Recovery of the items had been commissioned by a man called Dorje, shadowy superior of an obscure Buddhist monastery tucked deep in the Swiss Alps, whose inner cadre of initiates recognized him as the current incarnation of an infamous black Adept known to Tibetan legend as the Man with Green Gloves. Born Siegfried Hasselkuss, the product of Nazi selective breeding, Dorje's esoteric resources seemed to support that claim; and recovery of the knowledge contained in the manuscripts, called Terma or "treasure texts,'' would have redoubled his already formidable powers.
Raeburn himself was no novice in such matters; but neither was he a match for Dorje. Drafted by Dorje to undertake the salvage operation - and in expiation for a previous venture gone wrong - Raeburn had reluctantly agreed to accept a share in the diamonds as payment for his services, fully intending to appropriate the Terma texts for himself if a suitable opportunity arose.
But the recovery operation had been thwarted by agents of a secret enforcement organization known as the Hunting Lodge, themselves practitioners of esoteric disciplines no less potent than those of Raeburn or Dorje. Raeburn had narrowly escaped with a share of the diamonds, but only at the expense of betraying his Tibetan handlers, abandoning the manuscripts, and leaving the luckless Kavanagh to be arrested by conventional law enforcement authorities on charges of terrorism.
Nor had Kavanagh languished long in jail before being found dead in his cell, of causes yet to be explained by medical science but which Raeburn had no doubt could be laid at the feet of the vengeful Dorje. Lacking the occult resources to combat his former employer on equal terms, at least for the present, Raeburn had temporarily dispersed his own followers and gone into hiding, leaving his associates to find what safety they could while he himself went searching for the means to shift the balance of power in his favor.
Angela's expression was stormy as she contemplated a well-manicured thumbnail.
"No doubt I am meant to be reassured by the knowledge that you threw Kavanagh to the wolves," she said coldly. "All that tells me is that you wouldn't hesitate to dispense with me or Barclay or anyone else in this organization, if it suited your purposes at the moment."
"Then take comfort from the assurance that I value your talents far too much to dispense with them for any trifling reason," Raeburn said drily. "Why else do you think I forbade you to employ your occult abilities until further notice, if not to ensure that you didn't betray yourself to our enemies?"
"Don't you mean your enemies?" she said archly.
"I doubt very much that Dorje would make that distinction," Raeburn said, "and neither should you, if you want to survive."
"If survival is all you care about," said Angela, "perhaps you should think about resigning as Lynx-Master. A change of leadership might do this organization a world of good."
"Are you proposing to replace me? Don't even think about it," Raeburn warned with a chilly smile. "Not unless you really believe you're up to taking on Barclay and Richter as well as me. And even if, by some miracle, you did succeed in bringing me down," he continued, "do you suppose for one moment that would pacify Dorje?"
"You could consider giving him back his diamonds, by way of a peace offering," she ventured.
Raeburn dismissed this suggestion with a snort of bitter laughter.
"If I had ten times the value of that chest to give him, Dorje would still consider me in his debt for letting his precious Terma fall into the hands of the Hunting Lodge," he replied. "Besides that, I earned those diamonds. As it is, I remain Dorje's principal target. Remove me, and you merely add insult to injury by cheating him out of the chance to wreak his revenge on me. And the only ultimate beneficiaries are Adam Sinclair and his Hunting Lodge."
The mention of Adam Sinclair brought a grimace of malevolent dislike to Angela's carefully tinted face. In the social circles in which she moved professionally, Sir Adam Sinclair was regarded as one of Scotland's most eligible bachelors. Angela herself had been dazzled by his dark good looks, even as she connived at his death a few years before. Titled and accomplished, with a comfortable independent income and a gracious country house just north of Edinburgh, not only was Sinclair a patron of the arts and a much respected amateur antiquarian, but his professional reputation as a psychiatric physician was matched by few others in Great Britain.
What the world at large never suspected was that he was also a powerful agent of the Law - not as that Law was represented by conventional police authority (though he did work regularly as a police consultant), but in its transcendent expression as the ruling principle of Divine Order, enforced by groups of dedicated individuals formed into Hunting Lodges on the Inner Planes. Scotland's Hunting Lodge regarded him as their Chief, Master of the Hunt. As adversaries of the Hunting Lodge, ironically, Raeburn and his reluctant guest knew far more about Sinclair's secret vocation than did the innocent and unsuspecting public he and his so diligently served.
"Sinclair!" Angela hissed under her breath. "Damn him and all the rest of his ilk. What I wouldn't give for a chance to wipe the smug smiles from their sanctimonious faces!"
"That opportunity may be closer than you think," Raeburn said blandly. "I believe I've finally found a way to repair our broken fortunes."
Before Angela could demand a fuller explanation, a knock at the door heralded the arrival of Barclay, who ushered in a blue-suited man of similarly compact build, with a dense blond crewcut and square, steel-framed glasses. As Barclay closed the door behind them and continued into the room, the newcomer drew himself up with a snap reminiscent of a military salute.
"Guten Morgen, Herr Raeburn," he said, reverting then to accented but otherwise flawless English. "I trust I am in good time for this meeting?"
"Punctual as always," Raeburn agreed pleasantly. "I believe you remember Angela?"
Klaus Richter accorded her a cool nod of his head. Like the other three present, he was wearing a lynx ring. Angela eyed him up and down with no trace of commendation, not stirring from her chair.
"Mr. Richter," she said stiffly.
"I believe we'll have some refreshment before we proceed to the reason for this meeting," Raeburn said with a faint smile, waving Richter and Barclay to two remaining chairs. "But I can assure you that what I have to say will be well worth the risk all of you took to come here."
A tug at the antique bell pull next to the desk recalled Jorge, this time carrying a china tea service on a heavy silver tray. Setting it on a corner of Raeburn's desk, the little valet stayed long enough to distribute a round of tea before retiring from the room with timorous alacrity. Raeburn sipped at the delicate Queen Anne blend with the thoughtful appreciation of the connoisseur. Then, abruptly, he bent his pale, steely gaze upon the expectant faces of his subordinates.
"I think I need not tell you that these past five months have seen a sad decline in our affairs," he began dispassionately, setting aside his cup and saucer. "Suffice it to say that being sought by two enemies at once has left us in an unprecedented state of disarray. With Dorje on the one hand and Sinclair on the other, we've been forced to abandon a whole range of promising enterprises and divert all our energies to the necessary but not exactly exalted pursuit of retaining our lives and our liberty. That situation is about to be changed, however - and the instrument of change is in my possession."
With this dramatic announcement, he opened the desk drawer and withdrew a long, narrow bundle wrapped in undyed silk, which he placed before him on the blotter. As his three associates leaned forward with varying degrees of expectation, he plucked aside the wrappings to expose an ancient-looking dagger.