Queen's Pawn

by Victor Canning

  Raikes knew that this was true. Information was easy to come by. The real problem was taking it and fitting it into a plan which would work. In the past this had been something he enjoyed, and enjoyed more the movement from a plan on paper; to the actual execution. Now, he felt suddenly irritated again at the thought that this was not something he was doing of his own choice.

  With the impulse of the deep resentment in him, he said, ‘ I wish to God there was some way of avoiding all this. Some way we could get out of it altogether.’

  Berners looked at him in surprise. ‘ But why do you want to? We can do this between us. Think of the money we shall have. Here, look—’ He picked up a copy of that day’s Times and handed it to Raikes. On the Court page was a photograph of a famille-rose dinner service of ninety-six pieces, the day before at Christie’s, had been sold for 21,500 guineas. ‘Wouldn’t you like to be able to afford something like that? I went up to the auction. It’s a beautiful service … magnificent. Painted in underglaze blue and famille-rose enamels and decorated with flowers, birds, squirrels and vines. That’s what real money can buy you. Things most other people can never hope to own. That’s the kind of thing I want—so I’m prepared to take a risk for it.’

  ‘Be forced to take a risk for it, you mean.’

  ‘It’s unimportant—so long as it means money.’

  A week later Benson called on him at the flat. He had with him details of the helicopter.

  He said, ‘We’ve decided that the best machine for this job is a Bell 205A. It’s an American helicopter, but it’s manufactured under patent in Italy and we can get one. Here’s a list of the statistics about the machine.’

  He handed Raikes a typewritten list.

  It read:

  BELL 205A DATA AND PERFORMANCE

  Helicopter

  Equipment weight lb. 5000

  Crew (one) lb. 170

  Cargo lb. 2780

  Fuel lb. 1460

  Takeoff

  Gross weight lb. 9410

  Range miles 320

  Cruising speed m. p.h. 125

  Overall length feet 57

  Main rotor, length feet 48

  After Raikes had read it, Benson said, ‘Those figures only allow for a crew of one. But when she comes there’ll be three on board. Berners, the pilot and another man to help him offload the gold. And when she goes out you’ll be aboard. That’s three extra people so their weight—call it 510 pounds—must come off the cargo load which will reduce it to 2270 pounds. That’s the equivalent of well over a ton of gold. But if you don’t want a range of 320 miles then we could make some saving on the fuel weight which would mean we could get more cargo aboard. In any case, by the time they pick you up some of the fuel will be used up.’

  ‘We’ll need 320 miles. Can you get a machine like this without trouble?’

  Benson smiled. ‘For this job we can get anything—and when we’ve finished with it it won’t be traced.’

  ‘What about the hoist?’

  ‘I’ve gone into that. We can have an external hoist kit. That’s a boom and winch on the top right-hand side of the cabin roof. It can be worked by the pilot or a hoist operator. It sticks out from the top of the cabin and when the load’s up it swings it inboard. The cable is 200 feet long and will lift 600 pounds at a rate of 100 feet a minute. If necessary—which it had better not be—there’s an emergency cable cutter which the pilot or hoist man can operate.’

  ‘You’ve done your homework, haven’t you?’

  ‘I wouldn’t come to you if I hadn’t.’

  ‘Six hundred pounds. In four lifts we could have well over a ton aboard. You’re going to have to find a place to hide this machine and also do some dummy lifts so that Berners can work out lifting times.’

  ‘We’ll do that. But before we do Mr Mandel is going to have to have the whole plan laid out from your end. How long do you think that will be?’

  ‘Another week or so. I’ll let you know.’

  Benson stood up. ‘ You want to keep those details?’

  Raikes shook his head. ‘No. I’ve got them in my head.’ He flicked on his lighter and put the flame to the edge of the sheet and walked with it to the fireplace, dropping it and watching it burn on the tiles in front of the electric fire. When it was ash, he turned and said, ‘What about the pilot and this extra man?’

  ‘They’ll be safe. Men who’ve worked for us for a long time. They won’t know your name or Berners’s. But even if they did you’d still be safe. In our world nobody breaks the code and gets away with it. So, nobody breaks the code. There ought to be something like it in ordinary life.’

  Benson gone, Belle still out of the flat, he fixed himself a drink and sat by the window and picked up the daily paper which he hadn’t opened that morning. Almost the first thing he saw was the headline:

  MAY 2 FOR MAIDEN VOYAGE OF QE2

  The liner Queen Elizabeth 2 will make her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York on May 2, a few days after trials of her modified turbines are completed in the second half of April, Sir Basil Smallpeice, chairman of Cunard, announced in New York yesterday.

  Cunard hope that she will make 29 Atlantic crossings from May to November, followed by four Caribbean cruises from New York.…

  Cunard would put the QE2 through a final proving voyage to the Cape Verde Islands in early April before taking final delivery. When she goes to sea again there will be no cause for anxiety.…

  He sipped his drink. They didn’t know it but there would be. Berners would come flying in on the Bell 205A.

  She will more than fulfil the promises made to her prospective passengers as to her performance. She will be the most superb example of the shipbuilders’ craft the world has yet seen.

  Well, as long as she fulfilled the promise he was making to himself, a prospective passenger, though without a ticket, he would be content. He wanted the whole thing over and finished. They were now into March. Two months to go. It was going to be a long wait. Normally a patient man, he knew that they were going to be two long, hard months for him.

  The door opened and Belle came in, her arms full of parcels. She dumped them in an armchair and said, ‘Andy, I suddenly realized that I was a rich woman. Twenty thousand pounds from Sarling. It hadn’t sunk home. Then, while I was out, it did, so I went on a shopping spree. And do you know something odd—at the perfume counter in Harrods I suddenly had that old feeling that I wanted to lift something. I had my hand on a bottle of bath essence and … well, I damned near slipped it into my bag. Isn’t that strange after all these years?’

  He stood up, suddenly angry.

  ‘It’s not only strange but it’s bloody dangerous. You do something like that and get caught and it might lead anywhere.’

  ‘But I didn’t do it.’

  ‘Don’t even think about doing it. Do you hear?’ He gripped her arm fiercely.

  ‘Oh, Andy, don’t be so cross. Of course I wouldn’t do it. I promise you.’ She kissed him, then turned to the sideboard. ‘God, I need a drink. I’m exhausted.’

  He watched her back, watched her movements, and thought—two months. Two months to go before he could walk out and be rid of her, rid of the whole set-up.

  He went across to her, running his hand over her bottom and kissing the back of her neck. For two months more the part had to be played.

  He said, ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to let fly. But you know how important all this is.’ He turned her round and kissed her and felt at once her response to his kindness and affection, and he was thinking to himself, Here I am kissing her, keeping her sweet, and I could just as easily be killing her.

  Chapter Twelve

  It was the same suite at the Savoy. The flowers on the side table were carnations, great crimson blooms, their pompom heads held high on wired stems. Mandel sat on a straight-backed chair, hands crossed in his lap, shoulders hunched, like a brooding falcon, his eyes on Raikes who stood near the window. Benson had dropped back into an armchair and was fiddling w
ith one of the gold rings on his finger. Berners in dove-grey trousers, suede shoes, brown jacket, sat demurely at a table. Behind Raikes, through the window, there was sunshine on the river.

  He was saying, ‘You’ll have questions, but for the moment it will be better if you just make a note of them and ask them afterwards. What I want to do first is to run through the whole operation so that you get the complete picture. Is that all right?’

  Mandel nodded. ‘You tell the story. We’ll listen.’

  ‘Very well. So far as we know at the moment, the QE2 makes her first westward Atlantic run on May 2nd. She arrives in New York on May 7th. She will be carrying gold bullion in her Specie Room.’ He looked across at Mandel. ‘I understand that these days most bullion shipments out of London are by air.’

  Mandel said, ‘A certain amount always goes by sea. And this time—since it’s a maiden voyage—most City bullion merchants will be shipping bullion as a prestige affair.’

  ‘How much do you think?’

  ‘She will have more than you can lift.’ Mandel smiled briefly. ‘Some of it will be ours—under a suitable cover—so we shall make a double profit after collecting the insurance money.’

  ‘Of which we shall take seventy-five per cent?’

  ‘Yes.’

  As the man answered Raikes saw Berners’s shoulders stir gently.

  ‘All right. At the moment the intention is to lift at least a ton of bullion. The helicopter will hoist six hundred pounds at a time, that’s twenty-four good delivery bars. My rough calculation to do that comfortably from Specie Room to helicopter is an hour and a half. Berners can make a more accurate timing later with the helicopter pilot on dummy lifts. I suggest we content ourselves with four lifts. In fact, I insist. I shall have the Captain under duress and various of his officers and crew will be involved. If the period runs too long somebody might be tempted to do something stupid. Agreed?’

  Mandel said, ‘We shall be happy with four lifts.’

  ‘Right. The ship leaves Southampton around mid-day. She goes across to Le Havre. The latest time for embarkation there is at eight-thirty on the same day. She leaves around nine o’clock at night. Once she’s in the Channel she will begin to work up speed. Giving her an average speed of 25 miles an hour over the four-hour period from nine until one o’clock at night she’ll be a hundred miles westwards. There’s a chart on the table there. I’ve marked her position for speeds of twenty, twenty-five and thirty miles an hour. Berners and the helicopter pilot shouldn’t have any difficulty in picking her up. Keeping to the broad outline for the moment, I shall be on one of the open afterdecks of the ship from twelve o’clock onwards. Berners will locate the ship from the air and at any time from twelve on he will fire a Very signal from the helicopter. When I see this I shall go into action. Shortly after I have the Captain under duress a Very light signal will be fired from the ship to show Berners that everything is going to plan. Then, the moment the first load of bullion is up on the foredeck another signal—two Very lights—will be fired from the ship for the helicopter to come in and begin off-loading.’

  ‘Who fires these signals from the ship?’ asked Benson.

  ‘I said I’d answer questions afterwards. However, one of the ship’s company will. Though I shall provide the pistol and cartridges. The moment the last of the bullion is aboard the helicopter I shall be taken up off the foredeck and the helicopter will return to its base. So far as the security is concerned in France, I’m leaving that to Berners who will be working with your people. You’re going to have no trouble coming out to the ship. But from the moment we leave she will be in radio communication with the shore alerting the French authorities. The helicopter does a hundred and twenty-five miles an hour unloaded. I suggest you work within a hard limit of two hours at the most to get clear from the French base.’ He looked across at Mandel. ‘If Berners isn’t completely satisfied with the arrangements—then the operation is off.’

  Mandel said, ‘He will be satisfied. Go on with the details of the operation on board the ship.’

  ‘A passage has already been booked for Miss Vickers, in her own name, in Cabin 4004. I shall go aboard with her at Southampton on a visitor’s pass and stay aboard when the ship sails. No list is kept of visitors’ passes issued and the passes are not collected by anyone as visitors go ashore so there is no way of tracing one who may have stayed aboard, and in any case the pass will be made out in a false name to me. I shall stay in Miss Vickers’ cabin until after we leave Le Havre. But at Le Havre I shall want a weather check. It’s almost impossible for a helicopter to lift a load from the deck in a wind of fifty miles an hour, and difficult enough at forty miles an hour. On the Beaufort scale a wind of Force 8 to 9 is listed as a gale. That’s between 38 to 55 miles an hour. If the scale reading is more than 6 to 7—that’s listed as a strong wind—then the operation is off. All I do then is declare myself to the ship’s authorities, say I got left aboard at Southampton and go ashore and Miss Vickers goes on to New York—’

  ‘And we try again another time,’ said Mandel.

  ‘Do we?’

  ‘Yes. At least once more. I’m not being unreasonable. But there must be at least one more try. If that fails—well, we’ll be philosophical and forget all about it and all about one another. However, go on with your plan, assuming the weather is good.’

  ‘According to my information on the first night out passengers tend to go to bed reasonably early, and the Captain doesn’t entertain. The Captain won’t be in the wheelhouse during the midnight to four o’clock watch. He’ll be going to bed somewhere around midnight. I shall go to his cabin as soon as I get the Very light signal from the helicopter. We shall have a talk and he will do exactly as I want him to do. We’ll go up to the wheelhouse and he’ll order the ship to be brought up into the wind and slacken speed. One of his officers will fire the Very light signal from the wheelhouse wing to show Berners everything is working to plan. Then the bullion will be ordered up by the Captain and the double Very light signal will be fired when it’s ready for off-loading. We shall take off the four loads and then I shall go off myself. And that’s it.’

  ‘That’s it in very broad detail.’ Mandel stood up and gave himself a little shake, reminding Raikes again of a falcon shivering down its plumage. ‘Explain how you are going to put the Captain under duress.’

  Raikes went to the sideboard where drinks stood on a silver tray and began to help himself to a brandy and soda. With his back to them, he said, ‘ Sarling made me steal some gas canisters from an Army depot. They’re riot control supplies. I won’t go into the chemical details, but in an open space they cause instant paralysis and unconsciousness. In a confined space they are lethal. I’ve tested them. When I go aboard I shall be wearing an overcoat and I shall have six of them with me. When I go to see the Captain, Miss Vickers—on one of the afterdecks—will have them in a large handbag. I shall explain to the captain that I have an accomplice aboard with these canisters. If he doesn’t do what I order then Miss Vickers will walk through the public rooms on the boatdeck—that includes the big Double Room at the stern, the Juke Box, the Coffee Shop and the 736 Night Club, all of which will have people in them—and leave a canister in each one. The canisters have a ten to fifteen second fuse. In ten seconds a person can walk sixteen to eighteen paces so Miss Vickers will be well clear of the explosion area each time—but a lot of people will be caught—’

  ‘And die. Pretty horrible,’ said Benson. ‘ But necessary, I can see.’

  ‘Nobody’s going to die. Apart from the ship itself, the first duty of the Captain is the safety of the passengers. He won’t take any risks.’

  ‘But—if he refuses to do what you say—will Miss Vickers fire the canisters?’ asked Mandel.

  ‘If a Very signal is not fired from the ship within half an hour of my leaving her and going to the Captain—yes, she will. I shall have no way of recalling her.’

  ‘She’s prepared to do it?’ Benson moved to the sideb
oard and poured himself a glass of water. Berners sat at the table still, head down examining the palms of his hands.

  ‘Yes. But she won’t have to do it. This is the crux of the whole plan. If there was any doubt in my mind that the Captain would refuse I wouldn’t be going into all this. It’s something he’s got to do. You’ve put me under duress and I’m doing this. I don’t want to do it, but I’m doing it—and you knew I would. He’ll be in the same position. He’s got to do it. No man in his position is going to risk the lives of twenty or fifty passengers for the sake of saving part of a cargo of bullion. Human lives against gold? He’d be condemned for life.’

  Mandel ran a finger down the long beak of his nose and said, ‘There’s no doubt in my mind that you are right. It’s not even a gamble. However, there are one or two other points. Will Miss Vickers be able to see the Very light signal from the wheelhouse?’

  ‘Yes. She’ll be on one of the afterdecks in the open. When she sees the signal she’ll drop the canisters over the side, go up to the boatdeck and walk right forward to the big Look-Out Room. It’s a public room and she’ll be able to watch the whole lifting operation from there.’

  ‘How are you going to get into the Captain’s quarters?’

  ‘Walk in. There’s an entrance to the Officers’ quarters on the boatdeck. There’s no guard. At that time of night there shouldn’t be anyone much about. If there is and I’m stopped then I shall have to knock the man out.’

  ‘Are you going to be armed?’ asked Benson.

  ‘Yes. I shall have an automatic.’

  ‘Six canisters, a Very pistol and cartridges, and an automatic—a lot to carry aboard.’

  ‘In an overcoat with big pockets and folded over my arm? There’s no problem there.’

  Mandel said, ‘Have you considered something going wrong after the Captain’s agreed to bring up the bullion? Somebody out of his control might make a stupid bid to stop the bullion lift. Say something like that happens? Miss Vickers will have thrown away the canisters. She’ll be all right, untraceable, unknown, indeed. But you could be left aboard, a fugitive, the whole plan gone wrong around your ears.’