He identified himself.
“Ah, there’s a message for you at the Airport Information desk, just outside the customs hall,” she said.
He thanked her, puzzled, and walked on toward passport control. He had not told Nikki he was coming, wishing to surprise her. When he got to the information desk, the message said, “Scott’s. Eight P.M. Lobsters on me!”
He cursed. That meant he would not get home to Gloucestershire and Nikki until morning.
His car was in the long-term car park—no doubt, if he had not returned, the ever-efficient Firm would have had it removed and returned to his widow. He took the courtesy shuttle, retrieved his car, and checked into one of the airport hotels. It gave him time for a bath, a shave, sleep, and to change into a suit. Since he intended to drink a lot of fine wine if the Firm was paying, he decided to take a taxi to and from the West End of London.
First he rang Nikki. She was ecstatic, her voice shrill with a mixture of relief and delight. “Are you all right, darling?”
“Yes, I’m fine.”
“And is it over?”
“Yes, the research is finished, all bar a couple of extra details that I can sort out here in England. How have you been?”
“Oh, great. Everything’s great. Guess what happened?”
“Surprise me.”
“Two days after you left, a man came. Said he was furnishing a large company flat in London, looking for carpets and rugs. He bought the lot, all our stock. Paid cash. Sixteen thousand pounds. Darling, we’re flush!”
Rowse held the receiver and stared at the Degas print on the wall.
“This buyer, where was he from?”
“Mr. Da Costa? Portugal. Why?”
“Dark-haired, olive-skinned?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
Arab, Rowse thought. Libyan. That meant that while Nikki was out in the barn where they kept the stock of carpets and rugs that they sold as a sideline, someone had been in the house and probably bugged the phone. Al-Mansour certainly liked to cover all the angles. Had he made a single ill-judged phone call to Nikki from Vienna or Malta or Cyprus, as he had been tempted to do, he would have blown away himself and the mission.
“Well,” he said cheerfully, “I don’t care where he was from. If he paid cash, he’s wonderful.”
“When are you coming home?” she asked excitedly.
“Tomorrow morning. Be there about nine.”
He presented himself at the superb fish restaurant in Mount Street at ten past eight and was shown to where Sam McCready already sat at a corner table. McCready liked corner tables. That way, each diner could sit with his back to a wall, at right angles to each other. It was easier to converse that way than sitting side by side, yet each was able to see the restaurant. “Never take it in the back,” one of his training officers had told him years ago. The same man was later betrayed by George Blake and “took it” in a KGB interrogation cell. McCready had spent much of his life with his back to the wall.
Rowse ordered lobster and asked for it Newberg. McCready had his cold, with mayonnaise. Rowse waited until a glass of Meursault had been poured for each and the sommelier had departed before he mentioned the mysterious buyer of the rugs. McCready chewed on a mouthful of Benbecula lobster, swallowed, and said, “Damn. Did you phone Nikki from Cyprus anytime before I tapped the hotel phone?”
“Not at all,” said Rowse. “My first call was from the Post House Hotel, a few hours ago.”
“Good. Good and bad. Good that there were no inadvertent slipups. Bad that al-Mansour is going to such lengths.”
“He’s going a bloody sight farther than that,” said Rowse. “I can’t be sure, but I think there was a motorcycle, a Honda, both at the long-term car park when I got my car back, and at the Post House. Never saw it from the taxi into London, but the traffic was very thick.”
“Damn and blast!” said McCready with feeling. “I think you’re right. There’s a couple at the end of the bar who keep peering through the gap. And they’re looking at us. Don’t turn around—keep eating.”
“Man and woman, youngish?”
“Yes.”
“Recognize either?”
“I think so. The man, anyway. Turn your head and call the wine waiter. See if you can spot him. Lank hair, downturned moustache.”
Rowse turned to beckon the waiter. The couple were at the end of the bar, separated from the main dining area by a screen.
Rowse had once done intensive antiterrorist training. It had meant scouring hundreds of photographs, not only of the IRA. He turned back to McCready.
“Got him. A German lawyer. Ultraradical. Used to defend the Baader-Meinhof crowd, later became one of them.”
“Of course. Wolfgang Ruetter. And the woman?”
“No. But the Red Army Faction uses a lot of groupies. A new face. More watchers from al-Mansour?”
“Not this time. He’d use his own people, not German radicals. Sorry, Tom, I could kick myself. Since al-Mansour didn’t have a tail on you in Cyprus, and since I was so busy ensuring that you passed all of the Libyan’s tests, I momentarily took my eye off that bloody paranoid psycho Mahoney. If those two at the bar are Red Army Faction, they’ll be on an errand from him. I thought there’d be no heat on you once you got back here. I’m afraid I was wrong.”
“So what do we do?” asked Rowse.
“They’ve already seen us together. If that gets out, the operation’s finished, and so are you.”
“Couldn’t you be my agent, my publisher?”
McCready shook his head. “Won’t work,” he said. “If I leave by the back door, it’ll be all they need. If I go by the front like a normal diner, it’s short odds I’ll be photographed. Somewhere in Eastern Europe that photo will be identified. Keep talking naturally, but listen. Here’s what I want you to do.”
During the coffee, Rowse summoned the waiter and asked for directions to the men’s room. It was staffed, as McCready knew it would be. The tip he gave the attendant was more than generous—it was outrageous.
“Just for a phone call? You got it, guv’nor.”
The call to the Special Branch of the Metropolitan Police, a personal call to a friend of McCready’s, was placed while McCready was signing the slip for his credit card. The woman had left the restaurant as soon as he called for the bill.
When Rowse and McCready emerged under the illuminated portico, the woman was half-hidden in the alley beside the poultry shop just down the street. Her camera lens picked up McCready’s face, and she ran off two quick shots. There was no flash; the portico lights were enough. McCready caught the movement, but he gave no sign.
The pair walked slowly to McCready’s parked Jaguar. Ruetter emerged from the restaurant and crossed to his motorcycle. He took his helmet from the pannier and put it on, visor down. The woman left the alley and straddled the machine behind him.
“They’ve got what they want,” said McCready. “They may peel off anytime. Let’s just hope their curiosity keeps them there for a short while.”
McCready’s car phone trilled. On the other end was his friend in the Special Branch.
McCready filled him in. “Terrorists, probably armed. Battersea Park, near the Pagoda.” He replaced the receiver and glanced in his mirror. “Two hundred yards—still with us.”
Apart from the tension, it was an uneventful drive to the sprawl of Battersea Park, which was normally closed and locked at sundown. As they approached the Pagoda, McCready glanced up and down the road. Nothing. Not surprising—the park had been reopened by Rowse’s telephone call.
“Diplomatic protection drill—remember it?”
“Yep,” said Rowse, and reached for the handbrake.
“Go.”
Rowse yanked hard on the brake as McCready pulled the Jaguar into a savage turn. The rear end of the car slid around, tires screaming in protest. In two seconds, the sedan turned around and was heading the other way. McCready drove straight at the oncoming single headlight of the mo
torcycle. Two unmarked parked cars nearby put on their headlights, and their engines came to life.
Ruetter swerved to avoid the Jaguar and succeeded. The powerful Honda veered off the road, over the curb, and onto the parkland. It almost missed the bench, but not quite. Rowse, in the passenger seat, caught a glimpse of the motorcycle somersaulting over, its passengers spilling onto the grass. The other cars drew up and decanted three men.
Ruetter was winded but unharmed. He sat up and reached under his jacket.
“Armed police. Freeze,” said a voice beside him. Ruetter turned and looked into the barrel of a service-issue Webley .38. The face above it was smiling. Ruetter had seen the film Dirty Harry and decided not to make anyone’s day. He withdrew his hand. The Special Branch sergeant stood back, the Webley pointed double-handed at the German’s forehead. A colleague removed the Walther P38 Parabellum from inside the motorcycle jacket.
The woman was unconscious. A large man in a light gray coat walked from one of the cars toward McCready. Commander Benson, Special Branch.
“What have you got, Sam?” he asked.
“Red Army Faction. Armed, dangerous.”
“The woman is not armed,” said Ruetter clearly, in English. “This is an outrage.”
The Special Branch Commander took a small handgun from his pocket, walked over to the woman, pressed the automatic into her right hand, then dropped it in a plastic bag.
“She is now,” he said mildly.
“I protest!” said Ruetter. “This is in flagrant breach of our civil rights.”
“How true,” said the Commander sadly. “What do you want, Sam?”
“They have my picture, they know my name. And they saw me with him.” He jerked his head at Rowse. “If that gets out, there’ll be an awful lot of grief on the streets of London. I need them held incommunicado. No trace, no appearances. They must be badly hurt after that crash—a secure hospital, perhaps?”
“Isolation ward, I shouldn’t wonder. What with the poor darlings being in a coma and no papers on them, it’ll take me weeks even to identify them.”
“My name is Wolfgang Ruetter,” said the German. “I am a lawyer from Frankfurt and I demand to see my ambassador.”
“Funny how deaf you can get in middle age,” complained the Commander. “Into the car with them, lads. As soon as I can identify them, of course, I’ll bring them to court. But it could take a long time. Keep in touch, Sam.”
In Britain, as a rule, even when an armed and identified member of a terrorist group is arrested, he or she cannot be held without a court appearance for longer than seven days, under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. But all rules occasionally have their exceptions, even in a democracy.
The two unmarked police cars drove away. McCready and Rowse climbed into the Jaguar. They had to get out of the park so it could be locked up again.
“When this is over,” asked Rowse, “will they come for me or Nikki?”
“They’ve never done that yet,” said McCready. “Hakim al-Mansour is a pro. Like me, he accepts that in our game, you win some and you lose some. He’ll shrug and get on with his next operation. Mahoney is trickier, I know, but for twenty years the IRA has targeted only their own informers and holders of high office. I’m convinced he’ll go back to Ireland to make his peace with the IRA Army Council. They, at least, will warn him off personal vengeance missions. So hang on in there for just a few more days. It’ll be okay after that.”
Rowse drove back to Gloucestershire the following morning to take up the reins of his life again and await the promised contact from Hakim al-Mansour. As he saw it, when he received the information concerning the docking of the arms ship, he would pass the tip to McCready. The SIS would trace the ship backward from that, identify it in the Mediterranean, and pick it up in the Eastern Atlantic or in the English Channel, with Mahoney and his team on board. It was as simple as that.
The contact came seven days later. A black Porsche crept into the courtyard of Rowse’s home, and a young man climbed out. He looked around at the green grass and beds of flowers in the late May sunshine. He was dark-haired and saturnine, and he came from a drier, harsher land.
“Tom,” called Nikki. “Someone to see you.”
Rowse came around from the rear garden. He let no trace of expression mask the polite inquiry on his face, but he recognized the man: It was the tail who had followed him from Tripoli to Valletta, then seen him off on the flight to Cyprus two weeks earlier.
“Yes?” he said.
“Mr. Rowse?”
“Yes.”
“I have a message from Mr. Aziz.” His English was reasonable but careful, too careful to be fluent. He recited his message as he had learned it.
“Your cargo will arrive at Bremerhaven. Three crates, all marked as office machinery. Your normal signature will secure release. Bay Zero Nine, Warehouse Neuberg. Rossmannstrasse. You must remove them within twenty-four hours of their arrival date, otherwise they will disappear. Is that clear?”
Rowse repeated the exact address, fixing it in his mind. The young man climbed back into his car.
“One thing. When? Which day?”
“Ah, yes. The twenty-fourth. They arrive at noon of the twenty-fourth.”
He drove away, leaving Rowse with his mouth open. Minutes later he was racing to the village to use the public phone, having ensured he was still clean of a tail. His own phone was still tapped, the experts had confirmed, and it would have to stay that way for a while longer.
“What the hell can they mean, the twenty-fourth?” raged McCready for the tenth time. “That’s in three days! Three bloody days!”
“Mahoney’s still in place?” asked Rowse. He had just driven up to London at McCready’s insistence, and they were meeting at one of the Firm’s safe houses, an apartment in Chelsea. It was still not safe to bring Rowse to Century House—officially, he was persona non grata there.
“Yes, still propping up the bar at the Apollonia, still surrounded by his team, still waiting for a word from al-Mansour, still surrounded by my watchers.”
McCready had already worked out that there were only two choices. Either the Libyans were lying about the twenty-fourth—another test for Rowse, to see if the police would raid the Neuberg warehouse. In which case al-Mansour would have time to divert his ship somewhere else. Or else he, McCready, had been duped—Mahoney and his team were decoys and probably did not know it themselves.
Of one thing he was certain: No ship could get from Cyprus to Bremerhaven via Tripoli or Sirte in three days. While Rowse was motoring to London, McCready had consulted his friend at Dibben Place, Colchester, home of Lloyds Shipping Intelligence. The man was adamant. First, it would take one day to sail from, say, Paphos to Tripoli or Sirte. Allow another day for loading, more likely a night. Two days to Gibraltar, and four or five more to northern Germany. Seven days minimum, more likely eight.
So either it was a test for Rowse, or the arms ship was already at sea. According to the man from Lloyds, to dock at Bremerhaven on the twenty-fourth, it would now be somewhere west of Lisbon, heading north to clear Finisterre.
Checks were being made by Lloyds as to the names of ships expected in Bremerhaven on the twenty-fourth with a Mediterranean port of departure. The phone rang. It was the Lloyds expert on a patch-through to the Chelsea safe house.
“There aren’t any,” he said. “Nothing from the Mediterranean is expected on the twenty-fourth. You must have been misinformed.”
With a vengeance, thought McCready. In Hakim al-Mansour, he had come up against a master of the game.
He turned to Rowse.
“Apart from Mahoney and his crew, was there anyone in that hotel who even smelted of IRA?”
Rowse shook his head.
“I’m afraid it’s back to the photograph albums,” said McCready. “Go through them over and over again. If there’s any face—anything at all—that you spotted in your time in Tripoli, Malta, or Cyprus, let me know. I’ll leave you with them.
I have some errands to run.”
McCready did not even consult Century House about asking for American help. Time was too short to go through channels. He went to see the CIA Station Head in Grosvenor Square, Bill Carver.
“Well, Sam, I don’t know. Diverting a satellite isn’t that easy. Can’t you use a Nimrod?”
Royal Air Force Nimrods can take high-definition pictures of ships at sea, but they tend to fly so low that they are seen themselves. Without added altitude, they have to make many passes to cover a large area of ocean.
McCready considered long and hard. If he knew the consignment had gotten through and was firmly in the hands of the IRA, he would have wasted no time alerting the CIA to the threat to their ambassador in London, as reported by the Libyan doctor in Qaddafi’s tent.
But for weeks his concern had been just to stop the arms shipment from getting through to the final destination. Now, needing CIA help, he produced his bombshell—he told Carver of the threat.
Carver came out of his chair as if jet-propelled. “Jesus H. Christ, Sam!” he exploded. Both men knew that apart from the catastrophe of a U.S. ambassador being slaughtered on British soil, Charles and Carol Price had proved the most popular American emissaries in decades. Mrs. Thatcher would not easily forgive an organization that allowed anything to happen to Charlie Price.
“You’ll get your fucking satellite,” said Carver. “But next time you damned well better tell me earlier than this.”
It was almost midnight before Rowse went wearily back to Album One, the old days. He was sitting with a photo expert brought over from Century House. A projector and screen had been installed so that photographs could be thrown onto the screen and alterations made to the faces.
Just before one o’clock, Rowse paused.
“This one,” he said. “Can you put it on the screen?”
The face filled almost one wall.
“Don’t be daft,” said McCready. “He’s been out of it for years. A has-been, over the hill.”
The face stared back, tired eyes behind thick-rimmed glasses, iron-gray hair over the creased brow.
The Deceiver Page 36
