She didn’t object, just said mildly: “Isn’t that carrying realism a bit too far?”
“Not at all. Orders are orders. We are supposed to be creating a certain impression, and the chance was too good to pass up. There are at least a dozen people watching us.”
She made a face, turned and went up the steps.
4
Most of the following day was given up to dismantling the bewildering variety and daunting amount of equipment inside the arena, the backstage and the fairground and loading up the half-mile-long train. To transfer this, the animal cages, the prefabricated offices, the fairground booths and Bruno’s ramshackle mentalist theatre, not to mention the animals and circus members to the coaches and flat-cars, was a massive undertaking that to the layman would have appeared well-nigh impossible: the circus, with its generations of experience behind it, performed the task with an almost ludicrous ease, a smooth efficiency that reduced a seemingly hopeless confusion to a near-miracle of precision and order. Even the loading up of provisions for the hundreds of animals and humans would have seemed a most formidable task: in the event the last of the provision trucks departed less than an hour after the first had arrived. The whole operation could have been likened to an exercise in military logistics with the sole proviso that any unbiased and expert observer would have conceded that the circus had unquestionably the edge in efficiency. The circus train was due to pull out at ten o’clock that night. At nine o’clock, Dr Harper was still closeted with the admiral, studying two very complicated diagrams.
The admiral had a pipe in one hand, a brandy in the other. He looked relaxed, calm and unconcerned. It was possible that he might just have been relaxed and calm but, as the sole instigator of the forthcoming operation, the man who had conceived and planned it all down to the last and most intimate detail possible, it was impossible that he should not be concerned. He said: “You have it all? Guards, entry, interior layout, exit and escape route to the Baltic?”
“I have it all. I just hope that damned ship is there for rendezvous.” Harper folded the diagrams and pushed them deeply into the inside pocket of his coat.
“You break in on a Tuesday night. They’ll be cruising offshore from the Friday to the following Friday. A whole week’s grace.”
“Won’t the East Germans or the Poles or the Russians be suspicious, sir?”
“Inevitably. Wouldn’t you?”
“Won’t they object?”
“How can they? Since when has the Baltic been anyone’s private pond? Of course they’re going to tie up the presence of the ship — or ships — with the presence of the circus in Crau, Inevitable, and nothing we can do about it. The circus, the circus.” The admiral sighed. “You’d better deliver the goods, Harper, or I’m going to be on welfare before the year is out.” Harper smiled. “I wouldn’t like that, sir. And you know better than anyone that the ultimate responsibility for the delivery of the goods doesn’t lie in my hands.” “I know. Have you formed any personal impression of our latest recruit yet?”
“Nothing more than is obvious to anyone else, sir. He’s intelligent, tough, strong and appears to have been born without a nervous system. He’s a very close person. Maria Hopkins says that it’s impossible to get next to him.” “What?” The admiral quirked a bushy eyebrow. “That delightful young child? I’m sure if she really tried —” “I didn’t quite mean it that way, sir.”
“Peace, Harper, peace. I do not endeavour to be facetious. There are times that are sent to try men’s souls. Although I know we have no option it is not easy to have to rely in the final analysis on an unknown. Apart from the fact that if he fails — well, there’s only one way he can fail and then he’ll be on my conscience for the remainder of my days. And don’t you add to that burden.”
“Sir?”
“Mind your back is what I mean. Those papers you’ve just stuck — securely, I trust — in your inside pocket. You are aware, of course, what will happen if you are caught with those in your possession?”
Harper sighed. “I am aware. I’ll have my throat cut and end up, suitably weighted, in some canal or river. Doubtless you can always find a replacement.”
“Doubtless. But the way things are going I’m going to be running out of replacements quite soon, so I’d rather not be put to the trouble. You are quite sure you have the times of transmission and the code totally memorized?”
Harper said gloomily: “You don’t have much faith in your subordinates, sir.”
“The way things have been going recently, I don’t have much faith in myself, either.”
Harper touched the bottom of his medical bag. “This postage stamp transceiver. You sure you can pick me up?” “We’re using NASA equipment. We could pick you up on the moon.”
“I somehow wish I was going there.”
Some six hours after departure the circus train drew into a shunting yard. Arc lamps apart, the darkness was total and the rain very heavy. There, after an interminable period of advancing, reversing, bumping, clanking and screeching of wheels on points — the combination of all of which effectively succeeded in waking up everyone aboard — a considerable number of preselected coaches were detached, subsequently to be hauled south to their winter quarters in Florida. The main body of the train continued on its way to New York.
Nothing untoward had happened en route. Bruno, who invariably cooked for himself, had not left his quarters once. He had been visited twice by his brothers, once by Wrinfield and once by Harper but by no one else: known to everybody as a loner, he was invariably treated as such.
Not until the train had arrived on the quay alongside the container-passenger ship that was to take them to Genoa — selected not so much for its strategical geographical position as the fact that it was one of the few Mediterranean ports with the facilities to off-load the crane-breaking coaches and flat cars — did Bruno leave his quarters. It was still raining. One of the first persons he encountered was Maria. She was dressed in navy slacks, a voluminous yellow oilskin, and looked thoroughly miserable. She gave him the nearest she would ever be able to come to a scowl and came to the point with what he had now come to regard as her customary straightforwardness. “Not very sociable, are you?”
“I’m sorry. But you did know where I was.” “I had nothing to tell you.” Then, inconsequentially: “You knew where I was.”
“I find telephone boxes cramping.”
“You could have invited me. While I know we’re supposed to be striking up some special relationship I don’t go openly chasing after men.”
“You don’t have to.” He smiled to rob the next words of offence. “Or do you prefer to do it discreetly?” “Very amusing. Very clever. You have no shame?”
“For what?”
“Your shameful neglect.”
“Lots.”
“Then take me to dinner tonight.”
“Telepathy, Maria. Sheer telepathy.”
She gave him a look of disbelief and left to change. They switched taxis three times on the way to the pleasant Italian restaurant Maria had chosen. When they were seated Bruno said: “Was all that necessary? The taxis, I mean?” “I don’t know. I follow orders.”
“Why are we here? You miss me so much?”
“I have instructions for you.”
“Not my dark eyes?” She smiled and shook her head and he sighed. “You can’t win them all. What instructions?” “I suppose you’re going to say that I could easily have whispered them to you in some dark corner on the quayside?” “A prospect not without its attractions. But not tonight.”
“Why?”
“It’s raining.”
“What is it like to be a romantic at heart?” “And I like it here. Very pleasant restaurant.” He looked at her consideringly, at the blue velvet dress, the fur cape that was far too expensive for a secretary, the sheen of rain on
