Quiller Barracuda

Chapter 17: RISK

'I want a twenty-four-hour watch,' Ferris said on the phone, 'on the cutter for the motor-yacht Contessa. It normally ties up at Quay 19, the Bayside Marina.'

I noticed Croder's assistant, Tench, watching me obliquely. He'd obviously gathered I'd made some kind of breakthrough; when I caught his eye he looked down, stroking the back of his head. He did that a lot, frightened, I rather think, of Croder and his responsibilities, and the stroking was meant to show how relaxed he was.

'You'll need four men, two for each shift. I want a photograph of everyone who boards that cutter or disembarks from it, and I'll tell you by radio if I want anyone tagged. Questions?'

Purdom hadn't reacted. He sat with his head down, waiting for doom. I think he'd made up his mind I was going to finish up with a dum-dum in the left ventricle and his feet were already on the starting blocks. The fact that we now knew where Proctor was didn't guarantee I wouldn't bite the dust at any given moment, according to the terms of the contract the Mafia had put out on me. But I wished he wouldn't sit there with his nerves twanging like that; it didn't help.

'Starting immediately,' Ferris said, and gave the phone back to Tench, looking at Croder. 'Signal, sir?'

'Yes, before we leave here.'

Signal the board for Barracuda, for the eyes of Bureau One. Executive has located objective. C of S informed.

Mr Shepley would be pleased, and so would Holmes, standing there in the shadows between the floodlit signals boards: it'd take the edge off his nerves, be okay to get himself another cup of coffee, celebrate, so forth, but it might be all that caffeine inside him that keeps him at such a pitch, you know, I've never thought of that.

'Congratulations,' Croder said, watching me, dark-eyed, brooding, busying his mind already with the future, because it was one thing to locate the objective and another thing to get him away from that privately-owned and well-protected vessel out there and take him to London and fry his brains out under a hood.

'Now I'd like to talk a little more about the anchorwoman. There's now an obvious question in our minds, isn't there?' Yes indeed. When she went aboard the Contessa last night, had she known Proctor was there? 'Your report was necessarily brief. Can you remember what she actually said about Proctor?'

'Yes. One thing was, she said it would help us if we let her see him before we got him out of the country. She said she'd got a great deal of information on him.'

It took another ten minutes to give him a replay of the scene in Kruger Drug last night; then I called up the other material that hadn't been specifically about Proctor. 'She told me I'd caught her at a critical – no, a crucial time, and that she needed help. There was no one she could trust.'

'She has no friends?'

'She didn't know if they'd be strong enough – I quote.'

'For what?'

I asked him to give me a minute.

I don't know how strong they'd be if things got really rough. And none of them know about George Proctor. Okay, we were close, yes, but they don't know about this thing that's happening.

Told Croder.

Thing.' He dropped the word like a stone into the silence.

'I don't know,' I said, 'what the thing is. But she began talking about Proctor again before we left Kruger Drug.' Pictured her face, her hands spread on the marble-topped table, listened for her voice. He still had a reserve I couldn't get through, and I believe he was doing things unknown to me that would have surprised me – correction, alarmed me, frightened me – not just personally, I mean on a geopolitical scale. I want to get this right – on a clandestine geopolitical scale.

Told Croder. He didn't comment, and I kept on going. 'She said something interesting about the late Howard Hughes, that he had a mad dream about buying America, by getting control of the industry, the machinery behind the throne. She said there was an easier way, that to buy America all you had to do was buy one man: the president.'

I sat back.

'You must have asked her to elaborate on that.'

'I would have, but her bodyguard brought her a remote phone. She had to go.'

'Who was the caller? Did you -'

'A Mr Sakomoto.'

'Was he the Japanese you saw boarding the cutter with her?'

'I don't know. He -'

'You tagged Cambridge -', Ferris, 'from Kruger Drug to 1330 Riverside, and she came out of the house with the Japanese and you tagged them to the quay, is that right?'

'Yes. But he wasn't necessarily Sakomoto.'

'There could be several Japanese,' Croder said, 'in that house.'

'Yes.'

'And how did you leave the Cambridge woman?'

'Leave -?'

'At Kruger Drug. What was said, do you remember?'

'She asked me when we could meet again, and I said I'd phone her the next day. She -'

'Today.'

'Yes. She said it was vital that we met again as soon as possible, and that she'd stay at her phone until noon.'

Croder scuffed through the book. 'You didn't telephone her.'

'I was on board Harvester's boat all the morning. At that time I wasn't certain I could trust her, and I only used the phone once, to call Ferris, just a two-word signal.' Shadow safe. 'It looks,' Ferris said, 'as if you'll need to meet Cambridge again.'

'Especially now.'

'Now that she's been on board the Contessa, and may have seen Proctor.'

'She may be still there,' Croder said. 'On board.'

'I doubt that. She goes on the air every day.'

'In a minute from now,' Monck said. 'Tench, is there a TV in that cabinet?'

He pulled open the double doors. 'Yes, sir.'

'Turn it on and cut the sound down and play the channels. We're looking for These Are My Views, you know the one?'

'Erica Cambridge, oh yes.'

'Channel 6,' Monck said. 'Half past nine.'

'Thank you, sir.'

Flick, flick, flick, and the juiciest cheeseburger you ever saw, dripping with some kind of sauce, then lots of them with lots of people with big white glistening teeth all biting into them with the cheese pulled out into strings, fade out, fade in some shadowed cleavage.

'No,' Ferris was saying on the phone, 'but you can leave a signal there. How is Jowett doing?'

'Tench,' I said, 'use that other phone and get me the number for Newsbreak studios, Miami, will you?'

'Jowett?' asked Croder when Ferris had rung off.

'There's no news.' Jowett had run Cocktail into the shit in Sri Lanka.

Knocking on the door. Tench went across and opened it. The security guard and a man in a khaki suit and carrying a worn leather bag, looking around. 'Who's the patient?'

This is Dr Hornby,' Ferris said. Bloody doctors. He must have sent for him. I pulled my shirt up and Hornby came over and looked at the dressing and began loosening it.

Tench asked me if I wanted him to get Newsbreak.

'Yes. I want to leave a message for Erica Cambridge.'

'It's good of you to turn out,' Ferris said, and took a look at the wound.

'I was only mending a rod. Fishing rod. Was it a clean knife, or dirty?'

'I'd say clean.'

'Woman did these? These stitches?'

'Yes.'

'Thought so. Wonderfully drawn. Nurse?'

'Yes.'

'They're underrated, you know.'

'She'd like to meet you.'

Good evening. I'm Erica Cambridge, and these are my views. The violet eyes, the brilliant smile. Shuffling the papers. Yesterday in New Hampshire it looked as if Senator Mathieson Judd was, for the first time, pandering to the dictates of those on his campaign staff who have been trying to persuade him -

'I've got Newsbreak on the line, sir. Her show.'

I took the phone. 'Who is this?'

'Bennie.'

– Has put it, to counterbalance the Republican candidate's serious and perhaps solemn approach to the matter in hand. But in my view, ladies and gentlemen -

I thought she looked a degree nervous, just a degree.

'Bennie, this is Richard Keyes. Ask Miss Cambridge to telephone me, would you, as soon as she comes off the air? She can find me at -'

'She's not here, Mr Keyes.'

'She taped the show tonight?'

'That's right.'

'Look, if she happens to call, give her this number.'

'See me in four days,' Hornby said. 'Here's my card.'

– His respect and regard for the electorate. So what happened in New Hampshire was not rehearsed, was not premeditated. It was real. Some of you were there, I believe.

I thanked Hornby and tucked my shirt in again. Had she met Proctor on that yacht? That would make her nervous, a degree nervous. Unless of course she'd been lying, unless she'd known already that he was there.

I phoned her apartment.

'She's not here, Mr Keyes, I'm sorry.'

'Can you tell me where I can find her?'

'She just went out, that's all I know.'

I left both numbers where she could find me and Ferris picked up the other phone.

Monck told him, 'Ask your people if they saw her come off the cutter.'

'But of course.' The tone acid. Ferris can get touchy when people give the impression he can't think straight.

'We need that woman,' Croder said. 'We need her badly.'

'Yes,' I said.

We'd begun feeling jumpy now, all of us, especially Purdom. When we'd parted company at Kruger Drug last night she'd told me it was vital we got together again as soon as possible and since then she'd gone to 1330 Riverside and she'd gone aboard the yacht out there and if she still wanted to talk to me she might give me the evidence we needed to push Barracuda straight into the end-phase.

'She is our new objective,' Croder said, 'for the mission,' the thin body buried in its clothes, the gaunt head sunk onto the shoulders, the obsidian-black eyes watching me to see if I understood how very important Cambridge had suddenly become to us all.

'If she'll cooperate,' I said.

'We shall do all we can to persuade her.'

The bleak, bright, bare-walled scene of an interrogation cell flashed across my mind, triggered by the word persuade. But of course he didn't mean that. We would approach Erica Cambridge, if we could, with civilised blandishments and exhortations, like the gentlemen we are.

'What time was that?'

Ferris, on the phone.

'You said she uses a bodyguard?' Croder asked me.

'She was using one last night.'

'I need two people,' Ferris said, 'on the Newsbreak building, front and rear, and I want you to keep a watch for her limousine. You've got the number. If she's seen anywhere at any time I want to know immediately, and don't let her out of your sight. This is -'

'Ferris,' Croder said.

'Hold it,' looking across at him.

'If she's not using a bodyguard, tell them to give her protection.'

Ferris repeated that and said it was fully urgent and rang off and then everyone was standing up and Monck said, 'Don't waste any time,' and I tied my shoe-laces and Purdom opened the door and we were on our way out when one of the telephones began ringing.

I went back and picked it up.

'Is Mr Keyes there, please?'

'Speaking.'

'This is Erica Cambridge.' The tone quiet and urgent. 'I'm speaking from the limo. They called me with your message. Why didn't you call me? I waited until noon.'

'I was prevented.' They were all watching me and I gave a slow nod. 'Where can we meet?'

"I'm on my way to the party at the Marina Yacht Club. They're giving it for Senator Judd – that's why I had to tape my show for today. Did you catch it, by any chance?'

'I was at a meeting.'

'I'm sorry you missed it. Some of the things I said were a little different. A lot of things are different now, Mr Keyes. I want to tell you about them. Can you get to the party? You're in Nassau right now, aren't you?'

She knew by the number. 'We need to meet somewhere more private than a yacht club.'

'Afterwards. Look, if you can get here before, say, midnight, you should do that. This is a campaign party and it'll go on till the morning, and there's a man I want you to meet. I'll keep him here as long as I can. It shouldn't be too difficult – he has the hots for me.'

'What's his name?'

'Stylus von Brinkerhoff.'

'I could meet him somewhere privately.'

'It has to be low key, a casual introduction.' A beat, then because I hadn't said anything she went on. 'It's really very important for you to meet him, Mr Keyes. And there are some things I have to tell you. One is you don't need to look for George Proctor any more. You know what I'm saying?'

I didn't like the pressure she'd started to put on me. Or it could be nerves, a touch of apprehension before Barracuda was pushed headlong into a new phase.

'Look, I have to pick someone up and take them along, and I won't be able to talk in front of them. I don't have more than a minute. I'm going to leave you an invitation at the desk of the Marina Yacht Club and you can ask for it there. It's black tie. Mr Keyes, you just don't appreciate how important it is for you to be there tonight. All you have to do is trust me.'

The line went dead and I put the phone down.

'That was Cambridge?' asked Croder.

'Yes.' I filled him in, verbatim.

'How does it strike you?' This was Ferris and he spoke before anyone else could. The ranking here went from Monck through Croder to Ferris and me, but Ferris was my director in the field and the mission was running and it was his sole and sacrosanct responsibility to look after his executive and he was making that quite clear.

'She used rather a lot of obvious pressure, don't you think?'

'When she said you had to trust her, did she sound hurt or indignant?'

'No. Persuasive.'

'Did she sound out of tune?'

Argot: he meant out of character.

'I've only met her once.'

Croder said, 'Can you bring it down to the odds?'

'That it's a trap?'

'Yes.'

Purdom had begun tapping the tips of his fingers together, not making any noise, just doing it quietly, not knowing he was doing it, wished he'd stop. 'The thing is,' I said, 'we've taken a lot of trouble keeping me under cover since the Mafia thing last night, and we'd be coming right out into the open again if I went there. To the party.'

Monck had been shuffling around the room and now he stopped and said with his head on one side, 'Let's try it this way. How much do you think you could learn, if you met her there?'

'A lot. If she's genuine. If it isn't a trap.'

Beginning to feel the chill a little. I've walked into traps before, knowing once or twice what I was doing, but they'd been the kind where you stood a chance of doing something very fast or very deadly, a chance of getting out again with what you'd gone in for, the product, some kind of information, dragging a man back to base for interrogation or bringing away papers, photographs, tapes. I don't mind taking a risk as long as it's calculated, as long as it's worth taking, but the problem we'd got here was that we couldn't tell what the odds were, whether it was worth it or not, whether it was worth walking into the Marina Yacht Club and hearing, a long way off in the distances of the mind, the swinging of a hinge and the closing of steel doors and the dying away of the echo in the dark.

'Ferris?' This was Croder, asking for a decision from the DIP, from the man who knew the field better than anyone, who knew the executive and what he could do, what he couldn't do, couldn't be asked to do.

'If you went in there,' he spoke directly to me, 'you'd have all the support we can raise. Fifteen or twenty people.'

Trained, talented, armed and strategically dispersed.

'They couldn't stop a long shot.'

'They would check the environment, very carefully.'

Purdom was still tapping his fingertips together and it worried me and I turned my head but Ferris got in very fast and made a gesture and Purdom froze and looked down suddenly, turned away, hadn't known he'd been doing it, and I saw Monck and Croder pick up the score, all very nervy, we were all very nervy because if I walked into that place and we'd got it wrong we'd lose Barracuda, lose it to a single shot.

Sweat beginning, cold on the skin.

Said to Ferris, 'Do you think I should do it?'

With his customary care: 'I think you should consider doing it. But consider well. The chances aren't very good, and the last word, of course, is yours.'

Car going past in the street, someone calling out, faint laughter.

La dolce vita.

'I think it's worth the risk.'