He stood up and took the white flowing beard from the sled and put it over his chin, hooking the wire strands behind his ears to hold it in place.
In the distance he heard the excited shrieks of the children, now waiting on the balcony of the wooden structured restaurant for him to make his appearance.
He sighed, already bored with the show that was to follow, dreading the rush of the shrieking youngsters towards the sled as soon as he appeared. It was his twentieth performance in ten days, part of an annual ritual for more than forty years that helped keep the Spirit of Christmas alive in that far northern area known as Lapland, the home of Santa Claus.
'And now, the moment we have all been waiting for…', a woman's voice boomed, metallic in its resonance over the loudspeakers hanging from the trees.
Santa moved alongside the reindeer, took the leather reins in his right hand as he held the animal by its wide antlers to keep it from moving forward and spoiling their staged entrance. He could sense the excitement and anticipation, knew the children would be straining over the balcony for the first glimpse of Santa.
The reindeer was also an old hand at the game. Patient, as the breed are, he waited for his handler to push him forward and into the path of the bright lights that had snapped on, illuminating the area as if it were day.
'…the moment that Santa and his elves work all the year round for, to bring toys and gifts to the children of the world.'
The reindeer felt Santa's hand slip from his antlers, felt the reins relax and fall free around his neck.
'Yes, the real reason you have all come here, all the way to Lapland, to Father Christmas' home…'
There was a thud as something fell heavily into the sled, but the reindeer ignored it, knew it was almost time to go.
'…from faraway places, here is Father Christmas, just to see you.'
The animal leant forward, strained to start moving, knew they must go forward in the silence that always followed the loud voice that came from nowhere.
But the reins were slack, the hand that always prodded the antlers missing.
The old reindeer stepped forward, it was an instinctive reaction, out into the brightness of the floodlights and away from the protection of the spruce trees.
A sharp eyed six year old boy from Ayr in Scotland saw the reindeer. It stepped from behind the trees and into the bright lit opening in front of the restaurant chalet.
'Mum. Mum, there's Santa! Look, Look, it's Santa,' he cried excitedly, pulling at his mother's arm as she stood protectively behind him.
'I can see, I can see,' she replied.
By now the rest of the group had seen the reindeer pulling the sled across the snow with the red and rounded Santa Claus sitting in the back, a sack of toys across his knees.
The children were shouting loudly, waving at Santa, calling for him to wave back.
Snow began to fall, glistening across the floodlights.
The reindeer reached the centre of the clearing, stopped instinctively without waiting for the tug on the reins that always came at this point. He and his master had done this short journey many times over the years.
'Children,' came the voice over the loudspeaker. ' You can go down in the snow and meet Father Christmas. Go on children, go and help Father Christmas come up to the restaurant.'
Some of the children broke from the group and ran down the gentle incline towards the sled. Others, nervous in their excitement, urged their parents to accompany them.
The six year old boy from Ayr was the first to reach it, his mother not far behind.
He climbed up with outstretched arms to hug the red coated figure who sat there, the sack of toys now fallen open across his knees.
The child's sharp and sudden movement sent Father Christmas sprawling sideways over the edge of the wooden sled.
As his head twisted backwards, the white beard fell to the snow. The boy's mother, realising Santa was dead, screamed.
Before she could grab the boy, the reindeer, frightened by her shrill cry, jerked forward and galloped through the crowd that now surrounded him. Behind him, the child held on, still not knowing what was wrong, still eager to be with Santa Claus.
As the reindeer rushed forward, the mother screamed even louder and longer, panicking the reindeer even further.
No one was hurt by the animal as it pushed through the small group, its swinging antlers well above the height of most of the children.
One of the men rushed behind the sled and took hold of the reins that were sliding through the snow. He pulled the animal to a halt some twenty yards further on. When the Christmas tableau had finally come to rest he turned and lifted the boy out of the sled.
'I saw Santa, I saw Santa,' said the excited boy to his mother. 'He took me for a ride.'
The officials from the Christmas party had now reached the group and were marshaling them, hurrying them back to the restaurant. One of them, an elderly man who was the car park attendant, stood in front of the reindeer and stroked its muzzle to calm it. As he did so, he looked over the animal's head into the sled, at the slumped figure of Father Christmas.
He saw the red coat had fallen open.
He saw the spread of blood.
He turned away, sickened.
When the police came half an hour later there was nothing for them. The deep footsteps that led away from the small wooded patch where the man and his reindeer had first waited had been covered by falling snow.
The only clue was the deep knife wound to the hear that had finally ended Christmas for Father Christmas.
Ch. 2
The phone that never rang suddenly shrilled across the European communications room.
The clerk on duty, startled by the unfamiliar alarm, leapt back from the computer terminal where he was indexing yesterday's Wall Street prices, and hurried across the big room.
In the far corner sat a myriad of over one hundred telephones that were linked directly to various towns, cities and embassies in Western and Eastern Europe.
They were emergency lines in the old days of the Cold War. Since then, even years before the Cold War had finally thawed and been overtaken by the Gulf Crisis and all the other troubles, communication by phone had been superseded by satellites, micro systems, faxes and more modern systems. But intelligence services were hoarders by instinct. The phones had only remained because the CIA had a jackdaw-like appetite for keeping all lines of communication open.
And when one rang, it meant someone was in trouble.
The clerk, an underpaid computer systems man who spent most of his time researching the secret information that the CIA collected on Wall Street companies so that he could play the markets with the few dollars he managed to save from his salary, searched the phones to see which one was ringing. It took time, over a minute, before he identified the correct one.
'Yes?' he said breathlessly into the receiver. He didn't know what else to say. Answering these phones was not part of his training.
'Washington?' came the hushed reply, a woman's voice, sing-songy and foreign.
'Yes.' He had no idea where the call came from.
'America?'
'Of course…' He tried not to show his irritation. 'Yes.'
'CIA?'
'Yes.' Who the hell was ringing if they didn't know they were connected to Langley? 'Who is this?'
'I was told to ring if anything happened,' the woman said. ‘He gave me an envelope, to open, if anything happened.'