'You'd better sit down,' said Grierson.
'You're sure my presence isn't distasteful to you?' Sir Matthew asked.
'That's irrelevant,' said Grierson. 'There's a man
DIB HAPPY ffl
185
outside who may kill you—if he hasn't got Mrs. Naxos. Do you play poker?'
Sir Matthew sat down.
'Stud,' he said. 'One joker. No wild cards, if you please.'
* » *
Craig found the ambulance. It was parked in a layby. The Greek at the wheel was unconscious, the one beside him dead. Craig put on a pair of thin leather gloves and went to the back of the ambulance, opened the broken door and went inside. He switched on the interior light and found another dead Greek on the stretcher. Beside him was Theseus, a knife in his side, sitting in his own blood, his torso propped up by the side of the ambulance. Across his knees lay an Arab, his neck broken. Theseus's massive right hand still clutched his hair. Craig crouched down beside him, and Theseus's eyes focused wearily.
'Brandy,' he said. 'Pocket.' His great voice was muted to a rumbling moan.
Craig found the flask and held it to his hps, and Theseus choked it down. Craig looked at the knife in his side. If he drew it out, Theseus would die at once.
'Last time I did this for you,' Theseus said. 'Different now. I'm dying.'
'You don't die so easy,' said Craig. 'Ill get you a doctor.'
'I'm dying,' Theseus said. 'It hurts like hell.' His breath ratded in his throat. 'Two cars together in front of us. We think it's a crash. We stop. Men come from side of road. Shoot—in front. Use lever. Break open door. Kill Dimitri. I put up hands. This one comes in. I kill. Then— knife. And Mrs. Naxos screaming. They take her—they take her —'
'Where?' Craig asked.
'The knife,' Theseus whispered. 'Craig it's like fire inside me.'
'Where?' said Craig.
'Big cars,' said Theseus. 'Russian, I think. Little round plaque—CD, Craig—does that help?'
'Yes,' said Craig. 'I know where she'll be.' 'Harry—fool. I tell him. Trust you. He won't listen.' Theseus gasped aloud as pain pierced him again. 'It burns,' Theseus said. 'All the time I wait for you,
it bums. Now I've told you.' He paused, then his voice pleaded: 'pull the knife out, Craig. I waited. I told you. You owe me that.' Again he gasped at the pain.
Craig looked at him. Already he was very close to
death.
'All right,' he said. 'You're a man, Theseus. A real
man.'
'You also, Craig.'
Then his voice yelled out—he could no longer control it—as Craig's hand curled to the knife haft and drew it free. Craig let the knife fall, and waited. Theseus's great body relaxed as his blood flowed again, then his head lolled on his shoulder, and he sighed in the joy of relief from pain.
'Thank you,' he said.
Then he died.
· · · ·
Craig went back to the nursing home, and told Grierson what had happened, then waited as Grierson put in a 999 call to the police and told them where to find the ambulance. Sir Matthew and Selina were locked in the office labeled 'Matron.' Sir Matthew was teaching her how to play be-zique.
'Loomis was at Chequers,' said Grierson. 'He'd started back before all this happened. I reached him by radio. He's mad as hell.'
'He would be,' said Craig.
'He thinks Naxos will try to get away,' said Grierson. 'I've phoned London. They're watching the yacht now. It hasn't got steam up yet.'
'He won't leave without his wife,' said Craig.
'He will if Schiebel tells him to. We're to make plans to stop her. Have you got any ideas?'
Craig thought for a moment, then picked up the telephone and dialed a number. It rang twenty-three times before Candlish's voice answered, blasphemous and sleepy.
Craig said: 'Never mind that. You know who this is?'
'Aye,' Candlish said. 'You're the only one who'd have the bloody nerve to get me out of bed this hour of the morning.'
'Got a job for you,' Craig said, and began to explain. At last Candlish said, 'When?'
'Soon as I tell you.'
'All right,' said Candlish. 'Cost you two thousand. Old one-pound notes. No receipt.'
'Payment on completion,' said Craig, and hung up, then turned back to Grierson. 'She'll be in the AZ building,' he said.
Grierson nodded.
'I suppose he wants us to get her out,' Craig said. 'He does,' Grierson said.
Craig pushed his hand through his hair, and was suddenly very tired. There were all sorts of things he wanted to tell Grierson: it couldn't be done; Loomis was sending them to their deaths; Schiebel would kill her rather than let her go back to them; but Grierson knew all this as well as he did himself.
'I need some kip,' he said. 'Let me know when Fatty gets back.'
Ninety minutes later he woke to find Loomis and Grierson standing beside him. He sat up on the settee and looked at Loomis, expecting an empurpled travesty of rage that he could jeer at, yield to, and ultimately come to terms with. Instead he found an old man, his pale face mottled with red, and somehow not nearly so fat as he'd remembered.
'It's bad, son,' said Loomis. 'Couldn't be worse. First off Schiebel's killed Swyven, and his parents. But that's the least of it. The Zaarb army's mobilized and moving west. That can only mean the Haram. Naxos isn't going to sign any treaties with us, and his wife's in the AZ building. You got the Selina person back and I'm grateful, believe me, but it doesn't make a scrap of difference now.'
The red, scrambled telephone rang. Grierson picked it up and handed it to Loomis, who said 'Loomis' almost politely, listened in patience to its metallic quacking, then put it down. 'A bit more cheer,' he said. 'There's a rumor in New York that the Zaarb representative's going to speak in the UN tomorrow. He's going to demand the withdrawal of British troops and the setting up of a commission to determine Zaarb's western frontier, which he claims is beyond the Haram. Albania's going to second the motion. And while the debate continues Zaarb's going to send its army into the Haram—to suppress the bourgeois bandits who are interfering with the progress of a free people. This is an internal
matter and nobody else is to interfere—least of all us. We can't anyway. We've lost Naxos's vote.' For a moment he regained his usual vitriolic disgust. 'That bloody Chinn,' he said. 'I could pull the petals off his carnation.' A manservant brought in a thermos jug of coffee and three cups. Despite his dark coat and deferential politeness, he looked like, and was, a Commando unarmed-combat instructor. He caught the tail end of Loomis's scowl, and vanished like a genie. Loomis poured coffee.
'I had it made,' he said. 'The P.M. was giving me a cigar every three and a half minutes. With Naxos sewn up, Zaarb would stay as it was, and when you two picked up the princess we could walk into the Haram any time we wanted. He poured me brandy with his own hands. Even offered to discuss next year's estimates. Now this.' He sipped the coffee, hot, bitter, black as his mood. 'The little yellow brothers have been busy,' he said. 'Buying equipment—nuclear stuff —and making a bit themselves. They've also recalled a lot of their best students from Iron Curtain universities. The post graduate lot. The ones who got firsts in nuclear physics. They're all ready for that cobalt, son. And there's only one way to stop them now. We'll have to go to war. Just what our reputation in the Middle East needs. Great Britain invades a developing nation. Look great in the
'Better than a cobalt bomb,' said Craig.
