Mr. Able laughed musically. “Ah, you did not know that the Chairman was a woman?”
“No, I didn’t. Why isn’t she called the Chairwoman, or one of those ugly locutions with which Americans salve their social consciences at the sacrifice of euphony: chairperson, mailperson, freshperson—that sort of thing?”
“Ah, you will find the Chairman unbound by conventions. Having become one of the most powerful people in the world, she does not have to seek recognition; and achieving equality would, for her, be a great step down.” Mr. Able smiled and tilted his head coquettishly. “You know, Mr. Hel, I learned a great deal about you before Ma summoned me to this meeting.”
“Ma?”
“Everyone close to the Chairman calls her Ma. Sort of a family joke. Head of the Mother Company, don’t you see?”
“I do see, yes.”
The door to the outer office opened, and a muscular young man with a magnificent suntan and curly golden hair entered carrying a tray.
“Just set it down here,” Mr. Able told him. Then to Hel he said, “Ma will doubtless ask me to pour.”
The handsome beachboy left after setting out the tea things, thick, cheap china in a blue-willow pattern.
Mr. Able noticed Hel’s glance at the china. “I know what you’re thinking. Ma prefers things to be what she calls ‘homey.’ I learned about your colorful background, Mr. Hel, at a briefing session a while ago. Of course I never expected to meet you—not after Mr. Diamond’s report of your death. Please believe that I regret what the Mother Company special police did to your home. I consider it unpardonable barbarism.”
“Do you?” Hel was impatient with the delay, and he had no desire to pass the time chatting with this Arab. He rose and crossed to the piano with its row of family photographs.
At this moment, the door to the inner office opened, and the Chairman entered.
Mr. Able rose quickly to his feet. “Mrs. Perkins, may I introduce Nicholai Hel?”
She took Hel’s hand and pressed it warmly between her plump, stubby fingers. “Land sakes, Mr. Hel, you just couldn’t know how I have looked forward to meeting you.” Mrs. Perkins was a chubby woman in her mid-fifties. Clear maternal eyes, neck concealed beneath layers of chin, gray hair done up in a bun, with wisps that had escaped the net chignon, pigeon-breasted, plump forearms with deeply dimpled elbows, wearing a silk dress of purple paisley. “I see that you’re looking at my family. My pride and joy, I always call them. That’s my grandson there. Rascally little fella. And this is Mr. Perkins. Wonderful man. Cordon-bleu cook and just a magician with flowers.” She smiled at her photographs and shook her head with proprietary affection. “Well, maybe we should turn to our business. Do you like tea, Mr. Hel?” She lowered herself into a Lincoln rocker with a puff of sigh. “I don’t know what I’d do without my tea.”
“Have you looked at the information I forwarded to you, Mrs. Perkins?” He lifted his hand to Mr. Able, indicating that he would forego a cup of tea made from tea bags.
The Chairman leaned forward and placed her hand on Hel’s arm. “Why don’t you just call me Ma? Everyone does.”
“Have you looked at the information, Mrs. Perkins?”
The warm smile disappeared from her face and her voice became almost metallic. “I have.”
“You will recall that I made a precondition to our talk your promise that Mr. Diamond be kept ignorant of the fact that I am alive.”
“I accepted that precondition.” She glanced quickly at Mr. Able. “The contents of Mr. Hel’s communication are eyes-only for me. You’ll have to follow my lead in this.”
“Certainly, Ma.”
“And?” Hel asked.
“I won’t pretend that you do not have us in a tight spot, Mr. Hel. For a variety of reasons, we would not care to have things upset just now, when our Congress is dismantling that Cracker’s energy bill. If I understand the situation correctly, we would be ill-advised to take counteraction against you, as that would precipitate the information into the European press. It is currently in the hands of an individual whom Fat Boy identifies as the Gnome. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“So it’s all a matter of price, Mr. Hel. What is your price?”
“Several things. First, you have taken some land in Wyoming from me. I want it back.”
The Chairman waved a pudgy hand at so trivial a matter.
“And I shall require that your subsidiaries stop all strip-mining in a radius of three hundred miles from my land.”
Mrs. Perkins’s jaw worked with controlled anger, her cold eyes fixed on Hel. Then she blinked twice and said, “All right.”
“Second, there is money of mine taken from my Swiss account.”
“Of course. Of course. Is that all?”
“No. I recognize that you could undo any of these actions at will. So I shall have to leave this leverage information on line for an indefinite period. If you offend me in any way, the button will be released.”
“I see. Fat Boy informs me that this Gnome person is in poor health.”
“I have heard that rumor.”
“You realize that if he should die, your protection is gone?”
“Not exactly, Mrs. Perkins. Not only would he have to die, but your people would have to be sure he was dead. And I happen to know that you have never located him and don’t have even an idea of his physical appearance. I suspect that you will intensify your search for the Gnome, but I’m gambling that he is hidden away where you will never find him.”
“We shall see. You have no further demands upon us?”
“I have further demands. Your people destroyed my home. It may not be possible to repair it, as there no longer are craftsmen of the quality that built it. But I intend to try.”
“How much?”
“Four million.”
“No house is worth four million dollars!”
“It’s now five million.”
“My dear boy, I started my professional career with less than a quarter of that, and if you think—”
“Six million.”
Mrs. Perkins’s mouth snapped shut. There was absolute silence, as Mr. Able nervously directed his glance away from the pair looking at one another across the tea table, one with a cold fixed stare, the other with lids half-lowered over smiling green eyes.
Mrs. Perkins drew a slow, calming breath. “Very well. But that, I suggest, had better be the last of your demands.”
“In point of fact, it is not.”
“Your price has reached its market maximum. There is a limit to the degree to which what is good for the Mother Company is good for America.”
“I believe, Mrs. Perkins, that you’ll be pleased by my last demand. If your Mr. Diamond had done his work competently, if he had not allowed personal enmity for me to interfere with his judgment, you would not now be facing this predicament. My last demand is this: I want Diamond. And I want the CIA gunny named Starr, and that PLO goatherd you call Mr. Haman. Don’t think of it as additional payment. I am rendering you a service—meting out punishment for incompetence.”
“And that is your last demand?”
“That is my last demand.”
The Chairman turned to Mr. Able. “How have your people taken the death of the Septembrists in that plane accident?”
“Thus far, they believe it was just that, an accident. We have not informed them that it was an assassination. We were awaiting your instructions, Ma.”
“I see. This Mr. Haman… he is related to the leader of the PLO movement, I believe.”
“That is true, Ma.”
“How will his death go down?”
Mr. Able considered this for a moment. “We may have to make concessions again. But I believe it can be handled.”
Mrs. Perkins turned again to Hel. She stared at him for several seconds. “Done.”
He nodded. “Here is how it will be set up. You will show Diamond the information now in your hands concerning the Kennedy assassination. You will tell him you have a line on the Gnome, and you can trust no one but him to kill the Gnome and secure the originals. He will realize how dangerous it would be to have other eyes than his see this material. You will instruct Diamond to go to the Spanish Basque village of Oñate. He will be contacted by a guide who will take them into the mountains, where they will find the Gnome. I shall take it from there. One other thing… and this is most important. I want all three of them to be well armed when they go into the mountains.”