Hazard (25 page)

They went in to bed.

Keven managed to get to sleep with her arms around a big feather pillow.

The next morning she looked out her bedroom window and saw the two cows just below. She tried to will them to look up to her but they wouldn't. At breakfast she found in the sports section of the
New York Times
that the sixth at Aqueduct was won by a head by the letter-H horse. The K-horse had run next to last. She told herself it wasn't significant. Julie invited her to stay for the day, but Keven declined and rode with Kersh to the installation.

First thing, she went down to the beach house. It had a shut-up tight smell so she opened all the windows. She thought about tidying the place but decided she'd leave things as they were—Hazard's deck sneakers caked with dry sand in a corner by the door, his sunglasses on the table and some old racing forms, one of his shirts thrown over the back of a chair, a cup he'd drunk from, the bed unmade from the last time.

She sat on the floor and unpacked the electric rock polisher. After reading the instructions twice she assembled it. Then she changed into shorts cut from an old pair of jeans and a T-shirt. Taking along a shoe box, she went out to the beach to walk along the water's edge, searching for pebbles. She almost succeeded in losing herself in that pleasant diversion and by mid-afternoon she'd walked two miles down coast and collected half a boxful. Back at the beach house she sorted through the pebbles, selected only the best according to symmetry and hue. Like small hopes she'd preserve and make brighter, she thought, and put them into the polisher's metal canister along with the powdered pumice and the right amount of water, according to instructions. When she switched on the polisher the canister rotated and the pebbles tumbling inside made an irritating rattling noise. The complete polishing process was supposed to take seven days. She hoped it wouldn't really take that long.

Shortly before seven o'clock she went up to the main house for the first overseas exercise, and at seven precisely she was ready to receive. After Kersh's talk the night before she was more conscious than ever of what she was doing but also more confident that she could do it. The whole idea of telepathy seemed less vague now—a natural mental function.

But when the exercise was over she believed she'd missed for some reason. Instead of a single clear image, she'd received what appeared to be a sort of composite: a blue background with a white horizontal figure floating in its center. At first she thought it was an angel, but after studying it a while she wasn't sure. Maybe it was a white bird with woman-like configurations, or maybe a white female with birdlike features. It was, thought Keven, too ambiguous to be correct.

For the next two days she was restless, constantly on edge. To keep occupied she helped Kersh in the laboratory and did some typing and filing for him. He invited her home but she preferred to stay alone at the beach house.

The nights were especially bad. She sat out on the steps for hours looking to sea, and all the while the damned rock polisher churned noisily away.

Now, finally, it was time for the second exercise. The watch said exactly seven o'clock. The sketch pad was on her lap, the crayons spread out and ready. She relaxed and let her mind go. It raced and opened, reached its receptive phase. Blank white waiting for impression. Nothing came.

Keven felt herself panic, fearing the worst—that Hazard might not be sending, might never again.

She controlled herself and made another attempt, summoning up all her feeling for him, picturing him, fragmented—his hands nice, eyes nice, ears and hair nice, mouth nice, and all the other nice parts of him, and then him altogether. Him. She tried intensely to visualize where he was that instant, how he was. She had to know.

Moments later, when she glanced down at the sketch pad she saw she'd made a large green angry X. It was not an image he'd sent. It was her protest. Maybe, she thought, she'd let her imagination get out of control. But one thing for certain: She was no longer worried about his safety. She now felt only exasperation and a need to fight.

She went down the slope to the beach house. She quickly gathered up everything of his and threw them into the closet. She kicked the electric rock polisher's cord out of the socket and put fresh sheets on the bed.

12

J
EAN-
C
LAUDE
P
INCHON
sat in a soft, velour-covered chaise, with his head up to the mid-morning sun.

Because his eyes were closed and would have to remain closed for several minutes more he felt somewhat uncomfortable, vulnerable. To offset that he kept alert for any unusual nearby sounds and reassured himself that he was on an upper terrace of his villa, alone and inaccessible. He drew further confidence from knowing exactly what his view would be had his eyes been open: the bougainvillaea vines blobbing purple-red all along the balustrade; the new tops of the old sea pines just below, not tossing as they would when the afternoon breeze came up; the Mediterranean, more gray than blue, countless identical disturbances on its surface, like dabs in a pointillistic painting. Directly ahead in the distance would surely be, as always, the vague but darker definition of land that was the Italian Riviera, and closer, clearer, almost looming on his left, Monaco. To his right, nothing. Only the sky and sea meeting, forming a line that deceptively appeared to be a destination.

Pinchon's thoughts went in that direction. As though looking on familiar pages in an atlas his mind's eye started at Tangier and traveled along the coastal profiles of Morocco and Algeria. He visualized each irregularity—peninsula and harbor. Tunisia, Libya, past Benghazi to the Arab Republic, the delta region of the Nile, and all the way to Port Said. At that point his thoughts held on what lay eastward. A lesion on the face of the earth that thrived on its own festering, that would not be satisfied until the entire world had been brought under its control.

Pinchon was no ordinary anti-Semite. He was one by tradition, the only son of a long line of only sons who had conscientiously handed down their hatred for Jews. His great grandfather had been a contemporary of Gougenot des Mousseaux, who authored the bible of modern anti-Semitism
—Le juif, le judaisme et la judaisation des peuples Chrétiens.
A personally inscribed first edition of that infamous prophetic volume was a highly valued part of the Pinchon family legacy, and passages from it were read to Jean-Claude even before he was old enough to comprehend their meaning.

By the time Jean-Claude had reached school age he already had been instilled with the concept of a universal enemy. He was not allowed, however, to go to school until a carefully selected tutor had reinforced him with enough insight to protect his mind from being poisoned. Thus it was with a special sense of superiority that he regarded his instructors and classmates at Rosey, especially those who were openly Jewish. They couldn't fool him. He saw through their friendly façades. He wasn't about to be taken in and taken over. In keeping with his father's advice, never once during all his school years did Jean-Claude trust anyone enough to confide his hatred, and his expression of it was limited to such normal displays as suddenly grabbing one of his elbows and saying, “
Oh, mon petit juif!
” (my little Jew) which, for some archaic reason, was the accepted French term for funny bone. Naturally, it was a relief for Jean to spend holidays at home, where he didn't have to hold back his malice and there was someone to share it with.

As had several preceding Pinchon generations, Jean believed unequivocally that the Jews were conspiring to dominate the world. Every Jew was to some degree secretly involved. They were a clever, vastly organized, diabolical element responsible for all the world's suffering and turmoil. To accept this view one had only to imagine a world without Jews, without their avarice, their fierce competitiveness. Even without the minor everyday irritations
they
caused, life would be so much easier, more pleasant.
N'est-ce pas?
Unfortunately, however, one had to face reality—the Jews and their vicious conspiracy. The latter was revealed in that document called the
Protocols of the Elders of Zion,
which was not meant to be seen by gentiles because it laid bare, step by step, how the Jews planned to bring all other people under their power, preparing the way for the Messianic Age, the coming of the anti-Christ, the Apocalypse, when gold will rule, Judaism will be the only religion and a Jewish sovereign of the House of David will govern the world.

In one respect, however, Jean's anti-Semitic beliefs differed from those of the Pinchons before him.

It first occurred to him one evening when he was perusing accounts of Christian boys ritualistically murdered by Jews during the fifteenth century. Christianity itself, thought Jean, might be a part of the Jewish conspiracy. Christ had been a Jew, and his disciples. Possibly they had merely played their roles in an elaborately contrived ruse. Certainly it was not beyond the Jews to concoct an entire religion to accommodate their ambitions.

Blessed are the meek, turn the other cheek, do unto others as you would have others do unto you. Kindness, tolerance, forgiveness, humility. All these Christian codes of conduct had originally been conceived by Jews. No one could deny that. Nor could anyone fail to see how such submissive behavior would facilitate Jewish aggressiveness and greed. Yes, Jean-Claude agreed with himself, how cunning of them.

The more he thought about it, the more it seemed a revelation, and he found substantiation for it wherever he cared to look. The Last Supper had been merely a final briefing for the melodrama. Not Christ but a substitute had died on the Cross, enabling Christ to be seen miraculously alive afterward. The Immaculate Conception? Nothing more than a woman claiming innocence rather than admit her indiscretion. The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost were obviously straight out of a Zionist cabal.

Jean kept these concepts to himself, did not even discuss them with his father. The elder Pinchon had already endured enough and should be spared the disillusionment. It took considerable self-restraint for Jean not to declare that paying devotion to Christ, attending masses and confessions, and fingering rosaries were a waste of time. But he held back right to the end when his father died prematurely in St. Francis Hospital at Nice. The cause of death was said to be a perforated ulcer, but Jean suspected the doctors were undeclared Jews who'd taken the opportunity to get rid of a formidable opponent. In any case, Jean had tolerantly arranged for his father to receive final rites.

That had been in 1964. Then, at age thirty, as the sole surviving Pinchon, Jean took charge of the family affairs. He was no longer Jean but Pinchon,
the
Pinchon, head of a vast fortune made primarily through interests in North Africa and the Mideast.

From his great grandfather's days up to when Farouk was deposed, Pinchon et Cie. had been the largest cotton brokers on the Cairo exchange. Egyptian cotton and the Pinchon name were practically synonymous. In March, 1954, when Nasser and the Revolution Command Council took over, Pinchon et Cie., like all other outsiders, was obliged to leave Egypt. It did so reluctantly but on terms that weren't altogether unfavorable. The new Arab government paid Pinchon et Cie. a generous compensation and showed further partiality by granting certain concessions, including some very profitable shipping franchises and the rights to explore for oil in certain areas of Sinai. Jean's father had concentrated on the shipping, but one of Jean's first moves on taking over was to exercise those oil rights.

At the recommendation of several reliable geologists, Pinchon put down three exploratory wells near Asi. As predicted, the oil was there, a sizable field, and by the end of 1966 negotiations were concluded with the Arab government for a joint-venture pipe line. Within a year full-scale production would begin and it was estimated that by 1969 Pinchon would realize a minimum of a hundred million from the venture.

Of course it never happened. In June, 1967, the Israeli Seventh Armored Brigade overran Asi. Israel occupied the entire Sinai peninsula, and Pinchon took a major loss, including three and a half million invested. But what made Pinchon suffer most was the thought of Jews enjoying the profits from his enterprise.

He couldn't live with that. It ate at him, fed on his hate. If
they
were chosen,
he
was chosen to stop them. He'd have back that Sinai oil and more; literally pull the ground out from under them. He could already see it happening in his mind's eye … looking eastward from Port Said.

The sound of driveway gravel crunching under, a car's wheels brought Pinchon sharply back to the terrace of his villa in Cap Ferrat. That, he knew, would be Colonel Bayumi arriving. No need to hurry. Mustafa would see that the Colonel waited comfortably.

Pinchon touched his cheek with the tip of a finger, gently. He ran the fingertip lightly over his chin, up the side of his nose, and across his forehead. Time enough, he decided. He sat up on the edge of the chaise and opened his eyes. After adjusting to the brightness he was able to view himself in the three-sided magnifying mirror that stood on the nearby table. A half hour before he'd applied a paste-like substance to his face and it had dried to a blue-tinted glaze, exaggerating his nostrils and eyes, a macabre effect.

Using the thumb and forefinger of each hand he pinched at the edge of the substance just beneath his jawline, got it started there and peeled the facial mask up and off in one filmy piece. He enjoyed the transformation, lifted his chin and turned his head slowly from side to side to appreciate his features from various angles, magnified. Closer to the mirror he scrutinized the texture of his complexion. Fine, he thought.

There were a few tiny remnants of the facial substance on his brows and hairline. He picked them off, pausing several times to rediscover his reflection. From the table he took up a fluffy ball of cotton that he dipped into a Lalique cut-crystal bowl filled with a pale pink lotion, a mild astringent. Ever so lightly, he patted his face with the saturated cotton, taking care not to rub, as though that would be irreverently harsh.