Krysalis: Krysalis (47 page)
“So tell me.”
“One. H.M.S.
Danae
is on her way to maneuvers off Crete when her sonar picks up a sub. Engine signature and wave configurations tell her officer of the watch it’s a Russian Tango patrol class—old, noisy, identifiable. Pure chance?”
Hayes shrugged. “Okay,
Danae
was lucky. So?”
“So second, Russian submarines do cruise the Med, and they normally manage to do it without causing the Admiralty’s officer of the day to have hysterics.”
“Not while Krysalis is off and running, they don’t,” Hayes said. “The course the sub was on would have taken it straight toward Kithira, ready for a turn into the Ionian.”
“If
it did not change course. And since we’ve lost contact with her—”
“Yeah, I get the picture. But it’s all we’ve got, isn’t it? Eastern Europe’s one big yawnsville. Everyone’s gone for the summer,
except
the crew of that submarine. Now if she is heading for an r.d. near Corfu, she’ll be there tonight. And that gives us maybe twelve hours, maybe less. So what do you plan to do?”
“The Greek navy has agreed—”
Hayes rolled his eyes. “Oh, Jesus, tell me you’re kidding.”
“No joke. I am to be the guest of the Greek navy, which is cooperating on the orders of its government. I imagine you’re in the same … boat.” Albert raised an eyebrow, awaiting a reaction, but none came. “It would help, of course, if this woman lawyer, this Robyn with the unpronounceable surname, would come clean about Kleist and his villa.”
“We tried everything. She genuinely does not know the name of that house.”
“Surely she must remember how to get to it?”
“She says not. Can’t even remember the island’s name, there are so many around those parts.”
No, that was wrong. There were very few, as Hayes would have realized if he’d taken the trouble to scan a map. Albert could imagine himself falling in love with a lady psychotherapist and spending an idyllic month or so at her villa on a Greek island. He could not imagine failing to find out the island’s name. But the woman whose grandfather had walked off the boat from Poland and run slap into one of the few immigration officers able to spell, she wasn’t talking.
David knew where Anna had gone, Albert felt sure. His eyes strayed to the briefcase under the seat in front of him. He had the measure of Anna Lescombe, now, but her husband could yet prove tiresome….
Albert liked Corfu on sight: dry sunshine that was truly hot, whiteness that without exaggeration could be called brilliant, scents that he nearly knew, not quite. He had only two items of luggage, the briefcase and a long metal box, but his left hand still stung, his
body was full of antibiotics, and he was pleased when somebody came to smooth a path through customs.
Their host was waiting for them in the car park. The vehicle looked like a typical camping trailer, slightly larger than the norm; but as Albert approached he noticed an aerial on the roof and saw that the windows of the back cabin had been screened with newspaper. Although the occupants might have been trying to protect themselves from the heat while they took a siesta, he doubted whether that was really so.
Inside the trailer there seemed to be hordes of people and only one electric fan, which was troublesome, especially since the phalanx of wall-to-wall radio equipment gave out a lot of heat and everybody smoked. But as Albert and Hayes entered, a number of men went out to make room for them. In the end, only one was left. He half rose from his folding seat behind a table cluttered with maps, and extended his hand.
“How are you? Vassili. Deputy Director KYP Implementation Group, Department Two.”
When he offered no surname, Albert began to feel comfortable. As he introduced Hayes he managed to take a good look at the Greek, liking what he saw.
Vassili was in his fifties, with more thick black hair than a man of that age had a right to, and a chubby, smiling face. He wore a short-sleeved khaki shirt and lightweight trousers of the same material, ringed with a gold-buckled belt. The resulting military air was slightly spoiled by the wide-holed vest visible at his open collar. He wore a diver’s Rolex on a metal strap, which puzzled Albert, because he knew how irritating that would be for someone with so much hair on his arms. Perhaps Vassili had scant regard for life’s niggles.
“There’s not a lot I can do,” he said in excellent
English. “But you are welcome to what I have. I spoke to Jeremy Shorrocks as you were leaving London, so I am, you might say, ‘in the picture.’ Not a pretty one. Smoke?”
Albert and Hayes shook their heads. Vassili took out a black cigarette holder, inserted a Papastratos and lit up. “We cannot find your Russian submarine,” he went on. “And we cannot find your Mr. Kleist.”
“Well, shit,” said Hayes. “He’s resident here. Surely the police—”
“Greek law,” Albert broke in, “prohibits the ownership of land in frontier territories by foreigners. Am I right, Vassili?”
The Greek responded with a massive shrug, lifting his shoulders and hands together. His smile revealed a lot of gold and a lot more nicotine. “It’s so. Many foreigners get around it by using Greek friends, Greek companies, on their certificates of title. Down in Athens, they are hunting. But …” Again the theatrical shrug.
The fan siphoned smoke from his cigarette, wreathing it around their heads. Occasionally one of the radios would squawk a babble of Greek, which Vassili consistently ignored.
“But what about the police? They must know him. I mean, the guy has to register or something …?”
“Most foreigners never bother. Certainly no one called Kleist ever did.”
“But some cop has to have seen him, he’s been coming here for years.”
“Mr. Hayes …” Vassili stubbed out his cigarette in a tin lid and removed the filter tip from his holder, “there is a great film I once saw. In English, perhaps I should say in American. Its name is
Witness.
You saw
it too, perhaps? A man loses himself inside the Amish community. The local police can’t find him, because it would mean searching maybe thousands of small farms and they don’t have the resources, a thing that the city police could not understand. But I understood, because the Greek islands are like that. Each summer, thousands of foreigners come and go. Policemen too come and go. Your inquiry was made very late. No doubt you had your reasons for that. And I can assure you we are looking.”
A long speech, really, his shrug said it all.
“I need to ask you a question,” Vassili went on. “Lescombe will soon apply to enter Greece. What do you want to do about that?”
“Let him in.” Albert spoke decisively, and Vassili nodded.
“I assumed that would be the case,” he said. “You want to tail him, see which of the ferries he catches.”
“Why a ferry?” Hayes asked. “Why shouldn’t his wife be right here, on Corfu?”
Vassili waved a hand, dismissing the proposition. “Our resources are limited, yes, but Corfu is a cosmopolitan place and the police are efficient. We can assure you, neither Kleist nor Anna Lescombe is on Corfu.”
“I’d rather you didn’t tail him,” Albert said. “I don’t want him scared. You needn’t worry, I’ll be looking after him. I want to talk to Lescombe.”
“You
what?”
Hayes was half out of his seat. “Now you just listen to me—”
“No,” Albert said. “You listen. I’ve made contact with this man. He trusts me—or at least, he did. I think he’ll talk to me. If I’m right, we can short-circuit this thing.”
“But the guy isn’t stupid! Once he sees you, he’ll
know there’s bound to be others, that he’s being followed. Hell, look what happened in Washington!”
“Yes.” Albert flicked something off his knee. “Oh yes indeed.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“That you fluffed it, it’s our turn, and we’re prepared to back our judgment against yours.”
Hayes found himself looking through the palely tinted spectacles into a perfectly still pair of eyes.
“You’re wrong. You are as far out of line as it’s possible to be and stay in the ballpark. Lescombe is going to lead us straight to his wife, Kleist, and Krysalis in one neat bundle. And you—”
“Lescombe gave Washington’s finest the slip. So it’s time to add another string to the bow.” Seeing Hayes about to speak, Albert raised a hand. “Sorry.”
Vassili lowered the emotional temperature a few degrees by saying, “You still have an hour or so. Let’s go into town, get some lunch.”
“Thanks,” Albert said, “but I’d like to catch up on my reading.” He tapped the briefcase with Anna’s case notes inside. “You go,” he said to Hayes.
He was surprised when the American accepted the invitation. And then, as he watched him get into the front seat of Vassili’s car, he was suddenly overwhelmed by a conviction that letting Hayes out of his sight would turn out to be a crucial mistake. He waved, broke into a run … but the car was already at the car-park exit, heading for town.
Suddenly Albert knew in his gut why Hayes had come to Corfu. Redman didn’t intend to part with thirty thousand pounds, so he’d ordered his own hatchet man to kill David Lescombe. And maybe—Albert swore out loud—Anna as well.
38
Anna was still asleep when Gerhard again began his shift just before dawn on Monday morning. Barzel, who’d kept the previous watch, stayed with him, obviously mistrustful of his former colleague. But Barzel’s face was haggard; he could scarcely keep his eyes open after so many hours of vigilance. Before long he had nodded off in a chair beside Anna’s bed.
Gerhard gave him twenty minutes to sink into deep slumber before tiptoeing out, to find Stange snoring away in the kitchen.
Anna awoke as the room started to turn gray. Someone was shaking her. “No,” she moaned, and a hand settled across her mouth. She opened her eyes to see Gerhard standing over her, his gun half-raised. After a second of immobility she began to struggle.
“Hush!” he hissed in her ear. “I’m going to
help
you.
Please
be quiet … please.” He pointed at the chair. Anna looked, saw Barzel, and understood.
She lay still while she analyzed the messages her
brain was sending out. Her limbs were stiff and useless; a headache tortured the backs of her eyes, blurring vision. She tried counting up to ten, then simple multiplication sums. She functioned, not brilliantly, but well enough.
Then she remembered: David was dead.
“Don’t give up hope,” Gerhard whispered, as if reading her thoughts. “You can’t believe anything Barzel tells you.
Trust me.”
Her mind was flashing a message, on and off, on and off, like a neon sign. Trust him … don’t trust him … trust him … if this really did represent a chance to escape, it would be her last. So she could not afford to make any mistakes. What should she do?
“Will you promise to be quiet?” he breathed in her ear, and Anna nodded.
“Get up,” he commanded in the same low voice.
Very cautiously, so as to avoid making the slightest sound, she tried to bend one knee. But her body, out of action for so long, did not find it easy to come back to life. Agonizing pins and needles shot through her leg from ankle to groin. It took her three attempts before the knee was straight. She looked at Gerhard. He nodded encouragement.
Now the other knee. This time it came easier, because she was expecting the pain before it could shock her. Both knees bent.
Good!
If she could only get them horizontal again….
When she was once again lying flat she slowly drew her hands up the bed until they would go no further. The circulation was restoring itself, every move she made seemed less of an effort than the previous one. Using her right hand she stuffed the sheet into her
mouth, to stifle any cry she might make. Then she pushed down on the mattress and tried to sit up.
The room spun around her, nausea swamped her stomach, she bit on the sheet for all she was worth. Blood throbbed through her temples at a frightening rate; she felt the arteries must surely burst. But no, she was sitting up, both arms at full stretch, while Gerhard smiled enthusiastic encouragement.
Anna massaged her legs beneath the sheet until she felt she could move without falling over. Then she slipped her feet sideways onto the floor and, resting her weight on her hands, struggled to the vertical. For several minutes she stood still, waiting for her body to adjust. She took a tentative step forward, quickly followed by another. She could walk!
What next …? She looked at Gerhard, silently beseeching him to tell her what to do. He pointed at her dress, flung on the floor the previous day, and Anna picked it up.
“Can’t go out by the terrace,” he whispered, pointing to the windows. “Locked. The kitchen …”
Once in the passage she pulled on her dress. Gerhard took her by the hand. “Stange is in there,” he said softly. “Don’t worry, he’s asleep.”
“Gerhard,” she whispered, holding him back. “You have a gun. Can’t you shoot them? Or at least cosh them unconscious, so they won’t wake up for a long time?”
He stared at her. “Could
you?”
Anna realized that she couldn’t. “Sorry.”
“But I can use the gun to hold them here, if they wake up before you’ve escaped.”