Cloak of Darkness (20 page)

At nine o’clock exactly he heard Gilman’s voice, and the strange, seemingly nonsensical interchange began.

It went more or less as he had expected, even to Gilman’s groan. There were initial objections, of course, to his interest in tracking down William Haversfield. (“Not our business, we’ve been told,” Gilman reminded him.) But Renwick had his justification ready. “We won’t touch him. Just use him to reach Bright Eyes. We’ll leave him entirely to Pete’s girl friend.”

Gilman had agreed to that, even suggested that he could have some results of his inquiries by tomorrow. “See you then?” he had asked.

“No, better not. I’ll go straight to Pete’s home, meet him there. Same old place, same old time.” And the same old place was one of the bookstalls along the left bank of the Seine. The time would be that of his last meeting there with Claudel.

Satisfactory, Renwick thought as he went downstairs and joined Chris, now with his last cup of tea and his first pipe of the day. The old boy was rustling his way through a second newspaper: he was an avid reader of small paragraphs, searching them out even among the shipping news, convinced— from years of experience—that many an important little item got lost in the back pages.

“Nothing remarkable today,” he reported, “except that a man was found murdered in the Seychelles. He was an ex-Green Beret, which sounds strange. You’d have thought he would have known how to take care of himself.”

Renwick, returning from the kitchen with a hastily brewed cup of instant coffee, looked at Chris sharply. “What was he doing in the Seychelles anyway? Snorkelling, skin-diving, or just lazing on the beach?”

“Doesn’t sound much like the Green Berets I’ve met,” Chris observed. “He was going to retire there, had just bought a house.”

Renwick laid the coffee cup on the nearest piece of free space. “Let me see that, Chris, would you?”

Chris folded the paper to the proper column of print, pointed out the exact spot. “Really odd,” he remarked. “Found dead in his bed. Throat slit. Was he drunk at the time?”

“Must have been.” Renwick read the details, the more lurid of them already given by Chris. The man’s name was Al Jones. Mystery around him was hinted at, but tactfully. He had bought the house on a secluded beach with a cheque drawn on a Swiss bank account immediately after his arrival on the island of Mahé only ten days ago. He was expecting his wife to join him in a few weeks. The authorities so far had not been able to find Mrs. Jones at the address on her husband’s passport, which showed he had travelled by air to London and Zurich before he reached the Seychelles. Further inquiries were being made.

And they’ll find the passport was false. Alvin Moore—is that where you ended, soldier of fortune, in bed with your throat slashed? You backed out from your contract with Brimmer, but you didn’t handle it as neatly as you thought. You knew too much. Mr. Klaus of Klingfeld & Sons doesn’t tolerate that. Where did they pick up your trail? At the airport in London when you were leaving, or in Zurich as you arrived? Or at the Zurich bank itself? Brimmer could have opened an account for you there—the usual procedure when payoffs were high.

Chris said, “You look thoughtful, Robert. Why? Did I miss something?” He took back the paper, scanned it again.

“Just a damned awful way to die,” Renwick said. He drank his coffee and began talking about George Washington’s victory at Yorktown, where the British were allowed to march in good order to their ships, their arms reversed, their band playing “The World Turned Upside Down”. “Typically English, I’d say.”

“And not lost on old George, either. He was born an Englishman,” Chris beamed. “I’ve always taken consolation from that when some Idaho character called me ‘an ersatz American’. The fact is, Robert, if the Americans and British don’t hold together, the West will become unglued. Churchill believed that and so do—” The front doorbell sounded. “Ten o’clock. That will be our Scots-Canadian. D’you know what I like about your Interintell?” Chris was talking over his shoulder as he went to open the door for Tim MacEwan. “Your care for the West. Much too good a civilisation to be thrown away. Come in, Mac, come in.” He watched approvingly as MacEwan and Renwick met with real, if properly restrained, affection. “And now I must potter around my roses,” Chris said. “Quite useless to work with them when the sun gets hot. Robert, tell one of your bright boys to invent an exterior air-conditioning unit: he’d make a fortune in Washington.” He closed the living-room door and went upstairs to change into his work clothes.

Mac hadn’t changed much in the twenty months since Renwick had met him face to face, still the same cheerful pessimist, the romantic realist; but aren’t we all? thought Renwick. He wasted no time on general chitchat but plunged into a complete rundown on Exports Consolidated tie-up with Klingfeld & Sons and all it had entailed.

At the end of the briefing, Mac’s square-set face was grimly serious. He hadn’t even cracked one small pawky remark. He said, “What about Nina? Klaus is just the type to go after her if he can’t get you.”

So Renwick explained about Basset Hill and Colin Grant and Mac’s role around the museum. “Okay?” Renwick asked.

“Sounds good,” Mac said thoughtfully. “How long will you be away?”

“As short a time as possible.”

“I’m on a two-week vacation. Got to be back in Ottawa by the twenty-second. Do you think you can finish your job by that time? It’s complicated, Bob, damned complicated.” And hellish dangerous. But there was no need to mention that. Bob knew.

“Oh, I’ll just tie up some loose ends and then fade out.”

“Like the way we tied them up in Sawyer Springs?” Mac asked with evident enjoyment. “Crawling on our bellies over a rough hillside, scouting around a terrorist camp in sunny California?” He spent a few moments remembering that foray, every minute a threat from danger. “Wish I were going with you,” he admitted frankly. “Too much desk work nowadays.”

“The price of promotion.”

Mac smoothed his red hair, patted a waistline that was still firm. “Got to jog a couple of miles each morning. You look fine, Bob. How do you keep in shape? Karate? Running? Bend and stretch?”

“A little of everything. By the way, you didn’t smuggle a revolver over the border, did you?”

Mac shook his head. “Hasn’t Grant got a spare?”

“I don’t believe he has any. So take this—it’s Chet Danford’s. You can return it to his office on your way home.” Renwick drew the Biretta out from his belt and the extra clip from his pocket. “The guards at Basset Hill wouldn’t think much of a security expert who didn’t pack a pistol.”

“But this leaves you short.”

“Don’t like smuggling any more than you do. If necessary, Pierre Claudel will provide.”

Mac stowed away pistol and ammunition. They were a sign for him to leave, he decided, “I’ll phone Chris each day, find out if he has any message from you for Nina.”

“And you send Gilman a daily report about Nina. She’s calling herself “Sue—Susan Smith—Mrs. John Smith. And don’t be surprised when you meet her. She’s a brunette.”

“What?”

“Just temporarily.”

“Your idea?”

“Hers.”

“How much does she know?” That’s the trouble with marriage, thought the dedicated bachelor; you never can judge where to draw the line.

“Only the reason why I want her out of the picture.”

“Enough,” agreed Mac. “I’ll drive out to the museum after I’ve spent an hour dodging around town. I won’t see you there this afternoon?”

Renwick shook his head. “I’ll leave here by the first flight available.”

And the farther away he travels, the less attention will be paid by Klaus to Basset Hill—was that it? Yes, Mac thought, that’s his hope. He shook hands warmly, clapped Renwick’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about Nina.”

“I’ll see you when I get back.”

“No fancy footwork, Bob. Stay safe.” And with an encouraging grin once more in place, MacEwan headed for the small plot of roses and a last brief word with Chris.

There was half an hour to wait for Maurice Farley’s noon visit. Renwick decided to give Chris a hand, cleared the window table of its breakfast dishes and picked up the scattered pages of newspapers. Chris didn’t even notice the improvement when he popped his head around the door to announce he was going upstairs to listen to news bulletins from the Middle East. “Got Lebanon yesterday. Keeps my Arabic freshened.”

Small wonder that Chris with all his side interests never managed to finish his book. Or perhaps he didn’t want to bring it to a conclusion. Renwick glanced at the pile of loose manuscript on the writing desk, at the scattering of notes lying around it. Is this what we come to when we retire? he wondered. Pottering? Then he shook his head: not with Nina around.

***

Maurice Farley was punctual and as crumpled as ever in a gabardine suit that hadn’t stood up to this morning’s humidity. He was Renwick’s age, thin and balding, pleasant expression in place, a tall man who tried to disguise his height with a slight stoop. Black socks and brown shoes—a preppy touch like his narrow-shouldered jacket. But his voice still had traces of the bright boy from Kansas who had made it all the way into the sacred groves of Langley. The new breed, Chris Menlo called him, as sharp and quick as the brown eyes that were now covertly studying Renwick. New breed or old breed, thought Renwick, they both shared the same deceptive air of complete disinterest.

“Glad you could make it,” Renwick said.

“My lunchtime, actually. Meetings all morning and again this afternoon.”

“Another flap?”

“Aren’t there always?”

“You’ve had your share recently.”

“Inherited mostly.” The polite sparring ended. They had been friends, after all, for almost ten years: military Intelligence dealing with Soviet capabilities, before Farley had left for the CIA and Renwick had joined NATO. Farley relaxed into a genuine smile. “You wanted to see me,” he prompted.

“Interintell needs a little information. Oh, quite harmless. No state secrets implicated.”

“That’s reassuring. You know, Bob, we’re really sympathetic with Interintell’s work. Just takes some convincing of the old boys before they agree to let you into our files. Come to think of it, you are rather aggressive, could try to take over a lot of our business.”

“A case of a very small tail wagging a very large dog?”

“Files
are
sacrosanct, Bob. Hard won, hard kept.”

“No interest in your files, Morry. Just in a little co-operation when it can do each of us most good and the opposition most harm. Reasonable?”

Farley nodded. “As I said, we’re not unfriendly. What information are you hunting?”

“Was it one of your operatives who passed a warning message to an Interintell agent in Djibouti?”

Farley froze. “Isn’t that asking too much?”

“No. For one thing, we don’t want to complicate any of your investigations in progress. For another thing, if that operative—a woman—was yours, we’d like to thank you. She alerted Claudel and perhaps saved his life.”

“Now what makes you think that she belongs to us?” Farley was amused.

“If not to you, then to either Swedish or Swiss Intelligence. I can make some inquiries there, but I thought you’d prefer not to have talk about Djibouti or the freighter
Spaarndam
become general gossip, if—” Renwick paused— “If you were interested in one of the
Spaarndam’s
passengers.”

“Either Swedish or Swiss or us? How the hell did you pick on these three? Why not the French? Djibouti is their problem. And a big one, judging from the flak they’ve been sending.”

“That’s to be expected after what was discovered at the port last Monday—crates of arms and ammunition, some for Ethiopia, some for a secret cache in Djibouti itself. You know the map of that area. Djibouti is Ethiopia’s one outlet to the sea. What could be more tempting than to possess that port? Especially if you have a political ally—Communist Yemen— just a few miles across the entrance to the Red Sea. That could really lock and bar the door to Suez, couldn’t it?” As for his reasoning about the woman who had passed the warning to Claudel—that was best left unexplained. For her sake. She had said too much, just a small friendly remark: her people were sympathetic, might even join Interintell someday. The Swiss and Swedish were neutrals and, like the CIA, not affiliated as yet with Interintell. As for other nations outside the West, those who were sympathetic were already co-operating. It had to be the CIA.

“What exactly in arms and ammunition? The French haven’t been altogether forthcoming.”

“Understandable. Illegal exports from America. Yes, illegal in every way. The French could be wondering how much that involves you.”

That aroused Farley. “We’re involved with nothing at Djibouti! Believe me, Bob.”

“I believe you.”

“What export firm?”

“You probably know it—if that
was
your agent contacting Claudel. She made an excellent job of it, I hear. Was she yours, Morry? Just don’t want to foul up her mission.”

Farley’s eyes showed surprise. “I believe you mean it,” he said slowly.

“I do. We have parallel interests in the problem of Mr. William Haversfield. Let’s not have them tangle.”

There was a slight stiffening in Farley’s shoulders. “She’s one of ours.”

“Then Interintell thanks you. And in return I’ll give you the name of the American firm that was smuggling illegal weapons through the port of Djibouti. Exports Consolidated.”

Farley said softly, “So that explains it.”

Explains what?”

“You’ll hear it on the evening news. Their offices in New York and Washington were raided yesterday by the FBI.”

“Oh? Was Brimmer still here or had he taken off?”

“He was found dead. Heart attack.”

“Where?”

“In the New York office.”

“And his files?”

“Not mentioned on any news reports.”

“Come on, Morry,” Renwick said urgently, “did the FBI get his files?”

“As far as we’ve heard, the files were—innocuous.”

“Then whoever killed him removed anything incriminating.” And, in particular, anything that could involve Klingfeld & Sons.