Quiller Barracuda

Chapter 18: BALLOONS

'If von Brinkerhoff is there, we'll have him tagged, of course.'

There was a heat-haze right across the city as we swung into the approach path, and the lights glimmered through it, brightening as we lowered.

'Ask her about that script she was using for last night's show,' Ferris said. 'Does she remember working it out according to campaign logic, or did it just come to her from out of the blue, as a flash of inspiration? But I wouldn't suggest she might have been under subliminal direction, or that she might still be.'

'Why not?'

'It's delicate ground, and it might panic her. It panicked you.'

Flaps down.

I was feeling all right. He hadn't asked me how I felt because he'd got a pretty good idea. When I say I was feeling all right I really mean I was feeling normal, normal for this particular situation. I was going straight into a red sector and we couldn't hope to cover all the contingencies because a gun is a gun and they don't have to be very big and they can be quite accurate if people know how to use them and they can drop a man from a distance even in a crowd, even with a silencer in place.

'Ask her if she'd be willing to meet Mr Croder and Mr Monck.'

I half-listened. He wasn't really briefing me; he knew I'd got a rough idea of what we wanted out of Erica Cambridge. He was making conversation, covering the important points to see if I had any questions, yes, but giving me comfort at the same time, giving me someone to talk to as we levelled out and the blue lamps flickered past the windows and the bump came, the first of three, because what we were doing was executing a trade-off, balancing the odds and deciding that the life of the executive for the mission was worth putting at risk providing the chance of getting vital information was high enough.

So I was feeling normal for the situation, a hollow-ness in the stomach, a chill on the skin, the palms slightly moist. The feeling that I was on my way to an execution wasn't new: I'd had it a hundred times and as recently as last night when little fat Nicko was taking me across the darkling main to a rendezvous with the grim reaper, God rest his stinking little soul, I did not like that man, execution, yes, nothing new, but this was different because everything looked so civilised and I was sitting here in Monck's dinner jacket and there was going to be an invitation left for me at the Marina Yacht Club for this very plush party and I was meeting a rather attractive woman there, so forth, different but no better, no better, my good friend, because a trap is a trap and in this trade you don't often get out alive.

'You'll have immediate contact, of course, whenever you need it,' Ferris said, and pulled his valise from under the seat in front. He meant I could signal any one of his people in the environment and talk to them, tell them what I wanted, pine veneer and simple handles, nothing fancy, joke.

Draughty out here on the tarmac. Ferris had phoned from the plane for a chopper to stand by for our arrival in Miami and take us to the shuttle pad by the Yacht Club because the timing had been tight and it was now 11:43 and we didn't know how long Cambridge would be able to keep von Brinkerhoff there.

A Customs and Immigration man was waiting for us and we stood there showing papers with our hair all over the place and then he said everything was okay and we got into the Hughes 300.

Lift-off, 11:48.

'Croder will be following on,' Ferris said, 'and he'll be available for a meeting with Cambridge if she seems amenable,' A tuft of his thin straw-coloured hair still sticking up. 'At this stage anything can happen, and with a bit of luck she might be ready to give us the whole thing and we can wrap up the mission.'

Keeping things cheerful, you understand, knows his job, Ferris.

Down at 11:57, lowering across the masts in the marina, heeling a little as the pilot brought most of the power off and turned through the last few degrees and then settled her carefully on the skids. A nice enough building, the Yacht Club, as you'd imagine, pale red brick and white window frames, pillared portico and wide green lawns, people standing outside on the balconies with drinks in their hands, the women in long colourful dresses, I'm not, if you want to know, particularly keen on parties because you can't hear what people are saying with all the noise and that wouldn't matter so much but you've got to put in some kind of answer here and there for the sake of politesse, Ferris opening the door and dropping onto the pad and waiting for me, a last-minute rush of apprehension as I followed him, ducking under the rotors and already seeing some of them not far away, some of his people, one of them the man who'd got me into that cab on the quay when the shed had caught fire two days ago, good people, well trained, a comfort, yes.

I swung the door of the chopper shut and turned round and faced the building and blew the cover they'd been giving me since they'd taken me off the tug last night, blew it to the winds. The Mafia had got a contract out on me and Toufexis's people had been given my photograph and there'd be some of them here tonight and I felt the sudden air-rush and the bloody thing droning into the skull and then it was over and I was back in control.

'Eighteen men,' Ferris said, 'your own little army,' and touched my elbow and turned away and I walked along the tiled path between the massed geraniums, not hurrying because I was here now and the party was far from over by the look of things, a crowd of black polished limousines in the car park on my left with chauffeurs standing around and two of our people near the wrought iron gates. I didn't know exactly what orders Croder had given for tonight but he wouldn't have put this amount of support in the field just to keep things jolly, so I suppose he'd told them to watch for a gun hand moving and make a killing drop in time to protect me. They'd carry official bodyguard licences to keep the fuss down when the police wanted to know what was happening: this was routine Bureau procedure.

Skin beginning to itch because the warmth of the night was heating up the Teflon I was wearing under the dinner-jacket, people crossing the portico on their way to the car park, only half a dozen police officers standing around so I suppose Senator Judd had already left: it was midnight. If he'd still been here there would have been fifty of them.

But there were a great many other people also standing around, most of them in blue serge suits. There would be a lot of high-echelon guests here tonight, targets for political activists and weirdos.

'Hi! Can I help you?'

Brilliant smile, a small corsage of carnations, one bare shoulder, Florida chic.

'There should be an invitation here for me. Richard Keyes.'

The name for the face in the photograph. They would know my name too. Shortening the odds, yes, on the other hand 'Sure, Mr Keyes, I have it right here. I'm sorry you missed the Senator.'

'Was he good?'

'O-h-h-h…' with her eyes shining, rolling to heaven, every hormone in her slim preened body lining up to vote for Golden Boy.

On the other hand, it wouldn't be easy in a crowd this big to squeeze off a shot and get clear with all those chauffeurs and police officers and bodyguards standing around, and less easy still to pump out some rapid fire from an Uzi: that would attract even more attention and they wouldn't reach the car before the police dropped them with a fusillade. Seek comfort, my good friend, seek comfort where ye may.

'Enjoy what there is left, Mr Keyes.'

The smile shimmering, the corsage quivering slightly to the body language, what there is left of what, my little darling, you mean my life?

'Champagne, sir?'

'Thank you.'

Cutting quite a dash in my borrowed plumage, glass in hand, the truth of the matter concealed beneath silk lapels, the Teflon itching on the skin, proof against anything up to armour-piercing grade, but if they were professionals they'd go for the head.

YOU'LL MAKE IT, MATHIESON! strung out in huge gold letters on a banner across the podium where the band was playing, a dozen couples still on the dance floor, their shoes brushing through coloured streamers, two waiters on their knees picking at the carpet where a glass had fallen and smashed, three Japanese talking together by one of the tall white-framed windows, and Erica Cambridge.

'Well hello, Mr Keyes.'

Slight, cool-looking in a sheer white silk gown with a lame belt, lame shoes, her violet eyes watching me as the smile was flashed on for the occasion.

'You look stunning,' in fact, did.

Thank you. Did you just get here?'

'Yes.'

'Did you come alone?'

'Yes.'

'Then you didn't see Mathieson.'

'I heard he was very good.'

'He's -' looking away, looking back – 'I have a lot to tell you. Why don't we go outside where it's quieter?'

'It's like a Turkish bath out there.' I led her towards the white moulded archways opposite the windows, giving my glass to a waiter. 'I got here as soon as I could.'

The slapping sound of a rotor cut across the music as another chopper landed. Croder will follow on, Ferris had said; or it could be picking up some of the guests.

'Stylus couldn't stay,' Erica said. 'He had to get back.' We found a couch, blue linen with white rope trim, where it was quiet enough to talk. Someone had left a brocade bag.

'Back to the Contessa?' Stylus von Brinkerhoff.

She looked at me sharply. 'You're well informed, Mr Keyes.'

'My first name is Richard. I'm sorry I missed him.'

'What do you know about him?'

'You said you had a lot to tell me.'

'Ma'am, is this your bag?'

'Oh my God, I've been frantic. Thank you so very – you're Erica Cambridge! I just love your show!'

"Thank you.'

'Well I'm – interrupting.'

'How is Proctor?' I asked her when the woman had gone.

She looked surprised again, wary. One can't always remember, but I think I've never seen a woman so frightened, beneath the maquillage, so close to some kind of brink. 'I didn't see him,' she said.

'But he's on board the Contessa.'

Reaction after reaction, and I began worrying that all she had to tell me was what we already knew.

'I believe I mentioned, Mr – Richard, that I have no one I can really confide in, really trust. I – I suppose I've gone through life antagonising people; at least that's my reputation. So why should I confide in you? Why should I trust you?'

'No earthly reason. You don't even know me.'

'You're not making it easy for yourself.'

I was.

'I didn't ask you to trust me, Erica. There's no obligation. But if you want my guarantee that I won't divulge anything you have to tell me, without your permission, I can give you my word.'

'How much is it worth? I'm sorry, that's not very -'

'It's unbreakable. Would you be prepared to talk to my people?'

'Who are they?'

'Officers of the British government.'

Her hands were on the move again, as they'd been when we'd sat at the table in Kruger Drug. Correction: not frightened beneath the maquillage. Awed. Awed by what she knew, what she'd found out at 1330 West Riverside Way and on board the Contessa.

'The British government,' she said, 'is involved. The entire world is involved. I -'

'Look, if you're willing to see my people, I can arrange it. You'd have more confidence in them than just one stranger. They're much higher than I am.'

It was a get-out but it was logical. If she was ready to talk to Ferris and Croder and Monck I could walk out of this thing and go home with a whole skin and let them put it down in the records, Mission completed, executive debriefed, because if this woman had the information we needed, that was exactly what I'd be doing – completing Barracuda. She was our new objective and I was close to handing her over.

'Whether I agree to see your "people" or not, I've decided to go to the State Department.' Running one violet-lacquered finger-nail along the white rope trim, unable to keep still. 'It would then be for them to consult with the President, and for him to decide whether to summon our allied ambassadors. But I don't know, Richard, this whole thing is -' her hand brushing the air – 'it's so far-reaching. And this is what scares me – I want to help Senator Judd get into the White House and in fact I'm already helping him do that, but now that I've learned what I have, I don't know if it isn't the most dangerous thing I could do. For everyone. For the United States and the rest of the world.'

I didn't say anything.

'I know he went thataway, Simon.' Gusty laughter, much champagne. 'He said the men's room.' Trotting past with uncertain feet, arm in arm. 'But where is Nancy?'

"Not in the men's room, let us hope!' More laughter.

'There are some people I have to talk to, Richard, before I can leave. But not about this. Let's meet on the front porch in fifteen minutes. We'll go to my apartment and I'll show you what I'm talking about. It's actually on paper, duplicated. You know what I'm saying? A whole brief, do you understand?'

The product. Mission completed.

Unless it was a trap.

I didn't know how good an actress she was. I didn't know if the fright in this woman, the feeling of awe, didn't derive from the knowledge that she was about to do what they'd briefed her to do when she was on board the Contessa: lead a man to his death. Proctor had been there on that yacht. Let that be borne in mind, because yesterday he'd asked La Cosa Nostra to put out a contract on me, and they'd come so very close to a kill.

Don't go with her.

You have a point.

'I need to know a little more,' I told her.

'We can't talk now. I asked you to come here to meet that man, not to discuss what I know. My apartment has a security guard, and you'll be absolutely -'

'I'm used to looking after my own security. That's why I need to know more.'

She looked hunted, glancing around her. 'But in a public place like this -'

'It's very private, actually. There are no bugs in the walls. Give me the gist. I need to know how serious this thing is.' Whether, in fact, it was serious enough to force me to take the risk of going to her apartment.

She looked around her again, pressed, frightened. That was my impression. 'All right,' she said in a moment, 'here it is.' She moved back against the wall, against the big mural of sails heeling across a choppy sea with spindrift blowing, and said quickly and softly, 'I told you there were plans, with Senator Judd as the prime mover, to buy America. I know more about it now. On board the Contessa there's a faction calling itself the Trust, frighteningly powerful, awesomely influential in world affairs. It has people like Apostolos Simitis, the shipping magnate, Lord Joplyn of Eastleigh, who controls more than half the mineral deposits in South Africa, Takao Sakomoto, the leading industrialist in Japan. Maybe you haven't heard of these men -'.

'No -'

'Then take it from me, they're the puppet masters behind the scenes of international finance. People like Stylus von Brinkerhoff, the Swiss banker – the man I was hoping you could meet here tonight. They -' she broke off as someone came through the arches towards the rest rooms, passing within a dozen feet of us. In a moment – 'My God, this is so dangerous, talking in a place like this. But you wanted the gist, and it's this, Richard. These men plan to buy America – and sell it to the Soviets. In the declared interests of the final and permanent laying down of arms among nations, they propose the creation of a single world government, behind whose public throne they can exert their private power. And to meet the enormous demands of demographic reorganisation they envisage the setting of that throne to be in Moscow.'

Watching me for my reaction, didn't see anything. But my pulse was elevated: I could feel it. It was going to be worth it, then, worth going to her flat, taking the risk, because she couldn't be making this up: it had the appalling ring of truth.

'We'll go there separately,' I said.

To my apartment?'

'Yes.'

'I have the limo here. We can talk -'

'No,' I said. 'For the sake of security.'

'Yours, or mine?'

It seemed to worry her.

'Both.'

Mine, if this whole thing was a trap. Hers, if they put me in the cross hairs out there and missed, and hit her instead. It wasn't a night for taking chances.

'Okay. You have my address?'

'You gave me your card.'

She got up, straightening the lame belt. 'I'll be there inside of forty-five minutes, depending on the traffic. You'll be alone?'

'Of course.'

She left me.

Setting me up.

She's setting you up.

Probably.

This is a trap, you know that.

Probably.

So don't go there. Don't be such a -

Oh for Christ's sake shut up. I know what I'm doing.

It's a trap, it's a trap, it's -

Shuddup.

Snivelling little bloody organism, scared of its own shadow, one of them over there by the french windows, he'd been there since I'd first come in, another one by the doors, talking to a girl, chatting her up, good cover, another one on the dance floor, engrossed, or seemingly engrossed until he saw my signal and said something at once to the girl and she laughed quickly so I imagine he'd said if he didn't go and wring out a kidney soon there'd be an accident, because he was coming towards the men's room and I went back through the archway and cut across him in the corridor, a small neat-looking man with glasses, never look at him twice unless you noticed his eyes, cold as the eyes of a reptile, the kind of man I like to see when they're meant to be keeping me as far as possible from the slab in the morgue, stretched out under the shroud and stinking of formaldehyde, it's a trap, oh for God's sake bugger off.

'Have you seen Lucas?' he asked me.

'No, but I've seen Baldwin. The way I want it is like this. She's leaving here in about fifteen minutes and it's going to take her another thirty to reach her flat. Here's the address. I'm -'

'I know the address.'

'I'm going over there by the bar and wait until I see her leave. I want her tagged and I want you to see if she makes any kind of signal and if she does I want you to see who gets it and what he does, where he goes, if he -'

'Normal routine,' he said.

Starchy bastard, as bad as Ferris, put on a pout when they think they're being told how to do their job, but I liked that because only the real professionals have got that degree of pride and tonight I wanted real professionals about me, my good friend, not yonder Cassius.

'Whatever happens, I'm going to follow her to her flat as if I didn't know any better, and if you people find you've got a lot to deal with I want you to do exactly as much as you need to, including deadly force if you think I'm endangered – has C of S cleared you on this?'

'Yes.'

'What have you got for me out there? Something with smoked glass?'

'A limo, yes.'

'I'll sit in the back. Providing -'

'As long as you don't tell Nancy, you know what I mean?'

'She thinks you don't sleep around?'

'That's exsh – exactly what she thinks.'

Peals of restrained mirth, their voices fading.

'Providing I reach her flat without any diversions, I want all the cover you can give me at the moment when I get out of the car. How many people are there outside her flat now?'

'Four. Crosby, Mace -'

'Where will you be?'

'Following your limo, two cars behind. Black Honda coupe, Florida plates.'

'All right, when you -' broke off to let him concentrate on the two men over there by the reception desk. He turned his head an inch and got a signal from the man standing by the curtains picking at his nails.

'They're okay.'

'Have you seen any Sicilians here?'

'Nine. They haven't seen you, not to recognise.'

'Where are they?'

'Five outside, two of those are in the car park. The others are in here, that one over there, the one on the far side with the cummerbund, those two by the bar.'

He meant he'd seen them before or they'd been seen before by one or more of the other support people here tonight, seen and recognised. There could be a dozen more of them, a hundred, they've got a vote too, got political views, go to political parties, eat cookies, crap, close in on you, aim for the head, splinters of bloodied bone from the site of exit in the skull, you're taking a risk, you're playing Russian roulette again, you -

Oh for God's sake piss off.

'When you see me getting out of the car I shall want your personal signal as to whether you think I should go into the building. You're Hood, aren't you?'

'Yes.'

Seen him before, North Africa, Loman had put him into the field for Tango, he'd impressed me, knew how to drive, how to subdue, a man, how to make no noise, ask no questions, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't send him up to Norfolk for training as a shadow if he lived long enough, though it's a fraction chancy for the troops, as you know, look at the one they got last night in Riverside Way.

'All right,' I said, 'tell someone to get my car moved within sight of her limo. She -'

"That's been taken care of. You're on the west side, three rows from the gates and five cars along from the middle aisle. She's on the same side, two rows from the gates and six along, the gaps counting as cars, because there's a lot of movement down there now with people still leaving. Your driver's waiting for you there, name of Treader. I'd better fade.'

I moved round the room, keeping behind people when I could, watching for Erica. In ten minutes she came through one of the arches with a man, talking intently. I hadn't seen him before. Hood was watching him from the bar. I moved again, this time towards the reception area, and I was outside by the time she came across the porch. She was still talking to the man, listening to him, neither smiling, nothing social, and when they parted she simply turned away and he went back inside.

There were other people drifting across the lawns and along the pathways, dinner jackets, bare suntanned arms, cigars, the glitter of jewellery, sudden laughter, a drunk getting rather loud and then being hushed, chauffeurs coming forward, some of the men in blue serge moving into the crowd, music still coming from the building through the open french windows, a three-quarter moon afloat in a clear sky above the turreted roof, a fine night, windless but close, oppressive.

I didn't know where Croder was, or if in fact he was here by now; he hadn't necessarily been on board the shuttle chopper I'd heard earlier. There was another one on the pad with its rotor turning but I think it was taking off, not landing. Croder might not be here at all, though I assumed he'd be somewhere in Miami by now. There was still a chance that Erica would agree to meet him, give him the whole thing.

That had been Ferris, I think, doing his homework, going through my debriefing on the Kruger Drug meeting and suggesting that Croder follow me in to Miami in case Erica was ready to talk.

She was walking down to the gates, another man with her now, a bodyguard, keeping pace from a short distance behind, his head turning the whole time. Someone was laughing in the little group on the west side of the car park – the chopper was airborne over the pad and some balloons were blowing across the people's heads in the down draught.

I went through the gates not far behind Erica and peeled off to the left, walking five cars along and three rows down. I was in a small open space now, with no one near me, and I saw the man signal me from the limousine. I didn't see anyone looking in my direction, but I'd seen Hood over towards the aisle, covering me, and I felt the pressure coming off, the pervasive fear that had been with me since I'd arrived here.

My shoes – Monck's shoes – slipped a little over the brick-red tiles; I suppose they were new ones. The chopper was passing overhead now and some of the coloured balloons were sent blowing to the ground and bouncing and flying up again in the draught from the rotors as the chopper slowed, hovering, and I looked up and saw the door coming open a few inches and the submachine gun poking through the gap and the dark orange flame as it began firing.