Operation Destruct

by Christopher Nicole

  “Okay, okay. Maybe that’s how she did think. But how did she arrange for this trawler to pick her up from Barra? You suggesting those people in Guernsey have some sort of radio communication network? Even if they do, how’d she find the time? This thing only broke today, from her point of view.”

  “Listen!” Helen whispered.

  Noises issued from the intercom. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. This is the captain speaking. We’re just passing the south coast of England, and by looking out of the windows on the right side of the aircraft you should be able to see the lights of Bournemouth. Our estimated time of arrival at Heathrow is on schedule at twenty-five minutes past nine. I’m afraid the weather in London is poor, local cloud and rain. Thank you.”

  “Oh, brother,” Helen said. “Do you know what I thought he was going to say?”

  “You just drink your champagne,” suggested her brother. “You were going to tell me about the Madam’s telepathic system, Jon.”

  “I’d say the rendezvous was arranged by the Soviet Embassy in London, probably the day after the shipwreck. In fact, the moment they knew Madam Cantelna was safe. Figure this. Alexis and Anna Cantelna got ashore in the small hours of Thursday morning, went straight to their local contact. Now every minute they remained in that house—if it was just a matter of getting them off Guernsey and back to Russia—increased the risk, to them and to the local agent. But she told me they weren’t scheduled to leave until tomorrow night.”

  “So she was waiting for the rendezvous to be arranged. She could have done that as easily in Barra.”

  “Not if there’s no agent there for her to roost on. In fact, even if there is an agent there. These people play the odds. They have to. Where is she the more likely to remain undetected? Barra is even smaller than Guernsey, with a population a fraction the size. You can bet your bottom dollar everyone knows what everybody else has for breakfast. My guess is that the Russian Embassy got in touch with the other trawler right away, and was told they could not make it to Barra before Tuesday afternoon.” He finished his champagne. “So the idea was for Madam Cantelna to leave Guernsey tomorrow, and arrive in Barra just an hour or so before the rendezvous.”

  “And now she’ll arrive twenty-four hours too early. Or else hide herself in London tonight.”

  “I’d bet on London. But it’s a big city.”

  “But either way, if we can get to Barra tomorrow we’ll be waiting for her,” Helen said. “Providing all this rather intricate reasoning of yours is accurate, Jon. We’re going to look pretty silly hanging around some Scottish island if Madam Cantelna is on her way back to Russia.”

  He shrugged. “Like I said, my job is to get hold of all the facts I can, and make a decision. And pray it’s the right one.”

  “Rather you than me,” Clark said. “How do you figure on getting up to Scotland?”

  “There won’t be any more flights tonight. But the overnight express leaves King’s Cross at midnight. I’ll catch that, be in Glasgow tomorrow morning, and in Barra by the afternoon, I hope.”

  “What’s this first person singular bit doing back?” Helen asked.

  “When we land we split up.”

  “There’s a funny story,” Clark said.

  “Listen! The police will be looking for two men and a girl. They won’t be looking for someone traveling by himself. But there’s another, more important point. Like you said, I might be making a mistake. I have to let my boss know what’s going on, so that he can make his own appraisal of the situation. That’s your job. You and Helen go to a hotel for tonight, and tomorrow morning you go along to this bookstore.” He took the card from his wallet. “Ask if they have a copy of Dante’s Inferno in Arabic.”

  “Come again?”

  “That way they’ll know you’re from me. Now almost certainly they’ll put you in some sort of custody, but just as certainly they’ll want to find out what you’re at. Tell them everything that’s happened, and what I’m doing, and give them that little bottle to be analyzed. And ask them if the code word ‘destruct’ means anything. Think you can manage that?”

  “Oh, sure,” Clark said. “And then be brushed off or kept in the can until this thing blows over. Not on your sweet life, old son. I quite agree that the cops will be looking out for three of us, and that splitting up is a good idea. But Helen can deliver your bottle just as easily as the both of us. I’m not letting you out of my sight until we get some sort of a publishable story.”

  “Now look here . . .”

  “I think you should both look here,” Helen said. “You’re both talking sense, up to a point. But you’re both missing the point. Sure the police will expect us to split up, no matter where we’re going. So they’re going to have to rely on our descriptions for getting us, right? So what are they going to hand out? The girl is fairly tall, blonde, maybe quite good-looking. A couple of girls on this plane besides me would answer to that description. And one of the men is fairly tall, kind of slim, maybe fairly good-looking, dark-haired, sort of serious. You try identifying someone from either of those descriptions, Clark, and then think of yours.”

  Jonathan grinned. “And the other man is about six foot five, built like an ox, and has a broken nose.”

  “So I go and surrender myself while you two take off on a Scottish spyhunt.”

  “That’s the way the cookie crumbles,” Helen said cheerfully.

  Clark drank the last of his champagne, gazed into the bottom of his glass. “She’s been conning me since we were kids,” he said thoughtfully. “But just let’s get this straight between us, Jonny, old son. If anything happens to little sister I’m going to twist your head right off your shoulders and stick it on again, back to front. Then we’ll see who they find it easiest to identify.”

  *

  They touched down on schedule, and as they carried only Helen’s overnight bag got through Customs well in front of the other passengers.

  “Come on, come on,” Clark said, running down the escalator. “There’s a bus just leaving.”

  “No bus,” Jonathan said. “It’s a forty-minute journey to West London Air Terminal, and they’re in radio communication all the time. You might just run into that posse of yours. Let’s check the bank balance.”

  Clark opened his wallet. “Seventeen pounds.”

  “I have eight,” Helen said.

  “And I have twenty-two,” Jonathan said. “You can get some more tomorrow, Clark. So we’ll leave you a fiver for taxi fare and incidentals.”

  Clark handed over twelve pounds. “Boy, am I being taken for a ride.”

  “Now here’s what you do. Grab a taxi and go straight into Central London. Let him drop you in Piccadilly or somewhere like that, and find a hotel on foot. Okay?”

  Clark tucked the plastic bottle under his arm. “It’s a good thing you British are an incurious people.” He peered out at the street. “It’s raining again. Well, so long, sis. Give Anna my love.” He kissed her on the cheek, ran across the road, hailed a taxi from the rank.

  “We’ll let him get clear,” Jonathan said.

  Helen took his arm. “This is fantastic, you know. Yesterday morning, lunchtime today, I was a simple law-abiding career woman. Now I’m a wanted criminal. And you’re so sure . . .”

  “I only wish I was.” Jonathan signaled a taxi. “Notting Hill Tube Station.”

  “That’s near fifteen miles, mate. It’ll cost you.”

  “How much?”

  The taxi driver inspected Helen, the single overnight bag. “Well, three quid. But for you, two ten.”

  “If you’re always that generous you’re going to be out of business. In you get, Helen.”

  “I thought we wanted to go to . . .”

  “Forget it.” He closed the door.

  “I’ll try,” she promised. She fell asleep almost the moment they got off the motorway. Jonathan wondered just where this affair was going to end. But thinking like that led him into the trap of wondering if his calculations
were right, or if he was just floundering, going through the motions of chasing Anna Cantelna because in his heart he knew she had outclassed him and got clean away. If she had he was for it; Craufurd might possibly rally round if he felt there was a fair chance of getting hold of her, but if she got away now, it was Jonathan Anders versus the Guernsey police, and Craufurd would never acknowledge having known him.

  “Notting Hill, mate,” said the taxi driver.

  Jonathan gave him three pounds, woke Helen. “Upsa daisy.”

  “Have fun,” suggested the driver, and pulled away from the curb.

  Helen yawned. “What time is it?”

  “Seventeen minutes past ten.”

  “And here we are in Notting Hill. Say, isn’t this a way-out neighborhood?”

  “It’s not Leicester Square. So let’s find another taxi.”

  “But I don’t get why we’re here at all.” She looked up and down the empty, windswept street.

  “Because that taxi driver is going to remember you and me. Now, when he hears about what happened in Guernsey and goes to the police, we’ve at least a sporting chance they’ll assume we went to ground in Notting Hill.”

  “It’ll also remove their last doubt that we, or rather you, did in that Enwright man.”

  “I don’t think they do have any doubts about that, anyway, sweetheart.” He saw a taxi come round the corner, stepped into the road with his hand up.

  They reached King’s Cross at ten-forty-five. The man at the ticket-window was pessimistic. “Going all the way to Glasgow, are you? Train doesn’t leave for an hour. But you can get in now, if you like.”

  “I think we could eat,” Jonathan said. “My stomach has shrunk, it’s been so long.”

  They went to the buffet, ate hamburgers and drank coffee. “What time do we get in?” Helen asked.

  He shrugged. “For breakfast, I imagine. And then it’s ho for the western isles.”

  “Ugh. Just listen to that rain.” It pounded on the station roof, sounded as if they were underneath a river. She shivered, hugged herself. “I have a feeling I’m being a little bit of a disappointment to you.”

  “You’re doing just fine.” He watched the television set in the far corner. It was just coming up to the late news, and to his horror a picture of Guernsey was suddenly flashed on to the screen. “Hold on,” he whispered, and crossed the room to stand close to the muted sound.

  “. . . Mr. Enwright had, it appears, been one of a party who earlier this afternoon had been diving to the wreck of the sunken Russian trawler Ludmilla, which foundered off the coast of Guernsey in last Thursday’s gale. One of this party was drowned, and it is thought that both deaths are linked with the sunken trawler. Guernsey police are anxious to interview two men and a woman in connection with these events. They are a Mr. Jonathan Anders, a Mr. Clark Bridges, and a Miss Helen Bridges. Apparently these three people were in Guernsey today, and a detective sergeant on the Guernsey Police was actually questioning them in connection with Mr. Enwright’s death when he was assaulted, bound, and gagged, and left beside the road. The three people then made their way to London. Police forces all over the country have been alerted, and members of the public are also requested to look out for any of these people, who may be armed and are described as dangerous. Anders is about six feet tall, of slim build, dark-haired but with a fair complexion. Bridges is extremely tall, perhaps six feet six inches, and heavily built. He has a broken nose. Miss Bridges is also tall for a woman, about five feet eight inches, slimly built, with long, straight blonde hair. Anyone seeing someone answering to one of these descriptions is asked to get in touch with his local police station.”

  “There’s a do,” said the waitress. “Gangsters, that’s what they are.” She was looking straight at Jonathan, smiling.

  “I know Guernsey well,” he said. “I always found it a quiet little place.”

  “Times are changing,” she said profoundly.

  “Still,” Jonathan said, “with detailed descriptions like those, the police will pick up that lot.”

  “Don’t you believe it,” said the girl. “They never catch nobody no more. And what’s so detailed about the descriptions? Why, the girl could be your young lady sitting over there. I’d look a right Charlie if I went telephoning the coppers every time a good-looking blonde has a cup of coffee. You want something else?”

  “No, thank you very much,” Jonathan said. “We’ve a train to catch. Bye.”

  “Ta-ta,” she said, and poured herself a cup of tea.

  Helen’s fists were clenched. “I’m surprised you didn’t hear my knees knocking together all the way over there.”

  “My teeth were making too much noise on their own. Let’s go. The train’ll be away in fifteen minutes.”

  “Jonny. I’ve got nail scissors in my bag. Don’t you think you ought to cut my hair off? Do it straight round by my ears. That’s quite fashionable.”

  “When it’s done by a hairdresser. By me it’d make you look like a rag doll. And like the girl said, who’s going to look twice at a long-haired blonde? It isn’t as if you were beautiful, or something like that.”

  “Nuts. But you give a girl confidence, I’ll allow you that.”

  They found an empty compartment. Helen took off her shoes, rolled her jacket for a pillow, and seemed to be asleep in ten minutes. It was a gift she might have shared with the Dormouse. Jonathan sat opposite her, and gazed out of the window at the night and the dwindling, rain-swept lights of London as the train left the station. He seemed to have been traveling forever, one way or the other. But at least he had congenial company. Her back was to him as she slept, her hands tucked up around her face. She was an extremely attractive girl. The most attractive girl he had ever met. But this was one job where any sort of personal entanglement just was not on. He thought that was a great pity.

  He slept, uneasily, disturbed both by the movement of the train and by the increasing gusts of wind, which hurled the rain against the compartment windows like handfuls of pebbles. Either the whole country was in the grip of the storm or they were carrying it north with them.

  Suddenly he was awake. The lights were dimmed, Helen was just a pale green blur on the other seat. And the rain was heavier than ever. Nothing inside the compartment had changed, so far as he could see, yet he had awoken as sharply as if touched on the shoulder.

  He stood up, tiptoed to the door, softly slid it aside, closed it again behind him, stood in the empty corridor. It was colder here, with a constant draft seeping the length of the train. He went forward. The next compartment was also empty, and the one after that had its blinds drawn. Then he was at the end of the carriage, crossing the swaying platform to gain the next, where a sleepy attendant jerked awake.

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  “I’m looking for a toilet,” Jonathan explained.

  “There’s one in your car, sir. At the other end. This is the sleeping car, you see.”

  “Oh. Thank you.” Jonathan turned, opened the door, closed it behind him, and found himself staring at Anna Cantelna.

  Chapter Eight

  The corridor was empty. For the moment they were confined in a private world, above the swaying, clanking platform, while the wind howled and the rain pattered against the windows. Anna Cantelna wore a dressing gown and slippers. She looked small and feminine, and composed.

  “Mr. Anders!” She sounded almost pleased to see him. “What a surprising young man you are, to be sure. But I am so happy to find you still . . . what is the English idiom? One jump ahead of the police?”

  Of course he had known all along there was a chance she would be traveling on this train. But he had made no mental preparation for encountering her before Barra.

  She smiled. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I would like to go back to bed. Tomorrow is going to be a very busy day. For both of us, I imagine.”

  He caught her wrist as she reached for the door to the sleeping car. “I think you and I should have a little chat
, Madam Cantelna.” It sounded absurd, but he could think of nothing better.

  Her smile chilled, and the corridor was filled with the scent of musk. “We don’t have anything to say to each other, at this moment, Mr. Anders. If you do not release me, I shall scream, so loudly I will have every man on this train here in a matter of seconds, and I know the average Englishman well enough to rely on his reactions when given a choice between a helpless woman in a dressing gown and great lout in a sports jacket.”

  “They don’t go much for foreign agents, either.”

  “Is that what you will tell them, Mr. Anders? That I am a famous scientist? But I have a passport and a driver’s license to prove that I am a Glasgow housewife named Jean MacLennan. So then you will tell them you are from M.I. 6? I do not think you will do that, Mr. Anders. Katorzin was one of your colleagues, and Katorzin committed piracy, no doubt on orders from Whitehall. He killed ten Soviet citizens and sank a Soviet ship. That is virtually the same thing as if a British warship had fired into the Ludmilla. Katorzin committed an act of war, Mr. Anders. So you see, it is obvious to me that while your agency would like to arrest me, you are awaiting clarification of your legal position before you can act. But I am hampered by no such restrictions, Mr. Anders. If you force me, I will suggest to the authorities that they consider very deeply whether or not you and that charming young girl you are traveling with do not fit the descriptions of those two dreadful criminals on the run from Guernsey. You did hear the late news? Of course you did.”

  She spoke so rapidly, so succinctly, although in her normal soft tone, that it was impossible to think clearly. And as ever, the scent of musk seemed to penetrate his nostrils and clog his brain. “We’ll be waiting for you in Barra, Madam Cantelna. By then, as you put it, we will have sorted out our legal position.”

  “In Barra, did you say? How very clever of you, Mr. Anders. I shall look forward to our meeting.” She stepped past him, closed the door behind her.