Triple

by Ken Follett

  Hassan nodded. "What do you suggest?"

  "Well. You'll have to tell what we've found out, of course, but I want you to be as vague as possible about the details. Don't give names, times, places. When you're pushed, complain about me, say I've refused to let you share all the information. Don't talk to anyone except the people you're obliged to report to. In particular, tell nobody about Savile Shipping, the Stromberg, or the Coparelli. As for Pyotr Tyrin being aboard the Coparelli--try to forget it."

  Hassan looked worried. "What's left to tell?"

  "Plenty. Dickstein, Euratom, uranium, the meeting with Pierre Borg . . . you'll be a hero in Cairo if you tell half the story."

  Hassan was not convinced. "I'll be as frank as you. If I do this your way, my report will not be as impressive as yours."

  Rostov gave a wry smile. "Is that unfair?"

  "No," Hassan conceded, "you deserve most of the credit."

  "Besides, nobody but the two of us will know how different the reports are. And you're going to get all the credit you need in the end."

  "All right," Hassan said. "I'll be vague."

  "Good." Rostov waved his hand for a waiter. "You've got a little time, have a quick one before you go." He settled back in his chair and crossed his legs. He was satisfied: Hassan would do as he had been told. "I'm looking forward to getting home."

  "Any plans?"

  "I'll try to take a few days on the coast with Mariya and the boys. We've a dacha in the Riga Bay."

  "Sounds nice."

  "It's pleasant there--but not as warm as where you're going, of course. Where will you head for--Alexandria?"

  The last call for Hassan's flight came over the public address system, and the Arab stood up. "No such luck," he said. "I expect to spend the whole time stuck in filthy Cairo."

  And Rostov had the peculiar feeling that Yasif Hassan was lying.

  Franz Albrecht Pedler's life was ruined when Germany lost the war. At the age of fifty, a career officer in the Wehrmacht, he was suddenly homeless, penniless and unemployed. And, like millions of other Germans, he started again.

  He became a salesman for a French dye manufacturer: small commission, no salary. In 1946 there were few customers, but by 1951 German industry was rebuilding and when at last things began to look up Pedler was in a good position to take advantage of the new opportunities. He opened an office in Wiesbaden, a rail junction on the right bank of the Rhine that promised to develop into an industrial center. His product list grew, and so did his tally of customers: soon he was selling soaps as well as dyes, and he gained entry to the U.S. bases, which at the time administered that part of occupied Germany. He had learned, during the hard years, to be an opportunist: if a U.S. Army procurement officer wanted disinfectant in pint bottles, Pedler would buy disinfectant in ten-gallon drums, pour the stuff from the drums into secondhand bottles in a rented barn, put on a label saying "F. A. Pedler's Special Disinfectant" and resell at a fat profit.

  From buying in bulk and repackaging it was not a very big step to buying ingredients and manufacturing. The first barrel of F. A. Pedler's Special Industrial Cleanser--never called simply "soap"--was mixed in the same rented barn and sold to the U.S. Air Force for use by aircraft maintenance engineers. The company never looked back.

  In the late Fifties Pedler read a book about chemical warfare and went on to win a big defense contract to supply a range of solutions designed to neutralize various kinds of chemical weapons.

  F. A. Pedler had become a military supplier, small but secure and profitable. The rented barn had grown into a small complex of single-story buildings. Franz married again--his first wife had been killed in the 1944 bombing--and fathered a child. But he was still an opportunist at heart, and when he heard about a small mountain of uranium ore going cheap, he smelled a profit.

  The uranium belonged to a Belgian company called Societe Generale de la Chimie. Chimie was one of the corporations which ran Belgium's African colony, the Belgian Congo, a country rich in minerals. After the 1960 pullout Chimie stayed on; but, knowing that those who did not walk out would eventually be thrown out, the company expended all its efforts to ship home as much raw material as it could before the gates slammed shut. Between 1960 and 1965 it accumulated a large stockpile of yellowcake at its refinery near the Dutch border. Sadly for Chimie, a nuclear test ban treaty was ratified in the meantime, and when Chimie was finally thrown out of the Congo there were few buyers for uranium. The yellowcake sat in a silo, tying up scarce capital.

  F. A. Pedler did not actually use very much uranium in the manufacture of their dyes. However, Franz loved a gamble of this sort: the price was low, he could make a little money by having the stuff refined, and if the uranium market improved--as it was likely to sooner or later--he would make a big capital profit. So he bought some.

  Nat Dickstein liked Pedler right away. The German was a sprightly seventy-three-year-old who still had all his hair and the twinkle in his eye. They met on a Saturday. Pedler wore a loud sports jacket and fawn trousers, spoke good English with an American accent and gave Dickstein a glass of Sekt, the local champagne.

  They were wary of each other at first. After all, they had fought on opposite sides in a war which had been cruel to them both. But Dickstein had always believed that the enemy was not Germany but Fascism, and he was nervous only that Pedler might be uneasy. It seemed the same was true of Pedler.

  Dickstein had called from his hotel in Wiesbaden to make an appointment. His call had been awaited eagerly. The local Israeli consul had alerted Pedler that Mr. Dickstein, a senior army procurement officer with a large shopping list, was on his way. Pedler had suggested a short tour of the factory on Saturday morning, when it would be empty, followed by lunch at his home.

  If Dickstein had been genuine he would have been put off by the tour: the factory was no gleaming model of German efficiency, but a straggling collection of old huts and cluttered yards with a pervasive bad smell.

  After sitting up half the night with a textbook on chemical engineering Dickstein was ready with a handful of intelligent questions about agitators and baffles, materials-handling and quality-control and packaging. He relied upon the language problem to camouflage any errors. It seemed to be working.

  The situation was peculiar. Dickstein had to play the role of a buyer and be dubious and noncommittal while the seller wooed him, whereas in reality he was hoping to seduce Pedler into a relationship the German would be unable or unwilling to sever. It was Pedler's uranium he wanted, but he was not going to ask for it, now or ever. Instead he would try to maneuver Pedler into a position where he was dependent upon Dickstein for his livelihood.

  After the factory tour Pedler drove him in a new Mercedes from the works to a wide chalet-style house on a hillside. They sat in front of a big window and sipped their Sekt while Frau Pedler--a pretty, cheerful woman in her forties--busied herself in the kitchen. Bringing a potential customer home to lunch on the weekend was a somewhat Jewish way of doing business, Dickstein mused, and he wondered if Pedler had thought of that.

  The window overlooked the valley. Down below, the river was wide and slow, with a narrow road running alongside it. Small gray houses with white shutters clustered in small groups along the banks, and the vineyards sloped upward to the Pedlers' house and beyond it to the treeline. If I were going to live in a cold country, Dickstein thought, this would do nicely.

  "Well, what do you think?" said Pedler.

  "About the view, or the factory?"

  Pedler smiled and shrugged. "Both."

  "The view is magnificent. The factory is smaller than I expected."

  Pedler lit a cigarette. He was a heavy smoker--he was lucky to have lived so long. "Small?"

  "Perhaps I should explain what I'm looking for."

  "Please."

  Dickstein launched into his story. "Right now the Army buys cleaning materials from a variety of suppliers: detergents from one, ordinary soap from another, solvents for machinery from some
one else and so on. We're trying to cut costs, and perhaps we can do this by taking our entire business in this area to one manufacturer."

  Pedler's eyes widened. "That is . . ." He fumbled for a phrase ". . . a tall order."

  "I'm afraid it may be too tall for you," Dickstein said, thinking: Don't say yes!

  "Not necessarily. The only reason we haven't got that kind of bulk manufacturing capacity is simply that we've never had this scale of business. We certainly have the managerial and technical know-how, and with a large firm order we could get finance to expand . . . it all depends on the figures, really."

  Dickstein picked up his briefcase from beside his chair and opened it. "Here are the specifications for the products," he said, handing Pedler a list. "Plus the quantities required and the time scale. You'll want time to consult with your directors and do your sums--"

  "I'm the boss," Pedler said with a smile. "I don't have to consult anybody. Give me tomorrow to work on the figures, and Monday to see the bank. On Tuesday I'll call and give you prices."

  "I was told you were a good man to work with," Dickstein said.

  "There are some advantages to being a small company."

  Frau Pedler came in from the kitchen and said, "Lunch is ready."

  My darling Suza,

  I have never written a love letter before. I don't think I ever called anyone darling until now. I must tell you, it feels very good.

  I am alone in a strange town on a cold Sunday afternoon. The town is quite pretty, with lots of parks, in fact I'm sitting in one of them now, writing to you with a leaky ballpoint pen and some vile green stationery, the only kind I could get. My bench is beneath a curious kind of pagoda with a circular dome and Greek columns all around in a circle--like a folly, or the kind of summer house you might find in an English country garden designed by a Victorian eccentric. In front of me is a flat lawn dotted with poplar trees, and in the distance I can hear a brass band playing something by Edward Elgar. The park is full of people with children and footballs and dogs.

  I don't know why I'm telling you all this. What I really want to say is I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I knew that a couple of days after we met. I hesitated to tell you, not because I wasn't sure, but

  Well, if you want to know the truth, I thought it might scare you off. I know you love me, but I also know that you are twenty-five, that love comes easily to you (I'm the opposite way), and that love which comes easily may go easily. So I thought: Softly, softly, give her a chance to get to like you before you ask her to say "Forever." Now that we've been apart for so many weeks I'm no longer capable of such deviousness. I just have to tell you how it is with me. Forever is what I want, and you might as well know it now.

  I'm a changed man. I know that sounds trite, but when it happens to you it isn't trite at all, it's just the opposite. Life looks different to me now, in several ways--some of which you know about, others I'll tell you one day. Even this is different, this being alone in a strange place with nothing to do until Monday. Not that I mind it, particularly. But before, I wouldn't even have thought of it as something I might like or dislike. Before, there was nothing I'd prefer to do. Now there is always something I'd rather do, and you're the person I'd rather do it to. I mean with, not to. Well, either, or both. I'm going to have to get off that subject, it's making me fidget.

  I'll be gone from here in a couple of days, don't know where I'm going next, don't know--and this is the worst part--don't even know when I'll see you again. But when I do, believe me, I'm not going to let you out of my sight for ten or fifteen years.

  None of this sounds how it's supposed to sound. I want to tell you how I feel, and I can't put it into words. I want you to know what it's like for me to picture your face many times every day, to see a slender girl with black hair and hope, against all reason, that somehow she might be you, to imagine all the time what you might say about a view, a newspaper article, a small man with a large dog, a pretty dress; I want you to know how, when I get into bed alone, I just ache with the need to touch you.

  I love you so much.

  N.

  Franz Pedler's secretary phoned Nat Dickstein at his hotel on Tuesday morning and made a date for lunch.

  They went to a modest restaurant in the Wilhelmstrasse and ordered beer instead of wine: this was to be a working session. Dickstein controlled his impatience--Pedler, not he, was supposed to do the wooing.

  Pedler said, "Well, I think we can accommodate you."

  Dickstein wanted to shout "Hooray!" but he kept his face impassive.

  Pedler continued: "The prices, which I'll give you in a moment, are conditional. We need a five-year contract. We will guarantee prices for the first twelve months; after that they may be varied in accordance with an index of world prices of certain raw materials. And there's a cancellation penalty amounting to ten percent of the value of one year's supply."

  Dickstein wanted to say, "Done!" and shake hands on the deal, but he reminded himself to continue to play his part. "Ten percent is stiff."

  "It's not excessive," Pedler argued. "It certainly would not recompense us for our losses if you did cancel. But it must be large enough to deter you from canceling except under very compelling circumstances."

  "I see that. But we may suggest a smaller percentage."

  Pedler shrugged. "Everything is negotiable. Here are the prices."

  Dickstein studied the list, then said, "This is close to what we're looking for."

  "Does that mean we have a deal?"

  Dickstein thought: Yes, yes! But he said, "No, it means that I think we can do business."

  Pedler beamed. "In that case," he said, "let's have a real drink. Waiter!"

  When the drinks came Pedler raised his glass in a toast. "To many years of business together."

  "I'll drink to that," Dickstein said. As he raised his glass he was thinking: How about that--I did it again!

  Life at sea was uncomfortable, but it was not as bad as Pyotr Tyrin had expected. In the Soviet Navy, ships had been run on the principles of unremitting hard work, harsh discipline and bad food. The Coparelli was very different. The captain, Eriksen, asked only for safety and good seamanship, and even there his standards were not remarkably high. The deck was swabbed occasionally, but nothing was ever polished or painted. The food was quite good, and Tyrin had the advantage of sharing a cabin with the cook. In theory Tyrin could be called upon at any hour of the day or night to send radio signals, but in practice all the traffic occurred during the normal working day so he even got his eight hours sleep every night. It was a comfortable regimen, and Pyotr Tyrin was concerned about comfort.

  Sadly, the ship was the opposite of comfortable. She was a bitch. As soon as they rounded Cape Wrath and left The Minch and the North Sea she began to pitch and roll like a toy yacht in a gale. Tyrin felt terribly seasick, and had to conceal it since he was supposed to be a sailor. Fortunately this occurred while the cook was busy in the galley and Tyrin was not needed in the radio room, so he was able to lie flat on his back in his bunk until the worst was over.

  The quarters were poorly ventilated and inadequately heated, so immediately it got a little damp above, the mess decks were full of wet clothing hanging up to dry and making the atmosphere worse.

  Tyrin's radio gear was in his sea-bag, well protected by polythene and canvas and some sweaters. However, he could not set it up and operate it in his cabin, where the cook or anyone else might walk in. He had already made routine radio contact with Moscow on the ship's radio, during a quiet--but nonetheless tense--moment when nobody was listening; but he needed something safer and more reliable.

  Tyrin was a nest-building man. Whereas Rostov would move from embassy to hotel room to safe house without noticing his environment, Tyrin liked to have a base, a place where he could feel comfortable and familiar and secure. On static surveillance, the kind of assignment he preferred, he would always find a large easy chair to place in front of the window, an
d would sit at the telescope for hours, perfectly content with his bag of sandwiches, his bottle of soda and his thoughts. Here on the Coparelli, he had found a place to nest.

  Exploring the ship in daylight, he had discovered a little labyrinth of stores up in the bow beyond the for'ard hatch. The naval architect had put them there merely to fill a space between the hold and the prow. The main store was entered by a semiconcealed door down a flight of steps. It contained some tools, several drums of grease for the cranes and--inexplicably--a rusty old lawn mower. Several smaller rooms opened off the main one: some containing ropes, bits of machinery and decaying cardboard boxes of nuts and bolts; others empty but for insects. Tyrin had never seen anyone enter the area--stuff that was used was stored aft, where it was needed.

  He chose a moment when darkness was falling and most of the crew and officers were at supper. He went to his cabin, picked up his sea-bag and climbed the companionway to the deck. He took a flashlight from a locker below the bridge but did not yet switch it on.

  The almanac said there was a moon, but it did not show through the thick clouds. Tyrin made his way stealthily for'ard holding on to the gunwale, where his silhouette would be less likely to show against the off-white deck. There was some light from the bridge and the wheelhouse, but the duty officers would be watching the surrounding sea, not the deck.

  Cold spray fell on him, and as the Coparelli executed her notorious roll he had to grab the rail with both hands to avoid being swept overboard. At times she shipped water--not much, but enough to soak into Tyrin's sea boots and freeze his feet. He hoped fervently that he would never find out what she was like in a real gale.

  He was miserably wet and shivering when he reached the bow and entered the little disused store. He closed the door behind him, switched on his flashlight and made his way through the assorted junk to one of the small rooms off the main store. He closed that door behind him too. He took off his oilskin, rubbed his hands on his sweater to dry and warm them some, then opened his bag. He put the transmitter in a corner, lashed it to the bulkhead with a wire tied through rings in the deck, and wedged it with a cardboard box.