Mambo (32 page)

Trevaskis, whose gaunt features appeared ghostly in the odd flickering light, pretended he saw nothing. “They want you at the airstrip. Something about opening a box.”

Ruhr got up from the camp bed. “Have you no goddam manners?” he asked. He pronounced “goddam” as “gottdam”.

Trevaskis glanced down at Stephanie Brough, then looked at Ruhr. “Don't blame me. I'm only the messenger. They told me to fetch you. Here I am. Fetching. They need you because they have to open the box. Whatever that means.”

Ruhr laid the palm of his hand upon the girl's face. “Don't move,” he said. “Don't even think of moving. Is that understood?”

Ruhr stepped impatiently toward the doorway and out of the tent into darkness. He could see in the lights around the airstrip the C-130's ramp being lowered. He stood very still and watched the great shadow of the missile emerge from the underbelly of the transport plane. It had a hardness of line, a cleanliness of form. Incomplete as yet, it required his knowledge, his touch, to make it perfect. The mood with the girl was ruined for the moment anyway. Later it could be recreated.

Trevaskis came out of the tent, closing the flap at his back. He followed Ruhr a little way in the direction of the airstrip. Then he walked in another direction, entering a dark place where the trees grew close together. Ruhr kept going towards the plane. Trevaskis doubled back toward the tent. He undid the flap. The girl was sitting on the bed, her skirt smoothed down over her knees and her blouse buttoned up. She turned her face towards him. She was white and scared – but how the hell was she supposed to look, Trevaskis wondered, after the sicko had been at her?

Trevaskis said, “Get the hell out of here. Now.”

“Where can I go?” she asked.

“Look, you got two choices. You stay here, you die. No two ways about it. Don't kid yourself. You go out there, you at least got a chance.”

“What kind of chance?”

Trevaskis said, “Five per cent better than slim.”

Steffie, who didn't need time to think, got up from the bed. Trevaskis held the tent open for her. She ducked her head under his arm; the night was vast and hostile.

“Kid,” Trevaskis said, and he pointed. “Go that way. You don't run into any tents over there. Keep going in the direction I'm pointing. I think there's a highway over there. Five miles, something like that. I'm not sure. But it's your best shot.”

Five miles through an unfamiliar environment. For a moment the lamp that flickered against the walls of the tent seemed positively cheerful. For God's sake, how could she even think of staying? She turned away from Trevaskis and, saying nothing, not knowing whether to thank him, headed through the trees. She must have strayed from the narrow path because immediately the foliage was dense all around her, and suffocating, like the greenery of some nightmare.

Strange forms reached out to her, tendrils brushed her arms, something small and furry flew directly at her forehead. And the night
clicked
all around her. Strange insect sounds came out of the underbush and the places where ancient roots gathered around her ankles. It was too much; too terrifying.

Frightened, she stopped. She looked back. Trevaskis was standing beside the tent, his shape outlined by the flame of kerosene. Ruhr, half-crouching, conjured out of the night, appeared behind him. Steffie saw Ruhr's arm rise in the air, then fall swiftly, an indistinct brush-stroke. Trevaskis cried out, doubled over, slid to his knees. And then she couldn't see him any more.

She turned and tried to claw her way through the foliage. She froze when the beam of the flashlight struck her. She could hear Ruhr breathing as he came toward her.

“He thought I was stupid enough to leave you without supervision,” Ruhr said. “Do you also think me stupid, little girl?”

He caught her by the hair and yanked her head back. The blade of his knife, wet with Trevaskis' blood, was thrust against the side of her neck.

Gunther Ruhr smiled. “I am disappointed.”

Steffie Brough couldn't speak.

Tommy Fuentes watched the missile, mounted on the bed of the truck, come down the ramp under the guidance of the aeroplane's crew members, men anxious to be gone from this Honduran paradise. The cylinder rolled slowly a couple of feet on the concrete, then stopped. A small Toyota truck drew up very carefully alongside the missile. The tail-gate was lowered, and the wooden crate that had been delivered by Levy and Possony was carried out by three soldiers. They set the box down about six feet from the missile.

Fuentes trained a flashlight on the crate and two soldiers held lanterns.

“Where is Ruhr?” Fuentes asked.

Bosanquet said, “It appears that our German friend has all the worst traits of his race. Arrogance and a complete indifference to any timetable but one of his own choosing.”

Fuentes impatiently tapped the handle of his sword and turned his face to look in the direction of Ruhr's tent. Perhaps when he'd had his fun with the unfortunate girl and then disposed of her, the German genius would condescend to come down to the airstrip and do what he'd been paid for.

After all, the ship that would carry the missile to Cuba was due to arrive within twenty-four hours.

London

A deceptive autumnal sun hung over London, a hazy disc that chilled the city more than it warmed it. At eight a.m. Sir Freddie Kinnaird stepped from his limousine in Golden Square and entered the building that housed Frank Pagan's operation. In the lobby he passed a uniformed policeman, who saluted him briskly, then he rode in the old-fashioned lift to the top floor.

He entered Pagan's office without knocking. He considered it his prerogative as Home Secretary to go wherever he liked within his jurisdiction. He often contrived to conceal this presumptuous attitude with a certain upper-class charm. His style in Savile Row suits had made him, according to a frivolous magazine, the ninth best-dressed bachelor in Britain last year. If Sir Freddie Kinnaird had been a book, he would have been on the best-seller lists.

Today he wore a charcoal-grey overcoat with a discreet velvet collar. Pagan, who lay on the sofa, turned his face drowsily towards the man. “Sir Freddie,” he managed to say. “What a surprise.”

“No need to get up, Frank. Just passing. Thought I'd drop in and see how things stand.”

Pagan's shirt was undone. A bandage, applied some hours ago by Foxworth, was visible around his chest. He raised himself into a sitting position and looked at Freddie Kinnaird, whose face had been reddened by the cold morning air.
How things stand
, Freddie Kinnaird had said. Well, one of the things that
wasn't
standing was Pagan himself, who had lain crookedly in sleep and now massaged the sides of his aching legs, his knotted muscles.

“What news, Frank?” Sir Freddie said, glancing at the silk-screen on the wall, then surveying the chaos of the office, the litter that had missed the basket, the coffee cups, the stained saucers, the crumpled, fast-food wrappers.

Pagan got to his feet, poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot that had been on a hot-plate for God knows how long. “The investigation chugs along,” he said.

“How does it chug, and where?” Kinnaird asked.

“With all due respect, Sir Freddie, the details are being kept confidential in light of what happened in Shepherd's Bush.” Pagan sipped the coffee, which was the most vile fluid that had ever passed his lips. Stewed did not describe it. He fought a certain turmoil in his stomach. “Any information you want must come to you directly from Martin Burr. That's the Commissioner's rule. Access is strictly limited. We don't want any more leaks, obviously.”

“Admirable security,” Sir Freddie remarked brightly. “Naturally, Martin keeps me informed on a daily basis. I simply thought I might drop in and see if there were any recent developments that may not have reached the Commissioner's desk yet. The overnight stuff. The low-down, as they say. This whole business has caused me quite considerable anxiety, as I'm sure you'll understand.”

Pagan smiled agreeably. He set his cup down and buttoned his shirt. “Martin Burr knows all, Sir Freddie. Everything that happens in this office comes to the Commissioner's attention. Promptly.”

There was a momentary silence. Pagan looked at this rather conservatively fashionable man who had become one of the most popular politicians in the present government. Prosperous, rumoured to rise even higher in his political party, Sir Freddie had come a long way. Pagan had a faint recollection of how, a dozen or so years ago, the newspapers had made much of the fact that Kinnaird was strapped for cash because of onerous death duties on the death of his father. The old country estate in West Sussex had been sold to a Japanese electronics tycoon, farming lands in Devon had been auctioned, and Freddie himself, plummeted from the comfortable heights of wealth and rank, a diminished version of what he had once been, was obliged to sit on the boards of a variety of corporations. He needed the money, the companies needed his class and style. He had obviously made a terrific recovery from those days.

Kinnaird asked, “Seen the morning papers?”

“I try to avoid them.”

“What a hullabaloo,” Sir Freddie said. “The press doesn't know which way to turn. First the stolen missile. Then the abducted child. And if that wasn't sensational enough, there's the hijacked plane into the bargain. They haven't had this much news in one day since World War Two, I imagine. And speculation, my God! Ruhr's in Africa. He's in Iran. He's in the Canadian Rockies. And the one I like – he never left England. He's holed up somewhere in the countryside, laughing up his bloody sleeve.”

Pagan said nothing. He imagined the headlines, he didn't need to see them. He didn't need to read about Stephanie Brough in particular. Whenever he thought about her he was filled with a kind of parental dread. He couldn't even begin to understand what her real parents were suffering, although he had insights into their all-consuming worry.

He'd refused to take phone calls from the press. They were fielded downstairs with bland, tight-lipped comments from other officers. Reporters were given items of information they could have gleaned for themselves without much trouble – the nationality of the dead terrorists, the origin of the helicopter, the number of military casualties. It was the spirit of limited co-operation: more delicate areas of the investigation were inaccessible.

Sir Freddie adjusted his black cashmere scarf and said, “I think you're doing a wonderful job in the circumstances, Frank. You and all your men. Convey my admiration to them, would you?”

Pagan hated such speeches, which he felt were offered more for political reasons than out of genuine gratitude. A man like Kinnaird, who was always on-stage, confused politics with real life. He probably made love the way he made speeches, with appropriate pauses for effect and great expectations of applause. Pagan wondered if he were ever heckled in bed.

“Keep up the good work, Frank.”

Kinnaird shook Pagan's hand firmly. Then he stepped out of the office just as Foxworth, hair dishevelled, pinstripe suit crumpled, was coming in. Kinnaird nodded to the young man before passing along the corridor in the direction of the lift.

Pagan sat down behind his desk. Foxworth said, “Company from a lofty place, I see.”

“Pain in the arse,” Pagan remarked. “He drops in, fishes for some hot news, gives me a bit of a pep talk, expresses his thanks and aren't we just wonderful all round? Spare me, Foxie. Have you slept?”

Foxworth fixed the knot of his striped tie. His complexion was colourless and he hadn't shaved, but his eyes were bright and excited. “I got in an hour or two, Frank.” He patted his briefcase. “I also found time to pick up a change of clothes for you.”

Pagan opened the case and looked at the black and white silk jacket, brown trousers, grey socks, blue and white shirt, and he wondered if Foxie had picked them out in the dark. He didn't criticise; he was less interested in the apparel than in Foxie's quietly pleased little look. “So what are you repressing, Foxie?”

“Repressing?”

“I know your whole repertoire of grins, twitches and glances. Right now, you look like the top of your head is about to explode.”

Foxie leaned across the desk, smiled. “Fancy that. Didn't know I was so transparent, actually.”

“You're a window, Foxie. Speak. What's on your mind?”

Foxworth took out a small notebook, flicked the pages. “A couple of recent developments I think might interest you. First, the Norwich police and our friend Joanna Lassiter. Joanna was shown Chapotin's picture and – according to a certain Detective Hare in Norwich – responded with an emphatic denial. Chapotin was not even remotely similar to the man who rented the farmhouse.”

“Did she describe the man who would be Chapotin?” Pagan asked.

“Better than that. Based on her description, Detective Hare had a composite assembled. It ought to be coming on the fax machine at any second.”

Pagan looked at his watch. “This Hare's an early bird.”

“Provincial living does that to a man,” Foxie said. He turned the pages of his notebook. “Now for the news from bonnie Scotland. You'll like this.”

Pagan sat back in his chair.

Foxworth said, “Rafael Rosabal met a man in a Glasgow hotel, according to a report from the Criminal Investigation Division, which had been asked by London to conduct routine surveillance of the Cuban.”

“Was the man Chapotin?” Pagan asked.

Foxie shook his head. “No. Rosabal met briefly with somebody called Enrico Caporelli.”

“The name doesn't mean anything,” Pagan said.

“Caporelli, an Italian citizen, is known to Glasgow CID because he has business interests in that city, one of which – a string of betting-shops – has been the subject of an undercover investigation recently. Something to do with skimming cash off the top. Tax cheating. Happens in a lot of cash operations. Enrico Caporelli is simply a sleeping-partner in the business. He isn't involved in the daily running of it. I understand he spends most of his time in Europe and America. Probably doesn't even know some of his managers are skimming.”