Cloak of Darkness (41 page)

Lasch’s white face flushed. “I entered your room to ask if you had found the passport.”

“And to persuade me to entrust it to you for safekeeping?” Renwick asked gently.

“I was instructed—” Lasch broke off. “You understand?”

“Fully.”

“Of course, if you haven’t found the passport, then all our plans for this morning would have been changed.
Nicht wahr?”

“True,” Renwick agreed, and eased the look of embarrassment on Lasch’s unhappy face. Plans would have been changed, and Keppler would have been still alive, still undiscovered. He would have searched for the passport, and when he had found it, he’d make sure this time that Brimmer’s Plus List would be delivered into his hands. As it was meant to be, this morning. Renwick resisted one final question. Why didn’t you grab harder at that little black book, Karl—or force me with a gun at my ribs into your car? Instead, he put out his hand. “It was good working with you, Karl. Fortunate for me, too.” And that was the solid truth.

“A pleasure to work with Interintell.” Lasch was on his feet, his hand crushingly strong in its firm grip.

“Goodbye.”

“Auf Wiedersehen.”

Renwick was three paces away. “Herr Renwick!” he heard. What now? He wondered as he turned around.

“You forgot your bag, Herr Renwick.” Lasch handed it to him with a bow.

Renwick took it, shook his head, and walked on, back into his thoughts about Keppler. Strange: they had talked about him for the last fifteen minutes and never once had they mentioned his name. Yet not so strange: Keppler, as they had known him, had died nine months ago.

Now, where was a telephone? In Washington it would be half-past eight. He would waken Nina with the best news in his life: he was coming home.

In Zurich, Renwick hadn’t been able to reach Nina. There was only the housekeeper’s voice, cool and impersonal, telling him they had left Basset Hill. Yes, Mrs. Smith had left. And Mr. MacEwan. With Mr. Grant driving them in his car. No, she didn’t know where they were going.

The short flight to Geneva became a long plunge back into frustration and anxiety. He had expected too much, he told himself, when he hoped to find Nina waiting by the phone for his call. Everything was all right, must be. But the last message from Basset Hill, relayed by London this morning, had been sent out from Washington last night. Anything could have happened in that time-lag. Anything.

At the Geneva airport, he found a cheerful Claudel with an arm heavily encased in bandages and a bright word of welcome. “I was delayed,” Renwick said. “Sorry to be late.”

“Nothing to it. Got here early.” It didn’t seem the right moment, judging from Renwick’s face, to mention Claudel’s own efficiency. He had put the hours of waiting to good use. His plane was tanked up, ready to soar. And for once he was going to allow someone else to take over the controls. Leave his sweet darling alone and abandoned at Geneva until he could come back to fly her out? No, thank you.

“How’s the arm?” Renwick asked as they walked through the terminal.

No explanation given for the delay, no mention of what had happened in Zurich. Claudel controlled his impatience. He’d hear the details once they had taken off—another good reason for flying private. On a commercial flight there would be no serious talk. He began describing the wire cradle in which his forearm was resting, a neat piece of medical engineering to hold the wound together and let it mend naturally. “There will be a scar, of course, but the girls never object to that—intrigues them. It will cramp my style for a week or two. Can’t move it around.”

“You’ll think of ways,” Renwick told him. He was distracted, his eyes searching for a phone booth.

“Gilman reached me this morning and—”

“Have you any spare Swiss francs? I’m running short.”

“Sure. But—”

“I’m calling Washington. Where’s the nearest phone, dammit?”

“No need, Bob. She’s en route. To Paris.”

Renwick’s voice sharpened. “Alone?”

“Bob—the danger is over. Anyway, Mac is travelling with her. That is, if they made the shuttle to La Guardia in time to reach Kennedy by nine fifteen. She’s taking the Concorde. It doesn’t fly from Washington on a Monday.” Claudel laughed. “Nina decided it all—must have been studying timetables for days. Gilman was slightly astonished—especially by her last question. Couldn’t understand it quite, but he said yes anyway. She asked, ‘Then the snake has been scotched?’ What the devil did she mean? Klaus Sudak?”

Renwick nodded, a first smile playing around his lips. “Thoroughly scotched.” He calculated quickly. “Arriving at De Gaulle at six o’clock. When’s the first flight out of here?”

“We can do better than that. I’ve got my plane all ready to go. You can take her up, can’t you?”

“You bet I will.” Renwick was already moving off.

“Easy, easy,” Claudel told him as he caught up. “Gilman has booked Nina into the Georges Cinq—he knows the management. He will be there himself tomorrow—he’s eager to get the full details. Who isn’t?”

“He’d better be back in Grace Street by the day after tomorrow. There’s a registered envelope on its way from Zurich.”

“You mailed Brimmer’s Plus List?”

“Seemed the safest way.”

“Rough going this morning?” Claudel was astounded.

“Well—let’s say it could have been.”

“Didn’t Keppler deliver?”

“He sold out.”

“What?”

“Later, Pierre, later. When did Gilman call Nina?”

“Just after he got your report and had it decoded.”

“At half-past one in the morning?”

“A telephone call means good news.” Bad news would have been sent in a message to MacEwan and let him break it, face to face. “Bob,” Claudel said most seriously, “don’t you know how worried we’ve all been?”

And there were moments when I was damned worried, too. Renwick said, “What’s the best flying time we can make?”

“We could—with this good weather—reach Orly by five o’clock.”

And then traffic delays. “We’ll try for De Gaulle.”

“Problems, Bob. I usually fly into—”

“You work them out.”

“Well, well. Delegating authority, are you?”

“From now on there will be plenty of delegating.”

“I think I’ve heard that before.”

“This time I mean it.” Renwick’s face was taut.

Claudel looked at him quickly. I believe he does, Claudel thought. I really believe it. I didn’t even have to tell him how near Nina was to danger. That news can wait, like the other items Gilman gave me on our double-talk over the phone this morning. Vroom, for instance: Vroom resigning from Dutch Intelligence as well as from Interintell, Vroom taking a job with Bruna Imports, leaving next month for Indonesia and the problems of the spice and coffee trade. Or perhaps I won’t mention the threat to Nina, let Gilman do his diplomatic best with that. What Bob needs now is an hour in a decompression chamber. This time he went too far down below the surface. And he knows it. Goddammit, why did he go in alone? With such speed? But Claudel knew the answer: the only way to deal with Klaus Sudak was to be one jump ahead of him. “Okay,” he said as they reached the plane. “Sure you won’t strip her gears?” They arrived at De Gaulle Airport, as Claudel had predicted, with time to spare. They even managed a very late twenty-minute lunch of sandwiches and beer, and still had half an hour to wait. Midway through the flight, Renwick had begun to talk. Back to normal or almost, thought Claudel, and thank heaven for that. Now it was he who began worrying. It was more than possible that Nina hadn’t managed the distance between La Guardia and Kennedy airports before the Concorde lifted off. In that case, Claudel could see his own plans for tonight evaporating. Tomorrow morning he would be waiting again with Bob at this bloody airport for the arrival of an overnight flight from New York.

As they paced along the exits from customs and immigration, Renwick said, “No need for you to hang around, Pierre.”

“No need,” Claudel agreed cheerfully, but he stayed. No need? After all that he had heard this afternoon? But the decompression chamber was working: Bob was out on deck, breath normal, and it only needed Nina to complete the cure. My God, what if she didn’t arrive? Quickly, Claudel began talking about next January. If he could manage it, he might be back in Chamonix for some skiing.

“The brunette nurse?”

“Yes, the knockout—the one that caught your roving eye.”

But at that moment, Renwick’s eyes were riveted. The first arrivals were beginning to appear.

Claudel said, “Give me that bag, and I’ll see you tomorrow. In Gilman’s room at the Georges Cinq. Around eleven?”

“Two o’clock.” Renwick’s eyes were searching.

“Gilman will be there by ten.”

“You can start with Amsterdam and hold him with Chamonix. You’ve got plenty to tell—” Renwick broke off as his eyes found a girl with fair hair cut short and curling. Nina. Nina more beautiful than ever, with her large eyes and the tilt of her head and the smile on her lips. She hadn’t seen him yet as she walked—high-heeled sandals tapping lightly, cream shirt open at the neck, cream skirt slightly swinging at each step— beside a red-haired man, and listened to him talk. Mac, thought Renwick, I like you; I like you a lot, but you don’t have to be so damned fascinating.

Mac, quick as ever, had seen them both and caught Claudel’s high sign to follow him out.

Renwick didn’t even notice. Nina had halted, her blue eyes widening as she stared at him in wonder. Renwick scarcely heard Mac say, as he dropped Nina’s suitcase beside him, “All yours, now. Glad you’re back, Bob.”

Renwick put out his hands to grasp hers. For a long moment they stood looking at each other. Then he drew her into his arms, tightening them around her as they kissed. Soft lips, soft cheeks, soft silken hair against his mouth. Suddenly, he was alive again. He laughed with the joy of it. He released her, held her back from him to look at her once more. “Magic, you are pure magic, darling.” He picked up her suitcase and slipped an arm around her waist as they began walking toward the street.

Helen MacInnes, whom the
Sunday Express
called ‘the Queen of spy writers’, was the author of many distinguished suspense novels.

Born in Scotland, she studied at the University of Glasgow and University College, London, then went to Oxford after her marriage to Gilbert Highet, the eminent critic and educator. In 1937 the Highets went to New York, and except during her husband’s war service, Helen MacInnes lived there ever since.

Since her first novel
Above Suspicion
was published in 1941 to immediate success, all her novels have been bestsellers;
The Salzburg Connection
was also a major film.

Helen MacInnes died in September 1985.

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