by Colin Forbes
45
London. As soon as Tweed arrived back at Park Crescent he worried away like a beaver at the problem. He assembled all his helpers in his room, issued a whole series of instructions.
Newman, Marler, Paula and Monica were there. Everyone had to know what the others were doing. The Director, Howard, back from a long holiday, lounged in a chair, listening. He made a typical comment as he brushed imaginary specks of dust off his immaculate navy blue suit.
This is costing us a fortune. Your trip to Athens alone…'
'Are you saying we are wasting our time?' Tweed enquired.
Paula sat behind her desk watching Tweed. He had lost his earlier manner of a man obsessed: seeing Petros had cured him of that. It was now the normal Tweed: calm, dogged, speaking in a controlled tone. Paula felt enormously relieved.
'No,' Howard replied. 'Not after hearing all the details. I don't like that business Kalos told you about General Lucharsky, Colonels Rykovsky and Volkov-above all the connection with Doganis. It does sound as though the hardline faction inside Russia – the anti-Gorbachev lot -has succeeded in establishing a power base outside Russia.'
'And that base is over here. All we have to do is to find it.'
'You make it sound so easy,' Howard observed.
'What gets me,' Paula persisted, 'is how they were able to do that under our noses.' She frowned. 'Unless it was set up a long time ago and has recently been activated.'
'Monica,' said Tweed, 'double-check with Roberts, our man at Lloyd's. I want all details of the movements of that Portuguese vessel, the Oporto. Paula, drive down to Exmoor with Newman. Find out on the 'spot whether Butler and Nield have discovered anything more about movements in that area. Especially about Anton – and Seton-Charles, who seems to have vanished off the face of the earth. Marler, Interpol have persuaded Lisbon to send me that knife used to kill Gallagher. It's arriving at London Airport aboard this flight.' He gave him a sheet of paper. 'In the custody of the pilot of the plane. Bring it back here. I want to check if it really is a commando-type weapon.'
'We stay at The Anchor at Porlock Weir?' Paula suggested as she took from a cupboard the small case she kept packed for emergency trips.
'It's out of the way, a good place to stay under cover. And you can check on Mrs Larcombe's murder. Bob, you get out of the car short of the hotel, register as though you don't know Paula. It can come in useful to have a secret reserve.'
'And I'll have my Mercedes back, thank you very much.'
'Goody,' said Paula. 'I'll get to drive it. At ninety down the motorway,' she joked.
Tweed gave her a look as she left with Newman. Marler raised himself slowly from his chair. 'I'd better push off to the airport before you think of something else…'
'Just like old times,' Monica said when Marler had gone. 'It's all go – the way I like it.' She reached for the phone to call Lloyd's. 'Do you really think Anton is back in this country?'
'He's somewhere over here. What I'd like to know is what he's doing,' Tweed answered sombrely.
****
It was raining heavily at Cherry Farm in Hampshire. Anton could hear it beating down on the roof of the huge barn where he was working. Perfect weather: it kept potential snoopers indoors. Inside the second furniture van, parked behind the other vehicle, he turned round as Seton-Charles appeared and climbed up the lowered tailboard.
'How are you progressing?' the Professor asked.
'I will show you. We are far advanced.'
Anton moved a tool box on the floor among the straw, used his screwdriver to lever up the hinged floorboards. Beneath was the secret compartment he had constructed to store the Stinger launchers and the missiles.
Seton-Charles gazed round the interior of the huge vehicle. At the front, behind the driver's cab – shut off from the interior – Anton had erected a wooden platform, railed, and with steps leading up to it. A special wooden chair he had designed with an adjustable back was clamped to the platform floor.
Anton inserted a missile into the launcher, carried the weapon up to the platform, and sat in the chair. Reaching down, he depressed a switch. There was the faint sound of electrical machinery on the move. A large panel in the van's roof slid open, exposing the roof of the barn six feet above the top of the van.
He settled himself into the chair, raised the launcher, the stock pressed firmly into his shoulder. The Greek swivelled the weapon through an arc.
'Imagine open sky, a plane approaching three thousand feet up. I press the trigger, the heat-seaking device homes on the target. Boom! No plane. Satisfied?'
He didn't give a damn whether his companion was satisfied or not. The main thing was he knew it would work. He climbed back down the steps, detached the missile, wrapped it separately in a polythene sheet, did the same thing with the launcher, made sure they were safely tucked away and closed the floorboards. Then he rubbed dirt over the joins, moved straw over the compartment.
'Now I have to do the same job with the other van. It all takes time.'
'Maybe I could help by going in to Liphook and fetching the new food supplies?' Seton-Charles suggested.
He was getting housebound. Anton had not allowed him to leave the farm since he had arrived. The Greek shook his head. He had grown a thick moustache; he wore a greasy boiler suit and wore the type of cap affected by the average farm worker. His British boots were smeared with caked mud.
'I get the food,' Anton told him. 'You said Liphook. Do you not realize I buy each time from a different town? Where is your sense of security?'
'I am sorry. That was a foolish mistake…'
'Which could have been fatal. Let us go into the farmhouse – I want to check the two rooms we have prepared for the prisoners. They will be brought here within the next few weeks…'
They entered the farm by the back door: Anton insisted that they never used the front entrance which was kept permanently locked. He led the way up the old staircase and along the corridor to the two rooms facing the back. They were separated by the bathroom.
Each door had two locks and a bolt Anton had fixed. In each door was a spyhole with a cap which closed down over it on the outside. They could look in but an occupant could not see out. He opened the first door, walked inside. The room was starkly furnished.
An iron bedstead screwed to the floor over which was spread a straw-filled palliasse and two blankets. An Elsan bucket in the corner for the performance of natural functions. Anton told Seton-Charles to operate the light switch which he had installed in the corridor. He walked over to the windows he had double glazed. No way of breaking out there – especially as the shutters were closed and padlocked on the outside.
'Who are these prisoners?' Seton-Charles asked.
'Just two men.' Anton continued as though talking to himself. 'I must remember no pork. Lamb and chicken is their diet – and somewhere I will find Turkish coffee. In a supermarket in Winchester, probably.' He looked round. 'Yes, all is ready for our visitors.'
'I would like to know what is going on,' Seton-Charles protested.
'Patience. In the meantime, when you are not helping me as labourer you can study your Greek books. Jupiter stressed in his last call you must remain here.' Anton grinned unpleasantly. 'And do you think you would sleep well at night if you upset Jupiter?'
Paula and Newman stayed for several weeks at The Anchor. When Newman phoned Tweed from a public call box one evening Tweed said he wanted them both to remain there until recalled. They were to explore the whole area, to listen to gossip in pubs, to try and find the route Anton used to leave the country.
'I don't think he boarded a ship the way he probably came in,' Tweed said. 'We've been very busy here, contacting every airport in the country. No passenger manifest shows that he left by a scheduled flight. And remember, Christina told you he was a pilot, experienced with flying light aircraft…"
When he put down the phone Monica queried his decision.
'You have a lot of people in one area. Paul
a, Newman, Butler and Nield. Isn't that overkill?'
'I'm deliberately saturating that district. I feel it in my bones the solution lies on Exmoor.'
'Anything interesting from Bob? I know it's on the tape I can listen to, but I find your comments more informative.'
'Everything seems normal. Dr Robson visits his patients – riding his horse. He works long hours. Barrymore makes infrequent phone calls from the phone box in Minehead.'
'Isn't that peculiar? Surely you said he has a phone of his own at Quarme Manor?'
'Apparently it often goes on the blink, as Newman expressed it. Something to do with the overhead wires getting blown down. It's the stormy season down there. Gale Force Ten and heavy seas.'
'What about Kearns?'
'He leads a strange life. When there's a moon he rides up to Dunkery Beacon, stays there a while. Butler has watched him through night glasses. He sits on his horse, still as a statue. Then he disappears for a while before riding back to his house.'
'Makes sense to me,' said Monica. 'The poor man has lost his wife. He just wants to be on his own. And he's trying to keep his sanity by maintaining old habits.'
'Another funny development – Paula found this out from lunching in pubs on Exmoor. Kearns doesn't meet his chums Barrymore and Robson any more. No Saturday night dinners at The Luttrell Arms, no Wednesday lunches at The Royal Oak, Winsford. He has cut himself off from them completely.'
'You can't tell how grief will affect people.'
'It's a very major change in relationships,' Tweed pointed out. 'For years those three acted as though they were still members of an Army unit. Kearns walking away is bound to affect the other two, Barrymore and Robson. Psychologically, I mean. We are still seeing the thing develop.'
'You'll get there in the end,' Monica encouraged him.
Tweed took from a drawer the commando knife which had killed Gallagher in Lisbon. That had been a frustrating exercise. At the last moment the Portuguese police chief had refused to send the weapon direct to London: Marler had arrived at London Airport several weeks before, only to find the pilot had nothing for him.
The knife had been ultimately despatched to Interpol in Paris. Which was the correct procedure. Tweed's friend, Pierre Loriot, had immediately flown it to London, but it had all taken precious time. Then there was the report from Lloyd's of London on the Oporto.
The typed document had confirmed all Tweed had been previously told. The vessel's clandestine call at Tripoli in Libya. Its voyage from Tripoli back to Lisbon – the arrival at that port coinciding with Anton flying from Zurich to the Portuguese capital. The shadowing of the vessel by French aircraft, culminating in its seizure after leaving Somerset off the port of Brest. The discovery of the large armoury of weapons which, Paris was certain, was destined for the IRA. Another dead end, as Tweed termed it, leading them nowhere further.
It was now November. Rain fell in a slanting downpour outside as Tweed put the weapon back in the drawer.
'I'm missing something,' he said. 'I feel it is under my nose and I can't see it. Get out all those tapes of phone conversations. I want to listen to them again. With a fresh ear.'
The dacha was located in the hills north-east of Moscow. There was a colony of them nearby where the bigwigs relaxed in summer, but this one was isolated. It was used for high-security military conferences in the hot season.
General Lucharsky stopped the Chaika a few hundred yards away from the shuttered building, switched off the engine, walked the rest of the way. His gleaming fur-lined boots crunched in the crisp hard snow; there had been a light fall the previous night. The temperature was eight degrees below freezing and he pulled up his military greatcoat collar, revelling in the invigorating air.
The building was made of timber. Steps led up to the veranda overhung by the projecting roof. The place was surrounded with birch woods flaked with white. Sunlight reflected off the snow crystals. Lucharsky climbed the steps, stood by the front door and looked around. He listened carefully and heard nothing in the heavy silence. He had not been followed. He rapped on the heavy door four times slowly.
When the door opened two men, also wearing the uniforms of generals, appeared. Lucharsky put a finger to his lips. With a swift gesture he indicated that they should follow him. He led the way back down the steps and into the woods. His arm brushed a branch and crusted snow fell on it.
'Why could we not stay in the dacha?' asked a short stocky general with stubby legs and thick eyebrows under his peaked cap. General Budienny.
'Because it may be wired for sound,' Lucharsky told him contemptuously. He towered over both his companions. 'Out here no one can hear us.'
He stopped inside a hollow encircled with trees. The Troika was assembled. Lucharsky kicked snow off his boots before continuing. The third man, an expert on armoured divisions, listened.
'The plan is proceeding,' Lucharsky informed them. 'I have now heard Gorbachev will land in Britain at the invitation of British Prime Minister Thatcher. We have him.'
'On the way to or back from the Washington summit?' asked Budienny.
'En route to Washington. Except his plane will never land. In one piece, that is. The missiles are in place.'
'How do you know where he will land? London Airport?' persisted Budienny.
'We don't know yet.' Lucharsky waved a gloved hand. 'It makes no difference. The missiles are located in a central position close to many airfields – including RAF military bases. They are mobile. Can be moved to the correct area as soon as we get the precise data.'
'How do you know all this?'
Lucharsky sighed. 'We have direct communication with the man who will control the operation. By radio. A complex route. But coded signals are received by one of our men at the Black Sea naval base of Novorossiisk. He is an excellent radio operator and brings me the signals regularly to Moscow.'
'Routine is dangerous,' Budienny objected. 'And our necks are on the block.'
Lucharsky sighed again, his expression saturnine. 'Since that naval base is so important a courier flies frequently to Moscow to report on progress about enlarging it. Our man is that courier. And before you suggest he could be searched he carries the messages verbally in his head, then tells me.' His tone became mocking. 'If your fears are now allayed perhaps I can proceed? The plan has taken on new dimensions.'
'What are those?'
'As Number Two in the Politburo, Ligachev – who has openly disagreed with Gorbachev's so-called reforms -will automatically become General Secretary. He knows nothing, of course, of what we plan.'
'But what are these new dimensions?' Budienny repeated.
'Once Ligachev is in power the real hardline element inside the Politburo will take over. Those men Gorbachev has not yet got rid of. Then next year, in 1988, we launch the limited attack.'
'Attack?' Budienny's eyes gleamed.
'We manufacture a border incident – as Hitler did against Poland in 1939. Our armies, brought close to the western frontier at night when the American satellites are blind, invade West Germany. We outnumber NATO enormously with our tanks. With our artillery and our air force. We shall reach the Rhine in three days.'
'That means World War Three,' Budienny objected.
'No. We stop at the Rhine. We announce we are going no further. The Americans will be in the middle of their presidential election. Everything will be in confusion in Washington. You think they will want a conventional limited war – a three-day coup – to turn nuclear? To risk New York, Chicago and Los Angeles become incinerated ash-heaps? Then we have in our hands the Ruhr, the great German powerhouse of armament production. We become the greatest power on earth.'
'And who will bring down Gorbachev's plane over Britain?'
'I told you before.' Lucharsky clapped his gloves together without making a sound. 'Shi-ite Muslims. They will end Gorbachev's regime of anti-Leninist idiocy…'
46
At Cherry Farm Anton stood inside the second furniture van and surveyed hi
s workmanship. He wore his boiler suit and his cap: he had developed the habit of wearing it all the time except when he went to bed. In the little spare time left over he had visited pubs some distance away, drinking beer while he listened to the locals' chatter. Anton could now talk with the accent of a working man. Holding a power tool in his right hand he turned to Seton-Charles.
'Well, you have seen the second demonstration. The sliding panel works, as it does in the other van.'
The two men stood close together; space was cramped.
Near the driver's cab Anton had erected another platform with steps leading up to it; a chair with an adjustable back was clamped to the floor below the sliding panel.
But the rear part of the van was crammed almost roof-high with old furniture – as was the van behind them. To leave the van they had to squeeze past the projecting legs of tables and a large wardrobe among other items. This was a precaution Jupiter had insisted on when he had given instructions to Anton after his landing on the coast.
Then, if by chance you are stopped,' Balaclava had explained, 'the police will see a van stacked with furniture which will hide the launch platform…'
Before starting work on the rear van Anton had visited various furniture auctions, storing the junk he had purchased in the front van. Seton-Charles had studied the stack of local newspapers Anton had bought all over Hampshire, looking for furniture auctions. He had been surprised and pleased at how many there were.
'Let me see the panel open again,' Seton-Charles suggested. 'I want to be sure it works every time.'
Anton shook his head. The generator makes a noise. I tested it several times while you were inside the farm, keeping a lookout for snoopers. God, I've driven a long way, buying everything I needed from different shops. No one will have a clue about what we were constructing.'