Circus

4

Most of the following day was given up to dismantling the bewildering variety and daunting amount of equipment inside the arena, the backstage and the fairground and loading up the half-mile-long train. To transfer this, the animal cages, the prefabricated offices, the fairground booths and Bruno’s ramshackle mentalist theatre, not to mention the animals and circus members to the coaches and flat-cars, was a massive undertaking that to the layman would have appeared well-nigh impossible: the circus, with its generations of experience behind it, performed the task with an almost ludicrous ease, a smooth efficiency that reduced a seemingly hopeless confusion to a near-miracle of precision and order. Even the loading up of provisions for the hundreds of animals and humans would have seemed a most formidable task: in the event the last of the provision trucks departed less than an hour after the first had arrived. The whole operation could have been likened to an exercise in military logistics with the sole proviso that any unbiased and expert observer would have conceded that the circus had unquestionably the edge in efficiency. The circus train was due to pull out at ten o’clock that night. At nine o’clock, Dr Harper was still closeted with the admiral, studying two very complicated diagrams.

The admiral had a pipe in one hand, a brandy in the other. He looked relaxed, calm and unconcerned. It was possible that he might just have been relaxed and calm but, as the sole instigator of the forthcoming operation, the man who had conceived and planned it all down to the last and most intimate detail possible, it was impossible that he should not be concerned. He said: “You have it all? Guards, entry, interior layout, exit and escape route to the Baltic?”

“I have it all. I just hope that damned ship is there for rendezvous.” Harper folded the diagrams and pushed them deeply into the inside pocket of his coat.

“You break in on a Tuesday night. They’ll be cruising offshore from the Friday to the following Friday. A whole week’s grace.”

“Won’t the East Germans or the Poles or the Russians be suspicious, sir?”

“Inevitably. Wouldn’t you?”

“Won’t they object?”

“How can they? Since when has the Baltic been anyone’s private pond? Of course they’re going to tie up the presence of the ship — or ships — with the presence of the circus in Crau, Inevitable, and nothing we can do about it. The circus, the circus.” The admiral sighed. “You’d better deliver the goods, Harper, or I’m going to be on welfare before the year is out.” Harper smiled. “I wouldn’t like that, sir. And you know better than anyone that the ultimate responsibility for the delivery of the goods doesn’t lie in my hands.” “I know. Have you formed any personal impression of our latest recruit yet?”

“Nothing more than is obvious to anyone else, sir. He’s intelligent, tough, strong and appears to have been born without a nervous system. He’s a very close person. Maria Hopkins says that it’s impossible to get next to him.” “What?” The admiral quirked a bushy eyebrow. “That delightful young child? I’m sure if she really tried —” “I didn’t quite mean it that way, sir.”

“Peace, Harper, peace. I do not endeavour to be facetious. There are times that are sent to try men’s souls. Although I know we have no option it is not easy to have to rely in the final analysis on an unknown. Apart from the fact that if he fails — well, there’s only one way he can fail and then he’ll be on my conscience for the remainder of my days. And don’t you add to that burden.”

“Sir?”

“Mind your back is what I mean. Those papers you’ve just stuck — securely, I trust — in your inside pocket. You are aware, of course, what will happen if you are caught with those in your possession?”

Harper sighed. “I am aware. I’ll have my throat cut and end up, suitably weighted, in some canal or river. Doubtless you can always find a replacement.”

“Doubtless. But the way things are going I’m going to be running out of replacements quite soon, so I’d rather not be put to the trouble. You are quite sure you have the times of transmission and the code totally memorized?”

Harper said gloomily: “You don’t have much faith in your subordinates, sir.”

“The way things have been going recently, I don’t have much faith in myself, either.”

Harper touched the bottom of his medical bag. “This postage stamp transceiver. You sure you can pick me up?” “We’re using NASA equipment. We could pick you up on the moon.”

“I somehow wish I was going there.”

Some six hours after departure the circus train drew into a shunting yard. Arc lamps apart, the darkness was total and the rain very heavy. There, after an interminable period of advancing, reversing, bumping, clanking and screeching of wheels on points — the combination of all of which effectively succeeded in waking up everyone aboard — a considerable number of preselected coaches were detached, subsequently to be hauled south to their winter quarters in Florida. The main body of the train continued on its way to New York.

Nothing untoward had happened en route. Bruno, who invariably cooked for himself, had not left his quarters once. He had been visited twice by his brothers, once by Wrinfield and once by Harper but by no one else: known to everybody as a loner, he was invariably treated as such.

Not until the train had arrived on the quay alongside the container-passenger ship that was to take them to Genoa — selected not so much for its strategical geographical position as the fact that it was one of the few Mediterranean ports with the facilities to off-load the crane-breaking coaches and flat cars — did Bruno leave his quarters. It was still raining. One of the first persons he encountered was Maria. She was dressed in navy slacks, a voluminous yellow oilskin, and looked thoroughly miserable. She gave him the nearest she would ever be able to come to a scowl and came to the point with what he had now come to regard as her customary straightforwardness. “Not very sociable, are you?”

“I’m sorry. But you did know where I was.” “I had nothing to tell you.” Then, inconsequentially: “You knew where I was.”

“I find telephone boxes cramping.”

“You could have invited me. While I know we’re supposed to be striking up some special relationship I don’t go openly chasing after men.”

“You don’t have to.” He smiled to rob the next words of offence. “Or do you prefer to do it discreetly?” “Very amusing. Very clever. You have no shame?”

“For what?”

“Your shameful neglect.”

“Lots.”

“Then take me to dinner tonight.”

“Telepathy, Maria. Sheer telepathy.”

She gave him a look of disbelief and left to change. They switched taxis three times on the way to the pleasant Italian restaurant Maria had chosen. When they were seated Bruno said: “Was all that necessary? The taxis, I mean?” “I don’t know. I follow orders.”

“Why are we here? You miss me so much?”

“I have instructions for you.”

“Not my dark eyes?” She smiled and shook her head and he sighed. “You can’t win them all. What instructions?” “I suppose you’re going to say that I could easily have whispered them to you in some dark corner on the quayside?” “A prospect not without its attractions. But not tonight.”

“Why?”

“It’s raining.”

“What is it like to be a romantic at heart?” “And I like it here. Very pleasant restaurant.” He looked at her consideringly, at the blue velvet dress, the fur cape that was far too expensive for a secretary, the sheen of rain on her shining dark hair. “Besides, in the dark I wouldn’t be able to see you. Here I can. You’re really very beautiful. What instructions?”

“What?” She was momentarily flustered, unbalanced by the sudden switch, then compressed her lips in mock ferociousness. “We sail at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning. Please be in your cabin at six o’clock in the evening. At that hour the purser will arrive to discuss seating arrangements, or some such, with you. He’s a genuine purser but he’s also something else. He will make absolutely certain that there are no listening devices in your cabin.” Bruno remained silent. “I notice you’re not talking about melodrama this time.”

Bruno said with some weariness: “Because it hardly seems worth talking about. Why on earth should anyone plant bugs in my cabin? I’m not under any suspicion. But I will be if you and Harper keep on behaving in this idiotic cloak-and-dagger fashion. Why the bugging of Wrinfield’s office? Why were two men sent to look for bugs in my place aboard the train? Why this character now? Too many people seeing that I’m debugged, too many people knowing that I can’t possibly be all that I claim to be or that the circus claims that I am. Too many people having their attention called to me. I don’t like it one little bit.”

“Please. There’s no need to be like that —”

“Isn’t there? Your opinion. And don’t be soothing to me.” “Look, Bruno, I’m just a messenger. Directly, there’s no reason on earth why you should be under suspicion. But we are — or we’re going to be up against an extremely efficient and suspicious secret police, who certainly won’t overlook the slightest possibility. After all, the information we want is in Crau. We’re going to Crau. You were born in Crau. And they will know that you have the strongest possible motivation — revenge. They killed your wife —” “Be quiet!” Maria recoiled, appalled by the quiet ferocity in his voice. “Nobody has spoken of her to me in six and a half years. Mention my dead wife again and I’ll pull out, wreck the whole operation and leave you to explain to your precious chief why it was your gaucherie, your ill manners, your total lack of feeling, your incredible insensitivity that ruined everything. You understand?”

“I understand.” She was very pale, shocked almost, tried to understand the enormity of her blunder and failed. She ran a slow tongue across her lips. “I’m sorry, I’m terribly sorry. That was a very bad mistake.” She still wasn’t sure what the mistake was about. “But never again, I promise.”

He said nothing.

“Dr Harper says please be outside your cabin at 6.30 p.m., sitting on the floor — sorry, deck — at the foot of the companionway. You have fallen down and damaged your ankle. You will be found and helped to your cabin. Dr Harper will, of course, be there almost immediately. He wishes to give you a full briefing on the nature of the operation.”

“Has he told you?” There was still a singular lack of warmth in Bruno’s voice.

“He told me nothing. If I know Dr Harper he’ll probably tell you to tell me nothing either.”

“I will do what you ask. Now that you’ve completed your business, we may as well get back. Three taxis for you, of course, rules are rules. I’ll take one straight back to the ship. It’s quicker and cheaper and the hell with the CIA.”

She reached out a tentative hand and touched his arm. “I have apologized. Sincerely. How long must I keep on doing it?” When he made no answer she smiled at him and the smile was as her hand had been, tentative and uncertain. “You’d think a person who earns as much money as you do could afford to buy a meal for a working girl like myself. Or do we go Dutch? Please don’t leave. I don’t want to go back. Not yet.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. It’s — it’s just one of those obscure — I don’t know. I just want to make things right.”

“I was right. First time out. You are a goose.” He sighed, reached out for a menu and handed it to her. He gave her an odd look. “Funny. I thought your eyes were dark. They’ve gone all brown. Dark, flecked brown, mind you, but still brown. How do you do it? Have you a switch or something?” She looked at him solemnly. “No switch.”

“Must be my eyes then. Tell me, why couldn’t Dr Harper have come and told me all this himself?”

“It would have created a very odd impression if you two were seen leaving together. You never speak to each other. What’s he to you or you to him?”

“Ah!”

“With us it’s different. Or had you forgotten? The most natural thing in the world. I’m in love with you and you’re in love with me.”

“He’s still in love with his dead wife.” Maria’s voice was flat, neutral. Elbows on the guard-rail, she was standing on the passenger deck of the M.C. Carpentaria, apparently oblivious to the chill night wind, watching in apparent fascination but without really registering what she was seeing as the giant dock-side cranes, with their blazing attached arc-lamps, swung the coaches inboard.

She started as a hand laid itself on her arm and a teasing voice said: “Who’s in love with whose wife, then?” She turned and looked at Henry Wrinfield. The thin intelligent face, chalk-white in the glare of the arc-lamps, was smiling.

“You might have coughed or something,” she said reproachfully.

“You did give me a fright, you know.”

“Sorry. But I could have been wearing hob-nailed boots and you wouldn’t have heard me above the racket of those damned cranes. Well, come out with it, who’s in love with who?” “What are you talking about?”

“Love,” Henry said patiently. “You were declaiming something about it when I came up.”

“Was I?” Her voice was vague. “I wouldn’t be surprised. My sister says I talk non-stop in my sleep. Maybe I was asleep on my feet. Did you hear any other Freudian slips or whatever?” “Alas, no. My loss, I’m sure. What on earth are you doing out here? It’s cold and starting to rain.” He had lost interest in the remark he’d overheard.

She shivered. “Day-dreaming. I must have been. It’s cold.”

“Come inside. They have a beautiful old-fashioned bar aboard.

And warm. A brandy will make you warmer.”

“Bed would make me warmer still. Time I was there.”

“You spurn a night-cap with the last of the Wrinfields?” “Never!” She laughed and took his arm. “Show me the way.”

The lounge — it could hardly have been called a bar — had deep green leather armchairs, brass tables, a very attentive steward and excellent brandy. Maria had one of those, Henry had three and at the end of the third Henry, who clearly had no head for alcohol, had developed a distinct, if gentlemanly, yearning look about the eyes. He took one of her hands in his and yearned some more. Maria looked at his hand. “It’s unfair,” she said. “Custom dictates that a lady wears an engagement ring when she is engaged, a wedding ring when she is married. No such duty devolves upon a man. I think it’s wrong.”

“So do I.” If she’d said he ought to wear a cowbell around his neck he’d have agreed to that, too.

“Then where’s yours?”

“My what?”

“Your engagement ring. Cecily wears one. Your fiancée. Remember? The green-eyed one at Bryn Mawr. Surely you can’t have forgotten?”

The fumes evaporated from Henry’s head. “You’ve been asking questions about me?”

“Never a one and no need to ask either. You forgot I spend a couple of hours a day with your uncle. No children of his own so his nieces and nephews have become his pride and joy.” She gathered her handbag and rose. “Thank you for the nightcap. Good-night and sweet dreams. Be sure to dream about the right person.”

Henry watched her go with a moody eye.

Maria had been in bed no more than five minutes when a knock came at her cabin door. She called: “Come in. It’s not locked.”

Bruno entered and closed the door behind him. “It should be locked. What with characters like myself and Henry prowling around —” “Henry?”

“Last seen calling for a double brandy. Looks like a Romeo who’s just found out that he’s been serenading the wrong balcony. Nice chain.”

“You’ve come to discuss decor at this time of night?”

“You allocated this room?”

“Funny question. As a matter of fact, no. There were seven or eight cabins to choose from, the steward, a very nice old boy, offered me my pick. I took this one.”

“Liked the decor, eh?”

“Why did you come, Bruno?”

“To say good-night, I guess.” He sat beside her, put an arm around her shoulders and held her close. “And to apologize for snapping at you in the restaurant. I’ll explain to you later — when we’re on our way home.” He rose as abruptly as he had sat down, opened the door, said: “Lock it!” and closed the door behind him. Maria stared at the door in total astonishment. The Carpentaria was big — close on thirty thousand tons — and had been built primarily as a bulk ore ship capable of immediate conversion into a container vessel. She was also capable of carrying nearly two hundred passengers, though hardly in transatlantic passenger line style. Her front two holds were at the moment taken up by twenty circus train coaches, animal and crew member coaches mainly, while the contents of a dozen others had been unloaded on the quay and carefully stowed away in the holds. The flat cars were securely clamped on the reinforced foredeck. In Italy they were to be met by a sufficiency of empty coaches and a locomotive powerful enough to haul them across the mountains of central Europe. At six o’clock on the following evening the Carpentaria, in driving rain and a heavy swell — she was stabilized to reduce roll to a minimum — was seven hours out from New York. Bruno was stretched out on a settee in his cabin — one of the very few rather sumptuous staterooms available on the vessel — when a knock came to the door and a uniformed purser entered. To Bruno’s lack of surprise he was carrying a thick black briefcase.

He said: “Good evening, sir. Were you expecting me?”

“I was expecting someone. I suppose that’s you.” “Thank you, sir. May I?” He locked the door behind him, turned to Bruno and tapped his case. “The paperwork for a modern purser,” he said sadly, “is endless.” He opened the brief-case, extracted a flat, rectangular metal box, liberally covered with dials and controls, extended an antenna from it, clamped on a pair of earphones and began, slowly, to traverse first the stateroom and then the bathroom, assiduously twirling his controls as he went. He looked like a cross between a mine detector and a water diviner. After about ten minutes he divested himself of his equipment and stowed it away in his briefcase.

“Clear,” he said. “No guarantee, mind you — but as sure as I can be.”

Bruno indicated the briefcase. “I know nothing about those things but I thought they were foolproof.”

“So they are. On dry land. But on a ship you have so much iron, the hull being used as a conductor, magnetic fields from all the heavy power cables — well, anyone can be fooled. I can. So can my electronic friend here.” He put out a hand to a bulkhead to steady himself as the Carpentaria, apparently forgetting all about its stabilizers, gave an unexpected lurch. “Looks like a nasty night coming up. Shouldn’t be surprised if we have a few sprains and bruises this evening. First night out, you know — people haven’t had time to find their sea-legs.” Bruno wondered if he had seen a wink or not, it could have been imagination and he had no means of knowing how much the purser was in Harper’s confidence. He made a noncommittal remark to the purser, who thanked him politely, unlocked the door and left.

Precisely at six-thirty Bruno stepped out into the passageway. It was, fortunately, quite deserted. The foot of the companionway was only six feet away. Half-seated, half-lying, he seated himself as comfortably as possible in the most suitably uncomfortable looking position on the deck and awaited developments. Five minutes passed, and he was beginning to develop an acute cramp in his right knee, when a couple of stewards appeared and rescued him from his misery. To the accompaniment of much tongue-clacking they assisted him sympathetically to his stateroom and lowered him tenderly to his settee.

“Just you hang on a minute, guv’nor,” one of them said. He had a powerful Cockney accent. “I’ll have Dr Berenson here in a jiffy.”

It hadn’t occurred to Bruno — as it apparently hadn’t occurred to Harper — that the Carpentaria would be carrying its own doctor, which was an elementary oversight on both their parts: over and above a certain passenger capacity international law made the carrying of a ship’s doctor mandatory. He said quickly: “Could I have our own doctor, please — the circus doctor? His name is Dr Harper.”

“I know his cabin, next deck down. At once, sir.” Harper must have been waiting in his cabin, medical bag in hand, for he arrived in Bruno’s cabin, tongue-clacking and looking suitably concerned, inside thirty seconds. He locked the stateroom door after the stewards’ departure, then set to work on Bruno’s ankle with some extremely pungent salve and about a yard of elasticized bandage.

He said: “Mr Carter was on schedule?”

“If Mr Carter is the purser — he didn’t introduce himself — yes.”

Harper paused in his ministrations and looked around. “Clean?”

“Did you expect anything else?”

“Not really.” Harper inspected his completed handiwork: both the visual and olfactory aspects were suitably impressive. Harper brought over a low table, reached into an inside pocket, brought out and smoothed two detailed plans and set some photographs down beside them. He tapped one of the plans. “This one first. The plan outline of the Lubylan Advanced Research Centre. Know it?”

Bruno eyed Harper without enthusiasm. “I hope that’s the last stupidly unnecessary question you ask this evening.” Harper assumed the look of a man trying not to look hurt. “Before the CIA recruited me for this job —” “How do you know it’s the CIA?”

Bruno rolled his eyes upwards then clearly opted for restraint. “Before the Boy Scouts recruited me for this job they’d have checked every step I’ve taken from the cradle. To your certain knowledge you know I spent the first twenty-four years of my life in Crau. How should I not know Lubylan?” “Yes. Well. Oddly enough, they do carry out advanced research in Lubylan, most of it, regrettably, associated with chemical warfare, nerve gases and the like.” “Regrettably? The United States doesn’t engage in similar research?”

Harper looked pained. “That’s not my province.” Bruno said patiently: “Look, Doctor, if you can’t trust me how can you expect me to repose implicit trust in you? It is your province and you damned well know it. Remember the Armed Forces courier centre at Orly Airport. All the top-secret classified communications between the Pentagon and the American Army in Europe were channelled through there. Remember.”

“I remember.”

“Remember a certain Sergeant Johnson? Fellow with the splendidly patriotic Christian names of Robert Lee? Russia’s most successful planted spy in a generation, passed every US-Europe top military secret to the KGB for God knows how long. Remember?”

Harper nodded unhappily. “I remember.” Bruno’s briefing was not going exactly as he’d planned it.

“Then you won’t have forgotten that the Russians published photo-copies of one of the top-secret directives that Johnson had stolen. It was the ultimate US contingency plan if the Soviet Union should overrun western Europe. It suggested that in the event the United States intended to devastate the Continent by waging bacteriological, chemical and nuclear warfare: the fact that the entire civilian population would be virtually wiped out was taken for granted. This cause a tremendous furore in Europe at the time and cost the Americans the odd European friend, about two hundred million of them: I doubt whether it even made the back page of the Washington Post!” “You’re very well informed.”

“Not being a member of the CIA doesn’t mean you have to be illiterate. I can read. German is my second language — my mother was a Berliner. Two German magazines carried the story at the same time.”

Harper was resigned. “Der Spiegel and Stern, September 1969. Does it give you any particular pleasure in putting me on a hook and watching me wriggle?”

“That wasn’t my intention. I just want to point up two things. If you don’t level with me all the time and on every subject you can expect no co-operation from me. Then I want you to know why I’ve really gone along with this. I have no idea whether the Americans really would go ahead with this holocaust. I can’t believe it but what I believe doesn’t matter: it’s what the East believes and if they believe that America would not hesitate to implement this threat then they might be sorely tempted to carry out a pre-emptive strike. From what I understood from Colonel Fawcett a millionth of a gram of this antimatter would settle America’s hash once and for all. I don’t think anyone should have this weapon, but, for me, it’s the lesser of two evils: I’m European by birth but American by adoption. I’ll stick to my adopted parents. And now, could we get on with it. Lay it all on the line. Let’s say I’ve never heard of or seen Crau and go on from there.”

Harper looked at him without enthusiasm. He said sourly: “If it was your intention to introduce a subtle change in our relationships you have succeeded beyond any expectation you might have had. Only, I wouldn’t call it very subtle. Well. Lubylan. Conveniently enough, it’s situated only a quarter of a mile from the auditorium where the circus will be held: both buildings, though in the town, are, as one would expect, on the outskirts. Lubylan, as you can see, faces on to a main street.” “There are two buildings shown on that diagram.” “I’m coming to that. Those two buildings, incidentally, are connected by two high walls which are not shown in the plan.” Harper quickly sketched them in. “At the back of Lubylan is only wasteland. The nearest building in that direction is an oilfired electric power station. This building that abuts on the main street — let’s call it the west building — is where the actual research is carried out. In the east building, the one abutting the wasteland at the back, research is also carried out, but research of a different kind and almost certainly much nastier than that carried out in the west building. In the east building they carry out a series of highly unpleasant experiments — on human beings. It’s run entirely by the secret police and is the maximum security detention centre for the enemies of the State, who may range from a would-be assassin of the Premier to a weak-minded dissident poet. The mortality rate, I understand, is rather higher than normal.”

“I suppose it’s my turn to say that you are very well informed.”

“We don’t send a man in blindfolded and with his hands tied behind his back. This, crossing the courtyard here, is an elevated fifth floor corridor connecting the two buildings. It is glass-sided and glass-topped and kept brightly illuminated from dusk to dawn. It is impossible for anyone to use it without being seen.

Every window in both buildings is heavily barred. All are nevertheless fitted with burglar alarms. There are only two entrances, one for each building, both time-locked and heavily guarded. The buildings are both nine storeys high and the connecting walls are the same height. The whole upper perimeter of the walls is lined with closely spaced, outward curving metal spikes, the whole with two thousand volts running through them. There’s a watch-tower at every corner. The guards there have machine-guns, searchlights and klaxons. The courtyard between the two buildings, like the elevated glass corridor, is brightly lit at night — not that that matters so much: killer Dobermann Pinschers roam the place all the time.” Bruno said: “You have a great gift for encouraging people.” “You’d rather not know these things? There are only two ways of escaping from this place — death by torture or death by suicide. No one has ever escaped.” Dr Harper indicated the other diagram. “This is the plan layout of the ninth floor of the west building. This is why the government is mounting a multimillion dollar operation — to get you in here. This is where Van Diemen works, eats, sleeps and has his being.” “Should I know the name?”

“Most unlikely. He’s almost totally unknown to the public. In the western world fellow-scientists speak of him with awe. An acknowledged genius — the only indisputable genius — in particle research. The discoverer of anti-matter — the only man in the world who has the secret of making, storing and harnessing this fearful weapon.”

“He’s Dutch?”

“Despite his name, no. He’s a renegade West German, a defector. God only knows why he defected. Here you can see his laboratories and office. Here is the guards’ room — the place, understandably, is guarded like Fort Knox twenty-four hours a day. And this is his living quarters — just a small bedroom, an even smaller bathroom and a tiny kitchenette.” “You mean he hasn’t got a home? It would make things a damn sight easier if he had.”

“He’s got a home, all right, a splendid lake-forest mansion given him by the government. He’s never even been there. He lives for nothing but his work and he never leaves here. One suspects the government is just as happy that he continues to do so: it makes their security problem comparatively simple.” “Yes. To come back to another simple problem. You say that no one has ever escaped from Lubylan. Then how the hell do you expect me to get in there?”

“Well, now.” Harper cleared his throat; he was putting his first foot on very delicate ground. “We’d given the matter some thought, of course, before we approached you. Which is why we approached you and only you. The place, as I’ve said, is ringed with a two thousand volt fence of steel. The power has to come from some place: it comes from the electric power station at the back of the east building. Like most high-power transmissions it comes by overhead cable. It comes by a single loop, three hundred yards long, from a pylon in the power station to the top of the east building.”

“You’re way out of your mind. You must be. If you’re so crazy as to suggest —” Harper prepared to be diplomatic, persuasive and reasonable all at once. “Let’s look at it this way. Let’s think of it as just another high wire. As long as you are in contact with this cable, with either hands or feet, and don’t earth yourself to anything such as the anchor wire for a pylon insulator, then —” “Let’s think of it as just another high wire,” Bruno mimicked. “Two thousand volts — that’s what they use, or used to use, in the electric chair, isn’t it?”

Harper nodded unhappily.

“In the circus you step from a platform on to the wire, and step off on to another platform at the other end. If I step off from the pylon on to the wire or from the wire on to the prison wall, I’ll have one foot on the cable and the other to earth. I’ll be frizzled in a second flat. And three hundred yards long — have you any kind of idea what kind of sag that entails? Can you imagine what the effects of that sag combined with whatever wind may be blowing would be like? Has it occurred to you that, at this time of year, there might be both ice and snow on that wire? God’s sake, Dr Harper, don’t you know that our lives depend on the friction coefficient between the soles of our feet and the wire — the cable, in this case. Believe me, Doctor, you may know a lot about counter-espionage but you know damn all about the high wire.”

Harper looked even more unhappy.

“And should I ever live to cross that cable how do I ever live to cross that courtyard — that illuminated courtyard patrolled by Dobermanns — or cross over that transparent aerial corridor, assuming I could ever get to it in the first place? And if I do get to the west building, how am I going to get past the guards?” Harper was now looking acutely unhappy. “And if I do manage that — I’m not a gambler but I’ll lay a thousand to one I never make it — how am I going to locate the place where those papers are kept? I mean, I don’t suppose they’d just be lying around on a table. They’ll be locked away — Van Diemen may just even sleep with them under his pillow.”

Harper studiously avoided Bruno’s eye. He was distinctly and understandably uncomfortable. He said: “Locked filing cabinets or safes are no problems — I can give you keys that should open any commercial office lock.”

“And if it’s a combination?”

“Looks as if you’re going to need a little luck all the way.” Bruno gazed at the deckhead, considered the enormity of this understatement, pushed the papers away and relapsed into speechlessness. After quite some time he stirred, looked at Harper, sighed and said: “I’m afraid I’m going to need a gun. A silenced gun. With plenty of ammunition.” Harper went through his own speechless act then said: “You mean you’re going to try?” If he were experiencing any feelings of hope or relief he didn’t show them: there was only a dull disbelief in his voice.

“Once a nut, always a nut. Not a gun that fires bullets. A gas gun or one that fires anaesthetic darts. Possible?” “That’s what diplomatic bags are for,” Harper said, almost absently. “Look, I don’t think I’d properly appreciated the difficulties myself. If you think it’s outright impossible —” “You’re mad. I’m mad. We’re all mad. But you’ve got the whole damned circus at sea now — as far as I’m concerned we’re at sea in more ways than one — and if nothing else we owe it to your murdered colleagues. The gun.” Harper, clearly, was searching for suitable words and failed. He said: “You will keep those diagrams and pictures in a place of absolute safety?”

“Yes.” Bruno rose, picked up papers and photographs, tore them into little pieces, took them to the bathroom and flushed them down the toilet. He returned and said: “They’re safe now.”

“It would be difficult for anyone to get their hands on them now. A remarkable gift. I’d be grateful if you didn’t fall down the stairs — genuinely this time — land on your head and give yourself amnesia. Any idea how you’re going to set about this?”

“Look, I’m a mentalist, not Merlin the wizard. How long have you known about this?”

“Not long. A few weeks.”

“Not long. A few weeks.” Bruno made it sound like a few years. “And have you worked out any solution yet?” “No.”

“And you expect me to do it in a few minutes?” Harper shook his head and rose. “I suppose Wrinfield will be along to see you in a short time — he’s bound to hear of your accident any moment and he doesn’t know it was rigged, although you can tell him that. How much do you propose telling him?”

“Nothing. If I told him this suicidal scheme you have in mind for me he’d have this ship turned round in less time than it could take him to wash his hands of you.”