He leaned back again in the seat, looking around him. Up ahead, he saw a helicopter flying lazy circles around the castle, like a housefly looking for a sweet landing-spot.
And there was another helicopter on the roof, its rotor barely visible from this angle.
So Baron Nemeroff had his own air force. It wasn't much Remo thought, but in an all-out war, it could probably lick the whole Algerian army. Come to think of it, the whole Pan-Arab Union.
Remo looked out the side window at the heavy undergrowth that licked its way up to the road's edge. He saw an armed man wearing hunting clothes walking through the brush. But he was no hunter-not unless hunters had begun to use machine guns.
On the other side of the car, it was the same, Remo noticed. Men moving through the brush, heavily armed men. Remo's eyes glanced down again at the huge black bicep of the driver, as he flexed it while steering the hard-sprung limousine over the bumpy road. The sight of the arm raised a tingle in Remo's head; something he should remember, but couldn't. He had seen that arm before. Oh well, he would remember it eventually. Maybe Baron Nemeroff would tell him.
It would be interesting to find out who PJ Kenny was. He knew the amnesia would wear off soon, but he wanted to know now who and what he was, what he did, and what he was doing here. Maggie had warned him to be careful.
The narrow road, already wide enough for only one car, suddenly became even narrower, and then, as they turned a curve, they came to a gatehouse.
Two armed men stood in the roadway, rifles folded in the crooks of their arms, but they moved aside when they recognized the car and driver. Without slowing, the black sped between the two men, and then the road lifted sharply upward and they neared Nemeroff's castle.
At that same moment, a huge jet appeared over the castle, coming in for a landing at the Algiers airport. Remo glanced at it and wondered what kind of people would come to Algeria if they didn't have to.
The Mercedes spit up gravel as it swerved again, and then it was pulling into a large opened area, at the bottom of stone steps leading up to the first floor level patio of the castle. The parking area was paved with flagstones of different colors and there was room for fifty or sixty autos to park there. The black jammed on the brakes and seemed disappointed when Remo did not go through the windshield. He turned off the motor, got out and headed up the steps toward the patio, crooking a finger at Remo, motioning him to follow.
Remo left the car and walked up the broad stairway to the patio. Its deck was cut from rough unfinished marble and it looked like a Parisian outdoor restaurant, with clusters of small, black wrought-iron tables, each with two chairs at it. At the side of the patio, sliding glass doors opened into what appeared to be a large study, and from the patio, more stone stairs rose outdoors to a second floor, where there was another balconied patio.
"You wait here," the black squeaked in his high-pitched voice, which brought a grin from Remo.
Remo perched himself on the stone wall surrounding the patio and looked out over the grounds. His eyes spotted more men out in the underbrush, all armed, all in hunter's garb, and from the good vantage point, Remo could see them talking to each other over walkie-talkie radios. They seemed to be in four waves; two rows of men on the far side of the gatehouse which blocked the only road, and two rows of men working closer toward the castle. They worked back and forth in a zippering kind of search action, which Remo somehow, instinctively, knew was highly disciplined and highly effective.
Then he heard the whoosh of the glass door opening, and then steps on the patio behind him.
He turned.
The man coming toward him was almost seven feet tall. He was stringy, but his greyhound stride, the angles of his face, his mannerisms, all exuded power. There was strength in his grip, too, as he reached forward and grabbed Remo's hand in his own and began to pump it up and down.
He looked searchingly into Remo's face, his own face wearing a slight questioning look. Them he stared some more at Remo.
He knows, Remo thought. He knows I'm not Kenny.
Then he smiled, his big horse-face breaking into a humourless grin, and said, "Mr. Kenny, well, well. I'm Baron Nemeroff."
So they had never met.
"Glad to be here," Remo said, smiling.
"The plastic surgery is excellent," Nemeroff said. "You look nothing like your photographs." Proof they had never met.
"That was the idea," Remo said, hoping that that indeed had been the idea.
"I trust you had a good trip. Namu did not misbehave in any way?"
"Namu?"
"My eunuch," Nemeroff said.
"So that's it. I thought he was on leave from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir."
Nemeroff smiled weakly. "No. It is an ancient custom of the land. To emasculate one's manservant."
"Then how do you sleep at night?" Remo asked. "Knowing he's loose and what you did to him?"
"It's strange, perhaps, to us. But a eunuch's devotion to his master is absolute. It becomes almost a form of worship. Perhaps the loss of their own masculinity makes them seek out others' masculinity. Who is more masculine than the man who mutilated them?"
"Who indeed?"
He clapped Remo on the back. "But enough of that. Come join me in a pre-dinner snack."
He turned and walked toward the nearest table, slapping his hands together once with a report like a pistol shot. He sat, and gestured that Remo sit at the table, too but before Remo was in the seat, a male servant, dressed in butler's garb, appeared on the patio, bearing a silver tray, laden with food.
Remo sat in the wrought-iron chair and watched the food being unpiled from the tray. There was a wicker basket of rolls and even before the basket stopped vibrating on the table, Nemeroff had seized a roll, thrust it into his mouth, tearing off a large chunk and chewing animatedly.
He called the meal a snack. It included soup, salad, a rare steak-no, make that two rare steaks-milk, yogurt, shrimp salad, and coffee laced heavily with cream and sugar.
The baron had attacked the first roll in what seemed to be a piranhic frenzy. But now he was calmer and as the butler stood there, he asked Remo: "What will you have?" slightly accenting the "you," making it clear that the food on the table now was the baron's own ration.
The sight of the food had made Remo hungry. The sky was the limit, he knew. Any kind of food. Why did he lust for food?
He hesitated, and Nemeroff said: "Our larder is well stocked, Mr. Kenny. Just name your wish. Steak. Frogs' legs. Hummingbirds? Lobster. Caviar. Your desire."
And without knowing why, Remo said: "Rice." Then, because he did not want to seem ungracious, "and a piece of boiled fish."
The butler looked startled. "Boiled fish, sir?"
"Yes. Trout, if you have it. If not, haddock will do. Nothing oily. And do not season the rice."
The butler gave the closest thing to a shrug that a butler could give. "Very good, sir." He walked away.
Nemeroff was now deep into his soup, slopping it up from a bowl in a large spoon. Drops fell from his spoon, but the spoon seemed to be on a treadmill, from the bowl to Nemeroff's mouth, continuously, and the spoon seemed to get back to the bowl even before the spilled drops did.
"Strange diet," Nemeroff hissed, then swallowed. "Rice and fish." Another spoonful. "Still…" Another spoonful. "I guess… You know… What you like."
He looked up as if waiting for agreement,
Remo nodded, smiling.
The rice and fish returned in ten minutes. By that time, Nemeroff's eating frenzy seemed to have waned, and he contented himself with picking at his food, leaning back in his chair expansively. He said, "I'm really glad you could come. I trust the financial arrangements were satisfactory."
"Yes, very," Remo thought, remembering the $25,000 in his briefcase.