“Yes.”

“And you’re punishing them by making them clean up after themselves?”

“That’s about it.”

“You’re taking the risks, Mr. Diamond, A foolish associate is more dangerous than a clever opponent.”

“That’s my concern.”

“To be sure. All right, your people do a messy and incomplete job in Rome. Actually, you should be grateful they did as well as they did. With a combination of Arab Intelligence and the CIA competence, you’re lucky they didn’t go to the wrong airport. But that, as you have said, is your concern. Somehow, probably when the raid was evaluated in Washington, you discovered that the Israeli boys were not going to London. They carried airline tickets for Pau. You also discovered that one of the cell members, the Miss Stern with whom you just took dinner, had been overlooked by your killers. Your computer was able to relate me to Asa Stern, and the Pau destination nailed it down. Is that it?”

“That roughly is it.”

“All right. So much for catching up. The ball, I believe, is in your court.”

Diamond had not yet decided how he would present his case, what combination of threat and promise would serve to neutralize Nicholai Hel. To gain time, he pointed to a pair of odd-looking pistols with curved handles like old-fashioned dueling weapons and double nine-inch barrels that were slightly flared at the ends.

“What are these?”

“Shotguns, in a way of speaking.”

“Shotguns?”

“Yes. A Dutch industrialist had them made for me. A gift in return for a rather narrow action involving his son who was held captive on a train by Moluccan terrorists. Each gun, as you see, has two hammers which drop simultaneously on special shotgun shells with powerful charges that scatter loads of half-centimeter ball bearings. All the weapons in this room are designed for a particular situation. These are for close work in the dark, or for putting away a roomful of men on the instant of break-in. At two meters from the barrel, they lay down a spread pattern a meter in diameter.” Hel’s bottle-green eyes settled on Diamond. “Do you intend to spend the evening talking about guns?”

“No. I assume that Miss Stern has asked you to help her kill the Septembrists now in London?”

Hel nodded.

“And she took it for granted that you would help, because of your friendship for her uncle?”

“She made that assumption.”

“And what do you intend to do?”

“I intend to listen to your proposal.”

“My proposal?”

“Isn’t that what merchants do? Make proposals?”

“I wouldn’t exactly call it a proposal.”

“What would you call it?”

“I would call it a display of deterrent action, partially already on line, partially ready to be brought on line, should you be so foolish as to interfere.”

Hel’s eyes crinkled in a smile that did not include his lips. He made a rolling gesture with his hand, inviting Diamond to get on with it.

“I’ll confess to you that, under different conditions, neither the Mother Company nor the Arab interests we are allied with would care much one way or another what happened to the homicidal maniacs of the PLO. But these are difficult times within the Arab community, and the PLO has become something of a rallying banner, an issue more of public relations than of private taste. For this reason, the Mother Company is committed to their protection. This means that you will not be allowed to interfere with those who intend to hijack that plane in London.”

“How will I be prevented?”

“Do you recall that you used to own several thousand acres of land in Wyoming?”

“I assume the tense is not a matter of grammatical carelessness.”

“That’s right. Part of that land was in Boyle County, the rest in Custer County. If you contact the county clerk offices, you will discover that there exists no record of your having purchased that land. Indeed, the records show that the land in question is now, and has been for many years, in the hands of one of Mother Company’s affiliates. There is some coal under the land, and it is scheduled for strip-mining.”

“Do I understand that if I cooperate with you, the land will be returned to me?”

“Not at all. That land, representing as it does most of what you have saved for your retirement, has been taken from you as a punishment for daring to involve yourself in the affairs of the Mother Company.”

“May I assume you suggested this punishment?”

Diamond tipped his head to the side. “I had that pleasure.”

“You are a vicious little bastard, aren’t you. You’re telling me that if I pull out of this affair, the land will be spared from strip-mining?”

Diamond pushed out his lower lip. “Oh, I’m afraid I couldn’t make an arrangement like that. America needs all its natural energy to make it independent from foreign sources.” He smiled at this repetition of the worn party line. “Then too, you can’t put beauty in the bank.”

He was enjoying himself.

“I don’t understand what you’re doing, Diamond. If you intend to take the land and destroy it, no matter what I do, then what leverage does that give you over my actions?”

“As I said, taking your land was in the nature of a warning shot across your bow. And a punishment.”

“Ah, I see. A personal punishment. From you. For your brother?”

“That’s right.”

“He deserved death, you know. I was tortured for three days. This face of mine is not completely mobile even now, after all the operations.”

“He was my brother! Now, let’s pass on to the sanctions and penalties you will incur, should you fail to cooperate. Under the key group KL443, Code Number 45-389-75, you had approximately one-and-a-half-million dollars in gold bullion in the Federal Bank of Zurich. That represented nearly all the rest of what you intended to retire on. Please note the past tense again.”

Hel was silent for a moment. “The Swiss too need oil.”

“The Swiss need oil too,” Diamond echoed. “That money will reappear in your account seven days after the successful accomplishment of the hijacking by the Septembrists. So you see, far from interrupting their plans and killing some of their number, it would benefit you to do everything in your power to make sure they succeed.”

“And presumably that money serves also as your personal protection.”

“Precisely. Should anything happen to me or my friends while we are your guests, that money disappears, victim of an accounting error.”

Hel was attracted to the sliding doors giving out on his Japanese garden. The rain had come, hissing in the gravel and vibrating the tips of black and silver foliage. “And that is it?”

“Not quite. We are aware that you probably have a couple of hundred thousand here and there as emergency funds. A psychological profile of you from Fat Boy tells us that it is just possible that you may put such things as loyalty to a dead friend and his niece ahead of all considerations of personal benefit. All part of being selectively bred and tutored in Japanese concepts of honor, don’t you know. We are prepared for that foolish eventuality as well. In the first place, the British MI-5 and MI-6 are alerted to keep tabs on you and to arrest you the moment you set foot on their soil. To assist them in this task, the French Internal Security forces are committed to making sure you do not leave this immediate district. Descriptions of you have been distributed. If you are discovered in any village other than your own, you will be shot on sight. Now, I am familiar with your history of accomplishments in the face of improbable odds, and I realize that, for you, these forces we have put on line are more in the nature of nuisances than deterrents. But we are going through the motions nonetheless. The Mother Company must be seen to be doing everything in Her power to protect the London Septembrists. Should that protection fail—and I almost hope it does—then the Mother Company must be seen to mete out punishment—punishment of an intensity that will satisfy our Arab friends. And you know what those people are like. To satisfy their taste for revenge, we would be forced to do something very thorough and very… imaginative.”