Stan Mason - Stopping World War Three

‘Well,’ suggested Primar, brushing imaginary dandruff of the lapels of his jacket. ‘Shall we continue?’

Kemal grabbed me by the hair with one hand and lifted me about six inches off the seat of the chair. After a few seconds, as the pain surged through my body, Primar removed his hand from his jacket pocket, holding an object which remained hidden from view. Without warning, he took Penny’s arm and thrust it behind her back at the same time pressing a button on the flick-knife in his hand. The small steel blade sprang from the shaft of the handle to its limit with the point resting on the skin at the side of her neck close to her jugular vein. ‘Okay,’ he growled menacingly. ‘If you won’t co-operate, perhaps a little persuasion is necessary. What do you say, Miss Smith?’

Penny started to become panic-stricken as he pressed the point of the knife to her throat, drawing a small amount of blood. ‘Tell him you’ll do it, Jason… please! Tell him you’ll do it!’ Her face had turned red and her mouth was open, gasping for breath.

‘Leave her out of this!’ I managed to say still suspended by my hair. ‘My decision has nothing to do with her!’

‘Do I get a yes or a no? He wasn’t going to let her off the hook and seemed willing to kill her in cold blood to prove his point.

‘All rightl, Primar. Cut it out!’ I told him, realising that, in truth, I was the one who held the whip hand. Without me, he had nothing. ‘Let her go or you won’t get those plans… ever! And that’s a promise!’

He pushed Penny on to the settee and nodded to Kemal to release me. ‘Be very careful, my friend!’ he snarled. ‘Violence will always win in the end if one is prepared to use it. I expect there will be a delay before you acquire the plans but if you deny me you won’t live long enough to tell anyone about it. And that’s my promise!’ To make an impression, he leaned forward and swung the knife behind Penny all the way along the top of the settee slicing a long gash in the material. ‘These knives are really sharp, you know,’ he remarked casually. ‘Imagine what they would do to a pretty throat if one had the mind to use it.’

I swallowed hard. The man was right. The meek would never inherit the earth… it would fall to the revolutionaries, the dictators, the tyrants, the despots and anyone else who used violence. What was the old adage? Kill one man and they hang you; kill ten thousand and they’ll pin a medal on your chest! History proves the validity of the anecdote.

‘I’ll give you seven days,’ he told me in a parting shot. ‘I advise you not to let me down.’

The two men left the premises swiftly and I locked the door behind them before turning to my secretary. ‘You know all about this right from the beginning, didn’t you?’ Although I asked the question, I knew that her reply was completely unnecessary. Of course she knew all about it, that’s why she became my secretary at Dandy Advanced Electronics.

She picked up the towel and started to dry my hair. ‘That’s what my mission was all about. But it wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Primar had instructions to get the plans. He sought you in the Costa del Sol and befriended you for that reason but they were not for him but for the organisation. He has no right to get those plans for his own purposes. I asked you to trust me and I still do. I’ll get everything sorted out including the mystery of your wife.’

‘What do you suggest we do now?’

She tossed the towel to a corner of the room. ‘I’m glad you asked that,’ she responded warmly. ‘After what just happened, now is the time to make love.’

‘You’re nuts!’ I told her flatly. ‘My bones still ache and we were both at death’s door a few minutes ago.’

‘I know,’ she returned. ‘That’s what turns me on and makes it so much more exciting. Do you know that the time most people feel that way is at a funeral. Just hold me tightly and I’ll make sure all your aches will go away.’ She opened up the bed-settee again, pulling me down on it before starting to undo my wet shirt.

‘By the way,’ I ventured, ‘I didn’t ask you before but you’re wearing a dress. You came here in a uniform yesterday. Where di you get the dress?’

‘In the wardrobe over there,’ she replied smoothly. ‘There’s a whole rail of them in there.’

‘And they all fit you, I suppose. They’re all of your size.’

She smiled sweetly. ‘As it happens they are.’ She rolled on top of me and began to laugh. ‘You asked for eggs and bacon,’ she chortled. ‘In Israel… eggs and bacon! Oh, Jason, I’m crazy about you!’ Her lips then met mine and I became lost in sensation!

Jaffa is unusual in its geography in that the coastline to the north regresses to form a knee-shaped bend. This peculiar characteristic, protected by numerous coastal rocks, enables small ships to anchor in the bay, presenting a squadron of sea vessels of all different shapes and sizes as part of the panorama. It was not difficult to understand the reason why Jaffa had played such an important role in history, originally serving as the port for Jerusalem. Its sheltered harbour above which the city looms on a rocky hill, made the settlement an easily fortified seaport and commercial centre. The harbour is quite small, however, so that larger vessels must anchor some way out in the Mediterranean, close to the Rock of Andromeda, and unload with the aid of smaller boats and rafts. At night, one can see lights moving along the shore as the fishermen land their catches of sardines.

It was a blistering hot day. The sun blazed like a torch in the sky bleaching walls, baking earth, and sapping human energy. Penny was dressed in a light white blouse and grey slacks and we walked directly to the harbour in Jaffa, keeping as close to the sea as possible to gain the benefit of any gentle breezed that might become available. We arrived at the port at a leisurely pace and gazed at one of the tourist attractions. It was a mosaic floor, evidently the paving of an early synagogue which had been built there in the early Byzantine period, about the sixth century a.d., depicting King David playing a harp dressed as Orpheus, the Greek mythological hero. We left the dock area to push our way through the tightly-crowded flea market in Jaffa. It was a most unpleasant experience. The jostling of bodies as they pressed and nudged each other, moving in different directions between the stalls, the shouting of the customers and traders as they haggled over prices, and the babble of the crowd which made so much din became almost too much to bear in the oppressive heat. We took flight from the bazaar with haste to break away from the multitude, retreating down a narrow rugged street which had an uneven surface and no pavement at all. It was a slum area strew with rubble and decaying matter resting incongruously against the walls of the houses, lying stinking and inert below inscrutable shuttered windows. A stench of unknown origin pervaded the air with an odious aroma which was not only foul but remained ubiquitously persistent. There was no escape from the repulsive presence.

It took us a while to find the house we wanted. By then, within the confines of small alleys which were protected from the sea breeze, the effect of the heat was intolerable. When we finally arrived at the place, the house of Menel wore a façade that seemed centuries old. In every respect, it was deplorable. The property was terraced, although it was only fair to say that the whole street from start to finish was terraced. Every house conformed to time-honoured architecture, each one exhibited ochre-coloured walls baked hard by the constant rays of the sun. Each house was offset by dull brown or green shutters, most of the paint of which had been stripped off by the austere weather conditions in the effluxion of time. The hovel seemed inconsistent with the cause of the 21st Century Crusaders but that was not our affair. Penny and I gazed at each other for a few moments and then I hammered on the door with my fist, there being no other means to attract attention. After a short while, a tall bearded Arab answered and stared at us with a fierce expression on his face. I was immediately reminded of Kemal but thrust the image of that giant to the back of my mind. The man bade us to enter with a sweep of his hand and we shuffled into the dark hallway unable to see anything at all after the door was closed due to the fact that the pupils of our eyes were still accustomed to the brilliant sunshine outside. The Arab moved swiftly past us and we stumbled behind him blindly into a room where a man sat behind a large table.