Terror's Cradle

by Duncan Kyle

  I said to the woman, 'Good evening. My wife thinks she mislaid her contact lenses here the other night.'

  Òne moment.' She disappeared through to the room at

  the back and a moment later a man in a white coat came out and spoke to me. I said, 'I'm sorry. I don't speak Swedish.'

  Ènglish?'

  `Yes. My wife thinks she may have left her contact lenses here.'

  He smiled. 'Ya. On the counter she leave them. Tell her she not worry.'

  I manufactured what I hoped looked like a grin of relief and put out my hand. 'Can I have them please. '

  Ì am sorry. I send them away by post. I not know where the lady is. I was most careful. I put them in a box with cotton wool to protect them. You see? Then I copy address from the case.'

  I said, 'Oh, that's marvellous! Thank you. Just one thing. Which address was on them?'

  His eyebrows rose. 'You have more than one?'

  I smiled. 'Two. Plus her office address. She wasn't quite sure which Àh ... mmm . . I think . . . was Norway, I remember.' He looked at me suddenly in surprise. 'Norway? You are English?'

  `My wife's Norwegian,' I lied quickly.

  `Ya. It was Norway.' He smiled. 'I remember exactly! Jarlshof, Sandnes G.B., Norway, Mr Anderson: You see how well I remember.'

  I could hardly ask him to write it down, but I'd got most of it. I thanked him, trying to remember every detail until I got outside.

  `Ya. She came to buy Kleenex, I remember. She must have leave it on the counter. I find next morning.'

  `Thanks so much,' I said, repeating: Anderson, Sandnes G.B., Norway in my mind. 'It was very kind.'

  I took out a few kroner and offered them. 'Postage?'

  `No, no. A pleasure. To lose them would be bad, eh?' `Very bad. She'll be very glad to have them back. Thanks

  again.' And I was off, walking away from the shop, then

  stopping to write it down.

  At last I knew something more about what Alsa had done! I tried to think what I did know. One, she'd left the hotel, quite deliberately, to get rid of something. Two, it had to be something small to go into that little lens case. The lens case and the optician's shop made an obvious enough connection: Alsa could have been reasonably sure that an optician of all people would take the trouble to return contact lenses to their owner. But why the cinema? I pondered for a while and decided she might have intended to leave the case in the cinema, for the cleaners to find, but had decided against it in case the cinema people weren't too meticulous about lost property. But what was in the case? It was ludicrous to believe she'd taken all that trouble about the cover transparency for Soviet Industry. If she'd found that, she'd simply have returned it to Marasov. All the same, I was prepared to bet on a transparency. The Russians had detained her in Moscow to search for one. My God, I thought, what had Alsa been carrying? Already two men had died for it, and Alsa herself had been kidnapped once and probably twice and was now either somebody's prisoner or dead.

  I went back to the open news stand and bought a Scandinavian guide book, then took myself for a cup of coffee. I found Sandnes, Norway, easily enough near Stavanger, but Jarlshof wasn't big enough to show on the map or be mentioned in the guide,'and I didn't know what G.B. meant in , relation to Norway. Could it be the Norwegian equivalent of '

  and Company Limited?' Like AG in Switzerland and GmbH in Germany? That was the likeliest explanation, but who was Anderson, and why had she sent the damn' thing to Norway? To the best of my knowledge Alsa knew nobody in Norway. She might, of course; anybody can know anybody anywhere; Anderson could be an old schoolfriend, or a distant relative.

  I looked at my watch. It was now close to midnight. If Sandnes was where the trail led, then I was going to Sandnes. But clearly, there'd be no transport that night. I ordered another cup of coffee and a sandwich; the sight of the café's menu had reminded me I'd eaten nothing for

  hours and though I wasn't hungry I forced the sandwich down. Then I fished the bit of paper out of my pocket and stared at it until Anderson, Jarishof, Sandnes G.B., Norway, was so fixed in my mind I'd never forget it. After that I burned the scrap of paper in the ash tray, powdered the ashes and thought about the three things I had: that Norwegian address and the words myopic and Aggie Waggie. The clue to Alsa's disappearance lay in them somewhere, but for the life of me I couldn't see what the clue might be. Myopic means short-sighted. Shortsightedness was the reason Alsa wore glasses — or the contact lenses she'd disposed of so carefully in the one place she'd be fairly certain they'd be found and forwarded. But so what? The thing led round in a circle. And the address in Norway was no more helpful. She wouldn't normally have a Norwegian address on the lens case and her name wasn't Anderson. So why had she put that name and that address on the label? She'd obviously done it deliberately, and the whole business of the visit to the cinema, followed by the visit to the late-night chemist/ optician, where she'd left the case on the counter to be found after she'd gone, indicating that she knew she was being watched and followed. She'd done it because it was the only way to get rid of the thing!

  All right. But it still didn't tie up. That fire in the mailbox at the Scanda Hotel was the odd item out. It suggested she'd posted something that must be destroyed and had in fact been destroyed. But that had been before she left the hotel; before she took the lens case to leave it in the shop!

  I didn't want to go to Sandnes. All my instincts were screaming to me that Alsa was still in or near Gothenburg, and the idea of leaving Gothenburg to travel into another country felt badly wrong. Still, logically it was the only thing to do; I must follow the only lead I had.

  In the meantime, what? It was now after midnight and I dared not return to the Scanda. I'

  d pay my bill later, by sticking money in an envelope and sending it. All I'd left at the hotel was a few clothes. Everything that mattered

  was on .my person, including the bulky wad of photocopies that had been forcing my suit out of shape since early morning.

  I decided I'd take a cab to the airport and wait there for the first morning plane to Norway. That way, with luck, I'd stay out of everybody's clutches. Schmid was unlikely to know, until morning, that Alsa's room had been entered. Unlikely, anyway, unless Elliot told him, and considering the nature of Elliot's activities, I. felt I could rule out the possibility.

  I paid for the coffee and sandwich and went out to look for a cab. There wouldn't be a lot of direct flights, if any, from Gothenburg to Stavanger, but there was a strong possibility of very early feeder links to Copenhagen, hub of the Scandinavian Airlines System. After that, well Copenhagen-Stavanger was probably well serviced. Or maybe I could go via Oslo; I didn't mind Which, as long as I could get to grips with Anderson, Jarlshof, Sandnes, G.B., Norway.

  At the airport I paid off the cab and took a seat in a quiet corner of the lounge. The place was still quite busy. The Tannoy system was going on about a flight from New York that had been delayed and wasn't due in Copenhagen for another hour, and quite a number of people were pulling long faces about it because they were clearly destined to wait half the night for relatives and friends to arrive. It suited me fine; the last thing I wanted was to be the sole occupant of an otherwise deserted lounge, eyed by airport coppers wondering who and what I was, and, with time heavy on their hands, deciding to find out.

  From where I sat I could see the departures board. There was a Copenhagen flight at 6 A. M. and after the next announcement I joined the angry crowd at the SAS Information desk and fought my way forward to speak to one of the two harassed girls who were trying to explain that they hadn't exactly delayed the transatlantic DC8 themselves .and everything possible was being done. The girl I spoke to seemed relieved to deal with a rational inquiry and I learned

  that the six o'clock Copenhagen flight connected onward at seven-ten to Stavanger. I went and bought a ticket, then returned to my seat.

  The New York people came in at four, to the accompaniment of sighs of relief, not least fro
m the girls on the information desk, who departed promptly, still looking remarkably self-contained, for what was probably a relaxing cup of 'coffee but may have been a necessary schnapps.

  In a few minutes I was alone. It would probably be an hour before the place became busy again, as passengers arrived for the Copenhagen and other early flights. A couple of cleaners mooched around in a desultory kind of way and one or two people in uniform crossed the lounge occasionally, but otherwise the place was too still and quiet for comfort. Sitting there I felt exposed. I'd committed felonies and Schmid would want me. And not only Schmid, either. As the minutes ticked by I became progressively more uncomfortable. To sit like a statue was to attract attention; to move was to attract attention. After a bit I decided I couldn't stand it any longer and headed for the door bearing the silhouette picture of a man. With all these women in trouser suits they're going to have to find a new international sign before long. I went into one of the cubicles sat down and began to watch my watch. Five-thirty was flight check-in time and I hoped that by five-twenty there'd be enough bright, early-morning faces around to lose myself among. At five-fifteen I rose, flushed the toilet for the benefit of nobody in particular, and had a wash and shave by courtesy of one of those coin-in-the-slot electric shavers that are labelled Hygienic but don't always look it, then straightened my tie, combed my hair and stepped out.

  As I did so, a policeman not ten yards away glanced at me, did a swift double-take and marched purposefully towards me. I looked round for somewhere to run, but there were several other policemen about and they looked young and fit and I'd never have got away with it.

  `Passport, please,' the policeman said. I sighed, reached into my pocket and handed it to him.

  `Come with me, Mr Sellers.'

  So I went with him. As I did so, the loudspeaker was reminding intending passengers for the first morning flight to Copenhagen to check in. I tried once. 'I'm booked on that flight,' I said, with what innocence I could muster. 'Will this take long?'

  The young policeman didn't smile, didn't even reply. He took me to the airport police block and phoned. I could distinguish only two words of what he said. The words were: Inspector Schmid. When he put the phone down, I expected to be loaded into a car and taken to the main police station to see Schmid, but nothing happened. After a while I said, 'What now? My plane's still waiting.'

  `You wait, too.'

  The plane was long gone before anything more happened. I'd been given a cup of coffee and had twiddled my thumbs _extensively, but nobody spoke to me and all my conversational overtures were rejected. Then the door opened and Schmid came in. It was a quarter to seven and he looked morning grim. News of my capture must have dragged him from beneath his down quilt and he was angry about it.

  `Come with me,' he said. Just that.

  I rose and followed him out of the room. Outside a police Volvo stood, but he didn't walk towards it. Instead he headed for the departure gates. I walked along with him, puzzled. When we reached the gate he produced a ticket and handed it to the official who glanced at me and asked for my passport. A moment later I was through and walking with a stillsilent Schmid along the corridors. Finally we turned right at Gate Four and I stopped and stared. The board above the gate said SK 463 Gothenburg-London. And outside on the tarmac stood a nice, shiny DC9.

  Schmid escorted me aboard, took me to a seat in the tail, and handcuffed me to it. I'd asked him what-the-hell once or twice and he hadn't responded. Now I said it again and he still didn't respond. He merely slid into a seat on

  the other side of the gangway, opened a copy of the Svenska Dagbladet and began to read. He glanced at his watch from time to time as though expecting somebody. Outside, ground crews and fuel trucks swarmed round the DC9 and I watched them without seeing. I was trying to work out several things. One was why I hadn't been searched when there was a gun weighing down my jacket and the thick wad of photocopies bulging in my inside pocket. The second was why Schmid was hustling me out of Sweden.

  It must be, I thought, because I was just a damn' nuisance to him, getting in the way of his inquiries. But that seemed pretty thin. Schmid was a policeman, a policeman's job was to apprehend and bring charges against lawbreakers; I was a lawbreaker. So why this?

  I found out at about a quarter to eight, when footsteps sounded on the boarding ladder outside and two men entered ' the aircraft. At the sight of them, Schmid folded his paper, gave me a hard glare, and rose.

  The two men came towards me, squeezing past Schmid in the narrow gangway, and sat in my row. One I didn't know. But the other was Elliot.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Ten minutes later the rest of the passengers came aboard. We must have looked a bit odd, the three of us, sitting in silence, shoulder to shoulder in a single row of seats with the rest of the cabin empty. One or two people did give us the kind of mildly curious second glance reserved for privileged travellers who don't have to wait at gates. Elliot and his companion sat like statues, not talking either to me or to each other. I'd asked Schmid what was happening several times, and he hadn't told me, so I'd no reason to expect anything from these two. I'd save my breath.

  Then the hostess came along the gangway, looking at seat

  belts, and noticed mine. 'Fasten your seat belt, please, sir.' Ì can't,' I said, raising my wrist. 'I'm handcuffed to the seat.'

  Her eyes widened briefly. 'I see, sir. Perhaps one of these gentlemen . . .?'

  `Would you be so kind,' I murmured to the silent bloke next to me. 'Regulations do require it.'

  He leaned over without a word, fastened the clip and jerked the strap brutally tight across my stomach.

  Ì think they're here to guard me,' I said loudly, to the hostess and everybody in general, '

  But I'm not certain and they won't tell me.'

  She smiled uncertainly and went away. A few heads half-turned to look, but aircraft seats aren't designed to assist the curious. Soon the engines wound up for the taxiing and again for take-off.

  I ate breakfast one-handed as the DC9 headed for London and tried to decide who Elliot'

  s companion might be and why I'd been handed over. There was a powerful smell of official co-operation on a fairly high level, and that alone finally confirmed that Elliot wasn't a National Georgraphic writer. I'd been suspicious of his credentials anyway. And'

  so, I realized, had Schmid. That thought made me blink for a moment, but the answer to the riddle must be simply that Elliot had had to declare himself to Schmid and Schmid had had to co-operate. Government stuff.

  I looked hard at the man in the next seat. He was as' English as Elliot was American : a darkish suit of some tweedy mixture, Tattersall check shirt, club tie, brown, wellpolished Tricker shoes and that kind of fair tight-to-theskull curly hair that somehow always says army officer. Sometimes wrongly, but not often. Official circles ! I grinned'

  mirthlessly to myself.

  When the seat belts sign lit up again as the aircraft began its descent towards Heathrow, there was no need for further action; the belt had been left fastened and my guts felt badly constricted. But having sat quietly through the journey I felt entitled to one more try. I reached up and quickly

  pushed the 'Call Hostess' button with my free hand. As she approached Elliot waved her away, but she looked at me inquiringly. I said, 'I am not certain that these men are properly authorized. I wish to surrender to the British police at Heathrow. Will you ask the captain to radio that message ahead, please. My name is John Sellers.'

  Ì think, sir,' she began hesitantly, 'that . .

  `Please give my message to the captain.'

  She nodded, turned and walked away up the aisle. She didn't come back. It had been pretty feeble, anyway. Elliot and the other man continued to ignore me. A car was waiting at the airport and the passengers were kept in their seats while the three of us disembarked, my handcuffs having been unfastened by Elliot's still unidentified companion. Not much more than half an hour after landing, I was being
hurried from the car across the pavement into a building in Northumberland Avenue. We entered a lift and went up two floors, along a corridor and into what looked like a company board room. There was a long, polished table, with seats round it, an Indian carpet on the floor, a couple of dark, old, unidentifiable and unlabelled portraits on the walls. Then the one with the wavy hair spoke for the first time. He said simply, 'Your clothes.'

  `What about them?'

  `Take them off.'

  `Not until I know who you are and what all this is about,' I said. Tor all I know, you're just some sadistic poofter —'

  `You can be held and stripped forcibly.'

  Ì can be shot, too, I expect,' I said. 'But unless you do that, you're going to have to let me go, sooner or later, and when you do —'

  À D-Notice will cover these matters,' he said, almost contemptuously. D-Notices are issued by the British Government to gag the press on matters of supposed national security. A while ago they slapped one on a railway magazine to stop it publishing a story about a proposed reduction in rail services.

  `Not in America, Germany and a lot of other countries,' I said. His neck muscles tightened. 'I am an official of the Ministry of Defence. This is a matter of national security.'

  I pointed to Elliot. 'But he's not. I want names and reasons and documentary proof.'

  He stared at me grimly for a moment. I stared back, unimpressed. I've met them before once or twice. There's usually at least one in British embassies abroad, and they're characterized by their satisfaction at being in many respects, above and outside the law. The British like to think they haven't a secret police, and that there's protection for all under the law etc. etc. It's not wholly true. These people operate on terms and budgets not approved by or even submitted to Parliament, except as part of a lump estimate, and where the law is concerned, they're the ones who make sure the trial is in camera. That's if the matter comes to trial.

  Elliot said, 'Can't you – ?'