advantage of me, Doctor. I know you only as Simon Hawk. I have no interest in delving into any previous identities.”
“Noteven if your friends in the Mossad ask you nicely?”
“Not even then. My interest is in my cousin and the Amphora Scroll.”
“Naturally. And beyond that?”
“Personal matters.”
“That was what your cousin was interested in also.”
“And were you able to help him?”
“Actually, yes,” Hawk said coolly, and now he was enjoying himself. “As it happens, I knew his mother in Prague when she was the consort, shall we say, of a certain great man.
Baronesse,
he called her, which is the polite form of address in German for the unmarried daughter of a baron, as if her American husband and your cousin had never existed. She was the love of this great man’s rather short life. Your cousin looks remarkably like her, a wonderful example of the archaic aristo type. He speaks German like a Bismarck. I showed him photographs.”
“I hope that I may see them, too. As you know, the woman was my aunt.”
Hawk smiled. “Perhaps a cognac?” he said.
I had brought along a bottle of duty-free VSOP Martell as a house gift, and it turned out after the second glass that my first impression was incorrect. Far from considering me a ridiculously clumsy American, Simon Hawk considered me a kindred soul. We had each of us in the past performed distasteful duties for our countries—in my case the murder of Ibn Awad and probably many similar abominations. In his case, actions unspecified but desperate for the Fatherland. Things had gone seriously awry for both of us, and here we were together, a couple of discards, war veterans who were free of former enmities, comrades of a sort.
“You are an interesting chap,” Hawk told me. “Speaking German over the phone, using a ludicrously transparent alias, threatening me with the Mossad, and after all that, coming here to dinner all alone and putting yourself in my power. Why?”
“Just clumsy, I guess,” I said, speaking truth.
Again he flashed his thin, knowing smile. “Do you know whatI think, my dear Horace?” Hawk said. “I think you
wanted
me to believe you were stupid and clumsy.”
“Why ever would I want that?”
“To make me think I’m smarter than you are. To manipulate the well-known psychological need of my type to have the upper hand, the need to know more than his adversary, to outwit, then crush.”
Sitting in feeble lamplight, one skinny white-trousered leg thrown over the other, tobacco-stain toenails in full view, Hawk looked even more sallow than before. Beside him on a table stood the Martell bottle, and next to that a large straw hat. Hawk reached for the bottle, then deftly slid his hand under the hat and produced a nine-millimeter Walther automatic. He pointed it at my chest.
“As you see, it would be quite easy,” he said. “A short march down a hidden path, a tiny sound in a vast jungle already filled with inexplicable noises, then a grave in this amazing Amazonian soil that digests human flesh and turns it into something quite unrecognizable in a matter of days. Rather like a stomach at work on a big steak.”
My, but this fellow could talk English. He cocked the pistol. I was seriously concerned. Hawk might have been bluffing, making a show. But for all I knew this urbane old nut had shot Paul and fed him to the worms and now intended to do the same to me. Certainly he had every reason to prevent people who had found him from telling others where he was, and as a chum of the Mossad I was living (for the moment) proof that rubbing out uninvited visitors was good policy.
We were seated about three feet apart. I am, as I have said, a tall man. My torso was just about long enough to bridge the gap. With trembling hand, I took a large mouthful of cognac, leaned forward, and spat it in Hawk’s eyes. Then I took the pistol away from him, picked him up, and shook him hard. So hard that the cocked pistol in my hand went
“Noteven if your friends in the Mossad ask you nicely?”
“Not even then. My interest is in my cousin and the Amphora Scroll.”
“Naturally. And beyond that?”
“Personal matters.”
“That was what your cousin was interested in also.”
“And were you able to help him?”
“Actually, yes,” Hawk said coolly, and now he was enjoying himself. “As it happens, I knew his mother in Prague when she was the consort, shall we say, of a certain great man.
Baronesse,
he called her, which is the polite form of address in German for the unmarried daughter of a baron, as if her American husband and your cousin had never existed. She was the love of this great man’s rather short life. Your cousin looks remarkably like her, a wonderful example of the archaic aristo type. He speaks German like a Bismarck. I showed him photographs.”
“I hope that I may see them, too. As you know, the woman was my aunt.”
Hawk smiled. “Perhaps a cognac?” he said.
I had brought along a bottle of duty-free VSOP Martell as a house gift, and it turned out after the second glass that my first impression was incorrect. Far from considering me a ridiculously clumsy American, Simon Hawk considered me a kindred soul. We had each of us in the past performed distasteful duties for our countries—in my case the murder of Ibn Awad and probably many similar abominations. In his case, actions unspecified but desperate for the Fatherland. Things had gone seriously awry for both of us, and here we were together, a couple of discards, war veterans who were free of former enmities, comrades of a sort.
“You are an interesting chap,” Hawk told me. “Speaking German over the phone, using a ludicrously transparent alias, threatening me with the Mossad, and after all that, coming here to dinner all alone and putting yourself in my power. Why?”
“Just clumsy, I guess,” I said, speaking truth.
Again he flashed his thin, knowing smile. “Do you know whatI think, my dear Horace?” Hawk said. “I think you
wanted
me to believe you were stupid and clumsy.”
“Why ever would I want that?”
“To make me think I’m smarter than you are. To manipulate the well-known psychological need of my type to have the upper hand, the need to know more than his adversary, to outwit, then crush.”
Sitting in feeble lamplight, one skinny white-trousered leg thrown over the other, tobacco-stain toenails in full view, Hawk looked even more sallow than before. Beside him on a table stood the Martell bottle, and next to that a large straw hat. Hawk reached for the bottle, then deftly slid his hand under the hat and produced a nine-millimeter Walther automatic. He pointed it at my chest.
“As you see, it would be quite easy,” he said. “A short march down a hidden path, a tiny sound in a vast jungle already filled with inexplicable noises, then a grave in this amazing Amazonian soil that digests human flesh and turns it into something quite unrecognizable in a matter of days. Rather like a stomach at work on a big steak.”
My, but this fellow could talk English. He cocked the pistol. I was seriously concerned. Hawk might have been bluffing, making a show. But for all I knew this urbane old nut had shot Paul and fed him to the worms and now intended to do the same to me. Certainly he had every reason to prevent people who had found him from telling others where he was, and as a chum of the Mossad I was living (for the moment) proof that rubbing out uninvited visitors was good policy.
We were seated about three feet apart. I am, as I have said, a tall man. My torso was just about long enough to bridge the gap. With trembling hand, I took a large mouthful of cognac, leaned forward, and spat it in Hawk’s eyes. Then I took the pistol away from him, picked him up, and shook him hard. So hard that the cocked pistol in my hand went
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