The Hidden Target

by Helen Macinnes

  “I’ve seen both. Last week-end.” Cooper handed over the photographs to Gilman. “Of all the damned impudence! They came visiting my house. At East Hampton. I had gone down to the beach for my daily walk. But the rain came—it’s been one hell of an August for weather—and so I jogged back. They were at my front door, trying to talk their way past Libby—that’s my oldest girl. Their story? The woman said she was a real-estate agent, heard our house was for sale; there has been a lot of selling and buying around us. The man with her, exceptionally polite, handsome, almost convinced Libby I had put our house on the market. I’ve talked about that, vaguely, in these last few months. Once the kids are off on their own—and that’s coming; I can see it—why the hell do I need a place in the country?” He took possession of the photographs once more. “Do you need these?” he asked Renwick. “I’d like to have copies made. Two more for your rogues’ gallery,” he promised Gilman.

  Trying to get inside Frank’s cottage, a polite look-around? Brief enough not to be annoying, but sufficient time to plant a bugging device? Renwick looked at Cooper worriedly and dropped all tact. “Be careful, Frank.”

  “I was in the business of being careful before those two were born. Or you, either. Okay, Ron—what news from London?”

  “Promising, I think. The office is ready—a nice old house, narrow, four stories high—in a small side street. Top floor has my cubbyhole; and communications to keep us all in touch. Below that, two rooms of maps, reference items, filing cabinets waiting to be filled. Then there’s a floor for our borrowed computer, deciphering machine, and other miracle devices. Staff selected. Some foreign contacts already established. The first floor, above the main hall, is for genuine business, with a couple of expert surveyors dealing with any actual requests for our services. The entrance hall is for reception—and security.”

  “Surveyors?”

  “Just part of our firm,” Gilman continued smoothly. “Actually, here’s the full scope.” He drew out two small cards from his waistcoat pocket and handed one each to Renwick and Cooper. “For the benefit of our representatives who travel in foreign, parts.”

  In restrained type, the card’s legend read:

  J.P. Merriman & Co.

  CONSULTANT ENGINEERS

  Advisers on Construction Abroad. Surveys Made.

  “Not bad,” Cooper said. “In fact, damned good. There’s a hell of a lot of construction going on all around the world. Your first-floor experts, Ron, may even make some money for you. You’ll end up as a successful business-man yet.”

  “Not my line.”

  “But who’s paying for all the initial expenses?”

  Gilman looked bland. “Oh, there’s always a little extra money available when a state sees a threat to its security. As the free countries are linked now, like it or not, danger to one is danger to all. I think they’ll find that Interintell is the best investment they can make.” Then he studied Renwick. “Any objections to being one of our travelling representatives, Bob?”

  Renwick shook his head. “I was just going over their backgrounds in my mind.” He, himself, had earned an MIT engineering degree before he went into the army. Claudel? Yes, the Frenchman had worked in aerospace dynamics before his stint with NATO. MacEwan, the Canadian, had worked in mining. Larsen and Oiehl had been sappers. “Engineers? I suppose so. But we’re stretching it a bit, aren’t we?”

  “It’s the one common denominator you had in civilian life. Not much, but enough. What else would seem feasible for all you ex-NATO types? Certainly not interior decoration or textiles and ceramics.” Gilman was ruffled. “I thought you’d be comfortable with—”

  “I am, I am,” Renwick cut in. “We’ll have ample cover.” If no one starts questioning us too closely. But then, that’s part of our job: avoid the questions. Certainly, I’ll be able to move around a foreign country, meet officials more interested in terrorists than in bridges, dams, or new hotels. “It gives me enough travelling room, anyway.” And Gilman had planned well. For that all-important cover, export-import was now suspect; so were tea or wine merchants, wandering reporters, news photographers, moviemakers, lecturers—you name it, they’ve tried it. “Original,” he conceded, and brought relief to Gilman’s watchful eyes. “Do I have some back-up?”

  “You can choose your team. Two or three. Don’t you think?”

  I do think, old boy. That’s the way I like to work. The lone eagle looks damned foolish when one of his pinions is torn off. Renwick said, “Okay. That’s that.”

  “You’ll be in London soon? You’ll find Merriman & Co. at 7 Grace Street—between the Strand and the Embankment.”

  Cooper had a question. “And what about some aids and comforts for your agents? Or do they just rely on karate and smoke signals?”

  “Gadgets will be provided. But from another building in another location. That should baffle any of the opposition who might come prowling around. All the technology we have on the premises could be used by any modern-minded business firm. Okay with you, Bob?”

  “You’re the right man for the job, Ron.”

  “I agree,” said Cooper, and he meant it. “I couldn’t have handled it, not with legal cases piling up.” He hesitated, and then added, “And not with the climate of opinion that’s fogged everything over here—I don’t know if we’re coming or going. Am I depressed? You bet I am.” Then he tried to laugh that off. “There’s one man more depressed than I am. Francis O’Connell. Telephoned me this morning, a long spiel about his daughter, Nina.” He began pouring another round of drinks. “Have to watch my time. That damned cocktail party. Never could stand them. A hundred guests milling around; and that allows you one minute per person. How’s that for hospitality?”

  Renwick said, “What’s this about Nina?” Frank, he was thinking, is not only overworked and depressed, he’s also beginning to digress. He ought to take a vacation, travel across his own country for a change, lose some of his pessimism, come back to New York and Washington with his old sense of purpose restored. “Nina,” he repeated firmly. “What has she done now?”

  “Got her father out of bed last night with a call from some place in northern Greece. She needed her money to be delivered at the American Express office in Athens instead of Istanbul. Seemingly she decided to leave the camper.”

  “Good,” said Renwick.

  “Not permanently,” Cooper corrected him. “She and her friend Madge wanted to see Athens and the islands. The camper is parked on a beach on the Salonika gulf—it’s staying there for six days.”

  “Six days?” Gilman asked. He knew that part of the world. “Why six whole days?”

  “Poor old O’Connell,” said Cooper. “Never got a postcard or letter from her all across Europe.” Thank God for my girls, he was thinking. “Her aunt Eunice—she looked after Nina for years, you know—never got a postcard, either. But here’s the strange part: Nina told him she had written him from Basel and postcarded Aunt Eunice from Dijon and Innsbruck. Of course, she might have been trying to pacify him. He’s had friends at the various embassies keeping a watchful eye for any blonde American girls travelling in a camper, but with no luck.”

  “But have they been passing through any capital cities?” Renwick asked. Neither Dijon nor Basel nor Innsbruck qualified for embassies.

  “It seems not. He couldn’t find out too much. Her call was brief—not enough cash to spare, she told him. She had spent a lot on a bus ride to Athens.”

  “And after the Greek islands?”

  “Istanbul. She’s rejoining her camping friends there by September fourth.” Cooper glanced at his watch. “My God, look at the time!” He picked up a heavy briefcase on his way to the door. “Sorry about the party, Bob. Next visit, we’ll spend a couple of evenings together.”

  “Watch out for the uninvited guest.”

  “A gate-crasher? Expecting you to be there?”

  “And perhaps wondering if we are using the mob scene to retreat to your study for a little talk.”
/>
  Cooper was suddenly smiling. “Could be an interesting party after all.” Then to Gilman, “See you in London on the tenth.” With that, and a wave of his hand, he left.

  Twenty minutes’ clearance before one of us starts leaving, Renwick reminded himself as he rose and made sure the door had locked automatically. He checked his watch. Gilman was doing the same thing.

  Gilman said, “Why did Francis O’Connell ’phone him? Not just looking for sympathy, surely.”

  “Probably he wanted Frank to get in touch with any friends in Istanbul, find out what they can about this damned camper. I suppose O’Connell is trying to handle everything quietly: no publicity. Everything done on the discreet old-boy level.”

  “Afraid of drugs?” That wouldn’t make a pretty story if it started spreading around Washington. And what about the inevitable leaks to the press? Francis O’Connell’s daughter, no less; the Francis O’Connell.

  “Nina isn’t the type.” But Renwick was worried. He changed the unpleasant subject. “What about those two people I asked you to check on—any luck?”

  “A lot of luck with Ilsa Schlott—but it came sideways, not through our efforts. We did verify that she is a foreign medical student, postgraduate research in tropical diseases at University College. She lives at the Women’s Residence, where she met Nina and her friend Madge Westerman. Schlott attended a lot of rallies and demonstrations, seemed to be merely an interested observer studying the London scene. That was all we found out until I had a meeting with a friend in New Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorist squad. The subject of the meeting was actually those bloody umbrellas and their high-velocity pellets. After we talked about Crefeld—and you, too, old boy—I branched on to the subject of terrorists. Had my friend seen signs in London of anything being plotted on a wide international scale? Nothing so far, he assured me. Unless recruitment of terrorists could be the beginning of an international plot. And after I promised an exchange of future information between his department and Interintell—You’ve no objection?” Gilman asked, interrupting himself.

  “It makes sense. Go on—recruitment, you were saying. In London?”

  “Yes. Last April, four young men had been quietly selected as suitable material and, after six weeks of indoctrination and testing, were about to travel abroad—to a hard-training camp for terrorists in South Yemen. One of them—a Trotskyite— had a change of mind. He managed to break his ankle on his motorbike just in time to evade the trip. His recruiter didn’t altogether believe his story, and he became scared. Scared enough to make contact with my friend of the anti-terrorist squad and ask for protection. In exchange, he told all he knew. Including the name of the person who first approached him. It was a code name, of course: Greta. He described her, gave details about their meeting places. And with some hard-working detectives on the trail of Greta, they uncovered her identity: Ilsa Schlott. How does that grab you, my friend?”

  Renwick recovered, said, “It grabs all right. Good God, Ron—”

  “That’s not the end of the Ilsa Schlott story. She was put— still is—under tight surveillance. And so she was observed meeting a flight from Amsterdam on fourteenth June. She made eye contact only: she knew the man, and he knew her. Then she walked some distance to her car. He followed, got in. She drove skilfully, used every bus and truck to blot her car from sight. She managed that, too, when she skirted a bad hold-up in traffic just before it became a complete snarl.”

  “So they lost him,” Renwick said, curbing his bitter annoyance. Schlott didn’t matter: the police knew where to find her. But the new arrival—that was something else.

  “He is recorded as being five feet ten or eleven, medium weight, good-looking sort—brown hair, clean-shaven—wearing a green tweed jacket and flannels. He was photographed, too. Here!” Gilman reached into a pocket, produced an envelope. “And the detective who took the photograph made immediate inquiries about the passenger list of that plane. You’ll find a copy of it along with the snapshot. I’ve marked the Americans— eleven of them; but cancelling out three children, four women, two elderly men, we have only two names really to consider.”

  Renwick opened the envelope. The snapshot was that of a half-turned face, as if its owner had sensed danger. The shape of the head, the cheekbone, chin, were vaguely familiar. Not familiar, exactly: just glimpsed once... Renwick’s lips tightened. Quickly he glanced at the listed names, two of them underscored in red: Wilbur Jones; James Kiley. “Kiley,” he said, his eyes once more on the photograph. “Yes. James Kiley.”

  Gilman was startled. “You know him?”

  “He’s conducting that camper tour.”

  “Nina O’Connell?”

  “Her good friend.”

  “My God...”

  They looked at each other. “I agree,” said Renwick. My God—James Kiley. “Which is he—Erik or Marco? Theo made sure they both got safely out of Essen.”

  “There was another man,” Gilman said, recovering himself. “He was in England just a week before Kiley arrived. Met Ilsa Schlott, briefly, and then disappeared. He was six feet, darkhaired, thin. No photograph of him, I’m afraid. Could he be connected with Kiley?”

  Tall, dark, thin... Again Renwick’s mind went back to the bombing in Amsterdam, to two men helping Nina and Madge to rise to their feet. Tall, dark, thin. “Is he a car buff, by any chance?”

  “He vanished too quickly for anyone to notice his hobbies.”

  “Check out the name Tony Shawfield, will you? Says he is English.”

  “Shawfield.” Gilman spelled it out, memorising it carefully.

  “Right. Could have taken possession of a green camper, custom-built probably, British registration definitely, and then had it ferried over to Holland. It might have been ordered well in advance from Ilsa Schlott’s favourite garage.”

  “We’ll check,” Gilman said tersely. He rose. “Have to go, Bob. Gemma will be ready and waiting. We’re taking in a show tonight.”

  “I’ll give you ten minutes and then leave, too.”

  “What are your plans?”

  “First flight I can get for London, so let Merriman & Co. know I’ll soon be on their doorstep. I’ll need some help, a lot of help. Including a trace put on two young blondes, who look almost like sisters, arriving on some crummy ship—a freighter, possibly—in Istanbul. Around the beginning of September.”

  “Why a freighter?”

  “You don’t find many Greek inter-island boats sailing into Istanbul, do you? Besides, Nina will be watching expenses. So flying is out. Also cruise ships.”

  Gilman said reflectively, “But what small cargo vessels sail from any Greek island to Turkey? Coastal steamers from the Levant or Egypt?”

  “Lesbos,” said Renwick. “They used to call in there, didn’t they?” As far as he could remember, it was the only island that did have that link with Istanbul.

  Gilman nodded. Lesbos, in the northeast Aegean, a few miles from the Turkish shore, was on the trade route from the Levant to Istanbul. “Could be that your blondes will head for Lesbos—if they have any sense. Or else they’ll find themselves retracing their journey to Athens.”

  “Why not call Vlakos in Athens and get him to steer Nina in the right direction? She’s collecting her allowance at the American Express office tomorrow,” Renwick suggested.

  “You want her in Lesbos?”

  “I want her in Istanbul before her friends arrive. Can’t go chasing through the Aegean after her. Nina wouldn’t appreciate that.”

  “Kahraman is in Istanbul. He can help—”

  “I’ll get in touch with him from Merriman’s.”

  “Will you be able to persuade her to leave her friends?”

  “I can try.”

  “And if she won’t listen?”

  Renwick said nothing.

  “If she were dependable enough,” Gilman said, “she might travel along, co-operate—”

  “No.” Renwick was definite. He quieted his voice. “Too dangerous.” He th
ought of Amalie in Essen, of Avril in Austria two years ago. “No. Not that,” he ended.

  “A pity. She could be useful.”

  “You’re going to be late for dinner,” Renwick said.

  “We can have supper after the theatre. I’ll call Vlakos right away.”

  “And perhaps see if he could send someone over to Lesbos?”

  “Just to make sure the coastal steamer isn’t in the whiteslave traffic?”

  “Can Vlakos send someone?” Renwick persisted.

  “With luck and good friends in the right places.”

  They shook hands quickly, firmly. Yes, thought Renwick as the door closed behind Ronald Gilman, that’s what it took: good friends in the right places. And a large dose of luck.

  12

  There had been a fresh breeze turning into a cool wind when the sun came up, light still weak, the Turkish coastline as yet a vague white line edging a flat stretch of land. It can’t be Gallipoli, that was before we reached the Dardanelles, thought Nina as she stood by the rail and watched the struggle of waves and current; we must now be in the Sea of Marmara. Twenty-four hours on this decrepit little freighter, but we are lucky to be here, and with no strain or stress. Yesterday, on the Lesbos quay, the crew had looked like Hollywood’s idea for a pirate movie. All they had needed was a knife held between their broken teeth to complete the picture. They might have stared but they had kept to themselves. The captain, equally in need of a bath and a dentist, had seen to that. And possibly that most amiable Greek, Mr. Christopoulos, who had befriended the girls in their little waterfront hotel in Lesbos—he was a teacher from Athens on holiday and spoke perfect English, thank heaven—and even came, down to the wharf to see them safely off, might just have smoothed the way in his talk with the captain in some incomprehensible language. Certainly, Mr. Christopoulos had bargained for the small price of their trip, paid from Nina’s dwindling store of Greek drachmas, and advised them to keep dollar bills out of sight. Not much in the way of food, he had warned them—but the coffee would be good. He was right about that. A very nice man indeed, Nina thought, and in the last excitement of boarding he forgot to give us his address. Now I can’t send him a postcard to thank him.