Cloak of Darkness

by Helen Macinnes

  The bedroom was small-scale, too. No possessions on a miniature bureau. An air-travel bag, closed, lay on a bed that imitated an armless couch. Curtains were now drawn over the window, the overhead light turned on. Moore was back at the table pouring himself a second drink in one of the bathroom’s missing glasses. “Sure you won’t?”

  “Not at the moment.” Renwick chose the chair that had a dwarf table within reach, moulded out of white plastic to match the few pieces of furniture; the other held Moore’s coat, dripping onto the carpet. “Any music available?”

  “Sweet and low. Will that do?” He reached for a knob on the radio on the nightstand. “How loud?” He let “That Old Black Magic” blare out.

  “Not so loud that we can’t hear each other.”

  “You boys slay me. Who’s to know we’re here? They didn’t have time to plant a bug.” He was confident, assured, his voice—perhaps fuelled by two strong drinks—assertive.

  “The walls are thin.”

  Moore shrugged, adjusted the sound to a reasonable level. Then a cough from next door, muted but clear enough, made him stare at Renwick and shake his head. He picked up his glass, empty once more, thought better of it, and put it down. He came over to the couch, sat on its edge to face Renwick. “Not much of a room,” he said, speaking more softly. “The best we could get at short notice—a friend booked it from New York. I only got here this morning.”

  And out tonight, Renwick thought. A friend? But that could wait. “All right, Moore. Let’s begin. I have some—”

  “Cut out the Moore. Don’t use it, now. Al will do,” he added just to keep things friendly. He slipped off his jacket, threw it to the other end of the couch, loosened his tie, unbuttoned his collar. “How the hell do you put up with these clothes?” Then he settled back on one elbow, crossed his legs, looked relaxed, but his eyes were alert. “You have some what?”

  “Some questions to ask. Then I’ll listen to you.” Al seemed about to object. “Not questions about you,” Renwick went on. “Okay?”

  “Any information about me comes from me when I’m damned ready and willing to give it. Understood?”

  “Understood.” He would be alarmed at how much I’ve learned about him since we first met, thought Renwick. “First of all, where did you see the man who escaped from an Indian prison?”

  Moore, or whatever his new name was to match a false passport, brushed that aside with his hand. “Not important. He won’t last long. Forget him.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Oh, yes—your outfit caught him, he said.”

  “Tracked him down,” Renwick said to keep the record straight. Incredible, he was thinking: Erik the dedicated anarchist, Erik the leader of a ruthless gang of West German terrorists, Erik dismissed as “not important”. How naive could Moore get? “He was recruiting terrorists abroad, and we followed him to India. It was the Bombay police who arrested him.”

  “Interintell, he called you. That was the first time I heard the name. He was teaching a class. I was standing at the back of the tent, just curious. I wasn’t a part of that crowd, see?” Moore wanted to make that clear.

  “A class for terrorists? Where?”

  “He was giving a couple of lectures on how you dodge arrest, but if you’re caught, then how you escape.”

  “Where did you see him?” Renwick was insistent, firm.

  “South Yemen.”

  “At a training camp for terrorists?”

  “Yes, but I wasn’t—”

  “Part of the scene. Just curious.” And why the hell were you there? Renwick wondered. But that would keep. Moore seemed mollified at least, perhaps more ready to talk. “Why won’t he last long?”

  “He got the Cubans flaming mad. There were two of them— not terrorists—Intelligence agents from Havana, I heard. Sent to Yemen to make sure he got to South America. As ordered.”

  Casually, Renwick had eased the plastic table closer to his knee, steadied its ashtray, taken out his cigarette case. “Ordered? By whom?”

  “By the people who got him out of prison, helped him reach Bombay.”

  Renwick seemed to have forgotten his cigarette. “He actually chose Bombay?” His disbelief sounded real.

  “A cool customer. No one would expect him to enter a city where he had been arrested for killing a cop. So he told the class.”

  “And after Bombay? Aden?”

  “On a freighter as a deck hand.”

  “Smart customer, too. Unless, of course, he was helped all the way—by the same people who got him out of prison and need him in South America.” Renwick abandoned his cigarette case beside the ashtray, shook his head. “Perhaps not so smart, after all—not if he argued with the Cubans.”

  “There was damn near a fight, words rattling off like a spray of machine-gun bullets. I’ve picked up some Spanish, other languages, too, but it’s just as well not to let others know. That way, you keep your nose clean.”

  Renwick nodded. “What was the argument about, did you hear?”

  “Not much. Too quick. But one thing is certain. He isn’t going to South America. A couple of nights later, he vanished. Like that!” Moore snapped his fingers. “The Cubans were fit to be tied.”

  Yes, thought Renwick, he will head for West Germany, where he will reorganise his Direct Action group. He was their founder. He was their leader. He will get them moving again. To Erik, that is all that matters. “When did he disappear?”

  “Ten days ago, just before I got clear of that godforsaken hole. No trace. Not at the airport, not at the docks. But he won’t get far. The Cubans have money behind them. He’ll never make it.” Moore was suddenly restless. “Think I’ll have that drink. Questions make me thirsty.” He was about to get to his feet. “Keep them short.”

  Renwick made a fast decision as he lifted his cigarette case— couldn’t leave it lying there unused, not all the time, he told himself. “I’ll do better than that. I’ll postpone them until you’ve given me your information. Okay?” Moore had been stopped in his tracks. Renwick offered a cigarette, delaying him still more.

  “No, thanks. Never use them. That stuff can kill you.”

  But bullets and whisky can’t? Renwick smiled. So the red lighter and cigarette pack had just been props for the pub scene. Or another subterfuge, like a moustache shaved off—there was a less deep tan over Moore’s upper lip—and completely different clothes? “Come on, Al. Begin! I’m listening.” He took a cigarette, closed the case, laid it once more on the table top.

  Moore glanced over at the bottle of Scotch. “Want me to keep a clear mind?” he asked. “Is that it?”

  “That’s it,” Renwick said brusquely. “Let’s get started.” He pointed to the corner of the couch. “And keep your voice down.” As Moore resumed his seat with a one-finger salute, Renwick flicked his lighter, but it didn’t catch.

  “Get one thing straight,” Moore was saying, leaning forward, elbows on knees, his left hand fingering his heavy signet ring. “I’m no informer.”

  “Just a reliable source of information,” Renwick assured him. The lighter failed again. Renwick dropped it into his pocket and found some matches.

  “And I’m no terrorist. I’m a soldier. That’s my trade and I’m good at it. That’s why Exports Consolidated hired me. Ever hear of them?”

  “Yes.” A report on Exports Consolidated had been on Renwick’s desk for the last month, part of a general survey of armaments sold by Americans and shipped abroad to Third World countries. It was a flourishing business these days, with plenty of competition from European merchants as well as from Soviet Russia and its allies. Renwick’s special interest in such trafficking had been roused by one of the simple questions that, as soon as he asked it, demanded an answer: where did today’s international terrorists get their sophisticated weapons, and how? “Exports Consolidated once exported agricultural machinery, then expanded into military hardware. Nothing illegal about that. Unfortunately.”

  “Nothing illegal?�
�� Moore laughed.

  “You tell me,” Renwick said softly.

  “It began with Vietnam.”

  What didn’t? thought Renwick but restrained himself.

  “A buddy of mine—we were in the same outfit—was killed there. When I got back stateside, I went to see his wife. She was an old friend. She had been running her father’s business, learning everything she could from him. Built it up, made a go of it. Agricultural machinery, can you beat that? When her father died, she owned the shop. Then Mitchell Brimmer came along—you heard of him?”

  Renwick stubbed out his cigarette, compressed his lips. Brimmer was the founder and head of Exports Consolidated. He had been in Vietnam, too. Not as a soldier. Began as an agent, low grade, in the CIA; quit the Agency to become a journalist in Saigon, then business-man. Or perhaps he had been that all along. He made good contacts, helpful friends, but he seemed to have helped them, too. Legitimate business apparently: no drug smuggling, no gems, no official secrets. Interested in agricultural machinery, wasn’t he? Moved back from Saigon to the States, set up a firm there, expanded it and—”

  “That he did. Took over several outlets for agricultural machinery. He made an offer to—to my friend. A good deal. She had brains, and he knew it. Paid her a fair price and offered her more money than any she could set aside for herself. So she took the job.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Keeping the books and a chance to rise with his firm. She did, too. But that was during my second tour of duty, when I was at NATO, and after that—well, I was a couple of years with the Green Berets. Then I tried some soldiering abroad—in Africa, mostly.” Moore noticed Renwick’s expression. He said quickly, defensively, “I wasn’t a mercenary. Sure I was paid, but I trained troops to fight. Troops.” He shook his head over that memory. “A bunch of slobs when I got them, but I turned out soldiers, all right.”

  “Guerrillas?”

  “Call them what you like, but they damn sure weren’t terrorists. They meet the enemy in a fire fight, a fair skirmish. They don’t infiltrate a town and pretend they’re ordinary folks, and then start plotting where they’ll hide the bombs to blow up civilians. That isn’t war, kill or be killed. That’s bloody murder.”

  “There’s a difference,” Renwick agreed, but it was a subtle one and sometimes fragile. Guerrillas on a rampage could leave a lot of innocent civilians maimed, raped, or dead. “So you’re against terrorism. And assassination.”

  Moore looked at him sharply.

  “You told me that. In the taxi,” Renwick reminded him. “But you haven’t finished about your wars in Africa.”

  “Two years were enough. In seventy-eight I came back to New York and met—met my friend. She was Brimmer’s good right hand by that time. She told me I was just the man that her boss was looking for. Or one of the men—he hired three of us, all with plenty of experience. Exports Consolidated was by then into selling arms to countries that could pay for them—or had rich friends who’d oblige. They wanted the newest and best, and instructors to show them how to use the weapons. Sure, I jumped at the job. It was big money, and travel, and I got respect, too.”

  Don’t rush him, Renwick decided. He has got to justify himself. But even in Moore’s self-explanations, the shape of something ominous was beginning to form.

  “One thing I made clear to Brimmer from the start. I’d train soldiers. I’d instruct them in weapons. But I wasn’t teaching a damn thing to terrorists. I wasn’t running a school for assassins, either.”

  “He agreed to that?” What about South Yemen? Renwick wondered.

  “With a joke and a slap on the back. So everything went fine. Big and bigger money. Brimmer can afford it; he’s making millions. He’s got business contacts everywhere. And three months ago, he joined up with another big outfit that sells arms. It’s international, so my friend says. Based in Europe.”

  That was news to Renwick. “Their name?”

  “Brimmer isn’t telling. And you won’t find the merger in any financial pages. Anyway, when I got back to New York—”

  “Your friend”—Renwick cut in quickly—“surely she knows the name of that firm.”

  “It isn’t important.”

  “Just part of the picture, Al. I must have all of it, as complete as possible, if you want my help. That’s why you brought me here, isn’t it? You don’t need money, that’s obvious.”

  “Wouldn’t take it—” Moore began angrily.

  “That’s right. You are no informer. What’s the firm’s name?”

  “Klingfeld & Sons. They don’t sound like much, but she says they’re high-powered. Offices in Paris, Geneva, Rome.”

  “Each firm is keeping its own name?” A strange merger. Stranger yet was the fact that Klingfeld & Sons was not on any list of armament traffickers that Renwick had ever seen.

  “They’re a silent partner in Exports Consolidated. She says it’s funny: Klingfeld is bigger than Brimmer.”

  “Can’t go on calling your girl ‘she’, Al. What’s her name?”

  Moore’s lips tightened.

  Renwick’s voice was sharp. “Look—how many personal and invaluable secretaries does Brimmer have? We can trace her. Easily.”

  “Lorna.” The name, incomplete, came unwillingly.

  Had dear Lorna instructed Moore not to give her name; not Klingfeld’s, either? It had been like pulling teeth to extract these two small items from Moore. “I take it Lorna is a close friend of yours. Very close? Then you can believe what she tells you. You trust her completely?”

  “Trust her? Lorna saved me from blowing everything when I got back to New York last week. That son of a bitch Brimmer had sent me out to South Yemen. I didn’t object to that. I’ve been in Libya, Chad, Lebanon, Zaire, Tanzania, the Sudan. Politics? No interest. I train soldiers, I’m worth my hire. That’s that. But in Yemen—” Moore’s sudden anger almost choked him. “In Yemen, I wasn’t instructing a bunch of camel drivers in how to handle grenades and antitank guns. I was given a bunch of goddamned know-it-all terrorists yapping about ideals with murder in their eyes. Couldn’t quit, either, unless I wanted to be found behind cargo containers at the docks with my throat slit—that happened to one guy I knew who tried to bug out.”

  Renwick’s spine went tense. “Where did the terrorists come from? Who paid their way?”

  Moore shrugged his shoulders. “Must have come from ten, twelve, fifteen countries—Europe, South America, the Mideast— you name them, I had them. And the weapons sold by Exports Consolidated didn’t come direct. Re-routed through other countries. Rockets, the newest explosives, top-secret detonators and electronic devices, army supplies we don’t sell anyone.”

  “Illegal trafficking in weapons and military equipment,” Renwick said softly. Then Brimmer must be using false or cover agreements in sales abroad; falsified accounts, too, in the purchasing of supplies, and bribery. A mess of corruption wherever Brimmer moved. “Get me a sample of one page of his business ledger—”

  “That’s only the half of it,” Moore interrupted, either determined to tell things his way or unwilling to involve Lorna in supplying proof of Brimmer’s flourishing conspiracy. He rushed on, and Renwick kept silent. “That super-secret equipment was beyond me or anyone else in Yemen. Brimmer is sending in an expert this week from California—fifty thousand dollars for him out of a two-hundred-thousand fee for Brimmer with compliments of Yemen’s big friend in North Africa.” Moore paused, well pleased with the effect he was producing. “So I came back from Yemen ready to tell Brimmer to go shove it. Lorna met me at Kennedy, warned me to ease off. For now. That was what she was doing, going along, arousing no suspicion in Brimmer or anyone at the office. But she had had it. Like me. Too dangerous if Brimmer thought we were backing out. We knew too much.”

  “What changed her? She must have known all along about the sale of illegal arms and secret payoffs. If,” Renwick added, “she is as important to Brimmer as you say she is.”

  “She keeps the r
ecords—the private ones. Not the books that are handled by the accountants and shown to the income-tax boys. She’s important, all right.” He was proud of his Lorna.

  “What changed her?”

  “A list that Brimmer made. The Klingfeld people insisted on it, passed him some information, too. He didn’t like the idea, Lorna said, but he swallowed it. Couldn’t refuse his new partners, could he? He might lose more than his business.”

  “Did Lorna see that list?”

  “Yes. Later, she made a copy—photographed it. Took a chance after office hours when Brimmer was in Washington. He has a lot of friends there. Good old Mitch Brimmer, everyone’s pal.”

  “That list—what’s it about?” If it jolted Lorna into revolt, it had to be something that scared her. And Lorna didn’t sound like a woman who would be easily scared out of an oversized salary and all the comforts of New York.

  “Names. Nine names. Men who are dangerous. Too interested in Exports Consolidated. Asking questions, looking for answers. They could blow Brimmer’s operation sky-high.”

  “And what does he plan for them?” Renwick sounded cool, kept his voice detached.

  “His Minus List, he calls it. That’s his kind of joke. You see, he already had a Plus List—had it for the last five years.”

  Patience, Renwick warned himself. Moore’s evasive, embarrassed. Don’t rush him. “A Plus List? Men who are not dangerous?”

  “More than that. People who help him and get well paid for it. They are hooked and they don’t know it. Too busy counting up the dollars deposited for them in numbered bank accounts— the Bahamas, Switzerland, any place where they can dodge the tax man. They’ve got influence, can persuade a supplier to sell what shouldn’t be sold, can introduce Brimmer around, vouch for him.”

  “So he has a list of them, too?” And that’s something I want to see, thought Renwick. “Everything is recorded? An exact accounting?”

  “A page to each man. Brimmer needs to know how much he has paid out, when and where. It’s kept damn secret, you can bet your life on that!”

  A page to each man... “It’s in book form, then. A small ledger or a diary?”