'Yes, all is ready for our visitors.'
'I would like to know what is going on,' Seton-Charles protested.
'Patience. In the meantime, when you are not helping me as labourer you can study your Greek books. Jupiter stressed in his last call you must remain here.' Anton grinned unpleasantly. 'And do you think you would sleep well at night if you upset Jupiter?'
Paula and Newman stayed for several weeks at The Anchor. When Newman phoned Tweed from a public call box one evening Tweed said he wanted them both to remain there until recalled. They were to explore the whole area, to listen to gossip in pubs, to try and find the route Anton used to leave the country.
'I don't think he boarded a ship the way he probably came in,' Tweed said. 'We've been very busy here, contacting every airport in the country. No passenger manifest shows that he left by a scheduled flight. And remember, Christina told you he was a pilot, experienced with flying light aircraft…'
When he put down the phone Monica queried his decision.
'You have a lot of people in one area. Paula, Newman, Butler and Nield. Isn't that overkill?'
'I'm deliberately saturating that district. I feel it in my bones the solution lies on Exmoor.'
'Anything interesting from Bob? I know it's on the tape I can listen to, but I find your comments more informative.'
'Everything seems normal. Dr Robson visits his patients – riding his horse. He works long hours. Barrymore makes infrequent phone calls from the phone box in Minehead.'
'Isn't that peculiar? Surely you said he has a phone of his own at Quarme Manor?'
'Apparently it often goes on the blink, as Newman expressed it. Something to do with the overhead wires getting blown down. It's the stormy season down there. Gale Force Ten and heavy seas.'
'What about Kearns?'
'He leads a strange life. When there's a moon he rides up to Dunkery Beacon, stays there a while. Butler has watched him through night glasses. He sits on his horse, still as a statue. Then he disappears for a while before riding back to his house.'
'Makes sense to me,' said Monica. 'The poor man has lost his wife. He just wants to be on his own. And he's trying to keep his sanity by maintaining old habits.'
'Another funny development – Paula found this out from lunching in pubs on Exmoor. Kearns doesn't meet his chums Barrymore and Robson any more. No Saturday night dinners at The Luttrell Arms, no Wednesday lunches at The Royal Oak, Winsford. He has cut himself off from them completely.'
'You can't tell how grief will affect people.'
'It's a very major change in relationships,' Tweed pointed out. 'For years those three acted as though they were still members of an Army unit. Kearns walking away is bound to affect the other two, Barrymore and Robson. Psychologically, I mean. We are still seeing the thing develop.'
'You'll get there in the end,' Monica encouraged him.
Tweed took from a drawer the commando knife which had killed Gallagher in Lisbon. That had been a frustrating exercise. At the last moment the Portuguese police chief had refused to send the weapon direct to London: Marler had arrived at London Airport several weeks before, only to find the pilot had nothing for him.
The knife had been ultimately despatched to Interpol in Paris. Which was the correct procedure. Tweed's friend, Pierre Loriot, had immediately flown it to London, but it had all taken precious time. Then there was the report from Lloyd's of London on the Oporto.
The typed document had confirmed all Tweed had been previously told. The vessel's clandestine call at Tripoli in Libya. Its voyage from Tripoli back to Lisbon – the arrival at that port coinciding with Anton flying from Zurich to the Portuguese capital. The shadowing of the vessel by French aircraft, culminating in its seizure after leaving Somerset off the port of Brest. The discovery of the large armoury of weapons which, Paris was certain, was destined for the IRA. Another dead end, as Tweed termed it, leading them nowhere further.
It was now November. Rain fell in a slanting downpour outside as Tweed put the weapon back in the drawer.
'I'm missing something,' he said. 'I feel it is under my nose and I can't see it. Get out all those tapes of phone conversations. I want to listen to them again. With a fresh ear.'
The dacha was located in the hills north-east of Moscow. There was a colony of them nearby where the bigwigs relaxed in summer, but this one was isolated. It was used for high-security military conferences in the hot season.
General Lucharsky stopped the Chaika a few hundred yards away from the shuttered building, switched off the engine, walked the rest of the way. His gleaming fur-lined boots crunched in the crisp hard snow; there had been a light fall the previous night. The temperature was eight degrees below freezing and he pulled up his military greatcoat collar, revelling in the invigorating air.
The building was made of timber. Steps led up to the veranda overhung by the projecting roof. The place was surrounded with birch woods flaked with white. Sunlight reflected off the snow crystals. Lucharsky climbed the steps, stood by the front door and looked around. He listened carefully and heard nothing in the heavy silence. He had not been followed. He rapped on the heavy door four times slowly.
When the door opened two men, also wearing the uniforms of generals, appeared. Lucharsky put a finger to his lips. With a swift gesture he indicated that they should follow him. He led the way back down the steps and into the woods. His arm brushed a branch and crusted snow fell on it.
'Why could we not stay in the dacha?' asked a short stocky general with stubby legs and thick eyebrows under his peaked cap. General Budienny.
'Because it may be wired for sound,' Lucharsky told him contemptuously. He towered over both his companions. 'Out here no one can hear us.'
He stopped inside a hollow encircled with trees. The Troika was assembled. Lucharsky kicked snow off his boots before continuing. The third man, an expert on armoured divisions, listened.
'The plan is proceeding,' Lucharsky informed them. 'I have now heard Gorbachev will land in Britain at the invitation of British Prime Minister Thatcher. We have him.'
'On the way to or back from the Washington summit?' asked Budienny.
'En route to Washington. Except his plane will never land. In one piece, that is. The missiles are in place.'
'How do you know where he will land? London Airport?' persisted Budienny.
'We don't know yet.' Lucharsky waved a gloved hand. 'It makes no difference. The missiles are located in a central position close to many airfields – including RAF military bases. They are mobile. Can be moved to the correct area as soon as we get the precise data.'
'How do you know all this?'
Lucharsky sighed. 'We have direct communication with the man who will control the operation. By radio. A complex route. But coded signals are received by one of our men at the Black Sea naval base of Novorossiisk. He is an excellent radio operator and brings me the signals regularly to Moscow.'
'Routine is dangerous,' Budienny objected. 'And our necks are on the block.'
Lucharsky sighed again, his expression saturnine. 'Since that naval base is so important a courier flies frequently to Moscow to report on progress about enlarging it. Our man is that courier. And before you suggest he could be searched he carries the messages verbally in his head, then tells me.' His tone became mocking. 'If your fears are now allayed perhaps I can proceed? The plan has taken on new dimensions.'
'What are those?'
'As Number Two in the Politburo, Ligachev – who has openly disagreed with Gorbachev's so-called reforms - will automatically become General Secretary. He knows nothing, of course, of what we plan.'
'But what are these new dimensions?' Budienny repeated.
'Once Ligachev is in power the real hardline element inside the Politburo will take over. Those men Gorbachev has not yet got rid of. Then next year, in 1988, we launch the limited attack.'
'Attack?' Budienny's eyes gleamed.
'We manufacture a border incident – as Hitler did against Poland in 1939. Our armies, brought close to the western frontier at night when the American satellites are blind, invade West Germany. We outnumber NATO enormously with our tanks. With our artillery and our air force. We shall reach the Rhine in three days.'
'That means World War Three,' Budienny objected.
