Operation Destruct

by Christopher Nicole

  Clark looked at it curiously, placed it in the bottom of the boat, reached down for his sister. She flopped over the side, and Jonathan followed her, to stare at the other rubber-clad body lying in the bilges.

  “Spotted him floating over there,” Peter Martyn explained.

  “Is this the guy who was with you in the water?” Clark asked.

  Jonathan nodded. He gazed at Alexis’ upturned face. The Russian was dead.

  Chapter Six

  “Enwright!” Jonathan said. “Where did he go?”

  Peter Martyn pointed to the distant shore. “He’ll be there by now. And we’d better follow him in, Mr. Bridges. This is a nasty business.”

  “You can say that again,” Clark agreed. “Maybe you’d better tell us what happened down there. And what happened to Helen?”

  Helen pushed herself up, hung her face over the side, and vomited. “That bottle . . .”

  Clark picked it up. “This one?”

  “Another,” Jonathan snapped. “Listen. We have got to get hold of Enwright. You just have to take my word for it, Clark. It’s desperately important. We have to stop him getting to . . . well, leaving the beach.”

  “And the fact that this guy is dead means nothing to you at all? Or that Helen’s puking her guts out?”

  Jonathan sighed. “What happened to Alex was an accident. What happened to Helen was an accident. But you have got to believe that we must catch up with Enwright.”

  “Nuts,” Clark said brusquely. “Hey, Pete, won’t this thing go any faster?”

  “Shore’s coming up fast, Mr. Bridges.”

  Helen slumped back into the bottom of the boat. “Gee, but it’s cold.” She shuddered.

  “I’ll have you in a hot bath in ten minutes,” Clark said.

  “No,” she said. “I think we should go along with Jon.”

  “Eh?”

  “Just take my word for it. You can call the police, can’t you, Mr. Martyn?”

  “Well, I suppose I can, miss. But . . .”

  “Mr. Anders will give them the full story, as soon as he gets back. You will, won’t you, Jon?”

  “Of course I will,” Jonathan lied.

  “Okay, then. Jon says finding Enwright is important, so we get Enwright. Clark has a hired car.”

  “Now this is a lot of nonsense,” Clark said. “You’re as sick as a dog, and this guy is dead, and Jon is acting pretty strangely, if you ask me . . .”

  “All I’m asking you to do is trust him,” Helen shouted. “And me!”

  Peter Martyn glanced from one to the other. “You go ahead, Mr. Bridges. I’ll telephone the police. Where are you staying, Mr. Anders?”

  “Oceanview.”

  “Then I’ll tell them they can get in touch with you there in half an hour. That do you?”

  “It’d better,” Clark said, as the fishing boat came alongside the slipway. There were several men waiting for them.

  “Hey, Peter,” shouted one. “What happened out there, then? Enwright came ashore like a bat out of hell.”

  “Where’d he go?” Jonathan scrambled out of the boat, turned to assist Helen.

  “Got into his van and drove up the hill. Hey, what’s the matter with that chap?”

  “He’s dead.” Clark Bridges pushed them aside and stepped ashore.

  “Dead? But, hey . . .?”

  “Let’s go,” Jonathan said. “Where’s your car?”

  “The Mini.” Helen ran up the road, pulled open the door, got into the back seat, scattering water from her rubber suit. Jonathan joined her. Clark sat behind the wheel and gunned the motor.

  “You two catching pneumonia together, is that it?”

  “We won’t catch anything if you don’t get a move on,” Helen said. “Up the hill. Jon knows the way.”

  “Well, he’d better start pointing, because here’s a crossroad.”

  “Beyond this,” Jonathan said. Obviously he was going to get nowhere without their help. And just as obviously Helen was a highly intelligent girl who had added what she had seen in the trawler’s hold to what had happened and decided to go along with him until she came across a couple of answers. Which meant she was no simple tourist. But that would have to wait. Once Ted Enwright reached the farmhouse, there was no saying what Anna Cantelna would do. “Here,” he said.

  “Eh?”

  “Slow down opposite that field. I’m going to close my eyes and try to direct you.”

  “This guy’s been inhaling,” Clark complained.

  “You’re just the chauffeur,” Helen said. “So get on with it.” She shuddered again, and Jonathan put his arm round her shoulders. “Are you trying to tell us somebody snatched you? In a place like this?”

  “It got to me too. But they had a double-barreled shotgun and thought I was a rabbit. We’re looking for a biggish white painted farmhouse. It’ll have a wall around it and an enclosed cobbled courtyard. Okay?”

  “Roger and out.”

  The Mini-Cooper eased forward, and Jonathan shut his eyes.

  “It’s starting to rain, blast it,” Clark said.

  “Concentrate,” Helen said.

  “There should be a right turn around here,” Jonathan said.

  “Spot on,” Clark said. “Some kind of cart track.”

  “That’s not it,” Jonathan said. “This was a good surface.”

  “There’s nothing like that around here.”

  “Drive a little higher up the hill,” Helen suggested. “There you are.”

  “Here we go.” Clark swung the little car round the corner.

  “Now the road should be flat for a while, and then start a descent, very gradual.”

  “That seems right.”

  “Then you’ll come upon another sharp right turn. Say in two minutes.”

  The Mini-Cooper slowed, while the rain became heavier, pattering on the roof.

  “You’ve passed it,” Helen said. “There’s an opening in the hedge back there.”

  “Didn’t see a thing.” Clark put the car in reverse, and Jonathan opened his eyes and looked out of the window. “It can’t be here,” Clark said. “That’s just a field. Full of flowers or something.”

  “Daffodils,” Jonathan said. “This is it. Let’s leave the car here.”

  “Oh, great,” Clark said. “You two are wet already.” He opened the door and got out. Helen hugged herself and shivered.

  “I think maybe you should go home and get changed or something,” Jonathan said.

  “I’m not cold. It’s just a bit spooky.”

  Clark had stepped under the trees, was staring across the field. “There is a house over there.”

  “And I think it’s the one I want,” Jonathan said. “Let’s go.”

  “Whoa!” Clark said. “Just let’s know what we’re at, old son. You can’t say we haven’t been cooperating. But now you want Helen to go crawling around a house you’ve just said has a trigger-happy shotgun expert inside it, after nearly drowning the poor kid. After maybe drowning that fellow Alex. We’re not being unreasonable, I figure, in wanting to know what we’re likely to run into next.”

  *

  Jonathan stared across the field. It was just after six, and the fading light was dimmed even more by the low cloud, yet he could make out the house and yard quite clearly, without recognizing anything about it. But the garage was empty, and there was no sign of Enwright’s van. Yet this had to be the place; there were no other houses in sight. Think, he told himself. Think.

  “I suppose you’re right,” he said. “But I think you should begin by telling me what you and Helen were doing out there this afternoon, anyway? You were going to call me tomorrow. Not that I’m sorry, of course. I owe you my life.”

  Enwright had had only a few minutes’ start. Supposing he had driven straight here, he would only just have had time to tell Anna Cantelna what had happened.

  “Nice of you to say so, old son,” Clark said. “To tell you the truth, we felt restless. And you were stealin
g a march on us, too.”

  “We’re not going to get anywhere like this,” Helen said. “Okay, Jon, we were fooling you. We never had any intention of waiting until tomorrow before we dived. Clark and I are journalists.”

  “Which paper?”

  So what would Anna Cantelna’s reaction be to the news that Alexis was dead and Jonathan Anders alive?

  “Freelance,” Helen said. “Well, sort of. We were covering the English newsletter for Transworld Press down to Christmas, and then it folded on us. We hung around to see if we could maybe get another job, because we both like Europe, but it didn’t seem to be working out, so we were about to call it a day and go home, when this thing broke. I guess you can put us down as having overdeveloped imaginations, but while everyone else was wondering how such an accident could have occurred, Clark and I got to thinking that maybe it hadn’t been an accident after all. So here we are.”

  “You came over here meaning to dive?”

  “Helen did,” Clark said. “I punctured my eardrum a couple of years back. The shallow end is my limit nowadays.”

  “And now you’ve got yourself a story,” Jonathan said thoughtfully.

  The only decision Anna Cantelna could come to, in the circumstances, would be to get herself out of Guernsey, and quick. The last flight to London was not until eight-thirty, and there would be another one before that—and at this time of the year they would hardly be fully booked. But to get up and go would have required at least five minutes, thought, and some preparation. There just had not been sufficient time.

  “We’d prefer to have the inside dope,” Helen said.

  “And if I were to say it’s not for publication?”

  “That wouldn’t be very nice of you. Besides, we could do pretty well on our own. For instance, that fisherman told us Enwright and one other man had gone out in Enwright’s boat. But you say there were three of you, and you have a dead body to prove it. And then again, that Ludmilla must be about the only trawler in the world carrying a full-scale laboratory in her hold. And you knew it was there, Jonathan.”

  “So?”

  “So it won’t do you any good pretending you’re in our business. We have to find out about things after they happen. We don’t know what to expect in advance, as a rule.”

  “You guys have lost me,” Clark said.

  “And then,” Helen continued. “The dead man is a foreigner, if I know anything about anybody. With those cheekbones I’d bet he was a Slav, maybe a Russian. I have an idea you killed him, Jon. Oh, sure, probably it was self-defense, but you’ll still have to explain it, sometime. So, adding one and one together and getting two, my impression is that we’re on to something very big.”

  Jonathan thought the worst thing that could possibly happen to an intelligence agent was to run into an intelligent bystander. But they had been waiting in the rain for five minutes, and still there was no movement from the house, no sign of Enwright’s van. So he had not been rushing off to warn Anna Cantelna. Then she still had to be there, sitting in the darkness, waiting for Alexis to return. If this was the right house.

  “As you say,” he agreed. “This is something very big.”

  “Spies?”

  “Well, I work for the British Government, yes. And I came over here to take a look at the wreck. And these people objected and snatched me, stuffed me into a sailbag, and took me out to the wreck, meaning to drown me, so it would seem that it had happened while I was diving. But you came along and broke it up. Simple as that.”

  “Boy, oh, boy. This could be the break we’ve been looking for. So what about a deal? We’ll help you, and in return you’ll give us the facts, for publication as soon as it’s practical.”

  “Sorry. I can’t make that kind of promise.”

  “I’d say we have a pretty good story already,” Clark said.

  “Oh, be quiet,” Helen said. “This guy’s genuine. Listen, Jon. You need us, boy. You can’t cope with this on your own. How about if we offered you our help, gratis, and took our chances on what we can pick up?”

  She was right about his needing help, of course. “I feel like a heel.”

  “Okay, so you’re a heel. Just tell us what you want done?”

  “Well . . . first thing, I want to find out if that’s the house they took me to, this afternoon.”

  “Then come on.”

  “Hold on,” Clark said. “This is where I came in. According to what Jonny boy has just told us, these people have a shotgun specifically for discouraging visitors. What do you have?”

  “Well, nothing. Save this knife.”

  “You wouldn’t get very far if you fell into a tank filled with man-eating piranha.”

  “Oh, you funny man. If you really want to help, here’s what you do. I’ll cross the field, hide by the wall where I can overlook the door, and you two can walk down the drive, bang on the knocker, and say your car has broken down or something, and you’d like to use the telephone. I should be able to identify anyone who comes to the door.”

  “Okay, okay. You’re the boss. But Helen isn’t marching up to any front door behind which there may be waiting a hair-triggered shotgun maniac. And when you want to do an interview like this, you have to make it real. So I tell you what, old son; you run the strategy of this outfit, and let me worry about the tactics. Right? Now it’s pretty dark, so you and Helen crawl across this field until you get where you want to be. How long do you figure you’ll need?”

  “Give us fifteen minutes.”

  “Synchronize watches. Six-five, right? At six-twenty I’ll be round the front in the car, and I’ll walk up to the house like you said. I’ll have a flat. And I’ll really have a flat, see. I’ll leave the jack here, and I’ll ask them to lend me one and maybe give me a hand. If that doesn’t allow you a good long look at them I’ll resign.”

  “He always wanted to work for the CIA,” Helen said sadly. “But they wouldn’t have him.”

  *

  The rain became heavier. The wind had risen, too, and the drops slanted across the hilltop, penetrating and chill. Already the ground was soft, and they stumbled through the clinging earth. Once Helen fell to her knees, and Jonathan dragged her back to her feet; they resumed their journey hand in hand, and reached the low granite wall, out of breath, the legs of their wet-suits splashed with mud.

  “Brother,” Helen gasped. “If this is spying, give me journalism, any day. Your department must have a heck of a hospital bill for influenza and bronchitis.”

  Jonathan peered over the wall. There was no sign of a light, but with Robert and Edna downtown Anna Cantelna would not dare reveal the presence of someone else in the house. He wondered what she would do when Clark made his entrance. Strange how the thought of her set his heart pounding.

  “It looks deserted,” Helen whispered. “Are you sure this is the house?”

  “It has to be.”

  “But you thought Enwright was coming here, didn’t you? So where is he?”

  “If I knew that I’d be singing. But she’s still in there. She has to be.”

  “She?”

  “The woman I’m after. Anna Cantelna.”

  “Anna Cantelna? Say, didn’t she win a Nobel Prize a few years back?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And she’s here in Guernsey? Now there’s a scoop.”

  “It’ll keep, Helen.”

  She sat on the grass, her back against the wall. “Anna Cantelna. And a wrecked trawler. And all kinds of goings-on. I figure it was the luckiest day of my life when I spotted you at the airport. But if you know she’s there, why don’t you just go in and arrest her? I wish I understood how governments work.”

  “It’s not as simple as you imagine. To arrest her I’d have to involve the police, and that would mean a great deal of publicity, which in turn would mean admitting that we knew what went on aboard that trawler just before she sank.”

  “And do we? I mean you.”

  “I’m afraid we do. And the whole
thing could be very unpleasant. So the decision as to whether nailing Anna Cantelna is more or less important than a lot of bad publicity for the U.K. and the chance of a diplomatic breach with Russia has to be taken at a higher level than this mud bath. My job is to find her and stick close to her.”

  “Good luck!”

  He sat beside her. “Scared?”

  “I don’t think so. I mean, I have you. And Clark. Clark’s pretty good when it comes to throwing his weight about.”

  “I wish he’d throw it about a little more quickly, right now. I feel I should explain that this is my first assignment.”

  “And you’re doing very well, in your muddled circumstances. I’d figured you weren’t a veteran.”

  “What did I do wrong?”

  “Well, James Bond would have been making violent love to me, by now. Say, there’s Clark.” She rose to her knees.

  Clark Bridges walked down the path leading from the road. His coat collar was turned up against the drizzling rain and his shoulders were hunched; he gave a very good impression of a man feeling thoroughly fed up. Jonathan thought he might not be acting. He went up to the front door, banged on it several times, then walked round the back, close to them now, and banged again.

  “Anybody home?” he shouted. He turned to face the wall. “Where are you?”

  Jonathan cursed silently, then stood up. “That was a fool thing to do.”

  “It’s empty,” Clark said. “I figured it was, even from over there. Now I’m stuck with a flat tire, and I’m a quarter of a mile away from my jack.”

  As Craufurd had said, the value of chess was that it taught you to look facts in the face. If there was insufficient time for Enwright to have got here and explained what had happened, and for Anna Cantelna to have made up her mind to get out, then none of these things could have happened. So she had to be inside, waiting in the darkness, praying for Clark Bridges to go away. Only now she would know Clark Bridges was not alone. He stared at the upstairs windows, saw nothing.

  “So what do we do now?” Helen asked. “I’m for a warm tub.”

  The last time he had followed his instincts he had got himself into deep trouble. But his instincts told him to attack. He could not fend off the police with one hand and keep an eye on Anna Cantelna at the same time. Besides, he suddenly realized, at this moment she was utterly vulnerable, alone, confused, And he still didn’t know if he was afraid of her.