that up, you’ll have me defecting, just so you can live in Kensington and shop at Harrods every day.’ He smiled and then became serious. ‘There is more than one reason for taking an interest in this business. A mini-war we are not involved in personally, is always useful, especially when it sets two anti-communist countries at each other’s throats. A great deal of technical information can be derived from their use of weaponry and so on.’
‘Good point.’
‘An even better one is this, Irana. Exocets or no Exocets, the British are going to win this war. Oh, the Argentine air force has performed magnificently, but their navy stays in harbour and their army of occupation in the Falklands consists mainly of conscripts. I shudder to think what British Marines and Paratroopers will do to them once they start rolling.’
‘What are you saying then? That you won’t help Garcia?’
‘Not at all. I’m all in favour of giving him exactly what he wants, but what if one could do it in such a way that it would discredit the ruling junta in Argentina? If we could only bring down the military government, Irana, the opportunities of government by the people would be limitless.’
‘My God,’ she said. ‘What an imagination! You already see a Russian fleet installed in Rio Gallegos, controlling the South Atlantic.’
‘I know; beautiful, isn’t it?’
He lay there for a while longer and she ran the fingers of her right hand up over his thigh and across his belly. He grabbed her hand and pushed it away, a sudden excitement on his face.
‘I have it. Donner. This should suit him down to the ground. Where is he?’
‘In London this week, I think.’
‘Get him on the phone now. Tell him to get the shuttle from Heathrow. I want to see him here before noon.’
She got out of bed and went to the phone while Belov lit another cigarette, thoroughly pleased with himself.
Felix Donner was a magnificent figure of a man, at least six foot three in height with a great breadth of shoulder and dark hair swept back over his ears. As chairman of the Donner Development Corporation, he was a well-known and highly respected figure in London financial circles.
Everyone knew his story. The Australian from Rum Jungle, south of Darwin, in the Northern Territory, who had served with the Australian Army in Korea. He had been a prisoner of the Chinese for two years, and then came to London, where he’d hacked his way up to his first million in the property boom of the sixties. Since then he’d never looked back and his interests were varied, from shipping to electronics.
He was a popular figure with the media and was often photographed mingling with the stars at a film première, playing polo, shooting grouse, even shaking hands with royalty at a charity dinner.
It was rather ironic when one considered that this benign and popular man was, in reality, one Victor Marchuk, a Ukranian who had not seen his homeland for thirty years.
The Russians had a number of spy schools in the Soviet Union, each one with a distinctive national flavour. In Glacyna agents were trained to work in English-speaking countries in a replica of an English town, living exactly as they did in the west.
The original Felix Donner, an orphan with no relatives, had been specially selected from a Chinese prison camp and transported to Glacyna where Marchuk could observe him as closely as any prize specimen in a laboratory. It was Marchuk who was eventually returned to Chinese custody to labour in a Manchurian coal mine. As by arrangement he was the only one of the six members of his original unit captured to survive, there was no one to identify the gaunt scarecrow almost four stone under weight, who was released the following year.
But he looked healthy enough as he stood up and stretched later that morning, just before noon, and went to the window of Belov’s apartment.
‘Interesting possibilities.’
‘You think you might be able to do something?’ Belov asked.
Donner shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Let’s have a talk with this Argentinian, Garcia. Tell him to come round with everything he’s got on this whole Exocet thing. Then we see.’
‘Good,’ Belov said. ‘I knew I could rely on you. Excuse me I’ll phone him from my study.’
He went out and Irana Vronsky came in with fresh coffee. Her hair was tied back with a black bow and her neat grey skirt, white blouse, dark stockings, accentuated her charms.
Donner slid his arms round her waist and pulled her against him, savouring her.
‘Is Nikolai looking after you all right?’ he said in Russian. ‘If not, just let me know. Always glad to help.’
‘Bastard,’ she said.
‘It’s been said before,’ he laughed, as she left the room.
Juan Garcia sat by the window with Nikolai Belov and drank coffee in silence, while on the other side of the room Felix Donner sat in a wingback chair by the fire and worked his way through the bulky file the Argentinian had provided.
After a while, the Australian closed the file and reached for a cigarette. ‘An extraordinary business. The Etendard is manufactured by Dassault in which the French government has a 51% holding.’
‘That’s correct,’ Garcia said.
‘And the makers of the Exocet are the state-owned Aerospatiale Industries, the president of which is General Jacques Mitterand, brother of the President of France? An intriguing situation, in view of the fact that the French government has suspended all military aid to the Argentine.’
Garcia said, ‘On the other hand, we were lucky enough to have a team of French technicians already in my country before the outbreak of hostilities. Based at Bahia Blanca they have given invaluable assistance as regards testing and fitting the missile launchers and control systems.’
‘And you have also had other help, I see from the file. This man Bernard, Dr Paul Bernard, would seem to have supplied you with information crucial to the success of the operation.’
‘A brilliant electronic engineer,’ Garcia said. ‘At one time head of one of the research sections at Aerospatiale. Now a professor at the Sorbonne.’
‘His motives interest me,’ Donner said. ‘What are they exactly? Money?’
‘No, it seems he has no love for the English. He phoned the Embassy at the start of things, when President Mitterand announced the embargo. He offered to help in any way he could.’
‘Interesting,’ Donner said.
‘We have considerable sympathy here in many quarters,’ Garcia added. ‘Traditionally, France and Britain have never enjoyed what could be termed a warm relationship.’
Donner opened the file and looked at it again, frowning. Belov waited, admiring the performance.
Garcia said, ‘Can you help us?’
‘I think so. I can say no more than that at this stage. On a purely business footing, of course. Frankly, I’m not interested in the rights
