The White Schooner (24 page)

He shook his head. ‘It was not a question of revenge. When I was young, yes. I was obsessed with the idea. But that was a long time ago. The motives now are quite different. We pursue these people for two reasons. One, because the world is full of reactionaries. What Hitler did to the Jews, can be done to them again. And it can be done to non-Jews.

‘By hunting down those who committed these crimes, by pulling them out from where they believe they are safe, we teach a lesson which all can understand.
There
is
no
escape.
Only the certainty of punishment can deter people with the same inclinations as Eichmann and Bormann and Mengele.’

He took a deep breath. ‘It is not just that they must know that they will hang. That’s not enough. They must live with the knowledge that they
will
be pursued—if necessary for a quarter of a century—that they will be found, that they will be hanged, that each day they wake up may be
the
day. In this way a man dies many times.

‘That is one of our motives. The other is that the public trials of these people inform new generations of something they should know. Something that would otherwise be forgotten because many would like it to be. But we intend that it shall not be.’

‘What will happen to Gottwald?’

Black shrugged his shoulders. ‘You can imagine. In some ways he was worse than the others. He can’t plead that he did it in the course of duty, or on orders from his superiors. He isn’t a German. He wasn’t even in Germany. He did it for
greed. To enrich himself. And he did it in the most callous, revolting way, betraying at the moment of rescue the very people he was employed to save, sending them to their death so that he could steal their possessions. There is no punishment severe enough for that.’

He stood up to stretch and yawn, then looked at his watch and saw that it was nearly four-thirty. ‘Hell’s delight! I must go and see what’s happening. We should have had a reply from ZID by now.’

He saw her tired eyes, the smudges under them and the high cheek bones giving her face an almost skeletal appearance. ‘Manuela,
please
try to sleep.’

She shook her head, patting her mouth as she yawned. ‘No. Impossible. I don’t want to be alone. I’ll wait here for you.’

She curled up on the settee in a corner and waved to him jauntily. ‘Bye. Don’t be long.’

There was some delay before ZID’s reply came. It was as terse as it was welcome: ‘
Your
0348.
Weissner
will
do
Rendez
vous
Delta
0700.
Regret
aircraft.
’

‘So do we,’ said Black. ‘But thank God for Weissner.’

The fresh wind had built up the sea and increasingly the schooner’s bows threw up sheets of spray which blew back over her, stinging the faces of the man in the cockpit despite the spray-dodgers which had been rigged.

‘Lot of cloud,’ said Black. ‘Nearly nine-tenth. Don’t think you’ll manage star-sights?’

‘
Verdammte
Wolke
,’ Helmut grumbled. ‘It will be difficult.’ Black looked astern into the darkness. ‘Wish I knew what was there. If only we had radar.’

‘
Nordwind
has,’ said Francois. ‘We should have borrowed hers.’

‘Very funny,’ said Black. ‘But I imagine she’s using it.’

His fingernails bit into the palms of his hands and he tried consciously to relax, but the tension remained. It is the
darkness
, he decided, and exhaustion, nature’s morale busters. With daylight everything will seem different. Half an hour of it will bring us to the rendezvous with Weissner. Then I’ll hand over. Get rid of my responsibilities. All of them, but Manuela.

It was ten minutes to six. Soon it would be daylight. Through the portlight in the cockpit, van Biljon could be seen lying on
the bunk, manacled hands on his stomach, eyes open.
Francois
, noting his restlessness, had gone in and offered him sleeping-pills or an injection. But van Biljon had declined.

Black had just come up from the engine compartment where he’d relieved Kamros for a short spell.

‘Starsights will be impossible,’ said Helmut. ‘Unless I get luck. A cloud break in the right place at the right time. You know.’

‘If you can’t, our D.R. position shouldn’t be too bad,’ said Black. ‘We haven’t been all that long at sea. Even if it does seem a bloody lifetime.’

‘Pity the rendezvous is so far from the African coast.
Otherwise
we could get a radio fix.’

‘We’ll manage somehow,’ said Black.

He left them in the cockpit and went back to the saloon. Manuela was still curled up in the corner but she’d wrapped herself in a blanket. She opened her eyes. ‘I was dozing,’ she said.

‘It’ll be daylight soon.’

‘Is everything all right?’

‘It’s okay. Weissner will be at the rendezvous.’

She looked round the saloon. ‘The boat seems to be moving about much more. Such vibrations.’ She shivered. ‘I’m cold.’

‘Wait till you see the sun. You’ll feel better.’

‘Yes,’ she said, looking at him gravely. ‘I suppose so. But it is terribly stuffy. Such a smell of food and—’ she hesitated.

‘Men?’ he said.

She laughed. ‘Yes. Men.’

He stood watching her, ready to go back to the cockpit, but there was something nagging at him. ‘Manuela,’ he said.

She’d sat up and was arranging her hair, gathering the long black strands behind her neck, smoothing them back. Now she stopped, looking at him, head on one side. ‘Yes.’

‘What are you going to do when we get to Haifa?’

‘Go back to Ibiza, of course.’

His apprehension and disappointment changed to anger. ‘Why?’ he asked coldly.

She looked away and went on with her hair. ‘Because I live there, and …’

‘And what?’

‘The exhibition. My pictures. Other things.’

‘Like Kyriakou?’

‘Him, too, I suppose.’

‘So you must go back? Nothing you want to do more than that?’

‘I’m confused.’ she said in a subdued voice. ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

Frustrated, hurt, he watched her with hopelessly mixed
feelings
, hating her because he loved her, because she was making it clear that he wasn’t as important to her as she was to him. Determined to hurt her, to bump her into reality, he said, ‘Typical little junkie, aren’t you?’

She looked at him sadly, her eyes moist with tears. ‘
Whatever
I say
you
think
I
am
, so I suppose I must be.’

He was exhausted and his jumbled emotions spilled over. ‘Well you bloody well are. So why not have the guts to admit it?’

She winced and he knew he’d hurt her. But standing there, feeling brutal and helpless, he had no idea what to do or say next. As he turned to go, Helmut almost fell in the saloon. He was breathless. ‘There’s something coming up astern.’

‘What?’ said Black.

‘Can’t say. Not enough light yet.’

The wind from the south-east brought the dust across from Talamanca, swirling it along the Avenida Ignacio Wallis, clutching at left-over newspapers in the racks outside the news agency, picking up discarded wrappings and dead leaves,
rustling
them along the side walk, whirling itself into a vortex which rattled the windows of the tired looking building,
scattering
red dust in the big office where Capitan Calvi was making his early morning report.

The Comisario interrupted him. ‘Close that window, please, Capitan.’

Calvi shut the window, picked up the papers which had blown on to the floor, and sat down again.

‘You were saying,’ said the Comisario, ‘that the arrests were made at midnight. You mentioned Rosetta. Who is he?’

‘A cleaner in the funeral parlour. The procession met the Barcelona steamer yesterday morning. Padre Dominco
officiated
. Family and friends were there of course. The funeral is to take place this afternoon. Last night the coffin was left in the funeral parlour. We kept it under observation. At nine o’clock Rosetta was seen to go in through a back entrance. From a little-used lane. Capitan Sura’s men went in ten minutes later. Rosetta had already opened the coffin. They caught him lifting out the drugs. Heroin, cocaine, opium, LSD, cannabis.’

The Comisario leant forward. ‘
Madre
de
Dios
! Was there a body in the coffin?’

‘Yes. The drugs were packed round it.’

‘Incredible. Are the family—any members of the church—involved?’

‘No, no,’ said Calvi deprecatingly, shocked at the other’s suggestion. ‘They are entirely innocent.’

The Comisario eyed him keenly. ‘So this was the special item of cargo?’

‘Yes, señor Comisario.’

‘How did you get on to this?’

‘There is much detail I will not trouble you with.’ Calvi examined his fingernails with studied preoccupation. ‘But I can say that the agent of the U.S. Narcotics Bureau was invaluable.’

‘Who was this agent?’

Calvi hesitated. Even now he would have preferred not to divulge it, but circumstances were such that he must. ‘Señorita Valez,’ he said in a subdued voice.

The Comisario’s cigar dropped as his mouth opened
involuntarily
, the deep-set eyes mirroring his astonishment. ‘This agent is a young woman?’

‘Yes,’ said Calvi.

‘Well I must confess I am surprised. You spoke to me the other day of arresting her with the others.’

The Capitan smiled apologetically. ‘It was necessary, señor Comisario, to go to exceptional lengths to protect her.’

The older man ran a hand across his iron grey hair. ‘You must remind me to acknowledge our indebtedness to her in the report to Madrid. They will convey appropriate messages to the people in the United States. Well, I must say this
is
a surprise. Now … about Kyriakou. She was close to him, of course. Is it as you suspected?’

‘In every way,’ said Calvi. ‘He manages the drug ring. The caretaker became co-operative in the early hours of this morning. Made a full confession. We have arrested Kyriakou, Tino Costa and some of the pushers. Those involved at the Barcelona end have also been arrested. The evidence is complete. The racket is broken.’

‘Splendid, Calvi.’ The Comisario tipped the ash from the cigar into the glass ashtray. ‘And what of the Englishman, Charles Black?’

‘I am coming to that.’ Calvi paused, frowning at his thoughts. ‘There have been extraordinary developments.’

For some time the Comisario listened while Calvi reported the night’s events: the abduction of van Biljon and Manuela Valez, and the escape of Black and his companions in the
Snowgoose
. Calvi told him, too, how the housekeeper had driven the Land-Rover down from Altomonte and tipped off the police at the road junction, and of the chase which had followed but petered out.

Later, the farmer and his son had reported the truck
hold-up
to the police at San José. At much the same time a courting couple who had been in a car parked behind bushes
at Cabo Negret had driven into San José to report what they had observed: men on the beach with a woman, a man being carried, torch signals from the beach answered from seaward; the entire party embarking in a boat of some sort, it was too dark to see, and abandoning the farm truck.

‘
Extraordinario
!’ The Comisario sat back in his chair, his head sunk on his chest, deep in thought. Then, as if he
suddenly
remembered where he was, he jerked upright, dusted the cigar ash from his tunic and said, ‘What action have you taken?’

‘Van Biljon’s boat—the
Nordwind
—put to sea soon after two o’clock this morning. It is the fastest craft in harbour. His crew are on board, with three of our men, all armed. I reported at once to Palma and Madrid. A naval aircraft from Valencia, carrying out a search exercise off Alicante, was diverted and made a sighting at about half past three this morning which may be the
Snowgoose.
The vessel behaved suspiciously, reversing her course. Unfortunately the aircraft was low on fuel and couldn’t stay in the vicinity, but the pilot radioed the position to the
Nordwind.
We hope that with her superior speed, and radar, she will make contact soon.’

The Comisario shook his head, his eyes reflecting his bewilderment. ‘What d’you make of this, Capitan? Is it any way connected with the drug smuggling?’

‘No. Definitely not. I thought at first that they might be a gang of international art thieves. But only one picture was taken from the gallery. A valuable one admittedly. But if that had been the object, there were many others, some more valuable. It looks to me more like kidnapping. Van Biljon is a rich man. We expect a demand for ransom. They are
probably
making for Oran or Algiers.’

‘Tell me. Why did you have the police at the foot of the Altomonte road last night?’

‘For two reasons, señor Comisario. We thought van Biljon’s servants might be involved in the drug running. We wished to watch their movements at the critical time. Secondly, Señorita Valez had told me that she was going to Altomonte with Black, to dine with van Biljon. This was unusual because, as you know, he does not permit visitors. It suited us well to have Señorita Valez out of town while the arrests were taking place, and to have Black under her direct observation. So I agreed to her going. But she did not know that the police
car on duty at the road junction had orders to call at
Altomonte
if they had not observed her make the return journey by midnight. Unfortunately our efforts to protect her were insufficient.’

The Comisario walked across to the window and looked down on the Avenida Ignacio Wallis and then across to Talamanca where the first faint streaks of daylight were showing in the eastern sky.

‘This is extremely serious, Capitan,’ he said. ‘If she comes to any harm we are accountable to the U.S. authorities.’

‘I am aware of that, señor Comisario. I feel personally
responsible
. She worked with me. Took considerable risks. It was not easy or agreeable for her.’

‘Will she reveal her identity to these people?’

Calvi shook his head. ‘Under no circumstances. She could never be used as an agent again, if she did. Also, she has no means of knowing that the operation has been successfully completed: the arrests made, the ring broken. These agents make many enemies. If they reveal their identity they
endanger
their lives.’

The desk telephone rang. The Comisario picked it up. ‘Hallo. Yes, he’s here.’ He passed the instrument to Calvi. ‘For you,’ he said.

Calvi spoke in monosyllables, grunting approval. He put the phone down. ‘It is the harbourmaster’s office. There is a radio signal from
Nordwind.
She has sighted a schooner which she believes to be the
Snowgoose.’