The Seventh Scroll - Smith Wilbur - Страница 93

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for him to discern its colour or shape.

"Please don't let anything happen to her," he spoke aloud, but he did

not know to whom his plea was addressed. He thought of turning back and

making her stay with him, but he had no rights in the matter, and he

knew she would not obey him. Short of physical force, there was no way

he could impose his will upon her. He had to let her go.

"But I don't like it one little bit," he reaffirmed.

His private secretary, and the other men who worked for him, knew

exactly what he expected of them. Everything was as he required it.

Gotthold von Schiller looked around the interior of the Quonset hut with

approval. Heim had done well in the time that he had been given to

prepare the base for his boss's arrival.

His own private quarters occupied half the long portable building. They

were spartan, but sterilely clean and neat. His clothes hung in the

cupboard and his cosmetics and medicines were set out in the bathroom

cabinet. His private kitchen was fully equipped and stocked with

provisions. His own Chinese chef had flown out in the Falcon with him,

bringing everything with him that he needed to provide the meals that

his master demanded.

Von Schiller was a vegetarian, a non-smoker and a teetotaller. Twenty

years ago he had been a famous trencherman who loved the hearty food of

the Black Forest, the wines of the Rhine valley and the rich dark

tobaccos of Cuba. In those days he had been obese, with rolls of chin

sagging over his collar. Now, despite his age, he was as lean and fit

and vital as a racing greyhound.

In the autumn of his life, the pleasures were of the mind and the

emotions, more than of the physical senses.

He placed a higher value on inanimate objects than on living creatures,

either human or animal. A piece of stone carved by masons who had been

dead for thousands of years could excite him more than the soft warm

body of the most lovely young woman. He loved order and control.

Power over men and events sustained him more than did the taste of food.

Power and the possession of beautiful and unique objects were his

passions, now that his body was running down and his animal appetites

were losing their zest.

Every item of all that vast and priceless, collection of ancient

treasures that he had already assembled had been discovered by other

men. This was his chance, his last chance to make his own discovery, to

break the seals on the door of a Pharaoh's tomb and be the first man in

four thousand years to gaze upon the contents. Perhaps that Was his real

hope for immortality, and there was no price in gold and human life he

was not fully prepared to pay for it.

Already men had died in this passion of his, and he cared not that there

would be other sacrifices. No price was too high.

He checked his image in the full-length mirror that hung on the wall

opposite his bed. He smoothed the thick, coarse, dark hair. Of course it

was dyed, but that was one of his few remaining conceits. Then he

crossed the uncarpeted wooden floor of his own quarters, and opened the

door into the long conference room which would be his headquarters over

the days to come.

The persons seated there rose to their feet immedi.

lately, their attitudes servile and their expressions obsequious. Von

Schiller strode to the head of the long table and stepped up on to the

block of wood covered with carpeting that his private secretary had

placed there for him. This block went everywhere with him. It was nine

inches high. From this elevation von Schiller looked down upon the men

and one woman who waited for him. He looked them over unhurriedly,

letting them stand a while.

>From the vantage point of his block, he was taller than any of them.

First he looked at Helm. The Texan had worked for him for over a decade.

Completely reliable he was strong both physically and mentally and would

follow orders without question or qualms. Von Schiller had come to rely

on him. He could send him anywhere in the world, from Zaire to

Queensland, from the Arctic Circle to the steaming equatorial forests,

and Helm would get the job done with the minimum of fuss and with very

few unpleasant consequences. He was ruthless but discreet, and like a

good hunting dog he knew his master.

From Helm he looked at the woman. butte Kemper was his private

secretary. She ordered and directed the details of his life, from his

food to his block, from his medicine to his social calendar, No man or

woman was ever received into his presence without her prior arrangement.

She was also his communications expert. The mass of electronic equipment

that occupied one wall of the hut was her preserve. He was able to find

her way through the ether with the- infallible instinct of a homing

pigeon. From the archaic art of the keyboard and Morse code 'to burst

transmissions and random switching he had never known another person,

male or female, who could match her wizardry. She was at that perfect

age for a woman, forty, slim and blonde, with slanting green eyes over

high cheekbones, resembling the young Dietrich.

Von Schiller's own wife, Ingemar, had been an invalid for the last

twenty years, and Utte Kemper had stepped into the void she had left in

his life. Yet she was more than either secretary or wife to him.

When he had first met Utte, she had been holding a very senior position

in the technical section of the German national telecommunications

network, and moonlighting as a pornographic actress - not for the money

but for love of the job. Copies of the videos she had made at that time

were amongst von Schiller's most precious possessions, after his

collection of Egyptian antiquities. Like Helm, she had no qualms. There

was nothing she would not do to him, or allow him to do to her, to

fulfill his most bizarre fantasies. When he watched her videos and she

did some of these things to him, she was the only woman who could still

bring him to orgasm. Yet even this happened less frequently with every

month that passed, and each time the spasms of sexual release she could

evoke from his aging body were less intense.

Utte had her recording equipment set up before her on the table. It was

part of her multifarious duties to keep, accurate and complete records

of every meeting and conversation. Then von Schiller looked past these

two trusted employees to the two other men standing at the table.

Colonel Nogo he had met for the first time that morning, as he stepped

down from the Jet Ranger helicopter that had flown them down from Addis

Ababa to the base camp here on the summit of the escarpment of the Nile

gorge. He knew very little about him, except that Helm had selected him,

and was so far satisfied with his performance. Von Schiller himself was

not equally impressed. There had already been some bungling. Nogo had

allowed Quenton Harper and the Egyptian woman to slip through his

clutches. After a lifetime of operating in Africa, von Schiller placed

little trust or store in blacks and preferred to work with Europeans.

However, he realized that for the time being Nogo's services were

indispensable.

He was, after all, the military commander of the southern Gojam. No

doubt once he had served his purpose he could be taken care of Helm

would see to that. He would not have to bother himself with the details.

Von Schiller looked now at the last man at the table. Here was another

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