Cloak of Darkness (23 page)

“Keep out of sight from the window,” Renwick warned Vroom. “And do your telephoning downstairs. None of these on your desk could possibly work anyway. Come on, Pierre, we’ll try to flush them out.” They left at a run, using the staircase for speed, and descended through two floors of startled clerks and bookkeepers to reach the hall.

“Whatever that weapon was,” Renwick said as they took shelter for a moment in the small crowd at the Bruna Building’s front door, “it’s too valuable to leave. They’ll be dismantling it.”

“We’re dead anyway,” Pierre said. “You and Vroom at the desk, me at the window. They won’t expect us.”

A voice said from the crowd, “What happened up there? Just look at that smoke. A fire?”

“Not smoke. Dust,” Pierre said. “An explosion.”

“Gas?”

Pierre’s Dutch failed him. So he looked ignorant, and eased himself through the knot of people to join Renwick.

“We’ll approach separately,” Renwick said. “You take the bridge on our right, I’ll use the one on our left. We’ll meet inside the hall.” Then, as he eyed the house across the canal—it looked abandoned, a candidate either for demolition or for complete restoration—he shook his head, restrained Pierre from leaving with a hand on his arm. A thin straggle of people had been walking along the opposite canal, some carrying children, some carrying rolled-up bedding. Squatters. They were standing now at the door of the deserted house, a tall, long-haired young man urging them inside as if he were leading a charge over the barricades. “The police will soon be here,” Renwick said with a sudden smile, “and our friends with the popgun won’t like it one bit. Not one bit. Let’s join the fun.”

There was no need to separate. In the continual flux of movement and sound, they wouldn’t be noticed. The squatters, about twenty of them, had already taken possession, the last of them entering the doorway. Except for the young man, who was addressing a group of worried citizens with flights of high rhetoric. Renwick and Claudel reached the centre of the small crowd, kept watching the entrance to the house.

“Still inside?” Claudel murmured.

“Unless they left their weapon behind them—made a run for it as soon as they thought their mission was completed.” But I doubt that: the gun is something they’ll take to pieces, pack away, carry out. “Look for someone carrying a heavy suitcase.”

“They’ll never get it out through that little mob,” Claudel predicted. “The staircase will be jammed.”

“They can’t wait in the attic, either. The police will search every floor.” Interesting, thought Renwick. He shook the remaining dust from his jacket, smoothed back his hair. “We could both use a wash and a brushup,” he said. “At least we don’t look like a couple of cops,” he added as two men, neatly dressed, were hustled out of the building in the grip of four squatters. A large suitcase was hurled after them.

The orator halted his impassioned plea, yelled,
“Agents provocateurs!”
He seized the suitcase, darted with it around the crowd just as a squad of police arrived, reached the canal railing, and heaved it over. It fell into the grey, still waters and sank.

“Too bad,” said Renwick. “Okay, Pierre. The show’s over.”

They left, a fight and loud arguments starting up behind them. “You marked their faces?” Claudel asked.

“Got a firsthand view.” But the two men might be out of circulation for some time. Policemen had seized them along with their four escorts, and they were trying to struggle free. A mistake. Resisting arrest. A bad mistake, Renwick thought as one of the men landed a punch. The orator, of course, had vanished completely.

Once out of the narrow street and away from Old Amsterdam’s encircling canals, they could find a taxi to take them back to the airport. “We’ll clean up there,” Renwick suggested, “while you get the tank filled.”

“We’ve enough fuel left to reach Paris.”

“What about Geneva?”

“Tonight?”

“We’ll get there for dinner. Four hundred miles away, isn’t it?”

“Roughly. I’d better get the plane tanked up. Enough cash?”

“Yes. Passport and papers legitimate, too. You?”

“All in order. Transmitter and the travel kit that Bernie prepared. You know, Bob, our mad scientist at Merriman’s might have heard of that gun. What the devil was it? Any guess?”

I’ve none—needed a closer look.” Exploding bullets? Some kind of high-calibre rifle? It was damned accurate anyway. And the clinching argument as far as Vroom is concerned.”

“Do you know Annabel?” The girl whose small pieces of harmless information led to murder and mayhem.

“By sight. She was at one of Jake Crefeld’s parties three years ago.” Black hair, roving brown eyes, long legs and a noticeable figure. “She won’t remember me—too many men around her. “Men who were serious in face and in talk, men who didn’t have much time for skiing and dancing. Poor old Vroom, thought Renwick.

***

Conversation became innocuous until they had left the taxi at the old airport in Amsterdam. Claudel was still thinking about Annabel. “She must use a private plane, too. Or else she’d have to take a flight from Schiphol Airport to Zurich—a long way round for a week-end at Chamonix. Does Klaus send his plane for her, I wonder?”

“No doubt. Part of her expense account.”

“She’s valuable property. Meanwhile. Until Vroom resigns from all Intelligence work. Then she’s useless. If he resigns, of course,” added Claudel. “Will he?”

“End his career? But what kind of Intelligence job would he get with Annabel still on his back?” Renwick shook his head. “He never deserved all this.”

“It’s the undeserving who often get clobbered. Yet I just can’t imagine him teaching her how to use his transmitter. In fact, she wouldn’t have risked asking him.”

“Klaus probably gave her a lesson or two. It’s not too difficult to master.”

“And there was easy access to Vroom’s study. He’s only there for occasional meals and bed.” Claudel fell silent for almost a minute. “How will he handle her?”

Renwick just shook his head.

“His problem,” Claudel agreed.

And what did a man do when faced with that? “God help him,” Renwick said under his breath.

They left Claudel’s plane drawn up in its allotted space at the airport outside Geneva. Claudel, before locking up, had activated its alarm system: anyone attempting to enter it would set off a blast of sound that would bring out the fire truck itself. He had left behind his flying jacket, after removing a lighter that could photograph, a pair of eyeglasses that could amplify conversation from fifty feet away, a cigarette pack that could communicate within a three-mile radius. He was now wearing his tweed jacket that could take his neat automatic without bulging a pocket. His good arm carried Bernie’s lightweight bag. (Duplicates of lighter, glasses, cigarette pack; a hairbrush whose back slid open to hold useful cipher lists; a talcum-powder tin that held spare film; and ordinary toilet articles such as toothpaste and brushes and shaving kit, useful for emergency stop-overs. Also, infrared binoculars that could be used by night, a similar mini-telescope, and—of course—a book on bird-watching.)

Renwick was carrying the radio in its leather case, cut out in front to show an honest face, a portable that would keep a traveller abreast of the news and relax him with music. But remove the leather case and open the back of the radio, and there was a transmitter that could reach approximately a thousand miles—double the distance needed for communication with London. Its antenna, a thin wire minutely coiled and packed under the vinyl lining of the case, was easily strung around a room or dangled down the outside of a window.

If, thought Renwick as they reached the checkpoints for customs and passport control, by any son-of-a-bitching chance we are questioned here, I’ll call Duval in Geneva or even Keppler in Bern. Keppler was one of Swiss Security’s top men, a big wheel. Duval was an inspector of police. They knew him, had co-operated fully when he was tracking down a numbered bank account in Geneva four years ago—money reeking of conspiracy, theft, and murder—destined for international terrorists. He had been with NATO Intelligence, then, but Keppler and Duval knew about Interintell. Renwick believed in keeping allies informed, even those who were usually neutral except, of course, when Swiss serenity was threatened. And Klingfeld & Sons, with a flourishing office in Geneva, was definitely a real threat. Chamonix was across the frontier in French territory, but it was possible that Inspector Duval could provide some useful advice, if not unobtrusive assistance. After all, he must have contacts there: Geneva and Chamonix were neighbours, both French-speaking, both sharing the same problem—Klaus.

“Nothing to declare,” Renwick said. Except a ton weight of worry. They passed through customs. Then passports were examined: two representatives of Merriman & Co.; advisers on construction engineering. Business or pleasure? “Pleasure,” said Claudel—no one ever asked what kind of pleasure. With a polite nod, they were waved on.

Renwick relaxed. Suddenly he decided: I’ll phone them both, Keppler and Duval, tomorrow morning before we leave for Chamonix. But now, a room near the airport, and while Claudel rents a car, I’ll make contact with London. A quick report on Vroom and Annabel, information on our destination, and what news from Basset Hill.

***

The Swiss are larks, up with the break of day. There was no difficulty in reaching Johann Keppler in his office in Bern by eight o’clock, Duval in Geneva at eight-thirty. Renwick gave only a strong hint of serious trouble connecting Geneva and Chamonix, together with an assurance that Keppler and Duval would be kept informed and a promise that the final action in Geneva would be theirs. This was, Renwick emphasised, a matter both for police and for Intelligence. Interintell could need help and would be much obliged.

Both men listened. Renwick was not someone to sound an alert based on flimsy suspicion. Duval even offered the name of a young police inspector in Chamonix whom he knew well—he would contact him right away. Renwick, he suggested, might use the code name Victor for use in any identification there.

“Victor,” Claudel said as they left Geneva, and glanced with amusement at Renwick, who was driving the Audi he had rented. He was in good fettle this morning: his arm now rested in a sling after being freshly dressed by a Swiss doctor. He had, of course, objected to all that, but Renwick had insisted, and Claudel must admit the result was bliss. So far, at least. “Victor...” Claudel joked. “Flattering.”

“I doubt that. Duval’s a sardonic type.”

“Where’s your own sense of humour this morning? Come on, Bob. Just look at these buses rolling toward Chamonix. Two of them loaded to the gunwales with Japanese. What draws them to Mont Blanc? The fellow at the garage said none of them miss visiting it—almost a kind of pilgrimage. The highest mountain in Europe, is that it?” But Renwick only nodded. He’s worried about that report he got from London last night, Claudel thought. “Look, Bob, it doesn’t mean a thing that the supply-room clerk— what’s his name? Grable?—turned up at Cooper’s old law firm in Washington and tried the same dodge on Rosen that he pulled on Danford in New York. He got nowhere once again.”

“Unless someone in the Washington office heard Rosen telephoning Danford about that visit, or Danford’s subsequent call to Gilman—” Renwick broke off, passed another busload of tourists, a truck, and two cars.

“A telephone tapped? Even so, you’ve got Nina well hidden.”

But Renwick, eyes on the busy highway—the scenery so far was unremarkable—was worried. “Could there have been some link between Colin Grant and me that I forgot?”

“Not likely. Your memory is too damned tenacious. I know what’s bothering you. It’s having Grable snoop around Washington. But Nina wouldn’t telephone her father, would she? Or visit him?”

“No. Not at present.”

“Then let’s start worrying about some real trouble. Erik, for instance.”

Yes, he’s still with us, thought Renwick. The
Spaarndam
had reached Suez ten hours ahead of expectations. Before Vroom’s two men had arrived to search the ship, Erik had slipped away. Three hours later the bogus Englishman, Haversfield, had stepped with his luggage onto a launch and headed for shore. But he, at least, had been seen at the airport in Cairo. The Egyptians had reported yesterday he had taken a night flight to Rome. “They won’t be far apart,” Renwick predicted. “Haversfield needs to keep an eye on Erik, and Erik needs cash to get back to Berlin.” Cash and false papers and changes of clothing; and a safe house, too, where he can hide while his identity is changed. “Terrorists don’t travel far without a lot of help.”

“I bet he learned that lesson in Djibouti when he found he had only enough money left to hire him a dhow as far as the nearest fishing village. Anyway, Bob, we’ve got the details on Haversfield, and that’s something.”

It was a considerable something, Renwick had to admit. West German Intelligence had come up with Haversfield’s identity along with a photograph taken eight years ago, before he had vanished from Berlin. Its likeness compared nicely with the one on his British passport. And as a bonus to all this, Gilman had discovered the firms with which Haversfield’s stationery business dealt. At the head of the list for office equipment was the name Klingfeld & Sons.

Suddenly, the highway shook off the octopus clutch of gas stations, cafés, small factories, same-looking neat houses, and began to climb. Hills heightened into savage peaks. Fir trees mounted the lower slopes, edging the fields and pasture lands in the valley, where a rush of water poured through its broad flat stretch. Above the tree line were precipices and giant ravines and the long grey rivers of ice that crept down from frozen mountaintops.

Claudel pointed to the glaciers. “They are white in winter. Snow covers all the debris they carry along with them—rocks, stones, trees—everything that gets in their way.”

“Like Klaus.” And what was his second name? Vroom, you left your brains behind when you came into these mountains and met Annabel’s friends.

Claudel nodded. First, the killing of Georges Duhamel in Djibouti. Then Alvin Moore. Then Brimmer. Everyone who got in his way. “Who’s next?” Claudel asked, trying to keep his voice light. “And where the devil do we find this Chalet Ruskin? Ruskin, Ruskin—that’s a strange name for a French alpine village. Who was Ruskin? Anyone at all? Or is it a place far away?”