Passport to Peril

Ten

Slowly, as if in a dream, she got to her feet and crossed her room. She closed her door and turned the key in the lock. She felt dizzy and thought that she might faint. She sagged against the door, clutching at it for support, until she felt strong enough to walk back across the room and sink onto her bed.

Her mind worked furiously. Everything was suddenly falling into place, every piece interlocking neatly in her mind. She could see the whole picture very clearly now, and it left her with a sick feeling at the pit of her stomach and a patch of dryness at the back of her throat. She looked at her hands; her fingers were shaking far more violently than they had done that last night in London, after the mugging.

The mugging. Of course — that had been part of it, the start of it. It had seemed odd, even then, that two men would stalk her carefully all the way through Soho and halfway to her door simply to make a grab for her purse. The few pounds it was likely to contain was hardly adequate compensation for their trouble. But they had not wanted money. They were trying even then to get hold of her passport. The passport had been in her other purse. Otherwise they would have fitted the microfilm into it that very night, and then the next morning they would have found some clever way to return it to her. Perhaps a man might pose as a detective and explain that it had been found in a gutter somewhere. They would have found a way, and in a few weeks the microfilm would reach its destination in Berlin.

But why had they chosen her? She studied the piece of film, wishing she had some way of knowing what it contained. Why her? Well, there were several reasons she could think of. She was headed for Berlin and was scheduled to arrive there on a definite flight at a definite time. And she was traveling at the behest of the United States Department of State, and at the invitation of the West German government. Those circumstances combined to make her an ideal unwitting courier for whatever secret information the microfilm contained. She would get a cursory customs inspection at the worst, and her passport would barely receive a second glance.

And then, in Berlin, the receiver would find a way to get his hands on her passport. The microfilm would be removed, the photo returned to its place, and she would go back to New York without having had the slightest notion that she had played a role in a game of espionage.

With trembling hands she managed to get a cigarette from her pack. It took her three matches to get the thing lit, and then she puffed nervously on it, stabbing it out in an ashtray after a few unsatisfying drags.

The face she had seen in Cork! She had thought it was nothing more than a case of nerves when the thin man with the long face appeared there. But it had not been her imagination. The man was just who he appeared to be, the same man who had choked her in London. And he was following her, biding his time, making certain that he could keep tabs on her. He hadn’t tried to steal her passport this time.

Because it had not been necessary.

Another man had already set her up for the kill—

She reached for her cigarettes again, then pushed the pack furiously aside. How could she have been such a fool, such an utter and complete fool? She remembered the first meeting with David at the pub in Dublin, the smooth way he had managed to pick her up, the immediate interest he had taken in her. Of course he had been interested. It wasn’t her looks or her voice or her personality or anything else about her that had interested him. It was the pure desire to make her a part of his little game of espionage. The whirlwind courtship in Dublin made it infinitely easier for him to keep her under surveillance. No need to have men following her, not when David himself could stay with her for hours at a time.

And then he had appeared in Dingle. She winced at the words she had spoken to him, at the great willingness she had shown to be played for a fool. She had actually believed that he had crossed the country for love of her. Love? Hardly that. It was in Dingle, her last stop in Ireland, where he would plant the microfilm in her passport. Then she would be out of the country in a flash and in Berlin in another flash, and that would be the last she would ever see of him.

“I think you should go to Berlin,” he had said. “You have to go to Berlin. If you pass up this chance you’ll be sorry later. You’d keep thinking about it, and you’d start to see me as a man who was already getting in the way of your career...”

She felt tears forming at the backs of her eyes, and she steeled herself and blinked them back. Of course he had insisted she go to Berlin — he wasn’t interested in smuggling spy secrets into County Galway. No wonder her words had shocked him. And she thought of what would have happened if she hadn’t spotted the film. She would have gone on to Berlin, just as he wanted, and then, fool that she was, she would have come right back to Ireland. And she would have gone to Connemara, anxious to see him, head over heels in love with him, but he would not have been there. He’d be out of the country, probably, and laughing his head off at the silly girl folk singer who’d been stupid enough to fall for every line he handed her.

She shook her head, almost unable to believe it. She had always felt herself to be a good judge of people, had prided herself in her ability to size people up quickly. This time she had fallen flat on her face. It seemed impossible that he could have taken her in so completely. She had honestly felt that she knew him well, and now it seemed that she had not known him at all.

“Everything there is to know about me. Age, height, weight...” Her precious little speech was coming back to haunt her now. That must have floored him, she thought; she had actually been so considerate as to hand him her passport without his even asking.

Or had that been a hint, when he gave her that line about knowing so little about her? If she hadn’t brought out the passport, maybe that would have been his next line. “Let’s have a look at your passport, Miss. I’d like to check your vital statistics, if you don’t mind.” Except, of course, that he would have phrased it more glibly than that. How delighted he must have been when she saved him the trouble! And then he had simply leaped up onto the stage to introduce her, and while she stood up there singing her head off, he held on to her passport for her — and slipped the microfilm into it.

But what could she do now?

She knew the answer to that readily enough. All she had to do was do nothing at all, hide the microfilm somewhere, glue the photo to her passport once again, and somehow get through the weekend. Then, once she got to Shannon, she could find someone and turn the microfilm over to him. An Irish customs official, perhaps, or an American consul. Was there a consulate at Shannon? She didn’t know, but at least she could find someone there who would help her.

But of course, David would accompany her to the plane! She hadn’t realized it before, but obviously he wouldn’t let her out of his sight until she was on the plane bound for Berlin. And if she found some excuse to get rid of him, it was a sure bet that he would have someone else follow her. Like the man from London, the man she had glimpsed in Cork, the long-faced knife-thin man with piercing eyes.

She shivered. How could she get through the weekend? It wouldn’t be possible for her to act natural with David. How could she let him kiss her now? How could she even walk at his side without breaking out in a cold sweat?

No. He would know at a glance, would know that she knew before she had spoken half a dozen sentences to him. And if he knew that she knew, if he realized that she would not smuggle the microfilm for him, that she would instead go to the authorities...

Why, he would kill her.

She looked again at her hands, held them out in front of her. She was surprised to note that her fingers did not tremble at all now. She was oddly calm, inexplicably calm in the face of the thought. She ran it through her mind as one of a series of interesting, even notable facts: it was raining outside, ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides, and he would kill her.

She tried to imagine it and could not; the image she had formed of him was so utterly incompatible with that of a killer that it would have been laughable if she had been capable of laughter. He would kill her, though, and probably without a second thought, without feeling anything at all. Because he was not what he had seemed to be. He had sat singing Irish songs with her, had stood skipping stones at the sea, but he was not really the kind of man who did these things. He was some sort of spy. He was a man involved with the men who had mugged her in London, he was a secret agent, a spy, he was...

She did not know what he was. She knew only books and movies, Richard Burton in a shabby trenchcoat, Sean Connery pressing dashboard buttons and sending pursuers spinning off the road. Eric Ambler, the Orient Express, knives and guns and strangling, newspaper headlines, a crazy montage of unreality.

She had to run. She had to get away, but David would be coming for her soon, and she had to get away, but how and why and where and oh, God, what was she going to do?

She had to talk to someone. She started for the door, got halfway to it, then halted abruptly and covered her face with her hands. She didn’t even know whom to talk to. There was only one person in Ireland that she had come to know and trust, and that person was David, and he was the one person above all whom she could not trust, ever. She had to talk to someone, but whom?

Dr. Koenig? He at least was a fellow American, and he was a professional man, probably well traveled. He ought to know something, ought to be able to give her some sort of advice. She reached for the door, then drew back from it as though the doorknob were hot. She remembered how he had looked familiar to her, how she was certain she had seen him recently, perhaps in Tralee. And how, in spite of his denial, the feeling had persisted.

Maybe she had been right. Maybe he was someone she had seen before. Maybe he had kept an eye on her in Tralee. Maybe the “wife and children” were a blind. Maybe he was one of David’s men.

Who else was there? The priest, she thought, the priest from Africa who had been so nice to her on the plane. But he was off visiting family in County Clare, and that was no closer than Shannon Airport itself. But he might have helped her if he had been around. He had impressed her as the sort of man who knew how to handle difficult situations. He had helped her with her luggage, and he could have helped her now, but there was no way on earth for her to get in touch with him.

Sara Trevelyan? Even the old Cornish woman could be one of David’s gang, she thought, and then she pushed the thought from her mind. Miss Trevelyan, at least, was the woman she seemed to be. No one would recruit as a spy an old lady with aching bones who rode a bicycle up mountain roads.

Of course, she might be made up to look older than she really was. And Ellen hadn’t actually seen her on the bicycle. And...

Oh, it was nonsense!

She unlocked her door, hurried down the hall to Sara Trevelyan’s room. The door was shut. She knocked.

“Yes?”

“It’s Ellen Cameron. I have to talk with you.”

“I was just resting...”

She opened the door, knowing it was improper to do so, knowing too that propriety was no longer relevant. She closed the door and locked it, then turned to the old woman who was sitting on her bed with both pillows propped up behind her.

“Oh, dear,” Sara Trevelyan said. “Something’s gone amiss, hasn’t it? Poor child. Don’t tell me you’re having a bit of trouble with your young gentleman?”

“More than a bit. It’s—” She looked down at her hands, still clutching the passport and microfilm and photograph. “I’m in danger,” she said aloud, testing the unfamiliar word on her tongue. And, again, “I’m in danger...”

The older woman heard the story all the way through, paying very careful attention, nodding and clucking her tongue, putting occasional questions. “Oh, dear,” she said, when Ellen had finished. “Yes, I do believe you are in danger, aren’t you? I don’t know what to tell you, Ellen. I’d say that you should go straight to the police, but I don’t know just what sort of police force they have here. I shouldn’t think a town this size would have a very elaborate police department, should you?”

“No.”

“I’ve lived all my life in a town not very much larger than this one, and I can’t help thinking of our own police. Just a handful of rural constables, actually. Very good at starting stalled motor cars and such, but not quite in James Bond’s league. Not at all. I think...”

“Yes?”

“I should think you ought to get out of Dingle at once, Ellen. I wouldn’t even stop to pack my luggage. I’d abandon everything and take the first bus to Tralee, and change there for Shannon. You’re certain to find someone at the airport who’ll be likely to know what to do. And you’ll be safe there.” Sara Trevelyan frowned. “That’s the most important thing, truly. Not the secret documents or whatever that little patch of plastic might be. But saving your own neck.”

“I can’t believe—” She broke off.

“Can’t believe what?”

“That he’d really hurt me. Or kill me.”

“Perhaps you had better believe it.”

“Yes.”

For a moment neither of them said anything. And then she heard a voice calling up the staircase, a familiar voice, a warm, strong, tender voice. “Ellen? Are you there?”

David’s voice.

She said, “Oh, Lord, he’s here. What am I going to do?”

“You certainly can’t see him.”

“No, I can’t. I can’t—”

“Stay right where you are,” Sara Trevelyan said, getting to her feet. “I’ll tell him you’ve left and give him a message to meet you. Be calm, Ellen. Everything’s going to be all right, you know.”

She stood at the door, waiting, listening, while the older woman walked to the staircase and down the stairs to the first floor.

“I beg your pardon, but did I hear you calling Miss Cameron?”

“Yes. Is she in?”

“No, she’s not. You must be David Clare? She gave me a message for you. She went around the corner to the café for a cup of tea. She said you would know which café she meant.”

“Should I wait here for her?”

“No, she wanted you to meet her there, if you would.”

“I will. And thanks very much.”

The older woman appeared at the doorway, a smile of amusement upon her lips. “I surprise myself,” she said. “Who would have thought I’d reveal such a talent for deception, and so late in life at that? Give him a minute or two to get round the corner, Ellen. And get your purse from your room. Don’t try to carry anything else. I’ll bring your other belongings over to this room and keep them for you until I hear from you. You know how to find the bus station?”

“Yes.”

“Go straight to it. There probably won’t be a bus leaving for an hour or more, but you can buy your ticket and hide there. You might try concealing yourself in the W.C. until your bus is ready. Not many men are up to storming into a ladies’ lavatory.”

“I don’t know how to thank you.”

“Oh, goodness, I haven’t really done anything, now have I? Get your purse, you don’t want to waste a minute now. I wish I hadn’t turned in my bicycle. You could ride it to the bus station. Hurry, now.”

She went to her room, snatched up her purse, dumped the passport and photo and microfilm into it. She rushed down the stairs, then hesitated for a moment in the doorway, afraid to step outside for fear that he would still be waiting there. She took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then walked quickly outside.

It was still raining, only a light but persistent drizzle now. She looked carefully both ways and saw no one who looked at all familiar. She turned to her left, toward the bus station, and began to walk as quickly as she could. She wanted to run, but if she ran people would notice her and wonder why she was running. And there were probably other men of David’s in town; she didn’t dare attract their attention.

The bus station. Just a few blocks farther, and she would get a ticket to Tralee and find out when the bus was leaving. She would do as Sara Trevelyan had suggested, would hide in the ladies’ restroom until the bus was due to leave. Should she buy a ticket clear through to Shannon? It might save her time at the Tralee station...

No, she decided against it. Once they realized she was gone they would be sure to make inquiries at the bus station, and she didn’t want David to know her ultimate destination. He might guess it anyway, of course, but there was no sense in making it easier for him. Once she was out of Dingle, the most dangerous part would be over. Of course, he could take a fast car and get to Shannon before her. He could be waiting there when she arrived, but she would stay in crowds, stay close to other people, and maybe he would be unable to do anything.

“Ellen!”

Her heart froze.

“Ellen, where are you going? You weren’t at the café. Wait a minute.”

She turned her head quickly. He was on the other side of the street, just half a block back. He stepped to the curb now, waiting for the traffic to clear so that he could come after her.

She ran.

“Ellen! Hey, hold on — where are you going? Ellen!..”

She ran like a thief.