“So, Miss Stern, notwithstanding your disgust and horror over the incident at Rome International, it turns out that you were planning to be responsible for the same kind of messy business—a stand-up blow-away in a crowded waiting room. Children, old women, and bits thereof flying hither and yon as the dedicated young revolutionaries, eyes flashing and hair floating, shoot their way into history. Is that what you had in mind?”
“If you’re trying to say we are no different from those killers who murdered young athletes in Munich or who shot my comrades in Rome—!”
“The differences are obvious! They were well organized and professional!” He cut himself off short. “I’m sorry. Tell me this: what are your resources?”
“Resources?”
“Yes. Forgetting your IRA contacts—and I think we can safely forget them—what kind of resources were you relying on? Were the boys killed in Rome well trained?”
“Avrim was. I don’t think Chaim had ever been involved in this sort of thing before.”
“And money?”
“Money? Well, we were hoping to get some from you. We didn’t need all that much. We had hoped to stay here for a few days—talk to you and get advice and instructions. Then fly directly to London, arriving the day before the operation. All we needed was air fare and a little more.”
Hel closed his eyes. “My dear, dumb, lethal girl. If I were to undertake something like you people had in mind, it would cost between a hundred and a hundred-fifty-thousand dollars. And I am not speaking of my fee. That would be only the setup money. It costs a lot to get in, and often even more to get out. Your uncle knew that.” He looked out over the horizon line of mountain and sky. “I’m coming to realize that what he had put together was a suicide raid.”
“I don’t believe that! He would never lead us into suicide without telling us!”
“He probably didn’t intend to have you up front. Chances are he was going to use you three children as backups, hoping he could do the number himself, and you three would be able to walk away in the confusion. Then too…”
“Then too, what?”
“Well, we have to realize that he had been on drugs for a long time to manage his pain. Who knows what he was thinking; who knows how much he had left to think with toward the end?”
She drew up one knee and hugged it to her chest, revealing again her erubescence. She pressed her lips against her knee and stared over the top of it across the garden, “I don’t know what to do.”
Hel looked at her through half-closed eyes. Poor befuddled twit, seeking purpose and excitement in life, when her culture and background condemned her to mating with merchants and giving birth to advertising executives. She was frightened and confused, and not quite ready to give up her affair with danger and significance and return to a life of plans and possessions. “You really don’t have much choice. You’ll have to go home. I shall be delighted to pay your way.”
“I can’t do that.”
“You can’t do anything else.”
For a moment, she sucked lightly on her knee. “Mr. Hel—may I call you Nicholai?”
“Certainly not.”
“Mr. Hel. You’re telling me that you don’t intend to help me, is that it?”
“I am helping you when I tell you to go home.”
“And if I refuse to? What if I go ahead with this on my own?”
“You would fail—almost surely die.”
“I know that. The question is, could you let me try to do it alone? Would your sense of debt to my uncle allow you to do that?”
“You’re bluffing.”
“And if I’m not?”
Hel glanced away. It was just possible that this bourgeois muffin was dumb enough to drag him into it, or at least to make him decide how far loyalty and honor went. He was preparing to test her, and himself, when he felt an approaching presence he recognized as Pierre’s, and he turned to see the gardener shuffling toward them from the château.
“Good afternoon, ‘sieur, m’selle. It must be pleasant to have the leisure to sun oneself.” He drew a folded sheet of paper from the pocket of his blue worker’s smock and handed it to Hel with great solemnity, then he explained that he could not stay for there were a thousand things to be done, and he went on toward the garden and his gatehouse, for it was time to soften his day with another glass.
Hel read the note.
He folded it and tapped it against his lips. “It appears, Miss Stern, that we may not have all the freedom of option we thought. Three strangers have arrived in Tardets and are asking questions about me and, more significantly, about you. They are described as Englishmen or Amérlos —the village people wouldn’t be able to distinguish those accents. They were accompanied by French Special Police, who are being most cooperative.”
“But how could they know I am here?”
“A thousand ways. Your friends, the ones who were killed in Rome, did they have plane tickets on them?”
“I suppose so. In fact, yes. We each carried our own tickets. But they were not to here; they were to Pau.”
“That’s close enough. I am not completely unknown.” Hel shook his head at this additional evidence of amateurism. Professionals always buy tickets to points well past their real destinations, because reservations go into computers and are therefore available to government organizations and to the Mother Company.
“Who do you think the men are?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“What are you going to do?”
He shrugged. “Invite them to dinner.”
After leaving Hannah, Hel sat for half an hour in his garden, watching the accumulation of heavy-bellied storm clouds around the shoulders of the mountains and considering the lie of the stones on the board. He came to two conclusions at about the same time. It would rain that night, and his wisest course would be to rush the enemy.
From the gun room he telephoned the Hôtel Dabadie where the Americans were staying. A certain amount of negotiation was required. The Dabadies would send the three Amérlos up to the château for dinner that evening, but there was the problem of the dinners they had prepared for their guests. After all, a hotel makes its money on its meals, not its rooms. Hel assured them that the only fair and proper course would be to include the uneaten dinners in their bill. It was, God knows, not the fault of the Dabadies that the strangers decided at the last moment to dine with M. Hel. Business is business. And considering that waste of food is abhorrent to God, perhaps it would be best if the Dabadies ate the dinners themselves, inviting the abbé to join them.
He found Hana reading in the library, wearing the quaint little rectangular glasses she needed for close work. She looked over the top of them as he entered. “Guests for dinner?” she asked.
He caressed her cheek with his palm. “Yes, three. Americans.”
“How nice. With Hannah and Le Cagot, that will make quite a dinner party.”
“It will that.”
She slipped in a bookmark and closed the volume.
“Is this trouble, Nikko?”
“Yes.”
“It has something to do with Hannah and her problems?”
He nodded.
She laughed lightly. “And just this morning you invited me to stay on with you for half of each year, trying to entice me with the great peace and solitude of your home.”
“It will be peaceful soon. I have retired, after all.”
“Can one? Can one completely retire from such a trade as yours? Ah well, if we are to have guests, I must send down to the village. Hannah will need some clothes. She cannot take dinner in those shorts of hers, particularly considering her somewhat cavalier attitude toward modest posture.”
“Oh? I hadn’t noticed.”
A greeting bellow from the allée, a slamming of the salon porte fenêtre that rattled the glass, a noisy search to find Hana in the library, a vigorous hug with a loud smacking kiss on her cheek, a cry for a little hospitality in the form of a glass of wine, and all the household knew that Le Cagot had returned from his duties in Larrau. “Now, where is this young girl with the plump breasts that all the valley is talking about? Bring her on. Let her meet her destiny!”