Wild Justice

“Now’s the time to buy. Mark my words, Peter we are on the verge of another explosion.”

“The cut-back in oil price is going to help, “I’d expect, Peter agreed.

“That’s not the half of it, old boy.” Steven turned to glance back over his shoulder and he winked knowingly at Peter. “You can expect another five per cent cut in six months, take my word on it. The Arabs and the Shah have come to their senses.” Steven went on swiftly,

picking out those types of industry which would benefit most dramatically from the reduction in crude prices, then selecting the leading companies in those sectors. If you have a few pounds lying idle, that’s where to put it.” Steven’s whole personality seemed to change when he spoke like this of power and great wealth. Then he came out from behind the fao de of the English country squire which he was usually at such pains to cultivate; the glitter in his eyes was now undisguised and his bushy mustache bristled like the whiskers of some big dangerous predator.

He was still talking quickly and persuasively as they left the woods and began to cross the open fields towards the ruins of the Roman camp on the crest of the low hills.

These people have still to be told what to do, you know. Those damned shop stewards up in Westminster may have thrown the Empire away,

but we still have our responsibilities.” Steven changed the Purdey shotgun from one arm to the other, carrying it in the crook of the arm, the gun broken open and the shining brass caps of the cartridges showing in the breeches. Government only by those fit to govern.” Steven enlarged on that for a few minutes.

Then suddenly Steven fell silent, almost as though he had suddenly decided that he had spoken too much, even to somebody as trusted as his own younger twin. Peter was silent also, trudging up the curve of the hill with his boots squelching in the soft damp earth. There was something completely unreal about the moment, walking over well remembered ground in the beautiful mellow sunlight of an

English spring afternoon with a man he had known from the day of his birth and yet perhaps had never known at all.

It was not the first time he had heard Steven talk like this, and yet perhaps it was the first time he had ever listened. He shivered and Steven glanced at him.

“Cold?” A “Goose walked over my grave,” Peter explained, and

Steven nodded as they clambered up the shallow earth bank that marked the perimeter of the Roman camp.

They stood on the lip under the branches of a lovely copper beech,

resplendent in its new spring growth of russet.

Steven was breathing hard from the pull up the hill, that extra weight was already beginning to tell. There was a spot of high unhealthy colour in each cheek, and little blisters of sweat speckled his chin.

He closed the breech of the shotgun with a metallic clash, and leaned the weapon against the trunk of the copper beech as he struggled to regain his breath.

Peter moved across casually and propped his shoulder against the copper beech, but his thumbs were hooked into the lapels of the duffle coat, not thrust into pockets, and he was still in balance, weight slightly forward on the balls of his feet. Although he seemed to be entirely relaxed and at rest he was in fact coiled like a spring,

poised on the brink of violent action and the shotgun was within easy reach of his right hand.

He had seen that Steven had loaded with number four shot. At ten paces it would disembowel a man. The safety catch on the top of the pistol grip of the butt engaged automatically when the breech was opened and closed again, but the right thumb would instinctively slip the catch forward as the hand closed on the grip.

Steven took a silver cigarette case from the side pocket of his coat and tapped down a cigarette on the lid.

“Damned shame about Magda Altmann,” he said gruffly, not meeting

Peter’s eyes.

“Yes, Peter agreed softly.

“Glad they handled it in a civilized fashion. Could have made it awkward for you, you know.”

“I suppose they could have,” Peter agreed.

“What about your job at Narmco?”

“I don’t know yet. I will not know until I get back to Brussels.”

“Well, my offer still stands, old boy. I could do with a bit of help. I really could. Somebody I could trust. You’d be doing me a favour.”

“Damned decent of you, Steven.”

“No, really, I mean it.” Steven lit the cigarette with a gold Dunhill lighter and inhaled with evident pleasure, and after a moment Peter asked him: “I hope you were not in a heavy position in Altmann stock.

I see it has taken an awful tumble.” It’s strange that,” Steven shook his head. “Pulled out of Altmann’s a few weeks ago, actually. Needed the money for San Istaban.”

“Lucky,” Peter murmured, or much more than luck. He wondered why Steven admitted the share transaction so readily. Of course” he realized, “it would have been very substantial and therefore easily traced.” He studied his brother now, staring at him with a slight scowl of concentration. Was it possible? he asked himself.

Could Steven really have masterminded something so complex, where ideology and self-interest and delusions of omnipotence seemed so inextricably snarled and entwined.

“What is it, old boy?” Steven asked, frowning slightly in sympathy.

“I was just thinking that the whole concept and execution has been incredible, Steven. I would never have suspected you were capable of it.”

“I’m sorry, Peter. I don’t understand. What are you talking about?”

“Caliph,” Peter said softly.

It was there! Peter saw it instantly. The instant of utter stillness, like a startled jungle animal but the flinch of the eyes,

followed immediately by the effort of control.

The expression of Steven’s face had not altered, the little frown of polite inquiry held perfectly, then turning slowly, deeper into puzzlement.

“I’m afraid you just lost me there, old chap.” It was superbly done. Despite himself Peter was impressed. There were depths to his brother which he had never suspected but that was his own omission.

No matter which way you looked at it, it took an extraordinary ability to achieve what Steven had achieved in less than twenty years, against the most appalling odds. No matter how he had done it, it was the working of a particular type of genius.

He was capable of running Caliph, Peter accepted the fact at last and immediately had a focal point for the corroding hatred he had carried within him for so long.

“Your only mistake so far, Steven, was to let Aaron Altmann know your name,” Peter went on quietly. “I suspect you did not then know that he was a Mossad agent, and that your name would go straight onto the Israeli intelligence computer. Nobody, nothing, can ever wipe it from the memory rolls, Steven. You are known.” Steven’s eyes flickered down to the shotgun; it was instinctive, uncontrollable, the final confirmation if Peter needed one.

“No, Steven. That’s not for you.” Peter shook his head.

“That’s my work. You’re fat and out of condition, and you have never had the training. You must stick to hiring others to do the actual killing. You wouldn’t even get a hand on it.” Steven’s eyes darted back to his brother’s face. Still the expression of his face had not altered.

“I think you’ve gone out of your head, old boy.” Peter ignored it.

“You of all people should know that I am capable of killing anybody.

You have conditioned me to that.”

“We are getting into an awful tangle now,” Steven protested. “What on earth should you want to kill anybody for?”

“Steven, you are insulting both of us. I know. There is no point in going on with the act. We have to work out between us what we are going to do about it.” He had phrased it carefully, offering the chance of compromise. He saw the waver of doubt in Steven’s eyes, the slight twist of his mouth, as he struggled to reach a decision.

But please do not underestimate the danger you are in, Steven.” As he spoke Peter produced an old worn pair of dark leather gloves from his pocket and began to pull them on. There was something infinitely menacing in that simple act, and again Steven’s eyes were drawn irresistibly.

“Why are you doing that?” For the first time Steven’s voice croaked slightly.

“I haven’t yet touched the gun,” Peter explained reasonably. “It has only your prints upon it.”

“Christ, you’d never get away with it,

Peter.”

“Why, Steven? It is always dangerous to carry a loaded shotgun over muddy and uneven ground.”

“You couldn’t do it, not in cold blood. “The edge of terror was in Steven’s voice.

“Why not? You had no such qualms with Prince Hassled Abdel

Hayek.”

“I am your brother he was only a bloody wag—2 Steven choked it off, staring now at Peter with stricken eyes, the expression of his face beginning at last to crack and crumb leas he realized that he had made the fateful admission.

Peter reached for the shotgun without taking his eyes from his brother’s.

“Wait!” Steven cried. “Wait, Peter!”

“For what?”

“You’ve got to let me explain.”

“All right, go ahead.”

“You can’t just say go ahead,

like that. It’s so complicated.”

“All right, Steven. Let’s start at the beginning with Flight 070. Tell me why?”

“We had to do it,

Peter. Don’t you see? There is over four billions of British investment in that country, another three billions of American money.

It’s the major world producer of gold and uranium, chrome and a dozen other strategic minerals. My God, Peter. Those ham-handed oafs in control now are on a suicide course. We had to take it away from them,

and put in a controllable government. If we don’t do that the Reds will have it all within ten years probably much less.”

“You had an alternative government chosen?”

“Of course,” Steven told him urgently,

persuasively, watching the shotgun that Peter still held low across his hips. “It was planned in every detail. It took two years.”

“All right.” Peter nodded. “Tell me about the murder of Prince Hassled.”

“It wasn’t murder, for God’s sake, man, it was absolutely essential.

It was a matter of survival. They were destroying Western civilization with their childlike irresponsibility.

Drunk with power, they were no longer amenable to reason, like spoiled children in a sweet shop we had to put a stop to it, or face a breakdown of the capitalist system. They have probably done irreparable damage to the prestige of the dollar, they have taken sterling hostage and hold it in daily jeopardy with the threat of withdrawing those astronomic balances from London. We had to bring them to their senses, and look how small a price. We can reduce the price of crude oil gradually to its 1970 level. We can restore sanity to the currencies of the Western world and secure real growth and prosperity for hundreds of millions of peoples all at the cost of a single life.”

“And anyway, he was only a bloody wag. Wasn’t he?”

Peter agreed reasonably.

“Look here, Peter. I said that but I didn’t mean it. You are being unreasonable.”

“I will try not to be,” Peter assured him mildly.

“Tell me where it goes from here. Who do you bring under control next the British Trade Union movement, perhaps?” And Steven stared at him wordlessly for a moment.

“Damn it, Peter. That was a hell of a guess. But could you imagine if we had a five-year wage freeze, and no industrial action during that time. It’s them or us, Peter.

We could get back to being one of the major industrial powers of the Western world. Great Britain! We could be that again.”

“You are very convincing, Steven,” Peter acknowledged.

“There are only a few details that worry me a little.”

“What are they, Peter?”

“Why was it necessary to arrange the murder of Kingston

Parker and Magda Altmann-” Steven stared at him, his jaw unhinging slightly and the hard line of his mouth going slack with astonishment.

“No,” he shook his head. “That’s not so.” and why was it necessary to kill Baron Altmann, and torture him to death?”

“That was not my doing all right, it was done. And I knew it was done but I had nothing to do with it, Peter.

Not the murder at least. Oh God, all right I knew it had to be done, but-His voice tailed off, and he stared helplessly at Peter.

“From the beginning again, Steven. Let’s hear it all-” Peter spoke almost gently.

“I cannot, Peter. You don’t understand what might happen, what will happen if I tell you-” Peter slid the safety catch off the Purdey shotgun. The click of the mechanism was unnaturally loud in the silence, and Steven Stride started and stepped back a pace, blinking at his brother, fastening all his attention on Peter’s eyes.

“God,“he whispered. “You would do it too.”

“Tell me about Aaron

Altmann.”

“Can I have another cigarette?” Peter nodded and Steven lit it with hands that trembled very slightly.

“You have to understand how it worked, before I can explain.”

“Tell me how it worked,” Peter invited.

“I was recruited-“

“Steven, don’t lie to me you are Caliph.”

“No, God, no, Peter. You have it all wrong,” Steven cried. “It’s a chain. I am only a link in Caliph’s chain. I am not Caliph.”

“You are a part of Caliph, then?”

“Only a link in the chain,” Steven repeated vehemently.

“Tell me, Peter invited with a small movement of the shotgun barrel that drew Steven’s eyes immediately.

“There is a man I have known a long time. We have worked together before. A man with greater wealth and influence than I have. It was not an immediate thing. It grew out of many discussions and conversations over a long time, years, in which we both voiced our concern with the way that power had shifted to blocks of persons unfit to wield it-“

“All right,” Peter nodded grimly. “I understand your political and ideological sentiments. Leave them out of the account.”

“Very well,” Steven agreed. Well, finally this man asked me if I would be prepared to join an association of Western world political and industrial leaders dedicated to restoring power to the hands of those fitted by training and upbringing to govern.”

“Who was this man?”

“Peter, I cannot tell you.”

“You have no choice,” Peter told him, and there was a long moment as they locked eyes and wills; then Steven sighed in capitulation.

“It was-” The name was that of a mining magnate who controlled most of the free world supply of nuclear fuel and gold and precious stones.

“So he is the one who would have been in control of the new South

African government with which you intended replacing the present regime in that country, if the taking of 070 had succeeded?” Peter demanded,

and Steven nodded wordlessly.

“All right,” Peter nodded. “Go on.”

“He had been recruited as I

was,” Steven explained. “But I was never to know by whom. In my turn

I was to recruit another desirable member but I would be the only one who knew who that was. It was how the security of the chain was to be maintained. Each link would know only the one above and below him, the man who had recruited him and the one who he recruited in his turn-“

“Caliph?” Peter demanded. “What about Caliph?”

“Nobody knows who he is.”

“Yet he must know who you are.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Then there must be some way for you to get a message to Caliph,” Peter insisted. “For instance, when you recruit a new member, you must be able to pass on the information?

When he wants something from you, he must be able to contact you.”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Christ, Peter. It’s more than my life is worth.”

“We’ll come back to it,” said Peter impatiently. “Go on, tell me about Aaron

Altmann.”

“That was a disaster. I chose Aaron as the man I would recruit. He seemed exactly the kind of man we needed. I had known him for years. I knew he could be very tough when it was necessary. So I

approached him. He seemed very eager at first, leading me on. Getting me to explain the way Caliph would work. I was delighted to have recruited such an important man. He intimated that he would contribute twenty-five million dollars to the funds of the association, so I

passed a message to Caliph. I told him that I had almost succeeded in recruiting Baron Altmann-” Steven stopped nervously, and dropped the stub of his cigarette onto the damp turf, grinding it out under his heel.

“What happened then?” Peter demanded.

“Caliph responded immediately. I was ordered to break off all contact with Aaron Altmann at once. I realized I must have chosen a potentially dangerous person. You tell me now he was Mossad. I did not know that but Caliph must have known it. I did as I was told and dropped Aaron like a hot chestnut and four days later he was abducted. I had nothing to do with it, Peter. I swear to you. I

liked the man immensely. I admired him-“

“Yet he was abducted and horribly tortured. You must have known that Caliph had done it, and that you were responsible?”

“Yes.” Steven said the word flatly, without evasion. Peter felt a small stir of admiration for that.

“They tortured him to find out if he had passed the information you had given him about Caliph to Mossad,” Peter insisted.

“Yes I expect so. I do not know.”

“If the picture I have of

Aaron Altmann was correct they received no information from him.”

“No.

He was like that. They must have lost patience with him in the end to do what they did to him. It was my first moment of disillusionment with Caliph,” Steven muttered sombrely.

They were both silent now, until Peter burst out angrily.

“My God, Steven, can’t you see what a disgusting business you are mixed up in? “And Steven was mute. “Couldn’t you see it?” Peter insisted, the anger raw in his voice. “Couldn’t you realize it from the beginning?”

“Not at the beginning.” Steven shook his head miserably.

“It seemed a brilliant solution for all the diseases of the

Western world and then once I began it was like being on board a speeding express train. It was just impossible to get off again.”

“All right. So then you tried to have me assassinated on the Rambouillet road?”

“Good God, no.” Steven was truly appalled. “You’re my brother,

good God-“

“Caliph did it to stop me getting close to Aaron’s widow who was out to avenge him.”

“I didn’t know a thing about it, I swear to you. If Caliph did it, he knew better than to let me in on it.” Steven was pleading now. “You must believe that.” Peter felt a softening of his resolve, but forced back the knowledge that this man was his brother, someone who had been very dear over a lifetime.

“What was your next operation for Caliph then?” He asked without allowing the softness to reach his voice.

“There wasn’t-“

“Damn you, Steven, don’t lie to me.” Peter’s voice cracked like a whiplash. “You knew about Prince Hassled Abdel HayeV

“All right. I arranged that. Caliph told me what to do and I did it.”

“Then you kidnapped Melissa-Jane and had her mutilated-“

“Oh God! No!”

Steven’s voice was a sob.

To force me to assassinate Kingston Parker-“

“No, Peter. No!”

“And then to kill Magda Altmann-“

“Peter, I swear to you. Not

Melissa-Jane. I love her like one of my own daughters. You must know that. I had no idea it was Caliph.” Steven was pleading wildly now.

You have to believe me. I would never have allowed that to happen. That is too horrible.” Peter watched him with a steely merciless glint of blue in his eyes, cold and cutting as the edge of the executioner’s blade.

“I will do anything to prove to you I had nothing to do with

Melissa-Jane. Anything you say, Peter. I’ll take any chance to prove it to you. I swear it to you.” Steven Stride’s dismay and sincerity were beyond question. His face was drained of all colour and his lips were marble white and trembling with the strength of his denial.

Peter handed the shotgun to his brother without a word.

Startled, Steven held it for a moment at arm’s length.

“You are in bad trouble, Steven,” Peter said quietly. He knew that from now on he needed Steven’s unreserved and whole-hearted commitment. He could not be forced to do what he must do at the point of a shotgun.

Steven recognized the gesture, and slowly lowered the gun. With his thumb he pushed across the breech-locking mechanism, and the weapon hinged open. He pulled the cartridges from the double eyes of the breeches and dropped them into the pocket of his shooting jacket.

“Let’s get down to the house, Steven said, his voice still unsteady with the trauma of the last minutes. “I need a stiff whisky-“

“There was a log fire burning in the deep walk-in fireplace of Steven’s study. The portals were magnificently carved altar surrounds from a sixteenth century German church, salvaged from the ruins of World War

II

Allied bombing and purchased by Steven from a Spanish dealer, after -having been smuggled out through Switzerland.

Opposite the fireplace, bow windows with leaded panes and ancient wavy glass looked out over the rose garden.

The other two walls housed Steven’s collection of rare books, each boxed in its individual leather-bound container and lettered in gold leaf. The shelves reached from floor to the high moulded ceiling. It was a passion that the brothers shared.

Steven stood now in the fireplace with his back to the flames, one hand clasped in the small of his back, hoisting up the skirts of his tweed jacket to warm his backside. In the other hand he held a deep crystal tumbler, still half filled with whisky, hardly diluted by the soda he had dashed into it from the syphon.

Steven still looked shaken and pale, and every few minutes he shivered uncontrollably, although the room was oppressively heated by the blazing fire and all the windows were closed tightly.

Peter sprawled in the brocade-upholstered Louis Quatorze chair across the room, his legs thrust out straight and crossed at the ankles, hands thrust deeply into his pockets, and his chin lowered on his chest in deep thought.

“How much was your contribution to Caliph’s war chest?” Peter asked abruptly.

“I was not in the same class as Aaron Altmann,” Steven answered quietly. “I pledged five millions in sterling over five years.”

“So we must imagine a network extending across all international boundaries.

Powerful men in every country, each contributing enormous sums of money and almost unlimited information and influence-” Steven nodded and took another swallow of his dark, toned whisky.

There is no reason to believe that it was only one man in each country. There may be a dozen in England, another dozen in Western

Germany, fifty in the United States-“

“It’s possible,” Steven agreed.

“So that Caliph could very easily have arranged the kidnapping of

Melissa-Jane through another of his chain in this country.”

“You must believe I had nothing to do with it, Peter.” Peter dismissed this new protestation impatiently, and went on thinking out aloud.

“It is still possible that Caliph is a committee of the founder members not one man at all.”

“I don’t think so—” Steven hesitated.

I had a very strong impression that it all was one man. I do not think a committee would be capable of such swift and determined action.” He shook his head, trying to cast his mind back for the exact words which had formed his impressions. You must remember that I have only discussed Caliph with one other person, the man who recruited me.

However, you can be certain that we discussed it in depth and over an extended period. I was not about to put out five million on something that didn’t satisfy me entirely. No, it was one man who would make the decision for all of us but the decisions would be in the interest of all.”

“Yet there was no guarantee that any individual member of the chain would be informed of every decision?”

“No. Of course not. That would have been madness.

Security was the key to success.”

“You could trust somebody you had never met, whose identity was hidden from you you could trust him with vast sums of money, and the destiny of the world as we know it?”

Steven hesitated again as if seeking the right words.

“Caliph has an aura that seems to envelop all of us. The man who recruited me-” Steven seemed reluctant to repeat the name again, proof to Peter of the influence that Caliph exerted is a man whose judgement

I respect tremendously. He was convinced, and this helped to convince me.”

“What do you think now?” Peter asked abruptly. “Are you still convinced?” Steven drained the whisky glass, and then smoothed his mustache with a little nervous gesture.

“Come on, Steven,” Peter encouraged him.

“I still think Caliph had the right idea ” he said reluctantly.

The rules have changed, Peter. We were fighting for survival of the world as we know it. We were merely playing to the new morality-” He crossed to the silver tray on the corner of his desk and refilled the whisky glass.

Up to now we have had one hand tied behind our backs, while the

Reds and the extreme left and the members of the Third World have had both hands to fight with and a dagger in each one. All Caliph did was to take off our shackles.”

“What has made you change your mind then?”

Peter asked.

“I’m not sure that I have changed my mind.” Steven turned back to face him. “I still think it was the right idea-“

“But?” Peter insisted.

Steven shrugged. “The murder of Aaron Altmann, the mutilation of

Melissa-Jane-” He hesitated. Other acts of which I suspect Caliph was the originator. They were not for the common good. They were merely to protect Caliph’s personal safety, or to satisfy what I am beginning to believe is vaunted and unbridled lust for power.” Steven shook his head again. “I believed Caliph to be noble and dedicated but there is no nobility in some of the things he has done.

He has acted like a common criminal. He has acted for personal advantage and glorification. I believe in the concept of Caliph but I know now we have chosen the wrong man. He has been corrupted by the power that we placed in to his hands.” Peter listened to him carefully, his head cocked to one side, his blue eyes clear and quietly searching.

“All right, Steven. So we discover that Caliph is not a deity but a man with a man’s petty greed and self-interest.”

“Yes, I suppose

I do.” Steven’s handsome florid face was heavy with regret. “Caliph is not what I believed he might be “Do you accept now that he is evil truly evil?”

“Yes, I accept that. “Then, fiercely, “But God, how I wish

Caliph had been what I believed he was at the beginning.” Peter could understand that and he nodded.

“It was what this crazy world of ours needed-” Steven went on bitterly. We need somebody, a strong man to tell us what to do. I

thought it was Caliph. I wanted it so badly to be him.”

“So now, do you accept that Caliph was not that man?”

“Yes,” said Steven simply.

“But if there was a man like that I would follow him again,

unquestioningly.”

“You said you would do anything to prove to me that you had nothing to do with Melissa-Jane will you help me to destroy

Caliph?”

“Yes.” Steven did not hesitate.

“There will be great personal risk,” Peter pointed out, and now

Steven met his eyes steadily.

“I know that. I know Caliph better than you.” Peter found that his affection for his brother was now reinforced with admiration.

Steven lacked very few of the manly virtues, he thought. He had strength and courage and brains, perhaps his major vice was that he had too much of each.

“What do you want me to do, Peter?”

“I want you to arrange a meeting with Caliph face to face.”

“Impossible.” Steven dismissed it immediately.

“You said that you had means of getting a message to him?”

“Yes,

but Caliph would never agree to a meeting.”

“Steven, what is the single the only weakness that Caliph has shown so far?”

“He has shown no weakness.”

“Yes, he has,” Peter denied.

“What is it?”

“He is obsessed with protecting his personal identity and safety,” Peter pointed out. “As soon as that is threatened, he immediately reverts to abduction and torture and murder.”

“That isn’t a weakness-” Steven pointed out. “It’s a strength.”

“If you can get a message to him that his identity is in jeopardy. That somebody, an enemy, has penetrated his security screen and has managed to get close to him,” Peter suggested, and Steven considered it long and carefully.

“He would react very strongly,” Steven agreed. “But it would not take him very long to find out that I was lying.

That would immediately discredit me, and as you said earlier I

would be at grave risk for no good reason.”

“It isn’t a lie,” Peter told him grimly. “There is a Mossad agent close to Caliph. Very close to him.”

“How do you know that?” Steven asked sharply.

“I cannot tell you,” Peter said. “But the information is iron-clad. I even know the agent’s code-name. I give you my word that the information is genuine.”

“In that case-” Steven thought it out again Caliph would probably already be suspicious and would be prepared to accept my warning. However, all he would do would be to ask me to give him the name pass it to him along his usual communications channel. That would be it.”

“You would refuse to pass the information except face to face. You will protest that the information is much too sensitive. You would protest that your personal safety was at stake. What would be his reaction?”

“I would expect him to put pressure on me to divulge the name. If you resisted?”

“I suppose he would have to agree to a meeting. As you have pointed out, it is his major obsession. But, if he met me face to face, his identity would be revealed anyway.”

“Think, Steven. You know how his mind works.” It took a few seconds, then Steven’s expression changed, consternation twisting his lips as though he was in pain.

“Good God of course. If I forced him to a face-to-face meeting,

I would be highly unlikely to survive it.”

“Exactly,” Peter nodded.

“If we baited it with something absolutely irresistible, Caliph would have to agree to meet you but he would make arrangements to have you silenced immediately, before you had a chance to pass on his identity to anyone else.”

“Hell, Peter, this is creepy. As you told me earlier today, I am fat and out of condition. I wouldn’t be much of a match against Caliph.”

“Caliph would take that into consideration when deciding whether to meet you or not,” Peter agreed.

“It sounds like suicide,” Steven persisted.

“You just signed on to be tough,” Peter reminded him.

“Tough is one thing, stupid is another.”

“You would be in no danger until you delivered the message. Caliph would not dare dispose of you until you delivered your message,” Peter pointed out. “And I

give you my word that I will never call on you to go to an assignation with Caliph.”

“I can’t ask for more than that, I suppose.” Steven threw up his hands. “When do you want me to contact him?”

“How do you do it the contact?”

“Advert in the Personal column,” Steven told him, and

Peter grinned with reluctant admiration. Neat, efficient and entirely untraceable.

“Do it as soon as you can,” Peter instructed.

“Monday morning, “Steven nodded, and went on studying his brother with a peculiarly intent expression.

“What is it, Steven?”

“I was just thinking. If only Caliph had been somebody like you, Peter.”

“huh?” For the first time Peter was truly startled.

“The warrior king utterly ruthless in the pursuit of the vision of justice and rightness and duty.”

“I am not like that.” Peter denied it.

“Yes, you are,” Steven said positively. “You are the type of man that I hoped Caliph might be. The type of man we needed.” Peter had to presume that Caliph was watching him.

After his murder of Baroness Altmann, Caliph’s interest would be intense. Peter had to act predictably.

He caught the early Monday flight back to Brussels, and before midday was at his desk in Narmco headquarters.

Here also he was the centre of much interest and power play

Altmann Industries had lost its chief executive and there were strong undercurrents and court intrigues already 4 afoot. Despite a number of subtle approaches Peter stayed aloof from the struggle.

On Tuesday evening Peter picked up the newspaper from the news-stand in the Hilton lobby. Steven’s contact request was in the small-ads section.

children of Israel asked counsel of the Lord, saying, shall I go up again to battle? judges. 20:23.

The quotation that Caliph had chosen seemed to epitomize his view of himself. He saw himself as godlike, set high above his fellow men.

Steven had explained to Peter that Caliph took up to forty-eight hours to answer.

Steven would wait each day after the appearance of the personal announcement at his desk in his office suite in Leadenhall Street, from noon until twenty minutes past the hour. He would have no visitors nor appointments for that time,

and he would make certain that his direct unlisted telephone line was un-engaged to receive the incoming contact.

There was no contact that Wednesday, but Steven had not expected one. On the Thursday Steven paced restlessly up and down the antique silk Kirman carpet as he waited for the call. He was already wearing the jacket of his suit, and his bowler and rolled umbrella were on the corner of the ornate French ormolu desk that squatted like some benign monster beneath the windows which looked across the street at Lloyds

Exchange.

Steven Stride was afraid. He acknowledged the fact with direct self-honesty. Intrigue was part of his existence, had been for nearly all of his life but always the game had been played to certain rules.

He knew he was entering a new jungle, a savage wilderness where those few rules ceased entirely to exist. He was going in over his head;

Peter had pointed out to him that this was not his way, and he knew

Peter was right. Peter was right, and Steven was afraid as he had never been in his life. Yet he knew that he was going ahead with it.

He had heard that it was the mark of true courage to be able to meet and acknowledge fear, and yet control it sufficiently to be able to go ahead and do what duty dictated must be done.

He did not feel like a brave man.

The telephone rang once, too loud, too shrill and every nerve in his body jumped taut and he found himself frozen, paralysed with fear in the centre of the beautiful and precious carpet.

The telephone rang again, the insistent double note sounded in his ears like the peal of doom, and he felt his bowels filled with the hot oily slime of fear, hardly to be contained.

The telephone rang the third time, and with an enormous effort he forced himself to make the three paces to his desk.

He lifted the telephone receiver, and heard the sharp chimes of the interference from the public telephone system.

Stride: he said. His voice was strained, high and almost shrill,

and he heard the drop of the coin.

The voice terrified him. It was an electronic drone, inhuman,

without gender, without the timbre of living emotion, without neither high nor low notes.

“Aldgate and Leadenhall Street,“said the voice.

Steven repeated the rendezvous and immediately the connection was broken.

Steven dropped the receiver onto its cradle and snatched up his bowler and umbrella as he hurried to the door.

His secretary looked up at him and smiled expectantly.

She was a handsome grey-haired woman who had been with Steven ten years.

“Sir?” She still called him that.

I’m popping out for half an hour, May,” Steven told her.

“Look after the shop, there is a dear.” And he stepped into his private elevator and rode down swiftly to the underground garage where his Rolls was kept, together with the private vehicles of his senior executives.

In the elevator mirror he checked the exact angle of his bowler, a slightly raffish tilt over the right eye, and rearranged the bloom of the crimson carnation in the buttonhole of the dark blue Savile Row suit with its faint and elegant chalk stripe. It was important that he looked and acted entirely naturally during the next few minutes.

His staff would remark on any departure from the normal.

In the garage he did not approach the dark-maroon Rolls-Royce which glowed in the subdued lighting like some precious gem. Instead he went towards the wicket gate in the steel roll-up garage door, and the doorman in his little glassed cubicle beside the door looked up from his football pools coupons, recognized the master and leaped to his feet.

“Afternoon, guy.” Good day, Harold. I won’t be taking the car.

just stepping out for a few minutes.” He stepped over the threshold of the gate, into the street and turned left, down towards the junction of

Leadenhall Street and Aldgate. He walked fast, without seeming to hurry. Caliph spaced his intervals very tight, to make it difficult for the subject to pass a message to a surveillance unit. Steven knew he had only minutes to get from his office to the call box on the corner. Caliph seemed to know exactly how long it would take him.

The telephone in the red-framed and glass call box started to ring when he was still twenty paces away. Steven ran the distance.

“Stride,” he said, his voice slightly puffed with exertion, and immediately the coin dropped and the same electronic droning voice gave him the next contact point. It was the public call box at the High

Street entrance to Aid ate tube station. Steven confirmed and the voice troubled him deeply, it sounded like that of a robot from some science fiction movie. It would not have been so bad if he had felt human contact.

The two receiving stations, neither of which was predictable, and the distances between them, had been carefully calculated to make it only just possible to reach them in time, to make it impossible for the call to be traced while the line was still open. Caliph or his agent was clearly moving from one call box to the next in another part of the city. Tracing them even a minute after he had left would be of no possible use in trying to establish identity.

The voice distorter that Caliph was using was a simple device no bigger than a small pocket calculator. Peter had told Steven that it could be purchased from a number of firms specializing in electronic surveillance, security and counter-measure equipment. It cost less than fifty dollars, and so altered the human voice phasing out all sound outside the middle range that even the most sophisticated recording device would not be able to lift a useable voice.

print to compare with a computer bank memory. It would not even be able to determine whether the speaker was a man, a woman or a child.

Steven had an unusually clear path to the station, and found himself waiting outside the call box in the crowded entrance to the station while a young man in paint-speckled overalls, with long greasy blond hair, finished his conversation. Caliph’s system allowed for prior use of the chosen public telephone, and as soon as the scruffy youth finished his leisurely chat, Steven pushed into the booth and made a show of consulting the directory.

The phone rang, and even though he was expecting it, Steven jumped with shock. He was perspiring now, with the walk and the tension, and his voice was ragged as he snatched the receiver.

“Stride,” he gulped.

The coin dropped and Caliph’s impersonal tones chilled him again.

“Yesr :1 have a message.” Yes?”

“There is danger for Caliph.”

“Yesr “A government intelligence agency has put an agent close to him,

close enough to be extremely dangerous.”

“Say the source of your information.”

“My brother. General Peter Stride.” Peter had instructed him to tell the truth, as much as was possible.

“Say the government agency involved.”

“Negative. The information is too sensitive. I must have assurance that Caliph receives it personally.”

“Say the name or position of the enemy agent.”

“Negative.

For the same reasons.” Steven glanced at his gold Cartier tank watch with its black alligator strap. They had been speaking for fifteen seconds he knew the contact would not last longer than thirty seconds. Caliph would not risk exposure beyond that time. He did not wait for the next question or instruction.

“I will pass the information only to Caliph, and I must be certain it is him, not one of his agents. I request a personal meeting.”

“That is not possible, “droned the inhuman voice.

“Then Caliph will be in great personal danger.” Steven found courage to say it.

“I repeat, say the name and position of enemy agent.” Twenty-five seconds had passed.

“I say again, negative. You must arrange a face-to-face meeting for transfer of this information.” A single droplet of sweat broke from the hairline of Steven’s temple and ran down his cheek. He felt as though he were suffocating in the claustrophobic little telephone box.

“You will be contacted,” droned the voice and the line clicked dead.

Steven took the white silk handkerchief from his top pocket and dabbed at his face. Then he carefully rearranged the scrap of silk in his pocket, not folded into neat spikes but with a deliberately casual drape.

He squared his shoulders, lifted his chin and left the booth. Now for the first time he felt like a brave man. It was a feeling he relished, and he stepped out boldly swinging the rolled umbrella with a small flourish at each pace.

Peter had been within call of the telephone all that week, during the hours of involvement with the series of Narmco projects which he had put in train before his departure for Tahiti, and which all seemed to be maturing simultaneously. There were meetings that began in the morning and lasted until after dark, there were two separate day journeys, one to Oslo and another to Frankfurt, catching the early businessman’s plane and back in the Narmco office before evening.

Always he was within reach of a telephone and Steven Stride knew the number; even when he was in the NATO Officers Club gymnasium,

sharpening his body to peak physical condition, or practising until after midnight in the underground pistol range until the 9-mm. Cobra was an extension of his hands either hand, left or right, equally capable of grouping the X circle at fifty metres, from any position, standing,

kneeling or prone, always he was within reach of the telephone.

Peter felt like a prize fighter in training camp, concentrating all his attention on the preparations for the confrontation he knew lay ahead.

At last the weekend loomed, with the prospect of being boring and frustrating. He refused invitations to visit the country home of one of his Narmco colleagues, another to fly down to Paris for the Saturday racing and he stayed alone in the Hilton suite, waiting for the call from Steven.

On Sunday morning he had all the papers sent up to his room,

English and American and French German which he could read better than he spoke, and even the Dutch and Italian papers which he could stumble through haltingly, missing every third word or so.

He went through them carefully, trying to find a hint of Caliph’s activity. New abductions, hijackings or other acts which might give him a lead to some new Caliph-dominated pressures.

Italy was in a political uproar. The confusion so great that he could only guess at how much of it was from the left and how much from the right. There had been an assassination in Naples of five known members of the Terrorist Red Brigade, all five taken out neatly with a single grenade.

The grenade type had been determined as standard NATO issue, and the execution had been in the kitchen of a Red Brigade safe apartment in a slum area of the city. The police had no leads. It sounded like

Caliph. There was no reason to believe that his “chain” did not include prominent Italian businessmen. A millionaire Italian living in his own country had to be the earth’s most endangered species after the blue whale, Peter thought wryly, and they might have called on Caliph to go on the offensive.

Peter finished the continental papers, and turned with relief to the English and American. It was a little before Sunday noon, and he wondered how he could live out the desolate hours until Monday morning.

He was certain that there would be no reply to Steven’s request for a meeting before then.

He started on the English-language newspapers, spinning them out to cover the blank time ahead.

The British Leyland Motor Company strike was in its fifteenth week with no prospect of settlement. Now there was a case for Caliph,

Peter smiled wryly, remembering his discussion with Steven. Knock a few heads together for their own good.

There was only one other item of interest in his morning’s reading.

The President of the United States had appointed a special negotiator in another attempt to find a solution to the Israeli occupation of the disputed territories in the Middle East. The man he had chosen was Dr.

Kingston Parker, who was described as a personal friend of the

President and one of the senior members of his inner circle of advisors, a man well thought of by all parties in the dispute, and an ideal choice for the difficult job. Again Peter found himself in agreement. Kingston Parker’s energies and resources seemed bottomless.

Peter dropped the last paper and found himself facing a void of boredom that would extend through until the following day. There were three books he should read beside his bed, and the Hermes crocodile case was half-filled with Narmco material, yet he knew that he would not be able to concentrate not with the prospect of the confrontation with (“Caliph overshadowing all else.

He went through into the mirrored bathroom of the suite, and found the package that he had purchased the previous day in the cosmetic section of Galeries Anspach, one of the city’s largest departmental stores.

The wig was of good-quality human hair, not the obviously shiny nylon substitute. It was in his own natural colour, but much longer than Peter wore his hair. He arranged it carefully along his own hairline, and then set to work with a pair of scissors, trimming and tidying it. When he had it as close to his liking as possible, he began to tint the temples with “Italian Boy” hair silvering.

It took him most of the afternoon, for he was in no hurry, and he was critical of his own work. Every few minutes he consulted the snapshot which Melissa-Jane had taken with her new Polaroid camera,

Peter’s Christmas t present to her, at Abbots Yew on New Year’s Day.

It was a good likeness of both the Stride brothers, Peter and Steven,

standing full face and smiling indulgently at Melissa-Jane’s command to do so.

It highlighted the resemblances of the two brothers, and also pointed out their physical differences. The natural hair colouring was identical but Steven’s was fashionably longer, curling on his collar at the back, and appreciably greyer at the temples and streaked at the front.

Steven’s face was heavier, with the first trace of jowls, and his colour was higher, perhaps the first ruddy warnings of heart malfunction or merely the banner of good living in his cheeks. Yet with the wig on his head, Peter’s own face seemed much fuller.

Next Peter shaped the mustache, trimming it down into the infantry officer model that Steven favoured. There had been a good selection of artificial moustaches to choose from in the cosmetic section, amongst a display of artificial eyelashes and eyebrows, but none had been exactly right.

Peter had to work on it carefully with the scissors, and then tint it with a little silver.

When he fastened it in place with the special adhesive gum, the result was quite startling. The mustache filled out his face even further, and of course the eyes of the twins were almost exactly the same shape and colour. Their noses were both straight and bony.

Peter’s mouth was a little more generous, and did not have the same hard relentless line of lip but the mustache concealed much of that.

Peter stood back and examined himself in the full-length mirror.

He and Steven were within a quarter of an inch in height, they had the same breadth of shoulder. Steven was heavier in the gut, and his neck was thickening, giving him a thrusting bull-like set to his head and shoulders. Peter altered his stance slightly. It worked. He doubted that anybody who did not know both of them intimately would be able to detect the substitution. There was no reason to believe that Caliph or any of his closest lieutenants would have seen either Steven or Peter in the flesh.

He spent an hour practising Steven’s gait, watching himself in the mirror, trying to capture the buoyant cockiness of Steven’s movements,

searching for little personal mannerisms, the way Steven stood with both hands clasped under the skirts of his jacket; the way he brushed his mustache with one finger, from the parting under his nose left and right.

Clothing was not aserious problem. Both brothers had used the same tailor since Sandhurst days, and Steven’s dress habits were invariable and inviolable. Peter’s knew exactly what he would wear in any given situation.

Peter stripped off wig and mustache and repacked them carefully in their Galeries Anspach plastic packets, then buttoned them into one of the interior divisions of the Hermes case.

Next he removed the Cobra parabellum from another division. It was still in the chamois leather holster, and he bounced the familiar weight of the weapon in the palm of his hand. Reluctantly he decided he could not take it with him. The meeting would almost certainly be in England, The contact that Steven had had on Thursday had clearly originated in London. He had to believe the next contact would be in that same city. He could not take the chance of walking through

British customs with a deadly weapon on his person. If he was stopped,

there would be publicity.

It would instantly alert Caliph. He would be able to get another weapon from Thor Command once he was in England. Colin Noble would supply him, just as soon as Peter explained the need, he was certain of that.

Peter went down and checked the Cobra pistol into the safe deposit box of the hotel reception office, and returned to his room to face the wearying and indefinite wait. It was one of a soldier’s duties to which he had never entirely accustomed himself he always hated the waiting.

However, he settled down to read Robert Asprey’s War in the

Shadows, that definitive tome on the history and practice of guerrilla warfare down the ages. He managed to lose himself sufficiently to be mildly surprised when he glanced at his watch and saw it was after eight o’clock. He ordered an omelette to be sent up by room service,

and ten seconds after he replaced the receiver, the telephone rang.

He thought it might be a query from the kitchen about his dinner order.

“Yes, what is it?” he demanded irritably.

“Peter?”

“Steven?”

“He has agreed to a meeting.” Peter felt his heart lunge wildly.

“When? Where?”

“I don’t know. I have to fly to Orly tomorrow.

There will be instructions for me at the airport.” Caliph covering and backtracking. Peter should have expected it. Desperately he cast his mind back to the layout of Orly Airport. He had to find a private place to meet Steven and make the change-over. He discarded swiftly the idea of meeting in one of the lounges or washrooms. That left one other location.

“What time will you be there?” Peter demanded.

“Cooks have got me onto the early flight. I’ll be there at eleven fifteen.”

“I’ll be there before you” Peter told him. He knew the

Sabena timetable by heart and all senior Narmcc, executives had special

VIP cards which assured a seat on any flight.

“I wil I book a room at the Air Hotel on the fourth floor of Orly

South terminal in your name,” he told Steven now.

“I’ll wait in the lobby. Go directly to the reception desk and ask for your key. I will check behind you to make certain you are not followed. Do not acknowledge me in any way.

Have you got that, Steven?”

“Yes.”

“Until tomorrow, then.” Peter broke the connection, and went through into the bathroom. He studied his. own face in the mirror.

“Well, that takes care of getting a weapon from Thor.” Caliph had not set the meeting in England. It was clear now that Paris was only a staging point, and that in his usual careful fashion Caliph would move the subject on from there perhaps through one or more staging points,

to the final rendezvous.

The subject would go in unarmed, and unsupported and Peter was certain that afterwards Caliph would take his usual pains to ensure that the subject would be unable to carry back a report of the meeting.

I am drawing two cards inside for a straight flush, and Caliph is the dealer from a pack that he has had plenty of time to prepare, Peter thought coldly, but at least the waiting was over. He began to pack his toilet articles into the waterproof Gucci bag.

Sir Steven Stride marched into the lobby of Orly South Air Hotel at five minutes past noon, and Peter smiled to himself in self-congratulation. Steven was wearing a blue doublebreasted blazer,

white shirt and cricket-club tie, above grey woollen slacks and black

English handmade shoes none of your fancy Italian footwear for

Steven.

It was Steven’s standard informal dress, and Peter had only been wrong about the tie he had guessed that it would be an I Zingari pattern. Peter himself wore a doublebreaster and grey slacks under his trench coat and his shoes were black Barkers.

Steven’s eyes flickered around the lobby, passing over Peter sitting in a far corner with a copy of Le Monde, then Steven moved authoritively to the reception desk.

“My name is Stride, do you have a reservation for me?” Steven spoke slowly, in rich plummy tones, for very few of these damned people spoke English. The clerk checked swiftly, nodded, murmured a welcome and gave Steven the form and the key.

“Four One Six.” Steven checked the number loudly enough for Peter to hear. Peter had been watching the entrance carefully; fortunately there had been very few guests entering the lobby during the few minutes since Steven’s arrival, and none of those could possibly have been Caliph surveillance. Of course, if this was a staging point, as

Peter was certain it was, then Caliph would have no reason to put surveillance on Steven not until he got much closer to the ultimate destination.

Steven moved to the elevator with a porter carrying his single small valise, and Peter drifted across and joined the small cluster of guests waiting at the elevators.

He rode up shoulder to shoulder with Steven in the crowded elevator, neither of them acknowledging the other’s existence, and when

Steven and the porter left at the fourth stage Peter rode on up three floors, walked the length of the corridor and back, then took the descending elevator to Steven’s floor.

Steven had left the door to 416 off the catch, and’ Peter pushed it open and slipped in without knocking.

“My dear boy.” Steven was in his shirt sleeves. He had switched on the television, but now he turned down the sound volume and hurried to greet him with both affection and vast relief.

“No problems?” Peter asked.

“Like clockwork,” Steven told him. “Would you like a drink? I

got a bottle in the duty-free.” While he hunted for glasses in the bathroom, Peter checked the room swiftly. A view down towards the square functional buildings of the market that had replaced the picturesque Les Halles in central Paris, matching curtains and covers on the twin beds, television and radio sets, between the beds, modern soulless furniture it was a room, that was the most and the least that could be said for it.

Steven carried in the glasses and handed one to Peter.

“Cheers!” Peter tasted his whisky. It was too strong and the

Parisian tap water tasted of chlorine. He put it aside.

“How is Caliph going to get instructions to you?”

“Got them already.” Steven went to his blazer, hanging over the back of the chair, and found a long white envelope in the inside pocket. - “This was left at the Air France Information Desk.” Peter took the envelope and as he split the flap he sank onto one of the armchairs. There were three items in the envelope.

A firstclass Air France airline ticket, a voucher for a chauffeur-driven limousine and a hotel reservation voucher.

The air ticket could have been purchased for cash at any Air

France outlet or agency, the limousine and hotel bookings could have been made equally anonymously.

There was no possibility of a trace back from any of these documents.

Peter opened the Air France ticket and read the destination.

Something began to crawl against his skin, like the loathsome touch of body vermin. He closed the ticket and checked the two vouchers; now the sick feeling of betrayal and evil spread through his entire body,

numbing his fingertips and coating the back of his tongue with a bitter metallic taste like copper salts.

The air ticket was for this evening’s flight from Orly to

BenGurion Airport in Israel, the hired-car voucher was good for a single journey from there to Jerusalem, the hotel voucher was for a room in the King David Hotel in that ancient and holy city.

“What is it, Peter?”

“Nothing,” said Peter, only then aware that the sickness must have shown on his face. “Jerusalem,” he went on.

“Caliph wants you in Jerusalem.” There was one person in Jerusalem at that moment.

Somebody who had been in his thoughts almost unceasingly since last he had embraced her in the darkness of Bora-Bora Island so very long ago.

Caliph was in Jerusalem, and Magda Altmann was in Jerusalem and the sickness was heavy in the pit of his stomach.

The deviousness of Caliph.

No, he told himself firmly. I have travelled that road already.

It cannot be Magda.

The genius of Caliph, evil and effortless.

It is possible. He had to admit it then. With Caliph, anything is possible. Every time Caliph shook the dice box the numbers changed,

different numbers, making different totals but always completely plausible, always completely believable.

It was one of the basic proven theorems of his trade that a man,

any man, was blinded and deafened and rendered senseless by love.

Peter was in love, and he knew it.

All right. So now I have to try and free my mind and think it all over again, as though I were not besotted.

“Peter, are you all right?” Steven demanded again, now with real concern. It was impossible to think with Steven hovering over him. He would have to put it aside.

“I am going to Jerusalem in your place,” Peter said.

“Come again, old boy?” We are changing places you and U “You won’t get away with it.” Steven shook his head decidedly. “Caliph will take you on the full toss.” Peter picked up his Hermes case and went through into the bathroom. He worked quickly with the wig and artificial mustache and then called.

“Steven, come here.” They stood side by side and stared at themselves in the mirror.

“Good God!” Steven grunted. Peter altered his stance slightly,

conforming more closely to his brother.

“That’s incredible. Never knew you were such a good-looking brighter,” Steven chuckled, and wagged his head wonderingly. Peter imitated the gesture perfectly.

“Damn it, Peter.” The chuckle dried on Steven’s lips.

“That’s enough. You’re giving me the creeps.” Peter pulled the wig off his head. “It will work.”

“Yes,” Steven conceded. “It will work but how the hell did you know I would be wearing a blazer and greys?”

“Trick of the trade, Peter told him. “Don’t worry about it.

Let’s go through the paperwork now.” In the bedroom they laid out their personal documents in two piles, and went swiftly through them.

The passport photographs would pass readily enough.

“You have to shave your soup-strainer,” Peter told him, and Steven stroked his mustache with one finger, left and right lingeringly,

regretfully.

“Is that absolutely necessary? Id feel like I was walking around in public with no trousers on.” Peter took the slim gold ball-point from his inside pocket and a sheaf of hotel stationery from the drawer.

He studied Steven’s signature in the passport for a minute, and then dashed it off on the top sheet.

“No.” He shook his head, and tried again. It was like Steven’s walk, cocky and confident, the “T” was crossed with a flourishing sword stroke of the pen.

In sixty seconds he had it perfected.

“With that wig on your head you could walk into my bank any day and sign for the whole damned bundle,” Steven muttered uneasily. “Then go home and climb into bed with Pat.”

“Now, there is an idea.” Peter looked thoughtful.

“Don’t joke about it,” Steven pleaded.

“Who’s joking?” Peter went through the credit cards, club membership cards, driver’s licence and all the other clutter of civilized existence.

Steven’s mastery of his brother’s signature was not nearly as effective, but after twenty minutes” practice was just adequate for hotel registration purposes.

“Here is the address of a hotel on the left bank. Magnificent restaurant, and the management are very understanding if you should want to invite a young lady up to your room for a drink.”

“Perish the thought.” Steven looked smug at the prospect.

“It should only be for a few days, Steven. Just keep very low.

Pay cash for everything. Keep clear of the George V or the Meurice, Le

Doyen and Maxim’s all the places where they know you.” They went carefully over the last details of the exchange of identity, while

Steven shaved off the mustache and anointed the bare patch tenderly with Eau de Sauvage.

“You’d better move now,” Peter told him at last. “Wear this—” It was Peters buff trenchcoat that would cover his blazer. And let’s change ties.” Steven was ready, and he stood rather awkwardly by the door, in the tightly fitting trenchcoat.

“Steven, can I ask you a question?” Peter did not know why he had to know now, it had been buried so deeply for so long and yet at this moment it was deadly important to know.

“Of course, old boy.” Steven seemed to welcome the postponement of the moment of parting.

“Sandhurst.” Peter tried to keep the embarrassment out of his voice. “I never asked you before but you didn’t do it, did you,

Steven?” Steven met his eyes calmly, steadily. “No, Peter. I did not do it. My word on it.” Peter took his brother’s proffered right hand and squeezed it hard. It was ridiculous to feel so relieved.

“I’m glad, Steven.”

“Take care of yourself, old boy.”

“I will,”

Peter nodded. “But if anything happens,” Peter” hesitated, ” Melissa-Jane—2

“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.” Why do Englishmen have such difficulty talking to each other, Peter wondered, let alone communicating affection and gratitude?

“Well, I’ll be getting along then,” said Steven.

“Take a guard on your middle stump, and don’t be caught in the slips,” Peter cautioned him with the old inanity.

“Count on it,” said Steven, and went out into the passage, closing the door behind him firmly, leaving his brother to think about

Jerusalem.

the name had changed from Lad to BenGurion otherwise the

Arrivals Hall was as Peter remembered it. One of the few airports on the globe which has sufficient luggage trolleys, so that the passengers do not have to fight for possession.

In the Arrivals Hall there was a young Israeli driver with the name:

Sir Steven Stride printed in white chalk on a schoolboy’s black slate.

The driver wore a navy-blue cap with a black patent leather peak.

It was his only item of uniform, otherwise he was dressed in sandals and a white cotton shirt. His English had the usual strong American turn to it, and his attitude was casual and friendly he might be driving the limousine today, but tomorrow he could be at the controls of a Centurion tank, and he was as good a man as his passenger any day.

“Shalom, Shalom,” he greeted Peter. “Is that all your luggage?”

“Yes.” TeseMer. Let’s go.” He did not offer to push Peter’s trolley,

but chatted amicably as he led him out to the limousine.

It was a stretched-out 240 D Mercedes Benz almost brand new,

lovingly polished but somebody had painted a pair of squinting eyes on each side of the chrome three pointed star on the boot of the vehicle.

They had hardly pulled out through the airport gates when one of the characteristic aromas of Israel filled the cab of the Mercedes the smell of orange blossom from the citrus orchards that lined each side of the road.

For some reason the smell made Peter feel uneasy, a sensation of having missed something, of having neglected some vital aspect. He tried to think it all out again, from the beginning, but the driver kept up a running commentary as they pulled up the new double highway,

over the hills through the pine forests towards Jerusalem, and the voice distracted him.

Peter wished he had kept the list that he had drawn up in the hotel room at Orly instead of destroying it. He tried to reconstruct it in his mind.

There were a dozen items on the plus side. The third was: Magda told me about Cactus Flower. Would she have done so if she was Caliph?

And then directly opposite, in the’minus’column: If Magda is

Caliph, then “Cactus Flower” does not exist.

It was an invention for some undisclosed reason.

This was the item that pricked him like a burr in a woollen sock.

He kept coming back to it; there was a link missing from the logic of it and he tried to tease it loose. It was there just below the surface of his mind, and he knew instinctively that if he missed it the consequences would be dire.

The driver kept chatting, turning to glance back at him every few minutes with a cheerful demand for recognition.

“That’s right, isn’t it?” Peter grunted. The man was irritating him the missing item was there, just beginning to surface. He could see the shape of it. Why had the smell of orange blossom worried him?

The smell of flowers? Cactus flower? There was something there,

something missing from the list.

If Magda is not Caliph then-Was that it? He was not certain. ” Will that be all right, then?” The driver was insisting again.

“I’m sorry what was that?”

“I said, I had to drop a parcel off at my mother-in-law,” the driver explained again. “It’s from my wife.”

“Can’t you do that on your way back?”

“I’m not going back tonight-” The driver grinned winningly over his shoulder.

right on our way. It won’t take five minutes. I promised my wife

I’d get it to her mother today.”

“Oh, very well then,” Peter snapped.

There was something about the man he did not like, and he had lost track of the item that had been worrying him.

He felt as though he was in a chess game with a vastly superior opponent, and he had overlooked a castle on an open file, or a knight in a position to fork simultaneous check on his king and queen.

“We turn off here,” the driver explained, and swung off into a section of new apartment blocks, all of them built of the custard-yellow Jerusalem stone, row upon row Of them, Israel’s desperate attempt to house its new citizens. At this time of evening the streets were deserted, as families gathered for the evening meal.

The driver jinked through the maze of identical-seeming streets with garrulous confidence and then braked and parked in front of one of the square, boxlike, yellow buildings.

“Two minutes,” he promised, and jumped out of the Mercedes,

scampered around to the rear and opened the boot. There was a scratching sound, a small bump and then the lid of the boot slammed and the driver came back into Peter’s line of vision carrying a brown paper parcel.

He grinned at Peter, with the ridiculous cap pushed onto the back of his head, mouthed another assurance through the closed window: “Two minutes ” and went into the main door of the apartment.

Peter hoped he might be longer. The silence was precious. He closed his eyes, and concentrated.

If Magda is not Caliph then then-There was the ticking sound of the engine cooling, or was it the dashboard clock? Peter thrust the sound to the back of his mind.

then then Cactus Flower exists. Yes, that was it!

My mother-in-law lives Cactus Flower exists, and if he exists he is close enough to

Caliph to know of Sir Steven Stride’s threat to expose him. Peter sat upright, rigid in his seat. He had believed. that Steven Stride would be perfectly safe until after the meeting with Caliph. “That was the terrible mistake. Cactus Flower must stop Steven Stride reaching Caliph! Yes, of course. Christ, how had he not seen it before. Cactus Flower was

Mossad, and Peter was sitting in a street of Jerusalem Mossad’s front yard dressed as Steven Stride.

Christ! He felt the certainty of mortal danger. Cactus Flower probably made the arrangements himself. If Magda Altmann is not

Caliph, then I am walking right into Cactus Flower’s sucker punch I The -racking damned clock kept ticking, a sound as nerve as a leaky faucet.

I am in Cactus Flower’s city in Cactus Flower’s limo The ticking.

Oh God! It was not coming from the dashboard. Peter turned his head.

It was coming from behind him; from the boot. the driver had opened and in which he had moved something. Something that was now ticking away quietly.

Peter wrenched the door handle and hit the door with his shoulder,

instinctively grabbing the Hermes case with his other hand.

They would have stripped out the metal partition between the boot and the back seat to allow the blast to cut through. There was probably only the leather upholstery between him and whatever was ticking. That was why he had heard it so clearly.

Time seemed to have slowed, so he was free to think it out as the seconds dropped as lingeringly as spilled honey.

Infernal machine, he thought. Why that ridiculously nineteenth-century term should occur to him now, he could not guess, a relic from the childhood days when he read Boy’s Own

Paper, perhaps.

He was out of the Mercedes now, almost losing his balance as his feet hit the unsurfaced and broken sidewalk.

It is probably plastic explosive with a clockwork timer on the detonator, he thought, as he started to run. What delay would they use? Thirty seconds? No, the driver had to get well away. He had said two minutes, said it twice The thoughts raced through his mind,

but his legs seemed to be shackled, dragging against an enormous weight. Like trying to run waist deep in the sucking surf of a sandy beach.

It will be two minutes, and he has been gone that long. Ten paces ahead of him there was a low wall that had been built as a flower box around the apartment block. It was knee high, a double brick wall with the cavity filled with dry yellow earth and precariously sustaining the life of a few wizened oleander bushes.

Peter dived head first over the wall, breaking his fall with shoulder and forearm, and rolling back hard under the protection of the low wall.

Above his head were the large windows of the ground floor apartments. Lying on his side, peering up at them, Peter saw the reflection of the parked Mercedes as though in a mirror.

He covered his ears with the palms of both hands. The Mercedes was only fifty feet away. He watched it in the glass, his body braced,

his mouth wide open to absorb blast shock in his sinuses.

The Mercedes erupted. It seemed to open quite sedately, like one of those time-elapse movies of a rose blooming.

The shining metal spread and distorted like grotesque black petals, and bright white flame shot through it that was all Peter saw, for the row of apartment windows disappeared, blown away in a million glittering shards by the blast wave, leaving the windows gaping like the toothless mouths of old decrepit men, and at the same moment the blast smashed into Peter.

Even though it was muted by the thick wall of the flower box, it crushed him, seemed to drive in his ribs, and the air whooshed from his lungs. The fearsome din of the explosion clamoured in his head,

filling his skull with little bright chips of rainbow light.

He thought he must have lost consciousness for a moment, then there was the patter of falling debris raining down around him and something struck him a painful blow in the small of his back. It spurred him.

He dragged himself to his feet, struggling to refill his empty lungs. He knew he had to get away before the security forces arrived,

or he could expect intensive interrogation which would certainly disclose the fact that he was not Sir Steven.

He started to run. The street was still deserted, although he could hear the beginning of the uproar which must follow. The cries of anguish and of fear.

He reached the corner and stopped running. He walked quickly to the next alley behind an apartment block. There were no street lights and he paused in the shadows. By now a dozen figures shouting questions and conjecture were hurrying towards the smoke and dust of the explosion.

Peter recovered his breath and dusted down his blazer and slacks,

waiting until the confusion and shouting were at their peak. Then he walked quietly away.

On the main road he joined a short queue at the bus stop. The bus dropped him off in the Jaffa Road.

He found a cafe opposite the bus stop and went through into the men’s room. He was unmarked, but pale and strained; his hands still shook from the shock of the blast as he combed his hair.

He went back into the cafe, found a corner seat and ordered falafel and pitta bread with coffee.

He sat there for half an hour, considering his next move, If Magda

Altmann is not Caliph-he repeated the conundrum which he had solved just in time to save his life.

Magda Altmann is not Caliph! He knew it then with utter certainty. Cactus Flower had tried to stop Sir Steven Stride reaching

Caliph with his denunciation. Therefore Magda had told him the truth.

His relief flooded his body with a great warm glow and his first instinct was to telephone her at the Mossad number she had given him.

Then he saw the danger. Cactus Flower was Mossad. He dared not go near her not yet.

What must he do then? And he knew the answer without having to search for it. He must do what he had come to do. He must find

Caliph, and the only fragile thread he had to follow was the trail that

Caliph had laid for him.

He left the cafe and found a taxi at the rank on the corner, “David Hotel, “Peter said, and sank back in the seat.

At least I know the danger of Cactus Flower now, he thought grimly. I won’t walk into the next one blind.

Peter took one glance around the room that had been reserved for him. It was in the back of the hotel and across the road the tall bell tower of the YMCA.

made a fine stance from which a sniper could command the two windows.

“I ordered a suite,” Peter snapped at the reception clerk who had led him up.

“I’m sorry, Sir Steven.” The man was immediately flustered.

“There must have been a mistake.” Another glance around the room and

Peter had noted half a dozen sites at which Cactus Flower might have laid another explosive charge to back up the one that had failed in the back of the Mercedes. He would prefer to spend a night in a pit full of cobras rather than accept the quarters that Cactus Flower had prepared for him.

Peter stepped back into the passage and fixed the clerk with his most imperious gaze. The man scampered and returned within five minutes looking mightily relieved.

“We have one of our best suites for you.” Number 122 commanded a magnificent view across the valley to the Jaffa Gate in the wall of the

Old City, and in the centre of this vista towered the Church of the

Last Supper.

The gardens of the hotel were lush with lawns and tall graceful palms, children shrieked gleefully around the swimming pool while a cool light breeze broke the heat.

The suite abutted onto the long open terrace, and the moment he was alone, Peter lowered the heavy roller shutters across the terrace door. Cactus Flower could too easily send a man in that way. Then

Peter stepped out onto the private balcony.

On the tall stone battlements of the French Consulate adjoining the gardens they were lowering the Tricolour against the flaming backdrop of the sunset. Peter watched it for a moment then concentrated again on the security of the suite.

There was possible access from the room next door, an easy step across from window to balcony. Peter hesitated then decided to leave the balcony unshuttered. He could not bring himself to accept the claustrophobic effect of a completely shuttered room.

Instead he drew the curtains and ordered a large whisky and soda from room service. He needed it. It had been a long hard day.

Then he stripped off tie and shirt, wig and mustache and washed away some of the tensions. He was to welling himself when there was a tap on the door.

“Damned quick service,” he muttered, and clapped the wig on his head and stepped into the lounge, just as a key rattled in the lock and the door swung open. Peter lifted the towel and pretended to be still drying his face to cover the lack of mustache on his lip.

“Come in,” he gruffed through the towel, and then froze in the doorway, and a vice seemed to close around his heart and restrict his breathing.

She wore a man’s open-neck shirt, with patch pockets on the breasts, and khaki combat breeches hugged her narrow hips. The long legs were thrust into soft-soled canvas boots. Yet she carried herself with the same unforced chic as if she had been dressed in the height of

Parisian fashion.

“Sir Steven.” She closed the door swiftly behind her, and Peter saw her palm the slim metal pick with which she had turned the lock.

“I’m Magda Altmann, we have met before.

I have come to warn you that you are in very grave danger.” The abundant short curls formed a dark halo around her head, and her eyes were huge and green with concern.

“You must immediately leave this country. I have my private executive jet aircraft at an airfield near here-” Peter lowered the towel enough to allow himself to speak.

“Why are you telling me this?” he interrupted her brusquely. “And why should I believe you?” He saw the quick roses of anger bloom in her cheeks.

“You are dabbling in things you do not understand.”

“Why should you want to warn me?” Peter insisted.

“Because-” she hesitated and then went on sharply, because you are

Peter Stride’s brother. For that reason and no other I would not want you killed.” Peter tossed the towel back into the bathroom and with the same movement pulled off the wig and dropped it onto the chair beside him.

“Peter!” Astonishment riveted her and she stared at him, the colour that anger had painted in her cheeks fled and her eyes turned a deep luminous green. He had forgotten once again how beautiful she was.

“Well, don’t just stand there,” he said, and she ran to him on those long, graceful legs and flung her arms around his neck.

They strained together silently, neither of them found words necessary for many minutes. Then she broke away.

“Peter, darling I cannot stay long. I took a terrible chance coming here at all. They are watching the hotel and the girls on the switchboard are Mossad. That is why I could not telephone-“

“Tell me everything you can,” he ordered.

“All right, but hold me, Cheri. I do not wish to waste a minute of this little time we have together.” She hid in the bathroom when the waiter brought the whisky, then joined Peter on the couch.

“Cactus Flower reported to control that Steven had requested a meeting with Caliph, and that he intended to denounce him. That was all I knew until yesterday but I could build on that. First of all I

was amazed that Steven was the subject of the first Cactus Flower report and not you, Peter-” She caressed the smooth hard brown muscle of his chest as she spoke..” It had never occured to me, even when we discussed the fact that the report mentioned no Christian name.”

“It didn’t occur to me either, not until I’d already left Les Neuf

Poissons.”

“Then, of course, I guessed that you had taxed Steven with it, and told him the source of your information. It would have been a crazy thing to do not your usual style, at all. But I thought that being your brother-” She trailed off.

“That is exactly what I did-” Peter, we could still talk if we were on the bed,” she murmured. “I have been without you for so long.”

Her bare skin felt like hot satin, and they lay entwined with the hard smooth plain of her belly pressed to his. Her mouth was against his ear.

Steven’s request for a meeting went directly to Caliph through a channel other than Cactus Flower. He had no chance to head it off-“

“Who is Cactus Flower, have you found that out?”

“No.” She shook her head. “I still do not know.” And she raked her long fingernails lightly down across his belly.

“If you do that I cannot think clearly,” he protested.

“I am sorry.” She brought her hand up to his cheek.

“Anyway, Caliph instructed Cactus Flower to arrange the meeting with Steven. I did not know what arrangements were being made until

I saw Sir Steven’s name on the immigration lists this evening. I was not particularly looking for his name, but as soon as I saw it I

guessed what was happening. I guessed that Cactus Flower had enticed him here to make his interception easier. It took me three hours to find where Sir Steven would be staying.” They were both silent now, and she lowered her face and pressed it into the soft of his neck, sighing with happiness.

oh God, Peter. How I missed you.”

“Listen, my darling. You must tell me everything else you have.” Peter lifted her chin tenderly so he could see her face and her eyes came back into focus.

“Did you know that there was to be an assassination attempt on

Steven?”

“No but it was the logical step for Mossad to protect Cactus

Flower.”

“What else?”

“Nothing.” You don’t know if actual arrangements have been made for a meeting between Caliph and Steven?” if “No, I

don’t know, “she admitted.

“You still have no indication at all of Caliph’s identity?”

“No,

none at all.” They were silent again, but now she propped herself on one elbow and watched his face as he spoke.

Cactus Flower would have to make the arrangements for the” meeting as Caliph instructed. He would not be able to take the chance of faking it not with Caliph.” Magda nodded in silent agreement.

“Therefore we have to believe that at this moment Caliph is close,

very close.”

“Yes. “She nodded again, but reluctantly.

“That means that I have to go on impersonating Steven.”

“Peter,

no. They will kill you.”

“They have already tried-” Peter told her grimly, and quietly outlined the destruction of the Mercedes. She touched the bruise in the small of his back where he had been struck by flying debris from the explosion.

“They won’t let you get close to Caliph.”

“They may have no choice,” Peter told her. “Caliph is so concerned for his own safety he is going to insist on the meeting.”

“They will try and kill you again, “she implored him.

“Perhaps, but I’m betting the meeting with Caliph is arranged to take place very soon. They won’t have much opportunity to set up another elaborate trap like the Mercedes, and I’ll be expecting it I’ve got to go ahead with it, Magda.”

“Oh, Peter-” But he touched her lips, silencing the protest, and he was thinking aloud again.

“Let’s suppose Mossad knew that I was not Steven Stride, that my real purpose was not to denounce Cactus Flower?

What difference would that make to the thinking at Mossad?” She considered that. “I’m not certain.”

“If they knew it was Peter Stride impersonating Steven Stride he insisted, “would that make them curious enough to let the meeting go ahead?”

“Peter, are you suggesting

I turn in a report to my control at Mossad ?”

“Would you do that?”

“Sweet merciful God,” she whispered. “I

could be signing your death warrant, Peter my darling.” or you could be saving my life.”

“I don’t know.” She sat up erect in the bed and ran the fingers of both hands through the short dark curls, the lamplight glowed on her skin with a pale, smooth opalescence and the small fine breasts changed shape as she moved her arms. “Oh, Peter, I don’t know.”

“It could be our only chance to ever get close to Caliph,” he insisted, and the lovely face was naked with indecision.

“Caliph believes I have killed you, he believes that I have transmitted a warning to him through my brother. He will have his guard as low as ever it will be. We will never have a chance again like this “I am so afraid for you, Peter. I am so afraid for myself without you-” She did not finish it, but pulled up her long naked legs and hugged her knees to her breasts. It was a defensive foetal position.

“Will you do it?” he asked gently.

“You want me to tell my control your real identity, to tell him that I believe your real purpose is not to denounce Cactus Flower but some other unknown-“

“That is right.” She turned her head and looked at him.

“I will do it in exchange for your promise,” she decided.

“What is that?”

“If I judge from my control at Mossad that you are still in danger, and that they still intend intercepting you before you reach Caliph then I want your promise that you will abandon the attempt. That you will immediately go to where the Lear is waiting and that you will allow Pierre to fly you out of here to a safe place.”

“You will be honest with me?” he asked. “You will judge Mossad’s reaction fairly and even if there is a half-decent chance of me reaching Caliph you will allow me to take that chance?” She nodded, but he went on grimly, making certain of it.

“Swear it to me!”

“I would not try to prevent you just as long as there is a chance of success.”

“Swear it to me, Magda.”

“On my love for you, I swear it,” she said quietly, and he relaxed slightly.

“And I in turn swear to you that if there is no chance of meeting

Caliph I will leave on the Lear.” She turned against his chest,

wrapping both her arms around his neck.

“Make love to me, Peter. Now! Quickly! I have to have that at least.” As she dressed she went over the arrangements for communicating.

“I cannot come through the switchboard here I explained why,”

she told him as she laced the canvas boots.

“You must stay here, in this room where I can reach you. If there is danger I will send someone to you. It will be somebody I trust. He will say simply. “Magda sent me,” and you must go with him. He will take you to Pierre and the Lear jet.” She stood up and belted the khaki breeches around her narrow waist, crossing to the mirror to comb out the dark damp tangle of her curls.

“If you hear nothing from me it will mean that I judge there is still a chance of reaching Caliph-” Then she paused and her expression altered. “Are you armed, Peter?” She was watching him in the mirror as she worked with her hair. He shook his head.

“I could get a weapon to you a knife, a pistol, And again he shook his head. “They will search me before I am allowed near Caliph.

If they find a weapon-” He did not have to finish it.

“You are right, “she agreed.

She turned back to him from the mirror, buttoning the shirt over the nipples of her breasts, which were still swollen and dark rosy red from their loving.

“it will all happen very quickly now, Peter. One way or the other it will be over by tomorrow night. I have a feeling here ” She touched herself between the small breasts that pushed out the cotton of her shirt. “Now kiss me. I have stayed too long already for the safety of both of us.” Peter slept very little after Magda left him, even though he was very tired. A dozen times he started awake during the night with every nerve strung tightly, rigid and sweating in his bed.

He was up before first light, and ordered one of those strange

Israeli breakfasts of salads and hard-boiled eggs with pale green centres to be sent up to his room.

Then he settled down once more to wait.

He waited the morning out, and when there had been no message from

Magda by noon, the certainty increased that Mossad had decided not to prevent the meeting with Caliph. If there had been any doubt in

Magda’s mind she would have sent for him. He had a light lunch sent up to the room.

The flat bright glare of noon gradually mellowed into warm butter-yellow, the shadows crept out timidly from the foot of the palm trees in the garden as the sun wheeled across a sky of clear high aching blue, and still Peter waited.

When there was an hour left of daylight, the telephone rang again.

It startled him, but he reached for it quickly.

“Good evening, Sir Steven. Your driver is here to fetch you,”

said the girl at the reception desk.

“Thank you. Please tell him I will be down directly,” said Peter.

He was fully dressed, had been ready all that day to move immediately. He needed only to place the -crocodile skin case in the cupboard and lock it, then he left the room and strode down the corridor to the elevators.

He had no way of knowing if he was going to meet Caliph, or if he was about to be spirited out of Israel in Magda’s Lear jet.

“Your limousine is waiting outside,” the pretty girl at the desk told him. “Have a nice evening.”

“I hope so,” Peter agreed. “Thank you.” The car was a small Japanese compact, and the driver was a woman,

plump and grey-haired with a friendly, ugly face like Golda Meir, Peter thought.

He let himself into the back seat, and waited expectantly for the message, “Magda sent me.” Instead, the woman bade him “Shalom Shalom”

politely, started the engine, switched on the headlights and drove serenely out of the hotel grounds.

They swept sedately around the outer walls of the old city in the gathering dusk, and dropped down in the valley of Kidron. Glancing back Peter saw the elegant new buildings of the Jewish quarter rising above the tops of the walls.

When last he had been in Jerusalem that area had been a deserted ruin, deliberately devastated by the Arabs.

The resurrection of that holy quarter of Judaism seemed to epitomize the spirit of these extraordinary people, Peter thought.

It was a good conversational opening, and he remarked on the new development to his driver.

She replied in Hebrew, clearly denying the ability to speak

English. Peter tried her in French with the same result.

The lady has been ordered to keep her mouth tight shut, he decided.

The night came down upon them as they skirted the lower slopes of the Mount of Olives, and left the last straggling buildings of the Arab settlements. The lady driver settled down to a comfortable speed, and the road was almost deserted. It dropped gently down through a dark shallow valley, with the crests of a desolate desert landscape humped up on each side of the wide metal led road.

0 The sky was empty of cloud or haze, and the stars were brighter white and clearer, as the last of the day faded from the western sky behind them.

The road had been well signposted, ever since they had left the city. Their direction was eastward towards the Jordan, the Dead Sea and Jericho and twenty-five minutes after leaving the King David,

Peter glimpsed in the headlights the signpost on the right-hand side of the road, declaring in English, Arabic and Hebrew that they were now descending below sea level into the valley of the Dead Sea.

Once again Peter attempted to engage the driver in conversation,

but her reply was monosyllabic. Anyway, Peter decided, there was nothing she would be able to tell him. The car was from a hire company. There was a plastic nameplate fastened onto the dashboard giving the company’s name, address and hire rates. All she would know was their final destination and he would know that soon enough himself.

Peter made no further attempt to speak to her, but remained completely alert; without detectable movement he performed the prejurnp paratrooper exercises, pitting muscle against muscle so that his body would not stiffen with long inactivity but would be tuned to explode from stillness into instant violent action.

Ahead of them the warning signals of the crossroads caught the headlights, and the driver slowed and signalled the left turn. As the headlights caught the signpost, Peter saw that they had taken the

Jericho road, turning away from the Dead Sea, and heading up the valley of the Jordan towards Galilee in the north.

Now the bull’s horns of the new moon rose slowly over the harsh mountain peaks across the valley, and gave enough light to pick out small features in the dry blasted desert around them.

Again the driver slowed, this time for the town of Jericho itself,

the oldest site of human communal habitation on this earth for six thousand years men had lived here and their wastes had raised a mountainous hill hundreds of feet above the desert floor.

Archaeologists had already excavated the collapsed walls that Joshua had brought crashing down with a blast of his ram’s horns.

“A hell of a trick.” Peter grinned in the darkness. “Better than the nuke bomb.” Just before they reached the hill, the driver swung off the main road. She took the narrow secondary road between the clustered buildings souvenir stalls, Arab cafes, antique dealers and slowed for the twisting uneven surface.

They ground up onto higher dry hills in low gear, and at the crest the driver turned again onto a dirt track. Now fine talcum dust filled the interior and Peter sneezed once at the tickle of it.

Half a mile along the track a notice board stood on trestle legs,

blocking the right of way.

“Military Zone,” it proclaimed. “No access beyond this point.” A The driver had to pull out onto the rocky verge to avoid the notice, and there were no sentries to enforce the printed order.

Quite suddenly Peter became aware of the great black cliff face that rose sheer into the starry night ahead of them blotting out half the sky.

Something stirred in Peter’s memory the high cliffs above

Jericho, looking out across the valley of the Dead Sea; of course, he remembered then this was the scene of the temptation of Christ. How did Matthew record it? Peter cast for the exact quotation: Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them. Had Caliph deliberately chosen this place for its mystical association, was it all part of the quasi-religious image that Caliph had of himself?

He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up. Did Caliph truly see himself as the heir to ultimate power over all the kingdoms of the world that power that the ancient chroniclers had referred to as “The Sixth Order of Angels’?

Peter felt his spirits quail in the face of such monumental madness, such immense and menacing vision, compared to which he felt insignificant and ineffectual. Fear fell over him like a gladiator’s net, enmeshing his resolve, weakening him. He struggled with it silently, fighting himself clear of its mesh before it could render him helpless in Caliph’s all embracing power.

The driver stopped abruptly, turned in the seat and switched on the cab light. She studied him for a moment.

Was there a touch of pity in her old and ugly face, Peter wondered?

“Here,“she said gently.

Peter drew his wallet from the inner pocket of his blazer.

“No, hesh(-)okherhead. “No you owe nothing.”

“Toda raba.” Peter thanked her in his fragmentary Hebrew, and opened the side door.

The desert air was still and cold, and there was the sagey smell of the low thorny scrub.

“Shalom,” said the woman through the open window; then she swung the vehicle in a tight turn. The headlights swept the grove of date palms ahead of them, and then turned back towards the open desert.

Slowly the small car pitched and wove along the track in the direction from which they had come.

Peter turned his back on it, allowing his eyes to become accustomed to the muted light of the yellow homed moon and the whiter light of the fat desert stars.

After a few minutes he picked his way carefully into the palm grove. There was the smell of smoke from a dung fire, and the fine blue mist of smoke hung amongst the trees.

Somewhere in the grove he heard a goat bleat plaintively, and then the high thin wail of a child there must be a Bedouin encampment in the oasis. He moved towards it, and came abruptly into an opening surrounded by the palms. The earth had been churned by the hooves of many beasts, and Peter stumbled slightly in the loose footing and then caught his balance.

In the centre of the opening was the stone parapet which guarded a deep fresh-water well. There was a primitive windlass set above the parapet and another dark object which Peter could not immediately identify, dark and shapeless, crouching upon the parapet.

He went towards it cautiously, and felt his heart tumble within him as it moved.

It was a human figure, in some long voluminous robe that swept the sandy earth, so that it seemed to float towards him in the gloom.

The figure stopped five paces from him, and he saw that the head was covered by a monk’s cowl of the same dark woollen cloth, so that the face was in a forbidding black hole beneath the cowl.

“Who are you?” Peter demanded, and his voice rasped in his own ears. The monk did not reply, but shook one hand free of the wide sleeve and beckoned to him to follow, then turned and glided away into the palm grove.

Peter went after him, and within a hundred yards was stepping out hard to keep the monk in sight. His light city shoes were not made for this heavy going, loose sand with scattered outcrops of shattered rock.

They left the palm grove and directly ahead of them, less than a quarter of a mile away, the cliff fell from the sky like a vast cascade of black stone.

The monk led him along a rough but well-used footpath, and though

Peter tried to narrow the distance between them, he found that he would have to break into a trot to do so for although the monk appeared to be a broad and heavy man beneath the billowing robe, yet he moved lithely and lightly.

They reached the cliff, and the path zigzagged up it, at such a gradient that they had to lean forward into it. The surface was loose with shale and dry earth becoming progressively steeper. Then underfoot the path was paved, the worn steps of solid rock.

On one hand the drop away into the valley was deeper always and the sheer cliff on the other seemed to lean out as though to press him over the edge.

Always the monk was ahead of him, tireless and quick, his feet silent on the worn steps, and there was no sound of labouring breath.

Peter realized that a man of that stamina and bulk must be immensely powerful. He did not move as you might expect a man of God and prayer to move. There was the awareness and balance of a fighting man about him, the unconscious pride and force of the warrior. With Caliph nothing was ever as it seemed, he thought.

The higher they climbed, so the moonlit panorama below them became more magnificent, a soaring vista of desert and mountain with the great shield of the Dead Sea a brilliant beaten silver beneath the stars. All the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, Peter thought.

They had not paused to rest once on the climb. How high was it,

Peter wondered a thousand feet, fifteen hundred perhaps? His own breathing was deep and steady, he was not yet fully extended and the light sweat that de wed his forehead cooled in the night air.

Something nudged his memory, and he sniffed at the faintly perfumed aroma on the air. It was not steady, but he had caught it faintly once or twice during the climb.

Peter was plagued by the nonsmoker’s acute sense of smell;

perfumes and odours always had special significance for him and this smell was important, but he could not quite place it now. It nagged at him, but then it was lost in a host of other more powerful odours the smell of human beings in community.

The smell of cooking smoke, of food and the underlying sickly taint of rotting garbage and primitive sewage disposal.

Somewhere long ago he had seen photographs of the ancient monastery built into the top of these spectacular Cliffs, the caves and subterranean chambers honeycombed the crest of the rock face, and walls of hewn rock had been built above them by men dead these thousand years.

Yet the memory of that faint perfumed aroma lingered with Peter,

as they climbed the last hundred feet of that terrifying drop and came out suddenly against the stone tower and thick fortification, into which was set a heavy timber door twelve feet high and studded. with iron bolts.

At their approach the door swung open. There was a narrow stone passageway ahead of them lit by a single storm lantern in a niche at the corner of the passageway.

As Peter stepped through the gate, two other figures closed on each side of him out of the darkness and he moved instinctively to defend himself, but checked the movement and stood quiescent with his hand half raised as they searched him with painstaking expertise for a weapon.

Both these men were dressed in single-piece combat suits, and they wore canvas paratrooper boots. Their heads were covered by coarse woollen scarves wound over mouth and nose so only their eyes showed.

Each of them carried the ubiquitous Uzi submachine guns, loaded and cocked and slung on shoulder straps.

At last they stood back satisfied, and the monk led Peter on through a maze of narrow passages. Somewhere there was the sound of monks at their devotions, the harsh chanting of the Greek Orthodox service. The sound of it, and the smoky cedar wood aroma of burning incense, became stronger, until the monk led Peter into a cavernous,

dimly lit church nave hewn from the living rock of the cliff.

In the gloom the old Greek monks sat like long embalmed mummies in their tall dark wooden pews. Their time-worn faces masked by the great black bushes of their beards. Only their eyes glittered, alive as the jewels and precious metals that gilded the ancient religious icons on the stone walls.

The reek of incense was overpowering, and the hoarse chant of the office missed not a single beat as Peter and the robed monk passed swiftly amongst them.

In the impenetrable shadows at the rear of the church, the monk seemed abruptly to disappear, but when Peter reached the spot he discovered that one of the carved pews had been swung aside to reveal a dark secret opening in the rock.

Peter went into it cautiously. It was totally dark but his feet found shallow stone steps, and he climbed a twisting stairway through the rock counting the steps to five hundred, each step approximately six inches high.

Abruptly he stepped out into the cool desert night again.

He was in a paved open courtyard, with the brilliant panoply of the stars overhead, the cliff rising straight ahead and a low stone parapet protecting the sheer drop into the valley behind him.

Peter realized that this must be one of the remotest and most easily defensible rendezvous that Caliph could have chosen and there were more guards here.

Again they came forward, two of them, and searched him once again even more thoroughly than at the monastery gate.

While they worked Peter looked around him swiftly. The level courtyard was perched like an eagle’s eyrie on the brink of the precipice, the parapet wall was five feet high.

Across the courtyard were the oblong entrances to caves carved into the cliff face. They would probably be the retreats of the monks seeking solitude.

There were other men in the courtyard, wearing the same uniform with heads hidden by the Arab shawl headgear. Two of them were setting out flashlight beacons in the shape of a pyramid.

Peter realized they were beacons for an aircraft. Not an aircraft. A helicopter was the only vehicle which would be able to get into this precarious perch on the side of the precipice.

All right then, the beacons would serve to direct a helicopter down into the level paved courtyard.

One of the armed guards ended his body search by checking the buckle of Peter’s belt, tugging it experimentally to make certain it was not the handle of a concealed blade.

He stood back and motioned Peter forward. Across the courtyard the big monk waited patiently at the entrance to one of the stone cells that opened onto the Courtyard.

Peter stooped through the low entrance. The cell was dimly lit by a stinking kerosene lamp set in a stone niche above the narrow cot.

There was a crude wooden table against one wall, a plain crucifix above it and no other ornamentation.

Hewn from the rock wall was a ledge which acted as a shelf for a dozen heavy battered leather-bound books and a few basic eating utensils. It was also a primitive seat.

The monk motioned him towards it, but himself remained standing by the entrance to the cell with his hands thrust into the wide sleeves of his cassock, his face turned away and still masked completely by the deep hood.

There was utter silence from the courtyard beyond the doorway, but it was an electric waiting silence.

Suddenly Peter was aware of the perfumed aroma again, here in the crude stone cell, and then with a small tingling shock he recognized it. The smell came from the monk.

He knew instantly who the big man in the monk’s cowl was, and the knowledge confused him utterly, for long stricken moments.

Then like the click of a well-oiled lock slipping home it all came together. He knew oh God he knew at last.

The aroma he had recognized was the faint trace of the perfumed smoke of expensive Dutch cheroots, and he stared fixedly at the big hooded monk.

Now there was a sound on the air, a faint flutter like moth’s wings against the glass of the lantern, and the monk cocked his head slightly, listening intently.

Peter was balancing distances and times and odds in his head.

The monk, the five armed men in the courtyard, the approaching helicopter The monk was the most dangerous factor. Now that Peter knew who he was, he knew also that he was one of the most highly trained fighting men against whom he could ever match himself.

The five men in the yard Peter blinked with sudden realization. They would not be there any longer. It was as simp leas that. Caliph would never allow himself to be seen by any but his most trusted lieutenants, and by those about to die. The monk would have sent them away. They would be waiting close by, but it would take them time to get back into action.

There were only the monk and Caliph. For he knew that the dinning of rotor and engine was bringing Caliph in to the rendezvous. The helicopter sounded as though it were already directly overhead. The monk’s attention was on it.

Peter could see how he held his head under the cowl, he was off-guard for the first time.

Peter heard the sound of the spinning rotors change as the pilot altered pitch for the vertical descent into the tiny courtyard. The cell was lit through the doorway by the reflection of the helicopter’s landing lights beating down into the courtyard with a relentless white glare.

Dust began to swirl from the down-draught of the rotors, it smoked in pale wisps into the cell and the monk moved.

He stepped to the doorway, the empty dark hole in the cowl which was his face turned briefly away from Peter as he glanced out through the entrance of the cell.

It was the moment for which Peter had waited, his whole body was charged, like the S in an adder’s neck before it strikes. At the instant that the monk turned his head away, Peter launched himself across the cell.

He had ten feet to go, and the thunder of the helicopter’s engines covered all sound yet still some instinct of the fighting man warned the huge monk, and he spun into the arc of Peter’s attack. The head under the cowl dropped defensively, so that Peter had to change his stroke. He could no longer go for the kill at the neck, and he chose the right shoulder for a crippling blow. His hand was stiff as a headman’s blade and it slogged into the monk’s shoulder between the neck and the humerus joint of the upper arm.

Peter heard the collar bone break with a sharp brittle crack, high above even the roar of the helicopter’s engines.

With his left hand Peter caught the monk’s crippled arm at the elbow and yanked it up savagely, driving the one edge of shattered bone against the other so it grated harshly, twisting it so the bone shards were razor cutting edges in their own living flesh and the monk screamed, doubling from the waist to try and relieve the intolerable agony in his shoulder.

Shock had paralysed him, the big powerful body went slack in

Peter’s grasp.

Peter used all his weight and the impetus of his rush to drive the monk’s head into the doorjamb of the cell; skull met stone with a solid clunk and the big man dropped facedown to the paved floor.

Peter rolled him swiftly and pulled up the skirts of the cassock.

Under it the man wore paratrooper boots and the blue full-length overalls of Thor Command. On his webbing belt was the blue steel and polished walnut butt of the Browning Hi-power .45 pistol in its quick-release holster.

Peter sprang it from its steel retaining clamp and cocked the pistol with a sweep of the left hand. It would be loaded with Velex explosives.

The woollen folds of the cowl had fallen back from Colin Noble’s head, the wide generous mouth now hanging open slackly, the burned-toffee eyes glazed with concussion, the big crooked prize-fighter’s nose all the well-remembered features, once so dearly cherished in comradeship.

Blood was streaming from Colin’s thick curling hairline, running down his forehead and under his ear but he was still conscious.

Peter put the muzzle of the Browning against the bridge of his nose. The Velex bullet would cut the top off his skull.

Peter had lost his wig in those desperate seconds, and he saw recognition spark in Colin’s stunned eyes.

“Peter! No!” croaked Colin desperately.

I’m Cactus Flower!” The shock of it hit Peter solidly, and he released the pressure on the Browning’s trigger. It held him for only a moment and then he turned and ducked through the low doorway leaving Colin sprawling on the stone floor of the cell.” The helicopter had settled into the courtyard. It was a five-seater Bell jet Ranger, painted in the blue and gold colours of Thor Command and on its side was the

Thor emblem and the words:

THOR COMMUNICATIONS

There was a pilot still at the controls, and one other man who had already left the cabin of the machine and was coming towards the entrance of the cell.

Even though he was doubled over to avoid the swirling rotor blades, there was no mistaking the tall powerful frame.

The high wind of the rotors tumbled the thick greying leonine curls about the noble head, and the landing lights lit him starkly like the central character in some Shakespearian tragedy - a towering presence that transcended his mere physical stature.

Kingston Parker straightened as he came out from under the swinging rotor, and for an earth-stopping instant of time he stared at

Peter across the stone-paved courtyard. Without the wig he recognized

Peter instantly.

Kingston Parker stood for that instant like an old lion brought to bay.

“Caliph!” Peter called harshly, and the last doubt was gone as

Kingston Parker whirled, incredibly swiftly for such a big man. He had almost reached the cabin door of the Jet Ranger before Peter had the

Browning up.

The first shot hit Parker in the back, and flung him Now forward through the open door, but the gun had thrown high and right. It was not a killing shot, Peter knew it, and now the helicopter was rising swiftly, turning on its own axis, rising out over the edge of the precipice.

Peter ran twenty feet and jumped to the parapet of the hewn stone wall. The jet Ranger soared above him, its belly white and bloated like that of a maneating shark, the landing lights blazing down, half dazzling Peter. It swung out over the edge of the cliff.

Peter took the Browning double-handed, shooting directly Upwards,

judging the exact position of the fuel tank in the rear of the fuselage, where it joined the long stalk like tail and he pumped the big heavy explosive shells out of the gun, the recoil pounding down his outflung arms and jolting into his shoulders.

He saw the Velex bullets biting into the thin metal skin of the underbelly, the tiny wink of each bullet as it burst, but still the machine reared away above him and he had been counting his shots.

The Browning was almost empty.

Seven, eight then suddenly the sky above him filled with flame,

and the great whooshing concussion of air jarred the stone under his feet.

The jet Ranger turned over on her back, a bright bouquet of flame,

the engine howling its death cry, and it toppled beyond the edge of the precipice and plunged, burning savagely, into the dark void below where

Peter stood.

Peter began to turn back towards the courtyard, and he saw the armed men pouring in through the stone gateway.

They were Thor men, picked fighting men, men he had trained himself. There was one bullet left in the Browning.

He knew he was not going to make it but he made a try for the entrance to the stairway, his only escape route.

He ran along the top of the stone wall like a tightrope artist,

and he snapped the single remaining bullet at the running men to distract them.

The crackle of passing shot dinned in his head, and he flinched and missed his footing. He began to fall, twisting sideways away from the edge of the precipice but then the bullets thumped into his flesh.

He heard the bullets going into his body with the rubbery socking sound of a heavyweight boxer hitting the heavy punch bag, and then he was flung out over the wall into the bottomless night.

He expected to fall for ever, a thousand feet to the desert floor below, where already the helicopter was shooting a hundred-foot fountain of fire into the air to mark Caliph’s funeral pyre.

There was a narrow ledge ten feet below the parapet where a thorny wreath of desert scrub had found a precarious hold. Peter fell into it, and the curved thorns hooked into his clothing and into his flesh.

He hung there over the drop, and his senses began to fade.

His last clear memory was Colin Noble’s bull bellow of command to the five Thor guards.

“Cease fire! Don’t shoot again!” And then the darkness filled

Peter’s head.

In the darkness there were lucid moments, each disconnected from the other by eternities of pain and confused nightmare distortions of the mind.

He remembered being lifted up through the hatchway of an aircraft,

lying in one of the light body-fitting Thor stretchers, strapped to it tightly, helpless as a newborn infant.

There was the memory of the inside cabin of Magda Altmann’s Lear jet. He recognized the hand-painted decoration of the curved cabin roof. There were plasma bottles suspended above him; the whole blood was the beautiful ruby colour of fine claret in a crystal glass, and when he rolled his eyes downwards he saw the tubes connected to the thick bright needles driven into his arms but he was terribly tired,

an utter weariness that seemed to have bruised and crushed his soul and he closed his eyes.

When he opened his eyes again, there was the roof of a long brightly lit corridor passing swiftly in front of his eyes.

The feeling Of motion, and the scratchy squeak of the wheels of a theatre trolley.

Quiet voices were speaking in French, and the bottle of beautiful bright blood was held above him by long slim hands that he knew so well.

He rolled his head slightly and he saw Magda’s beloved face swimming on the periphery of his vision.

“I love you,” he said, but there was no sound and he realized that his lips had not moved. He could no longer support the weariness and he let his eyelids droop closed.

“How bad is it?” he heard Magda’s voice speaking in that beautiful rippling French, and a man replied.

“One bullet is lying very close to the heart we must remove it immediately.” Then the prick of something into his flesh searching for the vein, and the sudden musty taste of Pentothal on his tongue,

followed by the abrupt singing plunge back into the darkness.

He came back very slowly out of the darkness, conscious first of the bandages that swathed his chest and restricted his breathing.

The next thing he was aware of was Magda Altmann, and how beautiful she was. It seemed that she must have been there all along while he was in the darkness. He watched the joy bloom in her face as she saw that he was conscious.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for coming back to me, my darling.” Then there was the room at La Pierre Benite, with its high gilded ceilings and the view through the tall sash windows across the terraced lawns down to the lake. The trees along the edge of the water were in full leaf, and the very air seemed charged with spring and the promise of new life. Magda had filled the room with banks of flowers,

and she was with him during most of each day.

“what happened when you walked back into the boardroom at Altmann

Industries?” was one of the first questions he asked her.

“Consternation, cheri.” She chuckled, that husky little laugh of hers. “They had already divided the spoils.” The visitor came when

Peter had been at La Pierre benite for eight days, and was able to sit in one of the brocaded chairs by the window.

Magda was standing beside Peter’s chair, ready to protect him from over-exertion physically or emotionally.

Colin Noble came into the room like a sheepish St. Bernard dog.

His right arm was strapped and carried in a sling across his chest. He touched it with his good hand.

“If I’d known it was you and not Sir Steven I’d never have turned my back on you,” he told Peter, and grinned placatingly.

Peter had stiffened, his face had transformed into a white rigid mask. Magda laid her hand upon his shoulder.

“Gently, Peter,“she whispered.

“Tell me one thing Peter hissed. “Did you arrange the kidnapping of Melissa-Jane?” Colin shook his head. “My word on it.

Parker used one of his other agents. I did not know it was going to happen.” Peter stared at him, hard and unforgiving.

“Only after we had recovered Melissa-Jane, only then I knew that

Caliph had planned it. If I had known I would never have let it happen. Caliph must have known that.

That is why he did not make me do it.” Colin was speaking quickly,

urgently.

“What was Parker’s object?” Peter’s voice was still a vicious hiss.

“He had three separate objects. Firstly, to convince you that he was not Caliph. that’s why his first order was to have you kill Parker himself. Of course, you never would have got near him. Then you were allowed to recover your daughter. It was Caliph himself who gave us

O’Shaughnessy’s name and where to find him. Then you were turned onto

Magda Altmann-” Colin glanced at her apologetically. “Once you had killed her, you would have been bound to Caliph by guilt.”

“When did you learn this?” Peter demanded.

“The day after we found Melissa-Jane. By then there was nothing I

could do that would not expose me as Cactus Flower all I could do was to pass a warning to Magda A through Mossad.”

“It’s true, Peter,” said

Magda quietly.

Slowly the rigidity went out of Peter’s shoulders.

“When did Caliph recruit you as his Chief Lieutenantr he asked,

his voice also had altered, softened.

“As soon as I took over Thor Command from you, He was never certain of you, Peter, that was why he opposed your appointment to head of Thor and why he jumped at the first chance to have you fired.

That was why he tried to have you killed on the Rambouillet road. Only after the attempt failed did he realize your potential value to him.”

“Are the other Atlas unit commanders Caliph’s lieutenants Tanner at

Mercury Command, Peterson at Diana?”

“All three of us. Yes!” Colin nodded, and there was a long silence.

“What else do you want to know, Peter?” Colin asked softly. “Are there any other questions?”

“Not now.” Peter shook his head wearily.

“There will be many others later.” Colin looked up at Magda Altmann inquiringly. “Is he strong enough yet?” he asked. “Can I tell him the rest of it?” She hesitated a moment. “Yes,” she decided. “Tell him now.”

“Atlas was to be the secret da get in the sleeve of Western civilization a civilization which had emasculated itself and abased itself before its enemies. For once we would be able to meet naked violence and piracy with raw force.

Atlas is a chain of powerful men of many nations banded together,

and Caliph was to be its executive chief. Atlas is the only agency which transcends all national boundaries, and has as its object the survival of Western society as we know it. Atlas still exists, its structure is complete only Caliph is dead. He died in a most unfortunate air accident over the or dan valley but Atlas still exists. It has to go on, once that part which Caliph has perverted is rooted out.

It is our hope for the future in a world gone mad.” Peter had never heard him speak so articulately, so persuasively.

“You know, of course, Peter, that you were the original choice to command Atlas. However, the wrong man superseded you although nobody could know he was the wrong man at that time. Kingston Parker seemed to have all the qualities needed for the task but there were hidden defects which only became apparent much later.” Colin began enumerating them, holding up the fingers of his uninjured arm.

“Firstly, he lacked physical courage. He became obsessed with his own physical safety grossly abusing his powers to protect himself.

“Secondly, he was a man of unsuspected and overbearing ambition,

with an ungoverned lust for raw power. Atlas swiftly became the vehicle to carry him to glory. His first goal was the Presidency of the United States. He was using Atlas to destroy his political opponents. Had he succeeded in achieving the presidency, no man can tell what his next goal would have been.” Colin dropped his hand and balled it into a fist.

“The decision to allow you to reach the rendezvous with Kingston

Parker on the cliffs above Jericho was made by more than one man in more than one country.” Colin grinned again, boyishly, disarmingly.

“I did not even know it was you. I believed it was Steven Stride,

right up until the moment I turned my back on you!”

“Tell him,” said

Magda quietly, “Get it over with, Colin.

He is still very weak.”

“Yes,” Colin agreed. “I’ll do it now.

Yesterday at noon, your appointment to succeed Doctor Kingston Parker as head of Atlas Command was secretly confirmed.” For Peter it was as though a door had at last opened, a door so long closed and locked, but through it now he could see his destiny stretching out ahead Of him;

clearly he could see it for the first time.

“You are the man best suited by nature and by training to fill the void which Kingston Parker has left.” Even through the weakness of his abused body, Peter could feel a deep well of strength and determination within himself which he had never before suspected. It was as though it had been reserved expressly for this time, for this task.

“Will you accept the command of Atlas?” Colin asked.

“What answer must I take back with me?” Magda’s long fingers tightened on his shoulder, and they waited while he made his decision.

It came almost immediately. There was no alternative open to him,

Peter knew that it was his destiny.

“Yes, , he said clearly. “Tell them I accept the responsibility.”

It was a solemn moment, nobody smiled nor spoke for long seconds, and then: “Caliph is dead,” Magda whispered. “Long live Caliph.” Peter

Stride raised his head to look at her, but his voice when he replied was so cold that it seemed to frost upon his lips.

“Never,” he said, “call me that again, ever.” Magda made a small gesture of acquiescence, of total accord, then she stooped to kiss him on the mouth.