unbuckled, lay on the bed by a few stapled booklets with green manila covers, an address book, and a service revolver.
“I did try earlier,” DeHaan said.
The courier was as Hoek’s man at the hotel had described him-young, and English. In fact, very young, and very tense, his face pinched and white. “Well, I had other business,” he said. He looked DeHaan over for a time, then said, “I believe you met a friend of mine the other day, over in Cadiz.”
DeHaan’s mind was not working at full speed, but eventually he realized what was going on and said, “No, not Cadiz. Algeciras.”
That satisfied the courier. “All right, then,” he said. “Been out celebrating, have you?”
“I had business in a bar. So, a bar.” Where he’d drunk a fair amount of beer. “Excuse me a minute,” he said.
The burning smell, he discovered, was coming from the bathroom. When he came out, he looked quizzically at the courier and said, “What the hell did you do in there?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.”
The courier’s face reddened. “One’s told to destroy papers by flushing them, or burning them. I thought to burn first, then flush. Both, you see, to make sure.”
“And set the toilet seat on fire.”
“Yes. You won’t tell Hallowes, will you?”
“No, I won’t tell anybody.” He covered his face with his hands, as though tired.
“I know,” the courier said.
“I’m sorry,” DeHaan said. He had to wipe his eyes.
The courier turned away and began to sort through his papers. Finally he found what he wanted and handed DeHaan a yellow slip with numbers on it, three groups of three, and a megahertz frequency.
“You’ll keep radio silence, of course, but we’ll find ways to contact you, if we need to. You must under no circumstances attempt to contact us-with one exception. The line of code I’ve given you should be sent to that frequency, any time of day or night, and sent twice, if your ship is attacked or boarded, or if you believe the operation is going to be exposed. We would always help you, if we could, but it isn’t really for that, you see. It’s for other people, put in harm’s way if you are compromised. Quite clear, Captain?”
“Yes.”
“Then here are your orders.” He handed DeHaan a brown envelope. “I will wait while you read them.”
DeHaan took a single sheet of paper from the envelope and read it over, knowing he couldn’t really absorb the information until he’d had a chance to spend time on it. When he looked up, the courier was holding the address book open with one hand, and had a pen in the other. “You’ll sign for the codes and the orders, Captain.”
DeHaan signed. “What if I have questions?”
“I don’t answer questions,” the courier said. “I only place the documents in your hands.”
“I see,” DeHaan said.
“And there shouldn’t be questions,” the courier said. “It’s all quite specific.”
He went upstairs to his room and opened the door on the courtyard. Had he closed it, when he left? He didn’t remember, evidently he had. Down in the tearoom, the piano had become a quartet, with a saxophone. They were playing, with more enthusiasm than grace, a song he knew, a Glenn Miller song, “Moonlight Serenade.” Across the courtyard, a woman was sitting at a table and putting on makeup. DeHaan took off his jacket and shoes, lay down on the bed, and slid the sheet of paper out of the envelope.
MOST SECRET
For The Personal Use Of The Addressee Only
NID JJP/JJPL/0626
OAMT/95-0626
R 34 296 3B — 0900/2/6/41
From: Deputy Director/OAMT
To: E. M. DeHaan
Master/NV Noordendam
Most immediate
Subj: Hyperion-Lijn NV Noordendam
To sail 0400 hrs 7/6/41 port Tangier to anchor at pos. 3832?#8242; N/911?#8242; W to convert to steamship Santa Rosa. Thence to port Lisbon, 4.3 miles up river Tagus to wharf at foot rua do Faro marked F3. Contact shipping agent Penha, rua do Comercio 24, to load special cargo and receive manifest for cooking oil, tinned sardines and cork oak bound port Malmo. Sail port Lisbon 0200 10/6/41 for pos. 5520?#8242; N/1320?#8242; E one mile off Swedish coastal region Smygehuk. At 0300 21/6/41 await two green flashes, confirm two green flashes, for boarding of ARCHER to direct offload special cargo. Sail Smygehuk by 1800 21/6/41 to port Malmo pier 17 for cargo sawn pineboard bound port Galway. Sail port Malmo 27/6/41. While at sea, receive further instruction.
0626/1900/5/6/41+++DD/OAMT
PORTS OF CALL
The secret life of the Spanish freighter Santa Rosa had been betrayed on the twenty-eighth of May, in a brief conversation a thousand miles from Tangier.
It happened at the Baltic Exchange, on a street called St. Mary Axe, amid ancient merchant banks and assurance companies, in the commercial heart of London known as the City. There, beneath marble pillars and glass domes, the shipping and cargo brokers of London met every working day, from noon until two, to have a drink, to trade intelligence about the maritime world, and to fix dry-charter contracts. It needed only a handshake, and a cargo of coal or grain or timber was on its way.
Born as a coffeehouse in 1744, the Baltic had seen great and tumultuous times-the Napoleonic Wars, the Danish trade war, the frantic speculation in tallow of 1873, when cow fat lit the streetlamps of London and half the Continent. But no more. The grandeur remained-a liveried servant still stood at a pulpit and called out the names of brokers, but, these days, some did not answer. With so many ships under national supervision, with the oil people keeping to their offices and teleprinters, with American brokerage now done in New York, at the bar of the Downtown Athletic Club, it was lately a sparse crowd that gathered for the noon fixing.
Still, it continued; for Asian ports, for South America, for the European neutrals, cargos had to be transported, “lifted” in the local slang, and the brokers, men like Barnes and Burton, were grateful for whatever came their way. After all, this was what they did, had done, every day of their working lives, though Barnes and Burton, cargo broker and shipping broker, would have been horrified had they ever discovered what they did on the afternoon of the twenty-eighth. Because they were the staunchest of patriots, Barnes and Burton, maybe too old for military service, but they served as best they could-Barnes a London air-raid warden by night, Burton drilling every weekend with his Home Guard unit down in Sussex, where the Burtons had always had a house.
It was almost two when they met at the Baltic. Burton represented several of the smaller Spanish shipping lines, Barnes was that day brokering a cargo of Turkish salt, but finding an available tramp was proving difficult. “What about the Santa Rosa, ” Barnes said. “I’ve heard she’s in the Mediterranean.”
“Wish she were,” Burton said.
“Where is she?”
“Done for, I’m afraid.”
“Really.”
“Yes, burned to the waterline, in Campeche.”
“You’re sure?”
“’Fraid so.”
“You don’t say.”
“Mm. A few days ago. And just about to sail, after repair.”
“Campeche?”
