by James Munro
Pia shook her head.
"Yes you were," said Craig. "I remember. I saw you. Did they kill him?" She made no answer. "Pia, for God's sake. It's important."
"No," said Pia. "He's alive. They brought you back
here."
"Hey," said Craig. "I'm having some luck for once."
His body somehow managed to stand, and he lurched over to the door. As he reached for the handle, he said, "Who hit me? How did Naxos get me away?"
"He didn't," said Pia. The door was locked. "You're a prisoner, Craig."
"You too?" She nodded.
"Why?" the fear came back again. "Because you yelled?"
"I didn't," said Pia. "I wasn't there." "But I saw you—"
"No," she said. "Not me. Another girl. I never left the
ship."
"No mole," said Craig. "I remember. She didn't have a mole on her shoulder."
'This girl went as me—she was somebody who had to meet Naxos—talk business with him. She and Naxos met, and agreed to whatever it is. Then she came back to the ship—and brought a man with her. A big man dressed like an executioner."
"Was he the one who hit me?"
"I think so," said Pia. "Craig, what's going to happen to me? What will they do?"
Craig went back to the bed, and sat down.
"We'll find out in time—both of us," he said, and gestured to her to come to his side. She hesitated, and he signed to her again, his hps shaped the word "please." She came to him and he whispered in her ear: "This room will be wired. They'll be listening to us. They want to know we're scared."
The girl gasped, and then began to cry, softly, almost timidly.
Craig"s arms came round her, comforting her with the warmth and strength of his body, and gradually her tears flowed more easily, her body leaned into his, as if the mere touch of him were enough to make her safe. Her mouth found his at last, and she kissed him with a frantic and despairing passion. Craig gasped as pain seared again across his neck, and his hands tightened on the ohve softness of her flesh, but at last he pushed her away.
"They'll come for us soon," he said. "Do you want them to find us like this?"
She shrugged.
"Does it matter?" she asked. "We're going to die anyway."
"Maybe," said Craig. "But it won't be easy. I won't die easy." He thought of Grierson and Andrews. If they were still free he had a chance.
There was a sound by the door, and Craig moved away from the girl, on his feet, ready. The door swung open, and Theseus stood in its frame, a Biretta like a toy in his massive fist. He looked from Pia to Craig, and he seemed far from happy.
"Women," he said. "I told you there'd be trouble. Come on. The boss wants to see you." Craig moved forward. "But no trouble, huh?"
"No trouble," said Craig, and looked at Pia.
"She'll be all right," Theseus said. "Just don't start anything."
They moved in procession, Pia first, then Craig, to Naxos's stateroom. There was another sailor on guard outside, and he opened the door at once; the three went inside.
The inside of the room was like a court, with a great table for the judges—Naxos in the center, Dyton-Blease on his left, and a woman on his right. The woman was dark, superb, with a proud beak of a nose, and a red and splendid mouth. She wore the robes of a Tuareg princess. Naxos and Dyton-Blease looked rested and refreshed in cool clean suits. Pia and Craig, as they stood facing the table, were aware of the crumpled squalor of their costumes, the dirt, the lack of dignity that all prisoners possess, because they are prisoners. Naxos said: "We're on to you, Craig."
Craig said nothing. "We know all about what you are going to do." Craig stood there, looking at him, the face a cold mask, asking nothing, giving nothing. "Well?" Naxos said.
Craig continued to look at him, a look beyond hatred, beyond rage. These people were going to hurt him soon, and his body and mind tightened to cope with this, only this. There was no room even for pity for the girl who stood beside him.
"I'll talk to him," said Dyton-Blease, and still Craig didn't look. This was what he wanted—the big man coming at him, and perhaps making one mistake. If he did, Craig would kill him. There was little possibility of it, but it might happen, and if it did, it might give him a chance for a while.
"Okay," said Naxos. "Make him talk."
The big man rose then, slow, precise, smooth, and menacing. The woman in the blue and red robes said: "No. Sit down." Dyton-Blease hesitated, not understanding that a woman should give orders, and the woman said again: "Sit down. We talk first. Later you can amuse yourself, after Naxos and I have signed."
Dyton-Blease sat, his eyes not leaving Craig's and Craig laughed at him, a jeering bellow of barroom laughter that whipped the big man's face scarlet.
Craig said in Arabic. "You, tamer of men, do you want me to crawl for you so that I shall not be beaten?"
Dyton-Blease flushed darker. "Theseus," he yelled.
The bos'n moved in on Craig then, and Craig turned, fast. One arm extended, the edge of the hand flat and deadly as an ax, the other clenched into a fist, an object of muscle and will that could smash through a wooden door. Theseus hesitated, stopped out of range, his gun on Craig.
Naxos said: "Take him, why don't you?" Theseus hesitated. "Go on," Naxos said, "you can eat him."
Theseus shook his head. "I can try," he said. "He'd kill me."
Dyton-Blease said: "It's really a very amusing situation. We unmask the villain, bring him to justice, point guns at him, and are frightened to death."
"Mister, you should be," Theseus said.
"Look," said Naxos. "Let's cut out the crap. We know why you're here, Craig—to kill me. You had it all set up right,
didn't you? If Dyton-Blease here hadn't stopped you, you'd have shot me. You had that cupola opened, right? And you had a swell excuse for getting away with it—trying to keep me alive.
"Well, it won't work. I know you want me dead so that you can set up a new oil agreement through Flip. You think I don't know you hired that steward to feed her heroin? But I do know it. I even found the stuff in your suitcase, when I searched your room. I know why you had him murdered too, because we were on to him. You were afraid he would squeal."
Craig stood there like a stone man, arms at his sides, concentrating on Theseus to the left of him. If he moved in again, he might get the gun.
"Give up, why don't you?" Naxos said. "Dyton-Blease here told me the lot. He worked for your government out in Zaarb, didn't he? He set up a deal with the Tuareg, didn't he? And when it came to the crunch the British were going to go in and take over the whole country—just like they tried in Egypt. Just long enough to get the cobalt out. You think we didn't know about that either? For Chrissake man, why don't you answer?"
Craig shrugged. "You've made up your mind already," he said. "You've talked to a traitor and the girl he's fooled, and you prefer their word to mine. You don't say anything about proof, Naxos."
Naxos said: "Oh, we've got proof all right. Jesus, have we got proof. And I don't just mean the heroin." He pressed a bell and sat back, squirming in impatience until Andrews came in, looked at Craig, looked away again.
'Tell him," said Naxos.
Andrews said: "It's no good, Craig. I'm not going through with it. I won't torture Mrs. Naxos like that. You had no right—"
"What about the killing?" asked Naxos.
'That only came in the last instructions—when Grierson got to Venice. I signed on for this job to save life, not to take it," Andrews said.
"And the take-over in Zaarb?"
"Politics aren't my business," said Andrews, and Naxos scowled. "But I know it's true. Loomis told me himself." "Who is Loomis?" Dyton-Blease asked. "Ask Craig."
I'm asking you," said Dyton-Blease.
"He's the head of Department K," Andrews said. "The man who hired me."
Craig said: "He's lying. I don't know who's paying him, but he's lying."
Andrews said: "I don't work for money. I w
ork for what is right."
Incredibly, Craig thought that in this at least he was speaking the truth.
"So you've had it, Craig," said Naxos. "You're out. I'd be justified in shooting you like a mad dog. You know that."
"You've had too much money for too long, Harry," said Craig. "You're going nuts." For a moment he thought Naxos was going to leap over the table to attack him, but he recovered at last. "Anyway, I'd like to hear from the other judges," said Craig.
The girl said at once. "You are a liar, a murderer, and a cheat. I think you should die very slowly, because you do not seem to be any of these things, and you mislead the people who trust you. You pervert honor, Craig. You deserve death."
Dyton-Blease said: "I don't know. The chap's got courage anyhow. I admire that, Naxos. I really do. I tell you what I suggest: we let him use his courage. Make him fight for his life—and if he's good enough—well let him five. But you're in the way of the world, Craig. It's time you died."
"Who?" the girl asked. "Who will he fight?"
"Well there's only me, really," said Dyton-Blease. "I'm the obvious one, surely, now we know old Theseus isn't keen."
"I agree to that," said the girl. "When will it be?"
"When we get to my island," Dyton-Blease said.
"Yes," said Naxos. "I'll agree to that too. That should be worth watching."
Craig said: "What about Pia? Are you going to give her a chance and let her fight you too?"
Naxos said, "Miss Busoni had her chance. She let it slide." "I'm very much afraid that her fate is yours, Craig," said Dyton-Blease. "If you win, I promise you she'll live."
"I guess that wraps it up," Naxos said. "You can go and rest now until tomorrow."
"How's Flip?" Craig asked. Ts she in on this too?"
Naxos's fist slammed on to the table.
"Don't push your luck," he said. "You know you slipped her some heroin last night. It took me three hours to make her give it up. That's what you're really paying for, Craig. And this." His hand dipped into one pocket, and he hurled a sheaf of glossy photoprints at Craig: Fhp with one breast exposed, Fhp in his arms, submissive, pleading. Craig glanced at them, let them dribble through his hands.
"You poor, stupid bastard," he said.
Theseus said: "That's enough. Let's go," and again the three lined up, and Craig and Pia were locked in his cabin once again. He went round the walls of it slowly, carefully, and found no microphone, no leads. That proved nothing. There were ways of scooping sound out of a room from outside now, and he had no doubt Dyton-Blease would know all about them, and so would Andrews. Not that it mattered. He sprawled on the bed, and Pia lay down beside him, her hand very gently rubbing the bruised muscles of his neck.
"So you had your chance, Miss Busoni," said Craig. "Just what were you supposed to do?"
"Let you seduce me," Pia said. 'Then have you arrested for rape."
"Why didn't you?"
"I like you too much," said Pia. "You make me laugh."
Craig said: "It was a pleasure. I mean that."
"I know," she said, "but look where it's got me. Craig, I'm frightened."
So what could he say? Me too? Because tomorrow I may be dead, and if I die, you die?
"There's still a chance," said Craig.
She pulled him over to face her, looked hard at him, imploring, and he smiled, because a smile to her meant confidence, and the day after tomorrow, and smiling was so easy.
"You mean that? You really mean it?"
"Well, of course," said Craig, and thought of Grierson. With Grierson loose there had to be a chance.
"Please," said Pia. "Love me. I promise I won't scream."
« o o
"You mucked it up," said Loomis.
"Yes, sir," said Grierson, and tried to suppress a yawn. The countess's coolness had been more apparent than real. "For all we know, Craig could be dead." "Yes, sir," said Grierson.
"And you're not doing him any good sitting around London, are you?"
"No, sir," said Grierson.
"Yes, sir; no, sir; three bags full, sir!" Loomis said savagely. "You're a child, Grierson. A mixed infant."
He sniffed at a tiny cup of black coffee, then emptied it in one smacking gulp. Grierson sipped more cautiously at his. It was boiling hot.
"Craig could be dead. You realize that? You go frigging around with countesses, and Craig could be dead. But he found out about the cobalt. A ruddy mountain of the stuff. Brought us back a sample. It's bloody lethal—rich, the experts call it. I was lucky he was on that Greek island. I knew that old Greek was a smuggler. I hoped for a crumb, and he gave me the whole cake."
Grierson said: 'There's still Andrews, sir."
"Andrews is a technician—tweeters and screwdrivers— that's Andrews. He's no good with giants."
"You think Dyton-Blease has got him then?"
Loomis's enormous body squirmed in its overstuffed chair, and he glowered at his ceiling's elegant stucco.
"It's in the papers," he snarled. "Naxos's wife is feeling poorly. He's taken her off to recuperate in the Greek islands. That's his way of telling us the deal's off."
"So we've had it?" said Grierson.
"Not completely. Mrs. Naxos is a junky. You know that. And Naxos thinks there's only one man who can cure her. And he's British, d'you see. British to the core. He won't go gadding off to Greek islands—and even if he would, I won't let him. So Mrs. Naxos'll have to come to him. You better go off to the Aegean and see if Craig's still alive. If he is I want him back." Grierson climbed wearily to his feet. Perhaps he could get some sleep on the plane. "We've had a lot of bumf from the Eyeries about you," Loomis said. "You've been lucky, old sport. You said you were helping Craig, and Naxos denied he'd ever heard of Craig, so it would have been easy for me to say I'd never heard of either of you. You better watch it; you won't be lucky twice."
"Yes, sir," said Grierson. Sometimes he wondered whv he hadn't strangled Loomis years ago. As he left Loomis pressed a communicator button and bellowed: "Send what's his name in."
"Very good, sir," said the communicator, in a voice at once metallic, female, and sexy.
Loomis snarled: "And keep your hands off him. He's a Fellow of the Royal College or Physicians." He switched off, and thought about Craig. He mustn't be dead, and yet, if Dyton-Blease knew his job as he should, he had to be. The big man would have no choice, even if he wanted one.
There was a soft tap at his door, and a redhead came in, tall, full-blown, with mat creamy skin, green eyes, and a mole at the corner of her mouth. Behind her walked a small man who had decided long ago that intellectual dynamism was a more than adequate substitute for lack of inches. His eyes and walk were Napoleonic, his head projected from his shoulders like a questing bird's—a bird with a shrewdness, greed, and determination nicely blended—a herring gull, say, or a jackdaw. He seemed perfectly happy to be following the redhead.
"Sir Matthew Chinn," said the redhead.
'That will be all, Miss Figgis," said Loomis.
The redhead frowned deliciously. One of Loomis's least amiable characteristics, in a personality noted for its lack of amiability, was the invention of inappropriate names for her. She left, and Sir Matthew sighed, sadly, reminis-cently.
"Gorgeous, isn't she?" said Loomis. "You should see her when she's been off her diet for a couple of weeks."
'The name puzzled me rather," Sir Matthew said. "Figgis seems wildly inappropriate."
"That's cover stuff," said Loomis. "Her real name's Tania Tumblova. She defected from the Bolshoi with the secret of next year's tutus."
"I suspect," said Sir Matthew, "that your use of puerile humor is supposed to make me angry. We'd get on much quicker, Loomis, if we kept our conversation as unemotional as possible."
Loomis shrugged. "You're going to hate me in three minutes. And anyway, everybody rejects me eventually," he said. "Psychologically I'm a mess."
"My secretary will give you my clinic times," Sir Matthew said. "At t
he moment I have rather a full book. If it's urgent of course—"
"Mrs. Naxos," said Loomis. "She's supposed to fill your
book?"
"That kind of information I prefer to keep private."
"Oh yes," said Loomis. "To be sure. Quite so—the hypocratic oath and all that."
Sir Matthew sat, with neatness and precision, in an overstuffed chair facing Loomis. His immediate immobility and air of world-weary omniscience gave it the status of a throne.
"She's not your patient yet," said Loomis at last. "If she ever is, I want you to promise that you'll only treat her here."
"I have already been asked to go out to her," Sir Matthew said. "The fee is—quite substantial." "How much?"
Sir Matthew told him and Loomis whistled.
I'm sorry," he said. I'm afraid you can't do it."
"Why ever not?"
"You're making me use big words," said Loomis. "They embarrass me."
"I am perfectly adjusted to them."
Tatriotism," said Loomis. "National security. Your obligations as a citizen."
"And if I discount these?"
"Then I'm ordered to stop you. By any means I think fit. The Figgis person for example. If I used her properly I could have you disbarred."
"Struck off," said Sir Matthew. "The reference is to the register of the British Medical Association." He stared hard at Loomis, "Much of my work is with pathological liars," he said. "Some of them are extremely skillful. Over the years I have developed a nose for the truth, and I believe that you are being honest with me."
"I am," said Loomis.
Sir Matthew looked at his watch, did a little mental arithmetic, and rose.
"Very well," he said. "I shan't go out to her." "She'll come to you," said Loomis. The decision is hers." "She'll come. She's desperate."
"You seem to know far more about her than I do."
"Well, of course," said Loomis, and Sir Matthew permitted himself a small, thin smile.
"Got another bit of news for you," said Loomis. "You're due to hire a chauffeur."
"I see," said Sir Matthew. "You're having me watched."
"We can't afford to lose you," said Loomis. "Not till you've treated Mrs. Naxos."
"You can't afford to lose me at all then," Sir Matthew said. "Drug addiction takes a lifetime to cure." He walked to the door in a long, loping stride, curious in so tiny a man, then turned once more to look at Loomis.