Mirage

by James Follett

  Lenny glanced left towards the port captain’s building. Still no lights. And then he saw a car racing along the yacht club quay - flashing its headlights. It stopped. A couple jumped out and waved frantically. With his nervous system now primed with adrenalin, Lenny was tempted to ignore the car. He could always say that he hadn’t seen it. Anyway - it was late. He swore and closed the master throttle. Honey sank down off the plane. As the speed dropped, he put the helm over. The other boats roared past. Their skippers knew what was happening. Once clear of the harbour they would set course at thirty knots - a speed that would enable Lenny to catch up with them. He ordered his crew up from below. Men poured through the deck hatch and made ready with boathooks and fenders as he crabbed Honey towards the quay. Even before he came alongside, the couple were unloading parcels from the back of their car. The man threw one. A crewman caught it.

  ‘Form a chain!’ Lenny yelled. The men did so. The parcels began disappearing down the hatch. A police car siren started wailing in the distance and got rapidly louder.

  ‘Daniel!’ he heard Joe yell in astonishment.

  Lenny saw that one of the strangers was clutching a bag. Lenny didn’t want to know what was in the bag or the parcels. When he reached Haifa - if he reached Haifa - he would be registering a strong complaint about the boats being used for espionage purposes. The last parcel disappeared.

  ‘Close up, sir!’

  Lenny teased the throttle open a fraction so that the bows were virtually nudging the quay. Hands were outstretched to the couple.

  The police car appeared at the far end of the quay.

  ‘Jump!’

  The couple jumped. The girl first. She was grabbed and thrown unceremoniously out of the way. The man mistimed his jump. He slipped and would have fallen into the water had not three pairs of hands grabbed hold of him.

  The police car stopped. Three uniformed men jumped out.

  Lenny eased into reverse and opened the throttle slowly so that no one would overbalance. The three policemen seemed to be paralysed. Any second they would go for their sidearms.

  ‘Everyone below!’ Lenny yelled. ‘Move! Move! Move!’

  He opened up to full power the moment the last head disappeared down the hatch. Honey turned in a tight circle, climbing on the plane as it roared towards the harbour entrance.

  Lenny looked back at the three policemen. They had not gone for their guns; they were waving.

  One man watched the departure of the five boats with particular satisfaction. The Assistant Naval Attache got out of his car and entered one of those rarities in France - a public telephone box.

  60

  CAEN

  The manager of the hotel did not like the look of Lucky but there was nothing wrong with his passport or his money. Even so, without luggage, he insisted that Lucky pay in advance.

  ‘I need a razor and my clothes cleaned,’ said Lucky, dropping an extra banknote on the desk. ‘My car’s broken down and I can’t get it fixed until tomorrow!’ He had spent several hours in the freezing cold and was not prepared for any argument.

  The manager was about to protest that it was Christmas Day but Lucky silenced him with another banknote.

  He felt better an hour later after he had bathed and showered, and eaten. He sat in his room in the dressing gown the manager had lent him and twiddled with the antique radio. He knew he was taking a gamble staying at the hotel. His guess was that it would take the police at least a day to work out that there had been two men in the burned-out Rover. They would have to contact England to find out the car owner’s name. Pretty well impossible over the Christmas period. He reckoned that he had twenty-four hours. Time enough for a sleep and some hard thinking.

  He found the Light Programme on long wave. It was now called Radio Two. Christmas crap and kids’ parties. A news bulletin. A press statement released in Tel Aviv said that five unarmed fast attack craft belonging to Israel had been removed earlier that morning from Cherbourg by the Israeli Navy and were making their way home.

  Lucky stared at the radio, transfixed. His thoughts swam. Suddenly everything made sense. Not that it did any good. He could kiss goodbye to Dumas’ $5 million for the drawings; they were beyond his reach now.

  Or were they? He thought hard. As he thought, his hate welled up. It was a hate that was aimed at the girl whose face he had seen in the back of the Ami just before she hurled the petrol can.

  He stood. A rough plan was forming in his mind. He wasn’t finished yet. It would take a lot more than this little setback to stop Lucky Nathan.

  61

  THE BAY OF BISCAY

  The terrible pounding and roar of the engines woke Daniel. He stared up at the bunk above his head. A hand was hanging down from the bunk. A woman’s hand. Bandaged. Exhaustion and the latent effects of the tablets he had been given forced his eyes closed again. Sleep returned to blot out the unanswered questions.

  ‘A fantastic sight!’ the CBS newsman shouted into his lip microphone so that his sound recordist had to wind back the level. ‘Five little boats making this heroic fifty miles per hour dash for freedom and passing the naval ports of one of the most powerful navies in the world!’

  The Sikorski S-58 that CBS had chartered in La Rochelle lost height and paced the lead boat so that the cameraman could get a good medium shot. It was Honey - burying her graceful flared bows rhythmically in clouds of spray as she charged through the green Atlantic swell at a steady forty knots. Conscious that his pictures were being beamed around the world live by satellite, the cameraman coped as best he could with the helicopter’s spine- jarring vibration. He panned carefully until he had all five boats framed. Five pounding hulls; five wind-whipped clouds of spray streaming out behind the boats; five Star of David ensigns held rigid from their staffs by the slipstream. The cameraman thought he had seen everything, but he had never seen anything like this.

  ‘The big question is,’ the reporter was saying, ‘what will the French do? They’re not saying. The French Government is remaining silent. One thing is certain ... if they do use their might and raise a hand to these brave little boats, it will be many years before the world forgives them. So speed on, little boats. The best wishes of millions throughout the free world are with you this Christmas Day. Speed on, little boats, speed on.’ He signed off. Over his headphones he heard the voice of his editor in Paris enthusing about the amazing pictures.

  The helicopter peeled away and headed east. Lenny signalled the other boats to drop their speed to twenty knots. The spectacular charge had been put on for the benefit of the television cameras. It was best to conserve fuel until they reached their first refuelling point - a Haifa-registered fruit ship that was waiting for them a hundred miles further south. Even so, Lenny hoped there would be more news helicopters. As the Assistant Naval Attache had pointed out to him in Cherbourg, publicity was their only weapon. Television cameras not only reported news but, by their presence, shaped it. The era of McLuhan’s global village had arrived. The medium was the message. A two-minute well-worded emotive report by a skilled television journalist had more influence than any speech delivered by any politician.

  62

  WINTERTHUR Boxing Day 1969

  ‘Mr Ziegler!’ said Albert in surprise when he opened his front door. Standing on the step was Leon Ziegler, Luftech’s sales director. A decade earlier Ziegler had been Albert’s junior.

  ‘Can I come in, Albert?’

  ‘Yes of course,’ Albert beamed and stepped back. ‘I’ll fetch Hannah. She’ll be—’

  ‘No, Albert. I want to speak to you alone.’

  Albert’s smile faded. He closed the front door and showed Ziegler into his front room, decorated with Christmas cards. His florid features were strained, as if he knew what was coming. The two men sat opposite each other. Ziegler - sharp and alert like a ferret on the make - a young man on his way up; the other a middle-aged man on his way down.

  ‘You completed the deliveries of the Mirage drawings to the
patents office last week,’ Ziegler opened. ‘Is that correct, Albert?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Ziegler.’

  ‘They contacted me the day before yesterday. They’ve just started registering the drawings and were concerned because they had been given to understand that they were in receipt of two sets of drawings. They’ve just discovered that they have only one set.’

  Albert smiled. ‘In that case they’ve made a mistake. I have receipts from them for every delivery. I made all the deliveries in person just to make sure we didn’t have a repeat of the time when they mislaid—’

  ‘Yes -I thought the same,’ Ziegler interrupted. ‘That’s why I was going to leave the matter until after the holiday. But there’s been a new development. This morning two bodies were found near here in an abandoned motorcamper.’

  ‘I heard on the news,’ said Albert, nodding. ‘A terrible business.’

  Ziegler paused. ‘I’m here as a friend, Albert. I persuaded the police that it would be better if they let me speak to you first. Do you understand?’

  Albert looked levelly at his inquisitor. ‘No, Mr Ziegler - I don’t understand.’ ‘The camper was last seen outside Cinderella’s bar. The owners have vanished. You were close friends of theirs, Albert.’

  Albert felt a blackness closing in. He tried to speak but the words wouldn’t come.

  ‘Daniel Kalen was an Israeli, Albert.’

  ‘You ... you don’t think I killed that couple, do you?’ Albert managed to choke out.

  Ziegler regarded Albert dispassionately. Ten years before he had looked up to this man. Respected and admired him for his integrity. ‘I don’t know what to think, Albert. And I don’t think the police do yet. Perhaps it would be better if you helped us all out - especially yourself - by telling us everything you know.’

  Albert stared down at the carpet in silence. Ziegler waited patiently. Not moving. Not speaking. A pretty little French mantel clock chimed noon. Albert looked at it as though seeing it for the first time.

  When the clock finished, he started.

  He started at the beginning and told Ziegler everything.

  63

  MONACO

  Lucky had driven the eight hundred miles from Cherbourg in a stolen BMW in less than twenty-four hours and was in no mood to stand at the foot of the Thor’s gangway arguing with Claud Dumas’ butler.

  ‘Listen, you fucking miserable little puffington, I don’t care if Mr Dumas is entertaining the Pope. I’ve got some vital information for him. If I don’t kick your arse round the deck, Mr Dumas will when he hears what I’ve got to tell him.’

  Five minutes later Lucky was ushered scowling into Dumas’ cabin cum office. This time he had refused to take his shoes off.

  ‘This had better be good,’ said Dumas without preamble. There was no welcoming smile or small talk over the whisky decanter.

  ‘Oh, it’s good all right,’ said Lucky, helping himself to a generous slug of Scotch. ‘The Mirage drawings I phoned you about are on those five boats that broke out of Cherbourg yesterday.’

  The arms dealer looked sharply at Lucky. ‘Are you sure about this?’

  ‘Of course I’m fucking sure!’

  ‘You’d better explain.’

  Without going into details, Lucky gave Dumas a broad outline of events over the past forty-eight hours. He made no mention of murdering two of the couriers.

  ‘You’re certain it’s a complete set of drawings?’

  ‘Of course I’m certain. I saw the cans of microfilm. I had them in my hands. Hundreds of them. I even opened some. Thousands and thousands of drawings.’

  Dumas sat forward and steepled his fingers thoughtfully. ‘Take a seat, Lucky.’

  Lucky remained standing.

  ‘Why should I be interested in the drawings now they’re in Israeli hands, Lucky?’

  Lucky leaned across the desk. ‘You’re interested, Dumas. Don’t try kidding me you’re not. You said you were prepared to open negotiations at around five million dollars. Because you’re a bigger crook than me, that means there’s at least another five million in it for you. So someone, somewhere along the line, is prepared to shell out ten million. And that someone is South Africa. Jesus Christ - ten million is nothing. The price of a couple of Phantoms which they can’t get their hands on anyway. And we’re talking about the Mirage, Mr Dumas - the best supersonic fighter in the world. For ten million they get the drawings so they can build as many fucking Mirages as they want. Right?’

  Dumas smiled. Lucky was wrong about the South Africans being prepared to pay $10 million for the drawings; they were prepared to pay double that. ‘Perhaps,’ he murmured. ‘But forgive me, Lucky. All this is academic now the drawings are in Israeli hands.’

  ‘Not yet, they’re not. They’re on five little unarmed boats that are heading this way. They haven’t even got radar yet, for Christ’s sake.’ Dumas began to see what Lucky was driving at. He smiled. ‘It would need a warship to stop them, Lucky.’

  Lucky shoved his unshaven lantern jaw inches from Dumas’ face. ‘We’ve got one. What the fucking hell do you think we’re standing on right now? You said yourself it could do fifty knots. All we need is a crew and arms. A crew’s no problem on this waterfront. And don’t tell me the biggest arms dealer in the world can’t lay his hands on some arms. As for hitting the Israelis - the French will take the blame.’

  ‘The Israelis may not have radar but they’re certain to have radio,’ Dumas pointed out. ‘They’re not so stupid that they don’t know the difference between a yacht and a warship.’

  ‘God protect me from those with no imagination,’ Lucky raged. He stormed behind Dumas’ desk to his bookcase and yanked out a volume which he tossed contemptuously in front of Dumas. ‘Your own fucking catalogue! Page 201 for Christ’s sake!’

  Dumas opened the catalogue at page 201 and studied it. A slow smile spread across his face. And then he laughed. ‘You know something, Lucky? You’re wrong about me being a bigger crook than you.’

  64

  WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN 27 December 1969

  It was the Sabbath.

  As soon as the RAF Strike Command Nimrod shadowing the boats realized the reason for the boats stopping and the crews mustering on decks, it courteously flew in a wider circle so that the noise of its engines would not intrude on the men’s prayers.

  Apart from refuelling stops, it was the first time since leaving Cherbourg that the five boats were lying close together, their engines stopped. Feeling an intruder, Raquel watched the special prayer of thanksgiving from Honey’s wheelhouse. To her surprise, even Daniel donned a yarmulke and joined in. In the two and a half years they had known each other, he had never attended a synagogue and had rarely mentioned his religion except jokingly. Watching the men, locked into private devotions with an intensity that totally excluded an awareness of their surroundings, brought home to Raquel the wide cultural gap between herself and Daniel. For the first time she was seeing him with his own people, slipping back into old ways and customs with a practised ease that she could never hope to emulate even if she could reconcile herself with his beliefs, or any beliefs for that matter, that were the very core of such customs. London and Winterthur had been a false reality created out of the twin drugs of sex and excitement: a heady, riotous party now ending with the arrival of a long-overdue dawn turning yesterday’s events into crushed dogends in a cold ashtray of memories. She had no regrets. Not one. At least she had been to the party.

  The wheelhouse door crashing open broke in on her thoughts. Lenny was shouting orders. Men tumbled down the hatches and started the engines. The five boats gathered speed and lifted on to the plane as they resumed their eastward flight.

  A few minutes later the Nimrod, which had been shadowing the five boats since they had cleared the Straits of Gibraltar, waggled its wings in salute and disappeared westward into the grey cloudbase.

  Lenny watched the reconnaissance jet’s departure with misgivings. He felt safe so long as there we
re friendly aircraft about. Even the reporters’ helicopters seemed to have lost interest. So far the French had made no move against them. News reports on the BBC World

  Service and the Voice Of America said that the French Government was maintaining its stony silence about the boats. All the men in Lenny’s crew had expressed the same thought - that it would be better if the French said something. The silence was unnerving. Maybe they were just waiting. Biding their time.

  An hour slipped by. After three days at sea, the initial excitement of the headlong rush across the Bay of Biscay and down the coast of Spain had gone. Now there was just the continuous roar of the diesels and the incessant pounding which meant that all movements about the boat had to be planned. Already five men were laid up with sprained ankles and there was a high incidence of seasickness. Nevertheless, morale on the boats was high.

  He glanced astern at his wake. The other four boats were in line astern but Judy was dropping back. He called up her commander on the radio and told him to close the gap.

  Daniel was the first to spot the four grey smudges dead ahead on the horizon. He jumped down off the wheelhouse roof and poked his head around the door.

  ‘Okay - I’ve just seen,’ said Lenny.

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘Navy. Someone’s navy. Merchant ships don’t travel in squadrons.’

  ‘Spanish in these waters, surely?’

  Lenny shrugged. ‘Spanish. French. Russian. We’re in international waters.’

  The mystery was solved an hour later when the smudges were more distinct.

  ‘Tricolours,’ said Lenny cryptically, lowering his binoculars. He picked up the PA microphone and ordered everyone on deck. Men off watch were woken and told to muster by the liferafts.

  ‘You’d think he’d order everyone below deck if there’s going to be trouble,’ Raquel complained, anxiously eyeing the four warships that were now less than four miles off.