Agent in Place (37 page)

And that reminded Auguste. “If you see him down by the road,” he called back from the doorway, “send him packing up here. He has a full day’s work ahead of him tomorrow.”

The door closed, and Tony stepped into the Renault. For a moment, his eyes rested on the glove-compartment. It was just possible that the alert was in force, and there could be police checks on all drivers and their cars in this area tonight. He opened the compartment and placed Georges’s Beretta inside, everything nicely legal, for the ride to Menton.

Quietly, he started the car, drove out of the yard and down the Roquebrune road, back to the Old Town.

The all-night vigil ended at five o’clock when the final message was received from Brussels.

“All set,” Georges said, coming over to the bed where Tony had been having one of his periodic cat-naps.

At once Tony was awake and on his feet. “They’ve agreed?”

“More or less. Some advice, of course. And one alteration.”

“What?” Tony shot out.

“Their cabin cruiser is in the fourteen-metre—”

“Forty-six feet, almost? That’s something. How many knots?”

“Over thirty.”

“That’s about thirty-five miles an hour, more than three times the speed of the
Sea Breeze
,” said Tony. “So what’s the reason for any change in plans?”

“The length and bulk of the
Aurora
.”

“I like her name.” But Tony was beginning to see the problem.

“She has ample room for our party and her three-man crew, but that size would be difficult to manoeuvre inside the anchorage. It might be a very delayed departure.”

Tony nodded. The harbour was small, and jammed with boats. “So what do they suggest?”

“That we board the
Aurora
where she is now docked—in the
port privé
at the other end of Garavan Bay. It’s big, three times as big as the harbour. Can hold eight hundred boats in its private anchorage, another two hundred in the public section. Actually, it’s more convenient for us—quicker to reach from Bill’s house.”

Tony’s voice was clipped. “And just how do we persuade Parracini to accept this change?” Our whole plan will end before it begins, he thought, if Parracini’s suspicions start being ruffled.

Georges laughed. “That, they said, was for you to work out.”

“Very funny.” For once, Tony’s sense of humour failed him. “And what about that escort?” he asked, bracing himself for more complications.

“Provided.”

“We got it?” Tony’s surprise changed to delight. Old friend Jimmy Hartwell had really pushed and pulled. “We actually—”

“Yes, you got what you wanted.”

The two men looked at each other. “Then let’s see what we can do with it,” said Tony. Together, smiling broadly, they moved over to the table.

* * *

The next half-hour was an organised jumble of big and little things to be done, all of them necessary. While Georges dismantled his equipment and turned it back into innocuous objects, Tony burned the clutter of notes and scraps of paper in a metal basin, after he had memorised some last details—the
Aurora
’s exact position in the
port privé
; the name of Vincent, their chief contact in the crew; radio signals for communication. Coffee was brewed and drunk while they drew up their timetable for this morning. They washed and smartened up, finished the coffee, and went over their schedule once more.

Outside, it was still dark, with only a hint of diffused light spreading from the east. “Time to call Emil,” Tony said. “We’ll give him a pre-dawn swim.”

“You mean you are actually serious about—”

“Better to look foolish than be stupid.” Tony pulled out the transceiver and called in the
Sea Breeze
. Emil was awake. A peaceful night—no actual approach made to the boat. Two men had patrolled the mole. They had been quite obvious, making no effort to hide themselves from the
Sea Breeze
. Two of ours?

“Yes, could be. Possibly Bill’s men trying to reassure you. And you heard nothing at all? Not even the lapping of the mere?”

Emil, not a literary type, was puzzled but definite. “Nothing.”

“All right. Let’s take out some insurance. Get into your wet-suit and slip over the side. Examine the hull—keel—rudder—every damn thing under the water-line. How quickly can you do all that? Twenty minutes? Less? Good: get started before the light strengthens. Call us back.”

Tony switched off, saw Georges’s amused eye studying him. “Need something to do? Then listen to the weather reports.” He himself walked restlessly around the room and then went out on to the small balcony for a few breaths of cold dank air. The sky was slowly turning a bleached black, banded with grey at the horizon. The last of night lingered over the lighted harbour. There the
Sea Breeze
nestled cosily with the other boats, all at rest, everything tranquil. Looking down at her, watching for any sign of Emil—nothing to see, Emil was good at his job, as slippery as a seal—Tony was already working out his own immediate problem: Parracini’s tender suspicions.

As the grey of the horizon, softly, surely seeped into the sky, like water over a river-bank, Tony returned to the room. “It looks calm enough out there. Some clouds, but nothing threatening. What’s the forecast?”

“Bright sun. Cool. And possibly heavy winds from the south-east this afternoon. But we’ll be in Nice before then.”

“With luck.” Tony picked up the telephone and dialled Bill’s number—not his private line, just the ordinary one that would ring at his bedside and rouse him from sleep. He kept his call brief, once he had Bill fully awake. “I’ll drop in to see you this morning. In half an hour? No, nothing is wrong: everything’s fine. I just want to go over your timetable, make sure that it matches ours. Meet me down at the gates, will you? A walk in the garden will be just what I need—to work up an appetite for breakfast. Yes, at the gates. See you.”

“Cryptic,” said Georges. “Giving nothing away. Just like your call to him last night.”

“Had to be.”

“Why? Do you think his telephones are bugged? But Bill’s no fool. He makes a regular check on them—a matter of routine.”

“And on nothing else?”

“The whole place was thoroughly gone over before Bill and Nicole arrived there. Oh, come on, Tony. Parracini must know about Bill’s regular checks—he wouldn’t risk a bug in a ’phone.”

“What about a small listening device in the calendar on Bill’s desk—or in the blotter? Or how about a lamp-bulb with sensitive filaments, near every telephone?”

“Very specialised stuff. Where would Parracini get—oh, I see.” Georges was conscious of Tony’s raised eyebrow. “From his kind friends in Menton? But still... Does Parracini know enough about installing sophisticated devices? That wasn’t his line of business.”

“It doesn’t take much know-how to screw a light-bulb into a socket.”

“No, but it takes someone constantly monitoring. Parracini couldn’t sit around in his room all day, listening—”

“There could be a monitor installed in a near-by house on the Garavan hillside.”

It was a disturbing thought. Georges had no comment.

Tony said, “Look—they must be guarding Parracini as closely as possible. He’s too important. And they’ve had time to arrange all necessary precautions.”

Georges nodded. “One thing has been puzzling me. Surely he must have radio contact with Gorsky; so why did he have to meet him? Why even meet Nealey at the market yesterday morning?”

“I’ve been thinking about that too. There could be two very different reasons why he had to meet either of them. Nealey—because Nealey was handing him something more solid than a verbal message: one of your sophisticated gadgets, perhaps? Gorsky—because Parracini had been moved out of his cosy corner over the garage into a room next to Bernard’s and Brigitte’s. Perhaps he could only risk a very quick message on his transceiver, giving time and place for a meeting and important instructions. Possible?”

“Very possible.” Georges smiled as he added, “How he must have cursed Bill for moving him into the main house. No privacy for anyone these days.”

And then all their speculations ended with Emil’s signal. Tony answered it.

Emil’s usually placid voice was uneven and hurried. Tony listened quietly. “Put it together again, can you? Just as it was. Stow it on deck—some place unnoticeable but reachable. Don’t worry, the
Sea Breeze
will be safe as long as she is in harbour. So there’s no danger to anyone. I’ll join you well before eleven. Get ready to move out by then, Emil. Yes, you and I—we can handle her, can’t we?” A laugh that was genuine, a cheerful goodbye, and the exchange was over.

Georges said slowly, “He found something?”

Tony nodded. “It was taped to the starboard side of the hull, near the engines. He detached it, examined it. There was no time-mechanism, just a remote-control device.”

“And you told him to put the damned thing together—”

“We can always heave it overboard once we are far enough offshore.”

“Now, Tony,” Georges began warningly.

“Mustn’t keep Bill waiting.” Tony looked at his watch, moved towards the door. “All clear here?” Together they gave the room one last quick check.

“All clear.” Georges locked the door behind them, and they made their way down the staircase into the narrow street.

* * *

The Renault began climbing the twists and turns up the hill above Garavan Bay. It was a heavily wooded area, with a spread of houses and gardens hidden by walls and trees, dark, silent, mysterious in the sombre light between night and day. Bill’s place was as secluded as the others on this narrow road, but he was standing outside the gates to make sure Tony could identify it easily. So Georges’s arguments were cut short. Why, he had insisted, couldn’t he join Emil and Tony on the
Sea Breeze
once he had brought Gerard and the others from Nice, seen them safely aboard the
Aurora
? By that time he would have briefed them thoroughly.

“No,” Tony said as they came round one of the sharp turns and saw Bill ahead. “One of us has to stay with Gerard and his travelling companions. We know what’s been happening here; we know the arrangements. They don’t. That’s it, Georges. You’ve got to stick close—all the way. To Brussels. You’re in charge, actually, but don’t let Gerard notice it.” The Renault drew up. Tony had the door open. “Good luck, old boy. See you next week.” He was out, shaking hands with Bill, entering the gates with a last wave towards the car.

Georges drove on uphill to reach the highroad along the crest of Garavan. Tony was right, of course: Gerard would need a lot of extra details to persuade him to follow Tony’s plan without adding some variations of his own. Better not say it is Tony’s plan, Georges decided, not until we reach Brussels. Better let him think we have been following Commander James Hartwell’s instructions right from the beginning. And so to Nice airport. And to a most exacting cross-examination from three razor-blade minds, once they came out of shock. In Tony’s words, dicey, very dicey.

He put Tony out of his thoughts, concentrated on what he would say and how best he could tell it.

* * *

“Did my ’phone call waken the household?” Tony asked as Bill closed the gates behind them.

“Left them all sleeping. Who was that in the car with you—Georges? Why didn’t he stop off, say hello?”

“He’s on his way to the Nice airport.”

“Early, isn’t he?”

“Wants to make sure he arrives in time.”

“He’s a bright boy. Easy to work with.”

“That’s Georges,” said Tony. Looking at Bill’s handsome and honest face—oh yes, he could be as devious as the best of them, but basically Bill was a straightforward, no-nonsense-about-me type—Tony began thinking back to Georges’s remarks. About Parracini and sophisticated bugging devices that he could manage to install without much specialised knowledge. But what had he used to overhear Bill’s conversations? Because, Tony reminded himself, not all talk was made over a telephone. Apart from devices in set places, like a desk or a night-table, what the bloody hell did Parracini use to listen to Bill having a private word with Nicole on the terrace, or with Bernard in the garden? Or even to conversations like this one, with Bill now suggesting they’d head for the kitchen and rustle up some breakfast?

“Sounds good,” Tony said. The house was about a hundred yards away. Not far enough, he thought unhappily. “Let’s walk a little. I need the fresh air. Cooped up most of the night. You’ve a lot of garden here. How far does it stretch?”

“About five acres. We’ve kept a flower-bed or two near the terrace and pool, but all this—” Bill pointed to hedges and trees that sheltered elaborately-shaped plots—“we just let go. Too much work for Bernard.” Then, as Tony took the nearest brick path, leading away from the villa itself, Bill said, “You didn’t haul me out of bed to talk about horticulture. What’s your problem?”

At this moment, thought Tony, you are. I’ve got a rising suspicion that Parracini knew your telephone rang, is now up and around, and listening to every word we say. “Two things,” he replied. “The engine trouble we had on the
Sea Breeze
, and the weather.”

“Thought you had got the engine fixed.”

“We are still working on it. Oh, it’s safe enough, unless we run into any strong weather. The latest reports are predicting a possible south-easter by this afternoon. And that’s not a pleasing prospect, Bill, with an engine you can’t depend on.”

“Then the cruise idea is off.”

“No. It’s too good a security measure to pass up. But the cruise may have to be cut short if the weather prophets are right As soon as the wind freshens too much, we can easily slip into the nearest harbour before anyone starts feeling queasy. Wouldn’t want Gerard to be sea-sick, would we?”

“Gerard? Is he coming, too?”

“That’s the word this morning. He’s got some news for Parracini. A job with NATO—did you hear about it?”

“No.”

“Nor I, until Georges cued me in.”

“Does Parracini know? If so, why the hell didn’t he tell me?”

“Well, it wasn’t definite until Gerard pulled some strings and used his powers of persuasion. But it’s all set. One caution, Bill: let Gerard break the good news to Parracini. That’s Gerard’s pet project, you know. He really will be hopping mad if we jump in ahead of him.”