The Blue Ring (35 page)

He
heard the door open behind him and a figure came out some metres away and
walked to the edge of the terrace and looked out at the view. There was only a
sliver of a moon but Creasy recognised the Dane. He himself had not been
noticed.

Five
silent minutes passed, and then Creasy called softly, "Do Danes drink
whisky?"

He saw
Jens' head jerk up in surprise and turn. Then his voice came equally softly.
"On a night like this, Danes drink anything...Even hemlock."

Creasy smiled
in the semidarkness.

"Come
and sit with me and tell me what makes the world go round."

The
Dane moved out of the darkness, pulled up a chair and sat down.

They
sipped quietly for a few minutes, then Creasy said, "You told me and the
others why you are here. You explained about your job and your vocation and the
acceptance of your wife. But you have never really told me why you are
here."

The
Dane refilled his glass and spoke as though the words came from his toes and
through his feet and up his legs, and then passed through his thorax and onto
his lips. "To understand why I'm here, you would have to understand the
psyche of the Northern people. We do not do things by logic. If I looked at
this whole situation logically I would not just run back to Copenhagen, I would
keep going till I got to the North Pole, and then I would start looking for a
spaceship to take me to the moon."

Creasy chuckled. "So why? Tell me why."

The Dane swirled the liquid in his glass as he thought, then he said, lightly, but
with emphasis, "Oh, around a thousand years ago my ancestors pushed out
frail boats, jumped into them and went off to conquer their known worlds.
Perhaps I don't look exactly like a Viking, but I feel like one. I know that at
this moment I live in total danger. I am surrounded by killers and I am pursued
by killers...It concentrates my mind like never before. My heart beats faster
than ever before...And I like it."

Creasy chuckled again and then said, "But you still have not answered my question."

Another silence and then the Dane said, "I am here because of three people. First,
Michael; he walked into my life and into my house and jerked me away to
Marseille. This kid almost young enough to be my son. Second, while I was in
shit up to my neck, you arrived and dealt out death all around me. Third, I saw
the face and the eyes of a child in hell, and watched you and Michael extract
her from that hell and give her a life...Why should I not be here?"

Below
them in the bay a large cruise liner was moving out to sea. It was dressed like
a Christmas tree. Over many minutes they watched its lights seemingly drift to
the horizon, and then the Dane asked his question.

"Why
are you here? And why is it possible that you attract to you men of such
diversity, who would literally die for you?"

Creasy's
answer was immediate. "Because they know that I would die for them. That
is the measure of leadership."

The
Dane digested that and then remarked, "Obviously there is more than
that."

"Yes,"
Creasy answered firmly. "And thank God there is more than that. They're
not just here because of me that would never be enough for the likes of Maxie,
Rene, Frank, or you, or Michael, or Guido, or Satta, or Pietro, or any other
human being who can combine decency with a brain. They are here because they
are angry to their guts. So what now, my Viking?"

The
Dane could see the last glimmer of light in the horizon.

"What
have you done about Gozo? It's possible that Bellu talked before he died?"

"I
have made phone calls," Creasy answered. "Within twenty-four hours,
five men of the calibre of Maxie, Rene and Frank will be arriving on Gozo. They
will protect those whom I love. It's only a precaution, because I doubt that
Bellu talked before he died. The pathologist reports that first he was
physically tortured to the extreme. Obviously he did not talk then, because
they later gave him a massive dose of pure Valium in an effort to warp his
mind. He may have talked under the influence but it would have been disjointed
at best. He must have died soon after."

The
Dane was curious to probe into Creasy's mind; the very idea fascinated him.
"What was your reaction to Bellu's death? How do you put it on your
balance sheet of morality? Do the means justify the end?"

Creasy
pushed his empty glass away from him and his soft voice was angry. Not at the
Dane, not at himself, but at the twists and bends, bumps and holes of his
entire life. "Bellu's death shattered my friend Satta. That affects me
more than the death itself." He leaned forward in the semi-darkness and
gripped the Dane's arm. "I tell you, I have seen enough death to make me
feel I walk always on bones. There is nothing new. When the flesh is gone the
bones look the same. I don't care about death. I cannot see Bellu's face any
more. A face is a face, and a bone is a bone. The faces pass by in the night. A
friend on a ridge who has a face one second and a mass of blood and bones the
next. A face of a child once bright with life and a second later black with
napalm. Faces that turn into rows of coffins or bodybags. Open graves and white
headstones...Can you understand that?"

The Dane shook his head.

"Of course I cannot...And Creasy, I think you indulge yourself. You sound like
steel on this quiet night. But I do not see or feel the steel...I sit with a
man who knows more love than he understands. More love than he recognises. More
love than he wants to accept. If you want my serious opinion, I think you're
full of bullshit."

Creasy
laughed softly. "So I have a wise Viking...So what do we do now?"

Jens
pulled himself straight in his chair, and his voice changed tone.

"Everything
is speeding up," he said. "About now, Satta, Maxie and Frank are
moving in on that prick General Gandolfo. Much will come of that. In the
meantime, Michael is poised to penetrate 'The Blue Ring' from inside. We now
know the main characters. We know their philosophy and the parameters of their
operation. No doubt in the next day or so you will move. The only thing missing
from our knowledge is the name of the man behind it all...The spider at the
centre of the web...There must be a spider...In all such things there is a
spider. I feel that very soon we will know who that spider is. While your team
burns down the web...you will kill the spider."

The
horizon was now totally black; the Christmas tree had passed over it. They both
looked at the blackness, and then the Dane said, almost in a whisper, "I
have a sure feeling you will kill that spider. Then I will go home and be a husband,
a father...and a good policeman."

On that
same night two children started their separate journeys.

In
Gozo, Juliet yawned deeply as she helped Laura with the washing up. Laura
glanced at her and smiled.

"It's
the sea-air," she said. "It makes for a good sleep."

It was
a Saturday evening and early that morning Juliet had gone fishing with Joey and
his friends. In spite of their superstitions they had caught ten boxes of
Lampuki, and Juliet had caught more than her share. The men had paid her the
ultimate compliment as they unloaded the catch at the jetty beneath Gleneagles.

"Come
again," they had called. "Any time."

In the
bar Tony had treated her with unreserved respect, giving her a glass of his own
wine.

"You
are a fisherman," he had said proudly.

"Fisherwoman,"
she had corrected him.

Solemnly
he had shaken his head. "No, on this island you are now a fisherman, even
if you put on a skirt and wear lipstick."

She had suddenly felt very grown up.

Now, as she wiped the last of the plates, and stacked them in the cupboard, she said to
Laura, "It's Sunday tomorrow...Can I sleep late?"

"Of course," Laura answered. "Sleep as late as you want, but don't forget
we're having lunch at Joey's. Maria is making Lampuki pie and she prepares it
almost as well as I do."

In her bedroom, Juliet carefully counted out the money again and packed it away,
together with her passport, into her purse. She selected the clothes she would
need, put them into the canvas bag and put her purse on top. Then she sat on
her bed patiently and waited, knowing that within the hour the rest of the
house would be asleep.

She knew she would have to slip out very quietly. The dogs would not be a problem,
because on the last two nights she had done a couple of trial runs, going out
into the courtyard after midnight. The dogs were Tal-Fenecks, a breed almost
exclusive to Malta; hunting dogs, famous for their ability to catch rabbits on
the steepest slopes.

On each occasion they had slipped up to her silently, sniffing and recognising her
smell and whining with pleasure as she had patted them.

But the bloody cockerel was a problem. It roosted fifty metres away in an old carob
tree and announced any sound to the entire world.

So she decided to slip out the front door and work her way down a narrow path to the
seashore and then around the coast to the harbour.

First she wrote a note to Laura and Paul, telling them not to worry. She explained
that she wanted to be with her father and brother, no matter what the danger.
By the time they found the note she would be in Rome. She had booked her flight
by phone from the house on the hill. She would catch the early four o'clock
ferry to Malta; catch a bus to Valetta and then another bus to the airport,
arriving in plenty of time to get the seven o'clock flight to Rome, arriving
there at eight-twenty.

Then she would catch a plane or a train down to Naples. She had the address of the
Pensione Splendide. She knew that Creasy and Michael would be angry, but she
had decided she was more than a child; she would handle their anger. At least
she could cook for them and help around the pensione. She would be part of it.

She slipped out of the house just after two in the morning, her bag slung over her
shoulder. The cockerel heard nothing, but she had not gone a hundred metres
before two shapes loomed up behind her. She stopped and patted them and felt
their cold muzzles poking at her face.

"Go home," she whispered fiercely.

She might have been talking to the rocks around her. They followed her down the
path to the shore and then around the coast to the small harbour, as though
they were fellow conspirators.

The overnight ferry from Naples docked in the Grand Harbour of Valetta at three
a.m. Franco Delors passed swiftly through customs and immigration, hailed a
taxi and asked the driver, "Can you get to Cirkewwa in time to catch the
five o'clock ferry to Gozo?"

"No problem," the driver said cheerfully. "Just hold on to your seat."

Juliet
bought a ticket and walked onto the ferry together with a host of farmers and
fishermen taking their produce and catches to the early Malta markets.

Half an
hour later the ferry warped into Cirkewwa. She was one of the first off. As she
went down the ramp a man walked past her onto the ferry. He glanced at her and
carried on walking, but ten metres on he stopped abruptly, turned and watched
her hurry towards the waiting green bus. He stood there for several seconds as
the other passengers streamed past him. Then he followed her. He saw her get on
to the bus. A taxi had pulled up and disgorged several tourists, their eyes
bleary from lack of sleep. The bus was pulling away.

Franco
Delors grabbed the taxi driver and asked him, "Where is that bus
going?"

"Valetta,"
came the reply.

"Follow
it," Delors said, climbing into the back seat.

At the
airport Juliet bought her pre-booked ticket at the Alitalia counter. Delors
hovered in the background. She then went to the cafeteria and drank tea and ate
toast and marmalade. In the meantime Delors had also purchased a ticket to Rome
and made a phone call to Jean Lucca Donati.

"Yes, it is her...I have no doubts. She was coming off the ferry as I was going
on...I followed her to the airport...I'm booked on the same flight...Have some
people at Fiumicino. No, she did not recognise me...she was zonked out on
heroin the only time she saw me in Marseille...No, I am not mistaken. She has
the face of an angel. I would not forget it...Of course. The flight gets in at
eight-twenty. I'll be right behind her. Have your people in front."

Katrin had no surname, as befits an orphan. Even that name had been given to her
arbitrarily; with the trauma of watching her parents shot she could not
remember her given name. But she had adjusted well to the orphanage. So well
that she had been selected by Sister Assunta to be the first of her charges to
be given up to adoption.

Sister Assunta herself had prepared the child, washing her long, blonde hair and
dressing her in the new jeans and T-shirt which had been part of a large
donation of clothes from Malta. She had talked to her reassuringly, telling her
that she was going for the first time in her life on a boat trip to a wonderful
new country called Italy, where she would meet her new parents. She would have
a new home and much love and go to a good school and one day would come back to
visit Sister Assunta and the other nuns and bring them lots of good Italian chocolate.

Katrin had laughed and promised to return.

On Sundays Joey and Maria allowed themselves the unusual luxury of sleeping late.
They would get up about nine-thirty instead of six o'clock, eat a light
breakfast, attend the eleven o'clock mass and then go on to Joey's parents for a late lunch.

On this Sunday, however, Joey got up grumbling at six-thirty, because they had some
English tourist friends who were catching the seven o'clock ferry on their way
home. Joey felt he should wave them goodbye. He left a sleeping Maria, climbed
into the Land-Rover and free-wheeled most of the way down to the harbour.