The Care of Time (25 page)

‘Herr Rainer,’ I said gently, ‘if I were The Ruler, or even a minor politico, I’d have to begin by saying that you weren’t asking questions but making a speech.’

He actually blushed. ‘I can assure you, Mr Halliday, that, under normal circumstances, I would say the same thing to one of my own reporters who behaved so. I was simply trying to describe briefly some of the reasons for local feeling against this man.’

‘Are there other reasons?’

‘He employs no Austrian people.’

‘What about the security guards at the mine? Doesn’t an outfit in Vienna take care of that?’

He sniffed. ‘Ex-policemen with pistols and riot control equipment, tear gas. There was talk of student action against the mine property a few months ago. Nothing came of it, but the guards remained. You cannot consider that as employment for Austrians. What I am speaking of are the professional workers. The architects, the engineers, the experts and specialists that he has brought in have all been foreigners. One asks why.’

‘Is it illegal these days, Herr Rainer, to build a fortress in Austria?’

‘It is when you call the structure a clinic for the treatment of respiratory diseases and refuse to submit building plans for permissions from the proper authorities.’

‘How do you expect him to employ Austrian labour when he has no permission to build? If I were The Ruler, I think I might suggest to you that much of this hostility towards him is a response to his race. The local bigots don’t like oil sheikhs. As for this World War Three fortress talk, that sounds to me as if it’s based on nothing much more serious than gossip.’

He gave me a mocking little bow. ‘A very good attempt to make me mad, Mr Halliday. If Syncom-Sentinel selected you to pretty up this really most unpleasant image, they chose well. For a moment you almost convinced me that you believed what you were saying. And you’re quite right about there being a lot of gossip. Unfortunately, it is based on a great deal of extremely hard evidence. Ask Madame Chihani for the sources involved. I gave her all the details. They may surprise you. I have a room here and I shall be waiting myself to receive your film for processing tomorrow. Right now, I will not keep you any longer from your bed. Please sleep well, Sir.’

I said goodnight and went along the corridor to my room. There was no need for me to use my key. As I reached the door, Simone opened it from the inside.

‘You heard all that?’ I asked.

‘Yes. I brought up some wine before they closed the bar. I thought you might be thirsty. It should still be cold.’

‘Thank you, Simone, I’m afraid you’ve had a rough evening.’

‘Jean-Pierre had a worse time. He strongly dislikes feeling stupid and that man was not kind to him. He is right about the evidence against The Ruler too. A French engineer has been talking. The Ruler wants a fall-out shelter that he can defend against anyone who wants to share it with him, even a
mob of local people. The patron knows about all this, of course. It was he who arranged for the supply of the special pumps and other equipment to dry out the deep flooded parts of the mine. Anyone who tried to get into that clinic when The Ruler had need of it would die on the fences, or perhaps before reaching them. I don’t want to think about it. What happened at the meeting in Velden? Is everything all right?’

‘It was all very friendly.’

She handed me a glass of wine. ‘Are they ready to give the patron what he has asked for, and for all of us?’

‘Oh yes. There was no argument about that. There are some technical problems, but we’ll have to iron those out.’

‘But there is total agreement in principle?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘That is what matters.’ She began to climb out of her pants.

‘As I said, it was very friendly.’ I sipped at the lukewarm wine. ‘The chief negotiator is a modern professional soldier. I think that he and your father are going to like one another.’

She was suddenly motionless, half out of her pants and standing on one leg. ‘By my father you mean the patron?’

‘They said he’s your father. Isn’t he?’

‘We will continue to call him the patron, please.’

‘Security?’

‘Mostly habit perhaps. But yes, security also.’ She went on undressing.

‘They were puzzled,’ I said, ‘about the security situation here. In particular about your insistence on the need to keep my name off the air.’

‘Didn’t you explain to them that Rasmuk must not be told that you are here?’

‘No. I explained that Rasmuk already know where we are. They know because The Ruler will have kept them posted. When did the patron realize that it was The Ruler who was paying to have him killed?’

She threw her pants across the room and sat down on the bed. ‘Who told you?’ she demanded.

‘No one. I figured it out. I should have thought the patron would have seen it too.’

She shrugged. ‘He refused for a long time to admit it to himself, or to me. Now he knows for sure, yes, but now it is safer – safer for us all – to pretend that we don’t know. The longer they think we are sheep who do not know the way to the slaughterhouse and cannot read the signs the better off we’ll be. There’s more chance of surprising them.’

‘When did
you
suspect?’

‘When The Ruler changed the rendezvous. It was to have been at a villa near Stresa. Then, suddenly, it was here. There seemed to me no sense in the change. Gradually I began to reason, perhaps as you did, but more slowly and unwillingly. There was only one person who could believe himself to be safer with the patron dead. The patron himself would not listen to me at first. He listened to Jean-Pierre who has never even set eyes on The Ruler. But we were all slow. Even knowing the Ruler as we do, it took us weeks to believe it of him. The only precaution the patron took was to make his price for Abra Bay sanctuary for us.’

‘The possibility was discussed this evening of giving the patron immediate personal protection tomorrow. All he’d have to do is ask for it.’

‘What kind of protection?’

‘A ride back with them into Germany. There, he would be given top security treatment, the best.’

‘What did you say to them?’

‘They said it for me. They said that as it was a ride only for him they didn’t think he would accept, because he would be leaving you and the young people at risk as hostages. I said that I didn’t think he would be persuaded to change his mind. Was that right?’

‘He would never go alone leaving us. Jean-Pierre is safe. So is Guido and those back in Stresa. They are not of his personal family, of his blood. But he will insist that the four
of us go together into any safety that is offered.’

‘It’s difficult. Austria is neutral and properly touchy on the subject. These Nato people are here unofficially and because The Ruler wouldn’t meet them anywhere else. Even offering the patron a ride to the German frontier and German protection is stretching things a bit for them. Their passports don’t show who they really are. Effective protection for the four of you would involve an armed escort to a helicopter that would be landing and taking off without proper clearances in the corner of some field. A shoot-out with Rasmuk could be a distinct possibility. They can’t risk having to explain shenanigans of that sort to the Austrians.’

‘That is understood by all concerned, including The Ruler. It was understood from the beginning. The Ruler said that he feared high-handed behaviour on the part of the CIA in other places. Yes, my friend, you may laugh, but only a little. Rasmuk can be high-handed anywhere it chooses.’

‘Does the patron still believe that the Ortofilm cover is going to see us through?’

‘He knows that it won’t, and he blames himself for thinking like a lazy old man. He sees now that Ortofilm is worse really than no cover at all. The Ortofilm vehicles can be used to identify us as the target group. All The Ruler has to do is tell his chief secretary to make a telephone call just as we leave him tomorrow. What do your people have to suggest?’

‘A rendezvous just outside Austria. A place where they could set up one hundred percent protection. They could do that with a phone call.’

‘Where outside Austria?’

‘Tarvisio in Italy. It’s about an hour and a half by road from here. But we’d have to make it on our own.’

‘And from the Petrucher, the moment we leave, we will have a Rasmuk hit team with us.’

‘They’re not going to start anything anywhere near The Ruler. They’ll bide their time.’

‘But not for long.
They
don’t mind offending against Austrian neutrality.’

Later, when we were lying quietly in bed, I said: ‘Have we plenty of money available?’

‘What for?’

‘Why couldn’t we charter a helicopter?’

‘I called the charter companies this evening. There are two of them and there is an airfield not far away from which they will fly us anywhere we like within range.’

‘Well then …’

‘Unfortunately, the airfield is three kilometres north of Klagenfurt. So, we would have to drive not only seventy kilometres back from the Petrucher, but also a further fifteen kilometres beyond to reach the airfield. Charter aircraft are not permitted to land at unauthorized places without special clearances that we could not obtain. In any case, what do you think that the Rasmuk team would do when it saw us approaching an airfield or an open space where a helicopter could come in to pick us up?’

‘Move in for a quick kill?’

‘I think so. Have you any other ideas?’

‘A possible, but I’d better think some more about this one before I try it out on you. Tell me something. How do you think The Ruler is now thinking about this television interview I’m going to do? I mean, you said that he doesn’t like changes of plan. How did the patron sell him this one? How completely has he accepted it? Obviously, it’s still needed as window-dressing to cover his big meeting in the back room. But how is he going to be approaching it? Will he now expect this interview to be real, false or a mixture? Could you make a guess?’

She stared up at the ceiling. ‘I will do better. I will tell you precisely. If the preparations for the filming and the interview are made with the greatest of ceremony and seriousness, with him at the centre and all ears attentive to the slightest sound he makes, then he will consider the occasion real. Does that help you?’

‘Very much.’

‘Then let me qualify it. For how long does a boy enjoy
playing with a toy machine gun? I will tell you. Only for as long as the bangs it makes are loud enough to make the particular game he is playing seem real. The Ruler is the same.’ She turned her head to look at me. ‘Don’t think too much. Better get some sleep.’ She smiled. ‘And to save you from bad dreams, I will tell you something highly confidential. In the Ortofilm van we have hidden four good assault rifles and plenty of ammunition. We brought it all with us from Stresa.’

‘No dreams, you said?’

‘No
bad
dreams. My dear, it was always possible that we would have to fight a Rasmuk team for our lives, and kill some of them. Now, that is what I think we shall have to do.’

She somehow made it sound like mixed doubles on a grass court in May but I could think of no acceptable way of saying so. As soon as she had gone I went to the bureau drawer and dug out a folder of Gasthaus picture postcards and stationery that I had seen there earlier. Then I sat down and wrote a letter to Christian Rainer.

The first page went like this:

By two I had finished. Then I called Barbara in her New York apartment. I wasn’t worried about Rainer checking on my long-distance calls. They had direct dialling from the room and all he would be able to check on, if he took the trouble, was the amount of the phone charges on my bill.

To Barbara, after small talk, I said: ‘You’ll be interested to know that tomorrow I’m going to do a television interview
with an oil sheikh who’s bought himself an Austrian health-mine.’

‘A what?’