Quiller Barracuda

by Adam Hall

  'It doesn't take a lot of imagination. But you ought to get that thought right out of your head. I've never been so close to a more attractive woman in my life.'

  'Look, I wasn't – '

  'I know.'

  'Well it's always nice to hear.' She looked away at the reef. 'He's dangerous, did you know that? I don't just mean to women.'

  'All I know is that he's in my debt.'

  'Owes you money?'

  'Yes.'

  'That's why you want to find him?'

  'Can you think of a better reason?'

  'No, but there might be one.' She put down her knife and fork. 'Did I pass?'

  'It was superb.'

  'You can thank my mother. Does it sound as if I'm always fishing for compliments?'

  'No, but women have to in a man's world.'

  'God's truth.' She began clearing the table. "There's some fruit in the fridge. Smoke if you want to. Are they friends of yours?'

  'Who?'

  'The people over there with the field glasses.'

  'In the launch?'

  'Yes.'

  'I hadn't noticed.'

  'I think you had.' She brought a bowl of peaches.

  'I don't want to sound cute, but with you diving for lobsters I'm not surprised there are some field glasses around.'

  'My God, that was the fifties. They do it, these days, they don't just look.'

  'Then they'll have to start just looking again.'

  'That's true. It's frightening.' She sliced a peach. 'I suppose it's a way of keeping the population down. Are you in the same kind of business?'

  'The same -?'

  'As George Proctor.'

  'Advertising, yes.'

  'You live in the States?'

  'No.'

  'So you're not interested in the election. These aren't ripe, I wouldn't bother.'

  'I don't know a lot about it, but I hope Judd gets in.'

  She looked up quickly. 'He's got to. Mathieson Judd is not to be underestimated. He's a statesman with a world view that we haven't seen since Nixon, and he's not a megalomaniac. He'll get in. He's got to get in.'

  She stopped, but I didn't say anything. She didn't want me to, wasn't looking at me: she'd withdrawn into herself. 'It's not just the Americans who are concerned, this time – the whole world's involved, and much more than usual when there's a change of administration here. I very much hope the Thatcher government realises what we've got in Mathieson Judd, because the outcome of this election's going to have a major effect on the UK.'

  Stopped again. I still didn't say anything. She was poising a short chopping-knife vertically above the peach-stone on her plate, holding it carefully and taking little stabs, trying to split it, I suppose; but then if I'd asked her what she was meant to be doing with it she wouldn't know, would even wonder who I was, what I was doing here. She looked psyched out, robotic.

  That area, the area of consciousness I was afraid of touching, exploring, was making demands on me now, moving right into the forefront of my mind, and I almost recoiled physically.

  Stab with the knife, chipping at the peach-stone. 'His understanding of the internecine struggle for power inside the Kremlin is infinitely deeper than we've seen before in any US president, thanks partly to the partial lifting of the veil by glasnost, sure, but Judd isn't missing a trick.'

  The short sea lapped at the sides of the boat, and a lanyard fretted in the wind. I didn't know if the launch had gone from the reef, wanted to know but didn't want to turn my head or do anything to break the silence, because I was into the zone of consciousness now, the one that made me afraid, and I lost the sense of time – the past and the present overlapped, leaving me in an eerie wilderness of the mind.

  Then the knife split the stone and she looked up at me with her eyes blank for a moment; then she focused, and said, "They're not ripe, are they?'

  'I don't know.'

  Glancing at my plate, 'You haven't tried.'

  So I made a gesture, and when I spoke again it was with the feeling of pulling the pin from a grenade. 'George Proctor feels the same way.'

  She frowned. 'I wouldn't know.'

  'He didn't talk to you about Mathieson Judd?'

  'God no.' With a hurt smile, 'that wasn't our relationship. Just heavy sex and… what I thought was love.'

  'Lucky escape,' I said. 'Think of it that way.' I got up and helped her clear the rest of the table.

  'Yes, but it's not so easy. Do you like my sharks?'

  'I was looking at them earlier.'

  'There's a special one out here somewhere.'

  'That you want to catch?'

  'That I want to kill.' She ran the tap in the small metal sink, brushing against me sometimes, still in the bikini, her skin tanned, copper-coloured in the light from the portholes, with a powdering of dried salt on her shoulders.

  'Isn't it the same thing?' Catch, kill.

  'No.' She looked up at the photographs on the bulkhead. 'It's one of those, a thresher. It took my father, here in these waters. I was there.'

  'When?'

  'Eighteen months ago. Eighteen months, a week and two days.'

  'How did it happen?' Talking about the tug, she'd said it had been the one great love of her father's life, except for me.

  'We were just off the reef over there. The anchor got fouled and he went overboard to free it. The shark saw him.'

  'I'm sorry.'

  'A whole pack. We hadn't seen them.' She dropped the last plate into the rack and dried her hands and turned away, padding on her bare feet to the shade of the awning, looking across at the launch and waving, turning back to face me, 'maybe they'll stop gawping now,' her green eyes wet as she said, 'have you ever seen anyone eaten alive?' Before I could think of anything to say, 'I'm sorry. It's okay now, really. We've come to an agreement.' She came towards me slowly, her face hard now. 'They won't come for me until I find him, the male thresher, and kill him, or try.'

  In the glare of the sun on the sea behind her she stood in silhouette, her short legs braced to the motion of the boat, her feet splayed a little and her arms hanging loose, her eyes alone catching the back-light from the portholes, glimmering in the dark of her skin. She looked primitive, naked, as she stood there speaking of primitive things.

  'I go to meet them, you see, whenever they're in these waters. I go and swim with them.'

  In a moment I said, 'Alone?'

  'I took a friend once, with a camera.'

  'This is you?' I was looking at the blow-up near the gallery, under the swinging lamp. 'In this one?'

  'Yes.'

  I'd noticed it before, and had meant to ask her about it because it looked unreal, surrealistic: the figure of the swimmer wasn't perfectly clear; it could be another shark, because of the surface reflection.

  'They won't attack, you see, if you swim the right way – unless of course they're hungry and then it doesn't matter what you do. But my Dad was making a lot of fuss with the anchor – we'd got no idea they were anywhere near the reef or he wouldn't have gone down. Oh Christ -' I went to hold her as she broke suddenly but she shook my hands away – 'I'm okay now, but sometimes I've got to talk about it to someone and it's your bad luck today, you see – because there was my Dad down there fooling around with that fucking anchor and then there was just a lot of blood on the surface, a lot of threshing about and then the blood, Christ, it was a beautiful red -' shaking and with her breath moaning – 'he was a beautiful man, he coloured the whole sea like a flag, like a banner,' sobbing now but still standing straight with her arms hanging by her sides, refusing to bring her hands to her face, 'and that was all I could see of him, all that was left, a sunset on the sea in the early morning light, and you know what I don't understand? I don't understand why in God's name I didn't just go over the rail into all that beautiful red, so he wouldn't be alone.' The tears bright on her dark face, 'so I wouldn't be alone.'

  The waves hit the boat and the lamp in the galley swung; the door of a berth creak
ed. After a time I said, 'A wonderful man.'

  'How do you know?' on a sob.

  'For you to have loved him so much.'

  She swung her head, her hair flying out – 'Love isn't enough, is it, not powerful enough, however big it is, it can't guarantee anything.' She turned and leaned her back to the bulkhead and the tension went out of her and she looked across the sea, across to the reef. 'A wonderful man, yes. It was just over there.'

  Where the short waves broke along the reef, tossing up flotsam. 'You can't keep away?'

  She turned her head quickly. 'I don't want to.' Looking across the sea again, 'that's where I swim with them, and that's where I'm going to find it, and kill it.'

  'How will you know which one it is?'

  'I'll know. We think words are all there is.' She came back into the shade. 'Writing, speaking, we think it's the only kind of communication. We talk about vibes, but we don't really understand how deep they go, how strong they are. When I see that one, touch it, I'll know.' She went and found some tissues.

  'Is this your father?'

  'Yes.'

  Laughing, in the photograph in the centre of the bulkhead, holding up a big fish, a tuna or something. A handsome man, not young but youthful, lean, tanned.

  'I'll make some coffee,' she said.

  'What time do you want to be back?'

  'Whenever you do.'

  'As soon as you like, then.'

  She came and leaned her head against me, closing her eyes. 'It was nice of you to listen to all that. Not that you could help it, captive audience.' Moving away, 'D'you know how to get an anchor up?'

  'Yes.'

  'Okay, I'll put the coffee on and start the diesel. You look after the winch.'

  More gulls now, and the din of a donkey-engine on the quay, the wail of a siren from deeper among the streets.

  'I'll try and find George Proctor for you,' she said, 'if you like.'

  'It'd be a great help.'

  'How much does he owe you? Or maybe I shouldn't – '

  'More than I'm ready to lose.'

  'I can't promise anything.' She brought the engine down to slow and span the helm; she'd put on the khaki shorts again, with a sweater over the tee shirt; there'd been a cool breeze off the sea. She was easy in her movements, capable, in charge of herself, not the sort of woman who'd try killing a man-eating shark out of revenge.

  I asked her, 'Why is he dangerous?'

  She watched me for a moment, wondering, I think, whether to tell me. 'The last time I was in his flat, I was just leaving when the phone rang, so I told him I'd see myself out, and he went back to answer it. He couldn't see the door from where he was, and I stayed a minute to listen, to see who it was. It's not the sort of thing -' she shrugged – 'but I'd started to think there was "someone else", as they say. But it wasn't a woman. You can tell, can't you, even when they don't say their names, whether a man's speaking to another man or a woman?' She swung the helm hard over and shifted to full astern.

  'Can you make a line fast round a capstan?'

  'Yes.' The launch hadn't followed us in but it had left the reef and was moving towards the marina further along the shore. 'So what was he saying?'

  'I don't remember much, really, because it obviously wasn't a woman. But I know he said something about "going over". "They suspect I've gone over", something like that.'

  A gull swooped, screaming, sighting flotsam.

  'Anything else?'

  She glanced up at me from the line: something in my tone. 'Was that important? He mentioned an embassy, "your embassy", I think. The reason why I think he's dangerous is that he sounded like that, on the phone. You know how his voice can sometimes sound sort of – I don't know – menacing? Goes sort of silky. It always gave me the shivers. And there was a name he used, I remember now. It was Victor. Look, we're set up – would you jump down and catch the line? It'll save me whistling for someone.'

  I dropped onto the quay and waited. Not Victor. Viktor. There was a phone on the tug but I didn't want to use that one. I'd have to find a booth as soon as I could and do it in private, signal Ferris: Proctor has been turned. Contact's first name, Viktor, at the Soviet Embassy.

  Chapter 6: LIMBO

  There was the long black weatherboard wall of a wharf on the right side and a row of capstans on the other side with the sheer drop to the water just beyond them and when I gunned up the rear wheels met a wet patch and slewed and sent the front end smashing through a stack of fish crates and I did what I could to get back on track before I killed someone but it wasn't easy because I was crouched as low as I could below the seat squab because they'd probably try again.

  Pickup truck on the left and I grazed the side and tore some metal away, someone shouting, a two-tone cab pulling out from the gap between the wharves but keeping its distance as I pulled the rear end straight and looked for a clear passage but there wasn't one – three or four people with bags and fishing rods were walking down from the street and I hit the brakes and we slid and I let them off but the speed was still too high and I chose the only way out that wouldn't hurt anyone and put the car between a capstan and a rusting trailer and flexed the seat belt to make sure it was tight and then they tried again and after that there was just a lot of metal screaming as we ricocheted and hit the trailer at ten degrees and dragged the wings off and the car windows on that side burst into snow and we bounced and corrected and hit the rear end of a private car and swung it round, glass smashing again and the pop of a tyre bursting and then there was a shed straight in front of me and at this speed it was going to be a jolt and I sank lower into the seat and settled the belt again and waited with my foot hard down on the brake and the tyres shrilling across the concrete.

  Hit the shed with an explosion and the daylight got shut off and the impact pitched me at an angle but I was ready for that because of the belt's diagonal and I used my right hand against the facia as the deceleration phase came in and there was the ripping of metal again and then flames bursting in the dark with an orange light and I was feeling for the belt release and the door handle but it was going to be awfully close because we'd hit some kind of flammable tank and all I could see was a mass of bright orange.

  Waves of heat now and I got the door open and dropped and crawled to the rear of the car because we'd come straight through the wall and I wouldn't have to look for a door, but the fuel tank was at the rear and I got across the ground as fast as I could with the heat washing down across my back.

  Someone yelling, In there? something like that, broken glass under my hands and I shifted them, pulling my legs after me, a face staring from the near distance with the eyes shielded by the hands, a man shouting again, Get you or something and then I was into the daylight, Roll over, roll over, roll! Clothes on fire presumably, then hands grabbed me and the face was close and the mouth said Barracuda.

  Rolling and rolling and his hands beating at me, 'Okay now, that's it.'

  'Get me clear,' I told him, 'I don't want the police.'

  'I don't think there's time.' I could hear a siren from somewhere quite close, or maybe it was echoing off a wall.

  'You've got to cover me and get me out.'

  He turned away and I could see the two-tone cab turning broadside on to the flames and I crawled that way through the debris until the man turned and said, 'Wait – wait there.'

  I couldn't see anyone else in the area because the whole shed was crackling and there were beams coming down and sending out sparks and I had to crawl further into the open but I kept my face down because I'd have to go to ground at this stage and hole up and work things out but that bloody siren was closer now and it didn't look as if -

  'Come on – in here!' A man grabbing for me in the black rolling smoke. 'Make it quick!'

  The door of the cab had swung open and I went for it with the man helping me because my eyes were streaming. 'Show them the bullet holes,' I told him, 'two of them from the rear – bullet holes, you got that?'

  'Got it.
' He slung me into the cab. 'Keep right down.'

  'Listen,' I said, 'this is for Ferris, immediate. Proctor's been turned by the Soviets.' Said it again because of the choking, I wanted to make sure. 'Got that?'

  'Yes, I've got that,' he said and slammed the door shut and told the driver to move it.

  Throat still raw, kept drinking water.

  Decker, name of the driver, one of ours, a Bureau cab – Ferris had kept it standing off with Decker on the peep even though I'd told him I did not want support. I'd sent Decker away after he'd brought new clothes for me and taken the old ones, old, Christ they were more than old, more like the coat off a scarecrow after a lightning strike.

  The phone rang and I picked it up.

  'Who?… All right.'

  Cardinal rule: we can't refuse.

  There were two windows, north and west, because this was a corner room, and while I was waiting I took a look from both of them – the airport control tower a couple of miles away and some three-storey buildings nearer than that with billboards, United Overnight To These Ten Cities, Marlboro For Those Who Like To Smoke, Coors Is The Champion, no windows overlooking mine at a distance of less than fifty feet on the north, thirty on the west, a man in the doorway near the bus stop and another one at the corner and two more on the north side twenty yards apart and looking in shop windows and of course there'd be more of them on the south side of the hotel where the entrance was, prisoner of bloody Zenda but they weren't there only to give me moving cover whenever I left; they were also scanning the environment for possible pollution: field glasses behind windows or the hump of a magnum with a laser sight or an infrared night lens, so forth.

  They would also note any opposition peeps standing off in the environment or coming into the hotel, leaving it, hanging around, it was ironic, if you will, that the first thing I always ask for at the start of a new show is that Ferris should direct me in the field, and here he was blocking me in with so much support that I wouldn't be able to move without saluting the troops.