He brayed some more. They should have asked; he could have told them. Absolutely nothing was happening there.
The whole thing had been a front, a ruse to keep intruders away from his estate, where the Baron's real business would be conducted during the next several days.
He left nothing to chance.
And now, the moment of hilarity over, he looked at his breakfast guest, the sweating hulk of jelly who would soon be the president of Scambia.
Vice President Asiphar had been watching the baron intently, wanting to inquire into the cause of his good humour, but afraid it would be unseemly.
"It all goes well, my vice president," Nemeroff said. His voice was reedy and high-pitched. "Forgive my laughing, but I was thinking of how foolish are the men who would stop us, and how cleverly we will outwit them, you and I."
"And your guests?" asked Asiphar, who pushed away from in front of him the remnants of a Ry-Krisp cracker, which, along with black coffee, had been his breakfast.
"They will begin arriving in the next day. Come, let me show you our arrangements."
He stood quickly, and did not notice the look of disappointment on Asiphar's face. The vice president followed him to the edge of the balcony and turned his face in the direction of the baron's outstretched hand.
"You'll notice that there is only one road leading to this villa," he said. "And, of course, there are armed guards along its length. Every visitor must be approved by me. There is no other way for a car to approach."
Down came the arm, quickly, and up went the other, sweeping back and forth across the vegetation-shrouded hill that sloped away from them.
"There are men stationed all over those slopes," Nemeroff said. "Armed men, who will know how to handle any would-be intruders. And dogs, whose appetite for unwanted company leaves nothing to be desired." He brayed once, softly. "And there are electronic devices, electric eyes, infra-red television cameras, hidden microphones, that can detect and pinpoint the presence of any intruder immediately."
He turned away from the balcony. He shot both hands skyward, over his head. "And, of course, our helicopter fleet continually patrols the sky over the castle." Asiphar looked upward. One plane circled lazily over the stone pile that was Nemeroff's castle, its silhouette a deep red-almost black-against the washed-out blue sky.
Nemeroff turned from the rail and put his arm over the shoulder and around the massive back of Asiphar.
"So it is foolproof, my vice president. We shall not be disturbed."
Gently, he steered Asiphar toward the glass doors that led into the castle. "Come, I will show you our meeting facilities, and you must tell me of your flight from Switzerland. How were the stewardesses?"
He brayed and listened intently as Asiphar described the women on the plane. In great detail.
Nemeroff was dressed in white, from neck to toe and the white seemed more brilliant than the fine linen it was, against the backdrop of Asiphar's dark suit. The vice president had travelled incognito from Switzerland, and so had stored his uniforms away, wearing only a black silk suit. It was soaked through now with perspiration and under the arms were white granular rings where his sweat had saturated the suit, and then dried, leaving only the salt remains.
The two men stood in front of an immense oil painting of a Russian Cossack, in battle array, atop a black charger as Nemeroff explained "There are seventy rooms in the castle, more than enough for all our… business associates." He pressed a button, hidden in the wooden frame of the painting, and the painting silently slid aside, revealing a small stainless steel elevator compartment.
They stepped inside and Nemeroff pressed a button marked V.
Noiselessly, without even the sensation of starting, the elevator moved upward. Quickly, the door opened, and they stepped out into a giant room, fully one hundred feet long and forty feet wide. Its walls were hewn of the same rough stone of which the castle itself had been built.
The room was so large it dwarfed the giant mahogany conference table that had been set up in its direct center, but as Asiphar looked, he slowly realized that the table held chairs for forty men. The chairs were of soft red glove leather, and in front of each chair on the table was a desk blotter, a yellow pad, a silver tray of pencils, a carafe, and a crystal stem goblet.
"Our meetings will be held here," Nemeroff said. "In this very room, within the next three days, will be made the decisions that will make you president of your nation."
Asiphar smiled, his white teeth playing lighthouse in the night of his face.
"… and will make your nation a power among the powers of the earth," Nemeroff said, his arms gesticulating wildly.
"Imagine," he said, slowly walking Asiphar around the room. "A nation that is under crime's flag. A retreat for all the hunted of the world. The place where no power can touch them. And you will control that nation. You, Asiphar. You will be a man among men. The most powerful man in the world."
He smiled, a grim, thin-lipped smile that spoke more truth than his words, but Asiphar did not see his smile.
His eyes, instead, were drawn to an immense dome in the center of the room's ceiling, through which sunlight poured into the conference room. The dome was of stained glass, in carefully leaded sections worked into a symbolic Byzantine religious design.
Nemeroff followed his eyes. "It is quite bulletproof," he said. "And beautiful, is it not? And up there are our helicopter pads."
"And your guests will arrive tomorrow?" Asiphar asked, unable to keep the anxiety from his voice.
And Nemeroff understood. "Our business guests," he said. "There are other house guests here now. One in particular whom you must meet. Come, I will introduce you. You must be tired after your journey, and I can think of no more certain way for you to relax."
Asiphar giggled.
They re-entered the elevator and Nemeroff pressed the button marked IV. The door closed, then reopened again before Asiphar had felt any sense of movement.
They stepped out into a long, wide hallway, carpeted with animal skins, its walls mirrored in a delicate gold-veined pattern. Along the walls stood marble statuary depicting naked bodies. The carvings showed the great skill and even genius of the craftsmen, and the stone blocks themselves showed the precise taste of Nemeroff. The marble blocks, from which the statues had been carved by his order, were pure white, re-crystallized limestone, with none of the pinkness that confessed to manganese oxide traces. The stones had come from a quarry Nemeroff owned, in the hills of northern Italy.
He ignored the statues, steering Asiphar down the hall to the right. "This way," he said.
He paused at an unnumbered door, not distinguished from the other doors all along the hallway. He knocked once, softly, then pushed open the door. It swung open noiselessly, and he stepped aside to let Asiphar peer in.
It was a bedroom, its walls and floor covered with red woollen carpet and its ceiling mirrored, in glass blocks with streaks of gold and black swirling through them.
The bed was a huge four-poster, with a red fringe around the posts, but there was no canopy over the top, permitting an unobstructed view of the mirrored ceiling.
On the bed lay a woman. She was tall-looking, even in repose, and her skin was so fair that it appeared never to have seen a day's sun. She wore a long white transparent negligee that hid her skin only when the sheer material was formed into a fold. The negligee was open. Her long almost-white hair, was pulled in front of a shoulder and casually covered one breast. The other breast was bare, and full and crowned with a delicate pink mound. She was blonde all over.
She stood up and walked slowly toward the door, not caring that her negligee was fully open and trailing behind her. Her eyes lighted with excitement and her mouth partially open, revealing perfectly even lines of teeth, she extended her arms toward Asiphar.