“Meaning?”
“Nothing really. Just a slogan from French internal propaganda. So I see here that the Major Diamond from Tokyo was your brother. That’s interesting—mildly interesting, anyway.” Now that he considered it, Hel found a certain resemblance between the two, the narrow face, the intense black eyes set rather close together, the falciform nose, the thin upper lip and heavy, bloodless lower, a certain intensity of manner.
“I thought you would have guessed that when you first heard my name.”
“Actually, I had pretty much forgotten him. After all, our account was settled. So you began working for the Mother Company in the Early Retirement Program, did you? That is certainly consonant with your brother’s career.”
Some years before, the Mother Company had discovered that its executives after the age of fifty began to be notably less productive, just at the time the Company was paying them the most. The problem was presented to Fat Boy, who offered the solution of organizing an Early Retirement Division that would arrange for the accidental demise of a small percentage of such men, usually while on vacation, and usually of apparent stroke or heart attack. The savings to the Company were considerable. Diamond had risen to the head of this division before being promoted to conducting Mother Company’s control over CIA and NSA.
“…so it appears that both you and your brother found a way to combine native sadism with the comforting fringe benefits of working for big business, he for the army and CIA, you for the oil combines. Both products of the American Dream, the mercantile mumpsimus. Just bright young men trying to get ahead.”
“But at least neither of us ended up as hired killers.”
“Rubbish. Any man is a killer who works for a company that pollutes, strip-mines, and contaminates the air and water. The fact that you and your unlamented brother killed from institutional and patriotic ambush doesn’t mean you’re not killers—it only means you’re cowards.”
“You think a coward would walk into your lair as I have done?”
“A certain kind of coward would. A coward who was afraid of his cowardice.”
Diamond laughed thinly. “You really hate me, don’t you?”
“Not at all. You’re not a person, you’re an organization man. One couldn’t hate you as an individual; one could only hate the phylum. At all events, you’re not the sort to evoke such intense emotions as hate. Disgust might be closer to the mark.”
“Still, for all the disdain of your breeding and private education, it is people like me—what you sneeringly call the merchant class—who hire you and send you out to do their dirty work.”
Hel shrugged. “It has always been so. Throughout all history, the merchants have cowered behind the walls of their towns, while the paladins did battle to protect them, in return for which the merchants have always fawned and bowed and played the lickspittle. One cannot really blame them. They are not bred to courage. And, more significantly, you can’t put bravery in the bank.” Hel read the last information card quickly and tossed it on the stack to be refiled later. “All right, Diamond. Now I know who you are and what you are. At least, I know as much about you as I need to, or choose to.”
“I assume your information came from the Gnome?”
“Much of it came from the person you call the Gnome.”
“We would give a great deal to know how that man came by his intelligence.”
“I don’t doubt it. Of course, I wouldn’t tell you if I knew. But the fact is, I haven’t the slightest idea.”
“But you do know the identity and location of the Gnome.”
Hel laughed. “Of course I do. But the gentleman and I are old friends.”
“He’s nothing more or less than a blackmailer.”
“Nonsense. He is an artisan in the craft of information. He has never taken money from a man in return for concealing the facts he collects from all over the world.”
“No, but he provides men like you with the information that protects you from punishment by governments, and for that he makes a lot of money.”
“The protection is worth a great deal. But if it will set your mind at rest, the man you call the Gnome is very ill. It is doubtful that he will live out the year.”
“So you will soon be without protection?”
“I shall miss him as a man of wit and charm. But the loss of protection is a matter of little importance to me. I am, as Fat Boy must have informed you, fully retired. Now what do you say we get on with our little business.”
“Before we start, I have a question I want to ask you.”
“I have a question for you as well, but let’s leave that for later. So that we don’t waste time with exposition, allow me to give you the picture in a couple of sentences, and you may correct me if I stray.” Hel leaned against the wall, his face in the shadows and his soft prison voice unmodulated. “We begin with Black Septembrists murdering Israeli athletes in Munich. Among the slain was Asa Stern’s son. Asa Stern vows to have vengeance. He organizes a pitiful little amateur cell to this end—don’t think badly of Mr. Stern for the paucity of this effort; he was a good man, but he was sick and partially drugged. Arab intelligence gets wind of this effort. The Arabs, probably through an OPEC representative, ask the Mother Company to erase this irritant. The Mother Company turns the task over to you, expecting you to use your CIA bully boys to do the job. You learn that the revenge cell—I believe they called themselves the Munich Five—was on its way to London to put the last surviving members of the Munich murder away. CIA arranges a spoiling action in Rome International. By the way, I assume those two fools back in the house were involved in the raid?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re punishing them by making them clean up after themselves?”
“That’s about it.”
“You’re taking the risks, Mr. Diamond, A foolish associate is more dangerous than a clever opponent.”
“That’s my concern.”
“To be sure. All right, your people do a messy and incomplete job in Rome. Actually, you should be grateful they did as well as they did. With a combination of Arab Intelligence and the CIA competence, you’re lucky they didn’t go to the wrong airport. But that, as you have said, is your concern. Somehow, probably when the raid was evaluated in Washington, you discovered that the Israeli boys were not going to London. They carried airline tickets for Pau. You also discovered that one of the cell members, the Miss Stern with whom you just took dinner, had been overlooked by your killers. Your computer was able to relate me to Asa Stern, and the Pau destination nailed it down. Is that it?”
“That roughly is it.”
“All right. So much for catching up. The ball, I believe, is in your court.”
Diamond had not yet decided how he would present his case, what combination of threat and promise would serve to neutralize Nicholai Hel. To gain time, he pointed to a pair of odd-looking pistols with curved handles like old-fashioned dueling weapons and double nine-inch barrels that were slightly flared at the ends.
“What are these?”
“Shotguns, in a way of speaking.”
“Shotguns?”
“Yes. A Dutch industrialist had them made for me. A gift in return for a rather narrow action involving his son who was held captive on a train by Moluccan terrorists. Each gun, as you see, has two hammers which drop simultaneously on special shotgun shells with powerful charges that scatter loads of half-centimeter ball bearings. All the weapons in this room are designed for a particular situation. These are for close work in the dark, or for putting away a roomful of men on the instant of break-in. At two meters from the barrel, they lay down a spread pattern a meter in diameter.” Hel’s bottle-green eyes settled on Diamond. “Do you intend to spend the evening talking about guns?”
“No. I assume that Miss Stern has asked you to help her kill the Septembrists now in London?”
Hel nodded.
“And she took it for granted that you would help, because of your friendship for her uncle?”