By Stealth

31

`We thought you were dead,' Tweed said as he shook Cardon's bony hand. 'The plane crash. The bomb…'

`I didn't travel aboard that flight. As you suggested, I took a flight to Hong Kong which was leaving almost immediately. Thailand can be hopelessly inefficient. Clearly they must have left my name on the passenger manifest.'

`I didn't think you'd obeyed Monica,' Tweed said. `I thought you'd decided to board that plane.'

He sat behind his desk as Cardon sagged into the armchair again. Philip Cardon had a bony face, narrow alert eyes, was of slim build, and with a nervous energy which made his movements swift and agile. He reminded Monica of a squirrel.

`I heard her all right,' Cardon explained. `What worried me was that someone else might be listening in – even when I was in a public call box at the airport.'

`Sounds unlikely, I'd have thought.'

`Not in Thailand. Corruption is universal. Information is bought everywhere. From Hong Kong I caught another plane to San Francisco, then straight across the States to New York. That was the only delay – they wouldn't let Concorde take off for several hours. Ten-tenths fog. Which is why I scared Monica out of her wits when I rolled in here a few hours ago…'

`I tried to phone you,' Monica told Tweed.

`Thor couldn't have woken me. Philip, don't you need some rest? You must be jet-lagged out of your mind.'

Cardon had dark circles under his eyes. His face had a drawn look. He swallowed black coffee from the mug Monica had provided, shook his head.

`I can keep going a while longer. I must. Things you've got to hear. The adrenalin is roaring. Start at the beginning, shall I?'

`Go ahead then. But only until the fatigue catches up with you. Then I'm packing you off to your flat.'

Tweed, suddenly thoroughly awake, relaxed in his chair. He perched one elbow on his desk, his knuckled hand supporting his chin as he studied the man back from the dead.

I managed to reach Lop Nor,' Cardon began in a casual way.

`Lop Nor!' Tweed was astounded. He jumped up, walked to the wall map of the world, pointed to a certain position. 'You can't mean Lop Nor in Sinkiang where the Chinese have their atom-bomb plant? That's a vast distance.'

`Yes, that Lop Nor,' Cardon agreed as Tweed returned to his chair. 'I was disguised as a peasant. I hopped on board a plane in Chungking bound for Lop Nor. I'd made friends with a dubious individual who wanted me to carry a package for a small sum. He sat in the opposite seat as though we were strangers. A rocky old crate it was. Lord knows how it crossed the mountains, and breathing was difficult for a while. Just before we landed I got up to go to the loo and slipped the package back into my so-called friend's coat. On landing we were searched. He was arrested by the security service for carrying drugs.'

He paused to drink more coffee. Monica stared at him in amazement.

`You make it sound so easy,' she commented.

`Oh, it's like anywhere else in the world. Security is lousy. You need cheek, bags of self-confidence – plus the ability to look like a Chinese and a knowledge of the lingua franca. Mind you, the Chinese can travel for hours without saying a word, which helps. They just sit there liked stuffed dummies.'

`What happened after you got off the plane?' Tweed asked, fascinated. 'You said the security service was present.'

`Easy again. They were so taken up with grabbing the drugs smuggler they didn't look at anyone else. He was shot, of course. But there were other peasants on the plane. Coolie labour for building more underground hangars for Stealth bombers. They enlarge caves in the mountains, then erect huge doors the same colour as the rock. I mingled with the crowd, listened to them chattering once they were back on Mother Earth.'

`And Security didn't check them?' Tweed queried.

`Lord, no. It's chaos up there. So many coolies earning a pittance. Rather like they built the pyramids. Men with muscle – thousands of them. Amazing what they can achieve with an endless supply of cheap labour.'

He drank more coffee from the mug Monica had refilled, thanked her, resumed his report. He spoke in a sing-song English and Tweed realized his way of talking was still reflecting his use of Cantonese.

`You mentioned Security,' Cardon went on. 'Seeing them was a lucky break. I recognized the uniform. I went into a drinking shop. A lot of the customers were gambling. Never cure the Chinese of that pastime.'

`I thought it was forbidden,' Monica observed.

Cardon grinned. 'It is. But Lop Nor is a long way from Beijing. And out there all they care about is keeping the work force happy. I saw a uniformed man sitting at a little table by himself. Security. Had a special badge attached to his breast pocket and some insignia of rank. He's as drunk as a lord. I buy some more of the local liquor – pure poison – keep filling up his glass. When I first went in I'd heard him shouting for more – in Cantonese.'

`You took a big chance,' Tweed remarked.

`Not really. Not yet. This prat starts boasting about what a big man he is. Head of Security to General Li Yun. The name struck a chord. He tells me he's in charge of security at the War Room. To cut a long story short, we end up outside and I have to hold up my new friend. We walk arm in arm.'

`Wasn't it cold up there?' Monica asked, to make Car- don pause.

`Cold enough to freeze a brass monkey's whatnots. But I'd piled on the clothing at Chungking. That helped. You know me – all bone and muscle. The clothes made me look like a typical stocky Chinese. Where was I?'

`Arm in arm with-' Tweed began.

`I'm there. We walk past the entrance to a military HQ built of rock to conceal it from the air. Drunky says that's where he works, that he'd better get back on duty. I say you'd better sober up a bit first. He agrees and we leave the town and walk into the wilderness. Huge bare mountains, no one about, have to watch your footing. Big deep fissures and ravines in the ground. Drunky does the job for me. Sits down on a rock and falls asleep. I pick up a small rock, tap him on the skull to keep him that way. He's about my height and build – with all the clothes I'm swaddled in. Guess what comes next.'

`We'd sooner hear it from you,' said Tweed, who didn't want to miss a word.

`I change into his uniform and peaked cap. He has Security passes and identification in his pocket. I lower him into a shallow fissure. At least I thought that it was shallow. He disappears and I never hear him hit bottom. Can't be helped. I hurry back to the HQ. His shoes hurt, but you can't have everything. Then I walk inside past all the checkpoints.'

`You did what?' Tweed enquired. 'Just how did you manage that one?'

`Like I said. The place is swarming with Security personnel. More cheek. I realize I outrank everyone in sight. Probably plus that funny badge. Only one man asks me in Cantonese if he can help. I stare him down. Say "the General" and walk on. Later a guard opens a door for me. I walk inside. A long polished wood table with lots of chairs. No one in sight. At the far end a lot of maps on the wall. Above them the legend – in Cantonese – War Room West: Operation Long Reach. I know I'm in business.'

Cardon drank more coffee from the mug refilled by Monica. Verbally he was on a big high, the words tumbling out.

`There's a door open an inch or so to another room. I can hear a Chinese – presumably General Li Yun – addressing what was probably a meeting of operational officers. The General is from Canton so I catch a phrase or two – but I'm busy with my little camera provided by the Engine Room downstairs here. Taking pictures of those maps on the wall. I do catch something the General is saying. It prickles the hairs at the back of my neck. I quote. "Operation Long Reach – to take over Europe – is well advanced in its first phase, the planting of saboteurs and spies in their midst – Europeans. But the supreme and first objective is Britain." I beat a hasty retreat out of the War Room.'

`Can I quote you something from a file Sir Gerald Andover handed me?' Tweed interjected. He looked at Monica. 'And you haven't heard this.'

He unlocked the deep drawer in his desk, opened the file, turned the pages rapidly. He read from the file.

`Operation Torch: the World War Two Allied invasion of North Africa. The final plan for the initial assault was that 24,500 American troops embarked in the United States should land north and south of Casablanca… They had to convoy, in the face of submarine and air attack, more than 600 vessels, carrying an assault force of 90,000 men, and 200,000 more to follow, with all their supplies and weapons, across 1,500 miles of sea from Britain and 3,000 miles from America…' Tweed paused. 'That is the end of Andover's quote from The Turn of the Tide by Arthur Bryant – from Field Marshal Viscount Alanbrooke's diaries, published after the war.'

`I saw that very volume on General Li Yun's bookshelf,' Cardon remarked.

`What on earth are you two suggesting?' asked Monica in a horrified tone.

`I raised my voice where Andover underlined certain passages,' Tweed added.

`But what are you suggesting?' Monica persisted.

`Oh, it's quite simple,' Cardon went on, 'the Chinese are great students of history. They've spotted that what defeated Hitler was his failure to invade Britain. He left it as a gigantic floating base off the continent – a base the Americans could use to pour in their might ready for the invasion of Europe. Without Britain they'd have had nowhere to build up their forces.'

`Hence,' Tweed intervened, 'their first objective when the time comes is to seize Britain. That isolates the Americans completely.'

`It sounds horrifying, fantastic,' Monica protested.

`As would Hitler's ultimate conquest of Europe back in 1933,' Cardon retorted. 'Tweed is right. China is the successful Communist state. It has been clever enough to adopt private enterprise and has a sound economy – and a satisfied and obedient population. And what a population! Over a billion people – nearly a quarter of the earth's population.'

`So?' Monica said less confidently.

`The Chinese do not have a reverence for human life. With a population like that they could afford to lose fifty million to establish control of Europe. They'd overwhelm us.'

`They have to get here first,' Monica objected.

`If the Americans could transport such huge numbers in 1942 by sea,' Cardon reminded her, 'how many do you think the Chinese could move by sea and air in giant ships and planes?'

`You two are frightening me,' Monica told them.

`That's nothing,' Cardon said. 'Now I'm going to scare the living daylights out of you. China, as I said, is the one successful Communist state. With the collapse of the Soviet Union it regards itself as the keeper of the Holy Grail. And it feels itself to be one gigantic fortress under siege from a capitalist world. So. what is the answer? Stalin's. Unlike him they have this colossal population, this vast land mass. The answer? To strike first before liberal ideas take hold inside China. To occupy Europe. Then they are safe. More than safe – they'll be in a position to dictate to the rest of the world with that much power. And generals like military action – that's what they live for.'

`China is a long way from London,' Monica said, without much conviction.

`Liegnitz in Silesia – about two hundred and fifty miles from Hamburg – was a long way from East Asia,' Tweed reminded her. 'And yet the Mongols reached it – and they travelled on horseback. Think of the speed at which a Stealth plane could move. We're talking hours instead of years.'

`You have scared the daylights out of me,' Monica admitted.

`And now just to reassure you,' Cardon said ironically, `I'll show you those photographs I took inside General Li Yun's War Room West. Developed and printed in the Engine Room before you arrived, Tweed.'

He took out a plastic wallet from his pocket, extracted some prints, spread them out on the desk. Tweed stared at them with rising apprehension.

They were photos of British Ordnance Survey maps – and the first one showed a section of the south coast from Bournemouth to Beaulieu River with Lymington in the centre. A cross marked a location he was certain was Moor's Landing.

Five more photos – also of Ordnance Survey maps – linked up with the Lymington map and were marked with the most rapid routes to London.

He examined the next prints, which were of Belgium. A second cross just west of Ghent marked another location. He must show this one to Benoit when he returned to the Belgian capital.

Tweed used a magnifying glass to study another print. He read the words Ost Friesische Inseln. The Frisian Islands looping in a semicircle off the west coast of Germany – including Borkum and Norderney. Tweed recalled his first conversation with Commander Noble. Vessels had disappeared in this area – the area where a crewman lowered from a helicopter had been sick when he found Vogel's decapitated head jammed in the floating bow of his craft.

And this was also the area written about before the First World War by Erskine Childers in his classic novel, The Riddle of the Sands. A wonderful story about how the Kaiser's Germans planned to assemble a fleet of barges to invade Britain. Had the diabolical General Li Yun also got a copy of this volume on his bookshelf?

No longer dealing with Ordnance Survey maps, he peered through his glass at the final print, of the coast extending north off Germany and including the west coast of Denmark.

The map included the northern tip of the German island of Sylt – also marked with a cross. But Tweed's attention was drawn to the stretch of Danish coast south of the port of Esbjerg – a bleak and lonely area out of season as he knew from a visit. It was off this coast that most vessels had disappeared. And there was another cross midway between Esbjerg and the German frontier – close to the sea.

He double-checked the print of the Frisian Islands. It extended inland up the River Elbe to include the great port of Hamburg. Another cross, downriver and outside the city. He looked at Cardon.

`I suspect this is the most ingenious and brilliant military planning I've ever encountered.'

`Takes the biscuit,' Cardon agreed. He was still bursting with energy as he stirred restlessly in his chair. 'Now, anyone like to know about Dr Wand?'

In the lounge area of the Brussels Hilton Paula idly turned over the pages of a fashion magazine. She was feeling rather like a prisoner – not able to go out unless she had escorts guarding her. You just want some action, she said to herself.

`Miss Paula Grey, I believe?'

She looked up. A tall, handsome man with jet-black hair and an engaging smile was looking down at her. Where had she seen him before? In his early thirties, she guessed, he was smartly dressed in a blue pinstripe suit, a snow-white shirt, and a blue polka-dot tie. The shirt was a change from the striped effort most Englishmen were affecting at the moment. She put down her magazine, saw the brief glance of admiration at her crossed legs. Not a trace of lechery in that glance.

`You've got to remember where you last saw me,' he teased her as he sat down.

`I'm sorry. I do know I know you…'

How feeble can you get, she thought as she heard herself utter the words. And really she was ready for a change of company: just for a few hours. He suggested a drink and she said she wouldn't mind a glass of champagne.

'Or is it a bit early?' she wondered, checking her watch.

`Some people have started lunch already,' he assured her. He ordered two glasses from a waiter, then again gave her his full attention. 'I was dressed differently – in rather casual clothes…'

`Buckler's Hard! You took us by boat to Moor's Landing. Mr Mordaunt!'

'Mr Mordaunt it is,' he agreed. 'I knew you had a good memory. Not that I'm the sort of person people do remember.'

She liked that. It suggested a degree of modesty many men she'd met seemed totally devoid of.

`You're a friend of Bob Newman's…'

`Who is using my name in vain?'

It was Newman who had materialized from nowhere. She wondered why she felt slightly annoyed. Newman sat down and stared at Mordaunt.

`Where did you spring from? Last time you were ambling round Hampshire. What brings you to Brussels?'

`A hot tip. Could be a right royal scandal brewing up. Involving one of those fat-cat EC Commissioners. Could also be the big one I've been hoping for.' He looked at Paula. 'If it's not too brash an approach, would you join me for lunch at the Tete d'Or? It's a very good restaurant off Grand' Place.'

`That's very nice of you.'

She thought it over quickly. Tweed had once taken her to the Tete d'Or. It was a very plush restaurant and the food was excellent. Also police HQ and Benoit were just off Grand' Place.

`I'd like that very much,' she decided.

Mordaunt stood up. 'We're having a glass of champers, Newman. You'll join us, of course?'

`No, thank you.'

`When the waiter comes I'm picking up the tab. Please excuse me for a moment while I visit the bathroom…'

`Did you have to be so rude to him?' Paula snapped. 'I need a bit of variety.'

`Some variety,' Newman commented. `Mordaunt is a snout, a so-called freelance journalist scrabbling in the gutter for snippets of information he can fob off on professional journalists. For money, of course. A hand-to- mouth character.'

`Have you finished?' Paula enquired in a dangerously soft tone. 'A snout? I think that's a disgusting term. And have you, by any chance, used his services yourself in the past?'

`I have,' Newman told her cheerfully. I've asked him for info I didn't want – to send the opposition off in the wrong direction. Knowing he'd go and sell what I'd said to him to a rival.'

`I've heard quite enough,' Paula snapped again. 'More, in fact, than I want to hear. And I am lunching with him at the Tete d'Or.'

`Suit yourself.' Newman took the bill off the waiter as the drinks arrived. He signed it with his own room number. Paula was biting after the waiter had left.

`Mordaunt wanted to pay that bill. Do you have to interfere?'

`You don't have to say thank you,' Newman informed her with the same infuriating smile. He had seen Mordaunt coming back, stood up quickly. 'Excuse me.'

Newman had also noticed Marler emerging from the elevator, then standing some distance away while pretending to study an advertisement for an exhibition. Newman spoke quietly, pausing close to Marler as he lit a cigarette.

`See that dark-haired berk sitting down with Paula? She's soon waltzing off with him to have lunch at the Tete d'Or off Grand' Place. Mordaunt by name. Fringe journalist. Looks as though he's prospering by the cut of his suit. Mordaunt doesn't know you. Follow them. I'm just going to alert Nield to do the same on his scooter. I'll follow at a distance in a taxi. And Paula is in an uptight mood. I think it's a reaction to the kidnap attempt.'

`Three of us,' Marler commented. 'You're using the heavy brigade.'

`I don't trust Mordaunt.'

`I'll collect my hired Merc. from the garage. Oh, by the way, Dr Wand's Lear jet is being prepared for a flight to Hamburg.'

`How did you find that out?'

`You know me. Bribery. I got talking to a mechanic in the airport bar when he'd finished servicing the Lear. He heard the pilot talking about his flight plan…'