Dogs of War (30 page)

Around the walls of discolored brocade hung portraits of ancestors, Montroses and Monteagles, Far-quhars and Frazers, Murrays and Mintoes. Surely such a gathering could not be the ancestors of one old woman? Still, you never knew, with the Scots.
Bigger than them all, in a vast frame above the fire that clearly was never lit, stood a man in a kilt, a painting evidently much more recent than the other blackened antiques, but still discolored by age. The face, framed by two bristling ginger muttonchop whiskers, glared down into the room as if its owner had just spotted a coolie impudently collapsing from overwork at the other end of the plantation. "Sir Ian Macallister, K.B.E.," read the plate beneath the portrait.
Martin Thorpe dragged his eyes back to Lady Macallister, who was slumped in a chair, fiddling as she constantly did with the hearing aid that hung on her chest. He tried to make out from the mumblings and ram-blings, sudden digressions, and difficult accent, what she was saying.
"People have come before, Mr. Martin," she was saying; she insisted on calling him Mr. Martin, although he had introduced himself twice. "But I don't see why I should sell. It was my husband's company, don't you see. He founded all these estates that they make their money from. It was all his work. Now people come and say they want to take the company away and do other things with it—build houses and play around with other things. I don't understand it all, not at all, and I will not sell—"
"But Lady Macallister—"
She went on as if she had not heard him, which indeed she had not, for her hearing aid was up to its usual tricks because of her constant fiddling with it. Thorpe began to understand why other suitors had eventually gone elsewhere for their shell companies.
"You see, my dear husband, God rest his poor soul, was not able to leave me very much, Mr. Martin. When those dreadful Chinese killed him, I was in Scotland on furlough, and I never went back. I was advised not to go. But they told me the estates belonged to the company, and he had left me a large part of the company. So that was his legacy to me, don't you see. I could not sell his own legacy to me ..."
Thorpe was about to point out that the company was worthless, but realized that would not be the right thing to say. "Lady Macallister—" he began again.
"You'll have to speak directly into the hearing aid. She's deaf as a post," said Lady Macallister's companion.
Thorpe nodded his thanks at her and really noticed her for the first time. In her late sixties, she had the careworn look of those who once had their own independence but who, through the strange turns of fortune, have fallen on harder times and to survive have to put themselves in bond to others, often to cantankerous, troublesome, exhausting employers whose money enables them to hire others to serve them.
Thorpe rose and approached the senile old woman in the armchair. He spoke closer to the hearing aid.
"Lady Macallister, the people I represent do not want to change the company. On the contrary, they want to put a lot of money into it and make it rich and famous again. We want to start up the Macallister estates, just like when your husband ran them. ..."
For the first time since the interview had started an hour before, something like a glimmer of light awoke in the old woman's eyes. "Like when my husband ran them?" she queried.
"Yes, Lady Macallister," bawled Thorpe. He pointed up at the figure of the tyrant on the wall. "We want to create all his life's work again, just the way he would have wanted it, and make the Macallister estates a memorial to him and his work."
But she was gone again. "They never put up a memorial to him," she quavered. "I tried, you know. I wrote to the authorities. I said I would pay for the statute, but they said there was no room. No room. They put up lots of statutes, but not to my Ian."
"They will put up a memorial to him if the estates and the company become rich again," Thorpe shouted into the hearing aid. "They'll have to. If the company was rich, it could insist on a memorial. It could found a scholarship, or a foundation, called the Sir Ian Macallister Trust, so that people would remember him."
He had already tried that ploy once, but no doubt she had not heard him or had not grasped what he was saying. But she heard him this time.
"It would cost a lot of money," she quavered. "I am not a rich woman." She was in fact extremely rich, but probably unaware of it.
"You don't have to pay for it, Lady Macallister," he said. "The company would pay for it. But the company would have to expand again. And that means money. The money would be put into the company by my friends."
"I don't know, I don't know," she wailed and began to sniff, reaching for a cambric handkerchief in her sleeve. "I don't understand these things. If only my dear Ian were here. Or Mr. Dalgleish. I always ask him what would be for the best. He always signs the papers for me. Mrs. Barton, I'd like to go back to my room."
"It's time enough," said the housekeeper-companion brusquely. "Now come along, it's time for your nap. And your medicine."
She helped the old woman to her feet and assisted her out of the sitting room and down the corridor. Through the open door Thorpe could hear her businesslike voice commanding her charge to get onto the bed, and the old woman's protests as she took the medicine.
After a while Mrs. Barton came back to the sitting room. "She's on the bed, she'll rest for a while," she said.
Thorpe smiled his most rueful smile. "It looks as if I've failed," he said sadly. "And yet, you know, the stock she holds is quite valueless unless the company is rejuvenated with fresh management and some hard cash, quite a lot of it, which my partners would be prepared to put in." He turned to the door. "I'm sorry if I put you to inconvenience," he said.
"I'm quite used to inconvenience," said Mrs. Barton, but her face softened. It had been a long time since anyone had apologized for putting her to trouble. "Would you care for a cup of tea? I usually make one at this hour."
Some instinct at the back of Thorpe's mind prompted him to accept. As they sat over a pot of tea in the back kitchen, which was the housekeeper-companion's domain, Martha Thorpe felt almost at home. His mother's kitchen in Battersea had not been dissimilar. Mrs. Barton told him about Lady Macallister, her whining and tantrums, her obstinacy and the constant strain of competing with her all-too-convenient deafness.
"She can't see all your fine arguments, Mr. Thorpe, not even when you offered to put up a memorial to that old ogre in the sitting room."
Thorpe was surprised. Evidently the tart Mrs. Barton had a mind of her own when her employer was
not listening. "She does what you tell her," he said.
"Would you like another cup of tea?" she asked. As she poured it, she said quietly, "Oh, yes, she does what I tell her. She depends on me, and she knows it. If I went, she'd never get another companion. You can't nowadays. People aren't prepared to put up with that sort of thing these days."
"It can't be much of a life for you, Mrs. Barton."
"It's not," she said shortly, "but 1 have a roof over my head, and food and some clothes. I get by. It's the price one pays."
"For being a widow?" asked Thorpe gently.
"Yes."
There was a picture of a young man in the uniform of a pilot of the Royal Air Force propped on the mantelpiece next to the clock. He wore a sheepskin jacket, a polka-dotted scarf, and a broad grin. Seen from one angle, he looked not unlike Martin Thorpe.
"Your son?" said the financier, with a nod.
Mrs. Barton gazed at the picture. "Yes. Shot down over France in nineteen-forty-three."
"I'm sorry."
"It was a long time ago. One becomes accustomed."
"So he won't be able to look after you when she's dead and gone."
"No."
"Then who will?"
"I'll get by. She'll no doubt leave me something in her will. I've looked after her for sixteen years."
"Yes, of course she will. She'll see you all right—no doubt of it."
He spent another hour in the back kitchen, and when he left he was a much happier man. It was nearly closing tune for shops and offices, but from a corner phone booth he made a call to the head office of Man-Con, and within ten minutes Endean had done what his colleague asked.
In the West End an insurance broker agreed to stay late in his office that night and receive Mr. Thorpe at ten the next morning.
That Thursday evening Johann Schlinker flew into London from Hamburg. He had arranged his appointment by telephone from Hamburg the same morning, phoning his contact at his home rather than at the office.
He met the diplomat from the Iraqi embassy for dinner at nine. It was an expensive dinner, even more so when the German arms dealer handed over an envelope containing the equivalent in German marks of £1000. In return he took an envelope from the Arab ,and checked the contents. They took the form of a letter on crested embassy notepaper. The letter was addressed to whom it might concern and stated that the undersigned, being a diplomat on the staff of the London embassy of the Republic of Iraq, had been required and requested by the Interior and Police Ministry of his country to authorize Herr Johann Schlinker to negotiate the purchase of 400,000 rounds of standard 9mm. ball for shipment to Iraq to replenish the stocks of the police forces of the country. It was signed by the diplomat and bore the stamp and seal of the Republic of Iraq, which would normally be on the desk of the Ambassador. The letter further stated that the purchase would be wholly and exclusively for the use of the Republic of Iraq and would under no circumstances be passed, in whole or in part, to any other party. It was an End User Certificate.
When they parted, it was too late for the German to return home, so he spent the night in London and left the following morning.
At eleven on Friday morning, Cat Shannon phoned Marc Vlaminck at his flat above the bar in Ostend.
"Did you find that man I asked you to trace?" he inquired after introducing himself. He had akeady warned the Belgian to talk very carefully on the telephone.
"Yes, I found him," replied Tiny Marc. He was sitting up in bed, while Anna snored gently beside him. The bar usually closed between three and four in the
morning, so midday was the habitual rising time for both of them.
"Is he prepared to talk business about the merchandise?" asked Shannon.
"I think so," said Vlaminck. "I haven't raised the matter with him yet, but a business friend here says he will normally do business after a suitable introduction through a mutual acquaintance."
"He still has the goods I mentioned to you at our last meeting?"
"Yes," said the voice from Belgium, "he still has them."
"Fine," said Shannon. "Get a meeting and introduction with him yourself first, and tell him you have a customer who has approached you and would like to talk business. Ask him to be available for a meeting next weekend with the customer. Tell him the customer is good and reliable and is an Englishman called Brown. You know what to say. Just get him interested in a business deal. Tell him the customer would wish to examine one example of the goods at the meeting, and if it is up to standard, discuss terms and delivery. I'll ring you toward the weekend and let you know where I am and when I could come to see you and him together. Understand?"
"Sure," said Marc. "I'll get on with it over the next couple of days and set the meeting up for some time to be confirmed later, but during next weekend."
They exchanged the usual good wishes and hung up.
At half past two a cable from Marseilles arrived at the flat. It bore the name of a Frenchman and an address. Langarotti said he would telephone the man and introduce Shannon with a personal recommendation. The cable concluded by saying inquiries regarding the shipping agent were under way, and he expected to be able to give Shannon a name and address within five days.
Shannon picked up the phone and called the offices of UTA airlines in Piccadilly to get himself a seat on
the flight of the following Sunday midnight to Africa from Le Bourget, Paris. From BEA he reserved a ticket to Paris on the first flight the next morning, Saturday. He put £2000 of the money he had brought back from Germany into an envelope and slipped it into the lining at the bottom of his handgrip, for London airport representatives of the Treasury by and large disapprove of British citizens strolling out of the country with more than the permitted £25 in cash and £300 in travelers' checks.
Just after lunch Sir James Manson summoned Simon Endean to his office. He had finished reading Shannon's report and was agreeably surprised at the speed with which the mercenary's proposed plan of twelve days earlier was being carried out. He had checked the accounts and approved the expenditures. What pleased him even more was the long telephone call he had had from Martin Thorpe, who had spent half the night and most of the morning with an insurance broker.
"You say Shannon will be abroad for most of next week," he told Endean when his aide entered the office.
"Yes, Sir James."
"Good. There's a job that has to be done sooner or later, and it might as well be now. Get one of our standard contracts of employment, the kind we use for the engagement of African representatives. Paste over the name of ManCon with a strip of white paper and fill in the name of Bormac in its place. Make it out for a one-year engagement for the services as West African representative of Antoine Bobi at a salary of five hundred pounds a month. When you've got it done, show it to me."
"Bobi?" queried Endean. "You mean Colonel Bobi?"
"That's the one. I don't want the future president of Zangaro running off anywhere. Next week, starting Monday, you are going down to Cotonou to interview the colonel and persuade him that Bormac Trading
Company, whose representative you are, has been so impressed by his mental and business acumen that it would like to engage his services as a West African consultant. Don't worry, he'll never check to see who or what Bormac is, or that you are its representative. If I know anything about these lads, the hefty salary will be what interests him. If he's short of the ready, it ought to be manna from heaven.
"You are to tell him his duties will be communicated to him later, but the sole condition of employment for the moment is that he remain where he is at his house in Dahomey for the next three months or until you visit him again. Persuade him there will be a bonus in salary if he waits where he is. Tell him the money will be transferred to his local account in Dahomean francs. On no account is he to receive any hard currency. He might vamoose. One last thing. When the contract is ready, have it photocopied to hide the traces of the change of name of the employing company, and only take with you photocopies. As for the date on it, make sure the last figure for the year is blurred. Smudge it yourself."