At the Geneva airport, he found a cheerful Claudel with an arm heavily encased in bandages and a bright word of welcome. “I was delayed,” Renwick said. “Sorry to be late.”
“Nothing to it. Got here early.” It didn’t seem the right moment, judging from Renwick’s face, to mention Claudel’s own efficiency. He had put the hours of waiting to good use. His plane was tanked up, ready to soar. And for once he was going to allow someone else to take over the controls. Leave his sweet darling alone and abandoned at Geneva until he could come back to fly her out? No, thank you.
“How’s the arm?” Renwick asked as they walked through the terminal.
No explanation given for the delay, no mention of what had happened in Zurich. Claudel controlled his impatience. He’d hear the details once they had taken off—another good reason for flying private. On a commercial flight there would be no serious talk. He began describing the wire cradle in which his forearm was resting, a neat piece of medical engineering to hold the wound together and let it mend naturally. “There will be a scar, of course, but the girls never object to that—intrigues them. It will cramp my style for a week or two. Can’t move it around.”
“You’ll think of ways,” Renwick told him. He was distracted, his eyes searching for a phone booth.
“Gilman reached me this morning and—”
“Have you any spare Swiss francs? I’m running short.”
“Sure. But—”
“I’m calling Washington. Where’s the nearest phone, dammit?”
“No need, Bob. She’s en route. To Paris.”
Renwick’s voice sharpened. “Alone?”
“Bob—the danger is over. Anyway, Mac is travelling with her. That is, if they made the shuttle to La Guardia in time to reach Kennedy by nine fifteen. She’s taking the Concorde. It doesn’t fly from Washington on a Monday.” Claudel laughed. “Nina decided it all—must have been studying timetables for days. Gilman was slightly astonished—especially by her last question. Couldn’t understand it quite, but he said yes anyway. She asked, ‘Then the snake has been scotched?’ What the devil did she mean? Klaus Sudak?”
Renwick nodded, a first smile playing around his lips. “Thoroughly scotched.” He calculated quickly. “Arriving at De Gaulle at six o’clock. When’s the first flight out of here?”
“We can do better than that. I’ve got my plane all ready to go. You can take her up, can’t you?”
“You bet I will.” Renwick was already moving off.
“Easy, easy,” Claudel told him as he caught up. “Gilman has booked Nina into the Georges Cinq—he knows the management. He will be there himself tomorrow—he’s eager to get the full details. Who isn’t?”
“He’d better be back in Grace Street by the day after tomorrow. There’s a registered envelope on its way from Zurich.”
“You mailed Brimmer’s Plus List?”
“Seemed the safest way.”
“Rough going this morning?” Claudel was astounded.
“Well—let’s say it could have been.”
“Didn’t Keppler deliver?”
“He sold out.”
“What?”
“Later, Pierre, later. When did Gilman call Nina?”
“Just after he got your report and had it decoded.”
“At half-past one in the morning?”
“A telephone call means good news.” Bad news would have been sent in a message to MacEwan and let him break it, face to face. “Bob,” Claudel said most seriously, “don’t you know how worried we’ve all been?”
And there were moments when I was damned worried, too. Renwick said, “What’s the best flying time we can make?”
“We could—with this good weather—reach Orly by five o’clock.”
And then traffic delays. “We’ll try for De Gaulle.”
“Problems, Bob. I usually fly into—”
“You work them out.”
“Well, well. Delegating authority, are you?”
“From now on there will be plenty of delegating.”
“I think I’ve heard that before.”
“This time I mean it.” Renwick’s face was taut.
Claudel looked at him quickly. I believe he does, Claudel thought. I really believe it. I didn’t even have to tell him how near Nina was to danger. That news can wait, like the other items Gilman gave me on our double-talk over the phone this morning. Vroom, for instance: Vroom resigning from Dutch Intelligence as well as from Interintell, Vroom taking a job with Bruna Imports, leaving next month for Indonesia and the problems of the spice and coffee trade. Or perhaps I won’t mention the threat to Nina, let Gilman do his diplomatic best with that. What Bob needs now is an hour in a decompression chamber. This time he went too far down below the surface. And he knows it. Goddammit, why did he go in alone? With such speed? But Claudel knew the answer: the only way to deal with Klaus Sudak was to be one jump ahead of him. “Okay,” he said as they reached the plane. “Sure you won’t strip her gears?” They arrived at De Gaulle Airport, as Claudel had predicted, with time to spare. They even managed a very late twenty-minute lunch of sandwiches and beer, and still had half an hour to wait. Midway through the flight, Renwick had begun to talk. Back to normal or almost, thought Claudel, and thank heaven for that. Now it was he who began worrying. It was more than possible that Nina hadn’t managed the distance between La Guardia and Kennedy airports before the Concorde lifted off. In that case, Claudel could see his own plans for tonight evaporating. Tomorrow morning he would be waiting again with Bob at this bloody airport for the arrival of an overnight flight from New York.
As they paced along the exits from customs and immigration, Renwick said, “No need for you to hang around, Pierre.”
“No need,” Claudel agreed cheerfully, but he stayed. No need? After all that he had heard this afternoon? But the decompression chamber was working: Bob was out on deck, breath normal, and it only needed Nina to complete the cure. My God, what if she didn’t arrive? Quickly, Claudel began talking about next January. If he could manage it, he might be back in Chamonix for some skiing.
“The brunette nurse?”
“Yes, the knockout—the one that caught your roving eye.”
But at that moment, Renwick’s eyes were riveted. The first arrivals were beginning to appear.
Claudel said, “Give me that bag, and I’ll see you tomorrow. In Gilman’s room at the Georges Cinq. Around eleven?”
“Two o’clock.” Renwick’s eyes were searching.
“Gilman will be there by ten.”
“You can start with Amsterdam and hold him with Chamonix. You’ve got plenty to tell—” Renwick broke off as his eyes found a girl with fair hair cut short and curling. Nina. Nina more beautiful than ever, with her large eyes and the tilt of her head and the smile on her lips. She hadn’t seen him yet as she walked—high-heeled sandals tapping lightly, cream shirt open at the neck, cream skirt slightly swinging at each step— beside a red-haired man, and listened to him talk. Mac, thought Renwick, I like you; I like you a lot, but you don’t have to be so damned fascinating.
Mac, quick as ever, had seen them both and caught Claudel’s high sign to follow him out.
Renwick didn’t even notice. Nina had halted, her blue eyes widening as she stared at him in wonder. Renwick scarcely heard Mac say, as he dropped Nina’s suitcase beside him, “All yours, now. Glad you’re back, Bob.”
Renwick put out his hands to grasp hers. For a long moment they stood looking at each other. Then he drew her into his arms, tightening them around her as they kissed. Soft lips, soft cheeks, soft silken hair against his mouth. Suddenly, he was alive again. He laughed with the joy of it. He released her, held her back from him to look at her once more. “Magic, you are pure magic, darling.” He picked up her suitcase and slipped an arm around her waist as they began walking toward the street.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Helen MacInnes, whom the Sunday Express called ‘the Queen of spy writers’, was the aut
hor of many distinguished suspense novels.
Born in Scotland, she studied at the University of Glasgow and University College, London, then went to Oxford after her marriage to Gilbert Highet, the eminent critic and educator. In 1937 the Highets went to New York, and except during her husband’s war service, Helen MacInnes lived there ever since.
Since her first novel Above Suspicion was published in 1941 to immediate success, all her novels have been bestsellers; The Salzburg Connection was also a major film.
Helen MacInnes died in September 1985.
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS
HELEN MacINNES
A series of slick espionage thrillers from The New York Times bestselling “Queen of Spy Writers.”
Pray for a Brave Heart
Above Suspicion
Assignment in Brittany
North From Rome
Decision at Delphi
The Venetian Affair
The Salzburg Connection
Message from Málaga
While We Still Live
The Double Image
Neither Five Nor Three
Horizon
Snare of the Hunter
Agent in Place
Ride a Pale Horse
Prelude to Terror
The Hidden Target
I and My True Love
Rest and Be Thankful (December 2013)
Friends and Lovers (January 2014)
Home is the Hunter (February 2014)
PRAISE FOR HELEN MacINNES
“The queen of spy writers.” Sunday Express
“Definitely in the top class.” Daily Mail
“The hallmarks of a MacInnes novel of suspense are as individual and as clearly stamped as a Hitchcock thriller.” The New York Times
“A sophisticated thriller. The story builds up to an exciting climax.” Times Literary Supplement
“Absorbing, vivid, often genuinely terrifying.” Observer
“She can hang her cloak and dagger right up there with Eric Ambler and Graham Greene.” Newsweek
“An atmosphere that is ready to explode with tension... a wonderfully readable book.” The New Yorker
TITANBOOKS.COM
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS
THE MATT HELM SERIES
BY DONALD HAMILTON
The long-awaited return of the United States’ toughest special agent.
Death of a Citizen
The Wrecking Crew
The Removers
The Silencers
Murderers’ Row
The Ambushers
The Shadowers (December 2013)
The Ravagers (February 2014)
PRAISE FOR DONALD HAMILTON
“Donald Hamilton has brought to the spy novel the authentic hard realism of Dashiell Hammett; and his stories are as compelling, and probably as close to the sordid truth of espionage, as any now being told.” Anthony Boucher, The New York Times
“This series by Donald Hamilton is the top-ranking American secret agent fare, with its intelligent protagonist and an author who consistently writes in high style. Good writing, slick plotting and stimulating characters, all tartly flavored with wit.” Book Week
“Matt Helm is as credible a man of violence as has ever figured in the fiction of intrigue.”
The New York Sunday Times
“Fast, tightly written, brutal, and very good...” Milwaukee Journal
TITANBOOKS.COM
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS
THE HARRY HOUDINI MYSTERIES
BY DANIEL STASHOWER
The Dime Museum Murders
The Floating Lady Murder
The Houdini Specter
In turn-of-the-century New York, the Great Houdini’s confidence in his own abilities is matched only by the indifference of the paying public. Now the young performer has the opportunity to make a name for himself by attempting the most amazing feats of his fledgling career—solving what seem to be impenetrable crimes. With the reluctant help of his brother Dash, Houdini must unravel murders, debunk frauds and escape from danger that is no illusion...
PRAISE FOR DANIEL STASHOWER
“A romp that cleverly combines history and legend, taking a few liberties with each. Mr. Stashower has done his homework... This is charming... it might have amused Conan Doyle.”
The New York Times
“In his first mystery, Stashower paired Harry Houdini and Sherlock Holmes to marvelous effect.”
Chicago Tribune
“Stashower’s clever adaptation of the Conan Doyle conventions—Holmes’s uncanny powers of observation and of disguise, the scenes and customs of Victorian life—makes it fun to read. Descriptions and explanations of some of Houdini’s astonishing magic routines add an extra dimension to this pleasant adventure.”
Publishers Weekly
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Cloak of Darkness Page 33
