‘Why should you bother to offer me anything? What have I got that’s so important to you?’
Primar looked quickly towards Penny. ‘My God! Haven’t you told him yet?’ She shook her head and he turned back to me. ‘I thought you were a businessman, Jason. How long does it take the penny to drop? Like everyone else, we’re interested in Operation Bull’s Eye.’
I became absolutely speechless for a few moments failing to understand what he was talking about. ‘What’s Operation Bull’s Eye?’ I managed to say weakly.
Don’t come the old soldier with me!’ he warned. ‘You work for Dandy Advanced Electronics. You must know all about it!’
‘Dandy’s a conglomerate with many different operations. I work on the domestic side of computer engineering. No one’s privy to information outside their particular division. Even the executives only learn of brief divisional activities from the Chairman’s Report or the Annul Accounts.’
‘Well then tell me something about the organisation in which you work. They have an advanced weaponry division. You must know that!’
‘Well of course I do!’
‘Then you know as well as I do about the plans concerning the new enhanced laser gun for use in warfare. Apparently it’s common knowledge that it can destabilise weaponry, armoured vehicles, tanks, helicopters and airplanes within a range of three miles and can be handled by two men on a transportable unit. It can reduce armoured tanks to dust in half a minute. A very powerful modern laser gun against all kinds of enemy in warfare.’
‘I don’t know where you get your information from. I mean it may be common knowledge to you but no one has appraised me of those facts.’
Primar moved his hand as a signal and the giant Arab placed an arm around my neck restricting my breathing. ‘He could kill you within ten seconds if necessary,’ warned Primar seriously.
‘It wouldn’t help your cause,’ I hissed, gasping for breath as I tried to ease the pressure on my windpipe.
‘Listen, Jason.’ he said in a menacing tone, ‘listen to me carefully. I want the plans of that new laser gun and you’re going to get them for me!’ He motioned to Kemal to release me and came close. ‘I’ll keep my end of the bargain concerning the reward. You’ll be a very rich man.’
‘You’re out of your mind!’ I told him point-blank. ‘There’s no way I can get those plans. The security at Dandy is so tight you can hear it squeak. It’s a mission impossible. There’s no point in trying.’
He looked at me with an extremely disappointed expression on his face. Somehow he thought I was going to be a soft touch. ‘We can’t have negative thoughts like that,’ he expounded. He made a sideways movement of his head towards his bodyguard who took hold of me by the shoulders and dragged me roughly into the kitchen. When we arrived at the sink, he turned on the cold water, holding my head in a fixed position under the tap for what seemed to be eternity. After a while, the Arab let me go and threw a towel across the room. I caught it wondering whether it was a measure of good faith only to realise that it was to prepare me for the next stage of torture. Before I could start to feel sorry for myself, I was propelled back into the other room and pushed forcefully into a chair.
‘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!