“So Mr Ortega made clear.” Deaken hesitated. “It’s a worthwhile intercession.”
Lerclerc looked up sharply as he returned with the drinks, still alert for criticism. “There’s never been a difficulty from this port, ever,” he said. “We’ve always earned our five per cent. I know where to go, who to see.”
Deaken accepted the water decanter and watched the liquid turn milky. “I’m sure you do,” he said soothingly.
“To continued business,” toasted Lerclerc.
Deaken drank. “So Mr Grearson wasn’t personally here yesterday?”
The other man seemed surprised at the repeated question. ‘No,” he said. “Should he have been?”
“I understood he was.”
Lerclerc shook his head. “Been with Azziz long?”
“Just started.”
“An impressive organization.”
From somewhere just beyond the office Deaken heard a clock strike and confirmed the time from his watch. “I’ve a pickup scheduled from the airport. I’m going to be late,” he said. “Can I use your telephone, to get a message to the pilot?”
Lerclerc grimaced apologetically. “Bloody telephone has been out of order since this morning,” he said. “I’ve had three promises of an engineer’s call.”
Deaken finished his drink in a heavy gulp. “Then I’ll have to leave immediately.”
He was forty-five minutes late getting back to Marseilles airport but the helicopter pilot was still waiting obediently. The departure formalities were as easy as they had been earlier in the day and he was airborne within thirty minutes. They left on the same flightpath, directly out over the sea. To Deaken’s right the sun was setting in a defiant burst of red and scarlet, half submerged in the distant sea.
There had already been notification from the communications room of the helicopter’s return and the two men stood at the expensive panoramic windows of the Scheherazade stateroom, gazing westwards in the half light, seeking the identification markings.
“What did you tell Ortega?” asked Grearson.
“That he was new to your staff; that I wanted to try him out. The agreed profit was to remain but I wanted Ortega’s assessment of how Deaken bargained up to it.”
The American lawyer frowned. “Didn’t he find that unusual?”
“I undertook to move the next difficult shipment through him,” said Azziz. He spotted the red and green lights of the helicopter. Almost at once they heard the wind-slapping sound and saw the black outline of the machine pass to port. They turned away from the window.
“I’m still unsure about Deaken being unsupervised,” said Grearson.
“Don’t be,” said the Arab dismissively. “He’s a fool. What about the second shipment?”
“Everything ready in two or three days.”
“Transport?”
“Chartered from Levcos again.”
“Anything from Makimber?”
“Not yet,” said Grearson. “You know it’s often not easy, establishing direct contact at once.”
The door opened and Deaken entered. Both men were struck by the new confidence, a bounce in the way he moved. Neither remembered hearing a knock at the door.
Deaken offered Azziz an envelope. “End-User certificate, manifest, official bill of lading and purchase receipt, in the sum of 53,550,000 Swiss francs from Ortega back to you.” Deaken realized that he sounded like a schoolboy presenting an end-of-term report to his father.
“You made a good bargain.”
“Thank you,” said Deaken. “So now there are no more problems? You can turn the Bellicose back?”
The Arab nodded.
Deaken looked at him expectantly. Azziz frowned and Deaken said, “Well, why don’t you?”
Azziz appeared momentarily surprised at the suggestion. “Of course,” he said, moving to the telephones.
Deaken waited until the Arab was sufficiently far away from them and said to Grearson, “I thought you would have brought the bill of lading back from Marseilles.”
Grearson looked at him intently. “Why should I have done that?”
“I thought you went there yesterday to see the shipping agent.”
“Paris,” corrected the American. “I wanted to find out about the original order. And what progress there was in trying to trace where they’re being held.”
Deaken allowed himself to be deflected. “Any news?” he said.
“Clearly we can’t let the people in Paris have the photograph to make their own comparison,” said Grearson.
“The helicopter is going up at first light tomorrow to bring back all the brochures and information they’ve managed to assemble on holiday farms.”
Azziz came back into the group. “We’re contacting Levcos through Athens,” he said. “The turn-about instructions will go from Piraeus.”
“So maybe the stuff from Paris will be superfluous,” said Deaken. “I thought Grearson went to Marseilles, not Paris,” he added. He was looking directly at Azziz as he spoke.
Azziz returned the look, his face expressionless. “Paris,” he said. “You must have misunderstood.”
12
Hinkier and Bartlett, who were the first Evans contacted because he knew they were in Rome and would be together, as they always were, arrived in Brussels on the morning flight, bringing Sneider with them. Sneider was drunk, at that lopsided, unprotesting stage of drunkenness. Evans shook hands with Hinkler and Bartlett; Sneider sniggered.
“Been like it for a week,” said Hinkler, who was wide-shouldered and blond and looked more Germanic than Sneider, whose parents were immigrants to Milwaukee. “When he hasn’t been drinking he’s been getting laid.”
“How long has he been out of Libya?” asked Evans.
“Fortnight,” said Bartlett.
“I guess he’s allowed,” said Evans.
“What is it?” said Bartlett.
“We’ll wait for the rest,” decided Evans.
Hinkler and Bartlett both looked very fit. Despite the drunkenness, Sneider was lean and hard, his face leathered brown from the three years he had spent in the Libyan training camps.
“Sure,” accepted Bartlett at once, accepting the soldier’s logic against unnecessary repetition. “Why don’t we get Sneider bedded down?”
Still smiling, Sneider allowed himself to be taken to the secondary bedroom in the rue des Alexiens apartment. They only bothered to unlace and remove his boots.
With the money he had been given for expenses, Evans had restocked the bar. He nodded towards it when they returned to the living room. Hinkler poured two brandies without asking Bartlett what he wanted. Evans took Scotch.
“How’s it been?” asked Evans. He knew Bartlett and Hinkler had quit Libya a year before him.
“Rough,” said Hinkler. “There was something going in Iran, training again, but it was a worse disaster than Gaddafi. Didn’t get paid for three months and they actually expected us to take notice of their damned religious crap. God keep me from religious revolutionaries.”
“We were thinking of San Salvador when you called,” said Bartlett. “Good contracts being offered.”
“Know anyone there?”
Bartlett shook his head. “Supposed to be some of our guys there, but we haven’t heard any names.”
