The Light of Day (30 page)

‘With the Lincoln?'

‘What else? We wouldn't want to walk, would we, or leave without our bags?'

I had to laugh. I couldn't help it. And it didn’t matter, because Harper thought that it was the beauty of his plan that I found so amusing, and not the bloody great hole in it I thought of the customs inspector's face when the Lincoln drove up for clearance—if
Tufan
allowed it to get that far—and when he saw me again. I laughed so much that Fischer began to laugh too. It was the best moment I had had in days. I ate some sandwiches and had another drink. There was garlic sausage in the sandwiches, but I didn't even have a twinge of indigestion. I thought my worries were over.

The place we were to go ashore was a port called
Sereni,
a few miles south of Corlu. Harper said that it would take five hours to get there. I cleaned off the filth I had collected from the Seraglio roof as best I could and went to sleep in the saloon. The others used the cabins.
Giulio
and Enrico ran the boat between them. I found out later that they had sent the boat's regular crew ashore at Pendik for an evening on the town, and then slipped out of the harbour after dark. The patrol boat that was supposed to be keeping an eye on the
Bulut
missed it completely.

It was getting light when voices in the saloon woke me. Harper and Miller were drinking coffee, and Fischer was trying to make his duty bandages look more presentable by brushing them. He seemed to be having some sort of discussion with Harper. As it was in German I couldn't understand. Then Harper looked at me and saw that I was awake.

'Arthur can use a screwdriver,' he said, 'if you just show him what to do.'

‘Which-door?' Fischer asked.

'Does it matter? How about the right rear?'

‘We were talking about a safe place for the loot,' Harper said to me. 'Inside one of the car doors seems a good place for the customs people to forget about'

'Arthur would not know about such things,' Miller said waggishly.

They had a good laugh over that gem of wit, while I tried to look mystified. Luckily, Enrico came in just then and said that we would be entering port in ten minutes.

I had some of the coffee and a stale sandwich. Harper went up to the wheel-house. Half an hour later, the sun was up and we were moored alongside a stone jetty.

Fishermen are early risers and the harbour was already busy. Cuttlefish boats were unloading the night's catch at the quayside. Caiques with single-cylinder engines were chugging out to sea. A port official came aboard to collect dues. After a while, Harper came down and said that he was going ashore to make sure that Miss Lipp was there. He left the velvet bag with Fischer.

He returned fifteen minutes later and reported that the Lincoln was parked in a side street beside
a café-restaurant
on the main square. Miss Lipp was in the restaurant eating breakfast. The side street was a quiet one. Fischer and I could get busy on the door. We would be allowed half an hour to complete the job.

Fischer borrowed a screwdriver from Enrico and we went ashore. Nobody seemed to take any notice of us, probably because we looked so scruffy. I couldn't see the Opel or the Peugeot anywhere about, but mat didn't worry me. I knew that one or other of them would be on tap. We found the car without difficulty and I started on the door. It was an ordinary screwdriver I had to work with, but the earlier removals of the panel had eased the screws and I didn't do any more damage to the leather. It took me ten minutes to take the panel off, five seconds for Fischer to wedge the velvet bag in clear of the window mechanism, and fifteen minutes for me to replace the panel. Then Fischer and I got into the back seat. Two minutes later, Miss Lipp came out of the restaurant and got behind the wheel. If she had slept the previous night it could only have
been at the inn in Corfu; bat she looked as fresh as she always did.

'Good morning, Hans. Good morning, Arthur. The others are just coming across the square now,’ she said.

They arrived a moment after. Harper got in the front seat with her, Miller sat on my left. She said good morning to Miller, and drove off the moment she heard the door close.

From
Sereni
to Corlu, where we would join the main Istanbul-Edirne road, there are twelve miles of narrow secondary road. The first mile or so is winding, and I waited until we got to a straighter part before I risked a look back.

The Peugeot was there, and I caught a glimpse of another car behind it. The Opel was on the job as well.

Harper had started telling Miss Lipp about the night's work and the size of the haul. Miller was putting in his word, too. There was a lot of mutual congratulations. It was like being in the winning team's bus. I wasn't needed in the conversation, and didn't have to listen
io
it either. I could think.

There were several possible explanations for the two cars being there. Miss Lipp had probably driven straight to Corlu from the garage, after dropping us the previous afternoon. By the time she had left the Istanbul area,
Tufan
must have been told that the men were no longer in the car, and realized that his only hope of re-establishing contact lay in keeping track of the Lincoln. The Opel could have been sent to make sure that there were no further mistakes. Or it may have been to compensate for lack of radio communication outside the Istanbul area. The two cars could talk to one another, if an urgent report became necessary, one car could stop and reach Istanbul by telephone white the other continued the surveillance. Then a third possibility occurred to me.
Tufan
must have been told about the attack on the guard post. As soon as he heard the details —smoke, tear-gas, concussion grenades, six men in respirators—he would know that the attack and the Lincoln were related. If he also knew that the
Bulut
had left Pendik and that the Lincoln had stopped at Corlu, he might have decided that reinforcements were necessary in that area.

The only certainty, I decided sourly, was that
Tufan
would not be the 'big brain’ who would think of checking the Treasury Museum. He would still be off on his political wild goose chase. Well, he would have some surprises coining.

At that moment Miss Lipp said sharply: 'Karl!'

Miller had been in the middle of saying something and he broke off
 
abruptly.

‘What is it?' Harper said.

‘That brown car behind us. It was behind me yesterday when I drove out from Istanbul. I thought then that I'd noticed it before, earlier in the day. In fact, I was so sure that when I stopped at Corlu I waited to get a look at it. When it didn't show up I figured it had turned off somewhere and thought no more about it'

'Don't look around, anyone,' Harper said. He swivelled the driving mirror so that he could look behind. After a moment, he said: 'Try slowing down."

She did so. I knew what would happen. The Peugeot would keep its distance. After about a minute, Harper twisted the mirror back into position. 'Do you think you could lose it?' he said.

‘Not on these roads.'

'Okay. Just keep going. Doesn't look like a police car. I wonder .. .'

'Franz!' Fischer said suddenly.

'All set for a little hi-jacking operation, you mean?'

‘Why not?'

'He could have done that better last night when he had us in the van,' said Miller.

‘I’m not so sure,' said Harper. ‘He might have figured that it would be safer to wait until we were all outside the city.’

'But Franz didn't know his end of the plan,' Miss Lipp objected.

'If
 
he put
a tail on
you,' Fischer said,
 
‘he could have guessed.’

‘Well, well soon find out,’ Harper said grimly. ‘There are only two of them in that car. If it's Franz we're dealing
with, that probably means that he's set up an ambush somewhere ahead with his outer two mugs. That makes five. We only have three guns, so we'd better take care of this lot first We'll pick a spot with some trees and then pull off the road. Okay?'

'May I look round at this car?' I asked.

‘Why?'

‘To see if I recognize it.'

I knew that I had to do something. If they started shooting at Turkish security agents, Turkish security agents were going to start shooting back—and they weren't going to stop to ask questions or worry about who got hit

'Okay,' he said; 'but make it casual.'

I looked back.

‘Well?' he asked.

'I don't recognize the brown one,’ I said; 'but there's another one behind it, a grey Opel.'

‘That's right,' Miss Lipp said; 'it's been there some time. But so what? The road's too narrow for passing.'

'I'm almost sure it was outside that garage yesterday afternoon.' I tried to sound like a really worried man. It wasn't very difficult.

‘There are many grey Opels,' Miller said.

'But not with such a very long radio aerial. That is why I noticed it.'

Harper had swivelled the mirror again and was peering into it. 'You'd better look, too, Leo,' he said grimly. 'See the antenna?'

Miller looked and swore. 'It could be a coincidence,' he said.

'Could be. Do you want to take a chance on it?'

'No,' said Fischer.

'I agree,' said Miller; 'but what do we do about them?'

Harper thought for a moment. Then he asked: 'How much farther to Corlu? '

'About three kilometres,' Miss Lipp answered.

‘Then he must have it set up somewhere between Corlu and
Edirne.'

'So?'

'So, instead of turning left at Corlu and going to
Edirne,
we change our plans and turn right."

‘But that would take us back to Istanbul,' Miller objected.

'Not all the way,’ Harper said; 'only as far as
the
airport and the first plane out*

'Leaving
thè
car behind?' asked Miss Lipp.

'Dont
worry, sweetie. We'll all be able to buy fleets of
Lincolns
when we cash in this pile of chips.'

Suddenly, they were all smiles again.

I tried to think. It was barely seven-thirty and the run from Corlu to the Istanbul Airport at
Yesilköy
would take little more than an hour. It was Wednesday, which meant that the Treasury Museum would normally stay closed until the following day. Unless the big brain had already started working, or unless
Tufan
had decided to stop uncovering non-existent terrorist plots and let the police know what was going on, there was every chance that, within a couple of hours, Harper and the rest would be out of the country. In that case, if anyone were going to stop them it would have to be me. The question was—did I
want
to stop them? Why didn't I just
go
along with them and collect my two thousand dollars?

I was still tired and confused or I would have remembered that there could be only one answer to that—my passport was not valid and an airline would not carry me. But instead of the answer, another stupid question came into my mind; and, stupidly, I asked it

'Am I included in this?'

Harper turned right pound in his seat to face me, and gave me the cold, unpleasant smile I liked least.

'Included, Arthur? Why? Did you have something else in mind—like making a quick deal with Franz, for instance, or even the police?'

'Of course not. I just wanted to be certain.’

‘Well that makes five of us who want to be certain.
Don’t
you worry, Arthur. Until we're on that plane with the loot all safe and sound, you're not even going to the can by yourself. That's how much you're included.'

Fischer and Miller thought that hilariously amusing. Miss Lipp, I noticed, was keeping her attention divided between the road ahead and
aie
cars behind.

We came to Corfu and tamed right on to the main Istanbul road. Harper began to organize the change of plan.

‘The first thing is to get the stuff out of
the
door. Hans, you'd better change places with Arthur. He can get busy now.'

'He can't,' Fischer said. There are seven screws on the rear doors. With the door shut he cannot get at them. The door has to be open.'

'All the way open?'

‘Nearly.'

Harper looked at the heavy doors. They were hinged at the rear, and would swing open against the wind. We were doing over sixty. It was obviously out of the question to take the panel off while we were on the move. He nodded. 'All right. Here's what we'll do. As soon as we get to the airport, Elizabeth and Leo will take all the passports and get busy buying tickets and filling out passport cards and customs forms for all of us. Right?'

They nodded.

Then I follow them inside just to check on the flight number and boarding time so that we all know what the score is. As soon as I have that, I return to the car and Arthur drives us to the parking lot. There we open the door and get the stuff. When it's out, Hans gets porters and we unload the baggage. We leave the car on the park. Any questions?'