Brian Freemantle (as Jack Winch Deaken's War (epub)

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.“It wouldn’t work half as well.It’s been carefully planned.”Deaken looked away from the patronizing, self-satisfied man.Think; he had to think! Like the trained lawyer he had once been; still was.Christ, he was frightened!“It won’t work,” Deaken said.He took up one of his sharpened pencils, tracing squares on the paper in front of him as he arranged his argument.“Let’s say I get through to Azziz.And let’s say he believes me and diverts the shipment.So what? He’ll have met the demands, he gets his son back and then all he’s got to do is assemble another shipment.You said yourself he’s the biggest there is; he’s got the resources.”Underberg laughed.“But that’s precisely why you’re involved.Why we’ve got your wife.”Deaken thought how he would like to smash his fist into that face, not just once but over and over again.“A second shipment doesn’t matter,” Underberg said.“I’ve already told you the SWAPO buildup is underway for an assault in July.Once it’s stopped, there won’t be time for Azziz to arrange another.But he’ll try something, he’s the sort of man who has to.Which is why you’re so essential.We need someone in the middle.Someone who can report every move.We don’t want to negotiate in the dark.”The emotion surged through Deaken, making him shake; his legs were tightly together, feet braced against the floor, his hands pressed against the desk top.“It would be natural for you to try and hit me,” anticipated Underberg, in his even, unmoved voice.“I’d feel the same way myself, if I were you.But don’t try it—I’d knock the shit out of you.”Deaken’s eyes flooded at his own helplessness.“Don’t hurt her,” he begged.“Please don’t hurt her.”“I’ve already promised you that.”Deaken pushed his hand across his face.Where was the cohesion to his thoughts, the logic that had made him best of his year at Rand University? “How do we keep in touch? Where do I go?”Underberg reached into his inside pocket.“There’s an air ticket to Nice.The evening flight,” he said.“Azziz is in Monte Carlo …” From an opposite pocket the man extracted an envelope.“Money,” he said.“We know you haven’t got any and you’ll need it …” The third item was a single sheet of paper.“Telephone numbers,” listed Underberg.“The first is a public kiosk on the quayside at Monte Carlo, the Quai des Etats-Unis.The second is of the Bristol Hotel.If you haven’t been to Monte Carlo before, it’s on the boulevard Albert.”“There’s got to be more than that!” protested Deaken.Underberg shook his head.“Contact will always come from us, never from you.Be by that quayside kiosk at noon every day.If it’s engaged for any protracted length of time, or broken for some reason, then go to the Bristol at four the same afternoon and we’ll call you there—nothing will ever go wrong with the telephone system of a hotel like the Bristol.”It made them absolutely secure, Deaken realized.“I want to know something,” he said.“What?”“Does my father know anything about this?”“Nothing,” insisted Underberg.“And there must be no contact between you—we’d know, if there were.You’ll be watched, all the time.You won’t know, but we’ll always be around.”“When will I get Karen back?”“When we’re satisfied.”“You control me as long as she’s safe,” said Deaken.“If anything happens to her, your pressure goes …” He stopped, unsure of the threat.Then he said, “If anything does happen to her, I’ll hunt you down.Wherever and however, I’ll hunt you down and kill you.”“Of course you will,” said Underberg calmly.Karen Deaken walked apprehensively into the farmhouse, staring about her warily.Her hair was straggled and she had been crying.She looked crumpled and small beside the huge-bellied, bearded man who had brought her from Switzerland, through the same unhindered crossing at Basel.At once Levy crossed the room towards her.“You mustn’t be frightened,” he said soothingly.“Everything is going to work out all right.I promise.”“Fear never hurt anybody,” said the bearded man, whose name was Solomon Leiberwitz.“Stop it!” Levy said to him.To Karen he said, “Don’t worry.”She looked at him.He smiled.She responded, nervously, then realized what she was doing and straightened her face.“What do you want?”Levy gestured towards the bench alongside the fireplace where Tewfik Azziz sat.“For the moment,” he said, “just for you to sit next to him, over there.”“What for?”“We want to take your photograph,” said the Israeli.“Together.”4Adnan Mohammed Azziz was a man conscious of his importance and content with the security and respect it accorded him.He was one of a number of men—another was his country’s oil minister—born outside the dynastic hierarchy of brothers and cousins of the Saudi monarchy, but accepted within it and even accorded the honorary title of Sheik because he was a successful traveller, in both directions, across the bridge between the isolated, religiously dominated court of Riyadh and the commercial elbow-jostle of the West.His unique and peculiar empire had been founded by his father, who by camel pack had supplied the weapons that enabled Ibn Saud to surge in from his nomad’s camp, storm a desert fort and establish his as the predominant family in a kingdom where oil was yet to be discovered.The father had taught the son and Adnan Azziz had been a diligent pupil, not just in a goatskin tent, but later, after the oil came, at Oxford and then the Business School at Harvard.A dynasty created by arms never forgets their necessity, even when the tradition changes from muzzle loaders and Lee Enfields to radar systems, missiles and supersonic jet fighters.Azziz served his country well and himself better.With seemingly inexhaustible funds at his disposal he arranged payment by percentage of what he purchased, and began his very first negotiation fully aware of the commission that would be available from the grateful manufacturer.He was neither greedy nor careless, remembering his father’s teaching that a man fortunate to enjoy curds every day misses them all the more when they are denied him.He traded hard but always fairly, never leaving dissatisfied the seller with whom he dealt or the purchaser for whom he acted.Another of his father’s teachings was that the gold merchants of the souk frequently began as copper beaters: Azziz applied for and was granted court permission to act for others, expanding his expertise and influence to the benefit of his country, and his fortune to the benefit of himself.It took him twenty years to become the largest and most successful independent arms dealer in the world.In so doing, Adnan Azziz became a truly international man, as comfortable in a galabeeyeh in his palace overlooking the Red Sea near Jedda as he was hosting a cocktail party, at which he only ever drank orange juice, in his penthouse on the corner of New York’s Fifth Avenue and 61st Street or in his Regency town house in South Audley Street, running parallel with London’s Park Lane.But he was most comfortable of all aboard the Scheherazade [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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