“We all put different values on our lives. I’m putting six men on to patrol the sleeping quarters of the train at night. They’re not from our organization, so you need have no worries on that score. They will be here nightly until you leave — which, incidentally, will be in five days’ time.”
“Why the patrol? I’m not sure I like that.”
“Frankly, it doesn’t matter whether you like it or not.” The admiral smiled, albeit tiredly, to rob the words of offence. “From the moment you accepted this assignment, you’re under government orders. It’s for security. I want Johnny to act as guide-dog.”
“Whose security?”
“Bruno’s, Maria’s, Harper’s — and yours.”
“Mine? I’m in danger?”
“Quite candidly, I’m sure you’re not, if for no other reason than if anything happened to you the trip would be cancelled — which wouldn’t suit our friends at all. But I’m not taking the ghost of a chance.”
“And you think this patrol will help?”
“Yes. In a closed community like this their presence will be common knowledge within the hour. Put it about that the police have received threats against unspecified members of your staff. If you have any bogey-men among your crew members, this news will make them lie very low indeed.” “As you say, you don’t take many chances, do you?” The admiral said drily: “I think the shadows of Pilgrim and Fawcett would entirely approve. Have Bruno and Maria met yet?” Wrinfield nodded. “Reactions?”
“Bruno hasn’t got any. If he has, he never shows them. As for Maria, well, Henry said she didn’t exactly fall about.” “Unimpressed, one might say?”
“One might.”
“She’s watching the show?”
“Yes. With Henry.”
“I wonder if she’s still unimpressed.”
“Still unimpressed?” Henry asked. He clearly wasn’t, but then he couldn’t keep his eyes off her.
Maria didn’t answer immediately. She was staring, as if hypnotized — as ten thousand other people were doing — as the Blind Eagles went through their unbelievable and seemingly suicidal aerial routine. At the end of the performance she released her breath in a long soundless sigh. “I don’t believe it.” Her voice was almost a whisper. “I just don’t believe what I’ve seen.”
“I can hardly believe it myself — and I’ve seen it a hundred times. First impressions can be wrong, no?” “Just how wrong.”
Half an hour later she was with Henry just outside the dres-sing-room area when Bruno emerged, dressed in street clothes. He was back to his old, relatively unimpressive self. He stopped, smiled at her, and said: “I saw you at the show.” “Blindfolded?”
“On the low wire. On the bicycle.”
She looked at him in astonishment. “Doing that impossible act? You have time to look round the audience?” “I have to have something to occupy my attention,” he said with mock bravado. “Enjoy it all?” She nodded and he smiled again. “Even the Blind Eagles? I’m only searching for compliments, of course.”
Maria looked at him without smiling, pointed upwards and said: “A star has fallen from the sky.” She turned and walked away. From the slight corrugation of Bruno’s brow it was impossible to tell whether he was puzzled or amused. Dr Harper, looking every inch the high-powered consultant that he wasn’t, arrived precisely at ten o’clock the following morning, but had to wait over half an hour while Wrinfield went through the motions of interviewing several other would- be circus doctors who had turned up quite some time before ten o’clock.
Wrinfield was alone in his office when Harper knocked and entered. Harper said: “Good morning. I’m Dr Harper.” Wrinfield looked at him in considerable astonishment and had just opened his mouth to speak, doubtless to inform Harper that he was not likely to have forgotten him due to the fact that they had made their first acquaintance over the dead body of Pilgrim, when Harper handed him a hand-written note. It read:
“This office may be bugged. Interview me as you would any other candidate.”
“Good morning.” Wrinfield hadn’t even blinked. “I’m Wrinfield, the owner.” He launched smoothly into the interview:
Harper, both while listening and answering, sat down and scribbled another note. He handed it across. It read: “End the interview and give me the job. Ask me my immediate plans then invite me outside for a look around.”
Wrinfield said: “Well, that’s it. I’m too busy a man to spend a lifetime on making decisions. The job’s yours. Frankly, when I have the choice between an experienced consultant and the young interns I’ve been seeing — well, I don’t have much of a choice. I’m not so naive as to imagine that you’re making this a full-time career. A sabbatical — or part of it?” “Twelve years in the Belvedere is a long time.”
“How soon could you be free, Doctor?”
“Now.”
“Splendid. And what would your immediate plans be?” “Depends on how soon you want to leave on this foreign tour.”
“Let’s work towards four or five days from now.” “Little enough time. First, Mr Wrinfield, I’d like your authorization for medical supplies. Then a collection of all the passports until I see what’s required in the way of vaccinations and inoculations — I understand your circus has never toured abroad before. I’m afraid that some of your high-wire and trapeze artistes will have to curtail their acts quite a bit in the next few days.”
“All that I can arrange immediately. First of all, though, I suggest you have a look around. When you see what you’ve taken on you might want to change your mind.” The two men left the office and Wrinfield led the way to the centre ring of the circus itself, a spot which, in so far as potential eavesdroppers were concerned, was probably more secluded than any place for a mile around. Nonetheless, Wrinfield scuffed the sand with the toe of his shoe and looked casually around before speaking.
He said: “And what was all that for?”
“Sorry about all that cloak and dagger stuff. We don’t usually go in for it — spoils our image. Incidentally, congratulations — you’d make a splendid recruit to bur organization. Anyway, I was speaking to Charles just before I came here and we both came up with the same very nasty suspicion at the same time.” “That my office was bugged?”
“If it were, it could explain a great deal.”
“But why all the paper notes you handed me? Why didn’t you just phone and warn me?” Harper half-smiled at him and Wrinfield tapped his own head. “That wasn’t very bright. The phone could have been bugged, too.”
“Indeed. In a few minutes’ time you can expect another applicant for my job. His name is Dr Morley and he will be carrying the regulation black medical bag. But he’s no doctor, he’s an electronics expert and his bag is packed with extremely advanced equipment for locating bugging devices. Ten minutes alone in your office and he’ll find out whether it’s clean or not.”
Fifteen minutes later, as Wrinfield and Harper approached the office, a tall dark man with a black bag descended the steps from it. For the benefit of any watchers or listeners Wrinfield introduced them and suggested a cup of coffee in the canteen. They sat at a remote corner table.
Morley said: “Two bugs. Miniaturized radio transmitters.
One in the ceiling light, the other in the phone.” “So I can breathe again,” Wrinfield said. Neither of the other two made any immediate reply so he went on rather uncertainly:
“I mean, those devices have been removed or deactivated?” “Most certainly not,” Harper said. “The bugs are still there and there they will remain, probably until we return from Europe. Do you think we want the ungodly to know that we know? Think of all the amount of false and confusing and misleading information we can feed them.” One could see that, mentally, Harper was positively rubbing his hands. “From now on you will conduct only routine circus business in that office.” He smiled almost dreamily. “Unless, of course, I give instructions to the contrary.”
In the days that followed, four subjects increasingly and exclusively dominated conversation in the circus. The first of those, inevitably, emanated from the mounting excitement over the forthcoming trip to Europe, a euphoric state that was not, understandably, shared by the unfortunates who were not making the foreign tour but would be returning to the winter headquarters in Florida: for purely logistical reasons, only just two-thirds of the personnel would be able to make it. But for the two-thirds who were going the European visit, especially as it included a
