The Persian Price (18 page)

7

Peters had never bought clothes for a woman before. He hesitated outside the little boutiques, which were all that Nice offered. The toilet articles were easy. He had been pressured into buying a bottle of cologne by the assistant in the chemist's shop; he had a hairbrush, comb, a plastic bag with a toothbrush and paste and a sponge. He disliked strong scent but the cologne, which he hadn't wanted to buy, was fresh and clean. He remembered how hot that upstairs bedroom was. Even without the mesh over the window, it caught the full afternoon sun. Perhaps the cologne was a good idea. Inside a boutique, he caused confusion by asking for a size twelve in a dressing gown; there was a long caftan which would be useful and this was finally wrapped for him, the French sizing having been established. He found a blouse and a light cotton dress which weren't too expensive, and went back to the car. He had been disgusted by the prices; the sales girls irritated him by their attempts to foist things on him which were unsuitable. He drove back feeling resentful and suspicious that in some way he had made a fool of himself and that everything he had bought was too expensive and wouldn't fit. He couldn't excuse Madeleine's attitude to Eileen Field; it showed her in a mean and spiteful guise which literally repelled him. He didn't want to sleep with her again. He regretted having done so in the first place. She had been a comrade-in-arms then, an equal in the struggle against a capitalist world. He had admired her courage and relied upon her in the hi-jacking enterprise. She hadn't disappointed him. There was no reason why her exceptional qualities should fall away on this mission, leaving a jealous, quarrelsome virago, except that women were generally unreliable and he had been a fool to think she wouldn't prove to be the same. He was in charge of the mission and he needed full cooperation from Resnais as well as from Madeleine. The Frenchman's apparent acceptance of his explanation for removing the mesh from Eileen Field's window hadn't deceived Peters. Resnais didn't like it; he resented not being told and Madeleine had put a suspicion into his mind that Peters was being soft. He eased the accelerator back and the car slid to the roadside. He stopped, found a cigarette and lit it. He was the leader and it was his job to unite the other two behind him. Resnais could be mollified and, if Madeleine could divorce herself from personal relationships with him, he believed she would stop making trouble. Otherwise he would have her recalled. Finishing his cigarette, Peters decided that this might prove to be the proper course, but he had to give her a chance. To be fair to her too. He started the car and drove back to the villa.

Madeleine found Resnais in the hall. She had come in from the rocks; her body was gleaming with sun oil and sweat and tanned a deep brown; the bikini showed big breasts, a little waist and stocky thighs.

‘It's nearly as hot as home,' she said.

The Frenchman had one hand on the stair rail and a foot on the lowest step.

‘Where are you going?'

Resnais's foot came back to the level.

‘I've been thinking about that window. People have been known to climb down bed sheets. I thought I'd go upstairs and look.'

‘I'll come with you,' she said.

‘I think you should wait here,' Resnais said. ‘I want to have a look around. It would be better if he didn't come and find us both in with her. You stay and keep a watch for him.'

Madeleine looked at him.

‘You don't trust him?'

‘Do you? Isn't that why you're fighting all the time – because you don't like his attitude to the lady?'

‘I'm not jealous!' Madeleine raised her voice, ‘I wouldn't be jealous of that miserable, stupid …'

‘Don't shout,' Resnais said quietly. ‘You are jealous, my dear Madeleine, and I respect your instincts. She has changed your man towards you and I don't blame you for being suspicious. So I am going up to take a look at the window. And at her. If there is something between them, maybe I will find out.'

‘How?' Madeleine asked him. He stepped on the stair again.

‘I may decide to ask her,' he said. ‘You stay and keep Peters away till I come down.'

‘She'll tell him,' the girl said. ‘Don't cross him, Resnais. He's not safe to cross.'

‘She'll do what she's told,' Resnais said. He began to walk up the staircase. ‘I have a way with ladies. She won't say a word.'

Eileen had fallen asleep; the popular novel lay on the bed, turned downward. The sun was flooding the room and the heat was at the high peak of the afternoon. When Resnais unlocked the door he did so very quietly. It didn't wake her. She was stretched out on the bed, wearing a thin silk petticoat, one hand laid across the cover of the book. He closed the door, transferred the key to the inside and locked it. Then he walked very softly over to the bed. The petticoat was damp with sweat and it clung to her, showing the nakedness underneath.

Madeleine's brown, voluptuous body, almost nude in the flimsy bikini, hadn't aroused him. The pale skin, the slender line of arm and thigh, sheathed in pure silk, with hand-made lace framing both breasts, turned him suddenly hot. He lowered himself onto the bed beside her and, as she woke, he closed his hand over her mouth.

‘Good afternoon, Madame,' he said. ‘We're going to have a little talk.'

‘I know,' Saiid Homsi said, ‘how much this means to your company. But after all – it is your wife's life at stake.'

Logan Field had his back to the huge display case. He had made many trips to Tehran and never thought of visiting the crown jewels. He had never been interested in sight-seeing; his collection of antiquities was purely for investment.

‘I can't do it,' Logan said. ‘By Christ I won't do it!'

There was a subdued glitter in the low electric lights around them, a reflection of thousands of diamonds and precious stones. Show cases aflame with crowns, tiaras, necklaces, were ranged through the exhibition rooms, deep in the bowels of the Bank of Iran. The men who had kidnapped Eileen Field might just as well have demanded the contents of the treasure vault in hard cash.

‘Mr Field,' Saiid said, ‘I know this seems impossible. But don't give me your answer now. Think about it. Think what it will mean to your wife if you refuse.'

Directly in front of Logan, protected by bullet-proof glass, was a case containing a huge solid gold globe of the world, completely encrusted with diamonds, rubies and emeralds. There were no sapphires to denote the seas; the stones were considered unlucky by the Persians. Why couldn't it have been money? Every penny, every share, everything he possessed – why hadn't they asked for these …? But not Imshan. Not to give up one of the richest oil-fields in the world.

‘I can't talk here,' he said suddenly. ‘I've got to have time to think.'

‘How much time?' the Syrian asked. ‘These people are impatient. They want your promise. And they want proof that you are keeping it, otherwise …'

‘You're asking the impossible,' Logan said. He moved away, pushing past a crowd who were gaping at the Shah's imperial crown. Its value was said to be a million pounds sterling. The Syrian threaded his way after him. Logan had moved to the exit when he caught up. He tugged at his sleeve.

‘Give me an answer tomorrow,' he said. ‘We can meet here again. In the same place.'

‘I'll give it to you now,' Logan said. ‘I can't do it. I can't pull my company out of the oil-field.'

The Syrian stood still. There was a grim look on the Englishman's face which worried him. He had expected protests, abuse, even threats, but it sounded as if Field had given a final answer. Saiid was blocking his way out.

‘Mr Field,' he said and his voice dropped very low. ‘There is something else I have to tell you. I hoped it would not be necessary. Unless you give me a favourable answer by tomorrow, your wife will suffer the loss of a finger. It pains me very much to tell you this. Please reconsider. Every succeeding day that you delay, she will be mutilated further. I don't think you would be happy to receive the evidence. Believe me, it's not an idle threat. I will telephone you in the morning.'

As Logan lunged towards him, he slipped to the side and hurried through the exit. The man whom Colonel Ardalan had detailed to follow him broke from the covering crowd and vanished after him.

People were staring at Logan Field. His attempt to grab the Syrian had been seen and one of the security police on guard in the vaults was on his way towards him. He leaned against the wall for a moment. Then he turned and began the climb up into the street. Outside, in the hot dusty air, he felt an urge to be sick. It was so strong that he grabbed for his handkerchief. The blue company Rolls was waiting by a corner and it began to sail towards him through the traffic. He got inside. He was due back in the office; there was a meeting with the chief consulting engineer and chief geologist. He was still feeling sick. For the first few minutes he didn't know where to go. Kelly's house was the first choice. Somewhere he could be alone; where he could vomit if he wanted to and then somehow face the reality of what had happened in the Bank vault.

Give up Imshan. Pull out of the negotiations with the Iranian Government and go home. Recall his team and close down the exploration. Otherwise they would cut off Eileen's fingers one by one and send them to him.

He leaned towards the chauffeur. The partition was down.

‘Go to the Hilton hotel. Then go back to the office and get Mrs Armstrong. Tell her I'm not feeling well. I must have eaten something.'

He had always made his decisions alone. He had decided, impromptu, in the vault, when he told the Syrian that he couldn't do what they had asked. At that moment, his mind had been made up, again by a reflex as natural to him as breathing. He couldn't deliberately sabotage Imperial Oil's interests; he couldn't wreck the chance of breaking the world oil price and saving Europe's economy, whatever the consequences. He had said it and meant it. But he had no defence against that last threat. He had stood alone all his life, neither wanting nor welcoming help. But now he needed it. And Janet, who loved him, was the only person who would do. He went up in the lift to her suite and as soon as he could reach the bathroom, he was sick. Then he poured himself a whisky and sat down to wait for her.

Saiid Homsi drove back to the Syrian Embassy. He was feeling optimistic. Just for a moment he had nearly lost the gamble. His intuitive sense, that most valuable asset to a man in his position, warned him that Logan Field was going to hold out. Threatening to mutilate the wife had been Saiid Homsi's idea and it had been employed at the crucial moment. Europeans had a horror of physical cruelty. To a people long accustomed to mutilation as a means of punishment, it meant nothing. In many sheikdoms thieves lost a right hand, traitors were castrated and blinded. But to the European it was unthinkable. He had been very clever to threaten Logan Field with that. It had probably done more to persuade him than any threat of death. Although no such arrangement had been made, Homsi felt the threat might have to be carried out. He had never favoured the plan to pressure Logan Field by kidnapping his child; he had favoured the outcome even less. He believed that kidnapping and negotiation were too complicated a method of avoiding the threat implicit in Imshan to the power of the Arab world.

He had not been present at the high-level meeting in Munich but he knew that his government had proposed an assassination attempt against the Shah as the surest way of stopping a European company getting their hands on the oil-field. As soon as Khorvan reported to his Russian contacts that the Shah was having talks with James Kelly, the organization had made its plans and set its spies to work. KGB intelligence had been a considerable help in finding out details of Logan Field's family life; his deep attachment to his child was well known. The preparations were made, Peters and his team were briefed, and the operation set in motion.

Syria had been obliged to agree; it was too dangerous to rely on assassination; there had been several attempts in the past, some masterminded by the Russians when the Communist party was outlawed in Iran, but because of the efficiency of Ardalan, none had come anywhere near success. The Shah was encircled by one of the most effective security services in the world. The only vulnerable target was the oil company.

Homsi ordered Turkish coffee and began composing his report to Damascus. He emphasized Field's initial resistance, but his own view was optimistic; he felt that Field would collapse under the threat of his wife's mutilation. And if he were really hesitating, it might be necessary to show that they meant what they said.

By five o'clock that afternoon, Colonel Ardalan was studying the surveillance report on Saiid Homsi and the companion report on Logan Field. His dismissal of James Kelly's explanation was correct. The story was a lie, concocted out of panic. Whatever the attaché in the Syrian Embassy wanted with Logan Field, it wasn't to sell him stolen manuscripts. The choice of the imperial treasure exhibition showed the true professional touch of Saiid Homsi. A crowded place, where nobody would notice a European and a Syrian in conversation. Ardalan's man had seen the incident when Field apparently tried to strike Homsi. He must have said something very unpleasant to provoke a public loss of self-control from somebody like Logan. Field had left looking ill; he hadn't gone to Kelly's house where he was staying, but to his assistant's suite in the Hilton hotel. She had been brought from the office in the middle of a meeting to join him there.

Ardalan read through the reports and spent some time thinking quietly afterwards. He had switched his intercom to ‘off'. Logan Field was a very important man in the Western world. His chairmanship of the big oil company made him a target for intrigue. He was engaged in tight negotiations in Iran at that time and the outcome of these negotiations could have a vital effect upon the political and economic future of the West. Ardalan understood from the Shah that provided the terms were satisfactory Imperial Oil would get the concession. And yet the Russian technical team, with a spearhead of negotiators, was still in Tehran. Therefore they must believe that the door was still open to them. And that pointed to Khorvan. None of this could be linked to Logan Field's encounter with Saiid Homsi. Syria was not involved with Imperial Oil in any way. Its only record as far as the company was concerned was in organizing the destruction of sections of desert pipeline during the first Israeli war.