Cloak of Darkness

by Helen Macinnes

  Renwick pushed back his chair from the desk and concentrated on the changes that would now have to be made in his own plans. With the opening of those crates on a Djibouti dock, the whole perspective had been altered. Klingfeld was the important one, the one in command; Brimmer and his Exports Consolidated were secondary—used and manipulated by Klingfeld. But secondary or not, Brimmer had to be dealt with, and soon.

  The Djibouti report had been sent early on Tuesday morning—just after the action there on Monday night. With time changes helping London, the report had arrived at Merriman’s on Monday evening. Today, Tuesday morning in New York, it was in Renwick’s hands. Even Brimmer, alerted to danger by Klingfeld, who in turn had been alerted by an informant in Djibouti, could not have received the warning any earlier than this. Renwick could only hope that Klingfeld didn’t trust any informer to have direct contact with its headquarters: not likely, thanks to Klingfeld’s obsession with anonymity. That could slow up the news from Djibouti reaching Exports Consolidated, a delay of a few hours possibly—or perhaps a day, with luck? Not more, certainly.

  The French were now on the trail of Brimmer. No doubt about that. But by the time they had enlisted the help of the FBI to visit and search the offices of Exports Consolidated, what would they find? Just a set of legitimate business records. Brimmer would have destroyed his secret accounting of illegal dealings, and—with his precious Plus List, false passport, supply of ready cash—be on his way to Brazil.

  You’d better make sure of those three pages of illegal transactions, Renwick told himself as he cleared the desk. Claudel’s report and his own decoded version were torn up and burned in the metal wastebasket, their ashes flushed down the toilet bowl of the room’s adjoining bathroom. All equipment, along with his page of ciphers, was locked behind the cabinet’s strong doors. He gave one last check: everything secure, shipshape and Bristol fashion. The caretaking couple would find nothing to fault when they came up to sweep and dust.

  Half-past eight. He shaved and showered, was dressed before the breakfast tray arrived at the prescribed nine o’clock.

  Nina, still dazed with so much sleep, barely roused herself to ask, “Are you going out? So early?”

  “Some people to see. I’ll be home before dinner.”

  He drank orange-juice and black coffee, anchored them with a slice of toast. With a kiss and a hug and another kiss, he left Nina at her first mouthful of croissant.

  ***

  At this hour, Sixty-first Street was only half astir, shaded from the sun coming over the East River by the small trees spaced at even distances along its sidewalks. Nearer Lexington Avenue, the shops that had invaded the row of red sandstone town houses were beginning to open. The offices downtown? Not until ten o’clock for the upper echelons. He would have time to walk to the building near Fifty-third Street where the firm Exports Consolidated was headquartered.

  Lorna... Al Moore’s girl, Brimmer’s most trusted and very private secretary. It had been no problem for Interintell to discover her full name and particulars before Renwick had left London. He had insisted on it. Margaret Lorna Upwood of Beekman Terrace, a comfortable and expensive address, and merely a few blocks from her place of employment. Originally he had planned to visit her in her apartment tomorrow. But now speed was necessary. He only hoped she would be promptly at her desk, the place fairly quiet, routine just beginning for the day.

  He reached the large block of offices, at least eighty firms doing business within this hunk of concrete and glass. The air-conditioned lobby was impressive, a good imitation of marble on its walls and floors, with giant green plants dotted around. He paused at the directory exhibited near a desk where a brown-uniformed guard sat, engrossed in a newspaper. A second guard stopped him as he started toward the elevators, pointed back to the desk. “The tenth floor—offices of Exports Consolidated,” Renwick said, and hoped that would be sufficient. But no such luck.

  The man at the desk laid aside the newspaper. “Have you an appointment?”

  “With Mrs. Upwood.”

  “One moment.” Middle-aged and overweight, he went slowly through the usual motions: telephone picked up; is Mrs. Upwood expecting anyone? A wait, then a reply. The guard looked at Renwick. “Your name?”

  Renwick left his study of an inflamed mural, abstract patches of red and violent orange. “Al Moore.”

  “Mr. Al Moore,” the guard reported to the office upstairs, nodded, said to Renwick, “Second bank of elevators to your left.” He picked up his newspaper, went on reading about the baseball strike.

  On the tenth floor, there were more potted plants, another frenzied mural (wouldn’t like to delve into that guy’s subconscious, thought Renwick), and a receptionist’s desk. “Mrs. Upwood,” he told her, and followed a pointing finger into one of the corridors. There were several open rooms with a drift of voices discussing the holiday week-end; and at last, in pride of place, dominating the end of the corridor were three doors, one narrow, two imposing, and all closed. There was a brass plate on one of them: MR MITCHELL BRIMMER. The other had a neat name painted in gold: M.L. UPWOOD. The narrow door, beyond Upwood’s, proclaimed its inferior status with no name at all.

  He knocked, braced himself for any unexpected appearance of Brimmer in his most private secretary’s office (I’m here to sell the newest in desk computers, Renwick reminded himself), and entered.

  It was a scene of order, meticulous in arrangement, neutral in colour: grey carpet, grey tweed curtains, a pale-grey wallpaper with darker roses climbing ceilingward in exact columns. A typewriter and a copying machine were on grey metal stands; a grey filing cabinet. No ornaments, no photographs, no plants. The one light-hearted note was in the gold frame of a painting—a misted river scene—hanging in the centre of one wall. (Concealing a safe? There was none in view. Rather obvious, thought Renwick.) Two small neat chairs, chrome and leather, completed the room along with a small neat desk—a closed blotter, a pencil holder, a telephone on its dark-grey surface. Behind it, commanding the doorway, sat a slender woman in a black-and-white silk suit who had tried, quite successfully, to lop ten years from her thirty-five. Smooth white skin, fluffy auburn hair, a tip-tilted nose above vivid red lips, a general feeling of vagueness in a smile that never quite appeared, never vanished either. Just the helpless-looking type to bring out Al Moore’s protective instincts. But he had never noticed her eyes in a moment such as this: as grey and hard as any filing cabinet.

  Renwick selected a chair in front of the desk, drew it even nearer, and sat down. “May I?” At least they could talk without raising their voices.

  “Mr. Moore?” She sat motionless, face expressionless, her hands folded over the leather blotter.

  “Sorry about that, but it’s a legitimate use of the name. I wouldn’t be here if it were not for Alvin Moore.”

  Her eyes appraised him. “He sent you?”

  “Indirectly. My name is Renwick.”

  There was a brief moment of astonishment but enough to reassure Renwick that no recognisable photograph of him was in circulation. In that case, he could face Brimmer if necessary.

  He said, “I’ve some news—for your ears only.” He pointed to the wall that separated them from Brimmer. “In? Or out?”

  She hesitated, perhaps wondering which answer would be to her advantage.

  “We’ve no time to waste. Is he in?”

  “Out.”

  “For how long?”

  “Until later today—he has been in Maine with his children for a week’s vacation.”

  Renwick relaxed. “Has any message yet arrived from Klingfeld?”

  Her face was unreadable. She shook her head. Her hands tightened.

  “You would have seen it?”

  “Of course.” She paused. “What kind of message? Or don’t you know?”

  “I know.”

  “Well—what is it?”

  “First, I’d like copies of three pages of Brimmer’s illegal transactions.” Then, as she remain
ed silent, her eyes blankly innocent, he added, “Al called you from London, told you we needed these three pages as hard evidence. Didn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve photocopied them, haven’t you? If not, I’ll wait here until you do. Come on, Lorna, you’re wasting time, and you haven’t much of it left.”

  That startled her. “Why haven’t I—”

  “You haven’t,” he said grimly.

  She rose, went over to the filing cabinet, selected a thick folder marked Receipts for Office Expenditures. From the middle of its numerous pages she extracted three. “I was going to mail these to you in London,” she said diffidently as she handed them to Renwick.

  “I also suggested a sample of Brimmer’s profits—the ones he doesn’t declare to Internal Revenue.”

  “I haven’t had time to make a copy of that.”

  She doesn’t intend to, he thought. Because she also hasn’t paid taxes on excess earnings? No IRS investigators descending on this office until she has left and is beyond their reach?

  “I’ll mail it next week,” she said as she turned away to replace the folder in the cabinet. Unlocked, Renwick noted. Clever girl: Brimmer would never look in a moribund file of simple expenses. The safe behind the painting was of more likely interest to anyone searching this office. And that safe, he was willing to bet, would contain nothing dangerous like the pages he held in his hand. They were authentic, all right. A quick scan down their entries shocked even him. She came back to the desk, studied him as he read.

  “Next week,” he said as he folded the three pages and slipped them into an inside pocket, “you will be with Al.”

  “No! I don’t leave until—”

  She tightened his lips as if to keep any other revelation from slipping out. She eyed him warily. “Why should I be with Al next week?”

  “Because Brimmer’s luck has run out. The message from Klingfeld will give him the bad news.”

  Her hands, folded once more on the leather blotter, suddenly spread rigid. “How bad?”

  “The crates shipped by Exports Consolidated to Djibouti were opened on the dock. By the French.”

  She must have known the contents of the crates, for she asked for no details, no reason why a search by the French spelled complete disaster. Now she was too preoccupied—with her own plans for escape, Renwick guessed—even to answer him.

  “So,” he went on, “Brimmer’s day is over. All he can do, when he gets Klingfeld’s message, is to skip the country. But unless you leave ahead of him, you’ll be in trouble. Deep trouble.”

  “How?” she challenged.

  “If he finds that his little black book with that Plus List is missing...” Renwick shrugged, didn’t need to finish his prediction.

  The prospect didn’t seem to alarm her.

  “You think you can just walk off with it tucked into your handbag? But you’re the first suspect—the only one: Brimmer and you shared its secrets. You and Al will be marked. Hunted down.”

  “By whom? By you? Brimmer can’t—not now.”

  “By Klingfeld. The man in control there must know about Brimmer’s Plus List. He may even have contributed some names of his own. He has been using Brimmer as cover, hasn’t he? Why not in illicit payments, too?”

  The idea disturbed her. Renwick pressed on. “That man in charge of Klingfeld & Sons has a long reach. In Djibouti, he had one man murdered—a French security officer—and another man attacked; two men who could possibly link him with the arms that Exports Consolidated sold.”

  “He arranged the sales,” she said indignantly.

  “He finds buyers abroad for Brimmer’s exports—is that it?” A market made to order... “A name, Lorna. Give me his name.”

  She hesitated. “Would Interintell search for him? Find him?”

  “Find him? That’s the business we’re in. He’s arranging sales of arms to terrorists. He’s providing instructors for these weapons—with Brimmer recruiting them as well as supplying the military and technological equipment. Brimmer must be making a couple of million dollars a year. Or more, Lorna?” And you, he thought, have had your nice little share of it.

  She dropped her eyes. “It wasn’t always like this,” she said defensively, as if to excuse her own complicity. “Once, we—”

  “Do you want to be rid of this man or don’t you?”

  Her voice lowered almost to a whisper. “Klaus. He ends his Telex messages with the name Klaus. That’s all I know.”

  “Telex? Then the messages are in code.”

  “Only Mitch—Mr. Brimmer—knows how to read it. Even the name is coded. I wouldn’t have heard it except that Mitch let it drop one day when he was angry. Klaus had sent a message, some suggestions that Mitch didn’t like.”

  “But he followed them.”

  “There was no choice left.” She sighed. “How much time have I got? A few days?”

  “A few hours. There will be a Telex for Brimmer by the time he gets back here.”

  She opened the leather blotter and lifted a sheet of thin paper. “Then we had better destroy that message. I found it waiting on the Telex in Mitch’s office this morning. No one else has seen it. I was here before anyone.”

  “Anyone? Are you sure?” The message was in no code he could recognise, but the key to it—part of the key at least, five letters as a starter—could be found in the name Klaus. Renwick drew a deep breath, folded the sheet carefully.

  “Except for the supply-room clerk and an office boy,” she replied. “What are you doing with that?” She pointed to the Telex, now disappearing into Renwick’s pocket. “Destroy it!”

  “Why not you?”

  She looked most innocent. “How can I? I know nothing about it.”

  He could imagine the indignant protests if she were questioned: never say it, you can search my room, I didn’t destroy it, it must have been someone else on this floor. Just a girl who liked to have one truth in her story to bolster her confidence and make others believe in her sincerity. Renwick shook his head in amusement, rose to his feet.

  “I said destroy it.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll destroy it.” When it had served its purpose: Interintell’s deciphering machines would soon rip its secrets apart. “But I would worry, if I were you, about getting the hell out.”

  “I’m safe enough, for a few days at least. No Telex!” Then she added, “The FBI won’t appear until they’ve gone through all the procedures to get a search warrant. And the French— well, they can’t invade the office to arrest Mitch Brimmer.”

  “What about Klaus? One of his agents could have been inserted here—just keeping an eye on Brimmer’s staff.”

  That was a possibility that had escaped her smart little mind. She stared at him.

  “Has anyone come to work here since Klingfeld & Sons joined forces with Exports Consolidated?”

  Her face whitened. “The clerk for the supply room.”

  “Where is that?”

  She looked at the wall where the painting was displayed. “Next office—a small room,” she said faintly.

  “Keep talking,” Renwick said and moved to the door. “Talk!” he told her as he opened it and left.

  A man, young, with a windblown hairstyle and heavy glasses, a clipboard under one arm, a pencil stuck behind his ear, had just come out of the supply room. He was a friendly type who gave a nod and a “Hi, there!” as he paused to light a cigarette. Renwick had his handkerchief out and stopped a sudden sneeze, his face hidden as the man’s lighter flicked. And failed to catch. And flicked again. By that time, Renwick had passed him. The young man walked on. “Hi, there, yourself,” said Renwick as he entered the supply room.

  It was cramped in floor space, its walls lined with deep shelving on which was stacked masses of envelopes, paper, every kind of replacement for office work of boxes of rubber bands and clips to a couple of spare typewriters. His eyes searched the dividing wall between this room and Lorna’s. Here, the shelves had rows of fili
ng boxes drawn up like soldiers on parade. And then he noticed the step-ladder, abandoned quickly, left in a precarious tilt against a column of boxes. Quickly, he scanned that column; the neighbouring one, too. And there was something—a box well above his reach that broke the rigid pattern, retreated half an inch from the line-up. Replaced too hurriedly?

  He pulled the ladder into position, climbed two-thirds of its height to stand on eye level with the filing box. It was of cardboard, not so light as it looked but easily pulled out by the leather tongue on its spine. Placing it on the top step of the ladder, he leaned forward to look through a hole drilled neatly into the wall. Judging from where he stood, the peephole must lie just above the painting next door.

  He had a limited view of Lorna, sitting at her desk, sufficiently recovered from her paralysis to speak into a Dictaphone. He could hear nothing. He pulled out the next box; there was no mark of any listening device on the wall behind it. But this one was lighter in weight, much lighter. He replaced it exactly, opened the first box. Inside, fixed in position by a leather band—no slipping, no rattling when the box was lifted—was a cup-shaped item with a small earphone attached by a tube. An imitation stethoscope. It worked on the same principle, too. With the rim of its cup pressed against the wall, the earphone gave Renwick the clear sound of Lorna’s dictation. He listened to only three words before everything was being replaced in its proper place and he could leave.

  He opened Lorna’s door, locked it behind him. She looked up at him, switched off the Dictaphone.

  “Get out,” he told her. “Leave now. As soon as you can, get out of New York. He could partly see us, and he certainly could hear us once he got his listening device working.”

  Her eyes showed fear. “Leave now? But there’s no plane until this evening.”

  “Then get lost in New York until your flight leaves.”

  “He really saw us through that wall?” She could scarcely believe it.