The Freedom Trap [= The Mackintosh Man]

I

I slept badly that night. In the dark hours my hypothesis began to seem damned silly and more and more unlikely. A millionaire and an MP could not possibly be associated with the Russians — it was a contradiction in terms. Certainly Alison found she could not accept it. And yet Wheeler was associated with the Scarperers, unless the whole series of assumed links was pure coincidence — and that possibility could not be eliminated. I had seen too many cases of apparent cause and effect which turned out to be coincidence.

I turned over restlessly in bed. Yet assume it was so — that Wheeler actually was controlling the Scarperers. Why would he do it? Certainly not to make money; he had plenty of that. The answer came out again that it was political, which again led to Wheeler as a Member of Parliament and the dangers inherent in that situation.

I fell asleep and had dire dreams full of looming menace.

At breakfast I was still tired and a shade bad-tempered. My temper worsened rapidly when Alison made the first phone call of the day and was told by the Harbourmaster that Artina had arrived during the night, refuelled quickly, and left for Gibraltar in the early hours.

‘We’ve lost the bastard again,’ I said.

‘We know where he is,’ said Alison consolingly. ‘And we know where he’ll be in four days.’

‘There are too many things wrong with that,’ I said glumly. ‘Just because he has clearance for Gibraltar doesn’t mean he’s going there, for one thing. For another, what’s to prevent him from transferring Slade to a Russian trawler heading the other way through the Baltic? He could do it easily once he’s over the horizon. And we don’t even know if Slade is aboard Artina. We’re just guessing.’

After breakfast Alison went out to collect the stuff from the Examiner. I didn’t go with her; I wasn’t going anywhere near a newspaper office — those reporters had filled up their columns with too much about Rearden and too many photographs. A sharp-eyed reporter was the last person I wanted to encounter.

So I stayed in the house while Maeve tactfully busied herself with the housework and left me alone to brood. Alison was away for an hour and a half, and she brought back a large envelope. ‘Photographs and telex sheets,’ she said, as she plopped the envelope in front of me.

I looked at the photographs first. There were three of Wheeler, one an official photograph for publicity use and the others news shots of him caught with his mouth open as the news photographers like to catch politicians. In one of them he looked like a predatory shark and I’d bet some editor had chortled over that one.

He was a big man, broad-shouldered and tall, with fair hair. The photographs were black-and-white so it was difficult to judge, but I’d say his hair was ash-blond. His nose was prominent and had a twist in it as though it had been thumped at some time or other, and the cartoonists would have no trouble taking the mickey if he ever attained a position of eminence. I put the photographs of Wheeler aside — I would recognize him if I saw him.

The other photographs were of the Artina, and one was a reproduction of the plans of her sister ship. Sean O’Donovan had exaggerated — she was not nearly as big as the royal yacht, but she was a fair size for all that, and it would take a millionaire to buy her and to run her. There was an owner’s double cabin forward of the engine room and aft were three double cabins for six guests. The crew lived forward, excepting the skipper who had the master’s cabin just behind the wheelhouse.

I studied that plan until I had memorized every passage and door. If I had to board her I would want to know my way around and to know the best places to hide. I checked off the aft peak and the room which held the air conditioning equipment as likely places for a stowaway.

Alison was immersed in reading the telex sheets. ‘Any joy there?’

She looked up. ‘There’s not much more than I told you last night. It’s expanded a bit, that’s all. Wheeler fought for the Partisans in Jugoslavia.’

‘The communists,’ I said. ‘Another strand in the web.’

I began to read and found that Alison was right; there wasn’t much more solid information. The picture was of a bright young man who became a tycoon by the usual clapper-clawing methods and who now had a solid base in society built up by saying the right things at the right times and by contributing largely to the right causes. The picture of a successful man now looking for new worlds to conquer — hence the politics.

‘He’s not married,’ I said. ‘He must be the most eligible bachelor in England.’

Alison smiled wryly. ‘I’ve heard a couple of rumours. He runs a mistress who is changed regularly, and the story goes that he’s bisexual. But no one in his right mind would put that on the telex — that would be publishing a libel.’

‘If Wheeler knew what was in my mind libel would be the least of his worries,’ I said.

Alison shrugged unenthusiastically. ‘What do we do?’

‘We go to Gibraltar,’ I said. ‘Will your plane take us there?’

‘Of course.’

‘Then let’s chase the wild goose. There’s nothing else to do.’

II

We had time to spare and in plenty. An inspection of the plans of Artina’s sister ship and a reading of the description that went with it made it quite certain that she was no high speed craft and she certainly couldn’t get to Gibraltar in less than four days. We decided to play it safe and to be in Gibraltar in three days so we would be there when she came in.

That gave Alison time to fly back to London to see how Mackintosh was managing to survive and to dig up more dirt on Wheeler. We decided it would be most unwise for me to go back to London. Ducking in and out of Cork airport was one thing — Gatwick or Heathrow was quite another. Every time I smuggled myself incognito through the airport barriers I took an added risk.

So I spent two days cooped up in a suburban house in Cork with no one to speak to but an old Irishwoman. I must say that Maeve was most tactful; she didn’t push and she didn’t question, and she respected my silences. Once she said, ‘Och, I know how it is with you, Owen. I went through it myself in 1918. It’s a terrible thing to have the hand of every man against you, and you hiding like an animal. But you’ll rest easy in this house.’

I said, ‘So you had your excitement in the Troubles.’

‘I had,’ she said. ‘And I didn’t like it much. But there are always troubles — if not here then somewhere else — and there’ll always be men running and men chasing.’ She gave me a sidelong glance. ‘Especially men like Alec Mackintosh and whoever concerns himself with that man.’

I smiled. ‘Don’t you approve of him?’

She lifted her chin. ‘Who am I to approve or disapprove? I know nothing of his business other than that it is hard and dangerous. More dangerous for the men he orders than for him, I’m thinking.’

I thought of Mackintosh lying in hospital. That was enough to disprove that particular statement. I said, ‘What about the women he commands?’

Maeve looked at me sharply. ‘You’ll be thinking of Alison,’ she said flatly. ‘Now that’s a bad thing. He wanted a son and he got Alison, so he did the best with what he had and made her to his pattern; and it’s a strong pattern and a hard pattern, enough to make a girl break under the burden of it.’

‘He’s a hard man,’ I said. ‘What about Alison’s mother? Didn’t she have a say in the matter?’

Maeve’s tone was a little scornful, but the scorn was intermingled with pity. ‘That poor woman! She married the wrong man. She didn’t understand a man the like of Alec Mackintosh. The marriage never went well and she left Alec before Alison was born and came to live here in Ireland. She died in Waterford when Alison was ten.’

‘And that’s when Mackintosh took over Alison’s education.’

‘It is so,’ said Maeve.

I said, ‘What about Smith?’

‘Has Alison not told you about him?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘Then I’ll not be telling,’ said Maeve decidedly. ‘I’ve gossiped enough already. When — and if — Alison wants you to know, then she’ll tell you herself.’ She turned away, and then paused, looking over her shoulder at me. ‘I’m thinking you’re a hard man yourself, Owen Stannard. I doubt if you’ll be the one for Alison.’

And I was left to make of that what I could.

Alison rang up late the first night. ‘I flew out to sea when I left,’ she said. ‘Artina was on course for Gibraltar.’

‘You didn’t make the inspection too obvious, I hope.’

‘I overtook her flying at five thousand feet and climbing. I didn’t turn until I was out of sight.’

‘How is Mackintosh?’ I still called him that, even to her.

‘He’s better, but still unconscious. I was allowed to see him for two minutes.’

That wasn’t too good. I could have done with Mackintosh being awake and talkative; he wasn’t alive enough yet for my liking. Which brought me to another and delicate subject. ‘You might be under observation in London.’

‘No one followed me. I didn’t see anyone I know, either, except one man.’

‘Who was that?’

‘The Prime Minister sent his secretary to the hospital. I saw him there. He said the PM is worried.’

I thought of Wheeler and the man who had been taken out of prison to be killed, and then I thought of Mackintosh lying helpless in a hospital bed. ‘You’d better do something,’ I said. ‘Ring the secretary chap and ask him to spread the word around that Mackintosh is dying — that he’s cashing in his chips.’

She caught on. ‘You think they might attack Father in hospital?’

‘They might if they think he’s going to recover. Ask the PM’s secretary to drop the unobtrusive word, especially to any of Wheeler’s known associates in the House. If Wheeler rings London to have a chat with one of his mates the news might get through — and that could save your father’s life.’

‘I’ll do that,’ she said.

‘Anything on Wheeler?’

‘Not yet; not what we want, anyway. He lives a blameless public life.’

‘It’s not his public life we’re interested in,’ I said. ‘But do your best.’

Alison came back two days later, arriving in a taxi in mid-afternoon. She looked tired as though she had not had much sleep, and Maeve clucked at the sight of her but relaxed as Alison said, ‘Too much damned nightclubbing.’

Maeve went away and I raised my eyebrows. ‘Been living it up?’

She shrugged. ‘I had to talk to people and the kind of people I had to talk to are in the night club set.’ She sighed. ‘But it was a waste of time.’

‘No further dirt?’

‘Nothing of consequence, except maybe one thing. I checked the servant situation.’

‘The what situation!’

She smiled tiredly. ‘I checked on Wheeler’s servants. The days of glory are past and servants are hard to come by, but Wheeler does all right even though he needs a large staff.’ She took her notebook from her pocket. ‘All his staff are British and have British passports excepting the chauffeur who is an Irish national. Do you find that interesting?’

‘His contact with Ireland,’ I said. ‘It’s very interesting.’

‘It gets better,’ she said. ‘As I said, the rest of his servants are British, but every last one of them is naturalized and they’ve all had their names changed by deed poll. And what do you think was their country of origin?’

I grinned. ‘Albania.’

‘You’ve just won a cigar. But there’s an exception here too. One of them didn’t take a British name because it would be peculiar if he did. Wheeler has taken a fancy to Chinese cooking and has a Chinese cook on the premises. His name is Chang Pi-wu.’

‘I see what you mean,’ I said. ‘It would seem bloody funny if he changed his name to McTavish. Where does he hail from?’

‘Hong Kong.’

A Hong Kong Chinese! It didn’t mean much. I suppose it was quite reasonable that if a multi-millionaire had a taste for Chinese food then he’d have a Chinese cook; millionaires think differently from the common ruck of folk and that would be part of the small change of his life. But I felt a tickle at the back of my mind.

I said carefully, ‘It may be that Wheeler is doing the charitable bit. Maybe all these British Albanians are his cousins and his cousins’ cousins, nieces and nephews he’s supporting in a tactful sort of way.’

Alison looked up at the ceiling. ‘The problem with servants is keeping them. They want four nights a week off, television in their rooms and a lie-in every morning, otherwise they become mobile and leave. The turnover is high, and Wheeler’s turnover in servants is just as high as anyone else’s.’

‘Is it, by God?’ I leaned forward and peered at Alison closely. ‘You’ve got something, damn it! Spit it out.’

She grinned cheerfully and opened her notebook. ‘He has thirteen British Albanians working for him — gardeners, butler, housekeeper, maids and so on. Not one had been with him longer than three years. The last one to arrive pitched up last month. They come and go just like ordinary servants.’

‘And they take holidays in Albania,’ I said. ‘He’s got a courier service.’

‘Not only that,’ said Alison. ‘But someone is supplying him with a regular intake.’ She consulted her notebook again. ‘I did a check with the local branch of the Ministry of Social Security in Herefordshire; in the last ten years he’s had fifty of them through his hands. I can’t prove they were all Albanians because they had British names, but I’ll take a bet they were.’

‘Jesus!’ I said. ‘Hasn’t anyone tumbled to it? What the hell is the Special Branch doing?’

Alison spread her hands. ‘They’re all British. If it’s come to anyone’s attention — which I doubt — then he’s doing the charitable bit, as you said — rescuing his compatriots from the communist oppressors.’

‘Fifty!’ I said. ‘Where do they all go when he’s done with them?’

‘I don’t know about the fifty — I’ve only had time to check on two. Both are now in the service of other MPs.’

I began to laugh because I couldn’t help it. ‘The cheek of it,’ I said. ‘The brazen nerve! Don’t you see what he’s doing? He’s getting these fellows in, giving them a crash course on British mores and customs as well as the finer points of being a gentleman’s gentleman, and then planting them as spies. Can’t you imagine him talking to one of his mates in the Commons? “Having servant trouble, dear boy? It just happens that one of mine is leaving. Oh, no trouble like that — he just wants to live in Town. Perhaps I can persuade... ” It beats anything I’ve ever heard.’

‘It certainly shows he has present connections with Albania,’ said Alison. ‘I wasn’t convinced before — it seemed too ridiculous. But I am now.’

I said, ‘Do you remember the Cicero case during the war. The valet of the British Ambassador to Turkey was a German spy. Wheeler has been in the money for twenty years — he could have planted a hundred Ciceros. And not only at the political end. I wonder how many of our industrial chieftains have Wheeler-trained servants in their households?’

‘All with English names and all speaking impeccable English,’ said Alison. ‘Wheeler would see to that.’ She ticked off the steps on her fingers. ‘They come to England and while they’re waiting for naturalization they learn the language thoroughly and study the British in their native habitat. When they’re British they go to Wheeler for a final gloss and then he plants them.’ She shook her head doubtfully. ‘It’s a very long-term project.’

‘Wheeler himself is a long-term project. I don’t see him packing his bags and returning to his native land. Look at Slade, for God’s sake! He was worming his way in for twenty-eight years! These people take the long view.’ I paused. ‘When do we leave for Gibraltar?’

‘Tomorrow morning.’

‘Good,’ I said. ‘I want to catch up with this incredible bastard.’

III

I went into Cork airport the hard way, as usual. I was beginning to forget what it was like to use the front door. Maeve O’Sullivan had been uncharacteristically emotional when we left. ‘Come back soon, girl,’ she said to Alison. ‘It’s an old woman I am, and there’s no telling.’ There were tears in her eyes but she rubbed them away as she turned to me. ‘And you, Owen Stannard; take care of yourself and Alec Mackintosh’s daughter.’

I grinned. ‘She’s been taking care of me so far.’

‘Then you’re not the man I thought you were to let her,’ replied Maeve with asperity. ‘But go carefully, and watch for the garda.’

So we went carefully and it was with relief that I watched the city of Cork pass under the wings of the Apache as we circled to find our course south. Alison snapped switches and set dials, then took her hands from the control column. ‘It will be nearly six hours,’ she said. ‘Depending on the wind and the rain.’

‘You’re not expecting bad weather?’

She smiled. ‘It was just a manner of speaking. As a matter of fact, the weather report is good. The wind is northerly at 24,000 feet.’

‘Will we be flying that high? I didn’t think these things did that.’

‘The engines are supercharged, so it’s more economical to fly high. But this cabin isn’t pressurized, so we’ll have to go on oxygen soon — as soon as we reach 10,000 feet. You’ll find the mask by your side.’

The last time I had seen the Apache it had been a six-seater but in Alison’s absence in London the two rearmost seats had been removed and had been replaced by a big plastic box. I jerked my thumb over my shoulder, and said, ‘What’s that?’

‘An extra fuel tank — another seventy gallons of spirit. It increases the range to 2,000 miles at the most economical flying speed. I thought we might need it.’

The capable Alison Smith thought of everything. I remembered what Maeve had said: Made to a hard pattern, enough to break a girl under the burden of it. I studied Alison; her face was calm as she checked the instruments and then tested the oxygen flow, and there were no lines of stress to substantiate Maeve’s remark. Alison glanced sideways and caught me looking at her. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘A cat may look at a king,’ I said. ‘So a dog may look at a queen. I was just thinking that you’re lovely, that’s all.’

She grinned and jerked her thumb backwards. ‘The Blarney Stone is back there, and I know for a fact you never went near it. You must have Irish in your ancestry.’

‘And Welsh,’ I said. ‘Hence the Owen. It’s the Celt coming out in me.’

‘Put on your mask,’ she said. ‘Then you’ll look as beautiful as me.’

It was a long and boring flight. Although the masks had built-in microphones we didn’t do much talking, and presently I put down the back of the seat to a reclining position. We flew south at 200 miles an hour — fifteen times faster than Wheeler in Artina — and I slept.

Or, rather, I dozed. I woke up from time to time and found Alison alert, scanning the sky or checking the instruments or making a fine adjustment. I would touch her shoulder and she would turn with a smile in her eyes and then resume her work. After nearly four hours had passed she nudged me and pointed ahead. ‘The Spanish coast.’

There was a haze of heat below and a crinkled sea, and ahead the white line of surf. ‘We won’t overfly Spain,’ she said. ‘Not if we’re landing at Gibraltar. It’s politically inadvisable. We’ll fly down the Portuguese coast.’

She took out a map on a board and worked out the new course, handling the protractor with smoothly efficient movements, then switched off the auto-pilot and swung the aircraft around gently. ‘That’s Cape Ortegal,’ she said. ‘When we sight Finisterre I’ll alter course again.’

‘When did you learn to fly?’ I asked.

‘When I was sixteen.’

‘And to shoot a pistol?’

She paused before answering. ‘When I was fourteen — pistol and rifle and shotgun. Why?’

‘Just wondering.’ Mackintosh believed in teaching them young. I found it hard to imagine a little girl of fourteen looking past the sights of a rifle. I bet she knew the Morse code, too, and all the flag semaphore signals, to say nothing of programming a computer and lighting a fire without matches. ‘Were you a Girl Guide?’

She shook her head. ‘I was too busy.’

Too busy to be a Girl Guide! She’d have her head down at her books studying languages when she wasn’t practising in the air or banging away on the target range. I wouldn’t have put it past Mackintosh to make certain that she was at home in a submarine. What a hell of a life!

‘Did you have any friends in those days?’ I asked. ‘Girls of your own age?’

‘Not many.’ She twisted in her seat. ‘What are you getting at, Owen?’

I shrugged. ‘Just the idle thoughts of an idle man.’

‘Has Maeve O’Sullivan been filling you up with horror stories? Is that it? I might have known.’

‘She didn’t say a word out of place,’ I said. ‘But you can’t help a man thinking.’

‘Then you’d do better to keep your thoughts to yourself.’ She turned back to the controls and lapsed into silence, and I thought it would be as well if I kept my big mouth shut, too.

As we turned the corner and flew up the Strait of Gibraltar Alison took the controls and we began to descend. At 10,000 feet she took off her oxygen mask and I was glad to do the same. And then, in the distance, I saw the Rock for the first time, rising sheer from the blue water. We circled and I saw the artificial harbour and the airstrip jutting into Algeciras Bay like the deck of an aircraft carrier. Apparently, to Alison who was busy on the radio, it was all old hat.

We landed from the east and our small aircraft did not need all that enormous runway. We rolled to a halt and then taxied to the airport buildings. I looked at the military aircraft parked all around, and said grimly, ‘This is one airport which will have good security.’ How was I going to smuggle myself through this one?

‘I have something for you,’ said Alison, and took a folder from the map pocket from which she extracted a passport. I nicked it open and saw my own face staring up from the page. It was a diplomatic passport. She said, ‘It will get us through customs in a hurry, but it won’t save you if you are recognized as Rearden.’

‘It’s good enough.’ Even if I was recognized as Rearden the sight of that diplomatic passport would be enough to give my challenger cause to wonder if he could possibly be right. I said, ‘My God, you must have pull.’

‘Just enough,’ she said calmly.

The passport officer smiled as he took the passport, and the civilian with the hard face who was standing next to him ceased to study me and relaxed. We went right through within three minutes of entering the hall. Alison said, ‘We’re staying at the Rock Hotel; whistle up a taxi, will you?’

If Wheeler’s trained Albanians made the perfect servants then Alison Smith was a God-given secretary. I hadn’t thought for one moment of where we were going to lay our heads that night, but she had. Alec Mackintosh was a lucky man — but, perhaps, it wasn’t luck. He’d trained her, hadn’t he?

We had adjoining rooms at the Rock Hotel and agreed to meet in the bar after cleaning up. I was down first. Alison Smith was no different in that respect than any other woman, I was glad to observe; the female takes fifty per cent longer to prink than the male. It is only fifty per cent even though it seems twice as long. I had sunk my first cold beer by the time she joined me.

I ordered her a dry Martini and another beer for myself. She said, ‘What will you do when Wheeler arrives?’

‘I have to find if Slade is aboard Artina and that will mean a bit of pirate work.’ I grinned. ‘I promise not to have a knife in my teeth when I go over the bulwarks.’

‘And if he is on board?’

‘I do my best to bring him off.’

‘And if you can’t?’

I shrugged. ‘I have orders covering that eventuality.’

She nodded coolly, and I wondered briefly if Mackintosh had ever given his own daughter similar instructions. She said, ‘Wheeler being what he is and who he is will probably anchor off the Royal Gibraltar Yacht Club. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s a member — he comes here often enough.’

‘Where is it?’

‘About half a mile from here.’

‘We’d better take a look at it.’

We finished our drinks and strolled into the sunshine. The yacht basin was full of craft, sail and power, big and small. I stood looking at the boats and then turned. ‘There’s a convenient terrace over there where they serve cooling drinks. That will be a nice place to wait.’

‘I’m just going to make a telephone call,’ said Alison, and slipped away. I looked at the yachts and the sea and tried to figure how I could get aboard Artina but without much success because I didn’t know where she would be lying. Alison came back. ‘Wheeler is expected at eleven tomorrow morning. He radioed through.’

‘That’s nice,’ I said, and turned my face up to the sun. ‘What do we do until then?’

She said unexpectedly, ‘What about a swim?’

‘I forgot to pack trunks; I didn’t expect a semi-tropical holiday.’

‘There are shops,’ she said gently. So we went shopping and I bought trunks and a towel, and a pair of German duty-free binoculars, smooth, sleek and powerful.

We went across the peninsula and swam at Catalan Bay which was very nice. That night we went night-clubbing, which was even nicer. Mrs Smith seemed to be human and made of the same mortal clay as the rest of us.

IV

At ten o’clock next morning we were sitting on the terrace overlooking the yacht basin and imbibing something long, cold and not too alcoholic. We both wore sun-glasses, not as much to shade our eyes as to join the anonymous throng just as the film stars do. The binoculars were to hand and all that was lacking was Artina and Wheeler, and, possibly, Slade.

We didn’t talk much because there wasn’t anything to talk about; we couldn’t plot and plan in the absence of Artina. And Alison had loosened the strings of her personality the previous night as near as she had ever got to letting her hair down, and possibly she was regretting it. Not that she had let me get too close; I had made the expected pass and she evaded it with practised ease. But now she had returned to her habitual wariness — we were working and personal relationships didn’t matter.

I soaked up the sun. It was the thing I had missed in England, especially in prison, and now I let it penetrate to warm my bones. Time went on and presently Alison picked up the binoculars and focused them on a boat making its way to harbour between the North Mole and the Detached Mole. ‘I think this is Artina.’

I had a glass to my lips when she said it, and I swallowed the wrong way and came up for air spluttering and choking. Alison looked at me with alarm. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘The impudence of it!’ I gasped with laughter. ‘Artina is an anagram of Tirana — and that’s the capital of Albania. The bastard’s laughing at us all. It just clicked when you said it.’

Alison smiled and proffered the binoculars. I looked at the boat coming in with the dying bow wave at her forefoot and compared what I saw with the drawings and photographs of her sister ship. ‘She could be Artina,’ I said. ‘We’ll know for sure within the next five minutes.’

The big motor yacht came closer and I saw the man standing at the stern — big and with blond hair. ‘Artina it is — and Wheeler.’ I swept the glasses over her length. ‘No sign of Slade, but that’s to be expected. He wouldn’t parade himself.’

She anchored off-shore and lay quietly in the water and I checked every man who walked on deck, identifying five for certain without Wheeler. There was a crew of seven apart from an unknown number of guests, but the men I saw didn’t seem to be guests. Two were on the foredeck by a winch and another was watching the anchor chain. Two more were lowering a boat into the water.

I said, ‘Count the number of men who come ashore. That might be useful to know.’

The two men by the winch moved amidships and unshipped the folding companionway and rigged it at the side of the yacht. One of them went down the steps and tethered the boat. Presently Wheeler appeared with a man in a peaked cap and they both descended the companionway into the waiting boat. The engine started and it took off in a wide curve and then straightened, heading for the yacht club.

Alison said, ‘Wheeler and the skipper, I think. The man at the wheel is a crewman.’

They stepped ashore at the club and then the tender took off again and returned to Artina where the crewman tethered it to the bottom of the companionway and climbed up on board again. Alison nudged me. ‘Look!’

I turned my head in the direction her finger indicated. A big work boat was ploughing across the water towards Artina. ‘So!’

‘It’s a fueller,’ she said. ‘Artina is taking on diesel fuel and water already. It seems that Wheeler isn’t going to waste much time here.’

‘Damn!’ I said. ‘I was hoping he’d stay the night. I’d much rather go aboard in darkness.’

‘He doesn’t seem to have any guests,’ she said. ‘And he’s in a hurry. From our point of view those are encouraging signs. Slade might very well be on board.’

‘And a fat lot of use that is if I can’t go aboard to find him. How long do you think refuelling will take?’

‘An hour, maybe.’

‘Time enough to hire a boat,’ I said. ‘Let’s go.’

We bickered with a Gibraltan longshoreman for the hire of a motor launch and got away with him charging not more than twice the normal rate, and then launched out into the harbour. The fueller and Artina were now close-coupled on the port side, with hoses linking them. Another crew member in a peak cap was supervising — that could be the engineer.

I throttled down as we approached and we drifted by about fifty yards from the starboard side. Someone came into view, looked at us incuriously and then lifted his head to look up at the Rock. He was Chinese.

I said, ‘That, presumably, is Chang Pi-wu. Wheeler must like Chinese cooking if he takes his Chinese chef to sea. I hope the crew like Chinese food.’

‘Maybe they have their own cook.’

‘Maybe.’ I studied the Chinese covertly. Many occidentals claim that all Chinese look alike. They’re wrong — the Chinese physiognomy is as varied as any other and I knew I’d recognize this man if I saw him again. But I’d had practice; I’d lived in the East.

We drifted to the stern of Artina. The ports of the rearmost guest cabin were curtained in broad daylight, and I had a good idea of where Slade was lying low. It was exasperating to be so close and not be able to get at him.

Even as I opened the throttle and headed back to the shore I saw a crewman drop into the boat moored at the bottom of Artina’s companionway and take off. He was faster than we were and as we handed our launch to the owner I looked out and saw him returning with Wheeler and the skipper. They climbed aboard and the companionway was unshipped and stowed.

An hour later I was burning with a sense of futility as Artina moved off and headed out to sea. ‘Where the hell is she going now?’ I demanded.

‘If he’s going east into the Mediterranean to the Greek islands he’ll refuel at Malta,’ said Alison. ‘It would be the logical thing to do. Let’s go and find out where he’s cleared for.’

So we did, and Alison was right — not that it made me feel any better. ‘Another four days?’ I asked despondently.

‘Another four days,’ she agreed. ‘But we might have better luck at Valletta.’

‘I’d like that yacht to have an accident,’ I said. ‘Just enough to delay her for one night. You don’t happen to have any limpet mines about you?’

‘Sorry.’

I stared moodily at the white speck disappearing into the distance. ‘That Chinese worries me,’ I said. ‘He ought to worry Slade even more.’

‘Why ever should he?’

‘Communist Albania has ceased to hew to the Moscow line. Enver Hoxha, the Albanian party boss, has read the Little Red Book and thinks the thoughts of Mao. I wonder if Slade knows he’s in the hands of an Albanian?’

Alison wore a half-smile. ‘I was wondering when you’d get there,’ she said.

‘I got there a long time ago — probably before you did. It would be very nice for the Chinese if they could get hold of Slade — a top British intelligence man and a top Russian intelligence man in the same package. They’d squeeze him dry in a month and they wouldn’t care how they did it.’

I shrugged. ‘And the damned fool thinks he’s going home to Moscow.’