“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.”
4
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.”
“Would any Arab faction have cause to attack you?”
Azziz shrugged. “I don’t know of a particular reason. 1 supplied the Shah, so the Iranian fundamentalists could regard me as an enemy.”
“They don’t have the organization,” judged Grearson.
Azziz lifted the internal telephone, dialled the communications room and asked to be told the moment the Alouette radioed landing instructions.
“It could be purely criminal, without any political implications,” said Grearson. He was a lean, grey-haired man who wore rimless glasses which he was constantly adjusting, arranging them back and forth along the bridge of his long aquiline nose. He never wore anything but a business suit; today it was dark blue and waistcoated and seemed incongruous in the surroundings of the yacht. “Do we get him back ourselves?”
“We’ll need someone,” Azziz agreed.
“Who?”
“Professionals,” decided Azziz. “Soldiers. But not yet. Let’s see what they want. It might not be necessary.”
The internal telephone purred softly. Azziz listened, without talking, and then said to the lawyer, “They’re here.”
Led by Williams, the three men who had failed to prevent Tewfik Azziz’s kidnap came single file into the stateroom. The American was clearly nervous, the Bedouins terrified.
“Once more,” demanded Azziz. “What happened?” The voice was still quiet.
Williams started hurriedly but Azziz stopped him at once, ordering him to begin again; and this time neither Azziz nor Grearson interrupted. When Williams had finished Azziz told the Bedouins to recount their version in Arabic. It took longer, because of the two men’s fear and because they interrupted each other in the telling.
When they finished Azziz interrogated Williams and the Bedouins, to ensure the stories matched and that nothing had been missed.
“Eight men then?” he said.
“That I counted,” confirmed Williams. “There could have been more in charge of transport.”