Die Rich Die Happy c-2

by James Munro

  A vehicle purred to a halt outside the room at last, and Grierson raised the ante, two sovereigns, a napoleon, and an American double eagle.

  "Our leader's back," he said.

  Craig passed, and Grierson waited for Selina. He had dealt her four aces. It would be amusing to see how greedy-she was. The vehicle purred into life again, and Sehna looked hard at Grierson. His eyes were bland, innocent, boyish. Selina said something in Arabic, and Craig rocked with laughter. Then she passed too.

  Grierson groaned, and scooped in the heavy shining metal. It wasn't much of a pot for a royal flush.

  "She learns very quickly," Craig said, and took up the cards, his hands rapid and precise as he fitted them together and began to deal.

  Sir Matthew came in, elegant in gray, a carnation in his buttonhole, in his hands a bowler hat and a pair of doeskin gloves, the kind you buy for driving, if the car you drive is a Bentley. He looked quickly from Craig to Grierson, then on to Selina. These men had a knack of acquiring pretty girls that might almost be a reflex, it functioned so inevitably. He wondered whether one day he might be allowed to chart their behavior patterns—and their girls'? So often one read of the superior sexual attraction of the French male and the Italian, and Spaniard. It was reassuring to sep two Britons holding their own. Sir Matthew permitted himself a small glow of patriotism.

  Grierson said: "Sir Matthew, I'd like you to meet the Princess Selina."

  Sir Matthew strode napoleonically across to her, and shook the strong, beautiful hand. When he turned, Craig had somehow moved from his chair. The door was closed, and he was leaning against it.

  "Were you thinking of going out, Sir Matthew?" Grierson asked.

  "I'm going home," Sir Matthew said. "No point in hanging about here now."

  "I'm afraid I don't understand," Grierson said.

  "Surely it's obvious?" said Sir Matthew. "Now that Mrs. Naxos has gone—"

  Grierson came out of his chair and towered over the little man in one frantic leap. For a moment Sir Matthew thought he was about to be assaulted, then Grierson made a tremendous effort, and resumed his habitual sleepiness. An extremely well-integrated personality, Sir Matthew noted gratefully.

  "Tell me," he said. "And make it quick."

  "We spent a very profitable evening," said Sir Matthew. "She's making excellent progress. Then just before lunch her husband telephoned her. They conversed for a while, and then he spoke to me. He wished his wife to go aboard their yacht, and Mrs. Naxos confirmed this. I saw no reason to prevent her leaving.

  "In any case Loomis telephoned me at my consulting room today and said I could let her go, if her husband insisted on it. He passed on his instructions to you men here, too, I believe."

  "When was this?" Grierson asked.

  Sir Matthew looked at his watch.

  'Two hours ago, just before I returned here," he said.

  "Did he telephone from London?"

  "Naturally."

  "Loomis has been at Chequers since ten o'clock this morning," Grierson said.

  "When did Mrs. Naxos go?" asked Grierson.

  'Ten minutes ago. He sent an ambulance for her. His own crew members were driving it. He seemed obsessively anxious for her safety, I thought."

  "What sort of ambulance?"

  Sir Matthew shrugged. 'The kind one hires, I assume," he said.

  "It didn't occur to you to tell us, I suppose?" Grierson

  asked.

  Sir Matthew shrugged again. "I had no idea you had returned. I merely instructed the guard at the gate." He stared back at Grierson. "I am a doctor," he said, "not a cloak-and-dagger man. My responsibility is to my patient. I felt that she would benefit from being with her husband, and agreed that she should do so. In fact I had no alternative. She insisted on going back to Naxos, and I had no legal right to stop her, and she had every legal right to go. After all, she'll be safe enough on the yacht."

  "If she ever gets there," said Grierson.

  Sir Matthew turned to look at Craig, but he had moved once again. He was no longer there.

  "You'd better sit down," said Grierson.

  "You're sure my presence isn't distasteful to you?" Sir Matthew asked.

  "That's irrelevant," said Grierson. "There's a man

  DIB HAPPY ffl

  185

  outside who may kill you—if he hasn't got Mrs. Naxos. Do you play poker?"

  Sir Matthew sat down.

  "Stud," he said. "One joker. No wild cards, if you please."

  * » *

  Craig found the ambulance. It was parked in a layby. The Greek at the wheel was unconscious, the one beside him dead. Craig put on a pair of thin leather gloves and went to the back of the ambulance, opened the broken door and went inside. He switched on the interior light and found another dead Greek on the stretcher. Beside him was Theseus, a knife in his side, sitting in his own blood, his torso propped up by the side of the ambulance. Across his knees lay an Arab, his neck broken. Theseus's massive right hand still clutched his hair. Craig crouched down beside him, and Theseus's eyes focused wearily.

  "Brandy," he said. "Pocket." His great voice was muted to a rumbling moan.

  Craig found the flask and held it to his hps, and Theseus choked it down. Craig looked at the knife in his side. If he drew it out, Theseus would die at once.

  "Last time I did this for you," Theseus said. "Different now. I'm dying."

  "You don't die so easy," said Craig. "Ill get you a doctor."

  "I'm dying," Theseus said. "It hurts like hell." His breath ratded in his throat. 'Two cars together in front of us. We think it's a crash. We stop. Men come from side of road. Shoot—in front. Use lever. Break open door. Kill Dimitri. I put up hands. This one comes in. I kill. Then— knife. And Mrs. Naxos screaming. They take her—they take her—"

  "Where?" Craig asked.

  "The knife," Theseus whispered. "Craig it's like fire inside me."

  "Where?" said Craig.

  "Big cars," said Theseus. "Russian, I think. Little round plaque—CD, Craig—does that help?"

  "Yes," said Craig. "I know where she'll be." "Harry—fool. I tell him. Trust you. He won't listen." Theseus gasped aloud as pain pierced him again. "It burns," Theseus said. "All the time I wait for you,

  it bums. Now I've told you." He paused, then his voice pleaded: "pull the knife out, Craig. I waited. I told you. You owe me that." Again he gasped at the pain.

  Craig looked at him. Already he was very close to

  death.

  "All right," he said. "You're a man, Theseus. A real

  man."

  "You also, Craig."

  Then his voice yelled out—he could no longer control it—as Craig's hand curled to the knife haft and drew it free. Craig let the knife fall, and waited. Theseus's great body relaxed as his blood flowed again, then his head lolled on his shoulder, and he sighed in the joy of relief from pain.

  "Thank you," he said.

  Then he died.

  · · · ·

  Craig went back to the nursing home, and told Grierson what had happened, then waited as Grierson put in a 999 call to the police and told them where to find the ambulance. Sir Matthew and Selina were locked in the office labeled "Matron." Sir Matthew was teaching her how to play be-zique.

  "Loomis was at Chequers," said Grierson. "He'd started back before all this happened. I reached him by radio. He's mad as hell."

  "He would be," said Craig.

  "He thinks Naxos will try to get away," said Grierson. "I've phoned London. They're watching the yacht now. It hasn't got steam up yet."

  "He won't leave without his wife," said Craig.

  "He will if Schiebel tells him to. We're to make plans to stop her. Have you got any ideas?"

  Craig thought for a moment, then picked up the telephone and dialed a number. It rang twenty-three times before Candlish's voice answered, blasphemous and sleepy.

  Craig said: "Never mind that. You know who this is?"

  "Aye," Candlish
said. "You're the only one who'd have the bloody nerve to get me out of bed this hour of the morning."

  "Got a job for you," Craig said, and began to explain. At last Candlish said, "When?"

  "Soon as I tell you."

  "All right," said Candlish. "Cost you two thousand. Old one-pound notes. No receipt."

  "Payment on completion," said Craig, and hung up, then turned back to Grierson. "She'll be in the AZ building," he said.

  Grierson nodded.

  "I suppose he wants us to get her out," Craig said. "He does," Grierson said.

  Craig pushed his hand through his hair, and was suddenly very tired. There were all sorts of things he wanted to tell Grierson: it couldn't be done; Loomis was sending them to their deaths; Schiebel would kill her rather than let her go back to them; but Grierson knew all this as well as he did himself.

  "I need some kip," he said. "Let me know when Fatty gets back."

  Ninety minutes later he woke to find Loomis and Grierson standing beside him. He sat up on the settee and looked at Loomis, expecting an empurpled travesty of rage that he could jeer at, yield to, and ultimately come to terms with. Instead he found an old man, his pale face mottled with red, and somehow not nearly so fat as he'd remembered.

  "It's bad, son," said Loomis. "Couldn't be worse. First off Schiebel's killed Swyven, and his parents. But that's the least of it. The Zaarb army's mobilized and moving west. That can only mean the Haram. Naxos isn't going to sign any treaties with us, and his wife's in the AZ building. You got the Selina person back and I'm grateful, believe me, but it doesn't make a scrap of difference now."

  The red, scrambled telephone rang. Grierson picked it up and handed it to Loomis, who said "Loomis" almost politely, listened in patience to its metallic quacking, then put it down. "A bit more cheer," he said. "There's a rumor in New York that the Zaarb representative's going to speak in the UN tomorrow. He's going to demand the withdrawal of British troops and the setting up of a commission to determine Zaarb's western frontier, which he claims is beyond the Haram. Albania's going to second the motion. And while the debate continues Zaarb's going to send its army into the Haram—to suppress the bourgeois bandits who are interfering with the progress of a free people. This is an internal

  matter and nobody else is to interfere—least of all us. We can't anyway. We've lost Naxos's vote." For a moment he regained his usual vitriolic disgust. "That bloody Chinn," he said. "I could pull the petals off his carnation." A manservant brought in a thermos jug of coffee and three cups. Despite his dark coat and deferential politeness, he looked like, and was, a Commando unarmed-combat instructor. He caught the tail end of Loomis's scowl, and vanished like a genie. Loomis poured coffee.

  "I had it made," he said. "The P.M. was giving me a cigar every three and a half minutes. With Naxos sewn up, Zaarb would stay as it was, and when you two picked up the princess we could walk into the Haram any time we wanted. He poured me brandy with his own hands. Even offered to discuss next year's estimates. Now this." He sipped the coffee, hot, bitter, black as his mood. "The little yellow brothers have been busy," he said. "Buying equipment—nuclear stuff —and making a bit themselves. They've also recalled a lot of their best students from Iron Curtain universities. The post graduate lot. The ones who got firsts in nuclear physics. They're all ready for that cobalt, son. And there's only one way to stop them now. We'll have to go to war. Just what our reputation in the Middle East needs. Great Britain invades a developing nation. Look great in the People's Daily—and Pravda."

  "Better than a cobalt bomb," said Craig.

  "The P.M. wants a police action," said Loomis. "He thinks we should tell Russia and the U.S.A. what's happening —then all three countries would be involved. But that's messy, son. Who would be in charge? How many men would each country send? What would happen to the cobalt when the police action's finished? And how long would it take to set up a deal like that? Zaarb might get enough cobalt out before we were ready to move. We'd be in a worse state than China. A hell of a lot worse." He blew his nose with startling suddenness into a vast and dazzling handkerchief, then turned to stare at Craig.

  "You'll have to go in and get her," he said. "I got no right to ask it, but I'm asking it anyway. You get her, Naxos votes, and we're okay. Any other way—we've had it, son."

  Craig said: "I don't know." He stood up, hard and tall beside Loomis's unwieldy mass. "I'll go in if I have to— but I want some chance, Loomis. There's no point in going there and getting myself knocked off."

  I'll come with you," Grierson said. "That goes without saying."

  "No," said Craig. "That isn't the point. Look, supposing we both go—and get nothing—where the hell are we? Schiebel either has us killed or denounces us as assassins, and either way it's the department's loss and he's still got Fhp Naxos."

  "You realize what he'll do to her?"

  T realize it," said Craig. "If he does, I'll kill him."

  Unnoticed by Craig, Grierson looked up at Loomis. The fat man gave an infinitesimal shake of the head.

  "But I need an edge—the thing's got to have some chance of success," Craig said.

  Gradually the color came back to Loomis's face, and somehow his paunch swelled out again to the proud curve of a three-decker's mainsail.

  "I'll get you an edge, son," he said. "I promise you."

  Then the red telephone shrilled again, and Loomis scooped it up, listened, barked once and slammed it down.

  "Naxos's yacht's very active all of a sudden," he said.

  "Did you do anything about stopping it?" Craig nodded.

  "We better go there then," said Loomis and picked up the red phone again. As he talked, Craig looked at Grierson, trying for words that were hard to find.

  "If I don't have some advantage, I just can't manage it any more," he said. "Dyton-Blease taught me that."

  Grierson squirmed, because he was British, and found it impossible to cope with that kind of honesty.

  "You had the guts to say it," he said. T didn't."

  "You can do your penance later. We've got a helicopter coming," said Loomis. His great hands slammed together, the fingers interlaced, and one by one the knuckles cracked like gunshots. The other two men winced.

  "You can always get service cooperation when it's too late to need it," said Loomis.

  oo«

  The helicopter chattered its way through the blackness of the night, until London lay below, a million spangles of light, the river curling among them, a dark, glistening

  snake. The helicopter thrashed its way past Tower Bridge, dropping gently to explore the bulk of ships riding at anchor, derricks like robots at rigid attention in the metallic blue of lamplight. At last Craig spotted the Philippa, and pointed her out to Loomis. The helicopter drifted onwards, landing at last in a waste of sawn timber near Candlish's boatyard. Craig went to look for Candlish, leaving Loomis to cope with an outraged nightwatchman.

  Candlish had everything prepared, and collected Loomis and Grierson in his elderly Daimler, leaving behind a bemused old man with a whistle in one hand and a truncheon in the other, trying to touch his cap. They drove to the river and transferred from the Daimler to a luxurious launch, and after a while Candlish left them to go aboard a barge. It was the leading one of three immense steel boxes taken in tow by an old and ailing tug. Grierson took the launch's controls, and followed the procession. As they went, Loomis outlined his plan for getting into the embassy, and Craig saw that there was a chance after all, as the dawn came up, pale and tender, and the river was suddenly, momentarily beautiful.

  The Philippa had steam up when they reached her. her sleek white lines an aloof contrast to the lumpy drab-ness of the tug and barges, four peasants approaching a queen. Suddenly, the barge's towrope snapped as she swung in a wide arc past the yacht, and Craig watched the work of three master craftsmen. Candlish struggled with his tiller, but somehow, despite all his efforts, drifted straight under the Philippa's bows and crashed into the wooden dockside. Alm
ost at once another barge scraped alongside the yacht, and slammed into her stern; the third slumped wearily on her rudder and propeller. Then all three barges began to sink.

  Loomis snorted happily.

  "What's in the barges?" he asked.

  "Scrap iron and concrete," Craig said. "Naxos will be here for weeks."

  "Well have a bite of breakfast, then well go and talk to him," Loomis said. "After that we'll see about organizing a riot."

  When they did see him he was a wreck, dead beat for sleep, near crazy with the need for a drink, yet willing himself to stay sober in case anything should happen and Fhp should need him. He looked at them, half stubborn, half eager, and Loomis said at once: "We know it's Schiebel who's got her. Whatever he said about not seeing us it's too late now, and you can forget about trying to leave. I don't care what threats Schiebel made, you're not going, Naxos." "I won't sign," said Naxos.

  "Not yet," said Loomis. "Wait until we get her back."

  "He'll give her heroin," Naxos said. "You know what that means? If she goes back on it now she's hooked for life." He looked at Loomis, and there was defeat in his eyes.

  "Please," he said. He had no hope at all.

  "What on earth made you do it?" Loomis asked.

  "He rang me on the radiotelephone. Told me what he'd done to Swyven, and his parents. Then he swore Philippa would get the same tomorrow. He sounded so certain—he was even enjoying it. That's why I believed him. That's why—"

  "You decided to get her out tonight," said Grierson.

  Naxos nodded heavily.

  "You poor bloody fool," said Loomis. "Just stay here like a good lad and we'll get her back for you. I mean it. But don't waste our time trying to run away. We've got enough to do without fetching you back. And you're all in quarantine anyway. Nobody's allowed ashore." His head jerked at the door. "Come on," he said.

  BOO

  Mostly she dreamed of horses, great rearing, piebald beasts, with flaring red nostrils, leaping through tall golden trees. They went round her in a circle, and as long as she stayed still she was all right, but if she moved the horses would turn on her, and it might be a horse's head she would see on top of the high-arched neck, or it might be a man's. She tried very hard not to move, but the need for the drug made her restless.