'And if he is on board?'
'I do my best to bring him off."
'And if you can't?'
I shrugged. 'I have orders covering that eventuality.'
She nodded coolly, and I wondered briefly if Mackintosh had ever given his own daughter similar instructions. She said, 'Wheeler being what he is and who he is will probably anchor off the Royal Gibraltar Yacht Club. I wouldn't be surprised if he's a member -- he comes here often enough.'
'Where is it?'
'About half a mile from here.'
'We'd better take a look at it.'
We finished our drinks and strolled into the sunshine. The yacht basin was full of craft, sail and power, big and small. I stood looking at the boats and then turned. 'There's a convenient terrace over there where they serve cooling drinks. That will be a nice place to wait.'
'I'm just going to make a telephone call,' said Alison, and slipped away. I looked at the yachts and the sea and tried to figure how I could get aboard Artina but without much success because I didn't know where she would be lying. Alison came back. 'Wheeler is expected at eleven tomorrow morning. He radioed through.'
'That's nice,' I said, and turned my face up to the sun. 'What do we do until then?'
She said unexpectedly, 'What about a swim?'
'I forgot to pack trunks; I didn't expect a semi-tropical holiday.'
'There are shops,' she said gently. So we went shopping and I bought trunks and a towel, and a pair of German duty-free binoculars, smooth, sleek and powerful.
We went across the peninsula and swam at Catalan Bay which was very nice. That night we went night-clubbing, which was even nicer. Mrs Smith seemed to be human and made of the same mortal clay as the rest of us.
IV At ten o'clock next morning we were sitting on the terrace overlooking the yacht basin and imbibing something long, cold and not too alcoholic. We both wore sun-glasses, not as much to shade our eyes as to join the anonymous throng just as the film stars do. The binoculars were to hand and all that was lacking was Artina and Wheeler, and, possibly, Slade."
We didn't talk much because there wasn't anything to talk about; we couldn't plot and plan in the absence of Artina. And Alison had loosened the strings of her personality the previous night as near as she had ever got to letting her hair down, and possibly she was regretting it. Not that she had let me get too close; I had made the expected pass and she evaded it with practised ease. But now she had returned to her habitual wariness -- we were working and personal relationships didn't matter.
I soaked up the sun. It was the thing I had missed in England, especially in prison, and now I let it penetrate to warm my bones. Tune went on and presently Alison picked up the binoculars and focused them on a boat making its way to harbour between the North Mole and the Detached Mole. 'I think this is Artina.'
I had a glass to my lips when she said it, and I swallowed the wrong way and came up for air spluttering and choking. Alison looked at me with alarm. 'What's the matter?'
'The impudence of it!' I gasped with laughter. 'Artina is an anagram of Tirana -- and that's the capital of Albania. The bastard's laughing at us all. It just clicked when you said it.'
Alison smiled and proffered the binoculars. I looked at the boat coming in with the dying bow wave at her forefoot and compared what I saw with the drawings and photographs of her sister ship. 'She could be Artina,' I said. 'We'll know for sure within the next five minutes."
The big motor yacht came closer and I saw the man standing at the stern -- big and with blond hair. 'Artina it is -- and Wheeler.' I swept the glasses over her length. 'No sign of Slade, but that's to be expected. He wouldn't parade himself.'
She anchored off-shore and lay quietly in the water and I checked every man who walked on deck, identifying five for certain without Wheeler. There was a crew of seven apart from an unknown number of guests, but the men I saw didn't seem to be guests. Two were on the foredeck by a winch and another was watching the anchor chain. Two more were lowering a boat into the water.
I said, 'Count the number of men who come ashore. That might be useful to know.'
The two men by the winch moved amidships and unshipped the folding companionway and rigged it at the side of the yacht. One of them went down the steps and tethered the boat. Presently Wheeler appeared with a man in a peaked cap and they both descended the companionway into the waiting boat. The engine started and it took off in a wide curve and then straightened, heading for the yacht club.
Alison said, 'Wheeler and the skipper, I think. The man at the wheel is a crewman.'
They stepped ashore at the club and then the tender took off again and returned to Artina where the crewman tethered it to the bottom of the companionway and climbed up on board again. Alison nudged me. 'Look!'
I turned my head in the direction her finger indicated. A big work boat was ploughing across the water towards Artina. 'So!'
'It's a fueller," she said. 'Artina is taking on diesel fuel and water already. It seems that Wheeler isn't going to waste much time here.'
'Damn!' I said. 'I was hoping he'd stay the night. I'd much rather go aboard in darkness.'
'He doesn't seem to have any guests,' she said. 'And he's in a hurry. From our point of view those are encouraging signs. Slade might very well be on board.'
'And a fat lot of use that is if I can't go aboard to find him. How long do you think refuelling will take?'
'An hour, maybe.'
Time enough to hire a boat,' I said. 'Let's go.' We bickered with a Gibraltan longshoreman for the hire of a motor launch and got away with him charging not more than twice the normal rate, and then launched out into the harbour. The fueller and Artina were now close-coupled on the port side, with hoses linking them. Another crew member in a peak cap was supervising -- that could be the engineer.
I throttled down as we approached and we drifted by about fifty yards from the starboard side. Someone came into view, looked at us incuriously and then lifted his head to look up at the Rock. He was Chinese.
I said, 'That, presumably, is Chang Pi-wu. Wheeler must like Chinese cooking if he takes his Chinese chef to sea. I hope the crew like Chinese food.'
'Maybe they have their own cook.'
'Maybe.' I studied the Chinese covertly. Many occidentals claim that all Chinese look alike. They're wrong -- the Chinese physiognomy is as varied as any other and I knew I'd recognize this man if I saw him again. But I'd had practice; I'd lived in the East.
We drifted to the stern of Artina. The ports of the rearmost guest cabin were curtained in broad daylight, and I had a good idea of where Slade was lying low. It was exasperating to be so close and not be able to get at him.
Even as I opened the throttle and headed back to the shore I saw a crewman drop into the boat moored at the bottom of Artina's companionway and take off. He was faster than we were and as we handed our launch to the owner I looked out and saw him returning with Wheeler and the skipper. They climbed aboard and the companionway was unshipped and stowed.
An hour later I was burning with a sense of futility as Artina moved off and headed out to sea. 'Where the hell is she going now?' I demanded.
'If he's going east into the Mediterranean to the Greek islan ds he'll refuel at Malta,' said Alison. 'It would be the logical thing to do. Let's go and find out where he's cleared for.'
So we did, and Alison was right -- not that it made me feel any better. 'Another four days?' I asked despondently.
'Another four days,'- she agreed. 'But we might have better luck at Valletta.'
'I'd like that yacht to have an accident,' I said. 'Just enough to delay her for one night. You don't happen to have any Limpet mines about you?'
'Sorry.'
I stared moodily at the white speck disappearing into the distance. 'That Chinese worries me,' I said. 'He ought to worry Slade even more.'
'Why ever should he?'
'Communist Albania has ceased to hew to the Moscow line Enver Hoxha, the Albanian party
boss, has read the Little Red Book and thinks the thoughts of Mao. I wonder if Slade knows he's in the hands of an Albanian?'
Alison wore a half-smile. 'I was wondering when you'd get there,' she said.
'I got there a long time ago -- probably before you did. It would be very nice for the Chinese if they could get hold of Slade -- a top British intelligence man and a top Russian intelligence man in the same package. They'd squeeze him dry in a month and they wouldn't care how they did it.'
I shrugged. 'And the damned fool thinks he's going home to Moscow.'
CHAPTER NINE
Limpet mines we didn't have but, in the event, I got hold of something just as good and a lot simpler. That was in the Grand Harbour of Valletta and four days later. In the meantime we paid the bill at the Rock Hotel and flew to Malta where that diplomatic passport got me through the barriers at Luqa Airport just as easily as it had done at Gibraltar.
With nearly four days to wait we suddenly found ourselves in holiday mood. The sky was blue, the sun was hot and the sea inviting, and there were cafes with seafood and cool wine for the days, and moderately good restaurants with dance floors for the nights. Alison unbent more than she had ever done.
I found there was something I could do better than she, which did my mauled ego a bit of good. We hired scuba equipment and went diving in the clear water of the Mediterranean and I found I could out-perform her at that. Probably it was because I had lived in Australia and South Africa where the ambient waters are warmer and skin-diving is a luxury and not a penance as it is in England.
We swam and lazed the days away and danced the nights away for three days and three nights until, on the morrow, Wheeler was due to arrive. It was nearly midnight when I brought up the subject of Mr Smith. Alison took no umbrage this time but, perhaps, it was because I had been plying her with the demon alcohol. Had it been the opposition tipping the bottle she would have been wary but the hand that filled her glass was the hand of a friend and she was taken unaware. Sneaky!
She held up the wine glass and smiled at me through liquid amber. 'What do you want to know about him?"
'Is he still around?'
She put down the glass and a little wine spilled. 'No,' she said. 'He's not around any more.' She seemed sad.
I lit a cigarette and said through the smoke, 'Divorce?'
She shook her head violently and her long hair flowed in heavy waves. 'Nothing like that. Give me a cigarette.'
I lit her cigarette and she said, 'I married a man called John Smith. There are people called John Smith, you know. Was he an intelligence agent? No. Was he even a policeman? No. He was an accountant and a very nice man -- and Alec was horrified. It seemed I hadn't been designed to marry an accountant.' Her voice was bitter.
•Go on,' I said gently.
'But I married him, anyway; and we were very happy.'
'Had you been with your father before then?'
'With Alec? Where else? But I didn't stay on -- I couldn't, could I? John and I lived in a house near Maidenhead -- in the Stockbroker Belt -- and we were very happy. I was happy just being married to John, and happy being a housewife and doing all the things which housewives do, and not having to think about things I didn't want to think about. Alec was disappointed, of course; he'd lost his robot secretary.'
I thought of John Smith, the accountant; the nine-to-fiver who had married Alison Mackintosh. I wondered how he had regarded the situation -- if he ever knew about it. I couldn't see Alison cuddling up on his knee, and saying, 'Darling, you're married to a girl who can shoot a man in the kneecap in impossible light, who can drive a car and fly a plane and kill a man with one karate chop. Don't you think we're going to have a delightful .married life? Look how handy it will be when we're bringing up the children.'
I said, 'And then?'
'And then -- nothing. Just a stupid, silly motorway accident on the M4.' Her face was still and unsmiling and she spoke through stiff lips. 'I thought I'd die, too; I really did. I loved John, you see.'
'I'm sorry,' I said inadequately.
She shrugged and held out her glass for more wine. 'Wanting to die didn't help, of course. I brooded and moped for a while, then I went back to Alec. There wasn't anything else to do." She sipped the wine and looked at me. 'Was there, Owen?'
I said very carefully and non-committally, 'Perhaps not.'
She gave me a wry look, and said, 'You're pussyfooting, Owen. You don't want to hurt my feelings by saying what you think. Well, that's commendable, I suppose.'
'I'm not one to make casual judgments.'
'Without knowing the facts -- is that it? I'll give you some. Alec and my mother never got on very well. I suppose they were basically incompatible, but he was away so often, and she didn't understand his work.'
'Was he in the same work as now?'
'Always, Owen; always. So there was a legal separation just before I was born, and I was born in Waterford where I lived until I was ten when my mother died.'
'Were you happy in Waterford?'
Alison became pensive. 'I don't really know. I can't seem to remember much about those days; there has been so much overlaid on top since.' She stubbed out her cigarette. 'I don't know if anyone would ever call Alec an ideal father. Unorthodox, maybe, but not ideal. I was a bit of a tomboy -never one for frilly frocks and playing with dolls -- and I suppose he took advantage.'
I said slowly, 'You're a woman now.'
'I sometimes wonder about that.' She plucked at the tablecloth with tapering fingers. 'So Alec trained me to be -- I didn't know what. It was fun at the time. I learned to ride a horse, to ski on snow and water, to shoot, to fly -- I'm qualified on jets, did you know that?'
I shook my head.
'It was damned good fun, every bit of it -- even grinding at the languages and mathematics -- until he took me into the office and I learned what it was all for. Then it wasn't fun any more.
'Did he send you out on field jobs?'
'I've been on three,' she said evenly. 'All very successful -and most of the time I was sick to my stomach. But that wasn't the worst of it. The worst was being in the office and sending others out into the field, and watching what happened to them. I planned too many operations, Owen. I planned yours.'
'I know,' I said. 'Mackintosh .. . Alec told me.'
'I became the one person whom he could trust absolutely,' she said. 'A very valuable consideration in the profession.'
I took her hand. 'Alison,' I said. 'What do you really think of Alec?'
'I love him,' she said. 'And I hate him. It's as simple as that.' Her fingers tightened on mine. 'Let's dance, Owen.' There was a hint of desperation in her voice. 'Let's dance.'
So we went on to the dimly lit floor and danced to the sort of music that's usually played in the early hours of the morning, She came very close and rested her head on my shoulder so that her lips were by my ear. 'Do you know what I am, Owen?'
'You're a lovely woman, Alison.'
'No, I'm a Venus Fly Trap. Vegetables -- like women-are supposed to be placid; they're not supposed to be equipped with snapped jaws and sharp teeth. Have you ever watched a fly alight on a Venus Fly Trap? The poor beastie thinks it's just another vegetable plant until the jaws snap closed. Most unnatural, don't you think?'
I tightened my arm about her. Take it easy.'
She danced two more steps and then a deep shudder went through her body. 'Oh, God!' she said. 'Let's go back to the hotel.'
I paid the bill and joined her at the door of the restaurant and we walked the two hundred yards to our hotel. We were both silent as we went up in the lift and along the corridor, but she held my hand tightly as we came to the door of her room. She was trembling a little as she held out her key.
She made love like a maniac, like a savage, and I had the deep scratches on my back to prove it next morning. It seemed as though all the pent-up frustrations of a warped life were loosed on that night-time bed. But when it was over she was relaxed and calm, and we talked
for a long time -- maybe two hours. What we talked about I'll never remember; just inconsequentialities too meaningless to take note of -- she had had time for few trivialities in her serious life.
The second time was better and she was all woman and, when it was over, she fell asleep. I had sense enough to go to my own room before she woke; I thought she would not be too pleased with herself in the sober light of day.
II Wheeler was due that morning and we had plans to make. When she came down to breakfast I was on my first cup of coffee and rose from the table to greet her. She was a little self-conscious as she came up and tended to avoid my eye. I sat down, and said, 'What do we use instead of a limpet?'
When I leaned against the back of the chair I felt the pain as the pressure impinged on the scratches she had inflicted.
Hastily I leaned forward again and took a piece of toast.
I looked up and saw she had snapped back into professionalism as she took in what I said; personal relationships were one thing and the job was quite another. 'I'll check with the Port Captain when Artina is due.'
'We don't want to have a repetition of Gibraltar,' I said. 'One jump from here and Wheeler and Slade will be in Albania -- home and dry. What do we do if Artina arrives in daylight and leaves in daylight?'
'I don't know,' she said.
'There's one thing certain,' I said. 'I can't invade her in the middle of the Grand Harbour in daylight and take Slade off. So what remains?' I answered the question myself. 'We have to make sure she stays all night.'
'But how?'
'I've thought of a way. We'll go shopping after breakfast. Can I butter some toast for you?'
So the pair of us ate a hearty breakfast and sallied forth into the hot streets of Valletta, a heat seemingly intensified by the warm golden limestone of the buildings. The Port Captain expected Artina at midday and that was sad news. Sadder still was the information that the fuelling ship had been booked in advance and was to go alongside as soon as Artina anchored.
Bagley, Desmond - The Freedom Trap Page 19