Flight From Honour

3

Brussel’s civilian aerodrome lay in the south-eastern suburb of Etterbeek, only a few minutes by train from the Quartier-Leopold station. It didn’t look impressive, but aerodromes never did: just a few stark wooden sheds floating on the last of the early morning mist. But to O’Gilroy it could have been the new Jerusalem.

He headed for a group of men standing back from a single monoplane which was being fussed over by a couple of mechanics. Most of them were clearly Belgian; that is, wearing gloomy dark suits or sombre, sturdy overcoats. One man stood out in his light fawn suit, light hat and a bronze-coloured overcoat draped dashingly around his shoulders. O’Gilroy decided this must be his man, and shook his head disapprovingly at his prominence.

“Excuse me, sir, but would ye be Senator Fal-con-e?” He pronounced the name as if reading it, badly.

“Yes?” Falcone looked at him critically. The new man was tall and loose-limbed inside a rather stiff tweed suit of the sort Continental cartoonists used, accurately, to denote Britons travelling abroad. He had a lean, bony face, dark hair under a tweed cap, and a wry, almost sneering expression.

Now he nodded. “The Embassy said ye wanted someone to watch yer back. I’m it. Conall O’Gilroy.”

They shook hands. O’Gilroy went on: “I asked for ye at the hotel and they said I’d be finding ye out here. No trouble at all, they jest told me.”

He sighed when Falcone didn’t see the import of that, just saying: “Very good. Are you armed?”

“I am.” O’Gilroy made no move to prove it.

“Very good,” Falcone said again. “So now . . . ah, you will guard me, no?”

“Ye think someone’s trying to kill ye?”

The blunt question disconcerted Falcone. “Ah, I am not . . . How can I be sure?”

“Ye’d best make up yer mind. I like to know if I’m saving yer life or jest standing around looking pretty.”

Falcone glared; this was not the way a bravo should act. As a senior senator, his demand for help from the British embassy had been instinctive. But the shadowy figures glimpsed in the streets of a strange city seemed mere fancies on this bright morning in the familiar – to him – atmosphere of an aerodrome. He felt annoyed at himself and transferred it easily to O’Gilroy.

“I am a senator in Italy and I am to meet with your Foreign Office in London,” he announced firmly. “I have been followed, I am sure of it. There are two men – one is tall, the other is short. And yesterday a man with a Slav accent asked at the hotel if I stayed there. He did not want to meet me, just to know if I am there.”

“Is there a good reason they’d want to kill ye?” O’Gilroy asked calmly. That didn’t help, because Falcone wasn’t going to answer truthfully. He looked around, and saw that the little group around the aeroplane was dispersing and the pilot climbing in . . .

“I must go for a flight now. It is arranged a long time, but it will be quick. We will talk when I am back.”

“Arranged a long time? – so plenty of people know about it?”

“What you think is not possible. I am worried about guns, knives-”

“They’re not the only way to kill ye. Anything else happen?”

“No, no-” Then he seemed to remember something, and quietened into a puzzled frown.

A stout man with a moustache you could have hunted tigers in came up beside them, tipped his homburg hat to Falcone and spoke swiftly in French.

Glad of the distraction, Falcone explained: “The aeroplane is waiting. Now I must-”

“Now hold on,” O’Gilroy persisted. “I’m not being buggered about like this. What yer life counts to yerself, I’d not be knowing. What it counts to me is a job done proper.”

Falcone renewed his glare. “Your embassy told me-”

“Sod the embassy, yer dealing with me. What else happened?”

The stout man was looking at O’Gilroy with a good deal of distaste. Falcone smiled weakly and resumed the conversation in French. The stout man shrugged and walked away.

“The pilot will do a . . . a flying test first,” Falcone said. “But then, most certainly I will go . . .”

“So what happ-”

“Today, as I leave the hotel, there is a box sent to me. I leave late, it should have come after I am gone . . . perhaps that is the plan. It says on it – in Italian – ‘Good luck in the flight. Please give to Senator Falcone when he returns’.”

“What was in it?”

“I was late, hurrying, I did not open it.”

The engine of the aeroplane sputtered into life, briefly clouding the pilot in smoke, then settled to a steady buzz. A couple of mechanics took hold of the wingtips and swung the machine round, then guided it out across the worn and oil-stained grass.

To Falcone’s relief, this fascinated O’Gilroy; at least it stopped his cross-examination.

“Do you know aeroplanes?”

O’Gilroy’s sneer turned to a wry smile. “I’ve read all I can about them, but never been up in one.”

“Ah. It is magnificent.” Falcone grabbed the chance to reassert himself. “A new world. I am an aeronaut, in Italy I am one of the first ever to fly. But two years ago, I am in a crash and my back . . .” He patted himself around his kidneys.

O’Gilroy nodded, forced himself to look suspiciously around the little scatter of spectators, then concentrated on the aeroplane.

Having positioned it about fifty yards away, the mechanics stood aside. The engine buzzed more fiercely, the aeroplane rolled forward and its tail lifted. It did two long bounces and rose just above the ground. Standing a pace behind Falcone, O’Gilroy saw the Senator’s shoulders lift, unconsciously urging the machine upwards. He smiled briefly.

The aeroplane climbed steadily, swaying a little, then tipped into a turn to the left. It kept climbing.

“Would it be a Bleriot, then?” O’Gilroy asked.

“The design is of a Bleriot but is made here with changes by a Belgian company.”

“And what engine does it have?”

“A Gnome rotary. You know the rotary engine?”

“Read about it.”

“It is imbecile, but it works. The whole engine turning round with the propeller, and the . . . the crankshaft staying still, fixed to the aeroplane. And oil – poosh!” He jerked his hands explosively. “Oil everywhere. But it is light of weight and has very little vibration.”

The aeroplane levelled out, having circled until it was back over the aerodrome, then its nose dipped and a few seconds later, the puttering engine noise died.

“Ah, he cuts the . . . the ignition,” Falcone said, enjoying being in charge again. “With the rotary engine, you do not use so much the air and petrol controls, it is more simple to stop the ignition.”

The aeroplane was drifting down – vol-planing, they called it – to come in to land.

“I think he will need just a little more of the engine,” Falcone predicted. “He does not want to-”

Then the aeroplane writhed and something big twisted off: the whole engine and propeller. Unbalanced, the aeroplane reared on its tail. “Madre di Dio!” Falcone whispered.

Then, delayed by distance, they heard the engine backfire, buzz for a moment, and cut out. The aeroplane flopped forward and immediately reared again, twisted, and the pilot fell out. The tiny figure fell, arms and legs flailing, with a horrible purposefulness that the fluttering, prancing aeroplane lacked. Then they heard his scream.

It went on long after he had hit the ground in a puff of dust. It ended as the aeroplane struck, turning from a shape into a heap in a bigger cloud of dust. They heard that crash, and then it was over. No fire, just the drifting dust and running men.

“I don’t think me pistol’d have saved ye from that,” O’Gilroy observed.

Back at the Grand Hotel, O’Gilroy watched as Falcone undid the wrapped box. Inside, resting on crumpled newspaper, lay a single white lily. And a crudely drawn picture of a gun, a dagger and a bottle marked veleno.

Falcone had gone stiff and pale, but also perplexed.

“What’s it mean?” O’Gilroy asked.

“The Ujedinjenje ili Smrt . . . It is a secret society of Serbia . . . But I not understand Serbia . . . Why do they want to kill me?”

O’Gilroy didn’t know, either, but was content that Falcone now believed somebody really did. It made it easier to keep him alive. “So what’s yer plans now?”

Falcone came co a firm decision. “I want to go to England. Will you come also?”

“Sure, I’m due back. I’ll-”

“The hotel will get us tickets on the boat for tonight.”

“No. Give me some money and I’ll get the tickets. Ye stick here and pack. Have ye got a gun of yer own?”

Falcone found it in his overcoat pocket: it was identical to O’Gilroy’s own, a Belgian-made Browning automatic.

“Fine. Shoot anyone who comes in. Except me.”