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  “To Harry,” Gerard Patreaux responded, his pale blue eyes misting as he raised his own glass and drank with Chant.

  “What’s the latest on Viktor and Olga Petroff?” Chant asked quietly as he set his glass down beside the bottle.

  The eyes of the Amnesty, Inc. chief glinted with anger. “Nobody’s heard anything for two weeks, not since the Russians packed them off to Gorky. The official line is that they’re still in Gorky, alive and well and probably rethinking all the nasty things they’ve said about the Soviet system.”

  “A newspaper in Holland reported they’d both gone on a hunger strike and were being force-fed.”

  “We’ve heard that rumor, but there’s no solid evidence to show they’re even still in Gorky. We have some contacts in Gorky, but they don’t report seeing any sign of the Petroffs. There’ve been no smuggled letters, nothing.”

  “Would the Russians dare put them in a mental institution?”

  “They might; they’re getting pretty desperate. They claim they can’t allow the Petroffs out of the country because both are nuclear scientists and privy to too many defense secrets. On the other hand, every time the authorities turn their backs the Petroffs call a press conference and denounce the abuse of human rights. At least they did before the Soviets packed them off to Gorky. It’s a closed city.”

  “Yes,” Chant answered absently. He was again leaning back in his chair, staring up at the ceiling.

  “You said you were in Amsterdam?”

  “Yes.”

  “On business, I presume?”

  Chant nodded.

  “If you don’t mind, I’d love to hear about it. It always makes me feel better when I learn that John Sinclair has mounted an operation against some poor, misunderstood soul.”

  Chant looked at his friend, smiled wryly. “The poor, misunderstood soul in Amsterdam is a pharmaceuticals mogul named Hugo VanderKlaven. His operation is a bit complicated, but what it boils down to is the sale of adulterated antibiotics to Third World and underdeveloped countries. He has a whole string of corrupt officials he’s bribed. The officials arrange for public health administrators in their various governments to buy their drugs from VanderKlaven. What they get is medicine that’s been cut three or four times. In more advanced countries, he sells his shit on the black market.”

  “But antibiotics that have been cut like that would be worthless.”

  “Precisely. Patients injected with VanderKlaven’s drugs don’t respond, and they usually die. Their doctors might as well have injected them with water.”

  “I’m surprised the doctors haven’t suspected the drugs are bad.”

  Chant shrugged. “The doctors who receive the drugs don’t operate practices in New York or London. They’re harried, overworked public health physicians fighting what’s already a tidal wave of death in places like South Africa’s black relocation areas, or the poorest areas of India. So many people die on them anyway, the doctors don’t suspect that the antibiotics they’ve been using might be bad. Besides, they have no testing facilities.”

  “Jesus!” Patreaux said with disgust. “I’ve been doing work like the work I do for Amnesty for more than twenty years, and I still find it hard to believe the cruelty some humans will inflict on other humans—sometimes for revenge, sometimes out of anger, and other times just to make money.”

  “Shall I bring Hugo VanderKlaven to you, Gerard?” Chant asked with only the slightest trace of irony in his voice. “You can interview him and ask him why he wants to do such nasty things.”

  Patreaux laughed easily. “Ah, I see you don’t think much of the idea of studying torturers to see what makes them tick.”

  “It would be presumptuous of me to offer an opinion one way or the other; I’m not a psychiatrist. I believe, simply, that some men and women are evil, and that’s all there is to it. Torturers are in their line of work because it gives them pleasure to see people suffer and die. People like VanderKlaven do what they do because they have sociopathic personalities, and making money is all that matters to them.”

  Chant paused, poured another drink for himself and Patreaux. “Men like VanderKlaven have very little imagination when it comes to the suffering of others,” he continued evenly, sipping the malt Scotch. “It might be interesting to see how he would respond to having an illness his frustrated doctors couldn’t treat. The same for the men who work for him. For example, there’s a microscopic parasite that lives in the mud of the Amazon Basin. Some natives pick it up when they bathe or wash clothes in the river. The parasite can only enter the body through breaks in the skin, but when it does get in the bloodstream it wreaks havoc in a relatively short period of time—often three weeks or less. It multiplies rapidly in human blood, and it goes straight for the organs of the head. It loves to feast on the brain, and it gets there by chewing its way along the optic nerve.”

  “Oh, my God,” Patreaux murmured with a shudder of revulsion.

  “Before the victim dies, he or she goes blind and suffers considerable agony. There’s no drug powerful enough to kill the parasite without killing the patient, so it can be said there’s no cure. It would be interesting to see how somebody like VanderKlaven and the others who knowingly profit from what he does would like being inoculated with a culture containing a strain of that parasite. After all, it would make their situation somewhat analogous to the men, women, and children with things like diphtheria or cholera who didn’t respond to the watered-down medicine administered to them.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Patreaux said in a cracked voice as he realized that this was precisely what Chant had done—or would do. As had happened so many times in the past, the Swiss found himself at once horrified and thrilled by the acts Chant was capable of. John Sinclair, he thought, might strike terror in the hearts of countless people, but it could never be said that he wasn’t extremely selective when it came to choosing his victims.

  Chant rose, extended his hand across the desk. “Now I have to go back to finish up my business with VanderKlaven, Gerard. You know how much I appreciate your letting me know about Harry.”

  Patreaux rose, gripped Chant’s hand firmly with both of his. “Thanks for coming, my friend; it’s made me feel better just talking to you. I hope we’ll see each other soon—under better circumstances.”

  “Yes,” Chant replied evenly, staring hard into the other man’s face. “In the meantime, there’s something I’d like you to do for me.”

  “Chant, you know I’d do anything you ask—assuming it’s in my power.”

  “I’m glad you feel that way, Gerard,” Chant said with just the faintest trace of a smile, “because you’re not going to like this at all.”

  FOUR

  Chant spent the first day at his country estate in England planning and writing a series of coded cables to be sent out by his aides at prearranged dates.

  On the second day, with the expert help of a young Japanese woman who was his pupil as well as his assistant, he prepared his body.

  The third day was spent alone meditating, hiking his fields, gazing into the depths of his ponds and lakes, preparing his mind. His only companion was fear, with which he carried on a silent, internal dialogue. Confronting his fear, imagining the worst things that could happen to him, he was able to conquer it, at least for the time being, and prevent it from distracting him; for he knew that once he began he would have to proceed step-by-step with no fear and no hesitation. Once he had begun this journey, there could be no turning back.

  For the first time in his life Chant engaged in the intricate meditative procedure that would, if there was truth in the legends, arm him with a most potent secret weapon. Chant had been told that less than one hundred men had been taught the secret since the seventh century, and he was the only Occidental. This secret was the greatest gift, the highest honor, Chant had ever received, and it afforded him the one weapon that assured that he could, finally, never be totally defeated, except by himself.

  On the morning of the fourt
h day he left for Amsterdam.

  FIVE

  At precisely two o’clock in the afternoon, Chant walked into the lobby of the three-story building housing VanderKlaven Pharmaceuticals. He smiled thinly when he felt the air of almost palpable tension emanating from a few of the staff members he passed on the way to the elevators; it meant the police were starting to make some moves—slow moves, perhaps, but moves nonetheless. Although Interpol had no jurisdiction over Amsterdam proper, Inspector Bo Wahlstrom was making his presence felt. Pressure was being applied.

  Chant waited until he was alone, then entered an elevator and pressed the Basement button; there were three more of the Dutchman’s employees he wished to visit, the enforcers in VanderKlaven’s satellite operations in narcotics and child prostitution.

  The elevator stopped, the doors sighed open onto a narrow, dank stone corridor. Chant turned to his left and walked quickly toward the small office where he knew VanderKlaven’s “maintenance men” sat, drank, and played cards while they waited for any orders that might be forthcoming from their boss. The door at the end of the corridor was open, and Chant stepped into the doorway, filling it, fixing his gaze on the three men who sat around a small table in the center of the room, studying the grimy cards they had just been dealt.

  “Hey, what the hell?!” one of the men shouted as he glanced up and saw Chant. He sprang to his feet, knocking over his chair, drew a gun, and started to walk forward. “What are you doing here? Who are you?”

  “I seem to be lost,” Chant said, affecting surprise at the sight of the gun in the hand of the man who was approaching him.

  “Well, mister, you get your ass back to the elevator and up—”

  Chant’s left hand darted out and snatched the gun from the other man’s hand. At the same time, Chant’s right elbow flew into the man’s throat with a force that instantly crushed the larynx and snapped his neck. Chant put a single bullet into the foreheads of the other two gunmen even as they were struggling to get their own guns out of their holsters. Then Chant threw the gun into the room among the corpses, turned, and headed back toward the elevator.

  He would have liked to inoculate the three gunmen with the parasite instead of killing them outright, but he had only one pipette of the culture left.

  “Bakker!” Hugo VanderKlaven shouted, jumping up from behind his desk as Chant entered the office, closing the door behind him. The obese man ran a bejeweled index finger across his upper lip, wiping away sweat. “Why didn’t my secretary announce you?”

  “She seems to have stepped out for a few minutes,” Chant replied easily, walking across the office and sitting down in a chair on the other side of the Dutchman’s desk. “What’s the matter, VanderKlaven? You look surprised to see me.”

  VanderKlaven again nervously swiped his finger across his upper lip, then slowly eased his massive body down into the chair behind his desk. Behind the thick lenses of his glasses, his small, black eyes burned even brighter than usual. His suit jacket was draped over the back of his chair, and his baby-blue silk shirt was darkening with blotches of sweat. “What do you want, Bakker?”

  “What do I want? I believe you owe me money—a million pounds sterling, to be exact.”

  “You double-crossed me!” VanderKlaven shouted, pounding a fat fist on his desk, sending papers flying. “I never trusted you, Bakker, and I was right! You were supposed to meet me at my warehouse five nights ago to deliver the government authorizations and Customs documents! Where the hell were you?!”

  “Oh, I was there,” Chant said evenly, smiling thinly as he saw VanderKlaven reach beneath his desk to push the button that would activate an alarm down in the office of his “maintenance men.” “There seemed to be a bit of a commotion, so I decided it might be better to wait and come here to see you. I also thought it might be safer. I knew you didn’t much care for me, and it occurred to me that you just might be planning to kill me and save yourself a payment. After all, you could always find somebody else in South Africa to do business with.”

  “Somebody blew up my warehouse, Bakker!” VanderKlaven shouted, glancing up nervously at the door behind Chant. “And copies of those phony inspection documents ended up in the hands of the police!”

  “Really? Too bad. Incidentally, if you’re waiting for your men to show up, you’re going to be disappointed. They’ve stepped out too.”

  VanderKlaven started, glanced sharply at Chant. Now fear moved in his eyes. “Who are you, Bakker? Interpol? Police?”

  “Not likely. I’m a man you owe money to.”

  “You’re insane. I don’t even have the goods anymore.”

  Chant shrugged. “I don’t see how that concerns me, VanderKlaven. That’s your problem. I want my money, and I know you have enough to cover it in that safe behind you.”

  The fat Dutchman flushed, half rose out of his chair. “You’ll get nothing from me, Bakker! Why should I give you money?!”

  “Because I’ll kill you if you don’t.”

  VanderKlaven grabbed for the telephone on his desk. Chant rose and swept the phone off the desk with an easy swipe of his hand. Then he clipped the Dutchman once, hard, on the collarbone with the edge of his palm. The fat man’s right arm went limp. VanderKlaven fell out of his chair onto the floor, clutching his broken shoulder, moaning and writhing in agony.

  “Shut up,” Chant said, coming around the desk and standing over VanderKlaven. “If you don’t do as I say, I’ll break your other collarbone and you’ll have to open the safe with your toes.”

  Spittle ran out of the other man’s white lips as he groaned and shook his head. “There’s no money in the safe.”

  “Wrong. The last time I looked in there, there was—besides your records—my million pounds, fifteen million Dutch florins, and five million Swiss francs.” He paused, smiled thinly as the other man gaped at him in astonishment. “How else could I have copied all your records if I didn’t break into your safe?” he continued easily. “I’d open it again myself, but I didn’t bring my equipment with me.”

  VanderKlaven gasped in astonishment as Chant casually removed his black wig, ducked his head and removed his green-tinted contact lenses. “Who are you?!”

  Chant picked up VanderKlaven’s large leather briefcase from beside the desk, emptied out the contents, and tossed it next to the man. “Put the money in there, VanderKlaven. You’re starting to piss me off, so now I’ll have you put it all in. Do it!”

  “You’re a dead man,” VanderKlaven murmured between clenched teeth as he got up on his hands and knees and began to work the dial of the large safe. “You’ll never get away with this. You’re a … a thief!”

  “I love it, VanderKlaven,” Chant said as he watched the other man shovel the cash inside the safe into the briefcase. He glanced at his watch, saw that it was 2:35. He took the full briefcase from VanderKlaven, then motioned for the other man to sit back down in his chair.

  “My arm’s broken,” the Dutchman whined. “I need medical attention.”

  “You’ll need an undertaker if you don’t sit your fat ass down in that chair.”

  VanderKlaven struggled to his feet and, still gripping his broken shoulder, slumped in his chair. Chant walked back around the desk, sat down on the edge.

  “What are you going to do?” VanderKlaven asked in a trembling voice. “You’ve got my money. What else do you want?”

  Chant raised his eyebrows slightly. “I want to chat.”

  “What?”

  “I want to ask you a question.”

  VanderKlaven’s lids narrowed. “What kind of a question?”

  “Why do you do what you do?”

  VanderKlaven shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

  “You own one of the biggest Pharmaceuticals manufacturing and distribution concerns in the world. Legitimately, you earn millions of dollars a year off the drugs you manufacture and the patents you own. Why, then, peddle useless drugs that doom people to die of diseases they’d otherwise be cured of? W
hy peddle heroin and cocaine? Why prostitute children, for Christ’s sake?”

  Again, VanderKlaven shook his head—this time in bewilderment. “To make more money, of course.”

  Chant grunted. “That’s what I thought.”

  “What kind of a stupid question is that?”

  “Just a question.”

  “Why should a thief ask a question like that?”

  “Motives are a subject that interest a friend of mine,” Chant replied easily, once again glancing at his watch. It was 2:45.

  Chant abruptly leaned over the desk and brought the side of his hand up under VanderKlaven’s jaw, knocking him unconscious and back out of his chair. He took his last glass pipette from his pocket, broke off the end, moved around the desk and ground the glass and parasite culture into the flesh behind VanderKlaven’s left ear. Then he picked up the bulging briefcase and walked unhurriedly from the office.

  When he had come in, at least two dozen people had been busy in other offices or scurrying up and down the wide, carpeted hallway. Now the entire floor was deserted, which did not surprise Chant. Everyone had been evacuated—quickly, efficiently, silently.

  At the end of the corridor, in the vestibule before the elevators, Chant found a man waiting for him. Clad only in undershorts, the man was seated on the floor, legs crossed Indian fashion, hands visible and empty, back braced against the wall between two elevators. The man appeared to be in his late fifties or early sixties, but was in exceptional physical condition. Chant estimated him to be just under six feet, around a hundred and eighty pounds. There were the telltale pockmark scars of bullet wounds in his left shoulder and right thigh. He had a full head of light brown hair only now turning to gray, deep brown eyes that gleamed with intelligence and toughness that was tempered with compassion. The eyes were fixed intently on Chant as he approached, stopped, and stood over the man.

  “Good afternoon, Inspector Wahlstrom,” Chant said easily, a faint smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “I see you’re unarmed. You have an interesting way of making a point.”