The Blue Ring (18 page)

God
created the world in six days. On the seventh day he rested. But a millennium
later he took time off from his rest to bring through one of his creations.

In the
early morning she started to have violent physical orgasms. She clutched at her
crotch and her child's body arched from one spasm to another. Michael sat in
his canvas chair and watched, but could not stay. He knew it was the last
phase. He also knew that her young heart had been greatly weakened from the
excesses the drug had imposed on it. He knew that this phase would last an hour
or more, and that she might well attack him physically, either out of inflamed
sexual desire, or inflamed hatred. He took his chair and the ladle and the
telephone and left the cave, locking it behind him. He set his alarm and slept
for an hour by the pool and then, with massive trepidation, went back into the
cave. She would be dead or asleep.

At
first he thought she was dead. She lay so still; her body was wet, on the wet
mattress. He moved forward slowly. He had been taught how to check for a dead
body. She was curled up in a foetal position.

He
touched her shoulder. It was cold. He pulled her head away from her chest and
put the back of his hand under her chin against her artery. The rhythm was slow
and so faint that he could hardly feel it but it was there. He stood up and
looked down at her exhausted, soiled body. He was looking at the most beautiful
thing he had ever seen or would ever see.

In
vain, he called her name, knowing that she could not hear. He picked her up and
carried her out of the cave. At the main door to the house he paused, then
carried her to Creasy's bedroom, laid her on the vast bed and went into the
bathroom. He ran luke-warm water into a high-sided pine tub in the Japanese
style, then picked her up, carried her into the bathroom, laid her in the bath
and carefully washed every part of her. Then he wrapped her in a big towel and
laid her back on the bed. She had murmured occasionally, but had not moved. He
went back to the bathroom and took a scalding hot shower, as though to wash away
the memories of seven days of hell.

In the
bedroom he checked her breathing. It was shallow but regular.

He went
to the kitchen and began to cook. First, he took the carcasses of two large
chickens, cut them up, braised them briefly in the frying pan with a little
olive oil and put the pieces in a large cooking pot and covered them with
water. He then chopped up onions, carrots, tomatoes, broad beans, fennel,
parsley and basil and dropped all of them into the pot. He turned the flame
down low, covered the pot, and went back to the bedroom. He lay with her and
held her through the night. Her body was still agitated and she twitched and
turned, but always came back to his arms. Had she been conscious, she would
have felt the wetness of his tears on her cheeks and shoulders. But she slept
the sleep of an angel, and he slept the sleep of a martyr.

In the
morning he stirred the broth, and brought it to her in a cup. He held her head
and gently fed it into her mouth. She slept again, and after a few hours woke
again and drank more broth. He noticed her looking at her naked body with
slight embarrassment, and in a drawer he found one of the colourful sarongs
that Creasy always wore in bed. He wrapped her in it and kissed her cheek and
told her to sleep.

The
papers came two days later. They came from Marseille, from the arms dealer
Leclerc, in a large envelope, delivered by courier. He took it at the gate,
signed for it, walked into the kitchen, made himself a strong black coffee and
opened it. Inside, he found adoption papers for a thirteen-year-old girl called
Juliet Creasy. She had been adopted two years earlier by one Marcus Creasy and
his wife Leonie. The papers indicated that she was of Belgian nationality and
an orphan.

It
named the orphanage in Bruges. They looked totally authentic, as did the
Maltese passport and her photograph.

Michael
smiled and took the papers into the bedroom. She was barely awake, but she
smiled as she perused the papers and the passport. She reached up an arm around
his neck, pulled him down and kissed him on the cheek.

"You
have a sister," she said.

"You
have a brother," he answered.

Massimo
Bellu was the antithesis of his boss, Colonel Satta, in every way except two:
the quality of his brain, and his dedicated application in using it. Otherwise,
no two men could have been more different. Satta was handsome, elegant,
sardonic, cynical and an aristocratic gourmet. Bellu, on the other hand, was
short, plump, and balding. He dressed like the most junior clerk in a seedy
trading company and his main culinary delights ranged from a hamburger with an
extra layer of onions to spaghetti carbonara. He also hated to play backgammon
and a couple of years earlier had finally put his foot down and refused to play
against his disconcerted boss during the many nights they spent together,
waiting for a phone call or something to happen.

He had
worked for Satta for eight years. During the first year he had spent much of
his time trying to think up a viable reason to apply for a transfer to another
department. But after that year he had begun to appreciate and understand the
subtlety of Satta's mind. At the same time, Bellu's younger sister, who was
highly qualified, had applied to enter Catanzaro University to study medicine.
There were very few places and it was very hard to get in without a connection.

She had
been turned down, but a week later had received a letter reversing the
decision. Many weeks had passed before she had learned that a certain Professor
Satta, senior surgeon in Naples' Cardarelli Hospital had intervened on her
behalf.

Bellu
had confronted Colonel Satta, who had simply shrugged, and said, "You work
with me. Of course I had to do something."

All
thoughts of a transfer had left Bellu's head. It was not what Saatta had done
but simply the words he had spoken: "You work 'with' me, not 'for'
me."

Over
the years they had developed a very relaxed working arrangement, which had
slowly turned into a partnership.

Now
Bellu sat late in his office, in front of his pride and joy, a new Apple
Mackintosh computer. He had an affinity with computers and their progeny; the
department's computer expert could teach him nothing. Within weeks he had
transferred a vast amount of information onto the Apple's hard disc. On this
night he sat and watched the screen, looking for something that might give him
a clue into the workings of Jean Lucca Donati's mind.

When it
came he did not see it at first, but two minutes later something in his brain
clicked. He tapped his keyboard and went back, studied the screen for several
minutes and then pushed more keys and went into a different file, the file of a
man called Anwar Hussein. This was an Arab. In fact a Nubian Arab with
antecedents in Egypt. Also a trader, with excellent contacts in the Middle
East.

He,
too, had an impeccable reputation, and had lived in a luxurious villa on the
outskirts of Naples for the past twenty years. He also paid his taxes. The only
possible blemish on his reputation had occurred some two years earlier, when
Saudi Arabian customs had discovered a small quantity of child pornography and
associated Satanism in a container of fashion garments shipped to Riyadh by one
of Hussein's Italian companies. It had been traced to an underling whom Hussein
had promptly fired.

The
faint link between Jean Lucca Donati and Anwar Hussein was that they were both
members of the cultural group, the Italian Arab Circle, and four years earlier
had both served on the committee.

The
only reason that Bellu had a file on the Italian Arab Circle was because in the
late sixties and early seventies it had been thought that it may have been a
front for one or more Arab intelligence services; much as suspicion had been
directed at the British Counsel, Alliance Franchise and the Goethe Institute.
In the case of the Italian Arab Circle, these suspicions had proved groundless.

Bellu
went back and forth through his files, and then discovered another common
denominator. Jean Lucca Donati was an honorary consul for Egypt in Milan and
Anwar Hussein held the same honorary position in Naples. It gave them both
access to the diplomatic bag.

He
switched off the computer and looked at his watch. It was close to midnight but
he phoned Satta anyway and briefed him on his discovery. Satta instructed him
to put full surveillance on both men and their families. Then Satta phoned
Creasy at his hotel. He caught him just as he was leaving to catch a night
flight to Brussels. He passed on the information. Creasy remarked that it
looked pretty flimsy. Satta laughed softly and commented, "Two men who pay
their considerable taxes and enjoy the confidence of the Egyptian
government...Not so flimsy, I think."

Michael
took Juliet to the Schembris' for Sunday lunch. It was a sort of ritual. When
he and, or Creasy were in Gozo, they always went to the Schembris' on alternate
Sundays. On the other weeks the Schembris would come to them for a barbecue.

Before
leaving the house he took her into Creasy's bedroom and said, "There is a
safe in this room. It is well-concealed. Since you are now a member of the
family you must know how to open it."

He was
carrying a folder containing her newly-arrived passport and papers. He went to
the head of the wide double bed and pointed to the top right-hand corner of one
of the huge slabs of limestone which made up the thick wall.

"You
count up four slabs from the floor," he said, "and then press it
firmly here." He pushed the heel of his hand against the limestone and it
silently swung open. Behind it was a metal door about one metre high and half a
metre wide. Set into the metal was a handle and, alongside that, a dial for the
combination lock. "Do you have a good memory?" he asked. She nodded
solemnly. He could see that she was impressed, as any child would be, with the
confidence shown her. "83...02...91."

She
repeated the numbers twice and then nodded. He reached forward, dialled the
numbers and pulled open the heavy door. Inside were several shelves. He pointed
to the top shelf which contained bundles wrapped in chamois leather.

"Weapons,"
he said. "Hand-guns and two small submachine-guns plus suppressors and
ammunition. Later on I'll teach you how to use them." He pointed at the
middle shelf which contained several thick files. "There are various files
on people, some are enemies and some are friends." He pointed at the
bottom tray. There were more files but they were thinner. "These are
personal papers." He took one of the files out, opened it and dropped her
passport and adoption papers into it. Beneath the bottom shelf was a thin
drawer. He pulled it out and pointed. She leaned forward to look and saw the
tightly wrapped bundles of paper currency.

"There
are US dollars, Swiss francs, pounds sterling, deutschmarks and Saudi Arabian
riyals." He lifted out a small canvas bag and shook it. She heard the
clink of the coins. "Gold sovereigns and krugerrands. Very useful as
currency in the Middle East." He dropped the bag back into the drawer and
slid it closed. Then as he closed the door of the safe and spun the dial he
said, "In total, there's more than the equivalent of five hundred thousand
US dollars in that drawer. In a crisis, and if Creasy and I are not around, use
what you need." He gave her a mock stern look. "But next week I don't
want to see you driving around in a new Mercedes sports car."

She
smiled, and he decided that as she recovered and as she grew older she was
going to turn into a very beautiful young woman. She had been made thin and
gaunt by her ordeal. The bone structure of her face was clearly etched and her
limbs were little more than sticks.

He
calculated that while going cold turkey she had lost at least up to twelve
kilos, about a quarter of her body weight. But she had been eating well since then,
and within a week or so her body and face would start to fill out. She had also
begun to exercise, swimming several lengths of the pool in the mornings and
evenings.

As they
drove through Rabat and on to Nadur, he told her in detail about Paul and Laura
Schembri and their son Joey and his wife of two years, Maria, who would also be
at the lunch. He explained the long connection between the Schembri family and
Creasy and himself, summing it up succinctly. "We consider them our
family, and they reciprocate." He turned to glance at her and went on,
"So, in a way, now they become your family and you theirs. You can trust
them all totally, and respond to any trust they give you."

She was
silent as they drove down the winding dirt road towards the farmhouse. She sat
in the jeep, looking out over Comino to Malta, and then she said in a quiet
voice, "I hope they like me."

He
glanced at her again and saw that she was nervous. He took a hand off the wheel
and squeezed her shoulder.

"Don't
worry. Just be yourself. Offer to help Laura and Maria with the washing up.
They won't let you...but offer."

They
did like her. Michael had not told them who she was, but when he had rung up
had simply said he was bringing along a friend. As the jeep pulled up in the
courtyard they all came out to greet them.

He
introduced her simply as "Juliet...my new sister," and then laughed
at the expression on their faces. He gave Laura and Maria a hug and a kiss on
both cheeks. "I'll explain over lunch."

As
usual, the lunch was enormous. Tortellini to start, followed by a lamb
casserole and a vast array of vegetables from their own fields. The others were
all silent during the meal while Michael related Juliet's story.

At the
end of it Laura spoke with an angry edge to her voice. "You should have
called us the moment you got back. We would have helped...taken it in turns to
be with her. You know we can be trusted, all of us."