Deaken's War

by Brian Freemantle

  So that was how it happened, thought Deaken. He said, “Is she all right?”

  “Did you get her watch? And Azziz’s tie?”

  “I asked you if she was all right?”

  “For the moment,” said Underberg. “But only for the moment. I want you to understand, and more importantly I want Azziz to understand, that I’m becoming more and more irritated by what’s happening. If that ship isn’t turned back and directed exactly how I want it to be, then next time you and he will get a more unpleasant reminder of what we can do to them. Would you want your wife to lose a finger. Mr Deaken? Or an ear?”

  “Wait!” said Deaken desperately. “Don’t do that. There’s no need to do anything like that. I promise you from now on everything will be done exactly as you want it. Don’t …” Deaken’s mind blocked at the thought.

  “Then this time get it right,” said Underberg.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Make sure this tedious lying stops,” said Underberg. “On Saturday the Bellicose docks at Dakar. I want you to be there in person. I want you to board and I want you to be responsible for messages back to the Levcos offices in Greece, giving the precise longitudinal and latitudinal fix. And if I don’t think it’s right and Lloyds don’t think it’s right, or if the slightest thing happens to make me suspicious … to make me think you intend using your private army again, then your wife loses a finger. And the boy a finger. Then an ear. That’s the price, Mr Deaken. A piece of their bodies for every mistake you make. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes,” said Deaken dully. “I understand.”

  “Is that recorder working properly?”

  “Yes,” said Deaken.

  “Good. Because I want Azziz to get the proper message. I want him to hear everything I’ve said. And to believe it.”

  “Where do you want the freighter to go?”

  “With the position, give Levcos the speed, so I can estimate your arrival back in the Mediterranean. Make a refuelling stop in Algiers. You’ll be told what to do then in a cable addressed to you on the ship.”

  Whatever he tried to do he remained a puppet, controlled by the twists and jerks of this man’s fingers, thought Deaken. “All right,” he said.

  “No more attempts to be clever.”

  “There won’t be.”

  “Your wife’s too attractive.”

  Deaken felt the sickness rise and swallowed against it. “Don’t hurt her,” he pleaded again.

  “Whether she or the boy gets hurt depends upon you and Azziz. Don’t forget that for a moment.”

  “1 won’t.”

  “Position and speed,” insisted the man.

  “Yes,” said the lawyer.

  “And warn Azziz against trying to trace the contact calls to the Levcos office—they’ll be from a public box, so he’ll be wasting his time.”

  “What about this contact?” said Deaken. “Azziz has got a man, Grearson. He could maintain it.”

  There was a hesitation from the other end of the telephone. “The same time,” agreed Underberg. “Every other day.”

  Deaken felt relief that the link wasn’t being severed. “Every other day,” he repeated as if Underberg would need the confirmation.

  “No more stupidity,” said Underberg. “Don’t make your wife suffer.”

  Deaken maintained his control with difficulty while they listened to the recording but, as Grearson leaned forward to stop the tape, he could restrain himself no longer. “You idiotic bastard!” he shouted at Azziz.

  The attack seemed to take both the other men by surprise. Azziz recovered first. “No one speaks to me …”

  “I do,” interrupted Deaken. “It’s my wife you’re putting at risk. And your son. What the hell sort of man are you, willing to risk his child like that? Are you mad? Don’t you see what you’ve done?”

  Azziz’s face was composed like a mask, but on either cheek tiny patches of white pinched his features. “Having located the farmhouse, we had to take our chance,” he said. His voice was flat, expressionless.

  “We didn’t know about the farmhouse when I went ashore to tell him about the boat,” said Deaken furiously. “When you promised me it had been turned back. It was a lie and you knew it.”

  Deaken walked over to Azziz. “We can’t take any more chances,” he said, his voice calmer. “I don’t want to be here on this fucking yacht. I don’t want your hospitality. I don’t want to have anything to do with you. I want to be home in Geneva. With my wife. Safely.” Deaken stopped breathlessly. “I think you’re a stupid bastard.”

  “I think you’re forgetting yourself,” said Grearson, coming to his employer’s defence.

  “I’m not forgetting anything,” said Deaken. “I’m not forgetting the lies or what it might cost Karen.” He indicated the silent tape-recorder. “And I’m particularly not forgetting that if you hadn’t behaved like such bloody fools and kept that ship going, they wouldn’t have become suspicious and cleared the farmhouse. We’d have them both back by now. Most of all I can’t forget that.”

  “It was a mistake,” said Azziz in rare confession.

  “it’s the last one we’re allowed,” said Deaken.

  The boy lay limp with exhaustion against the pillows, but the constant sheen of perspiration had gone so Karen assumed the fever was over. Tewfik forced himself to reach out for the flannel and then the towel, reluctant to be washed by her. Gratefully Karen surrendered them.

  “How are you feeling?” she said.

  “Not very strong,” he said, slumping against the support and handing back the washing things. “What’s been wrong with me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I ache,” said Azziz. “I ache all over.”

  “You’ve not eaten anything for a long time,” said Karen. “I’ll bring you something.”

  “Thank you,” said Azziz. “For what you’ve done, I mean. I know how you’ve looked after me. I appreciate it.”

  He hadn’t been aware of her reluctance any more than the others had, realized Karen thankfully. “That’s all right,” she said.

  “Why did we have to move?”

  “Your father discovered the first place.” She wondered if Richard had been involved. It hadn’t occurred to her until now; very little about Richard had occurred to her in the last few days. And she didn’t feel any remorse.

  Tewfik smiled wanly. “I knew he would,” said the boy proudly “They’ll be sorry for what they’ve done “

  “Yes,” she said uncomfortably.

  “They’re bastards, aren’t they?” demanded the boy.

  This time her hesitation was longer. “Bastards,” she agreed at last, knowing she had to.

  The response from Africa to their request for a delivery delay arrived thirty minutes after Deaken had left the stateroom. The call was routed through Paris and for better reception Grearson went up to the communications room. It was a short conversation.

  “Makimber says no,” reported the American lawyer as he reentered the stateroom. “It seems Underberg is right: Makimber insists they’re necessary for a specific date. It’s got to be the contracted time.”

  “That’s a pity,” said Azziz. His anger at the confrontation with Deaken had gone—anger was wasteful and Azziz never wasted anything.

  Grearson appeared surprised at the calm reaction. “So we give Deaken all the authority he wants to turn the ship back?”

  Azziz didn’t reply at once. Then he said, “How about the second shipment?”

  “Ready for loading.”

  The Arab smiled. “What does Underberg want?”

  “The Bellicose turned back.”

  “A ship apparently turned back,” Azziz said. “What if a vessel looking like the Bellicose and loaded like the Bellicose made the Algeria rendezvous?”

  “It won’t work,” said Grearson. “The instructions are that Deaken sails with the Bellicose and reports its position, with independent checks from Lloyds.”

&nb
sp; “And where do you suppose he’ll get the position readings?”

  “From the navigating officers and the captain.”

  “Exactly,” said Azziz. “At first light tomorrow we get rid of the damned Deaken for good. I want you to go to Athens … see the Levcos people and make whatever deal is necessary. I want the Bellicose to sail from Dakar out of sight of land but to continue southwards. But I want calculations given to Deaken showing that it’s travelling in the opposite direction. And those are the ones I want the ship and Levcos to transmit to Lloyds.”

  “But surely even he can work out where the sun comes up,” said Grearson. “He’ll know he’s going the wrong way.”

  “So what?” said Azziz. “There’s nothing he can do. He’ll have to go along with it. You’re doing the negotiations now, without any involvement from that fool. We’ll agree to an exchange. We’ll agree on times and places and whatever else they want. When we get Tewfik, they can have the ship and its contents.”

  “Just like that?” said Grearson doubtfully.

  “No,” said Azziz, smiling again at his lawyer’s surprise. “Not quite. Your excellent soldiers will be on board. If I submit once to terrorism, then it will never stop—that’s a worthwhile lesson to be learned from the Israelis.”

  “What about the woman?” asked Grearson as an afterthought.

  “I couldn’t care less what happens to her,” said Azziz. “Any more than I care what happens to Deaken.”

  The sun disappeared finally, and reluctantly Underberg moved in from the balcony of the Monaco hotel. He was sure they would move quickly after the threat to hurt the boy and the woman. He would have to warn Makimber, to give him time to get to Dakar and prevent Deaken getting aboard the Bellicose. He would have to remember an appropriate time to remind the African of a favour owed.

  18

  Everything was arranged with the customary efficiency of Azziz’s organization: the helicopter connection to the airport, courteous airline officials on standby to escort Deaken to the waiting aircraft, stewards in readiness to show him to his seat. It was a direct flight with no transfer connections and Deaken arrived in the Senegalese capital just after midday. The heat took his breath away, the first reminder of a return to Africa. At once there were others. The forgotten sweet-sour odour; flies which thrive in it; lethargic people accustomed to the sun-slowed pace; colours, seemingly bleached, yellows and ochres, the white of the airport building harsh in comparison.

  The airport taxi was a dilapidated Renault, with missing handles and sagging door linings, the dashboard and mirror surrounds a bazaar of dangling amulets and rosaries, as if its very survival depended upon the will of God. The legacy of the city’s importance during the French occupation of Africa continued as they entered Dakar. The wide, straight streets were still policed by mottle-trunked plane trees, attendants to the set-back villas, two- and sometimes three-storey, shuttered and square and imposing, monuments to vanished imperial power. Only occasionally were the sculpted, patterned gardens still tended; elsewhere was the tangle of neglect.

  Deaken chose a hotel near the harbour, still with almost twenty-four hours before the Bellicose was due to dock, but wanting to be as near as possible. It was terraced, between ground-floor shops and offices above, with wooden fronting verandahs on the first and second floors and wooden steps leading up to the entrance. The street-level verandah had high-backed wicker chairs, glass-topped tables and yellow ashtrays recommending Pernod. Geckos, glued to the walls like ornaments, would suddenly dart at the speed of a blink in pursuit of insects.

  Deaken took a room at the front in order to keep the harbour in sight. It was French-built, like everything else, with docks and stiff-fingered jetties and long sheds bracketing the wharves. Beyond, the huge fan of water was flat and polished, cupped in the protective grasp of Cape Verde and Goree Island. Cargo ships and freighters, rusting and middle-aged like cargo ships and freighters always are, were tethered to their berths beneath high-necked, peering cranes. Anchored off were two oil tankers heavy in the water, like logs with straying branches. A working place, thought Deaken: no sparkling, burnished yachts with tinkling rigging and back decks full of topless sunbathers and laughing holidaymakers. After the last few days it was like retreating through the looking glass into the real world.

  Deaken was impatient to establish contact with the agent to whom he had letters of introduction and authority, but he knew there would be no work going on at this, the hottest part of the day. To pass the time he descended to the ground floor and located, to the right of the reception area, a zinc-topped bar with stools and beyond it sets of tables with curve-backed chairs. There were five, three of which were occupied. There were more yellow ashtrays which prompted Deaken to order pastis. Remembering he was in Africa, he mixed it with mineral water, refusing the grubby carafe that was offered to him. The Pernod here was weak and already watered. At the far end of the bar, where it abutted the wall, was a gaggle of black whores. They stirred at his arrival and one detached herself from the group, smiling as she sidled towards him. Deaken raised his hand and shook his head. He thought the girl seemed almost grateful to go back to her lunchtime gathering. He wondered what Carole was doing.

  He tried to hurry the question from his mind. The idea of Carole was intrusive and distracting: she had no place in his thoughts. He supposed, when everything was over, that he would see Azziz again briefly. But he would not be trapped on board the yacht, not like before. So he wouldn’t be seeing her again. Ever. Good, he thought. Very good. That was as it should be. He was still ashamed at how he had felt. Nervous too. There was only room for one thought with no distraction. Karen was all that mattered. Karen and how they were going to start again.

  “Dejeuner?” inquired the barman hopefully. Even he made the effort to maintain a French ambience, the muchstained shirt originally white, the black trousers threadbare, and a money pouch at the belt. The pouch was flat and empty.

  “Non, merci,” said Deaken. It was going to be a long wait. Not just until the Bellicose arrived but afterwards, days, he guessed, going back up around the fat chest of Africa and into the Mediterranean. And not over even then. There would be Underberg’s instructions to comply with. More delay.

  He took a second Pernod, conscious of the barmen’s flat pouch and leaving a larger tip than before. The girl, encouraged by her friends, made a second desultory attempt. He didn’t see her approach, so she had her arm through his and was inquiring in lisping French if he was lonely before he could make the second refusal. He sent her back with a brandy, unsure why he had made the gesture; she would probably despise him for it. There was laughter from along the bar. She raised the glass and he raised his in return. Behind the bar the waiter remained blank-faced and unimpressed.

  Deaken telephoned for directions and to ensure that the agent was back at work and then emerged out onto the harbour-fronting boulevard. The place had that sticky-eyed; just awake feeling. A stretching taxi driver took him along the curve of the sea and then briefly away from the waterfront, into one of the roads that radiated from it like spokes. There was a fleeting impression of déjà-vu and then Deaken remembered Ortega’s office in Lisbon. Only four days earlier, he thought. Or was it five? It seemed a lifetime.

  The Levcos agent was a man named Henri Carre, a mulatto who had clung to his French parentage. He was a thin, fine-featured man with a high forehead of which he appeared constantly aware, running his hand persistently across it and up into his crinkled hair. One wall of the man’s office was occupied by an erasable plasticized chart inscribed with the names of the ships for which he was responsible, sectioned so that it showed the departure port, stops en route and estimated time of arrival at Dakar. Deaken saw that the Bellicose was scheduled to arrive at dawn on Saturday and that the panel allowed for possible delay was blank. Carré studied Deaken’s letter of authority and then, revealing the bureaucratic caution bred into people who had been colonized, asked to see Deakens passport. Dutifully the lawy
er produced it. Carré placed it beside the letter, apparently to compare the name, and then looked up, nodding with satisfaction.

  “It is an honour for me to meet you,” he said, in stiffly formalized French.

  “I am sorry for the intrusion.” Deaken was equally polite.

  “I’m asked to give you every help,” said Carré, pointing to the letter of authority.

  “The arrival is still scheduled for Saturday?”

  The Senegalese nodded.

  “What berth?”

  The man made a vague gesture towards the harbour. From the window it was just possible to see a wedge of water. “Undecided yet,” he said. As if imagining he were being checked out by a carrier, he added quickly, “It will be a good berth, one of the best.”

  “I’m sure,” said Deaken. “What’s the period in port?”

  “Just revictualling, fuelling if necessary,” said Carré.

  Deaken said, “I’m taking passage aboard.”

  Carré frowned. “It’s a freighter,” he said.

  “There’ll be some sort of accommodation,” said Deaken. It hadn’t occurred to him until now; it didn’t matter.

  “Do you want me to radio the ship?” asked Carré”, eager to show his efficiency.

  Deaken shook his head. “All that’s being done from Athens,” he said. “They’ll be expecting me when they dock.”

  “There’s no problem, I hope?” Carré was unable to withhold the question any longer.

  “None.”

  “It’s never happened before.”

  Deaken was concerned at the man’s curiosity. Carré had his local position to protect, people in authority to appease. His inquisitiveness could get the bloody cargo impounded. Quickly he said, “It’s an important shipment; it was thought best for me to be personally aboard for the last stage of the voyage.”

  “You’ve the ongoing orders then?” said Carré.

  Damn, thought Deaken. He said, “They’re being sent separately from Athens.”