'Lucky?' Roskill shook his head in admiration. 'Maybe he had serendipity too. But I think he was a very smart operator. Whichever way you look at it, it was a bloody marvellous bit of improvisation–no wonder old Ellis thought the world of him!'
Like Audley, Roskill was halfway towards giving in to John Steerforth, though perhaps for a different reason. Where Roskill was drawn to the man's audacity, possibly as a kindred spirit, Audley warmed to the knowledge that Steerforth had enjoyed the irony of it: the greatest archaeological loot in history, twice plundered already, planted in another archaeologist's hole in the ground! He need never be ashamed of his future father-in-law …
'He was a clever blighter, no doubt about that,' conceded Butler. 'But he'd have done better to have left well alone in the end. He just made work for us.'
He peeled off his donkey-jacket. 'And we're just giving it all back to the Russians, more's the pity.'
'… Who are even now coming to collect,' Roskill added, staring past Audley.
Audley swung round to follow his gaze. Panin had said that his official car would be down early, and here it was, creeping directly across the airfield like a black beetle, the sound of its engine drowned by the more distant, but noiser tractor. He hadn't wasted much time.
Butler bent down and picked up one of the spades.
'Come on, then, Hugh,' he said grimly. 'Let's not keep our masters waiting.'
The black car halted alongside the Land-Rover and a stocky man who had been sitting beside the driver got out and hurried deferentially to open the rear door. Panin eased himself out and to Audley's consternation Faith followed him. That had not been in the plan, but there was no helping it now.
'Good morning, Dr Audley.' Panin's voice was as flat and featureless as the airfield. 'I am sorry to have missed you earlier; I did not know that you were going to start so early. This is Mr Sheremetev from our embassy.'
The chunky man, who must have been dragged from his bed even earlier than Audley, nodded his head sharply and twisted his lips in a brief diplomatic smile.
'And I took the liberty of bringing Miss Steerforth with me.'
'I'm sorry, David,' Faith broke in. 'I know you said that there probably wouldn't be any action until this afternoon, but I couldn't bear to hang around the hotel by myself. And Professor Panin was coming up here.'
There was a muffled thump as Butler drove his spade into a square of grass which Roskill had roughly shaved with a small sickle. He lifted a segment of turf and placed it neatly to one side.
'And it seems that we were both wise not to delay, Miss Steerforth,' observed Panin. 'Is this the place, Dr Audley?'
'Our detecting device has picked up something just here, Professor. We were lucky to pick it up so quickly.'
Sheremetev gestured around him. 'Is it not rather a–a public place for such a purpose?'
'There were archaeologists excavating here at the time, Mr Sheremetev. They were just filling in a trench at this place.'
He met Panin's stare, only to be disconcerted by its lack of expression. Or was it unvarying intensity about those eyes which was disconcerting? His first impression had been one of anti-climax the night before. But the man's personality wasn't negative–it was simply shuttered.
And now Panin was nodding in agreement with him.
'Public, but not obvious–that is good reasoning, Dr Audley. And it was good reasoning in the first instance, too: the classic doctrine of the hiding place.' He considered Faith reflectively. 'Young airmen in my experience were not so devious, but this man we underrated.'
He walked over to where Roskill and Butler were digging behind a small rampart of turves. Neither of them took any notice of him, and he eventually continued past them up the slope of the nearest mound. Sheremetev followed obediently, as though linked to him by some invisible towline.
'I think he's rather a sweetie, really,' whispered Faith. 'He's got beautiful manners and he was charming last evening.'
After that awkward moment of encounter, the man had been courteous enough in a solemn way. The charm, however, was an illusion created by her own nervousness and a mixture of gin and claret drunk too quickly.
'As a matter of fact he's rather like you, David.' Faith grinned wickedly at the discomposure he wasn't quick enough to hide.
He shut his face against her innocence.
'You would do well to remember the fate of the young lady of Riga, my girl,' he said, watching Panin quarter the landscape as he had done ten minutes earlier.
'The one who had an affair with a tiger?'
'That's the dirty version. In the nursery version she merely went for a ride with him—
"They returned from the ride
With the lady inside,
And a smile on the face of the tiger".'
'You've got a suspicious nature, David.'
He was only half listening to her now.
'Suspicious? I'm afraid it's an occupational disease, suspicion. But it's rarely fatal. Credulity is the disease that kills more often.'
After a time Panin came down off the mound, and again stood for a while silently watching the diggers.
'A Roman camp, you say?'
Audley nodded. 'The theory is that it was a practice camp built by new recruits from Lincoln. The latest coins they found were of Nero, nothing after that. Apparently they were rather hoping it might have been refortified in the fourth century, but it wasn't. They found very little, as a matter of fact.'
'That period interests you?'
'The Roman occupation? Not really–I'm more of a mediaevalist.'
'That I know. I have read your essays on the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, Dr Audley. They are most interesting.'
It wasn't really a surprise. Panin was a man who did his homework quickly. He had known about Jake Shapiro's interest in Masada in just the same way.
'You don't think Israel will go the same way as the Crusaders, Dr Audley? In the end?'
'The comparison's false, Professor. Israel is a middle eastern nation–or would be eventually if your country learnt to mind its own business,' replied Audley mildly. It comforted him to hope that Panin might be nervous enough to make conversation. 'Not that I don't appreciate how necessary it may be to stop the rot at home by asserting oneself abroad.'
'It is fortunate for the world, then, that your country is too weak to try that remedy!'
'I couldn't agree more. It's fortunate for us, too, you know. Your people just don't seem to have grasped that the returns aren't worth the effort in the Middle East–and I'm sure ours wouldn't either if they had the power to make any difference.'
Panin shrugged. 'You must find your work a frustrating occupation then, Dr Audley.'
There was a grating sound of metal on metal, followed by an exasperated grunt.
Roskill, waist deep now in the trench, shook his wrist in pain.
'Jarred my bloody wrist,' he explained. Then he bent down and fumbled in the loose earth at his feet.
'Here's what gave us our reading, anyway,' he said. 'Genuine Roman wheels — or maybe Trojan!'
He wrenched a pair of rusty wheels, still joined together on their axle, from the bottom of the trench, gazed at them ruefully, and then threw them out on to the grass.
Everyone stared wordlessly at the wheels. They were even joined by Panin's driver, a wizened gnome who had been pacing up and down beside the car as though he was afraid someone planned to steal it.
Then Audley realised that they were all looking at him. There was sympathy in Faith's eyes, disappointment in Butler's gaze and amusement in Sheremetev's. Only Panin retained his inscrutability.
Or perhaps only Panin understood that the rusty wheels represented not failure, but final success.
'Don't just stand there, Hugh–get digging!' said Audley. 'The trolley went into the trench after the last box, no point in leaving it around. You're nearly there now.'
It seemed to Audley then that the world shrank to the circle round the trench. Even the dista
nt noise of the tractor seemed to fade, as though their collective eagerness filtered out everything except the thud and scrape of the spades in the earth.
Neither the diggers nor the watchers uttered a word as the first of John Steerforth's boxes came to the light again and was raised from the earth.
They all stood looking at it for a long minute: a very ordinary box, damp-darkened, with its lid already splintered where the first fierce spade stroke which had discovered it had smashed into the wood.
Then Sheremetev knelt beside it and levered up a splintered segment of the lid with the edge of a spade. Beneath the broken wood was the top of what seemed to be another box, made of metal.
Sheremetev looked up at Panin, and nodded.
'This is the box,' he said.
Panin touched Audley's arm gently.
'If I might have a minute in private with you, Dr Audley,' he said courteously.
They drew aside from the group, to the foot of the corner mound of the old camp.
'I know that your instructions are quite clear, Dr Audley. I am to have what you find — Brigadier Stocker has made that plain, and there can be no misunderstanding about it. You have done brilliantly, and my government will not be ungrateful.'
Audley listened to the sound of the tractor, which now came loud and clear across the airfield.
'The Schliemann Collection is here, Dr Audley,' Panin continued, 'and we shall restore it to its owners as promised. But this first box I will have now–I will take it now, Dr Audley. Without fuss, without argument. It is necessary that I do this.'
So Steerforth's loot had truly been a Trojan cargo–what it seemed, but also more than it seemed. That had been the only logical explanation.
'I'm not sure that I can agree to that, Professor,' said Audley slowly. 'My instructions cover the Schliemann Collection. But I'm also bound by the Defence of the Realm Act, which gives me a wider obligation.'
Panin nodded. 'I understand that. But this is a matter which does not concern your country, Dr Audley. It is an internal matter concerning my country alone. If there is any … irregularity in my position it arises simply from a crime committed many years ago by one of your officers. But I do not wish to make an issue of that. And it would only bring pain and discredit on innocent people now–people like the young woman back there.'
Audley faced the Russian. 'You know as well as I do, Professor Panin, that I can't simply take your word in this matter, anymore than you would take mine. Miss Steerforth must take her chance, I'm afraid. And we must be the judges of what concerns us.'
'I think you are exceeding your instructions, Dr Audley,' Panin sighed. 'But fortunately it is of no real consequence. We will take the box now, and without further argument. That is how it must be.'
He turned on his heel with an uncharacteristically quick movement.
'Guriev!'
The gnome-like driver did not look round, but with a smooth, unhurried movement produced an automatic pistol from inside his coat.
'All hands in view, please,' he said in a surprising bass voice. 'No sudden movements, I beg you.'
'Sheremetev!'
The embassy man, with his inevitable return to Russia as a persona non grata written mournfully on his face, began to check Butler and Roskill for any hidden weapons.
'We are not armed, Professor Panin,' Audley spoke with deliberate bitterness. 'We aren't gangsters.'
Sheremetev folded the donkey-jacket neatly on top of the tweed jacket and shook his head.
'I regret this action most sincerely,' said Panin. 'We are not gangsters either, Dr Audley. But we have wider obligations, too, as you have. You have my assurance that your country's security is not involved. And now you have my apology.'
He gestured to Roskill and Butler. 'If you two gentlemen will be so good as to place the box in the boot of the car …'
'No!' Guriev's deep voice cut off the end of Panin's words.
The pistol remained unmoving in his hand, pointing at nobody in particular. But now it pointed at everyone.
'The box remains here,' said Guriev. 'Sheremetev–you will empty the contents from it on the grass there. Then you will take a match from a box which I shall give you, and you will burn them. Then you will grind the ashes under your heel.'
His eyes flicked to Panin. 'And then, Comrade Panin, if you wish to recover the Schliemann Collection, I have no objection.'
Panin's face was stony, with the lines in it cut like canyons. He spoke quickly and quietly in Russian to Guriev, his voice deep and urgent with authority. Audley strained his ears, but could not catch the sense of it, beyond the words 'Central Committee' and the familiar initials of the KGB, coming over as 'Kah Gay Beh' in the vernacular.
Guriev cut him off short again.
'Nyet,' he said with harsh finality. Then in English: 'Everyone stays still. Open the box, Sheremetev!'
Sheremetev gave Panin an agonised look.
'A hole can be a grave, Sheremetev,' Guriev growled. 'If you wish it to be. There is no help for you–we are all alone here.'
'Actually, you're just going to have visitors,' said Roskill conversationally. 'So be a good fellow and don't do anything hasty.'
He pointed across the airfield.
The noise of the tractor engines was much louder already. In fact there were two of them, one towing a grass cutter with an extraordinary raised chute like the head of some prehistoric monster, from the mouth of which wisps of grass were falling; and the other a trailer with tall netting sides bulging with fresh-cut grass. They were coming obliquely across the field, almost exactly in the tracks of Panin's car, straight towards the Roman camp.
'Everyone still,' said Guriev, moving sideways so that the Land-Rover masked him from the tractors. 'There is only one pistol here, and I shall shortly put it inside my coat. Comrade Panin and Dr Audley will join Sheremetev beside the box. You will talk to each other and you will let the farm workers pass you without trying to speak to them … Tell them that I mean what I say, Comrade Panin!'
'Dr Audley,' Panin said coldly, 'this traitor is prepared to commit suicide, so I must warn you that he is unlikely to stop short of murder. It would be better if you left him to me.
'Move, then–but slowly,' ordered Guriev. 'And do not mask one another.'
Audley followed Panin to stand on one side of the box, watching the deafening approach of the tractors.
Panin spoke to him above the noise: 'Please do not do anything brave, Dr Audley–and don't let your associates do anything. The man there is all the more dangerous for being alone. I don't wish to add bloodshed to my own stupidity.'
'Don't worry, Professor,' Audley shouted back. 'We're not heroes.'
The ungainly cavalcade was very close now. Audley could see Keith Warren sitting easily in the seat of the leading tractor, a battered deerstalker jammed hard down on his head. Warren swung the wheel of the tractor to bring it parallel with the line of mounds, waved gaily to Audley, and accelerated away in a cloud of diesel fumes and flying grass.
Behind him the second tractor thundered up, halting with a shudder just abreast of the group. The driver shouted unintelligibly against the roar of his own engine and pointed to the hole.
Audley shook his head and spread his hands.
The tractor driver turned off his engine and reached down out of sight, mumbling to himself. Then he straightened up and the Sterling sub-machine gun in his hands was pointed directly at Guriev.
Richardson rose from the pile of grass in the trailer, also cradling a Sterling.
'Easy there, everybody,' he said loudly. 'These things are bloody dangerous. Once you pull the trigger you can't stop 'em.'
Jenkins, the long-haired woodworm hunter, carefully got down from the tractor. He jerked his Sterling at Guriev, who stood frozen with his hands open and his fingers slightly crooked, like an old time gunfighter.
'Hands behind your neck, comrade–slow and easy like the man said. If you'd take his gun, Major Butler, I'd feel much happier. Ric
hardson's quite right. These Sterlings are nasty things.'
He paused beside DECCO. 'You can relax now, Maitland,' he told the machine. 'All the silage is gathered in safely.'
Panin looked from DECCO to Audley.
Audley nodded. 'They've been listening in, Professor Panin. Like you, I had to be ready if the worst came to the worst. And like you, I rather thought it must.'
Panin shook his head. 'I am too old for this sort of thing–too rusty. Perhaps I should have known better.'
'Major Butler. You and Hugh open that box and have a look at what's inside.'
'Dr Audley,' Panin began, 'I must—'
'Dr Audley,' Guriev broke in, 'you will—'
Audley turned his back on Guriev. Panin might not be the sweetie Faith thought him, but he had the better manners. Besides, he had no orders covering Guriev.
Faith! He had almost forgotten her. She stood at the edge of the group, white-faced: the young lady of Riga!
There was only time to smile at her, and he tried not to make it a tigerish smile. Then he took Panin's arm, much as the Russian had taken his a few minutes earlier, and walked him back towards the corner mound.
Delicately, he must put it delicately.
'Professor Panin, if I can satisfy you I will. But you must satisfy me first.'
Panin had regained his composure. Or rather, he had reassumed his mask of indifference. He nodded.
'You've been leaking information to us from the start, Professor–about G Tower, for instance. Just for our benefit. But why?'
The mask slipped and a look of incredulity passed across the man's face. Then it faded and for the first time Panin actually smiled.
'For your benefit?' The smile was bitter. 'No, not for your benefit, Dr Audley.'
Audley felt a sinking feeling in his stomach.
'Not for your benefit,' Panin repeated.
'For whose, then?'
'Guriev's masters.'
Guriev's masters? It flashed across Audley's mind with horrible certainy that he had been too clever by half, yet not half clever enough. Panin hadn't been playing to him at all, but to someone else. Which meant–which meant he'd been right about Steerforth, but for utterly false reasons. And wrong about Panin …
The Labyrinth Makers Page 20