Wilbur Smith's Smashing Thrillers (44 page)

‘
Did you find out anything, Nicholas?
’

‘
No
,’
he thought to himself. 'That's
not what she wants.
’ I
t was the Persian in her blood, the love of
secrecy, the intrigue. There was something else here.

‘
I have learned nothing
,’
he said.
‘
If I had, I would have called you.
’
His
eyes bored into hers, green and hard and searching.

‘
That is not what
you wanted
,’
he told her flatly
.
She smiled and dropped her eyes from his.

‘
No
,’
she admitted, it wasn't.
’

S
he had surprising breasts, they seemed
small, but really they were too big for her dainty body. It was only
their perfect proportions and the springy elasticity of the creamy flesh
that created the illusion. She wore a flimsy silk blouse with a low
lac
y front, which exposed the deep cleft between them. Nicholas knew
them so well, and he found himself staring at them now.

She looked up suddenly and caught his eyes, and the huge eyes slanted
with a sly heart-stopping sexuality. Her lips pouted softly and she
moistened them with the tip of her tongue.

Nick felt himself sway in his seat, it was a tell-tale mannerism of
hers. That set of lips and movement of tongue were the heralds of her
arousal, and instantly he felt the response of his own body, too
powerful to deny, although he tried desperately.

‘
What was it-
‘
He did not hear the husk in his voice, but she did and
recognized it as readily as he had the flicker
o
f her tongue. She
reached across the table and took his wrist, and she felt the leap of
his pulse under her fingers.

‘
Duncan wants you to come back into Christy Marine
,’
she said. And so
do I.’

‘
Duncan sent you to me.
’
And when she nodded, he asked, 'Why does he want
me back? God knows what pains the two of you took to get rid of me.
’
And
he gently pulled his wrist from her fingers and dropped both hands into
his lap.

‘
I don't know why Duncan wants it. He says that he needs your expertise.
’
She shrugged, and her breasts moved under the silk. He felt the tense
ache of his groin, it confused his thinking.
‘
It isn't the true reason,
I'm sure of that.
‘
But he wants you.
’

‘
Did he ask you to tell me that?
’

‘
Of course not.
’
She
fiddled with the stem of her glass; her fingers were long and perfectly
tapered, the painted nails set upon them with the brilliance of
butterflies
’
wings.
‘
It was to come from me alone.
’

‘
Why do you think he
wants me?
’

‘
There are two possibilities that I can imagine.
’
She surprised
him sometimes with her almost masculine appraisal. That was what made
her lapse so amazing; as he listened to her now, Nicholas wondered again
how she could ever have let control
of Christy Marine pass to Dun
can
Alexander - then he remembered what a wild and passionate creature she
could be.
‘
The first possibility is that Christy Marine owes you six
million dollars, and he has thought up some scheme to avoid having to
pay you Out
.’

‘
Yes,
’
Nicholas nodded.
‘
And the other possibility?
’

‘
There are strange and exciting rumours in the City about you and Ocean
Salvage - they say that you are on the brink of something big. Something
in Saudi Arabia.
Perhaps Duncan wants a share of that
.’

Nicholas blinked. The iceberg
project was something between the Sheikhs and himself, then he
remembered that others knew. Bernard Wackie in Bermuda, Samantha
Silver, James Teacher - there had been a leak somewhere then.

‘
And you? What are your reasons?
’

‘
I have two reasons, Nicholas
,’
she
answered.
‘
I want control back from Duncan. I want the voting rights in
my shares, and I want my rightful place on the Trust. I didn't know
what I was doing, it was madness when I made Duncan my nominee. I want
it back now, and I want you to get it for me.
’

Nicholas smiled, a bitter
wintry smile.
‘
You're hiring yourself a gunman, just the way they do in
the Western serials. Duncan and I alone on the deserted street, spurs
clinking.
’
The smile turned to a chuckle, but he was thinking hard,
watching her - was she lying? It was almost impossible to tell, she was
so mysterious and unfathomable. Then he saw tears well in the depths of
those huge eyes, and he stopped laughing. Were the tears genuine, or
all part of the intrigue?

‘
You said you had two reasons.
’
And now his voice was gentler. She did
not answer immediately, but he could see her agitation, the rapid rise
and fall of those lovely breasts under the silk, then she caught her
breath with a little hiss of decision and she spoke so softly that he
barely caught the words.

‘
I want you back. That's the other reason, Nicholas.
’
And he stared at
her while she went on.
‘
It was all part of the madness. I didn't
realize what I was doing. But the madness is over now. Sweet merciful
God, you'll never know how much I've missed you. You'll never know how
I've suffered.
’
She stopped and fluttered one small hand.
‘
I'll make it up to you, Nicholas, I swear it to you. But Peter and I
need you, we both need you desperately.
’

He could not answer for a
moment, she had taken him if by surprise and he felt his whole life
shaken again and the separate parts of it tumbled like dice from the cup
of chance.

‘
There is no road back, Chantelle. We can only go forward.
’

‘
I always get
what I want, Nicholas, you know that
,’
she warned him.

‘
Not this time, Chantelle.
’
He shook his head, but he knew her words
would wear away at him.

Duncan Alexander slumped on the luxurious calf-hide seat of the Rolls,
and he spoke into the telephone extension that connected him directly
with his office in Leadenhall Street.

‘
Were you able to reach Kurt Streicher?
’
he asked.

‘
I'm sorry, Mr. Alexander. His office was unable to contact him. He is
in Africa on a hunting safari. They did not know when to expect him
back in Geneva.
’

‘
Thank you, Myrtle.
’
Duncan's smile was completely
lacking in humour. Streicher was suddenly one of the world's most
industrious sportsmen - last week he had been skiing and was out of
contact, this week he was in Africa slaughtering elephant, perhaps next
week he would be chasing polar bears in the Arctic. And by then, it
would be too late, of course.

Streicher was not alone. Since the salvage award on Golden Adventurer,
so many of his financial contacts had become elusive, veritable
will-o'-the-wisps skipping ahead of him with their cheque books firmly
buttoned into their pockets.

‘
I shall not be back at the office again today,
’
he told his secretary.
‘
Please have my pending tray sent round to Eaton Square. I will work on
it tonight, and do you think you could get in an hour earlier tomorrow
morning?
’

‘
Of course, Mr. Alexander.
’

He replaced the handset and glanced
out of the window.
The Rolls was passing Regent's Park, heading in the direction of St
John's Wood; three times in the last six months he had taken this route,
and suddenly Duncan felt that hot scalding lump deep under his ribs, He
straightened up in his seat but the pain persisted, and he sighed and
opened the rosewood liquor cabinet, spilled a spoonful of the powder
into a glass and topped it with soda-water.

He considered the turbid draught with distaste, then drank it at a gulp.
It left an after-taste of peppermint on his tongue, but the relief was
almost immediate. He felt the acid burn subside, and he belched softly.

He did not need a doctor to tell him that it was a duodenal ulcer,
probably a whole bunch of them - or was that the correct collective
noun, a tribe of ulcers, a convocation? He smiled again, and carefully
combed his brazen waves of hair, watching himself in the mirror.

The strain did not show on his face, he was sure of that.
The facade was intact, devoid of cracks. He had always had the
strength, the courage to ride with his decisions. This had been a hard
ride, however, the hardest of his life.

He closed his eyes briefly, and saw Golden Dawn standing on her ways.
Like a mountain. The vision gave him strength, he felt it rising deep
within him, welling up to fill his soul.

They thought of him only as a money-man, a paper man.
There was no salt in his blood nor steel in his guts - that was what
they said of him in the City. When he had ousted Berg from Christy
Marine, they had shied off, watching him shrewdly, standing aside and
waiting for him to show his guts, forcing him to live upon the fat of
Christy Marine, devouring himself like a camel in the desert, running
him thin.

‘
The bastards,
’
he thought, but it was without rancour.
They had done merely what he would have done, they had played by the
hard rules which Duncan knew and respected, and by those same rules,
once he had shown his guts to be of steel, they would ply him with
largesse. This was the testing time. It was so close now, two months
still to live through - yet those sixty days seemed as daunting as the
hard year through which he had lived already.

The stranding of Golden Adventurer had been a disaster.
Her hull value had formed part of the collateral on which he had
borrowed; the cash she generated with her luxury cruises was budgeted
carefully to carry him through the dangerous times before Golden Dawn
was launched. Now all that had altered drastically. The flow of cash
had been switched off, and he had to find six million in real hard money
- and find it before the 10th of the month. Today was the 6th, and time
was running through his fingers like quicksilver.

If only he had been able to stall Berg. He felt a corrosive welling up
of hatred again; if only he had been able to stall him. The bogus offer
of partnership might have held him just long enough, but Berg had
brushed it aside contemptuously. Duncan had been forced to scurry about
in undignified haste, trying to pull together the money.
Kurt Streicher was not the only one suddenly unavailable, it was strange
how they could smell it on a man, he had the same gift of detecting
vulnerability or weakness in others so he understood how it worked. It
was almost as though the silver blotches showed on his hands and face
and he walked the city pavements chanting the old leper's cry,
‘
Unclean,
Beware, Unclean.
’