Brian Freemantle: Deaken’s War

“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.”

Adnan 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. It was a large, white, elaborate and sophisticated yacht, 4000 tons in weight, diesel-powered and with a crew complement of fifty. They were as specialized as the vessel in which they served. Six men were employed to operate communication equipment equal to that of American naval cruisers and necessary to maintain constant and uninterrupted liaison with Azziz’s world-spanning business links; part consisted of two computers and a location-and-fix device programmed for orbital navigational satellites. The fifty did not include the ten-man team necessary to service, maintain and fly the stern-housed Alouette nor the immediate legal staff, at least two of whom were normally in constant attendance wherever Azziz was domiciled at any time.

They were led by an American named Harry Grearson, who was with Azziz when the panicked telephone call came from Zurich airport. The open emotion came entirely from Switzerland; the nature of his business had taught Azziz complete control, even when being told of the abduction of his only son. His voice kept to a monotone when he recounted the conversation to Grearson in the stateroom of the yacht.

“Who are they?” Like his employer, the lawyer remained quiet-voiced.

“There was no indication, apart from the fact that they spoke Arabic as well as English,” said Azziz. He was an imposing man, tall and full-bodied, the stature increased by the fact that the weight was not indulgence but muscle. He wore white ducks, a blue short-sleeved shirt and was completely naked of any jewellery, even a wristwatch.

“You’ve informed the police?”

“No,” said Azziz at once. “We were warned not to.”

“That’s a mistake,” said Grearson.

“Better this way,” insisted the Arab. “I’ll meet the demand, whatever it is.” Tewfik’s mother had died in childbirth, and despite taking three more wives, as Azziz was allowed by Moslem law, his four other children were all daughters.

“What have you told your people to do?”

“Fly back here, so I can question them more fully.”

“There was nothing left in the car… no note or letter?”

“Apparently not.”

“It shouldn’t have happened, not with three of them.”

“I know,” said Azziz. “So do they.”