Cloak of Darkness

by Helen Macinnes

  “But it’s storage that really is the problem. Of course, when that carpenter does arrive and makes us some closets—I’ve drawn out all the plans for him, measured everything—we’ll have more space. Much more. Bob.” He’s been so patient about that, she thought. His suits were hung on a rack near the bathroom door. “We could really be settled by July. Or August,” she added, thinking of the nonappearing carpenter.

  “How about the Fourth of July in Washington?”

  She pulled away from him, tried to sit up and look at him in wonder.

  “Don’t you get homesick, Nina?”

  “Yes. As you do. But I thought we were going back in September for two weeks—if you were free then.”

  “I’m free now. Let’s make the trip when we can.”

  “Leave in a few days?” She was dumbfounded.

  “Leave tomorrow—no, day after tomorrow. On Wednesday.”

  “Bob—how can we? You’ve got meetings.” And problems, she remembered. Even one problem always meant several late nights at the office. “And I’ll have to pack, and close up the flat—Why, the Fourth is on Saturday! We’d never make it.”

  He reached out, took firm hold of her slender waist, pulled her down where she belonged. “Remember the evening in Georgetown when I waited for you in that half-built conservatory behind your father’s house, and you came running into my arms?”

  “And you swung me up. Told me we were leaving the next morning to get married.” Nina was smiling again.

  “You didn’t find it so hard to pack in a hurry then,” he said gently, and kissed her.

  “Then,” she told him, “I was a foot-loose student. Now, I’m an old married woman.”

  “The difference,” he said in mock wonder, “that nineteen months can make to a twenty-one-year-old!”

  “Darling”—her arms were around him, her body yielding— “we’ll leave day after tomorrow. I’ll pack and write notes to everyone and close the flat up tight.”

  “No notes,” he said quickly, then softened that small command by adding, “A waste of time. We’ll just slip away and forget this flat. We’ll leave Gemma in charge of the key.” And Gemma could start looking for some other place for them. Gemma would love that: no imposition. “We may stay in America for several weeks.”

  “Can you manage it?” She looked at him. “Or is this a business trip?”

  “Now and again,” he admitted. “I’ll take you to see my—” cut out the word “people”—“my sister who married an ex-Marine and lives in La Jolla.” Not to see anyone with the name Renwick, not now at least. And what about the name O’Connell, if Nina’s family connection was being traced? “Is your father in Washington, or has he left for the Maryland shore?” Nina’s stepmother liked its cooler temperatures in the summer months for her incessant dinner parties.

  “He isn’t very happy in either place nowadays.”

  Out of a job, Renwick thought. No longer an economic adviser to the White House or attached to the State Department. A quick and total resignation—the modern way for an honourable man to put a bullet through his brain. Nina was watching him. “He likes you, Bob.”

  “That’s news.” Why should a proud man like Francis O’Connell like anyone who knew about his stupidity? With his high-minded scorn for all security, he had almost walked into a White House meeting with an explosive device planted in his attaché case by someone he had taken on trust.

  Nina was suddenly still. She said, “He told me all about it. You saved him. And the president. And all the others in that room.”

  “He told you?” The words were jolted out of Renwick.

  “I’m glad he did. Don’t try to shelter me so much, Bob.”

  “And you never mentioned it—”

  “I was waiting for you to tell me. The obedient wife,” she said, turning it into a joke.

  “How obedient?” he asked, and took her into his arms again.

  5

  Djibouti was as hot as Claudel had predicted, and more crowded than he remembered from last year’s visit. It always had held half the inhabitants of this small and arid land, a sliver of scrub and desert stretching a rough hundred miles in length, even less in breadth, tightly bound both north and west by Ethiopia, in the south by Somalia, freely breathing to its east with an indented coastline that lay on the Gulf of Aden just where the Red Sea began its long stretch northward to the Suez Canal. Facing South Yemen across the Gulf, Djibouti had always been a trader’s delight, but with the reopening of Suez it was once again on a major shipping lane—from India and the Far East right up into the Mediterranean. It might be a minuscule republic, a speck on the map of Africa, but it had significance. Today, it seemed to Claudel as if the town would soon hold most of the country’s population and its assimilated foreigners.

  He poured another cup of coffee, finished the last croissant. He was sitting on the Café-Restaurant’s deep-set verandah, shaded almost to the point of darkness against the morning sun. The Café-Restaurant de l’Univers, six modest bedrooms upstairs (one of which was occupied by Claudel), owned by good friend Aristophanes Vasilikis: once of Athens, later of the Sudan, and for the last ten years a resident in Djibouti, capital of the Republic of Djibouti. Too bad, thought Claudel, that independence had ditched the old name: Territory of the Afars and Issas. That had a sound that few countries could match.

  The Afars and Issas were still around, he had been glad to see, and still predominant; dark-skinned nomads, thin and tall with hawk-nosed faces, who wandered in from the barren hinterland with camels and goats, and lingered indefinitely. Muslims, of course, like the Arab traders who had modernised their act and no longer exported slaves. There were European settlers, too: venturesome small business-men from Greece and Italy. And, of course, the residue of French who had simply stayed on. Add to that mix the indefatigable Indian merchants, the Somali refugees, the Sudanese fishermen, the Ethiopian labourers, and you had a full house.

  Watching the variety of faces and dress out in the street, people on foot going their own mysterious way, Claudel could be grateful that they made his visit easier, less noticeable. But it also meant that the elusive Erik, if he had escaped to Djibouti, had found a place where he could stay submerged until his plans were completed for the next stage of his journey toward West Germany. Yet, once here—if he were here—he would find it more difficult to leave than to reach. There were only fifty miles of paved road in the whole country, hundreds of trails and tracks. And where would they lead him? Into the desert regions of Ethiopia, or south to Somalia, now filled with starving refugees from the war with Ethiopia—hardly worthwhile trying to hire a car (scarce and difficult) or a camel (slow and stately). The railway—one railway only, connecting Addis Ababa in Ethiopia with the port at Djibouti—hauled mostly freight: import-export trade, Ethiopia’s one direct outlet to the sea. And Addis Ababa, Communist, had Soviet advisers and Cuban agents in control. It was unlikely that Erik would find that an attractive prospect.

  So there were two possibilities left to Erik, and Claudel in the last three days had been checking them both.

  First, there was the port for Djibouti, built by the French some three miles from the town. (Or the other way around, Claudel reminded himself: the port was begun first; the town came a few years later.) It had become a complex of installations: piers, quays, docks, water reservoirs, fuel-storage tanks, even a refrigeration plant—everything that was needed for the refuelling and replenishing of French naval vessels (two destroyers were there now; an aircraft carrier had just sailed). There were many paying customers, too, such as passenger ships that had docked for supplies and oil before they cruised onward, and numerous freighters at the loading and unloading piers. Yes, there was a choice for Erik in that variety of vessels. Except that the French were still in command of the port—its strategic importance higher than ever since the Soviet Union now had its friends established on the other side of the Red Sea’s narrow entrance. On Claudel’s arrival in Djibouti, he had visited
the port to see his friend Georges Duhamel, whom he had known when they were both semi-attached (a diplomatic way of describing their function) as French Intelligence representatives of NATO. It was part of De Gaulle’s ambiguity—keeping one French foot inside the Western alliance while withdrawing the other foot. Duhamel was now with French Naval Intelligence and had been sent on special assignment to assist the head of security at the port. He had been delighted to see Claudel again, and there were no false pretenses: Duhamel knew of Interintell and approved. He assured Claudel that there had been no European, no imitation Arab, trying to stow away on any freighter during the last two weeks. So, with the alarm on Erik sounded, Claudel could only return to the town and wait, and rely on Duhamel’s eagle eye.

  Secondly, there was the airport. Flights were limited, and checking the passenger lists for the last two weeks was fairly simple. Claudel concentrated on the flights to Egypt and France. The others, to Mombasa and Addis Ababa, were obviously less attractive for Erik: the former because it only led Erik farther afield, farther from Germany; the latter because Ethiopia now had an influx of helpful Cubans. But there was nothing to discover. No record or sighting of any unknown European, of any unidentified Arab. The French kept tight watch over the airport, a precaution particularly against hijackers. So again, Claudel could only give a warning about Erik and go back to the town, and wait. And wonder if Erik had ever come to Djibouti in the first place.

  But any day now, his two agents should be arriving from Aden. Husayn would sail in, land his cargo of salt and lamp oil and canned tuna at one of the pint-sized harbours some distance from the port. Shaaban would seek another anchorage, equally insignificant, for his cargo of cotton, wheat, and sesame. They would come separately, and Claudel would keep them well apart. Husayn was an Afar; Shaaban an Issa. The nomad Afars wandered in and out of Ethiopia; the Issas in and out of Somalia. That difference was, in these days of war and hate, a possible troublemaker.

  Waiting and more waiting, thought Claudel as he finished breakfast. But while he did that, he could turn his attention to some legitimate business as the travelling representative of Merriman & Co., Consultant Engineers. He would visit once more the projected site for a possible hotel—if its backers received any encouragement from Merriman’s—to be built on an empty stretch of coastline about two miles from the port and a mile from town. A desolate place, with a grey-sand beach, flat land broken by huge shallow pools where white herons—the only touch of beauty—stood ankle deep and picked fastidiously at the sedge-covered water. He would put in a negative report: drainage problems enormous, costs astronomical, sea view dull, background dismal with grey desert and shrubs, possible objections from the port authorities, although their personnel might like a nearby luxury hotel for their families’ visits, definite objections from all the sailors and seamen as well as the people in town who couldn’t afford the prices charged. Also, Muslims did not drink. Also, swimming near the Red Sea was not comfortable: sharks. Also, fresh-water supply would entail a search for underground streams such as Djibouti and the port were built over. Also, the white herons would leave as the dredging operations began.

  His report, of course, would be written as soon as his other business was completed. It made an adequate explanation for his appearance in Djibouti, though. Neither the Police Inspector nor his assistant, both French, had questioned it— not openly, at least, even when he had mentioned the possible need for some of their well-trained native policemen to arrest a murderer and terrorist. Erik... always back to Erik, although Claudel had also taken the opportunity to talk to Georges Duhamel about any freighter unloading crates from Exports Consolidated or a firm called Klingfeld & Sons—both names to be treated as highly sensitive, not to be bruited around the port. Duhamel, good security officer that he was, had promised a few tactful questions. A wild shot, Claudel thought, but every small chance was well worth taking.

  “You are thoughtful this morning, my friend.” Aristophanes Vasilikis, making his morning tour of the premises, stopped by Claudel’s table. He was a blond Greek, now greying, with snub features and blue eyes. Of medium height and girth, he had his clothes carefully fashioned to fit by an Italian tailor: lightweight gabardine trousers that hung without a wrinkle; a cream silk shirt opened at the neck, its sleeves turned back at their broad cuffs. With a reproving frown at the wooden ceiling above him, where a fan had started a slowdown and was threatening a work stoppage, he chose the cane chair opposite Claudel’s, sat down as he took out an Egyptian cigarette and fitted it into an ivory holder. He came right to the point, speaking in his fractured French, saying with an increasing frown, “Surely you do not consider giving a favourable report to those idiots who waste good money on building hotels where they are useless.”

  “They have built many hotels in unlikely places.”

  “Where?”

  “Sardinia, Kota Kinabalu—”

  “Oh?” Aristophanes had never heard of it, but that wasn’t to be admitted.

  “It’s in Borneo—the Land below the Winds.”

  “Headhunters!”

  “They’ve stopped the habit, I hear. In any case, Ari, don’t lose sleep over any big hotel being built here. Your place won’t suffer at all.”

  Aristophanes had had a moment of hope, dashed down by Claudel’s last sentence. His restaurant was small, white wine for the French and Italians, fruit juices for the wealthier Arabs who liked to adopt European dress. The bar was enormous, with beer and spirits flowing freely for off-duty sailors, seamen from the freighters, the traders who were Christians, the lesser shopkeepers who had forgotten their religion. Both establishments made money, more than his trading post in the Sudan, much more than his hard beginnings in the Plaka of Athens. “They are planning a discothèque, I hear.”

  “You have better ears than I. And guesses are wild. Rumours rise like dust storms in this part of the world.”

  Aristophanes shook his handsome head over his friend’s amusement. “Dangerous things, these discothèques. Men and women, half-naked women, dancing together. Have your rich clients forgotten this is Muslim territory? Tell them, Pierre, what happened last year—just after your last visit. Or didn’t you hear?”

  Claudel shook his head.

  “Tourists came off a cruise ship—they come for three hours and then they leave, and tell that to your rich clients, too— and there were some young women, stupid women. They wore short shorts and low-necked blouses and brought cameras to photograph the marketplace.” Aristophanes dropped his voice. “They were stoned. They had to run for the taxis that brought them here from their ship. A crowd ran after them, jeering all the way. If the police had not arrived, there would have been a riot.” Another rumour? Claudel wondered, but Aristophanes was deadly serious. “Tempers are short. Anger is quick. This place changes like the rest of the world. Ten years ago, when I came here, it was different. Now, politics—” He spat out a vivid oath. To hear a Greek curse politics was quite something, Claudel thought, but he kept silent. “All under the surface,” Aristophanes went on when he had recovered. “So far, under the surface.” He fell silent.

  “What news do you hear from the outside world?” Claudel asked to shift Ari’s dark mood away from Djibouti. Ari had, in his very private room on the top floor of his hotel, an excellent shortwave radio, high-powered, which could transmit as well as receive. Provided, no doubt, by Greek Intelligence in Athens; one of Claudel’s educated guesses, bolstered by the fact that Interinteli and Greek Intelligence had co-operated in defeating a terrorist plan to seize the airport near Athens. Friendly relations had been established, which possibly accounted for Ari’s warm welcome on Claudel’s visit last year. It was, of course, a guess: Ari, who had a mania for gadgets, might very well have invested some money in a radio that would keep him in touch with Europe. He was an émigré who had become thoroughly attached to East Africa but dreamed back to the West. Neither Ari nor Claudel ever mentioned the word “intelligence”. Their conversations were entirely
focused on Djibouti or international troubles. But the fact that Ari had shown Claudel his radio was a definite hint: Claudel was welcome to make use of it should there be any urgent need.

  Ari’s dark mood refused to be shifted. He glared up at the large overhead fan, now motionless, and rose. “So I find a workman who will come, not at once but this evening. He will drive away my customers, fix the fan, and it will break down next week.” Then he remembered his manners as host. “Do you need Alexandre and his taxi to drive you out to that godforsaken place?”

  “Yes.” Claudel glanced at his watch, saw it was ten minutes to nine. The day was half over for most people. By eleven, the streets were emptying; by noon, people were behind closed shutters or lying in the shade of a wall. In the early evening, after the long hot afternoon, life came back to the town. “Ask Alexandre to be here around ten o’clock.” Claudel was on his feet. “I’ll take my usual stroll to the market, stretch my legs, and buy a newspaper.” It was his daily routine, like Alexandre’s taxi, and it aroused no comment.

  ***

  The Café-Restaurant de l’Univers stood at the corner of a broad street, once intended as a boulevard with two rows of trees down its middle. From here branched off some lesser streets, crossing other narrow streets at right angles, all part of neat French planning. After that, things went slightly haywire, but to reach the open marketplace was easy. One walked down a straight street, fairly straight at least, between two continuous rows of houses, mostly white, a few walls painted blue, all a little faded or discoloured. Some had brief colonnades, little stretches of curved arches; most were plain-faced, unadorned, rising three stories above the street level, where a few shops had intruded; high-ceilinged stories, to judge by the tail windows, seemingly without glass, whose massive shutters were opened for the morning air.

  The road was unpaved but many people walked there, for traffic was light—some neat cars, three small green taxis—and the sidewalks were uneven and raised by knee-high curbs. As if, thought Claudel, the planners of this street had feared torrential monsoon floods. Or, more likely, they had raised the sidewalks high to let people step out of their carriages without a jolt or a jump. What, he wondered, had this quarter been like fifty, thirty, even twenty years ago? Blue and white walls would have looked freshly painted, the shutters would have hung straight—not half off their hinges, comically tilted. Few chips and gashes on the arches, less peeling plaster, no large puddles at the side of the earth-packed road left from this morning’s hosing of broken sidewalks. Bless the underground stream that gave the town its water, and pray that it flows forever and ever. Or did Nature’s bounty change as men’s did? Grow old and weary and tired of giving?