Read Online Siege at the Villa Lipp by Eric Ambler - Free Book Online
Authors: Eric Ambler
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have a whole floor to himself in the Placid Hilton if he lived long enough - with Mat to provide the inspired leadership that his people so eagerly awaited. Placid was destined to become the most remarkable, the most prosperous sovereign state in the entire South Pacific.
Is Mat an able criminal as defined by Professor Krom? Possibly, but he is certainly no anarchist. What he wants is a kingdom, and if the national flag has not yet been designed - a pandurus leaf on a field of gold? - the banknotes almost certainly have. If sociologists like Krom must paste labels on men and women in order to classify them, I would say that Mat is, as I am, an adventurer; that is, in the old pejorative sense of the term, a healthy and intelligent person who could labour usefully in the vineyard, but who prefers instead to live by his wits.
There was no more whistling from Mat. He stared at me now with cold dislike.
‘What does he know about Placid?’
‘That I went there last November. He knows that Symposia turned down the offer of an interest in Nauru. He knows that Symposia has stopped steering its clients towards the New Hebrides and has something else cooking. He knows that a Placid settlement is imminent because word has got round that our competitors are trying to get a foot in there through Anglo-Anzac’
‘You said that he was frightened of us. Did you discuss me?’
I had, in fact, tried hinting at his existence. Why, I had asked Krom, should he assume that in what he called ‘the Symposia conspiracy’ I was number one? How did he know that I wasn’t just a figurehead, part of an elaborate cover-story designed to protect someone else? My intention had been to shake his confidence a little. All I had succeeded in doing was making him laugh. He knew that I was number one, so would I please stop trying to talk my way out of the situation.
I had no intention, however, of telling Mat all that.
‘No, Mat, we didn’t discuss you. Your name wasn’t even mentioned. Obviously, he must know of you, the eminence grise of the Placid Island lobby. If he reads the financial papers I mean. That PR outfit Anglo-Anzac have working for them will have seen to that. But as for your personal connection with Symposia, he couldn’t have a clue. If he had, he’d certainly have said so.’
There was a long silence, and then he quite visibly relaxed. ‘So, Paul, you’re the only one who’s been blown so far. It’s not us he’s dealing with, but you. And all that he’s looking for is dirt about operators like you and old Carlo Lech. Is that right?’
‘You might have put it a little more delicately, but yes, I suppose that’s about right.’
‘Then you’d better go along with him, hadn’t you? Throw him an old bone or two and hope that he keeps faith, eh?’
‘Yes.’
‘And that his witnesses keep faith. You’re going to have to do rather a lot of trusting, aren’t you, Paul?’
‘That had occurred to me. I’m going to have to take out quite a lot of insurance too.’
‘Well, we can afford it. You’ll need team help too. Yves would be your best bet on the technical side, I think. And Melanie I know you like.’
I should have guessed then what was in his mind. Yves, we had both agreed in the past, was a first-rate man; but we had disagreed about Melanie. Although he is sexually double-gated, Mat’s judgements about women are rarely sound. I considered, and still do consider, Melanie to be one of the best cover-builders and analysers there is. She learned her craft with the Gehlen organization and is brilliant. For some reason - perhaps because she is as brilliant at penetrating the most complex covers of others as she is at erecting full-proof lie-structures for her own side - Mat had never trusted her. He suspected her, he said, of being a security risk.
I should have asked him whether he had changed his mind about her, whether he had forgotten that he had told me of his suspicions or whether he was, in his
Is Mat an able criminal as defined by Professor Krom? Possibly, but he is certainly no anarchist. What he wants is a kingdom, and if the national flag has not yet been designed - a pandurus leaf on a field of gold? - the banknotes almost certainly have. If sociologists like Krom must paste labels on men and women in order to classify them, I would say that Mat is, as I am, an adventurer; that is, in the old pejorative sense of the term, a healthy and intelligent person who could labour usefully in the vineyard, but who prefers instead to live by his wits.
There was no more whistling from Mat. He stared at me now with cold dislike.
‘What does he know about Placid?’
‘That I went there last November. He knows that Symposia turned down the offer of an interest in Nauru. He knows that Symposia has stopped steering its clients towards the New Hebrides and has something else cooking. He knows that a Placid settlement is imminent because word has got round that our competitors are trying to get a foot in there through Anglo-Anzac’
‘You said that he was frightened of us. Did you discuss me?’
I had, in fact, tried hinting at his existence. Why, I had asked Krom, should he assume that in what he called ‘the Symposia conspiracy’ I was number one? How did he know that I wasn’t just a figurehead, part of an elaborate cover-story designed to protect someone else? My intention had been to shake his confidence a little. All I had succeeded in doing was making him laugh. He knew that I was number one, so would I please stop trying to talk my way out of the situation.
I had no intention, however, of telling Mat all that.
‘No, Mat, we didn’t discuss you. Your name wasn’t even mentioned. Obviously, he must know of you, the eminence grise of the Placid Island lobby. If he reads the financial papers I mean. That PR outfit Anglo-Anzac have working for them will have seen to that. But as for your personal connection with Symposia, he couldn’t have a clue. If he had, he’d certainly have said so.’
There was a long silence, and then he quite visibly relaxed. ‘So, Paul, you’re the only one who’s been blown so far. It’s not us he’s dealing with, but you. And all that he’s looking for is dirt about operators like you and old Carlo Lech. Is that right?’
‘You might have put it a little more delicately, but yes, I suppose that’s about right.’
‘Then you’d better go along with him, hadn’t you? Throw him an old bone or two and hope that he keeps faith, eh?’
‘Yes.’
‘And that his witnesses keep faith. You’re going to have to do rather a lot of trusting, aren’t you, Paul?’
‘That had occurred to me. I’m going to have to take out quite a lot of insurance too.’
‘Well, we can afford it. You’ll need team help too. Yves would be your best bet on the technical side, I think. And Melanie I know you like.’
I should have guessed then what was in his mind. Yves, we had both agreed in the past, was a first-rate man; but we had disagreed about Melanie. Although he is sexually double-gated, Mat’s judgements about women are rarely sound. I considered, and still do consider, Melanie to be one of the best cover-builders and analysers there is. She learned her craft with the Gehlen organization and is brilliant. For some reason - perhaps because she is as brilliant at penetrating the most complex covers of others as she is at erecting full-proof lie-structures for her own side - Mat had never trusted her. He suspected her, he said, of being a security risk.
I should have asked him whether he had changed his mind about her, whether he had forgotten that he had told me of his suspicions or whether he was, in his
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