Special Deception

by Special Deception (retail) (epub)

  He’d had plenty on the flight from Heathrow. Leo hadn’t tried to ration him. Charlie Swale was a lot easier to handle when he’d had a few.

  This time, after a glance around, Leo had finally answered that question. ‘Yeah. You guessed right, of course. Sorry I had to keep you in the dark this long, Charlie.’

  ‘Why did you?’

  ‘Because you drink a lot. You might’ve gone on the piss and blown it.’

  ‘Bloody hell, Bob—’

  ‘I apologize. But I couldn’t take the risk. Anyway — you know now, OK?’

  Charlie Swale, Leo thought as the queue began shuffling forward was too ingenuous to be a double-crosser.

  Unless he was very, very sly.

  It was still a possibility. For instance, if he’d left the bug in place and called them from his office — Special Branch, or whomever… Now, he’d be their guide. They wouldn’t want to spring the trap prematurely, they’d want to trail their quarry to the final destination. The real scoop would be to catch them on a boat loaded with weapons and crewed by PLO killers carrying fake Israeli passports.

  He caught his breath. There was a plain-clothes hanger-on beside the uniformed man at the head of the queue. Short-legged, pot-bellied, doughy complexion, dark suit shiny with wear. He was checking his list as each passport was flipped open, held for a second, snapped shut again. No rubber-stamping here, they’d be checking the stamps already applied in Istanbul.

  The redhead’s boyfriend had an arm latched over Denham’s shoulder. Mumbling to himself as he fumbled with the other hand for his passport. Then he was through… And the girl, who’d passed through ahead of them, was coming back — taking his arm, the stout guy in the baggy suit asking some question as she did so but aiming it — apparently — at Pete. Who was taking no notice, leering at the girl, not aware he was being spoken to. But she fielded the question for him, called to the official, ‘Sure, the Deniz Kizi!’

  ‘All? All togezzah?’

  The boy waved his free arm: ‘Sure, together!’ Wanting corroboration from Pete: ‘Right, mate?’

  The Turk sniffed in distaste at the stink of raki in that waft of breath, and turned his back on them. The uniformed man gestured to the girl, wanting the nuisance removed. The queue advanced. Tait had his passport checked, stalked on through. Then Leo: the straight routine, no speech. Clear of the desk he moved on slowly so Charlie could catch him up, but not so slowly as to make it obvious they were together.

  Just in case…

  The one in uniform took Charlie’s passport and thumbed it open. The other man asked him, ‘You Deniz Kizi?’

  ‘Never heard of him, old son.’ He took the passport back. slid it into a pocket. The Turk shrugged, rolling his eyes upward — sick of it, giving up. Charlie murmured, ‘Gracias, Senor.’ There’d been no reference to any passenger list. Denham told him a few minutes later when they were getting into the taxi, ‘Deniz Kizi’s some hotel. My bird’s booked there with her little feller.’

  *

  Hayward had made good time to Nicosia, and he was expecting to pass quickly through the town — since there was so little traffic at this time of night — and with luck get to Kyrenia in not much more than thirty or forty-five minutes. So far he’d enjoyed the drive — a good road, the satisfaction of making swift progress, and the rush of cooling night air with the scents of the Mediterranean in it — herbal, spicy, a fragrance that might make a fortune for anyone who could have packed it into aerosols.

  Then he saw the barrier across the road ahead. And a guardhouse, lights blazing. Greek police backed by soldiers. Frontier post, the demarkation line between Greek and Turkish Cypriots. There’d be a Turkish checkpoint up the road, he supposed; between them the frontier was policed by a multi-national peace-keeping force from the United Nations Organisation. He took his foot off the gas, dimmed his headlights as he braked gently. He had plenty of ID — passport and other documents — but didn’t intend to show his Special Branch card. There’d been no time for any request for permission for a British policeman to nose around outside the perimeters of the sovereign bases; he’d gathered, back in London, that such permission might in any case not have been easy to obtain. So he’d be on private business; he’d come to look up a friend, a yachtsman, who’d said he’d be calling in at Kyrenia at about this date.

  He wound the window down, nodded to the Greek cop. ‘Evening.’

  ‘Pass?’

  ‘Passport. Sure…’

  The man took it gingerly — maybe he couldn’t read — and handed it to a colleague before stooping again to the open window. Dark-brown eyes, small hooked nose… ‘Pass, you have?’

  ‘I didn’t know I’d need any special—’

  ‘UN pass.’ The Greek tapped the glass of the windscreen, for some reason. ‘No UN pass, no go here tonight. Not have pass?’

  ‘No one told me anything about any UN pass. But—’

  A stream of Greek, and both of them shrugging, helpless, or uninterested, or both… Hayward tried, ‘Look, I have to get to Kyrenia. To meet a British citizen who should be there but won’t be for many hours, I would miss him if—’

  ‘I excuse me.’ Polite enough, but adamant. ‘Sir is to cross only with UN pass. Sorry.’

  Follow your nose, can’t go wrong, that RASC lad had said. Hayward felt like a clown himself, for not having known, not having made it his business to find out. Frustration and anxiety piling on tiredness, and the importance of this mission, the fact he might be wrecking a whole lot of other people’s efforts if he did not get through to Kyrenia. OK, so Swale was most likely not there, but Christ Almighty, if he was, and now he missed him…

  He took a grip on himself. It wouldn’t help to get excited. ‘All right. How — where — can I get a pass?’

  ‘Hah.’ Smile. One hand pulling back the other sleeve by an inch or so at the shaggy wrist; a finger tapped a gold-plated watch. ‘Office close, all sleep. Morning, sir get pass. Sorry.’

  *

  From the airport the taxi had headed west to start with, about five kilometres into Nicosia’s eastern fringe and then through the Turkish sector of the town, the Renault threading its way quite fast through empty streets. Charlie having no way of knowing, of course, that at one stage he was passing within two hundred metres of the Greek-manned checkpoint where Inspector Jimmy Hayward of Special Branch was slumped behind the wheel of his Ford, a cigarette glowing brightly as he smoked it too fast — despite trying to make himself relax, accept the fact he was here till dawn at least. The need for diplomacy, for not throwing one’s weight around or even trying to, had been stressed hard in London: so here he was, keeping the profile low, playing it cool, going quietly mad… Switching on the car’s inside light to study once again the photograph of the man they’d sent him here to find in order to identify whatever boat he might be on: and not for a moment dreaming that the faint, distant squeal of tyres he’d just heard had come from a Renault taxi in which Swale was sitting beside the driver, pushing his foot into the taxi’s floor in a subconscious effort to slow it as it approached the next corner… Jimmy Hayward was staring at it — and memorizing — this photo of a large, strong-looking guy in Army captain’s uniform. Dark, short hair, wide-set eyes, straight nose, cleft chin. He looked as if he’d need to shave twice every day. Height six-two and weight — according to a note on the back of the print — about fifteen stone. He’d been smooth-shaven when this had been taken, but in London someone had said he’d recently grown a moustache. Not that you’d count on this: experience had taught one that men on the run sometimes grew beards and/or moustaches simply in order to shave them off again as soon as an updated description had been circulated.

  This fellow might not, technically speaking, be on the run, might not know there was anyone after him. If this was the case it should make it easier to pick him up.

  Except at whatever boat he was in had probably already left Kyrenia, Famagusta, Limassol or Paphos. Or some damn beach or cove…

&
nbsp; Hayward wondered whether bribery might work with these people. They were foreigners, so he guessed it might. But there was always the risk of it blowing back in your face; and in the circumstances and with the difficulties of communication… for instance, that bugger had said they didn’t have a telephone that he could use, but from right here where he was sitting he could see the bloody wire!

  He swore: added quietly, grimly to himself, Much as I can fucking stand. Pushing the door open he got out, strutted toward the guardhouse. It was a strut, he knew it, he was too short-legged for the weight he was carrying. A policeman swung round to face him, and in the road beside the barrier a soldier also turned, not exactly levelling the carbine at him but damn nearly.

  ‘Look here.’ Voice well up, to give the bastard a better chance of understanding him. ‘I must insist on using your telephone. You do have one in there — right?’

  *

  Charlie, in the front passenger seat of the taxi — the other three were crowded in the back — fingered his moustache. He hadn’t become used to it, and since Anne had commented on it unfavourably he’d actively disliked it. She was right: he’d never bothered to grow one before, for the simple reason he didn’t need it.

  Except as camouflage, Bob’s idea that it might help him to pass for a Syrian if he had to.

  They were leaving Nicosia, driving out of its top-left corner with about twelve kilometres to go and a range of mountains to get over before running down to the coast.

  He asked the driver, ‘D’you speak English?’

  ‘Speak very good!’ The car swerved a bit, then straightened. He added ‘Little, little.’

  Charlie laughed. ‘Better than I speak Turkish, anyway. What do they call you — Mustapha?’

  Heading due north now. He’d felt the swing on that long bend but he was reading the stars too, a clear sky making this no problem. The driver was protesting that his name was not Mustapha, but Ahmet. They’d been climbing, but the road as it bent to the north had levelled out again. They’d have climbed about five hundred feet, he guessed; there was a gleam of water off to the right, some lake… ‘And where d’you live, Ahmet?‘

  ‘Me live?’ He pointed, right ahead. ‘Girne, me.’

  ‘What’s that, a village?’

  ‘Kyrenia, you say. Girne, Turk man say.’

  ‘Ah, well, we live and learn… But this is a good deal for you, then.’

  ‘You England?’

  ‘Right. London.’

  ‘Hah! Me brother, London!’

  ‘Small world, Ahmet…’

  Not a word from the rear. They could be sleeping. Comatose sardines. The road had begun to climb again, and at the top swung right. Charlie had meant that the driver had got himself a good deal with this late-night job that was also taking him to his home. But the chit-chat had run its course. He was waking up to the fact that the SBS thing was about to start, play-acting about finished, reality at the foot of these mountains. His thoughts switched back by six — nearly seven — days, to this total stranger Bob Knox issuing that astonishing invitation: We want you with us… Guy to be extracted, Middle East…

  ‘There’s the coast. See? Kyrenia, must be.’

  Bob leaning forward, pointing in the dark. Way down, maybe as much as a thousand feet down, white buildings decorated a black shoreline, linked by lights and clusters of light, a concentration of it at one point, an indentation in the coast, black land against the flat gleam of the sea. The road descended through woods here, with a scent of pine and herbs, tangy air cooling now. Charlie asked as the cab swept round a sharp bend and trees shut off that view, ‘Will we know where to find our boat?’

  ‘Shouldn’t be much of a problem. They’ll be looking out for us, they knew we’d be on that flight.’ Bob added, ‘Anyway, it’s a small place, and we know what the thing looks like, don’t we.’

  They were in the little port ten minutes later. A very small harbour, busy semi-circular waterfront, lights shimmering in the still water and yachts’ masts motionless against the stars. The taxi’s doors opened into a thrum of voices, music, restaurants still busy and noisy, their lights spilling down stone steps to the quay. From across the water a diesel rumbled, some craft’s generator… Townsfolk and tourists strolling, staring at the newcomers. The driver asked, ‘You ship here, you saying me?’

  Charlie, Tait beside him, was looking up and down the crescent of moored boats, seeing nothing that resembled the one pictured in the brochure. These were all small and made of GRP, nothing like the sixty-foot timber vessel they’d been promised.

  A dark mass dominating the eastern side of the basin had to be some kind of old fort or castle, its upper edge a clear-cut horizontal blackness against the lighter background of the sky. He called over to Bob Knox, ‘Show the man the picture, Bob? May know where she’s tied up?’

  ‘Good idea. Hang on…’

  Bob was counting out the money, peering through the half-light at innumerable scruffy little notes. Charlie strolled back, handed the driver his own copy of the brochure. ‘This is our boat, Ahmet. Have you seen it?’

  ‘Hah!’ Admiring it: tilting the brochure to the cab’s interior light. ‘Gulet!’

  ‘Gulet is right.‘ Bob confirmed it. ‘Turkish name for that kind of ship.’ Ahmet was distracted now, Bob having got a handful of paper money together for him: he’d put the brochure down an began to count it.

  ‘Bluewater Cruise?’

  The question came in a shout from a short, dark guy in jeans and T-shirt, the word ‘SALOME’ printed across his chest. He’d come running. ‘Bluewater Cruise?’

  Bob read the name on the T-shirt. ‘Is that our gulet?’

  ‘Gulet, sure!’

  He was about five-three or four, late twenties maybe, bouncy like a gymnast; introducing himself as Joseph, the gulet’s captain, he told Bob his ship was at anchor outside the harbour. Shaking hands, Charlie asked him, ‘You’re Israeli?’

  ‘Israeli. Sure.’ He had no specially Jewish look about him, Charlie thought. Maybe they didn’t, in Israel. They were collecting their gear from the taxi, Ahmet wishing them ‘Happy holiday’, other tourists flowing by. Charlie heard Bob ask Joseph as they set off eastward along the quay, ‘Any news yet — about when we sail?’

  ‘Morning. Sun—up.’ Waving a hand northward. ‘OK!’

  The dinghy was an inflatable, bright yellow, with its controls in the pointed bow, room for one passenger on a wooden seat beside Joseph — Charlie got this, as he had in the taxi, since he took up more space than any of the others — two in the seat behind, and Pete squatting uncomfortably in the stern with most of the gear on top of him. Joseph was the last to leap on board; then they were puttering across the dark harbour, land noises fading astern.

  Charlie leant back, twisting to look at Bob. ‘How come this chap — crew — all right, they’re Israelis, but how did you get hold of them? Presumably they know what it’s all in aid of?’

  Leo put his mouth close to Charlie’s ear. The boat was approaching a mole which sheltered the harbour from the north: they’d be passing close to its eastern end. Charlie heard, ‘— as much as they need to know. But — they want our help sometimes. Technical, for instance. Example — what we were talking about the other day, getting in and out of dived submarines? Well, if they want instruction in such techniques — OK, no problem. Then if we want a quid pro quo — like this — huh?’

  It made sense, Charlie supposed. Although he was surprised at Bob’s telling him so readily. After all the reticence: and it would certainly put a cat among the pigeons if the UK’s friends in Arabia got to hear of it. It didn’t occur to him, of course, that he’d just been fed a ration of disinformation intended to be regurgitated later in a Damascus courtroom.

  From a white-painted light structure at the end of the mole Joseph had altered course northwestward. He was slowing the motor, although it hadn’t been at more than half-throttle. Keeping noise and wash down, letting the people sleep in the darkened yachts insi
de.

  ‘See!’

  Ahead of them two craft lay at anchor. The nearer was a big, expensive-looking yacht, and beyond it was the stubbier, sturdier shape of the Turkish-built gulet. Like a big caique, really; according to the brochure it was sixty feet long and sixteen in the beam. Riding to their anchors, with the breeze coming from the northwest both ships were stern-on to this approach. On the gulet a single masthead light was burning, and Charlie saw a crewman cross the open stern deck, in silhouette against light seeping from inside — from the wheelhouse, deckhouse, whatever… Then a torch flared, and its beam steadied on a ladder, steps hooked to the port-side bulwark. The inflatable curved in towards it, slumping in the water as the power cut off, then thumping against the high, timber side. Joseph grabbed hold of the ladder and tossed a line up to where the torch-holder grabbed it; he jerked his head, telling Charlie, ‘OK…’

  He grasped the ladder’s sides, and climbed up.

  It wasn’t a crewman, it was a crew girl. Dark face, wide-apart eyes, a lot of dark hair tumbling loose over the shoulders of her white sweater. A lot of white here and there: teeth, eyes, in the shifting torchlight. A big girl…

  ‘Welcome aboard.‘ She was making room for him to climb over on to the deck. ‘My name is Leila.’

  Voice American-accented over French intonation, and low-pitched. But like any travel company’s courier, he thought. He shook her hand, noticing as he did so the bulge of thighs in tight denim shorts. First impressions by torchlight… ‘I’m Charlie.’

  ‘That way, Charlie…’

  To make way for Bob, whom she was greeting now, on the narrow side deck. Tait came next, and Denham began passing gear up to him. No room there for anyone else to help, but Joseph swarmed up without using the ladder’s steps — sailor-fashion, monkey-fashion, the little guy was a bit ape-like — and took the line from Leila, to secure the inflatable alongside. Bob asked him, turning from her, ‘That’s not the boat we’re to use for landing, is it?’