Mirage

by James Follett

  ‘FACs?’

  ‘Fast attack craft. CMN’s only just moved into the FAC business. My guess is that they’re finding business a bit thin at the moment and that this Israeli order is vital for their survival. That’s probably why the French arms embargo doesn’t apply to them.’

  After eliciting the answers to a few more questions, Daniel thanked the editor and hung up. He turned his attention back to the brochure on Winterthur. The yellow lines down the centre of the main street had been positioned with the precision of a hairspring in a Rolex watch. It was a typical Swiss town: the product of a thousand years of probity, prudence, and propriety. The vague, seemingly impossible idea that was slowly taking shape in Daniel’s mind would probably be the most exciting thing that had ever happened to it.

  15

  Raquel had had a hard day in Parliament, chasing facts for a speech that Walter Reed was preparing. The Member of Parliament drove his unpaid researchers hard whenever he sunk his left-wing pincers into issues that had the potential of embarrassing the Tory opposition. Most of the facts she had painstakingly unearthed did not fit the version of the truth he was preparing and were therefore rejected. In a fit of pique, she flounced out early and yanked her Moulton out of the bicycle stand.

  She pedalled through the London traffic, gradually calming down because she would soon be seeing Daniel. No other man had ever had such a stabilizing effect on her. Until she had met him, she had spent as much as possible of her free time in clubs and discos - seeking noise and company, and the occasional sexual encounter, as an easy alternative to being alone with her thoughts. With Daniel all that had inexplicably changed; she was now content to spend an evening with her head resting on his knee listening to records or watching television. Sex never had been particularly important to Raquel but with Daniel it was different, not so much for the act itself, but for the period of tranquillity and security that followed - to feel Daniel’s arms around her, holding her tight until they both drifted off to sleep. She knew it was only a matter of time before she moved into his flat to make the commitment to him absolute.

  She arrived back at Brewer Street at 4.00pm and was shouldering her Moulton up the narrow stairs when she heard Sergeant Pepper grinding out from Daniel’s flat. He was home early. She tapped on his door. Daniel opened the door. His surprised expression quickly changed to genuine pleasure although he made no move to invite her in.

  ‘Hallo, Rac. You’re early.’

  ‘So are you. So what’s going on here? I know - you’ve finally succumbed to the mini-skirted raver upstairs and you’ve got her in there?’

  Daniel chuckled and gave her perfunctory kiss. With a mock imitation of a jealous, suspicious wife, she pushed past him into the flat and glared around - even sniffing the air with exaggerated twitches of her nostrils. She pretended not to notice the half-packed rucksack that was gaping open on the floor. ‘Just as I thought, Elmer,’ she scolded in a nasal, grating accent. ‘I go away for a few weeks and come back to an apartment knee-deep in goddamn hookers.’

  Daniel laughed at her performance. ‘Coffee?’

  ‘Please.’

  He was about to move to the kitchenette but she suddenly hooked her hands together at the back of his neck and regarded him steadily

  - her cat-like eyes black and soulful. She kept up the act to hide the hurt that he should be planning something without consulting her. ‘Packing, Daniel Kalen? Now you wouldn’t be running out on little ole me, would you?’

  Daniel grinned sheepishly. ‘The office is sending me away for a few days,’ he explained.

  ‘And you’re not taking me?’

  ‘Honestly, Rac -I don’t know how long it’ll be for. Three - four days. Maybe a week.’ He disengaged her fingers. ‘I’ll make some coffee while you tell me how much you’ll be pining away for me while I’m gone.’

  ‘Pine!’ Raquel shrieked in the grating accent. ‘Yah leave me with six screamin’ kids round ma feet and yah expect me to pine!’ She sat cross-legged on the floor and added seriously: ‘I’ll have you know that I never pine for anyone but I might make an exception in your case.’ She noticed something under Daniel’s jacket on the coffee table. ‘So where are they sending you?’

  Daniel turned away and filled the kettle. He knew that he could never look into her almond eyes and lie at the same time. ‘Paris.’ ‘Maybe they’re trying to get rid of you?’ While she was speaking, she lifted his jacket and saw a Thoresen cross-Channel ticket wallet and a self-adhesive GB plate. She took her hand quickly away just before Daniel turned around. He cleared the jacket and the wallet in one movement, dropped them into the rucksack, and set the coffee mugs down on the table.

  ‘When are you leaving?’

  ‘Tonight.’

  ‘A bit sudden, isn’t it?’

  Daniel nodded. Stirring the mugs gave him an excuse not to look at her. ‘They’re short-staffed.’

  ‘Are you flying?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The obvious lie disappointed her. Maybe McNaill was right. Maybe he was up to something. ‘I’ll miss you, Daniel.’

  ‘I’ll miss you too, Rac - honest I will, but it’ll only be for a few days.’

  She left Daniel’s flat ten minutes later so that he could finish packing. She walked down Brewer Street to the telephone box and called McNaill.

  ‘No I don’t know which port he’s using,’ she said when she had explained the situation to him. ‘All I managed to see was the Thoresen ticket wallet.’

  McNaill thought quickly. ‘Give me the number of your phone box and I’ll get back to you in a few minutes. Don’t let anyone else use the phone.’

  While Raquel waited in the telephone box, having an imaginary conversation with the cradle held down, McNaill made several internal calls. As he suspected, no trained surveillance officers were available at such short notice. He considered his options - such as they were - and made a snap decision. If there was any comeback, at least he would be able to argue with some truth that Raquel had proved herself resourceful. He called her number.

  ‘I want you to follow him.’

  Her reply was loaded with sarcasm: ‘You know something, Mister McNaill? I’ve got this sneaking feeling that a Mini-Cooper might be just an itsy bit faster than my Moulton bike in top gear.’

  ‘In a car, you stupid bitch!’

  ‘Don’t you call me a stupid bitch - fatso!’

  ‘You follow him in a car!’

  ‘I haven’t got a car!’

  McNaill forced himself to remain calm. ‘I’ll get you one. Take a cab to the corner of Upper Grosvenor Street and Park Lane. I’ll see you there in thirty minutes.’

  Raquel stared askance at the car that slid up to the kerb. It was a sparklingly new yellow Ford Zodiac Farnham convertible complete with Polo-mint white wall tyres, blue-tinted glass, and stainless steel go-faster trim strips along the doors. It was one of those cars of the Sixties that had insurance companies inventing extra groups and secondhand car dealers anxiously fingering their good luck charms when trying to value such a beast. It would not attract a second glance in America, but in England it had forty per cent per annum depreciation branded into its tonneau cover which meant that it was destined to spend its middle age in the clutches of a series of yobbos who would see its huge bench seat as a double-bed on wheels. Raquel had no idea who the occupant of the future plebeian passion wagon was until McNaill wound down the window and invited her aboard.

  ‘I see you drive a car that comfortably accommodates your stomach, Mister McNaill,’ she observed, sliding herself on to the half-acre of clear polythene-covered front benchseat.

  McNaill thrust a clipboard and a pen under her nose. ‘Sign all the copies where I’ve put crosses please, Miss Gibbons.’

  Raquel read a sample of the small print on the forms. They specified that she was responsible for the property of the Government of the United States of America, and that she would return the said property in good order.

  ‘Brilliant,�
� said Raquel, scribbling on the clipboard. ‘I’m to follow a Mini-Cooper in a car that’s got the road holding of a sack of potatoes on roller skates.’

  ‘It’s all there was available, and it’s not as bad as that. Not this one,’ said McNaill. ‘And you better sign the red forms. They’re receipts for the money. There’s five hundred pounds in cash in the glove compartment. Should be plenty. You’ll have to account for all your main expenses - gas and so on - so don’t forget to get receipts.’ ‘Okay. Got a sterilized scalpel?’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘You want these forms signed in blood, don’t you?’

  McNaill sighed. ‘The ball pen will do fine.’

  ‘Anything else?’ Raquel inquired, signing her name where McNaill indicated.

  ‘That’s all, honey. The rest is up to you. Try and call me each day. You’ve got the number where you can get a message to me round the clock. Papers - money - green card - in the glove compartment. Okay?’ McNaill opened his door and prised himself from behind the wheel.

  ‘But I’ve never driven in London.’

  ‘It’s an automatic. It drives itself.’

  Raquel slid behind the wheel and yelled at McNaill as he hurried away: ‘James Bond was given an Aston Martin and they didn’t make him sign no papers!’

  Raquel answered the door wrapped in a bathrobe and with her hair swathed in a towel. She left a trail of steam between the bathroom and the front door of her flat. Daniel was standing in the passageway clutching his suitcase. He grinned at her. ‘Sorry, Rac. Didn’t realize you were in the bath. I called by to say goodbye.’

  Raquel kissed him warmly on the lips. ‘You be good,’ she warned. ‘And don’t go messing about with those French girls. They can be dangerous.’

  ‘I’ll miss you, Rac.’

  He made a move to touch her but she turned him around and pushed him gently out of the door, giving him an affectionate hug as she did so. ‘Please, Daniel -I hate goodbyes. The sooner you go, the sooner you’ll be back. Bon voyage and all that.’

  Raquel shut the door and immediately threw off the bathrobe and towel. Underneath she was fully dressed in a skirt and cashmere sweater. She put on a beret, which she arranged at a rakish angle, and dark glasses. Clutching her purse and a hastily-packed suitcase, she raced down the stairs and peered out. Daniel was preoccupied with trying to fit his suitcase and a small rucksack into the Mini’s joke of a boot. A small crowd watching the colour television in the shop window hid her as she walked casually along the pavement away from Daniel. She turned around when she was abreast of the Zodiac. Daniel was getting into his car. Raquel slipped behind the Zodiac’s wheel, started the engine and thumped the shift into drive.

  Dusk was falling as Daniel’s Mini picked up the A3 and headed south out of London. He maintained a moderate speed which meant that Raquel had no trouble keeping the car’s tail lights in sight. She guessed that Daniel would not run the risk of being stopped for speeding when he had a ferry to catch.

  16

  SOUTHAMPTON

  It was at journey’s end, when Raquel was congratulating herself on successfully tailing Daniel from London, that everything began to go disastrously wrong. She was six cars behind the Mini when they turned into Canute Road and the entrance to Thoresen’s terminal. It was the height of the holiday season; the huge floodlit marshalling yard was packed with orderly lines of cars, motor caravans and touring coaches. Raquel was dismayed. It seemed impossible that all the vehicles could be packed on to one ferry. Daniel’s possession of a ticket earned him a yellow star on his windscreen and the vehicle marshals waving him to a loading lane whereas Raquel was funnelled into the unreserved lane behind twenty other cars. She locked the car and entered the ticket office.

  At first she was unconcerned about the queue of foot passengers. It was 10.30pm. The ferry was not due to sail for another thirty minutes. Her worries as to whether or not there would be room on the ship changed to panic when she heard the ticket clerk say to a passenger: ‘Cherbourg or Le Havre, sir?’ She snatched a timetable from a rack and studied it fearfully. There was no doubt about it: Thoresen operated two ferries from the terminal. Both sailed at the same time. She ran out into the marshalling yard but the lines of vehicles were already moving through the customs area and there was no sign of Daniel’s Mini. She returned to the ticket office and examined a wall map. Her estimate of distances showed that Le Havre was at least a hundred miles nearer Paris than Cherbourg and was therefore the obvious choice for Daniel if he had been telling the truth about going to Paris.

  ‘A Ford Zodiac?’ said the ticket girl doubtfully when Raquel reached the counter. ‘I’m sorry but the Le Havre sailing is packed. We’ve only room for motorbikes. But there’s plenty of room on the Cherbourg ferry.’

  ‘But I have to go to Le Havre.’

  The ticket girl was sympathetic. ‘You could always leave your car here and go as a foot passenger.’

  Raquel thought quickly. The best way of salvaging the mess was to go to Cherbourg, drive to Paris and keep a watch on the El Al offices in the hope that Daniel would turn up there.

  ‘Cherbourg,’ she told the girl and opened the envelope containing the money that McNaill had given her. Deciding that she might as well treat herself well, she added maliciously: ‘With a cabin, please.’

  While Raquel was agonizing over which ferry to board, Daniel was driving his car through the gaping bow doors of the Viking Warrior and into the clanging bedlam of the ship’s car deck where he ended up sandwiched between a motorcamper and the intimidating mass of an articulated truck.

  Fifteen minutes before sailing and the ferry’s cafeteria was crowded with families and a noisy, excited party of school children. He was tempted to use the restaurant but was deterred by the prices. Buying the Mini had taken a substantial bite out of his funds. His pay at El Al was not generous and Leonora had imbued him with an innate thrift which meant that he had not even booked a reclining seat for the night crossing.

  At eleven o’clock precisely, the windows of the cafeteria shook alarmingly as the bow thrusters rammed the ship away from the quay. Daniel slung his rucksack on to his shoulder and went on to the side deck to watch with interest as the ship turned on its axis in the basin. He had flown many hundreds of hours in the world’s most sophisticated jet fighters and yet this was his first sea voyage. He was still leaning on the rail thirty minutes later, smoking and watching the shore lights slip past as the ferry began the long thrash down Southampton Water. He glanced at his watch. It was time to find sleeping space on a settee in one of the bars. He had a busy day facing him tomorrow and would be unlikely to snatch much more than five hours’ sleep before the Viking Warrior docked at Cherbourg.

  Raquel perched on the edge of her bunk in a cabin that seemed to have been built directly over the Viking Warrior's engine room and decided that sleep would be impossible in that pounding hellhole. She was also nursing regrets about the lobster thermidor that Thoresen chefs and United States’ taxpayers had just provided for her. She went up to the main deck for air and looked longingly at the tiny but airy deck cabins that Thoresen called ‘sleeperettes’ in their quaint travelspeak. The assistant purser charged her extra for one of the cabins and regretted that there was no refund on her lower deck cabin. She left the sleeperette’s sliding door open, rolled herself into the blanket provided and fell asleep almost immediately despite interminable public address announcements about the impending closure of the duty free shop and the exchange bureau.

  17

  CHERBOURG, NORTHERN FRANCE

  Daniel was woken early by the rattle of the cafeteria’s steel shutters being opened. He washed as best he could in the toilets and went on deck, blinking in the bright morning sunlight, to watch Cherbourg edging over the horizon. It was not the large city that he had expected but a pretty little postcard town that seemed to have escaped the ravages of the D-Day landings. By the time the ship was sliding past the huge stone embankments of the outer harbour basin,
there was a large enough crowd of holidaymakers at the rail for him to unpack and use his binoculars without him appearing too conspicuous. A glance at his tourist map confirmed that the blockhouses and basins to the right were the Port Militaire - the naval dockyard. His binoculars traversed the tangle of cranes and rigging of moored frigates but there was no sign of the craft he was looking for. He swung the binoculars towards the eastern end of the harbour where it petered out in a small railway terminus and a goods yard. The extreme end of the harbour consisted of the huddled roofs of houses.

  The public address speakers clicked and hummed as a prelude to a request in English and French for car passengers to rejoin their vehicles on the car deck. The announcement triggered a mass exodus leaving Daniel alone at the rail. He was about to return the binoculars to the rucksack when he spotted what appeared to be an incomplete fast attack craft sitting on the railway lines at the quieter eastern end of the harbour. Careful focusing showed that the distortion was due to the binoculars’ tendency to flatten perspective. The small naval boat was not on the railway lines but some way beyond them. It was resting on a set of bogies on the far side of a chain-link fence. The tiny craft was dwarfed by a grey, windowless industrial building that resembled an aircraft hangar. The huge sliding doors were open. Inside the construction shed he could see men working on scaffolding surrounding another unfinished FAC.

  Daniel lowered the binoculars and stared at the construction shed. The tingling sensation in his spine was exactly the same as the feelings he used to experience when waiting to take off on an operational sortie. Even with the naked eye it was possible to discern the name painted in faded letters above the doors: Construction Méchanique de Normandie. It was the name that had been given to him by the editor at Jane’s Fighting Ships in London: the name of the company that was building a fleet of FACs for Israel - the only arms that General de Gaulle had not embargoed simply because he wished to avoid political repercussions from Normandy which, like Brittany, was an area of high unemployment.