"Tracey," said Johnny softly. "Oh G.o.d, Tracey!"

"She'll be all right," the man whimpered and twisted in his grip. "It's the first time - she'll be all right."

"Come!" Johnny dragged him out of the room, and pushed the door closed with his foot. He held him against the wall, and his face was set and pale, his eyes merciless - but he spoke quietly, patiently as though he was explaining to a child.

"I'm going to hurt you now. I'm going to hurt you very badly.

just as badly as I can without killing you. Not because I enjoy it, but because that girl is a very special person to me. In the future when you think about giving poison to another girl - I want you to remember what I did to you tonight." Johnny held him with his left hand against the wall and he used his right hand, punching up under the ribs at an angle to tear the stomach muscles. With three or four blows he was too high, and he felt ribs crack and snap under his fist.

When he stepped back the man sagged slowly face forward, and Johnny caught him cleanly in the mouth snapping his teeth off at the gums, splitting his lips open like"

"the petals of a rose. The man had made a lot of noise.

Johnny looked into Tracey's room to make sure she had not been disturbed, but she was still bowed forward, rocking rhythmically on her haunches.

He found the bathroom and dampened his handkerchief and wipe the blood off his hands and the front of his overcoat.

He came out into the pa.s.sage again and stooped over the unconscious body to check the pulse. It was strong and regular, and he felt a lift of relief as he dragg the man's face out of the puddle of his own blood and vomit to prevent him drowning.

He went through to Tracey and, despite her frantic struggles, wrapped her in the greasy army blanket and carried her down to the Jaguar.

She quietened down and lay like a sleeping child in the back seat while he tucked the blanket round her, then he went back into the house and phoned 999, giving the address and hanging up immediately.

He left Tracey in the car outside the Dorchester, while he went in to speak to the reception clerk. Within minutes Tracey was in a wheelchair on her way up to the two-bedroom suite on the second floor. The doctor was there fifteen minutes later.

After the doctor had gone Johnny bathed, and carrying a tumbler of Chivas Regal in one hand he went into Tracey's room and stood by her bed. Whatever the doctor had given her had put her out cleanly. She lay gaunt and pale - yet with a strangely fragile beauty that seemed enhanced by the bruised discoloration of her eye sockets.

He stooped to brush the hair from her cheek, and her breath was light and warm on his hand. He felt such an infinity of tenderness for her then as he had never known for any other person, he was amazed by the strength of it.

He stooped over her and gently brushed her lips with his own. Her lips were dry and flaky white, and their touch was harsh as sandpaper.

Johnny straightened up and went to the armchair across the room.

He sank into it wearily, and sipped the whisky, feeling its warmth spread from his belly and untie the knots in his muscles. He watched the pale ruined face on the pillows.

"We are in a h.e.l.l of a mess, you and I," he spoke aloud, and felt anger again. For long minutes it was undirected, but slowly it gelled and found an object to focus on.

For the first time in his life he was angry with the Old Man.

"He has brought you to this," he said to the girl on the bed.

"And me-" The reaction was swift, his loyalty was a thing grown part of his existence. Always he had trained himself to believe that the Old Man's machinations were just and wise - even if at times the justice and wisdom were hidden from him. Mortal man does not doubt the omnipotence of his G.o.ds.

Sickened by his own treachery, he began to examine the Old Man's motives and actions under the bright light of reason.

Why had the Old Man sent Michael Shapiro to fetch him out of the desert?

"He wants you in Cape Town, Johnny. Benedict didn't measure up.

The Old Man has given him the London Office, it's a form of exile.

He's picked you to take over the C company," Michael explained.

"Tracey is out of the way.

She and her husband are in London also. I guess the Old Man thinks it's safe to have you back in Cape Town now." Michael watched Johnny's undisguised joy and went on slowly.

"I'm speaking out of turn, perhaps. Mr. van der Byl is a strange man. He's not like other people. I know how you feel about him, I've watched it all, you know - but listen, Johnny, you can go anywhere on your own now. There are a lot of other companies that want you-" But he had seen the expression on Johnny's face, and stopped okay, Johnny.

Forget I ever said it. I only spoke because I like you." Thinking on it now, there had been substance in Michael's warning. Certainly he was General Manager of Van Der Byl Diamonds, but he was no nearer to the Old Man than he had ever been. He lived under the mountain but the mountain was remote and he had not been able to scale the lowest slopes.

He had found the city as lonely as the desert, and he was ripe for the first attractive woman who set her snares for him.

Ruby Grange was tall and slim with hair the colour they call "Second Cape" in a diamond, like sunlight through a crystal gla.s.s of champagne.

He wondered now at his own naivety. That he should be so easily misled, and should have rushed so headlong into her web. After the wedding she had revealed herself, exposing the deeply calculating greed, the driving hunger for flattery and material possessions which was her mainspring, and her complete absorption with herself - Johnny had not been able to believe it. For months he fought off the growing certainty until it could be denied no longer, and he looked with chilled dismay on the shallow selfish little creature he had married.

He had withdrawn from her and flung all his energies into the Company.

This, then, was his life and he saw that it was an empty thing, hollowed out by the Old Man's hand.

For the first time his mind skirted the idea that it was a carefully calculated and s.a.d.i.s.tic revenge for the innocent action of a half-grown boy.

As though it were an escape from thoughts too dreadful to be borne, he fell asleep in the chair and the gla.s.s fell from his hand.

Jacobus Isaac van der Byl sat in a leather chair before the X-ray viewer. Fear had blasted the granite of his features, leaving them cracked and sagging, recognizable but subtly alerted below the gleaming white mane.

Fear was in his eyes also, moving below the surface like slimy water creatures in the pale blue pools. With the fear chilling and numbing his limbs he watched the cloudy and swirling images on the screen.

The specialist was talking softly, impersonally, as though he were lecturing one of his cla.s.ses.

enveloping the thymus here and extending beyond the trachea."

The point of his gold pencil followed the ghostly outline on the screen. The Old Man swallowed with an effort. It seemed to be swelling in his throat as he listened, and his voice was hoa.r.s.e and blurred to his own ears.

"You will operate?" he asked, and the specialist paused in his explanation. He glanced at the surgeon across the desk.

The exchange was as guilty as that of conspirators.

The Old Man swivelled his chair and faced the surgeon.

"Well?"he demanded harshly.

"No." The surgeon shook his head apologetically. "It's too late.

If only you had-"

"How long?"The Old Man overrode his explanation.

"Six months, not more."

"You are certain?"

"Yes." The Old Man's chin sank on to his chest and he closed his eyes. There was complete silence in the room, they watched him with Professional pity and interest as he reached his own personal acceptance of death.

At last the Old Man opened his eyes and stood up slowly. He tried to smile but his lips would not hold the shape.

"Thank you, gentlemen," he croaked in this new rough voice. "Will you excuse me, please. There are many things to arrange now." He went down to where the Rolls waited at the entrance.

He walked slowly, shuffling his feet and the chauffeur came to him quickly, but the Old Man shrugged away his helping hands and climbed into the back seat of the car.

Michael Shapiro was waiting for him in the study of the big house.

He saw the change in him immediately and jumped up from his chair.

The Old Man stood in the doorway, his body seemed to have shrunk.

"Six months," he said. "They give me six months." He said it as though he had expected to buy off death, and they had tricked him. He closed his eyes again, and when he opened them there was a glint of cunning in them, even his face had a pinched foxy look to it.

"Where is he? Is he back yet?"

"Yes, the Boeing got in at nine this morning. He's at the office now." Michael was shocked, it was the first time he had seen the Old Man without the mask.

"And the girl?" He had not called her daughter" since the divorce.

"Johnny has her in a private nursing home." "Worthless s.l.u.t," said the Old Man softly, and Michael stilled the protest before it reached his lips. "Get your pad. I want you to take something down." The Old Man chuckled hoa.r.s.ely. "We'll see!" he said, making it sound like a threat.

"We'll see!" Johnny's doctor was waiting at Cape Town airport.

"Take her, Robin. Dry her out, and fatten her up.

She's up to her gills with drugs and she probably hasn't eaten for a month." Tracey showed her first spark of spirit.

"Where do you think-"

"Into a nursing home." Johnny antic.i.p.ated her questions.

"For as long as is necessary."

"I'm not-"

"Oh, yes, you b.l.o.o.d.y well are." He took her arm, and Robin grabbed the other. They walked her, still protesting weakly to the car park.

"Thanks, Robin Old Soldier, give her the full workout."

"I'll send her back to you like new," Robin promised and drove away. Johnny took a few moments to look at the ma.s.sive square silhouette of the mountain - his own private home-coming ceremony. Then he fetched the Mercedes from the airport garage, and hesitated between home or the office, decided he was not up to an interrogation from Ruby and chose the office. He kept a clean shirt and shaving tackle in his private bathroom there.

They descended on him like a tribe of man-eating Amazons as he came in through the gla.s.s doors into the lusciously furnished and carpeted reception area of Van Der Byl Diamonds head office.

The two pretty little receptionists began yipping joyously in chorus.

"Oh, Mr. Lance, I have a whole sheaf of messages-"

"Oh, Mr. Lance, your wife," Trying not to run he made it to within ten feet of his own door, when the Old Man's secretary popped out of ambush from behind her frosted-gla.s.s panel.

"Mr. Lance, where on earth have you been? Mr. van der Byl has been asking-" Which alerted Lettie Pienaar, his own secretary.

"Mr. Lance, thank goodness you're back." Johnny stopped and held up his hands in an att.i.tude of surrender.

"One at a time, ladies. There is enough h to go round don't panic."

Which broke the reception team into a quivering jelly of giggles, and sent the Old Man's watchdog back behind her panel sniffing disgustedly.

"Which is the most important, Lettie?" he asked as he went to his desk and flipped through his mail, shrugged out of his coat and began stripping tie and shirt as he headed for his bathroom.

"They shouted at each other through the open door of the bathroom, as Johnny shaved quickly and showered, Lettie bringing him up to date on every aspect of Company and domestic business.

"Mrs. Lance has phoned regularly. She called me a liar when I told her you were at Cartridge Bay." Lettie was silent a moment, then as Johnny came out of the bathroom she asked, "By the way, where have you been?"

"Don't you start that." Johnny stood over the desk, and began flipping through the acc.u.mulated papers. "Get my wife on the phone, please - no, hold it. Tell her I'll be home at seven."

Lettie saw she had lost his attention, and she stood and went out.

Johnny settled down behind his desk.

Van Der Byl Diamonds was a sick company. Despite Johnny's protests the Old Man had been drawing off its reserves and feeding them into his other ventures - the property-developing company, the clothing factory, Van Der Byl fisheries, the big irrigation scheme on the Orange River - and now the cupboard was almost bare.

The beach concessions were reaching the end of a short but glorious life. They were starting to work break-even ground. The Old Man had sold the Huib Hoch concession to the big Company for a quick profit - but the profit had been just as quickly transferred out of Johnny's control.

There was only one really fat goose left in his pen, and it wasn't laying eggs yet.

Eighteen months earlier Johnny had purchased two offsh.o.r.e diamond grounds from a company which had died in attempting to work them. It had been strangled by its own inefficiency.

Taking diamonds from the sea is about eight times more expensive than working them from a dry opencast. One must dredge the gravel from the wild and unpredictable waters of the Skeleton Coast, load it into dumb barges, tow the barges to a safe base, off-load it and then begin the recovery process - or rather, that was the method the defunct company had attempted.

Johnny had dreamed up, and then ordered a vessel which was completely self-contained. It could lie out at sea, suck up the gravel and process it, spilling the waste gravel back into the sea as rapidly as it was sucked aboard. It was fitted with a sophisticated recovery plant that was completely computerized and contained within the ocean-going hull. It needed only a small crew, and it could work in all weather conditions short of a full tornado.

The Kingfisher was lying at Portsmouth dockyards rapidly nearing completion. Her trials were scheduled for early August.

Financing the building of this vessel had been a nightmare for Johnny. The Old Man had been unhelpful, when he wasn't being downright obstructive. He never discussed the venture without that little smile twitching at his lips.

He had restricted Van Der Byl Diamonds" monetary involvement in the project so severely that Johnny had been forced to raise two millions outside the company.

He had found the money, and the Old Man had smiled again.

Kingfisher should have been lying on the grounds three months ago, sucking up diamonds. The whole financial structure of the scheme was based on her completion on schedule, but Kingfisher was running six months behind and now the foundations were shivering.

Sitting at his desk Johnny was working out how to sh.o.r.e up the whole edifice and keep it from collapsing before he could get Kingfisher working. The creditors were rumbling and creaking, and Johnny had only his own enthusiasm and reputation left to keep them quiet.