glass for Grierson too, with not nearly so much champagne in it. Craig grinned, and handed it to Grierson.
T wonder who hired Andrews?' he mused.
Pia's fingers dug into his thigh, and he sat beside her, rubbed her scented shoulder. Grierson gulped down his champagne, and put down the glass.
'Well, I really must trot along,' he said.
'Must you?' Craig was looking at the girl's mouth. She was shaping words in Italian that made him forget Andrews, Loomis, even the ache in his neck.
'I'm afraid I must,' said Grierson.
'Cheerioh then,' said Craig. 'Please don't bang the—'
Grierson banged the door.
· « ·
In Athens, Craig took a subdued Selina to the airport in Naxos's Mercedes, but he noticed that she wore European clothes with a chic elegance that was quite new. On the drive from Piraeus she spoke for the first time about the fight with Dyton-Blease, and how she had come to realize that the big man had lied to her when it was too late, and how she had used the fight to think and scheme her way out, back to her father. And then Craig had won, and it had not been necessary to find a way of killing the big man.
'You think you could have killed him?' Craig asked.
'Oh yes,' she said. 'My brothers taught me the way.' She was perfectly serious.
'Selina,' Craig said. 'Who was the man in your country who told you about the British?'
I'm sorry,' she said. 'I promised my father I wouldn't
tell.'
'What's Dyton-Blease's first name? Is it Bernard?'
Tf you know,' said Selina, looking straight ahead. 'Why do you ask?'
The car reached the airport, and, because it was Naxos's car, drove straight out to the waiting plane. Craig and Selina got out, and she shook hands with him, very seriously.
Take care, Craig,' she said. 'I want very much to see you again.'
But the air hostess looked nervous, the engines began their first whining scream, and she turned to run up the steps. Craig would have liked to have gone after her, to wish her luck, but it was too late. He turned back to the car. A slim, dapper man in a tourist seat, a man with the face of an English aristocrat, lowered the 'Instructions to Passengers' pamphlet he had held in front of his face. The airplane taxied to the runway.
Loomis said: 'You haven't done badly so far.'
Craig and Grierson waited. There was bound to be more to it than that.
'You missed Andrews, of course, but you got rid of Dyton-Blease very nicely, and you persuaded Naxos to come here. All on the credit side. On the other hand you'—he stared at Grierson—'very nearly got arrested for murder, and you'—the stare intensified on Craig—'left Dyton-Blease alive. That's one loose end too many.'
Craig said: 'When I hit him, I thought he had to die.
I thought it was inevitable. He must be built out of rock.'
Tt runs in the family,' said Loomis. 'I used to be that way myself.'
'He's a relative of yours?'
'Not really,' Loomis said. 'A seventh cousin nine times removed, or something. But it's in his blood the same as it was in mine. Strength and viciousness and the need to fight. He tried to join Intelligence once—not that he knew I was in it. I turned him down. Knew too much about him, d'you see? It would have been better if you'd finished him, Craig.'
'I couldn't,' Craig said. 'Not when the fight was over.' Loomis left it at once.
'That leaves Swyven and this Count de Tavel feller. The little yellow brothers did a conversion job on him in Indochina. And this Trottia.'
'They'll be in Venice,' Grierson said.
'Then I'll have to get 'em out,' said Loomis. 'One of 'em anyway. Find out what they're up to. You better leave that bit to me.' He glowered at Craig. 'There's this Busoni person too,' he said. 'You reckon she's clean?'
Craig said: 'Yes.' The word was a hard, flat barrier to further discussion. Loomis bashed straight through it.
'Because if she isn't, she's a damn sight too close to you,' he said. 'The way you go on, Craig, it's a wonder you can stand up.'
'She's clean,' said Craig. 'She was too scared to be anything else.'
'Scared of what?'
'Being killed,' said Craig. 'And me being killed. Lay off her.'
Loomis shrugged. 'You know the score,' he said. 'Don't say I didn't warn you.'
'You could have warned me about Andrews too,' Craig said. 'Just to make a job of it. Who got him for us, anyway?'
'M.I.5 chap in Aden found him. Distressed British Subject and all that. He passed on some very juicy stuff— small, but promising.'
'Where from?' Grierson asked.
'Russia,' Loomis said. 'He picked up a ship in Odessa in 1962. Took it over to China for demolition. He kept his eyes and ears open. The stuff was good. M.I.5 thought they might use him. They signed him up and sent him on to us when I was away in Greece. I've had a word with them about that. All they can say is I keep on telling them I'm shorthanded. Nobody's that shorthanded, not even us. They should have known he was too good to be a new boy.'
'Did he get any Chinese stuff?' Craig asked.
'No,' said Loomis. 'He said their security was too
good.'
'How did he get to Aden?' Grierson asked.
'Jumped ship. He was mixed up in dope smuggling. M.I.5 checked. It was true enough. They thought that meant they had him on ice.' Loomis laughed, a short, crazy bark like that of an impassioned sea lion's.
'Dope from China?' Craig asked, and Loomis nodded. 'The Zaarb lot are being backed by China.'
'Go on,' said Loomis.
'I think it's possible Andrews could be Schiebel.' 'That's crazy,' Grierson said.
Loomis said: 'I don't think it is. There's too much that fits, and it's all too bloody neat.'
'There's another thing you'd better know,' Craig said. 'The man who went out to the Haram and told Selina's father what lying bastards the British were—that was Dyton-Blease.'
'You're sure?' asked Loomis. Craig nodded.
'Selina told me herself. At least I tricked it out of her.'
'What made you think of him?' Loomis asked.
'He fitted. Big man, big warrior. And she had a way of looking at fiim. When we had that first fight and he beat the hell out of me, she knew it was going to happen. She knew exactiy how he worked.'
Loomis beamed indulgently at him and slapped him on the back.
'You know, Craig, you're not just a pretty face after all,' he said.
Selina never reached her father. Schiebel picked her up before she had passed through Zaarb. It was easy enough for him. He could call up all the talent he needed, and the police were trained not to look, even if there was any noise. They even provided Schiebel with killers. Selina picked up her two servants in Aden, and rode across the frontier without trouble. Schiebel followed, and found his private army wait-
ing for him in Zaarb's capital, Port Sufi. Selina had ordered a suite of rooms in Port Sufi's one decent hotel, which was packed with oilmen, and Albanian attaches with the shoulders and manners of underprivileged wrestlers, and Chinese technical advisers who always traveled in pairs and carried handguns that were a Chinese imitation of a Czechoslovak .32.
Schiebel's men attacked Selina's suite at 12:30, while the Albanians and Chinese snored in stolid obedience. By 12:33 both Selina's servants and one of Schiebel's men were dead, another dying from the knife Selina had used—until Schiebel took it from her, and struck her hard across the mouth, left and right. Her eyes never left him,
