me a favour, Charles. If I’m staying on, this is my last night with Sarah. I’d like to dine alone with her tonight.’
‘Why? Do you suspect me of being a rival for your beautiful Sarah?’
Packer could feel the fat man shaking with silent laughter beside him. ‘I want to be alone with her, that’s all.’
There was a pause. ‘Monsieur Packer —’ Pol sounded in earnest this time — ‘are you intending to discuss our little operation with her?’
‘No. For a start, I don’t even know what the operation is. And I’m certainly not going to discuss anything more — with you or anyone else — until the money’s settled. As far as Sarah’s concerned, I’ve got to be able to convince her of that country house — remember? And from the information you’ve given me so far, she probably wouldn’t believe a word of it, anyway.’
‘What would make her believe?’
‘A Swiss numbered bank account.’
Pol nodded gravely. ‘I like your Mademoiselle Sarah. She may have a conventional background, but I have also detected a nuance of rebellion in her. This is not unusual in girls of good family, but in her case she also has the advantage of a strong personality. She is a girl of determination, I think?’
‘Unfortunately, yes.’ Packer was staring ahead at the road. ‘You seem to have taken a lot of interest in her.’
‘But why not, mon cher? A strictly professional interest, of course!’
‘She’s a ruthless, calculating little bitch,’ Packer said.
‘Une fille méchante, hein? Good! That is just the girl we may need.’
CHAPTER 8
Next morning Packer drove Sarah to Le Touquet Airport, where she caught the 9.15 British Caledonian flight to Gatwick.
Their farewell was polite and perfunctory. She had allowed him to make love to her the night before, and he had responded with resigned, bitter lust. Afterwards she had complained that he had made her sore and refused his advances again when they woke, preferring to concentrate on her breakfast and make-up.
He now saw her through the barrier, watching her scarlet beret bobbing among the drab line of weekend trippers returning from Paris; then walked away, passing the bar, where he hesitated for longer than usual, before hurrying to the car and driving very fast back to Le Crotoy.
That afternoon Packer and Pol returned to Berck-Plage. The beach was long and grey and empty; the bathing huts locked, the tricolours flapping in the wind. They chose the last bench on the esplanade, a hundred yards away from the nearest house.
Five minutes later Ryderbeit appeared silently from behind, wearing a floppy wide-brimmed hat. He sat down without a word, took out a cigar case and tapped out a fat Bolivar corona which he proceeded to light skilfully against the wind, shielding the flame under the brim of his hat. He inhaled deeply; then, with his good eye half closed against the smoke, peered slowly at Pol, who sat between them. ‘All right, Fat Man,’ he said, in his abominable French: ‘The contract.’
Pol looked at him with mock surprise. ‘You are not expecting to exchange signatures here? That must wait for the appropriate occasion — when we reach Switzerland.’
Ryderbeit gave a rasping cackle, then looked at Packer. This time he spoke in English: ‘You’re supposed to be my bossman, soldier. You explain what I mean by “the contract”. I want to know who the “hit” is.’
Packer looked at the Frenchman. ‘The name of the victim, Monsieur Pol.’
Pol grinned benignly. ‘But of course. However, are you not being perhaps a little optimistic? He is not yet our victim.’
‘Come on, you know what we’re talking about,’ Packer said irritably.
Pol was staring at the waves, which broke in angry white ridges a quarter of a mile away. A solitary figure in a blue raincoat was strolling along the water’s edge. Otherwise the whole horizon, as well as the houses behind them, seemed deserted. Pol began to speak, slowly and clearly. ‘What I am about to tell you is, of course, in the most absolute confidence. I desire, I demand, that you never speak the man’s name, or his title, or his country, even when talking among yourselves. You will refer to him simply as “The Ruler”.’ He sighed deeply, then spoke the man’s full appellative, in six words.
Packer stared in front of him in silence. He was thinking, it’s so fantastic, it just has to be true. Perhaps half a mil
lion wasn’t so much after all.
Ryderbeit sucked at his cigar, and let out the smoke with a long hiss. ‘That’s going to be one sod of a job!’ he muttered, in English. His eye looked round at Packer. ‘As I said, you’ve been appointed bossman. What’s your brilliant view?’
‘At a guess,’ said Packer, in French, ‘ninety-nine per cent impossible.’
Pol rummaged under his coat and took out a silver flask, unscrewed it, drank, and said, ‘I have calculated it at more like sixty per cent. Our task — or rather your task, my dear Capitaine —’ he broke off to smack his lips — ‘is to concentrate on the forty per cent.’
Packer took his time before replying. He was watching the lone figure at the shore’s edge, which had now stopped almost opposite them, and bent down to pick something out of the sand; paused, then flung the object casually into the waves. ‘You’re not just hiring me to help you kill the Ruler, Monsieur Pol. In these matters the actual killing — successful or otherwise — is only a part of the problem. The lesser part. Where we really start earning our money is in the escape afterwards. And the man we’re talking about is probably better guarded than anyone alive today.’
‘Precisely,’ said Pol; he sounded amused. ‘You did not suppose I was paying you so handsomely just to give you some soft target like a European Prime Minister or the Queen of England, did you?’
‘He has one of the largest, most efficient, and certainly most ruthless police forces in the world,’ said Packer. ‘It’s called NAZAK, and its reputation is right up in the CIA-KGB league — and even nastier.’
Ryderbeit sniggered to himself. ‘Electrodes on the balls and up girls’ pussies, needles through the eardrums — I know the type. Not exactly polite, but they certainly bring the “smack of firm government”!’ He drew again on his cigar. ‘But there have been several attempts on the bastard’s life already,’ he added. ‘I met a chap in Oman who told me what happened to one of the would-be assassins. Officially he was given the chop — literally — in public, just like the old days, plus one nice little refinement. If the sword doesn’t cut through the neck first time, there’s a statutory one-minute interval before the next stroke. With this poor sod it took seven minutes. But that wasn’t all. This chap in Oman said it wasn’t the execution that was so bad — it was what they did to him beforehand. I can’t remember all the details, because it was a pretty long inventory. All I can say is, they didn’t leave much out — or rather, much left.’
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