Year of the Golden Ape (11 page)

^{Heavy grey clouds hung over the Matanuska valley as they sped north-east along the highway and there was snow on the hills. More snow up in those clouds too, Walgren thought. 'You're exceeding the speed limit,' Winter said icily. Swearing inwardly, Walgren dropped down to fifty-five. Everybody exceeded the speed limit if they thought there was no patrol car ahead. It began to rain, a steady, depressing drizzle which blotted out the surrounding countryside. Walgren switched on the wipers, hunched over the wheel, hating the silence inside the car. He drove for almost an hour.}

^{'That's the Swan home coming up,' Walgren told Winter. 'You're almost ten minutes out on your timing,' the Englishman snapped.}

^{'So, I beat the limit a couple of times. Swan keeps the needle on fifty-five the whole way. At least he did the three times I followed him out here from the airport.'}

^{Winter said nothing, hiding his annoyance. British, American or French, it seemed impossible to find people who were precise. He had the same trouble with LeCat. So he had to check every damned thing himself.}

^{Walgren turned off the lonely highway down a track leading through a copse of snow-covered fir trees. Inside the copse he backed the car in a half-circle until it faced the way they had come. Through a gap in the snow-hung trees the Swan home was clearly visible, an isolated two-storey homestead three or four hundred yards back from the highway with a drive leading up to it. Behind the house stood an old Alaskan barn and a red Ford was parked at the front. In the bleak, snowbound landscape there was only one other house to be seen.}

^{'Won't that car freeze up?' Winter asked as he lowered the window and focused a pair of field glasses.}

^{They got it plugged into a power cable,' Walgren replied. That keeps the immersion heater under the hood going. You forget to plug in your cable and inside two hours you got a block of ice instead of a motor ...'}

^{It was already getting cold inside Walgren's car; to save gas he had switched off the motor while he parked. From a chimney in the Swan household blue smoke drifted, spiralling up in a vertical column. The rain had stopped and the leaden overcast was like a plague cloud covering the Matanuska valley.}

^{That house in the distance beyond the Swan place - know anything about it?' Winter enquired.}

^{'Belongs to some people called Thompson, friends of the Swans.' Walgren lit a cigarette. 'Sometimes when Charlie Swan is home the two couples get together - they did on the last trip.'}

^{'Go out, you mean?' Winter asked sharply.}

^{'No, visit each other's homes. The Swans went over to the Thompson's. When you're home only once in ten days like Charlie Swan is you don't drive into town. You meet up with the folks next door.'}

^{'How did you find out all this?' Winter asked curiously.}

^{'Used to be a private dick. There are ways. And,' Walgren said aggressively, 'I can't see why we came out here - the snatch is set up for tomorrow...'}

^{'Trial run,' Winter said brusquely. There was no point in explaining that this was another rehearsal, just as Cosgrove Manor had been a rehearsal for the ship hi-jack. He studied the house for a minute or two longer, then told Walgren, 'Drive back into town.'}

^{On January 15 it was dark in Anchorage at three in the afternoon. Walgren dropped Winter near the Westward and the Englishman had a late lunch at a coffee shop. So that he was remembered as little as possible he would eat only one meal in the hotel restaurant. Walgren, who ate very little - he was badly overweight and had been reading the health ads - dropped LeCat at his own hotel. Next, he picked up Armand Bazin and started the long drive to Nikisiki oil terminal on the Kenai
peninsula.}

^{It was six o'clock in the evening when Walgren collected Winter again from the Westward after returning Bazin to his hotel. He drove the Englishman out of the city to an isolated spot where an old barn stood amid a clearing surrounded by evergreens. 'Everything is OK,' he told Winter as they pulled up in front of the building. 'You didn't really have to make the trip ...'}

^{'I like to see things for myself.'}

^{Winter inspected the barn where Swan and his wife would be kept prisoner for a week. Everything, as Walgren had said, seemed OK. The place was secure, new padlocks had been put on all the windows and doors, and there was a Primus stove for cooking and an adequate supply of canned food, milk and fruit juices. The Swans should be as comfortable as it was possible to make them - including the provision of five oil-heaters and enough fuel to last them a month. Winter didn't bother to ask the American whether he had stolen the oil or brought it on the black market. 'Satisfied ?' Walgren enquired drily when they were leaving.}

^{'It will do. Get me back to the hotel fast, Mackay should be arriving soon. But keep inside the speed limit...'}

^{Which was a bloody contradiction in terms Walgren thought sourly as he gunned the motor and headed back for the highway. And this was one hell of a long day, the American reminded himself, a day which was by no means over. As soon as he had left Winter at his hotel he had to drive out to the airport, wait for the Cessna bringing Mackay and Swan, the radio operator, from the
Challenger's
berth at Nikisiki, then follow Swan all the way out to his home in the Matanuska valley.}

^{'Is that really necessary?' he had complained.}

^{'Swan is the key to this part of the operation - we must be sure he has arrived home safely,' Winter had replied.}

^{Winter got out of Walgren's car a short distance from the Westward and walked the rest of the way to the hotel. He had kept the key of his room in his pocket to avoid appearing too often at the reception desk and went straight up in the elevator. Once inside his room he checked his watch and then went over in his mind the present whereabouts of everyone involved.}

^{7pm. Captain Mackay would be landing at the airport in the Cessna in fifteen minutes; Walgren would be waiting there to follow Swan home. As he stripped off to take a shower Winter went on checking in his mind. LeCat would be at his own hotel, ten blocks away, probably in his room nursing a bottle of cognac. Armand Bazin and Pierre Goussin, who would guard the Swans while they were held in the barn, would beat their own hotel, eating dinner provided by room service while they pretended to pore over a pile of papers. No one would leave their hotel tonight -Winter was not risking someone falling on the icy sidewalks and breaking a leg - and Winter would be the only man eating in a restaurant. He turned on the shower. Finally, Kinnaird, the substitute wireless operator, would be keeping under cover at the Madison.}

^{* * * *}

^{Ten thousand pounds. Every man has an amount at the back of his mind which he feels would give him freedom from the cares and worries of the world. For 'Shep' Kinnaird it was ten thousand pounds. Pulling back the curtain of his bedroom at the Madison he peered through the gap. It looked reassuring: a deserted, snowbound street dimly lit by street lamps which would be turned
off
at ten o'clock, and no car parked where someone might be keeping an eye on the hotel.}

^{Kinnaird, thirty-seven years old, twice divorced - neither woman had been able to endure his gambling habits - was the wireless operator Winter had hired for the
Pêcheur's
radio cabin during the smuggling days in the Mediterranean. Prior to that, Kinnaird had been with the Marconi pool of radio operators, working on the Persian Gulf-West Coast run. Now the ten thousand pounds was within his grasp - it was the payment for substituting himself for Swan, the
Challenger's
regular wireless op.}

^{Less than a mile away inside the Westward Hotel, Captain James Mackay, fifty-five year old master of the
Challenger,
was sitting down to a late dinner in the rooftop restaurant. A heavily-built, florid-faced man who was surprisingly quick on his feet, Mackay had been on the shuttle run between Alaska and San Francisco for five months. It was a shade too straightforward for his liking: Nikisiki is approximately two thousand miles from San Francisco and the
Challenger,
travelling at an average speed of seventeen knots, made the trip to the oil terminal of Oleum on the east side of San Francisco Bay in a little over four days.}

^{She discharged her precious Alaskan oil in twelve hours and then headed back for Nikisiki. It took a day and a quarter to take on more oil at Cook Inlet - the time in dock could have been shortened but Mackay, mindful of hurricanes in these waters, insisted on meticulous maintenance - and then she started south again for Oleum. So one trip occupied ten days. And it never stopped, the shuttle run. And this, Mackay thought as he studied the menu, was oil from the little known Cook Inlet field. What the hell would it be like when they opened up North Slope?}

^{'T-bone steak and French fries and a glass of beer,' Mackay ordered. He always studied the menu and then always ordered the same food. A widower for ten years, Mackay was a creature of habit, always coming to this same hotel to sleep overnight, always leaving it at 4pm the following day to return to his ship. The vessel then sailed for California at midnight. 'Follow a routine,' Mackay was fond of telling his crew, 'then you'll never forget anything important...'}

^{He looked round the almost empty restaurant while he waited for his steak. Four tables away, a tall, thin man wearing horn-rim glasses sat absorbed in his newspaper. When his meal came Mackay ate it quickly - a shipboard habit - and he hardly noticed the man in horn-rim glasses leaving the restaurant just before he finished his own dinner.}

^{In the lobby below Winter was studying some brochures when Mackay stepped out of the elevator and went into the bar. Again, part of the routine Walgren had described: after dinner Mackay always had a second beer in the bar before going up to his room early. The photograph of Mackay sent by Walgren to Cosgrove Manor had been a good likeness.}

^{Winter wondered how Walgren had taken the picture without being seen, then he strolled over to the entrance to the bar, taking off his horn-rims and tucking them inside his pocket. Mackay was sitting with his back to him, reading a magazine. The barman behind the counter looked straight at Winter, who glanced away as though he had changed his mind and went across to a telephone booth.}

^{Phoning Bazin's hotel at the number Walgren had given him, Winter waited to be put through. It was the last thing he had to attend to tonight. Bazin came on the line, confirmed cautiously that he was ready, which meant he was familiar with the Nikisiki oil terminal Walgren had driven him to in the afternoon, that Walgren had handed over to him what he would use - a thermite bomb.}

⁸

^{At 3pm on Thursday January 16 Winter turned into the drive leading to the Swan homestead and drove slowly through the darkness toward the house; no rush, nothing to disturb the Swans if they noticed the car coming. Snow crust crackled under the wheels.}

^{LeCat sat beside him, Pierre Goussin rode in the back, and when he reached the house he drove round the side where the parked vehicle would be hidden from the Thompson home in the distance. His headlights swept over a blue Rambler standing in front of the house with the power cable plugged into it; Walgren had told Winter that Swan drove a Rambler.}

^{Winter left the car quickly, walked round to the front door, his right hand inside his sheepskin, gripping the Skorpion pistol in its holster. The unexpected happened immediately. The porch light came on and Swan, due to leave at 3.30pm, opened the front door before Winter could press the bell. He was wearing a British Gannex raincoat and carrying a bag.}

^{'Mr Swan?' Winter enquired.}

^'Yes...'

^{'Don't get excited and no one will get hurt.' Winter pointed the pistol at Swan's chest. 'We just want to use your phone and then we'll leave you in a locked room...' He was speaking rapidly, weighing up the slim, thirty-year-old who faced him, guessing his reactions, warning him with the gun, reassuring him with the reference to a phone call.}

^{'Where's he going?' Swan demanded.}

^{LeCat had pushed behind him, disappearing into the house as Winter went on talking, holding his attention. 'Let's go inside and find out... No! Don't hurry - no need for a nasty accident...' Winter followed him across a hall and into a large, L-shaped living-room. A dark-haired woman in her thirties had her hand up to her throat, her eyes wide with fear as LeCat held one arm round her back and a knife close to her breast. He pressed the knife tip to her throat as Swan started across the room and then stopped. 'Keep away or she's dead,' LeCat warned.}

^{'Take the knife away from her throat. That's better...' Winter could have knocked the Frenchman down. The stupid cretin! He could have caused a bloodbath. There was an atmosphere of shock, disbelief in the living-room which Winter had foreseen and was determined to exploit. To counter LeCat's blunder the Englishman became crisp, businesslike. Placing a hand on Swan's shoulder, he pressed him down into a chair; a man sitting down feels less aggressive, is less likely to do something violent. 'Let Mrs Swan sit down,' he told LeCat, 'and stop manhandling her ...'}