Running Blind / The Freedom Trap

by Desmond Bagley

  She caught on. ‘You think they might attack Father in hospital?’

  ‘They might if they think he’s going to recover. Ask the PM’s secretary to drop the unobtrusive word, especially to any of Wheeler’s known associates in the House. If Wheeler rings London to have a chat with one of his mates the news might get through—and that could save your father’s life.’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ she said.

  ‘Anything on Wheeler?’

  ‘Not yet; not what we want, anyway. He lives a blameless public life.’

  ‘It’s not his public life we’re interested in,’ I said. ‘But do your best.’

  Alison came back two days later, arriving in a taxi in mid-afternoon. She looked tired as though she had not had much sleep, and Maeve clucked at the sight of her but relaxed as Alison said, ‘Too much damned nightclubbing.’

  Maeve went away and I raised my eyebrows. ‘Been living it up?’

  She shrugged. ‘I had to talk to people and the kind of people I had to talk to are in the night club set.’ She sighed. ‘But it was a waste of time.’

  ‘No further dirt?’

  ‘Nothing of consequence, except maybe one thing. I checked the servant situation.’

  ‘The what situation!’

  She smiled tiredly. ‘I checked on Wheeler’s servants. The days of glory are past and servants are hard to come by, but Wheeler does all right even though he needs a large staff.’ She took her notebook from her pocket. ‘All his staff are British and have British passports excepting the chauffeur who is an Irish national. Do you find that interesting?’

  ‘His contact with Ireland,’ I said. ‘It’s very interesting.’

  ‘It gets better,’ she said. ‘As I said, the rest of his servants are British, but every last one of them is naturalized and they’ve all had their names changed by deed poll. And what do you think was their country of origin?’

  I grinned. ‘Albania.’

  ‘You’ve just won a cigar. But there’s an exception here too. One of them didn’t take a British name because it would be peculiar if he did. Wheeler has taken a fancy to Chinese cooking and has a Chinese cook on the premises. His name is Chang Pi-wu.’

  ‘I see what you mean,’ I said. ‘It would seem bloody funny if he changed his name to McTavish. Where does he hail from?’

  ‘Hong Kong.’

  A Hong Kong Chinese! It didn’t mean much. I suppose it was quite reasonable that if a multi-millionaire had a taste for Chinese food then he’d have a Chinese cook; millionaires think differently from the common ruck of folk and that would be part of the small change of his life. But I felt a tickle at the back of my mind.

  I said carefully, ‘It may be that Wheeler is doing the charitable bit. Maybe all these British Albanians are his cousins and his cousins’ cousins, nieces and nephews he’s supporting in a tactful sort of way.’

  Alison looked up at the ceiling. ‘The problem with servants is keeping them. They want four nights a week off, television in their rooms and a lie-in every morning, otherwise they become mobile and leave. The turnover is high, and Wheeler’s turnover in servants is just as high as anyone else’s.’

  ‘Is it, by God?’ I leaned forward and peered at Alison closely. ‘You’ve got something, damn it! Spit it out.’

  She grinned cheerfully and opened her notebook. ‘He has thirteen British Albanians working for him—gardeners, butler, housekeeper, maids and so on. Not one had been with him longer than three years. The last one to arrive pitched up last month. They come and go just like ordinary servants.’

  ‘And they take holidays in Albania,’ I said. ‘He’s got a courier service.’

  ‘Not only that,’ said Alison. ‘But someone is supplying him with a regular intake.’ She consulted her notebook again. ‘I did a check with the local branch of the Ministry of Social Security in Herefordshire; in the last ten years he’s had fifty of them through his hands. I can’t prove they were all Albanians because they had British names, but I’ll take a bet they were.’

  ‘Jesus!’ I said. ‘Hasn’t anyone tumbled to it? What the hell is the Special Branch doing?’

  Alison spread her hands. ‘They’re all British. If it’s come to anyone’s attention—which I doubt—then he’s doing the charitable bit, as you said—rescuing his compatriots from the communist oppressors.’

  ‘Fifty!’ I said. ‘Where do they all go when he’s done with them?’

  ‘I don’t know about the fifty—I’ve only had time to check on two. Both are now in the service of other MPs.’

  I began to laugh because I couldn’t help it. ‘The cheek of it,’ I said. ‘The brazen nerve! Don’t you see what he’s doing? He’s getting these fellows in, giving them a crash course on British mores and customs as well as the finer points of being a gentleman’s gentleman, and then planting them as spies. Can’t you imagine him talking to one of his mates in the Commons? “Having servant trouble, dear boy? It just happens that one of mine is leaving. Oh, no trouble like that—he just wants to live in Town. Perhaps I can persuade…” It beats anything I’ve ever heard.’

  ‘It certainly shows he has present connections with Albania,’ said Alison. ‘I wasn’t convinced before—it seemed too ridiculous. But I am now.’

  I said, ‘Do you remember the Cicero case during the war. The valet of the British Ambassador to Turkey was a German spy. Wheeler has been in the money for twenty years—he could have planted a hundred Ciceros. And not only at the political end. I wonder how many of our industrial chieftains have Wheeler-trained servants in their households?’

  ‘All with English names and all speaking impeccable English,’ said Alison. ‘Wheeler would see to that.’ She ticked off the steps on her fingers. ‘They come to England and while they’re waiting for naturalization they learn the language thoroughly and study the British in their native habitat. When they’re British they go to Wheeler for a final gloss and then he plants them.’ She shook her head doubtfully. ‘It’s a very long-term project.’

  ‘Wheeler himself is a long-term project. I don’t see him packing his bags and returning to his native land. Look at Slade, for God’s sake! He was worming his way in for twenty-eight years! These people take the long view.’ I paused. ‘When do we leave for Gibraltar?’

  ‘Tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Good,’ I said. ‘I want to catch up with this incredible bastard.’

  III

  I went into Cork airport the hard way, as usual. I was beginning to forget what it was like to use the front door. Maeve O’Sullivan had been uncharacteristically emotional when we left. ‘Come back soon, girl,’ she said to Alison. ‘It’s an old woman I am, and there’s no telling.’ There were tears in her eyes but she rubbed them away as she turned to me. ‘And you, Owen Stannard; take care of yourself and Alec Mackintosh’s daughter.’

  I grinned. ‘She’s been taking care of me so far.’

  ‘Then you’re not the man I thought you were to let her,’ replied Maeve with asperity. ‘But go carefully, and watch for the garda.’

  So we went carefully and it was with relief that I watched the city of Cork pass under the wings of the Apache as we circled to find our course south. Alison snapped switches and set dials, then took her hands from the control column. ‘It will be nearly six hours,’ she said. ‘Depending on the wind and the rain.’

  ‘You’re not expecting bad weather?’

  She smiled. ‘It was just a manner of speaking. As a matter of fact, the weather report is good. The wind is northerly at 24,000 feet.’

  ‘Will we be flying that high? I didn’t think these things did that.’

  ‘The engines are supercharged, so it’s more economical to fly high. But this cabin isn’t pressurized, so we’ll have to go on oxygen soon—as soon as we reach 10,000 feet. You’ll find the mask by your side.’

  The last time I had seen the Apache it had been a six-seater but in Alison’s absence in London the two rearmost seats had been removed and had been replaced b
y a big plastic box. I jerked my thumb over my shoulder, and said, ‘What’s that?’

  ‘An extra fuel tank—another seventy gallons of spirit. It increases the range to 2,000 miles at the most economical flying speed. I thought we might need it.’

  The capable Alison Smith thought of everything. I remembered what Maeve had said: Made to a hard pattern, enough to break a girl under the burden of it. I studied Alison; her face was calm as she checked the instruments and then tested the oxygen flow, and there were no lines of stress to substantiate Maeve’s remark. Alison glanced sideways and caught me looking at her. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘A cat may look at a king,’ I said. ‘So a dog may look at a queen. I was just thinking that you’re lovely, that’s all.’

  She grinned and jerked her thumb backwards. ‘The Blarney Stone is back there, and I know for a fact you never went near it. You must have Irish in your ancestry.’

  ‘And Welsh,’ I said. ‘Hence the Owen. It’s the Celt coming out in me.’

  ‘Put on your mask,’ she said. ‘Then you’ll look as beautiful as me.’

  It was a long and boring flight. Although the masks had built-in microphones we didn’t do much talking, and presently I put down the back of the seat to a reclining position. We flew south at 200 miles an hour—fifteen times faster than Wheeler in Artina—and I slept.

  Or, rather, I dozed. I woke up from time to time and found Alison alert, scanning the sky or checking the instruments or making a fine adjustment. I would touch her shoulder and she would turn with a smile in her eyes and then resume her work. After nearly four hours had passed she nudged me and pointed ahead. ‘The Spanish coast.’

  There was a haze of heat below and a crinkled sea, and ahead the white line of surf. ‘We won’t overfly Spain,’ she said. ‘Not if we’re landing at Gibraltar. It’s politically inadvisable. We’ll fly down the Portuguese coast.’

  She took out a map on a board and worked out the new course, handling the protractor with smoothly efficient movements, then switched off the auto-pilot and swung the aircraft around gently. ‘That’s Cape Ortegal,’ she said. ‘When we sight Finisterre I’ll alter course again.’

  ‘When did you learn to fly?’ I asked.

  ‘When I was sixteen.’

  ‘And to shoot a pistol?’

  She paused before answering. ‘When I was fourteen—pistol and rifle and shotgun. Why?’

  ‘Just wondering.’ Mackintosh believed in teaching them young. I found it hard to imagine a little girl of fourteen looking past the sights of a rifle. I bet she knew the Morse code, too, and all the flag semaphore signals, to say nothing of programming a computer and lighting a fire without matches. ‘Were you a Girl Guide?’

  She shook her head. ‘I was too busy.’

  Too busy to be a Girl Guide! She’d have her head down at her books studying languages when she wasn’t practising in the air or banging away on the target range. I wouldn’t have put it past Mackintosh to make certain that she was at home in a submarine. What a hell of a life!

  ‘Did you have any friends in those days?’ I asked. ‘Girls of your own age?’

  ‘Not many.’ She twisted in her seat. ‘What are you getting at, Owen?’

  I shrugged. ‘Just the idle thoughts of an idle man.’

  ‘Has Maeve O’Sullivan been filling you up with horror stories? Is that it? I might have known.’

  ‘She didn’t say a word out of place,’ I said. ‘But you can’t help a man thinking.’

  ‘Then you’d do better to keep your thoughts to yourself.’ She turned back to the controls and lapsed into silence, and I thought it would be as well if I kept my big mouth shut, too.

  As we turned the corner and flew up the Strait of Gibraltar Alison took the controls and we began to descend. At 10,000 feet she took off her oxygen mask and I was glad to do the same. And then, in the distance, I saw the Rock for the first time, rising sheer from the blue water. We circled and I saw the artificial harbour and the airstrip jutting into Algeciras Bay like the deck of an aircraft carrier. Apparently, to Alison who was busy on the radio, it was all old hat.

  We landed from the east and our small aircraft did not need all that enormous runway. We rolled to a halt and then taxied to the airport buildings. I looked at the military aircraft parked all around, and said grimly, ‘This is one airport which will have good security.’ How was I going to smuggle myself through this one?

  ‘I have something for you,’ said Alison, and took a folder from the map pocket from which she extracted a passport. I nicked it open and saw my own face staring up from the page. It was a diplomatic passport. She said, ‘It will get us through customs in a hurry, but it won’t save you if you are recognized as Rearden.’

  ‘It’s good enough.’ Even if I was recognized as Rearden the sight of that diplomatic passport would be enough to give my challenger cause to wonder if he could possibly be right. I said, ‘My God, you must have pull.’

  ‘Just enough,’ she said calmly.

  The passport officer smiled as he took the passport, and the civilian with the hard face who was standing next to him ceased to study me and relaxed. We went right through within three minutes of entering the hall. Alison said, ‘We’re staying at the Rock Hotel; whistle up a taxi, will you?’

  If Wheeler’s trained Albanians made the perfect servants then Alison Smith was a God-given secretary. I hadn’t thought for one moment of where we were going to lay our heads that night, but she had. Alec Mackintosh was a lucky man—but, perhaps, it wasn’t luck. He’d trained her, hadn’t he?

  We had adjoining rooms at the Rock Hotel and agreed to meet in the bar after cleaning up. I was down first. Alison Smith was no different in that respect than any other woman, I was glad to observe; the female takes fifty per cent longer to prink than the male. It is only fifty per cent even though it seems twice as long. I had sunk my first cold beer by the time she joined me.

  I ordered her a dry Martini and another beer for myself. She said, ‘What will you do when Wheeler arrives?’

  ‘I have to find if Slade is aboard Artina and that will mean a bit of pirate work.’ I grinned. ‘I promise not to have a knife in my teeth when I go over the bulwarks.’

  ‘And if he is on board?’

  ‘I do my best to bring him off.’

  ‘And if you can’t?’

  I shrugged. ‘I have orders covering that eventuality.’

  She nodded coolly, and I wondered briefly if Mackintosh had ever given his own daughter similar instructions. She said, ‘Wheeler being what he is and who he is will probably anchor off the Royal Gibraltar Yacht Club. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s a member—he comes here often enough.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘About half a mile from here.’

  ‘We’d better take a look at it.’

  We finished our drinks and strolled into the sunshine. The yacht basin was full of craft, sail and power, big and small. I stood looking at the boats and then turned. ‘There’s a convenient terrace over there where they serve cooling drinks. That will be a nice place to wait.’

  ‘I’m just going to make a telephone call,’ said Alison, and slipped away. I looked at the yachts and the sea and tried to figure how I could get aboard Artina but without much success because I didn’t know where she would be lying. Alison came back. ‘Wheeler is expected at eleven tomorrow morning. He radioed through.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ I said, and turned my face up to the sun. ‘What do we do until then?’

  She said unexpectedly, ‘What about a swim?’

  ‘I forgot to pack trunks; I didn’t expect a semi-tropical holiday.’

  ‘There are shops,’ she said gently. So we went shopping and I bought trunks and a towel, and a pair of German duty-free binoculars, smooth, sleek and powerful.

  We went across the peninsula and swam at Catalan Bay which was very nice. That night we went night-clubbing, which was even nicer. Mrs Smith seemed to be human and made of the same
mortal clay as the rest of us.

  IV

  At ten o’clock next morning we were sitting on the terrace overlooking the yacht basin and imbibing something long, cold and not too alcoholic. We both wore sun-glasses, not as much to shade our eyes as to join the anonymous throng just as the film stars do. The binoculars were to hand and all that was lacking was Artina and Wheeler, and, possibly, Slade.

  We didn’t talk much because there wasn’t anything to talk about; we couldn’t plot and plan in the absence of Artina. And Alison had loosened the strings of her personality the previous night as near as she had ever got to letting her hair down, and possibly she was regretting it. Not that she had let me get too close; I had made the expected pass and she evaded it with practised ease. But now she had returned to her habitual wariness—we were working and personal relationships didn’t matter.

  I soaked up the sun. It was the thing I had missed in England, especially in prison, and now I let it penetrate to warm my bones. Time went on and presently Alison picked up the binoculars and focused them on a boat making its way to harbour between the North Mole and the Detached Mole. ‘I think this is Artina.’

  I had a glass to my lips when she said it, and I swallowed the wrong way and came up for air spluttering and choking. Alison looked at me with alarm. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘The impudence of it!’ I gasped with laughter. ‘Artina is an anagram of Tirana—and that’s the capital of Albania. The bastard’s laughing at us all. It just clicked when you said it.’

  Alison smiled and proffered the binoculars. I looked at the boat coming in with the dying bow wave at her forefoot and compared what I saw with the drawings and photographs of her sister ship. ‘She could be Artina,’ I said. ‘We’ll know for sure within the next five minutes.’

  The big motor yacht came closer and I saw the man standing at the stern—big and with blond hair. ‘Artina it is—and Wheeler.’ I swept the glasses over her length. ‘No sign of Slade, but that’s to be expected. He wouldn’t parade himself.’