Caravan to Vaccares

by Alistair MacLean

  ‘With you?’ She stared at him in revulsion. ‘You must be mad. Go with you?’

  ‘Appearances must be maintained, now more than ever. What suspicion is going to attach to a man with so beautiful a young lady by his side? Besides, it’s very hot and I require someone to hold my parasol.’

  Just over an hour later, still fuming and tightlipped, she lowered the parasol as the green RollsRoyce drew up outside the frowning walls of Aigues-Mortes, the most perfectly preserved Crusader walled city in Europe. Le Grand Duc descended from the car and waited till Czerda had brought the breakdown truck towing the caravan to a halt.

  ‘Wait here,’ he ordered. ‘I shall not be long.’ He nodded to the Rolls. ‘Keep a sharp eye on Miss Delafont there. You apart, no others are on any account to show themselves.’

  He glanced up the road towards Saintes-Maries. Momentarily, it was deserted. He marched quickly away and entered the bleak and forbidding town by the north gate, turned right into the car-park and took up position in the concealment of a barrel organ. The operator, a decrepit ancient who, in spite of the heat of the day, was wearing two overcoats and a felt hat, looked up from the stool where he had been drowsing and scowled. Le Grand Duc gave him ten francs. The operator stopped scowling, adjusted a switch and began to crank a handle: the screeching cacophonous result was an atonal travesty of a waltz that no composer alive or dead would ever have acknowledged as his. Le Grand Duc winced, but remained where he was.

  Within two minutes a black Mercedes passed in through the archway, turned right and stopped. The Chinese couple got out, looked neither to left or right, and walked hurriedly down the main street – indeed, Aigues-Mortes’s only street, towards the tiny café-lined square near the centre of the town. More leisurely and at a discreet distance Le Grand Duc followed.

  The Chinese couple reached the square and halted uncertainly on a corner by a souvenir shop, not far from the statue of St Louis. No sooner had they done so than four large men in plain dark clothes emerged from the shop, two from each door, and closed in on them. One of the men showed the Chinese man something cupped in the palm of his hand. The Chinese man gesticulated and appeared to protest violently but the four large men just shook their heads firmly and led the couple away to a pair of waiting Citroëns.

  Le Grand Duc nodded his head in what could not easily have been mistaken for anything other than satisfaction, turned and retraced his steps to the waiting car and caravan.

  Less than sixty seconds’ drive took them to a small jetty on the Canal du Rhône à Sète, a canal that links the Rhône to the Mediterranean at Le Grau du Roi and runs parallel to the western wall of Aigues-Mortes. At the end of the jetty was moored a thirty-five-foot power-boat with a large glassed-in cabin and an only slightly smaller cockpit aft. From the lines of the broad flaring bows it appeared to be a vessel capable of something unusual in terms of speed.

  The Rolls and the caravan pulled clear off the road and halted so that the rear of the caravan was less than six feet from the head of the jetty. The transfer of the prisoners from the caravan to the boat was performed smoothly, expeditiously and in such a fashion that it could have roused no suspicion in even the most inquisitive of bystanders: in point of fact the nearest person was a rod fisherman a hundred yards away and his entire attention was obviously concentrated on what was happening at the end of his line some feet below the surface of the canal. Ferenc and Searl, each with a barely concealed pistol, stood on the jetty near the top of a short gangway while Le Grand Duc and Czerda, similarly unostentatiously armed, stood on the poop of the boat while first the three scientists, then their womenfolk, then Bowman, Cecile and Lila filed aboard. Under the threat of the guns they took up position on the settees lining the side of the cabin.

  Ferenc and Searl entered the cabin, Searl advancing to the helmsman’s position. For a moment Le Grand Duc and Masaine remained in the cockpit, checking that they were quite unobserved, then Le Grand Duc entered the cabin, pocketed his gun and rubbed his hands in satisfaction.

  ‘Excellent, excellent, excellent.’ He sounded positively cheerful. ‘Everything, as always, under control. Start the engines, Searl!’ He turned and poked his head through the cabin doorway. ‘Cast off, Masaine!’

  Searl pressed buttons and the twin engines started up with a deep powerful throb of a sound, but a sound by no means loud enough to muffle a short sharp exclamation of pain: the sound emanated from Le Grand Duc, who was still looking aft through the doorway.

  ‘Your own gun in your own kidney,’ Bowman said. ‘No one to move or you die.’ He looked at Ferenc and Czerda and Searl and El Brocador. At least three of them, he knew, were armed. He said: ‘Tell Searl to stop the engines.’

  Searl stopped the engines without having to have the message relayed through Le Grand Duc.

  ‘Tell Masaine to come here,’ Bowman said. ‘Tell him I’ve got a gun in your kidney.’ He looked round the cabin: no one had moved. ‘Tell him to come at once or I’ll pull the trigger.’

  ‘You wouldn’t dare!’

  ‘You’ll be all right,’ Bowman said soothingly.

  ‘Most people can get by on one kidney.’

  He jabbed the gun again and Le Grand Duc gasped in pain. He said hoarsely: ‘Masaine! Come here at once. Put your gun away. Bowman has his gun on me.’

  There was a few seconds’ silence, then Masaine appeared in the doorway. No profound thinker at the best of times, he was obviously uncertain as to what to do: the sight of Czerda, Ferenc, Searl and El Brocador busy doing nothing convinced him that nothing was, for the moment, the wise and prudent course of action. He moved into the cabin.

  ‘Now we come up against the delicate balance of power,’ Bowman said conversationally. He was still pale and haggard, he felt unutterably tired and stiff and sore all over: but he felt a prince compared to the condition he’d been in two hours previously. ‘A question of checks and balances. How much influence and authority can I exert on you standing here with this gun in my hand? How much of my will can I impose? So much – but only so much.’

  He pulled Le Grand Duc back by the shoulder, stepped to one side and watched Le Grand Duc collapse heavily on a settee, a well-made settee which didn’t break. Le Grand Duc glared at Bowman, the aristocratic voltage in the blue eyes turned up to maximum power: Bowman remained unshrivelled.

  ‘It’s difficult to believe just looking at you,’ Bowman went on to Le Grand Duc, ‘but you’re almost certainly the most intelligent of your band of ruffians. Not, of course, that that would call for any great intelligence. I have a gun here and it is in my hand. There are four others here who also have guns and although they’re not in their hands at the present moment it wouldn’t take very long for the guns to get there. If it came to a fight, I think it extremely unlikely that I could get all four before one of you – more probably two – got me. I am not a Wild Bill Hickock. Moreover, there are eight innocent people here – nine, if you count me – and a gun-fight in this enclosed space would almost certainly result in sone of them being hurt, even killed. I wouldn’t like that any more than I would like being shot myself.’

  ‘Get to the point,’ Le Grand Duc growled.

  ‘It’s obvious, surely. What demands can I make upon you that wouldn’t be too great to precipitate this gun-fight that I’m sure we all want to avoid? If I told you to hand over your guns, would you, quietly and tamely, with the knowledge that long prison sentences and probably indictments for murder awaited you all? I doubt it. If I said I’ll let you go but take the scientists and their women, would you go along with that? Again, I doubt it, for they would be living evidence of your crimes, with the result that if you set foot anywhere in Western Europe you’d finish in prison and if you set foot in Eastern Europe you’d be lucky to end up in a Siberian prison camp as the Communists aren’t too keen on people who kidnap their top scientists. In fact, there’d be no place left for you in any part of Europe. You’d just have to go on the Canton and sail all the way home with her and I
don’t think you’d find life in China all it’s cracked up to be – by the Chinese, of course.

  ‘On the other hand, I doubt whether you’d be prepared to fight to the death to prevent the deaprture of the two young ladies and myself. They’re only ciphers, a couple of romantically minded and rather empty-headed young holidaymakers who thought it rather fun to get mixed up in these dark goings on.’ Bowman carefully avoided looking at the two girls. ‘I admit that it is possible for me to start trouble, but I don’t see I would get very far: It would be only my word against yours, there wouldn’t be a shred of evidence I could offer and there’s no way I can think of how you could be tied up with the murder in the cave. The only evidence lies in the scientists and their wives and they would be half-way to China before I could do anything. Well?’

  ‘I accept your reasoning,’ Le Grand Duc said heavily. ‘Try to make us give ourselves or the scientists up – or their wives – and you’d never leave this boat alive. You and those two young fools there are, as you say, another matter. You can arouse suspicion, but that’s all you can do: better that than have two or three of my men die uselessly.’

  ‘It might even be you,’ Bowman said.

  ‘The possibility had not escaped me.’

  ‘You’re my number one choice of hostage and safe conduct,’ Bowman said.

  ‘I rather thought I might be.’ Le Grand Duc rose with obvious reluctance to his feet.

  ‘I don’t like this,’ Czerda said. ‘What if – ’

  ‘You want to be the first to die?’ Le Grand Duc asked wearily. ‘Leave the thinking to me, Czerda.’

  Czerda, obviously ill at ease, said no more. At a gesture from Bowman the two girls left the cabin and climbed the gangway. Bowman, walking backwards with his gun a few inches from Le Grand Duc’s midriff, followed. At the top of the gangway Bowman said to the girls: ‘Get back and out of sight.’

  He waited ten seconds then said to Le Grand Duc: ‘Turn round.’ Le Grand Duc turned. Bowman gave him a hefty shove that set him stumbling, almost falling, down the gangway. Bowman threw himself flat: there was always the off-chance of someone or ones down there changing their minds. But no shots were fired, there was no sound of footsteps on the gangway. Bowman raised a cautious head. The engines had started up again.

  The power-boat was already twenty yards away and accelerating. Bowman rose quickly and, followed by Cecile and Lila, ran to the Rolls. Carita gazed at him in astonishment.

  ‘Out!’ Bowman said.

  Carita opened her mouth to protest but Bowman was in no mood for protests. He jerked open the door and practically lifted her on to the road. Immediately afterwards he was behind the wheel himself.

  ‘Wait!’ Cecile said. ‘Wait! We’re coming with – ’

  ‘Not this time.’ He leaned down and plucked Cecile’s handbag from her. She stared at him, slightly open-mouthed, but said nothing. He went on: ‘Go into the town. Phone the police in Saintes-Maries, tell them there’s a sick girl in a green-and-white caravan in a lay-by a kilometre and a half north of the town and that they’re to get her to a hospital at once. Don’t tell them who you are, don’t tell them a single thing more than that. Just hang up.’ He nodded to Lila and Carita. ‘Those two will do for a start.’

  ‘Do for what?’ She was, understandably, bemused.

  ‘Bridesmaids.’

  The road between Aigues-Mortes and Le Grau du Roi is only a few kilometres long and, for the most part, it parallels the canal at a distance of a few feet: the only boundary line between them, if such it can be called, is a thin line of tall reeds. It was through those reeds, less than a minute after starting up the Rolls, that Bowman caught his first glimpse of the power-boat, fewer than a hundred yards ahead. It was already travelling at an illegally high spped, its stern dug into the water, spray flying high and wide from the deflectors on the bows: the wash set up by the wake of its passing was sending waves high up both sides of the canal banks.

  Searl was at the wheel, Masain, El Brocador and Ferenc were seated but keeping a watchful eye on the passengers, while Le Grand Duc and Czerda were conversing near the after door of the cabin. Czerda looked most unhappy.

  He said: ‘But how can you be sure that he can bring no harm to us?’

  ‘I’m sure.’ The passage of time had restored Le Grand Duc to his old confident self.

  ‘But he’ll go to the police. He’s bound to.’

  ‘So? You heard what he said himself. His solitary word against all of ours? With all his evidence half-way to China? They’ll think he’s mad. Even if they don’t, there’s nothing in the world they can prove.’

  ‘I still don’t like it,’ Czerda said stubbornly. ‘I think – ’

  ‘Leave the thinking to me,’ Le Grand Duc said curtly. ‘Good God!’

  There was a splintering of glass, the sound of a shot and a harsh cry of pain from Searl, who abandoned the wheel in favour of clutching his left shoulder. The boat swerved violently and headed straight for the left bank: it would unquestionably have struck it had not Czerda, although older than any of his companions and the farthest from the wheel, reacted with astonishing speed, hurled himself forward and spun the wheel hard to starboard. He succeeded in preventing the power-boat from burying – and probably crushing – its bows in the bank, but wasn’t in time to prevent the wildly slewing boat from crashing its port side heavily against the bank with an impact that threw all who were standing, except Czerda, and quite a few who were seated, to the deck. It was at that instant that Czerda glanced through a side window and saw Bowman, at the wheel of the Rolls-Royce and less than five yards distant on the paralleling road, taking careful aim with Le Grand Duc’s pistol through an open window.

  ‘Down!’ shouted Czerda. He was the first down himself. ‘Flat on the floor.’

  Again there came the sound of smashing glass, again the simultaneous report from the pistol, but no one was hurt. Czerda rose to a crouch, eased the throttle, handed the wheel over to Masaine, and joined Le Grand Duc and Ferenc who had already edged out, on all fours, to the poop-deck. All three men peered cautiously over the gunwale, then stood upright, thoughtfully holding their guns behind their backs.

  The Rolls had dropped thirty yards back. Bowman was being blocked by a farm tractor towing a large four-wheeled trailer, and balked from overtaking by several cars approaching from the south.

  ‘Faster,’ Czerda said to Masaine. ‘Not too fast – keep just ahead of that tractor. That’s it. That’s it.’ He watched the last of the north-bound cars go by on the other side of the road. ‘Here he comes now.’

  The long green nose of the Rolls appeared in sight beyond the tractor. The three men in the cockpit levelled their guns and the tractor-driver, seeing them, braked and swerved so violently that he came to a rest with the right front wheel of his tractor overhanging the bank of the canal. Its abrupt braking and swerve brought the entire length of the car completely and suddenly in sight.

  Bowman, gun cocked in hand and ready to use, saw what was about to happen, dropped the gun and threw himself below the level of the door sills. He winced as bullet after bullet thudded into the bodywork of the Rolls. The windscreen suddenly starred and became completely opaque. Bowman thrust his fist through the bottom of the glass, kicked the accelerator down beyond the detente and accelerated swiftly away. It was obvious that, with the element of surprise gone, he stood no chance whatsoever against the three armed men in the poop. He wondered vaguely how Le Grand Duc felt about the sudden drop in the resale market value of his Rolls.

  He drove at high speed past the arena on his left into the town of Grau du Roi, skidding the car to a halt at the approaches to the swing bridge that crossed the canal and connected the two sides of the town. He opened Cecile’s bag, peeled money from the roll of Swiss francs he had taken from Czerda’s caravan, put the roll back in the bag, thrust the bag into a cubby-hole, hoped to heaven the citizens of Grau du Roi were honest, left the car and ran down the quayside.

  He slowed d
own to a walk as he approached the craft moored along the left bank, just below the bridge. It was a wide-beamed, high-prowed fishing boat, of wooden and clearly very solid construction, that had seen its best days some years ago. Bowman approached a grey-jerseyed fisherman of middle age who was sitting on a bollard and lethargically mending a net.

  ‘That’s a fine boat you’ve got there,’ Bowman said in his best admiring tourist fashion. ‘Is it for rent?’

  The fisherman was taken aback by the directness of the approach. Matters involving finance were customarily approached with a great deal more finesse.

  ‘Fourteen knots and built like a tank,’ the owner said proudly. ‘The finest wooden-hulled fishing boat in the south of France. Twin Perkins diesels. Like lightning! And so strong. But only for charter, m’sieur. And even then only when the fishing is bad.’

  ‘Too bad, too bad.’ Bowman took out some Swiss francs and fingered them. ‘Not even for an hour? I have urgent reasons, believe me.’ He had, too. In the distance he could hear the rising note of Le Grand Duc’s power-boat.

  The fisherman screwed up his eyes as if in thought: it is not easy to ascertain the denomination of foreign banknotes at a distance of four feet. But sailors’ eyes are traditionally keen. He stood and slapped his thigh.

  ‘I will make an exception,’ he announced, then added cunningly: ‘But I will have to come with you, of course.’

  ‘Of course. I would have expected nothing else.’ Bowman handed over two one-thousand Swiss franc notes. There was a legerdemain flick of the wrist and the notes disappeared from sight.

  ‘When does m’sieur wish to leave?’

  ‘Now.’ He could have had the boat anyway, Bowman knew, but he preferred Czerda’s banknotes to the waving of a gun as a means of persuasion: that he would eventually have to wave his gun around he did not doubt.