Cloak of Darkness

by Helen Macinnes

  Vroom looked at him.

  “No skiing,” Renwick said quietly. Unless, of course, she was so proficient that she could tackle Mont Blanc’s peak.

  “She likes the mountains. The air does her good.”

  “She’s still going there, in summer?”

  “Not every week-end,” Vroom reminded him.

  Now what have we here? Renwick wondered. “No doubt she likes to go shopping in Geneva—it isn’t far from Chamonix.” Forty miles, perhaps even less.

  Vroom stared at Renwick. “You are speaking too much about my wife. Why? You didn’t come here to discuss—”

  “No,” agreed Renwick. “But now I do think we had better discuss Annabel. You talk with her a lot, don’t you? Don’t get angry! We all talk with our wives. And they ask questions.”

  “I resent this, Renwick, and I’ll ask you to—”

  “Do you tell Annabel much? Or leave your special notebook of very private addresses on the night table beside your bed? Along with your keys, or anything valuable?”

  “Look”—Vroom was on his feet—“leave Annabel out of this! If I’m under suspicion—”

  “We are all under suspicion,” Claudel broke in. “All of us. Except Bob here.”

  “Why except him? Does he think that he’s above—”

  “His name is on a death list.” Claudel controlled his rising temper. “He is marked for assassination along with eight other men—a list that the Paris firm has drawn up. The same firm, Vroom, that gets its information from The Hague.”

  “There are a thousand people it could contact in Den Haag. All the embassies. Or gossipmongers—professional spies— plenty of them.”

  “But,” said Renwick, “how many among that thousand have their own private two-way transmitters that can reach Paris? Or Geneva, for that matter? You have one in your house, don’t you? For emergencies? For your own convenience? Right?” Vroom was a man who liked his comforts.

  Vroom nodded. He was no longer angry, just deeply troubled.

  “What’s more,” said Claudel, pressing the sudden advantage, “who in The Hague could possibly know about Bob’s telephone number at Merriman’s? Or his old address in London? Or the names of certain restaurants where he gave you dinner? Or the pub where you’ve met—the Red Lion? Yes, Vroom, they are all noted down on that death list.”

  “Oh, God—” Vroom groped for his chair, sat down. With an effort, he said, “What’s the name of this Paris firm?”

  Renwick said, “Klingfeld & Sons. Offices in Paris, Rome, and Geneva.”

  Vroom shook his head. “Don’t know it.”

  “Once it dealt in office supplies: typewriters, desk computers, copying machines. Now it’s an arms broker. Illegal arms. It keeps in the background. Tries to pretend it is still the same old reputable dealer in office equipment.”

  Vroom asked quickly, “KGB control?”

  Claudel said under his breath, “Careful, Bob, careful,” and turned back to the window.

  “Possibly,” said Renwick, watching Vroom. “Its headman has several names, no doubt. But he uses one for very special messages.” He paused, still watching. “Klaus.”

  “Klaus?” Vroom brushed that aside. “A common name. I must have met three or four of them—”

  “Recently? Within the last six months?”

  Vroom stared down at the desk. “One,” he said, “one was seven months ago. In Chamonix. The week-end when I was there. Just one of Annabel’s friends.”

  Renwick said gently, “Johan, why did you go to Chamonix when you didn’t intend to ski or skate? Something was troubling you. Annabel?”

  “Yes.” With difficulty, Vroom nodded. “There was a ski instructor. I went there to—” He couldn’t finish.

  “Throw him down one of Mont Blanc’s glaciers?” Renwick suggested. “I’d have done that with pleasure.”

  Vroom recovered himself. “But he wasn’t there. Had gone. I thought the—the affair was over. Annabel swore to me that it was. Bob, she loves me. She loves the children. Believe me.”

  But there were photographs, thought Renwick sadly, of Annabel and her ski instructor teaching her new tricks in bed. Photographs, threats of exposure and scandal; then her acquiescence in supplying small pieces of information that seemed harmless enough. After that, bribery—just to make doubly sure of Annabel. Tactfully done, of course: expenses paid, pleasure week-ends, and some extra spending money on the side. It was the old pattern, and Vroom hadn’t even guessed what was happening. Or had he some vague suspicion, tried to ignore it? Silence it?

  “Believe me,” Vroom repeated. He took out his handkerchief and wiped his brow.

  “I believe one thing. You’ve got to deal with her. At once!”

  Vroom stared at Renwick. Then he panicked. “How?”

  “Use your brains for a change. Feed her false information, try to trace her control—the man who pulls the strings and makes her jump.” Brutal, Renwick knew, but his words acted like a bucket of ice water dumped over Vroom’s perspiring forehead.

  He blurted out, “Klaus. It could be Klaus.”

  “Second name?”

  “Sounded like Sanuk or Sunek—I only heard it once. Annabel just calls him “Klaus”. They are all first-name people—Klaus and Willi and Celeste and Pieter and Barney and Magda. Never met any of them separately. Klaus picks up the dinner checks, the bar bills. He drives a grey Ferrari; has a black one, too, for his friends. He’s older than they are—almost fifty. But I didn’t think he was important. I paid him little attention.”

  “What? Your wife stayed for week-ends at his house and you didn’t check?”

  “I had other worries on my mind,” said Vroom, and his lips tightened.

  The ski instructor. “Where did all those first-name people stay?”

  “With Klaus. But the week-end I went there”—the words were being dragged out—“Annabel and I stayed down in the town. There was no room at the chalet, and I thanked God for that.”

  “What chalet?”

  “The Chalet Ruskin, it’s called. It stands above—”

  “Bob! Quick! Over here!” Claudel called out. “There are a couple of men in that building directly opposite. Fourth-floor attic. See?” He stepped to the side of the windows. Renwick kept out of view, too, and looked across the canal. Vroom joined them hurriedly. “They’ve been watching me for the last five minutes,” Claudel said.

  “Did you install a couple of men over there?” Renwick asked Vroom.

  “No one.”

  Claudel’s voice was tight with anger. “Who knew we were meeting you here? Your wife? Was she with you when I called at noon?”

  “No. I—”

  Vroom turned on his heel, walked back to his desk. “I don’t believe this. It can’t be. It can’t!” He crashed his fist down on the heavy mahogany top, sending a large glass ashtray splintering on the wooden floor. “All right, all right. I took Claudel’s call at my office. I went home to see Annabel for lunch, explained I couldn’t drive her to the airport this afternoon. A meeting, I said. Important. In Amsterdam. Four o’clock. Just couldn’t drive her to the plane, she’d have to take a taxi or stay at home. She—she had her driving licence suspended a month ago—a silly accident—not her fault really.” He was picking up the fragments of ashtray, dropping them one by one into a waste-basket.

  “You named us?” Renwick’s eyes were watching the window across the canal. The two men—or was it just one man?— weren’t visible now. But the window was still open wide.

  “Not that way. No. Indirectly. Annabel asked if I couldn’t postpone the meeting until later this evening. I said, “Impossible—Renwick is already on his way, flying in from London.” And then, as I was about to leave after lunch, there was a phone call for Annabel. She took it in the library. I heard her say, “Klaus?” Then she started explaining she might be late in arriving.” Vroom straightened his back, threw the cigar stubs and some burned-out matches on top of the broken pieces of glass, looked with d
istaste at the white ashes left on the floor. “I didn’t listen. It was talk about the week-end at Chamonix, I supposed. Well”—he looked at Renwick, who had turned to face him—“I was wrong. I’ll resign from Interintell of course.”

  “What makes you think Klaus asks questions only about Interintell? Your own department in The Hague is of vital importance.”

  Vroom slumped, half seated on the edge of the desk.

  Claudel was asking, “What’s that? At the window. A telescope? Or some kind of rifle? You’re the armaments expert, Bob.”

  Renwick swung around to look. Too heavy for a rifle. “Even heavier than a shotgun.” And aimed right at these windows. He yelled to Vroom, “Get away from that desk! Move!” The three of them made a dive for the safest corner of the room, reached its shelter as a bullet exploded on the desk. A second followed. That was all.

  “A shotgun never did that,” said Claudel, looking toward the debris of a desk. The two chairs that once had faced each other were now tilted drunkenly on broken frames, the remains of their backs torn by shrapnel.

  “Keep out of sight from the window,” Renwick warned Vroom. “And do your telephoning downstairs. None of these on your desk could possibly work anyway. Come on, Pierre, we’ll try to flush them out.” They left at a run, using the staircase for speed, and descended through two floors of startled clerks and bookkeepers to reach the hall.

  “Whatever that weapon was,” Renwick said as they took shelter for a moment in the small crowd at the Bruna Building’s front door, “it’s too valuable to leave. They’ll be dismantling it.”

  “We’re dead anyway,” Pierre said. “You and Vroom at the desk, me at the window. They won’t expect us.”

  A voice said from the crowd, “What happened up there? Just look at that smoke. A fire?”

  “Not smoke. Dust,” Pierre said. “An explosion.”

  “Gas?”

  Pierre’s Dutch failed him. So he looked ignorant, and eased himself through the knot of people to join Renwick.

  “We’ll approach separately,” Renwick said. “You take the bridge on our right, I’ll use the one on our left. We’ll meet inside the hall.” Then, as he eyed the house across the canal—it looked abandoned, a candidate either for demolition or for complete restoration—he shook his head, restrained Pierre from leaving with a hand on his arm. A thin straggle of people had been walking along the opposite canal, some carrying children, some carrying rolled-up bedding. Squatters. They were standing now at the door of the deserted house, a tall, long-haired young man urging them inside as if he were leading a charge over the barricades. “The police will soon be here,” Renwick said with a sudden smile, “and our friends with the popgun won’t like it one bit. Not one bit. Let’s join the fun.”

  There was no need to separate. In the continual flux of movement and sound, they wouldn’t be noticed. The squatters, about twenty of them, had already taken possession, the last of them entering the doorway. Except for the young man, who was addressing a group of worried citizens with flights of high rhetoric. Renwick and Claudel reached the centre of the small crowd, kept watching the entrance to the house.

  “Still inside?” Claudel murmured.

  “Unless they left their weapon behind them—made a run for it as soon as they thought their mission was completed.” But I doubt that: the gun is something they’ll take to pieces, pack away, carry out. “Look for someone carrying a heavy suitcase.”

  “They’ll never get it out through that little mob,” Claudel predicted. “The staircase will be jammed.”

  “They can’t wait in the attic, either. The police will search every floor.” Interesting, thought Renwick. He shook the remaining dust from his jacket, smoothed back his hair. “We could both use a wash and a brushup,” he said. “At least we don’t look like a couple of cops,” he added as two men, neatly dressed, were hustled out of the building in the grip of four squatters. A large suitcase was hurled after them.

  The orator halted his impassioned plea, yelled, “Agents provocateurs!” He seized the suitcase, darted with it around the crowd just as a squad of police arrived, reached the canal railing, and heaved it over. It fell into the grey, still waters and sank.

  “Too bad,” said Renwick. “Okay, Pierre. The show’s over.”

  They left, a fight and loud arguments starting up behind them. “You marked their faces?” Claudel asked.

  “Got a firsthand view.” But the two men might be out of circulation for some time. Policemen had seized them along with their four escorts, and they were trying to struggle free. A mistake. Resisting arrest. A bad mistake, Renwick thought as one of the men landed a punch. The orator, of course, had vanished completely.

  Once out of the narrow street and away from Old Amsterdam’s encircling canals, they could find a taxi to take them back to the airport. “We’ll clean up there,” Renwick suggested, “while you get the tank filled.”

  “We’ve enough fuel left to reach Paris.”

  “What about Geneva?”

  “Tonight?”

  “We’ll get there for dinner. Four hundred miles away, isn’t it?”

  “Roughly. I’d better get the plane tanked up. Enough cash?”

  “Yes. Passport and papers legitimate, too. You?”

  “All in order. Transmitter and the travel kit that Bernie prepared. You know, Bob, our mad scientist at Merriman’s might have heard of that gun. What the devil was it? Any guess?”

  I’ve none—needed a closer look.” Exploding bullets? Some kind of high-calibre rifle? It was damned accurate anyway. And the clinching argument as far as Vroom is concerned.”

  “Do you know Annabel?” The girl whose small pieces of harmless information led to murder and mayhem.

  “By sight. She was at one of Jake Crefeld’s parties three years ago.” Black hair, roving brown eyes, long legs and a noticeable figure. “She won’t remember me—too many men around her. “Men who were serious in face and in talk, men who didn’t have much time for skiing and dancing. Poor old Vroom, thought Renwick.

  ***

  Conversation became innocuous until they had left the taxi at the old airport in Amsterdam. Claudel was still thinking about Annabel. “She must use a private plane, too. Or else she’d have to take a flight from Schiphol Airport to Zurich—a long way round for a week-end at Chamonix. Does Klaus send his plane for her, I wonder?”

  “No doubt. Part of her expense account.”

  “She’s valuable property. Meanwhile. Until Vroom resigns from all Intelligence work. Then she’s useless. If he resigns, of course,” added Claudel. “Will he?”

  “End his career? But what kind of Intelligence job would he get with Annabel still on his back?” Renwick shook his head. “He never deserved all this.”

  “It’s the undeserving who often get clobbered. Yet I just can’t imagine him teaching her how to use his transmitter. In fact, she wouldn’t have risked asking him.”

  “Klaus probably gave her a lesson or two. It’s not too difficult to master.”

  “And there was easy access to Vroom’s study. He’s only there for occasional meals and bed.” Claudel fell silent for almost a minute. “How will he handle her?”

  Renwick just shook his head.

  “His problem,” Claudel agreed.

  And what did a man do when faced with that? “God help him,” Renwick said under his breath.

  14

  They left Claudel’s plane drawn up in its allotted space at the airport outside Geneva. Claudel, before locking up, had activated its alarm system: anyone attempting to enter it would set off a blast of sound that would bring out the fire truck itself. He had left behind his flying jacket, after removing a lighter that could photograph, a pair of eyeglasses that could amplify conversation from fifty feet away, a cigarette pack that could communicate within a three-mile radius. He was now wearing his tweed jacket that could take his neat automatic without bulging a pocket. His good arm carried Bernie’s lightweight bag. (Duplicates
of lighter, glasses, cigarette pack; a hairbrush whose back slid open to hold useful cipher lists; a talcum-powder tin that held spare film; and ordinary toilet articles such as toothpaste and brushes and shaving kit, useful for emergency stop-overs. Also, infrared binoculars that could be used by night, a similar mini-telescope, and—of course—a book on bird-watching.)

  Renwick was carrying the radio in its leather case, cut out in front to show an honest face, a portable that would keep a traveller abreast of the news and relax him with music. But remove the leather case and open the back of the radio, and there was a transmitter that could reach approximately a thousand miles—double the distance needed for communication with London. Its antenna, a thin wire minutely coiled and packed under the vinyl lining of the case, was easily strung around a room or dangled down the outside of a window.

  If, thought Renwick as they reached the checkpoints for customs and passport control, by any son-of-a-bitching chance we are questioned here, I’ll call Duval in Geneva or even Keppler in Bern. Keppler was one of Swiss Security’s top men, a big wheel. Duval was an inspector of police. They knew him, had co-operated fully when he was tracking down a numbered bank account in Geneva four years ago—money reeking of conspiracy, theft, and murder—destined for international terrorists. He had been with NATO Intelligence, then, but Keppler and Duval knew about Interintell. Renwick believed in keeping allies informed, even those who were usually neutral except, of course, when Swiss serenity was threatened. And Klingfeld & Sons, with a flourishing office in Geneva, was definitely a real threat. Chamonix was across the frontier in French territory, but it was possible that Inspector Duval could provide some useful advice, if not unobtrusive assistance. After all, he must have contacts there: Geneva and Chamonix were neighbours, both French-speaking, both sharing the same problem—Klaus.

  “Nothing to declare,” Renwick said. Except a ton weight of worry. They passed through customs. Then passports were examined: two representatives of Merriman & Co.; advisers on construction engineering. Business or pleasure? “Pleasure,” said Claudel—no one ever asked what kind of pleasure. With a polite nod, they were waved on.