chapter twenty nine

Star Wars

At an extreme point on the perimeter of Logan Airport there were still a few flowers flicked by the breeze at the foot of the monument that commemorated World Airlines flight 30. The pilot had heroically steered the plane manually off the runway when it had overshot the iced strip, and guided it into Hudson Bay to avoid a catastrophic encounter with the light pier. All had survived bar a father and son. The memorial seemed to be unsure whether it was mourning the two lost lives or celebrating the skill of the brave pilot. Frank turned away from the cutting April wind and waited for the limousine to collect him. Nearly three years of a clandestine relationship with the United States government had made the Iglesias organisation enormously wealthy, and Frank had an important role in that relationship that had brought him considerable financial reward. Of course he was not paying for the limousine, or indeed the private jet that had carried him here from Brasilia; that was provided by the Americans through the company that disguised the real nature of their business: Driscoll Biochem.

The Cadillac Fleetwood paused, rather than stopped, a few feet from him and the door was thrust open from the inside. He was to have a fellow passenger. Frank fingered the titanium chain that connected his case to an armed bracelet at his wrist. He did not welcome having to share his journey to the factory, and any departure from the normal arrangements set the nerves of a person at his level, in his business, on edge. He slid into the car and discovered Michael Driscoll himself shuffling his overweight frame across the sumptuous leather to make room for him.

“Sorry to surprise you, Mr Kørner, but I need to brief you before we reach the facility.” Driscoll was sweating, despite the air conditioning and the low temperature outside. “The President could be about to make some changes in his priorities; some changes that could have a negative impact on our current projections.”

“Is this something to do with the assassination attempt? I thought that was nothing to do with the global issues. Surely he hasn’t changed his views on the Communist threat?” Frank was speaking the language of the political press, but he had already detected the real problem. His career had been built on exploiting human greed and having unique technology; if something had changed it was certainly not the American appetite for narcotics or the President’s hatred of Communism: it had to be technology.

“I’ll be brief; there are two factors that concern us,” Driscoll caught Frank’s glance towards the driver. “It’s OK, we can speak openly here; probably only here. Those factors are the Lady President and some changes in budgets.”

“I know the United States is supposed to be democratic on several levels, but how can Nancy be a problem?”

“She sees our business as having a cost in terms of health care, productivity, that kind of thing. She doesn’t like the way teenagers are shaping up,” Driscoll tapped a Cohiba from its metal tube. “She wants them to ‘Just Say No’. Jesus!”

“Americans habitually say no and then indulge to the maximum. Look at prohibition. What’s the problem? I might think you were over reacting.”

“I agree. Normally official attempts to squeeze us can be engineered to take out the amateurs and give us an even larger slice of the pie; but this time it’s different.” The rich smoke filled the cab, reminding Frank of the first time he had met Iglesias. He craved a glass; no, a bottle of Vega Sicilia. His profound enjoyment of the memory of the warm wine was dissipated by Driscoll’s edginess and the offered coffee. Now he was going to hear about the technology.

“The President is ordering massive, really massive increases in NASA’s budget. He thinks he has some way to beat the Commie’s using satellites. He wants to go to war on the big scale and win. I tell you Frank, my wife is expecting, and I’m not going to let my kids grow up here. London, Paris, Berlin; there all going to be targets too. I don’t trust any defence in a shooting war. NATO is fucked. I’m sending her back home to Ireland; if Europe is trashed I’ll get them to New Zealand.”

“I’m happy you have contingency plans, but why are we having this conversation here? What about our business?”

“Our business is big; very big. If Reagan wants to make a show of cracking down on the trade, and doesn’t need to worry about how those chips fall, he’ll hang Iglesias out to dry, and we could; no would, hang with him.”

Frank studied his fingernails. He somehow felt that their inexorable growth represented his own immortality, and at this moment he realised that he was being offered a way to escape another death and create an even grander future. He visualised his embryo, infused with the nutriment in the cavern in Edgeøya, and already knew whose cerebral fluid would facilitate the next stage. Driscoll put his hand on Frank’s shoulder and a pile of Cohiba ash scattered over the perfect material of his suit. “I know that you made Los Cardales happen. Now I need you to get rid of Iglesias before he takes us with him.”

chapter twenty eight

Devonshire Rd

The public library afforded Frank the opportunity of internet access. That is, the local authority described it as an opportunity; he regarded it as a buoyancy aid in the ebbing waters of his life. He no longer had an appetite for research: where he had once carved through the oceans of knowledge like a shark, to extend the soggy metaphor, he now foundered, aimlessly waiting to desiccate, fragment and die like a jelly. Incapable of dedicating his attention to any one thing for more than a minute he followed random links that generally had a tenuous connection to one or other of his earlier lives. He did this for most of the hours the library was open to the public, his earphones providing him the programmes of NRK 1 or BBC Radio 3.

It was the case that the library emptied rapidly on Thursday afternoon, due to the arrival of Social Welfare payments which were quickly spent in the budget supermarkets, pubs and bookmakers shops that proliferated in this shabby patch of South-East London. Frank felt the lack of human activity about him as a calmness, an umbilical peace that took him back to Edgeøya, and so he began to read about snow; specifically the conditions that dictated the formation of the hexagonal molecular lattices of individual flakes. He was familiar with it all of course, and thought how little the physics had developed from his father’s discoveries. Just as Frank had never shared his work with the scientific mainstream, his father had kept his work to himself. The rejection of his lifestyle, and particularly his choice of wife, by the Norwegian hierarchy had cost the world dear both in terms of the scientific progress which father and son had made and in the malignity of Frank’s mercenary use of his own developments.

Modern research into snow crystal formation was hampered by the impurities now universally found in the water molecules. The snow in Edgeøya had been untainted by the waste products of the modern world. It was only now that scientists were discovering the modifications to growth that could be achieved with electricity. Frank remembered his father documenting the same thing by use of magnets and his own phenomenal microscopes in the late 1860s. For a moment he felt a twinge of excitement as he read that crystal growth was of fundamental interest to nanotechnology: in the past this would have been the beginning of another episode of personal enrichment at the expense of some egocentric and probably criminal entrepreneur, but now there was no point. He was waiting to die.

The shuffling of the librarian alerted him to the imminent closure of the library. He disconnected in the middle of a string quartet by Klaus Egge and made his way to a tobacconist where he purchased a pack of Senior Service cigarettes, and then made his way along Devonshire Road towards his dismal bed-sit. His stained charity shop raincoat flicked in the unseasonably drizzly breeze, and he again found the relentless rise in the road difficult to manage. He stopped by the bright red post box and opened the pack of Seniors, lit one and deposited the match and cellophane into the letter slit. This was a Victorian post box; probably as old as himself. He considered the box, noticed the corrosion, over-painted in dozens of scarlet tones. The sharply cut lines of the angles and the letters VR gradually being absorbed into the organic flow of red.

It occurred to him that there was a further similarity between himself and this box: they were equally redundant, 21^st Century dinosaurs. These days hardly anybody wrote letters, the post was reserved for bills, and these would soon be all delivered by e-mail. It would not be long before this box was removed to a scrap yard or a local museum, just as had been the fate of the telephone boxes outside the library. He was likewise heading to a scrapheap, albeit one that the rest of humanity accepted as a natural end. Frank had gone beyond that; he had transcended mortality; until Kay had smashed him.

Well, it was too late to do anything about that now. Even his recent attempt at revenge had failed. There was no time to grow another Frank, even if he could get back to the cavern in Edgeøya that housed the nutriment. He could keep his organs together with small doses for a few years, but he knew enough about medicine to know that even a year was a generous estimate of the time he had left. He dropped the Senior into the box and, hoping it would incinerate the contents, continued the difficult trudge to the bed-sit.

The sound of an ersatz tango informed him that the landlady was rehearsing with her ballroom partner. He recoiled at the music and the thought of their debilitated guilty couplings, silently climbing the stairs. To his astonishment he found a letter tucked into the crack between his door and the frame. He snatched it, crushing it in his fist, and entered the room. He sat on the creaking bed and smoothed out the envelope. The stamp was Irish. He smelt the paper and recognised Kay. He tore it open and found a voucher for a seaweed bath in Ballybunion. He had no idea what it meant, but it was not a joke.

chapter twenty seven

75a Great Britain Street

They passed through the shop with the aid of the weak gas-light filtered in from the street. O’Connell led the way past the counter and he gave a triple tap at the door behind it. Frank heard the stairs beyond creak under the feet of whoever descended, and then the quiet breathy question: “Who is without?”

“Professor O’Connell. I have brought the friend of whom we spoke.”

The door was opened and Clarke appeared; a spectral shadow against the rusty wallpaper. “The others are in attendance above. You were not followed?”

“No, the Constabulary believe that our friend is a dangerous lunatic and accompanied us to the adjacent Magdalane Asylum. I can assure you they have no intelligence as to our purpose,” replied O’Connell as they made their way up the narrow flight of stairs. They entered a room dominated by a large mahogany dining table. The committee were seated around it, studying a large Dublin street map. Clarke sat down and pushed a plug of orange tobacco into his pipe. A younger man stood and offered the newcomers chairs. Frank was impressed by his intelligent eyes under a firm brow.

“Padraic Pearse,” he introduced himself, “you are Mr Kørner, I believe. I wonder if you might address us on the subject of your weapon.” Frank had considered this interview for a number of days and had already decided upon his policy. He realised that their revolutionary zeal would make them want to believe whatever he said, but he was going to tell them nothing but the truth. He even had a sample contained within a die in his pocket. He had previously arranged with O’Connell that an anonymous madman could be made available should they require a demonstration. As it turned out Connolly, Ceannt and Griffiths favoured a demonstration in order to be sure about the military reliability of the gas, but the others, led by Pearse thought the sacrifice of an innocent unwarranted.

It was nearly eleven o’clock before they returned to O’Connell’s apartment in the asylum. They had proceeded from the tobacconist’s shop in silence, but as O’Connell shut the door against the groans and mutterings of the patients a broad smile suffused his features. “Splendid work Mr Kørner; you have given us the heart and the advantage to bring forward the day of liberation. I am now sure that it will happen within days, possibly soon after Easter. Have you sufficient quantities of the gas to hand?”

“Did I not assure the committee of that very fact?” Frank despised the Professor for his naivety. He managed a polite smile of complicity to mask his rapid recalculation: he might not return to Galway before it was time for O’Connell to die. He did not welcome having to prepare the foam without his instruments; however this asylum was a type of hospital, perhaps he could find something that could serve his purpose. “I find the prospect of contributing to your just cause very stimulating and I fear I shall not sleep. May we inspect the facilities here to settle my thoughts?”

“Now? It nears midnight.”

“I’m sure you are equally excited by the outcome of this evening’s meeting, and I know you are an expert in this field of medicine,” Frank hoped that flattery would encourage the professor to accede to his request. O’Connell’s hand hovered over the whisky bottle and then fell to his side.

“You are correct, it would help me sleep. Let’s go, there is an excellent collection of special tools and some fine samples of trepanned skulls.” Frank was delighted; the oaf was going to introduce him to the means by which his brain would be soon liquefied. The moment could not come soon enough.

Chapter Twenty Six

T4

White expressionless faces, black uniforms, gleaming Schmeisser MP-40 submachine guns, slips of scarlet on arm-bands formed a flat abstraction which Frank actively composed in order to distance himself from the terror threatening to coalesce from the air in his lungs. Herr Handkerchief paused before a mahogany door, the heavy wood made heavier by a sheet of black iron that was bolted to it, covering most of the surface. A rectangle slid aside in the matt area, revealing for a moment an intense synthetic light within. A figure intervened and then Herr Handkerchief stepped away as the door opened.

The room was an operating theatre, furnished with the latest medical technology. The intense illumination was produced by two large banks of lights suspended over a pair of tables. Both tables were occupied by male patients, one of whom was receiving the attentions of a surgeon; working on him with the aid of a nurse of indeterminate gender.

“Just one moment, Herr Kørner,” said the surgeon as he deposited something pink and bloody into a metal tray held by his assistant. He turned and peeled away the mask covering the lower half of his face. “These, Herr Kørner, are degenerate testicles. To be precise they are homosexual testicles. Our friend on the operating platform is an abomination to the Lord, of course, but he is in all other respects pure Aryan. The Fuhrer has decreed that he be given a chance for redemption; therefore I am grafting a pair of heterosexual testicles to his body. It has been shown by my research at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft that such a procedure will remove the hormones that cause this vile perversion. Our friend will be able to play his proper role in the triumph of the Master-race. There will need to be psychiatric work to help him overcome the self-disgust he will feel; but in all life is good for him. The Fuhrer has offered him a second chance.”

“I was under the impression that the Institute was recently closed, Doctor...?”

“Mühsam, Professor Mühsam. It was closed; in fact Hiller, the administrator, is an enforced guest of this very camp. It was found that those in charge of the Institute were promoting vile practices. Their library of so-called ‘scientific research’ has been burnt. The director has fled the country. I have been entrusted by the Fuhrer himself to carry forward the good work that was done there.”

Frank glanced at the contents of the tray and felt his scrotum tighten around his own degenerate testicles. The professor’s ideas about hormones were absurd, but given the fact that Frank was surrounded by miles of barbed wire and dozens of armed guards he felt it wise to appear to take him seriously. “I am impressed; but I wonder why you have summoned me here. My work takes place at a molecular level.”

“I am aware of this, and I will explain; but you will excuse me if I attend to my presently incomplete patient.”

“Of course.” Frank stood back as Mühsam moved to the other table. With terrifying speed and a precision that was impressive he removed the donor testicles and tied the vas deferens. He neglected to close the scrotum, instead quickly moving back to the recipient and carefully grafting the testicles using minute stitching. Equally fine needlework closed the scrotum and the nurse was entrusted with managing his resuscitation and removal to a recovery ward.

Frank considered the anonymous donor and Mühsam seemed to sense his thought. “A mental defective and of impure race. You are probably aware that this camp has a hygienic function. We harvest that which has value before... before disposing of the body. We are men of science and need not concern ourselves with these matters of house-keeping.” The surgeon leant against a shelf that carried an array of surgical saws. “That last case neatly demonstrates the manner in which we believe you can assist us, Herr Kørner. That young man’s parents are very good people; active in the party and the father has an important position in munitions. Even such exemplary Germans can unfortunately produce a diseased child. Obviously the Aryan race is much less prone to such mutations as others, but sometimes imperfections develop.

“Herr Kørner, we want you to screen the cells of good Germans who fear they may conceive defective children; screen the cells and eliminate the cause of such imperfections. We are primarily concerned with male homosexuality and mental defects. Female homosexuality does not exist, of course. I could make this work attractive to you by stressing the quality of the tools you will be given and the accommodation we will provide here, but we do not require your agreement. The work will commence immediately.”

They left the theatre. The guards no longer trained their guns on him as he passed by, but that made him no less a prisoner. He would have to work on his own liberation as well as Aryan cells. Cologne could have been a mistake.

Chapter Twenty Five

Central Park

Fifth Avenue was throbbing like an artery in cardio-vascular crisis at his back. Frank lit a Lucky and inhaled the smoke with the cool September air, pumped fresh from the 843 acres of Central Park. It was nine in the evening and he needed to be alone and dark and very, very quiet. New York had made him comfortably wealthy, but the Vogue reception had demanded a level of indulgence to the vacuous lives of his patrons that had been more than he could stomach.

He thought about Charles Ives, who had composed a sound picture of this spot more than sixty years earlier and smiled as he remembered that the composer had likewise lived a double life: to his neighbours he had been a successful insurance agent, whilst privately creating some of the most revolutionary music of the period. Frank’s hidden life, or lives were far more radical. It was acceptable to devise perfumes, frequent artists’ lofts and jazz cellars; even indulge in narcotics and have a discrete relationship with a celebrated male artist. Many of the elderly socialites at the Vogue reception made a point of surrounding themselves with homosexual creatives, to use the jargon. They would not be able to comprehend the scope of Frank’s involvements, the brilliance of his real work, the scale of his vengeance and the profundity of his present emptiness. He ground the cigarette into the gravel of the path and set out into the black horizon of grassland.

Once in the void he let the pulse of Ives’ music still the frantic pace of his thoughts. The drunken teenagers, the nervy dealers and their desperate clients barely troubled his perception of a black base of earth tinted green and its indigo equivalent above. He stopped by a bench which offered a point of rest between the competing and massive presences of earth and sky. He lit another Lucky and as he let the smoke go murmured a few notes from Ives.

“He married a girl called Harmony: Harmony Twitchell actually.”

His isolation violated, Frank looked in vain for the source of the comment. A man in his early thirties was standing among a cluster of trees growing alongside the bench. Two things irritated him: that he had failed to notice the other man and that whoever it was imagined he did not know the name of Ives’ wife. He was, however, fascinated by the instant recognition of the composer from a few muted notes.

“You must be a musician?”

The man stepped forward. Frank registered glasses and conventional straw-coloured hair. “It’s a hobby. I’m a painter; trying to be a painter. I’ve met you before.”

“You have?”

“Yes, at Jack’s studio. A couple of times actually. You probably didn’t notice me.” Frank was privately astonished: he hadn’t noticed this man before, he had really taken his eye off the ball, because this meeting could not be coincidental: something important was happening, and he didn’t know where it was coming from or going to.

“Sorry, I couldn’t recognise you in the dark: of course I remember you, but I have to confess that I’ve forgotten your name...”

“Spong, Bennett Spong. I’m from Connecticut. Danbury; the same place as Ives. When I was a kid I’d listen to ‘Central Park In The Dark’ and imagine all this.” He stood before Frank and searched his jacket pockets for something which he failed to find. “Well; I didn’t listen directly. I read the score: it was better than listening on those terrible 78 phonograms. Abstract music.” He rummaged in his trouser pockets and found his cigarettes. “Silent but full of sound.”

“Light?” Frank sparked and illuminated Spong’s youthful grin. He sucked the flame into his Chesterfield.

“You’re in the groove, Jackson! That’s why I’m a painter. Sound field and colour field.” Spong chuckled and coughed out nicotine but Frank was freezing inside. He remembered the first time he had met Jack, at a New Yorker interview session. That phrase, stolen from a musical comedy film had been a special code between Jack and his then lover. He had never understood why Jack, so warm and so cool had suddenly cut him off after more than a year of an intense relationship that had been everything his senses, ravaged by Europe, had desired. Now he knew everything.

“You seem... perturbed,” said Spong, suddenly noticing Frank’s introversion. He glanced into the surrounding night and nodded towards an inky clump of trees. He drew on his cigarette and illuminated for a second lips that contrived the innocence of youth. “I could take your mind off it.”

Frank let the words hang long enough for the aspiring painter to feel uncomfortable, he coughed. “I mean I thought...”

“Then I would be really screwing myself,” whispered Frank.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Another time, but soon,” said Frank, appearing to shake off his cares. “We’ll get together soon, I promise.” He slapped Spong on the back and turned back to face the city. It was time to move on.

Chapter Twenty Four

Princess

Browne lumbered unsteadily into Frank’s sparsely but elegantly appointed suite overlooking the Bois De Boulogne. It was the spring of 1897 and Frank found it helped his work to leave the windows open, bringing the scent of cherry-blossom and horse-dung as markers on an olfactory scale against which he created his much-sought after Eaus de Toilette. This morning it was neither perfume nor narcotics which claimed his attention. He was perfecting the cerebral aspects of the transfer, and the sudden appearance of the huge Irish aristocrat was at the very least as unwelcome as it was unexpected.

“Dia dhuit, Monsieur de Brún,” said Frank, rising from his elegant Louis XV chair, a masterpiece of the style which exactly matched those to be found in the grandest rooms of the Hôtel Soubise.

“English or French Professor Kørner, I do not employ the utterances of the peasantry.”

“As you wish. To what do I owe the great pleasure of your presence before noon? Perhaps I may provide you with some of my most sublime gases?”

“Strangely, not at this time. I have been sent to request that you accompany me to the palace of a certain princess at your earliest convenience. You can take that to mean immediately, Professor. I have a carriage awaiting us presently.” Browne lifted his right arm to indicate the door. Frank cast a regretful eye over his papers and let his mind leave the problems of consciousness and memory with them on the desk. He left the suite and attempted to feel some curiosity as to the identity and requirements of the mysterious princess.

The carriage proceeded through the more than 2000 acres of parklands, now almost completely restored following the devastating effects of the Franco-Prussian war. Browne remained silent as they passed through a number of picturesque villages until they entered a narrow avenue which maintained a constant darkness due to the density of evergreen trees through which it ran.

“The princess refers to this entrance as her landscaped quim. I should give you the benefit of the intelligence that she is a committed tribade. I have had the pleasure of observing her in the satisfying of her Sapphic appetites in her private salon on a number of occasions. I am sure this does not discomfort you Professor. It is because of your broad-mindedness and your scientific expertise that the princess requires your attendance.”

Frank felt a twinge of pride. He regarded lesbianism as inferior to male homosexuality but nevertheless a sign of an independent mind in those who chose it freely; that is in women who were not merely deprived of male society, such as members of religious orders. He felt that he was not going to be disappointed by his meeting with the princess. “How should I address her, since I do not know her name?” he enquired.

“She believes that she is descended from Sappho, thus she likes to be called after Cleїs, the poet’s daughter. Use this name only for her; do not address her by her title, for she detests it and insists on using first names only with men. It is some kind of egalitarian notion.”

“I suppose she wears trousers and smokes a pipe.” Frank tried to align himself with Browne’s distaste for female rights. The Irishman’s black eyes twinkled with a suppressed humour.

“I am quite sure we will not be seeing any trousers on her today.” At that moment the carriage left the long night of the avenue and a fantasy of Baroque architecture came into view, positioned on a slight hill with a rich perspective of ornamental paths, sculpture, ponds and trees which forced the eye to the magnificent courtyard where two liveried guards stood in wait. Frank had found on many occasions that his unique abilities had led him to the society of the most wealthy, but this was the Ancien Régime in all its splendour. His mood became elevated. If there was one thing that could divert him from the obsessive exercise of his own genius it was wealth, and this was wealth displayed on an unprecedented scale.

Browne Left the carriage first and was addressed privately by one of the sentries. He returned to Frank smiling and engulfed him in his massive cape as he put his arm around the scientist’s thin shoulders. “The princess has a demonstration she wishes you to observe. We must make haste to the Salle des Bains.” They were led along a well-glazed corridor, resplendent with exotic blooms to a marble vestibule decorated in the Egyptian manner. The footman bade them enter the bathroom and then discretely retired, closing the massive doors behind him.

It was the humidity and the scent that first struck Frank: intense heat and the overpowering perfumes of musk, camellia and many other fabulous blooms. He looked up and saw the vast dome, decorated with classical Greek figures with a massive central chandelier penetrating down through the heavy clouds of steam. The bath was more of a small swimming pool, with two young women standing bare-breasted in the water which reached to their ribs. All of this was glorious and drugged the senses, but what enthralled Frank utterly was the sight of the ranks of beautiful, girlish young men, twelve abreast on three sides of the bath, all blindfolded and each maintaining by use of their hands the most splendid erections. His fascination was abruptly curtailed by a stiff elbow to the ribs from Browne.

“Here she is: bow you idiot!” And so Browne’s fate was sealed, although it would be just over two years before the huge aristocrat would be reduced to a twitching, boneless mess by Frank’s gas. Frank lowered his head and made some attempt at genuflection before looking up to see the princess; tall and raven haired, clothed in a diaphanous gown, enter the water. The material blossomed on the surface and she leant back floating in the centre of the pool. As one the young men began manipulating their penises to an increasing rhythm. Within seconds they discharged creamy semen into the bath, stood back and were replaced by another, equally beautiful row who repeated the exercise.

The princess drifted as in a trance while one of the women trawled the floating ejaculate and the other massaged it into the bare mons. The ritual was extended, primitive and somehow timeless. Frank was an obsessive enumerator, but even he lost count of the number of emissions which found their way into the uterus of the passive princess. Awakening from the contemplation of millions of diverse sperm he noticed that the men had departed and now both women worked on ensuring admission of those sperm to the aristocratic matrix. Their attentions were expert, and soon the princess experienced the spasms of orgasm. At this point they retired and a breeze informed the ripples of the thickened waters that the process was complete.

“She will meet us in her office shortly,” whispered Browne. “I hope you found that as refreshing as I?”

“Unique, I must avow. I take it the princess strives for an heir?”

“She will make all clear. Come.”

The two men left the Salle des Bains and met the rich aroma of coffee and madeleines in the adjacent office. Frank positioned himself in the offered seat, which he noted was directly across from the vacant chair which he assumed the princess would occupy. They enjoyed the excellent coffee and cakes in silence for several minutes until the princess made her entrance clothed in a remarkable gown dating back at least one hundred and fifty years. It was almost impossible to imagine that this was the same woman they had recently witnessed reaching climax under the semen-soaked fingers of her two ladies-in-waiting, but that was the way Frank liked identity, and thus he immediately felt a communion with the princess.

“Thank you for agreeing to see me. I hope you are comfortable,” said the princess, with no expectation of a negative reply as she carefully lowered herself into the seat. At this point Frank perceived an odd bulge around her pelvis, and decided to attack the issue head-on.

“You are seeking to be with child, and have taken professional advice. I assume that you are wearing some kind of undergarment designed to maximise the opportunity of conception.” He lifted his cup and met the piercing grey eyes of the princess through a curtain of invisible yet smoky fragrance.

“You do not disappoint me Frank. I asked you here because the process is not, as it were, bearing fruit, and also because I do not feel my physician to be sympathetic towards my.... my needs in this matter.”

“By which I assume you mean your aversion to direct physical contact with a male. May I call you Cleїs?”

“I would expect you to use my name. I do not hide behind my title. It is rather that I want no father for my daughter. No specific father. The best that I can manage in this aspiration, according to my physician is to introduce as random a selection of male cells as possible. He is also unhappy with my insistence on a daughter. He claims that science cannot guarantee the gender of any off-spring. Maybe he is right.” She picked up a Madeleine and replaced it, untested on the plate. “You have a certain reputation of providing unique scientific services to those able to pay. I am able to pay.” Frank lifted a heavy linen serviette to his lips, drying them assiduously before asking the question which had formed in his brain as soon as he realised the meaning of the extraordinary procedure they had recently witnessed in the bathroom.

“What do you really desire in a daughter?”

The princess stood and plucked helplessly at the hidden undergarment. “I want another me, in every respect, to maintain this estate and its special values in this appalling modern world. I know, it to be impossible, but I would pay anything if it could only come to pass.” She turned to regard her immense gardens in the clear spring light. Frank sat for a moment as if in professional thought, but actually attempting to calm his utter euphoria. Here was the opportunity to complete his work on reproducing himself; here was the unimaginably wealthy patron who would pay for all and ask no questions because she would think all the work was being done for her and her alone. It was perfect. Browne had to die of course, but that was already decided.

“I think I will be able, with suitable facilities and time for experimentation, to provide you with exactly that which you desire.” He stood and moved towards the massive windows. She took his hand gently and shook it, at first nervously, but then with a powerful sense of affirmation.

“I am somehow sure that you will. I will arrange for whatever you need to be installed in the chateau.” Frank bowed his head in agreement and when he again looked up it was with eyes shining, already assured of immortality.

Chapter Twenty Three

Brasília

It was Iglesia’s habit, since the debacle of Los Cardales, to keep the newspaper that had reported the massacre on the drinks table. It had the appearance of being put there casually, discarded moments before as he rose to meet whichever guest had arrived, but in fact it was carefully positioned so that his visitor could see the disgusting photographs of the carnage; and particularly the deformed mass of flesh that had been Angel Corrales. It was common knowledge that Iglesias and his European advisor had been the only survivors of the gun battle, and that several of the combatants had perished from Cocaine poisoning. There was no explanation for the state of Corrales however, injuries hardly did justice to the gruesome process that had removed most of his bones without piercing the skin, but a myth had developed that Iglesias had powers to destroy his enemies that he had inherited from some native ancestor. The gangster did nothing to dispel the myth, and even placed the occasional voodoo artefact around his rooms in the massive suite he now occupied in the capital city. It was the cement, steel and glass representation of his utter dominance of organised crime in Brazil. He knew he owed that dominance to Frank, but he had no idea how the Norwegian had engineered the defeat of an overwhelming number of heavily armed men, and as for Corrales... Sometimes, when alone he would ponder the remains in the newspaper images and feel dread like an echo of a distant, future calamity, brush the hairs on the back of his neck.

He put aside such thoughts, stepped to the window and surveyed the grid of city streets, the arteries of traffic and million pulsing neurons of pedestrians far below, excreting carbon, noise and aspirations into the smog-hazed blue sky. He closed the vertical steel window-blinds and prepared for the meeting. He did not read Spanish or English, so he passed over the profiles of the delegation and concentrated on studying their photographs, looking for signs of weakness with the practised eye of the criminal predator. He saw little but the dark suits, white shirts and broad jaws with which Americans in the higher reaches of business and politics armour themselves. In the flesh he would be able to read them; through the flesh he would get whatever he wished from them. In the eighteen months since Los Cardales he had reined himself in, at least in his manners when conducting business. His leisure pursuits were another thing altogether. He felt Frank’s influence on his fortunes here also.

The intercom bleeped. “Los Americanos ya han llegado.” He glanced at his heavy Rolex: perfect timing even in the appalling congestion of Brasília. “Vale.” The three suits entered his vast office. Their monochrome uniformity out of place in the Latin atmosphere, the orange tequila bottles, mahogany furniture, Iglesias’s striped shirt and glinting gold jewellery. “Sit down, Gentlemen,” he said, indicating a group of formal colonial chairs rather than the large sofas and recliners which filled a third of the room. They didn’t look recliner types. “Coffee? Marcela will bring it shortly. The best, of course. Now, to what do I owe the pleasure of such an important, such a powerful group as yourselves, wishing to meet me, a mere importer of goods and services?”

The youngest man smiled. “De Graaf, Central Intelligence Agency, Señor Iglesias. Your definition of goods and services must be extremely broad. We know what you are, sir.”

“Of course. In that you have me at a disadvantage. Perhaps you would tell me a little about your interests in coming to Brazil?”

De Graaf turned to the man at his left. This is Major Heath Warrington: he is senior advisor to the president on Central and South America. I believe he is familiar with the protocols we are observing here.” Warrington looked up, his movements military. Iglesias looked at his grey eyes and felt that they had seen more men die than his own. The idea unnerved him a little: that would be an enormous number of corpses. If the Major had the same thought about Alejandro he did not show it. He spoke as if reading from an autocue positioned behind the gangster’s head and slightly to the right.

“As you know, Señor Iglesias, the United States is a country founded on enterprise and commerce. It is a country whose citizens are free to create, buy and sell to each other, and we hope to the rest of the world. We don’t think profit is a dirty word, for what enriches one, enriches the nation. It is that wealth and that enterprise that has kept our nation free in the face of the Communist threat. However we know that we need to buy from other countries, because although God has blessed our great country with many natural resources, there are some products that we must import. You are an importer/exporter are you not, Señor?”

“I feel we are not talking about coffee here,” Alejandro relaxed. He could smell the Yankee dollars already.

“Not coffee. Señor Iglesias, we are pragmatists. Our country may not officially import much more than coffee from Central America, but our population requires billions of dollars worth of... of raw materials and manufactured goods from you each year. At this moment that trade is unregulated and officially illegal, and up to now I can tell you that we have publicly fought this necessary trade largely because the people providing the goods on your side were unreliable, greedy, and in many cases linked to communist interests. I mean look at Colombia; it’s a goddamn mess.”

“It is an unstable and poor country, but that is always the legacy of colonialism.” Alejandro allowed himself the slight joke. He needed tequila and several women soon. This was turning into an excellent day.

“I mean we deal with one major supplier for a while and the next thing is he’s dead in a gutter and we have to re-negotiate. Re-negotiate at every level with people who don’t know the protocols and invent any price they like. There’s no stability, and it is the mission of the United States to bring stability to the world. That is why we are here Mr Iglesias. Stability.” His speech over, Major Warrington snapped his eyes from the invisible autocue and relaxed into the hard mahogany at his back.

“The United States wants to bring stability to Brazil? You can hardly invade a country this size, and look at our inflation problem!”

De Graaf stood up an walked behind the Major and put his hands down on the carved wood behind the shoulders of the third member of the delegation. He was in his late fifties, with a ruddy complexion goatee and slightly longer hair than the standard businessman. “You misunderstand us. Señor Iglesias, it is you who are the stability we seek. We have been watching your progress for some time now. Since a rather unfortunate incident in a suburb of Buenos Aires a year or so ago...”

“Los Cardales, and it was eighteen months ago,” interrupted Alejandro.

“Exactly. Since that time you have brought order to your dealings not just in Brazil and Argentina, but also in many neighbouring states. We like that, and we like something else. Your product has been improved, enhanced not chemically but in some novel organic way. We like innovation and wish to see it rewarded, but that is the area of my colleague here. I would like to introduce you to Michael Driscoll; he’s a bio-chemist.