Message From Malaga

by Helen Macinnes

  “Two of them?”

  “There’s a third tagging along—Mike, a young fellow who watches everything and says little. He’s some kind of subordinate to the big guy—one of the top—who came all the way from Washington. He’s calling himself Smith at the moment.” Waterman smiled. “But he is for real. Believe me.”

  “I didn’t hear you drive up.”

  Waterman’s smile faded. He looked worriedly at Ferrier. “You really do need reassurance, don’t you?”

  “By the carload.”

  “That kind of day?”

  “That kind of day.”

  “Then it looks as if this introduction job of mine isn’t the hare-brained idea I thought it was.”

  “It isn’t. How did the four of you get here?”

  “We came to Málaga separately, got together as soon as the news of Reid’s heart attack reached us, and then travelled in two cars to a nearby street. We parked them there, at some distance from each other, and then drifted into the garden about ten minutes ago. The chap from Madrid, Martin is his name—”

  “Martin? So he actually got here,” Ferrier said bitterly. “What the hell kept him?”

  “Well—he’s pretty strong on security. He arranged all the timing and manoeuvring. You’d think he expected KGB cadres at every street corner. Mr. Smith from Washington was getting a little impatient; but of course this isn’t really his field of operations—he may outrank Martin, but in Málaga he has to take Martin’s advice. I suppose—I’m out of my depth, Ian,” he added frankly.

  “So am I. But keep swimming hard. All right. Let’s have them in.” Mr. Smith from Washington, and his sidekick, and Mr. Martin from Madrid. Suddenly, Ferrier’s headache cleared: that was what a good flash of anger could do.

  “Keep your dragon lady out of it.” Waterman nodded towards the dining-room, where Concepción had made a reappearance. She was bringing a tray, with the drinks, a folded towel, and a load of ice. Waterman raised an eyebrow at the huge bowl of ice cubes. “Do we look as thirsty as all that?”

  “I had my head banged up a little.”

  “Who bashed you?”

  “Later, later.” Ferrier took the drink from Concepción, swallowed it quickly, began to feel almost normal. At least he was able to think ahead clearly now. Quickly, definitely, he gave instructions to Concepción. No, absolutely no dinner to be prepared; but he would be pleased if she would make some sandwiches—something simple like ham or cheese, the kind of sandwich that Señor Reid had sometimes asked for, hadn’t he? Good. Some of those. To be wrapped and put into the refrigerator. That would let her get to bed; yes, she was to go to bed and try to get some sleep. Not to worry about anything. Some friends might drop in to visit him later on. Yes, make enough sandwiches; no, he didn’t know how many were coming, just make a dozen sandwiches, that was all. And get to bed, and not to worry. Understood? He added his thanks for all she had done, patted her shoulder gently, and she left without one protest.

  Waterman looked at Ferrier with a touch of admiration. Yes, he was thinking, Ian has a way with women, the young and the old, the plain and the pretty. “You really like them, don’t you?” That’s what got through to them, one and all.

  “Let’s have your friends in,” Ferrier said brusquely.

  “Do you feel well enough to face them?”

  “I’ll manage.” That was something he couldn’t have truthfully said half an hour ago. It was a cheering measure of his recovery.

  Waterman started moving quickly again. He went into the hall, slightly opened the door, avoided the bright moonlight, kept to the pools of dark shadows. He found the three men waiting under the nearest palm trees. Martin was the most impatient. He didn’t speak his grumbles at being kept waiting so long, but they were clearly expressed in his abrupt movements, in his way of forging ahead without even listening to Waterman’s quiet explanation. The man who was calling himself Smith was definitely interested. So was Mike, who risked a whispered comment: “Looks as if our quick hop across the Atlantic was worth it after all.”

  “Sh!” said Martin angrily. He was the first to go inside. He waited in the dark hall until the others had slipped through the half-opened door, locked and chained it, moved over to a wall switch, turned the hall light back on. Then in a tight little phalanx the three men came into the big room. (Waterman kept tactfully apart, a mild demonstration of his own independence.)

  Which is which? Ferrier wondered as he stared at them and they at him. The youngest was easy to place: Mike, the subordinate, in his late twenties, neat and crisp and squared away like a small frigate between two ships of the line.

  “This is Smith, just over from Washington,” Waterman said, and indicated the man Ferrier had been studying with a very cold look. So the other one is Martin, Ferrier thought, and transferred the cold look to its proper target. Martin was the older of the two—in fact, he was the oldest in the room by about ten years. He was fairly tall, carried himself with authority, was half bald (his dark hair hadn’t lost its colour, though) and had a white-skinned face as if he had never been touched by a Spanish sun. His features were good, his expression would be pleasant enough once that slight scowl of impatience faded, and his movements were quick, decided. At present, he was adjusting the shutters, barely looked around for a brief nod in Ferrier’s direction as Waterman introduced him. Waterman said, with his own touch of impatience, “Look, Martin, there’s nothing to be seen through these cracks in the shutters—you tested that from the garden. Just lights on, that’s all we could see.”

  “Too many lights,” Martin said. He had a rich and imposing voice, mellifluous. “You’d think a party was going on here.” He moved over to the master switch at the foot of the staircase, fiddled around with it, dimmed some of the lamps. He then chose a seat beside one of those, smoothed down his neat dark-blue jacket, seemed quite content to sit there and outstare Ferrier from his chair in the shadows.

  He knows his way around, Ferrier was thinking as he remembered his own battle with the lights last night; he has been here before. What’s making him so aggressive? Is he suffering a touch of guilt for getting here so damned late?

  Smith said quietly, “It seems to me as if there has indeed been some kind of party here,” and he glanced sympathetically at Ferrier. “Did you arrive in the middle of it? Or were they waiting?”

  “Waiting and ready.”

  “What did they get?”

  “Not what they hoped to find.”

  Martin broke in. “And what was that?” He was polite now, friendly, as if his head of steam had slackened off.

  Ferrier didn’t seem to hear. The back of my hand to you, he told Martin silently, and walked over to the drink tray. He had a raging thirst. “Scotch and soda here,” he told them, and poured himself a tall glass of Perrier, not his usual tipple but at present the wisest. Esteban’s special wouldn’t quarrel with spring water. He added several lumps of ice, kept one of them to hold against the back of his head, tried to look nonchalant, as if this were perfectly normal behaviour, and came back to where Smith stood.

  “We’ll have a drink later,” Smith said. He was a man in his early forties, tall and thin, with jutting crag-like features and amused brown eyes. His hair, with a strong wave in it but closely brushed to his head, was prematurely white. His face and hands were deeply tanned. He wore a thin grey summer suit casual in cut, a white shirt, and a narrow dark tie. His voice was quiet, almost diffident; his smile was equally shy and deceptive, Ferrier decided. For all his understatements, Mr. Smith was a man of definite quality. He was cool, perhaps extremely capable, certainly sharply observant. He also knew when not to offer gratuitous remarks and paid no attention to the lump of ice being held to Ferrier’s head. He took off his jacket, threw it over a chair, said, “Mike, see if you can open a few more windows in that dining-room over there, let some air blow through.” And he silenced a possible objection from Martin by adding, “Just keep the louvres at a safe angle. And then, you’d better get on
to the telephone. Call the airport, reach our pilot. Tell him and Max to be ready in about two hours—no, make it nearer three. Around midnight.”

  Ferrier felt dismay, then annoyance. That’s the way it goes, he thought bitterly. In and out. Just enough time in Málaga to learn of Reid’s death, pick up any loose information, and then leave. Or are they trying to show me that if I want to play this cool, they can be cooler? Sure I was downright rude to Martin, sitting like a presiding Buddha over in that dark corner, but I owed him that. And I’m feeling better for it, better by the minute. He dropped the remains of the ice cube into an ashtray, said, “Are you returning to Washington?”

  “By way of Madrid. Yes.”

  “Could I hitch a ride?”

  Smith studied him for a moment. “Why not?”

  “Good. You’ll save me a lot of travel time.”

  “Urgent business?”

  “Most urgent.”

  Smith let that pass without even an upraised eyebrow. Ben Waterman was puzzled. They had all got off to a wrong start, somehow, and he couldn’t tell why. “Do you want me to stay, or do I melt away?” he asked, and looked at Martin and then at Smith. He wasn’t sure who was in charge here; until they had entered this house, Martin had assumed command—for one thing, he did know this section of Spain, while Smith was only the visitor from Washington who had come here on special assignment. Whatever it was, it must be of abnormal importance. Interesting... But how did Ferrier figure in all this? And what was making him so damned wary and noncommittal? If he had something to tell, why wasn’t he coming out with it?

  Martin had sensed this, too. “Stick around, Ben. We may need you to introduce us all over again.” He was watching Ferrier with tolerant amusement. “I thought I was cautious, but—” He shook his head.

  Waterman said half-angrily, “Look, Ian—believe me! These guys are authentic.”

  Smith said quickly to Waterman, “You might help Mike with his efforts to get through to the airfield.”

  “Sure,” Waterman said, and poured himself another drink while he waited for Mike to deal with the last window. Mike was young enough—twenty-eight—and new enough at his job perhaps to drop a joke or two that would give an old journalist just one small lead, something to chew on, like a stone popped into your mouth to help you get across a desert.

  Ferrier stopped, studying the glass in his hand. “The nearest phone is in the study,” he told Waterman.

  “The place that is all messed up?”

  “Badly?” Martin asked. He was on his feet, ready for an inspection.

  “That’s where they concentrated.”

  “What did they take?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Then how were you so sure,” Martin said sharply, “that they did not get what they hoped to find?” He didn’t wait for an answer but was already half-way to the study.

  Ferrier looked at Smith. “I slipped up there, didn’t I?” he said dryly. So Martin was no fool; he had brains and he could use them. That at least was some reassurance; Ferrier began to lose the feeling he was dealing with a first-rate bungler, all smooth outside with a big nothing interior. There were several of these around, nowadays; they were glib and personable, holding jobs that were too big for them, always just managing to run hard enough to catch up. Their pretensions were matched only by their self-promotion and their carefully polished image. In certain jobs—politics, education, communication, defence, security—their ineptness could be disastrous for the entire nation. (In business, it was the workers or shareholders who could get hurt; in the arts or entertainment, it was public taste that could be either offended or lowered. In both cases, it was limited damage, affecting only some groups in the country, and bad enough. But not as lethal as what the incompetent could do when they had slipped into jobs dealing with the national interest.) Even a small-scale, low-as-yet-on-the-totem-pole bungler could do as much damage as the simple match that set off an old-fashioned fuse.

  Smith’s reply was long in coining. Then it was only, “You’ve had a bad day. Let’s sit over here.” He chose a couple of chairs on either side of a small table, with a lamp between them. No shadows for him. Or perhaps this was what he’d call “inducing confidence”, Ferrier thought. God knows, I need some of that. He sat down, keeping his silence as a protective wall around him. But it was vulnerable, he knew: he had as good as admitted that he actually knew what the break-in artists might have been searching for. “Cigarette?” Smith asked, offering his pack. “I know,” he added quickly, “it’s SOP—put the poor guy at his ease. But I wish you would talk with us. If my use of ‘Smith’ annoyed you it is simply because I am supposed to be weekending in Maryland, right at this minute: I’m nursing an attack of twenty-four hour flu, instead of being outdoors enjoying myself with the rest of the family. And as for the reason that brought me flying over here—” He paused, smoothed back a lock of white hair that annoyed him. “Or is that unnecessary?”

  You know damn well it’s necessary, Ferrier thought; you’ve taken my measure, blast you. I’ve got information I consider so valuable that I am not turning it over to the first man who comes along, whether old friend Ben says he can vouch for him or not. I’ve just seen too many people today who’ve been indoctrinating me in caution. “I’d like to hear it.”

  “Briefly,” Smith said, “my particular field of interest is Cuba. So, although I never met Reid, and he wouldn’t even know who I was—he worked under Martin’s direction—I’ve been including some of his reports in my general homework. He made excellent summaries of his talks with several Cuba exiles here in Málaga. What he thought was significant usually turned out to be important; what he termed untrustworthy or exaggerated was just that. A good man. We’ll miss him.” He sounded as if he meant it. Ferrier nodded. “In the last two days, we’ve had some rumours that a man who was thought to have died in a fire on a fishing vessel off Mexico—all very believable, all seemingly authentic—is actually alive and in Europe. Possibly in Spain, although that was hard for any of us to believe. Now, since this man had had a good deal of importance in Cuba, I was extremely interested. And because Reid had always been so reliable and perceptive, I gave instructions that any report from him, no matter what it was about, was to be sent to me at once.” He turned his head to nod to Martin, who had returned from the study with a heavy frown on his handsome face. Smith went on, “And so, that was why I was pulled out of my bed at dawn this morning to hear that Reid had just sent an emergency call to Martin, using you as his stand-in. Frankly, that added even more urgency to his message. He must have been—” Smith hesitated.

  “Desperate,” Ferrier acknowledged with a small smile, and found he had relaxed completely. Added to what he knew, this all made sense. “Yes, he was in a tight spot, and there was no other help around.” He looked at Martin. “Where the hell were you?”

  The frown on Martin’s face deepened, but he decided to ignore the question. He said to Smith, “Mike made his call to the airport. I told him to try to straighten up the study. Waterman is helping him. That will keep them well occupied for the next half hour. Okay?” Then he concentrated on Ferrier. “As you were saying, what was it that the intruders overlooked? What did they hope to get, and didn’t? A message, a piece of information, from Reid to me? Do you know where it is? Have you got it?”

  “It was to be sent to Washington.”

  “I’ll make sure of that,” Martin said icily. “That’s the usual procedure, Ferrier.” Then he seemed to remember Smith. “Of course, we have a very special courier here with us. Reid’s information couldn’t travel in better hands. But—perhaps the quickest way for that message to get across the Atlantic will be to code it and send it from Madrid.” He was talking to Smith now. “I’d better know what’s in it. Then I’ll know what action I have to face here.” He turned back to Ferrier, held out his hand. “All right, I’ll take charge of it.”

  Ferrier didn’t move.

  Smith said, “I think Mr. Ferrie
r is taking that information to Washington himself.”

  “But that’s nonsense!” Martin looked angrily at Ferrier. “We could damn well get it—we outnumber you. So don’t play coy—”

  “Take it easy, take it easy, Martin.” Smith shook his head wearily. “We are all on edge. Reid’s information is obviously urgent, but I think Mr. Ferrier has good reason to know that better than you or I. He was here today. We were not. That gives a certain perspective.” He looked at Ferrier. “What has been happening in Málaga? I’d like to hear it.”

  “We know the situation—” Martin began testily. This was all a waste of time to him. Reid’s information was what mattered.

  “Do you?” Ferrier asked. “Do you know, for instance, that you’ve been infiltrated?”

  “What?”

  “A man called Gene Lucas came to see me around noon. He said he was CIA. He wanted to know if Reid had passed any information to me, so that he could take it and hand it over to Martin.”

  “What?” Martin said again. “Lucas? He’s KGB,” he explained quickly to Smith. “A minor agent, but effective.”

  “Didn’t Amanda Ames report to you that Lucas came here today?” Ferrier asked, puzzled.

  “No,” Martin said grimly.

  Then Ferrier remembered the picnic. “She is possibly still out on Lucas’ boat. They went sailing. That’s why she couldn’t report.”

  “Possibly.” Martin’s voice was cold.

  “And I don’t think Lucas is so minor. He was certainly on his toes. That’s the kind of day it has been: the opposition has been all over the place, and we’ve been nowhere.”

  “On the contrary. I made contact with Washington. I made arrangements down here. I sent Ames to reassure you and Reid. She delivered that message to you?”

  “Yes. But the opposition knew about that, too. Lucas and his friends have been right in on this, from the minute I sent Reid’s message to Madrid, well before dawn this morning. I telephoned from the hospital, wasted no time—”