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  ‘So Roy, what will you be doing in Europe while we are up to no good?’

  Frost. I’d committed lèse-majesté, because it was soon made clear to me that one didn’t speak in public about our group with even the most oblique reference. Then I remembered Dame Enid’s earlier stricture. I’d already been given the code names we had to use for security reasons when referring to various countries and leaders The Hammer had in mind. There was Permafrost, Desert Rocks, Banana Bender, and Ink Spot too. It seemed rather childish, but I got the point. Security had to be thorough these days since you never knew when someone would be listening in.

  Roy had a more relaxed personality than Charles, probably a necessity given his partner’s imperious character. He tried to take care of himself. He was careful with his diet and exercised regularly, if moderately. He certainly looked a lot younger than his actual early sixties. Better to be like Roy, I guess, than those gym junkies with their unsatisfiable obsessions and steroids.

  ‘I’ll be going to the opera in Wien, David. They know how to play music there. You don’t know what good music sounds like unless you’ve heard music in Vienna. Do you know the kind of music I’m talking about?’

  He’d said it with more than a touch of condescension.

  ‘As it happens, I have heard of Mahler and Bruckner. I’m not a complete philistine.’

  ‘You won’t have much time for my kind of thing, I dare say. Charles will have you occupied, if I know Charles.’

  Charles was busy with papers. His once-formidable frame was now inclined to stoutness and his shoulders were hunched. He had a kind face, if you knew how to get beyond surfaces. He opened up quickly once he’d judged you favourably.

  I knew getting things done in the world required more than self-discipline. But first you had to master yourself. I saw that Charles was not only in control of himself: he believed in his particular destiny. Whether that belief was true, or the usual self-deception, time would show, stroking or sledging.

  I studied the map on the screen before me. The Caspian Sea. I tried to imagine all the people living around the edge of that sea. Perhaps I was a little like them, perched on the edge of new possibilities. I felt I was at last going to do something useful, because that’s what most of us want to do, if we are only given the chance.

  Roy spoke a little more, but I wasn’t concentrating. I was sleepy. As I stretched out, pulling the blanket over my head, a peacefulness settled on me I couldn’t remember feeling before, the distant humming of the engines sounding like the mechanics of the gods. The gods had smiled on me?

  Frankfurt airport was below us. I was still sleepy, but my sleep had refreshed me. I had awoken to my new life. I was happy. My breakfast orange juice seemed like nectar, though I knew it was now time to leave this cocoon of privilege for the real world. I needed to freshen up but, since the first class facilities were closed for renovation, I would use the public airport bathroom instead. We were meeting some people soon and I wanted to look my best. Charles had told me what my main concern would be—to move money around in a way that didn’t raise suspicions with authorities. I had come up with a reasonable plan, I thought, to get the right amounts of money to the right destinations. Charles asked me to speak at a forthcoming meeting. We would be travelling to a castle in Bavaria—Hohentor. This name referred to the high gate at the entrance to medieval German towns. Defence against onslaught. Charles was something like that high gate himself. His stubbornness in the business world was legendary, and he’d shown a pretty ruthless streak, breaking more than a few swords in the process. I’d heard, before I’d been approached by him, a particularly nasty story about one of his executives who thought he’d try to outfox the old fox. He was destitute within the year.

  Charles seemed to have read my thoughts since, as we were walking off the plane, he suddenly turned to me and said vehemently, ‘No. It’s not all true what they say about me. Just some of it. That’s what you want to remember. Some of it.’ And then he and Roy laughed with the knowledge of many a harsh encounter retold over the dinner table.

  Waiting for bags is always tiresome, but the Germans had baggage handling down to an art. Now that the terrorist threat was on everyone’s minds any leftover luggage was removed. I believe they destroy such items. Pity the tourist with their bagful of memorabilia who has a memory lapse at a German airport.

  Roy said he needed to freshen up, as did I, but Charles took hold of my arm as I was about to go off with Roy.

  ‘There’s someone I want you to meet.’

  So I was introduced to Anton Partl, an impressive looking Austrian, affable, and charming with it. With his high forehead, cold eyes and somewhat predatory lips, he took possession of the space he occupied with an easy bravado.

  ‘David! I have heard so much about you. We are going to have a lot of fun together.’

  He was sizing me up as I was him. It was something I would have to get used to, since it is hard to fully trust anyone once you’re inside an organisation like this.

  We talked, but I had to get away for necessaries, and so I left Charles and Anton together, hatching whatever was to hand.

  At the washbasin I splashed about, brushed my teeth and generally cleaned up. Roy was in the cubicle that was occupied—I could see his shoes behind the door. I started to make small talk. I felt I should try to be friendly. Besides, I wanted to be friendly.

  Roy was being holier than thou and letting me do all the talking. It annoyed me, so after a while I went up to his cubicle door and tapped on it.

  ‘Hey, are you OK?’

  The door opened a little.

  I hesitated, but since there was still no answer I pushed the door open.

  Roy was slumped across the toilet seat, his throat severed, blood soaking his shirt and trousers.

  Panicking, I gulped in air.

  I went back to the door to make sure I had seen what I had seen.

  Then I ran outside and signalled for help. Charles and Anton were some way off, but they saw me and came running, Anton reaching me first and grabbing me roughly.

  ‘What is it David? What is it?’

  I pointed. As Anton proceeded I went up to Charles to stop him following. He looked at me with the kind of simplicity I had only seen before on the faces of the grieving.

  Then Charles was alone with Roy for a few moments, before the authorities came in.

  My intimations of a glamorous adventure abroad disappeared down a spiral of uncertainty. I tried to recollect the past days and place them in a logical sequence. A shellac of cliché would hold the world together.

  Later that night, in our hotel, I lay on my bed, a slug. Charles was next door, asleep, with the help of sedatives. Anton was trying to smooth over protocols with the police.

  I rose, groggy, not knowing what to do, or what to say to Charles next time I saw him.

  It was raining outside, and I felt as depressed as I had ever been.

  Charles finally woke. He looked old, so different to the man who had entertained me in such a friendly fashion only a while ago. He sat on the end of his bed, staring at the carpet.

  ‘We must continue,’ Anton obliged.

  ‘Yes, I know, I know. We haven’t been careful enough, and Roy has paid the price for someone’s carelessness. Oh God, that it should come to this.’

  Charles picked at the quilt on his bed.

  I stood back.

  Then Charles spoke, quietly, deliberately.

  ‘We are going on. Roy would have wanted it. Confirm our present meeting schedule.’

  I cleaned up the hotel room while Anton looked over security footage provided by the airport administration.

  And then I noticed an envelope under the door.

  I went and picked it up. There was nothing on the front of the envelope. I took it to Charles.

  He opened it. Within was a ticket to a Musikverein concert Roy would have been attending.

  It was obvious there had been a calamitous security breach.
r />   From that day on my relationship with Charles changed. I was taken into the confidence of many more people, and he came to rely on me to get through each day. There was much to manage. I could see he would need a proper secretary to help him out and so I looked for someone in our group with the necessary skills.

  We had our first argument not long after because he was a person used to having his own way, whether it was good for him or not. Since Charles had made it clear to me that our organisation was the priority, I had to insist on a certain agenda being maintained, which he finally accepted with bad grace.

  Meanwhile, Anton had been seeing companions in The Hammer.

  They were an interesting bunch. I got to know them a little since Anton thought Charles needed cheering up and he brought some of them back to the hotel where they exchanged stories of their mates in the espionage game.

  There was one person who immediately stood out—Thérèse Sablon. She had been briefly introduced to me when they arrived and was certainly the most attractive person in the room. I wanted to know her better.

  I guessed she must have been approached many times, and she’d worked out a shorthand method for dumping unwanted suitors. But I was not put off so easily.

  I sidled up to her thinking that the best approach was the direct one. I said straight away, ‘I’ve heard it said that you’re the one to go to if you don’t want to waste time getting information.’

  I didn’t really know if it was true.

  Thérèse looked at me with her brown eyes, brushing her hair back.

  ‘Ah, yes. Peut-être.’

  Her voice was light, but it had colour in it too, musicality.

  She asked me if I’d like to walk with her in the streets outside the hotel. And so we set forth on an hour-long discussion about the aims of our group.

  It was only then I realised more fully the import of Charles’ plans. There were imminent enforcements planned, and one or two hijackings. It seemed ambitious, but I knew from what I’d read before that this kind of thing would be happening.

  Thérèse had a directness I liked. At a windy street corner she allowed me to kiss her.

  Thérèse was of French and German extraction. She had been educated at Oxford too. That accounted for her idiomatic English. The way she dressed told you a lot about her French side, so soigné and sexy, but practical with it, not sporting too much jewellery, wearing sensible shoes, a discreet parfum trailing her neck and wrists.

  Thérèse came from the Haute-Saône département of Bourgogne Franche-Comté. When she was growing up she had done a lot of hiking through the vineyards and cherry orchards, cancoillotte cheese and Luxeuil ham in her backpack. She was lithe and strong, and when she told me she had often gone up into the Jura Mountains on expeditions, it was easy to see where her sure-footed gracefulness originated.

  Going back to my room in the hotel, I leaned back in the lift, elated, despite recent events. And this time Thérèse kissed me. I held her tightly. Her warmth ran through me.

  I had to dissimulate with Charles, but he probably saw what was happening.

  Anton gave me a knowing look, which I found intrusive.

  Our arrival was the signal for all to go their separate ways. Charles was on his mobile talking earnestly to someone important—he only seemed to talk to important people. But, as he had said to me in his harbourside loungeroom—all people are important.

  ‘We will be going to Bavaria the day after tomorrow. Have everything packed by ten that morning David.’

  Did Charles need company? I guessed he would be on the phone late into the night, and so I went to my room, wondering when I would next see Thérèse, and what we would all be up to in the following weeks.

  The countryside flashed by as we travelled to Munich. Being driven by someone else was a luxury and I was enjoying it. Charles was silent, as was to be expected. He’d decided to have a service for Roy in a Catholic cathedral, Roy being nominally of that faith. However, he would scatter the ashes at a special place in the Schwarzwald that meant a lot to both of them. I wouldn’t be going to the funeral. Charles only wanted a few close friends there. It gave me a chance to see Thérèse again. We strolled through one of the galleries, the expressionist angst not registering much.

  We were staying in the castle outside Munich—Hohentor. Well, it was a converted castle, because part of it was used as a hotel, but another area was occupied by those with platinum credit cards, politicians and so forth. Untoward behaviour was easily covered up, and there was a private exit used in emergencies. The top floor was reserved for The Hammer alone.

  The previous owner was a count, whatever that meant these days, aristocratic to the buffed fingernails, and haughty with it. He was a member of our group who knew where a lot of the political bodies ended up and sorted out difficulties in Hohentor when they arose. Charles had bought Hohentor from this count. A lifetime of formality didn’t brush up too well against my Australian full-on-ness. I was still trying to work out the behaviour codes of these people, and it took a lot of effort on my part not to appear rude. But I started to understand German orthodoxy and eventually came to appreciate their attitude to work, and their seriousness. The Germans I was working with were green warriors, antagonists of despotism, admirable, dedicated, bold.

  The Hammer would soon be meeting in the conference room. The private entrance was being used a great deal, cars coming and going throughout the day. Charles told me to be patient when I asked what was going to happen tonight.

  I accompanied Charles to the conference room at seven o’clock. A round table set with fifteen places took up most of the space with chairs behind for also-rans like myself. Each eminence seemed to have his or her own personal assistant. The moment we entered a hush came upon everyone present as Charles took his place, gesturing for me to sit nearby as he handed out an agenda for the meeting.

  Charles was an old-school kind of guy and a lot of people would have found this castle set-up a very old-fashioned way of dealing with contemporary politics. However, I could see the advantages of organising things in this manner, though I knew there were those who would be scornful.

  Now, for the first time, I had a chance to study those around the table. Here were gathered some influential politicians and business leaders, and even one well-known artist, which was a surprise. I wasn’t really impressed by power so much as what people did with their power. Often, power accrued indifference, leading to a moral vacuum where you explained away inconvenient difficulties. It was having power and exercising it judiciously that was the admirable thing. It was what I was expecting from those before me. They were Establishment types, but I was wary of labels being used to control our idea of what a person should be like. We were forced to wear Gen X or Y, straight, gay, bi, transgender or I-love-my-dog labels. In reality we had to fulfil ourselves unaccompanied by word cages, a hard ask always, as I was finding.

  Enid Hartnell sat next to Charles. Beside her was the Foreign Secretary of the previous British Government, Reginald Tamblyn-Street, who seemed somewhat standoffish, at least on television. But he soon revealed himself as a passionate proponent of African democracy. I was seriously taken by the sheer star power here. One of America’s most generous philanthropists, Edwin Sethman, read dispatches, looking carefully through glasses perched on the end of an inquisitive nose. I was trying to make out the identities of some of the others when Charles spoke.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we must begin. Firstly, I would like to introduce you to David Mapleton, our new assistant. His expertise in financial matters is legion. After Roy’s murder, he will be taking up some of the slack left in the wake of this calamity. As careful as we have been, Roy’s demise means that someone has us under surveillance. But we can’t stop because of that, as much as I am grieved by what has happened. At all costs, I want to go on.’

  Charles’ voice had taken on a fiercer tone with this last sentence, and now I saw a more assertive side of his character. Gripping a folder in his hands,
his face flushed, he embarked on an excoriating attack concerning the failures of Western leaders. Ideological culture wars between intellectuals and in the press, even his own newspapers, also left him cold.

  ‘If people try to stop us from proceeding in our endeavours they will have to be met with due diligence. But let us consider the forthcoming operation. If all goes well, I am hoping we will have a very big catch in the not-too-distant future.’

  There was a murmur of agreement around the table; it was a foregone conclusion as to who was meant and what would happen. I was uncertain about these procedurals.

  Then, with a nonchalant air, Charles said, ‘I’d just suggest that everyone be watching the news next Thursday.’

  Dame Enid was then asked to speak.

  What followed was not so much a commentary as a full-fledged explication of world affairs. Her main idea was that motiveless malignity—Coleridge’s phrase for Iago—was everywhere. She gave a brilliant overview of the situation in the major trouble spots. Australia didn’t feature much in this rundown, but what would people say if they knew that an Australian was the mastermind behind our group?

  I couldn’t remember having heard such a convincing performance from any politician before, and I was persuaded by her analyses. These showed that certain people, some of whose names were now before us in our agenda notes, had to be silenced, and quickly.

  It was only in the middle of this disquisition that I noticed Thérèse taking rapid notes behind someone who it seemed was part of the entourage of the exiled Greek monarchy. I knew descendants of the Habsburg dynasty used to gather at a certain mediterranean spa each year to plan for a return to former days of glory. However unlikely that was, it was somewhat disconcerting to find a member of the Greek inner circle sitting at this table while political turmoil was plotted.