The Night Manager (48 page)

Emboldened, Jonathan went over to the attack. "So who's buying?" he demanded, repeating the question he had put to Roper on the aeroplane.

"Moranti."

"No, he's not. He hasn't paid you a cent. You've put up a hundred million dollars--or the investors have. What's Moranti putting up? You're selling him guns. He's buying them. So where's his money? Or is he paying you in something that's better than money? Something you can sell for much, much more than a hundred mil?"

Roper's face was sculptured marble in the darkness, but it wore the long, bland smile.

"Been there yourself, haven't you? You and the Aussie you killed. All right, you deny it. Didn't see it big enough, your trouble. See it big or don't see it at all, my view. You're a smart chap all the same. Pity we didn't meet earlier. Could have done with you in a few other places."

A phone rang in the room behind them. Roper turned sharply, and Jonathan followed his gaze in time to see Langbourne standing with the receiver to his ear, looking at his wristwatch while he talked. He replaced the receiver, shook his head at Roper and returned to the sofa and Private Eye. Roper settled back into his plastic chair.

"Remember the old China trade?" he asked nostalgically.

"I thought that was in the 1830s."

"You've read about it, though, haven't you? You've read everything else, far as I can see."

"Yes."

"Remember what those Hong Kong Brits were running up the river to Canton? Dodging the Chinese customs, funding the empire, building themselves fortunes?"

"Opium," said Jonathan.

"For tea. Opium for tea. Barter. Came home to England, captains of industry. Knighthoods, honours, whole shebang. Hell's the difference? Go for it! That's all that matters. Americans know that. Why don't we? Tight-arsed vicars braying from the pulpit every Sunday, old nellies' tea parties, seedcake, poor Mrs. So-and-so's died of the what-nots? Screw it. Worse than bloody prison. Know what Jed asked me?"

"What?"

" 'How bad are you? Tell me the worst!' Christ!"

"What did you say?"

" 'Not bloody well bad enough!' I told her. 'There's me and there's the jungle,' I told her. 'No policemen on the street corner. No justice handed down by chaps in wigs familiar with the law. Nothing. I thought that was what you liked.' Shook her a bit. Serves her right."

Langbourne was tapping on the glass.

"So why are you present at the meetings?" Jonathan said.

They were standing up. "Why keep a dog and bark yourself?"

Roper laughed loudly and clapped a hand on Jonathan's back. "Don't trust the dog, that's why, old boy. Any of my dogs. You, Corky, Sandy--wouldn't trust any of you in an empty henhouse. Nothing personal. Way I am."

Two cars were waiting among the lighted hibiscus of the hotel forecourt. The first was a Volvo, driven by Gus. Langbourne took the front seat. Roper and Jonathan the back. Tabby and Frisky followed in a Toyota. Langbourne had a briefcase.

They crossed a high bridge and saw the lights of the town below them, and the black Dutch waterways cutting through the lights. They descended a steep ramp. The old houses gave way to shanties. Suddenly the dark felt dangerous. They were driving on a flat road, water to their right, floodlit containers piled four high to their left, marked with names like Sealand, Nedlloyd and Tiphook. They turned left, and Jonathan saw a low white roof and blue posts and guessed it was a custom-house.

The paving changed and made the wheels sing.

"Stop at the gates and put your lights out," Langbourne ordered. "All of them."

Gus stopped at the gates and doused the car's lights. Close behind them, Frisky in the Toyota did the same. A barred white gateway stood before them, with warning notices in Dutch and English. Then the lights around the gate went out too, and with the darkness came silence. In the distance, Jonathan saw a surreal landscape of cranes and forklift trucks cross-lit by arc lamps, and the pale outlines of big ships.

"Let 'em see your hands. No one move," Langbourne ordered.

His voice had acquired authority. This was his show, whatever the show was. He opened his door an inch and worked it, making the courtesy light wink twice inside the car. He closed the door, and again they sat in darkness. He lowered his window.

Jonathan saw an outstretched hand reach in. It was white and male and powerful. It was attached to a bare forearm and the short sleeve of a white shirt.

"One hour," Langbourne said, upward into the darkness.

"That's too long," a gruff, accented voice objected.

"We agreed one hour," Langbourne said implacably. "One hour or nothing."

"Okay, okay."

Only then did Langbourne pass an envelope through the open window. A pinlight torch went on; the contents were swiftly counted. The white gates swung back. Still without headlights, they drove forward, closely followed by the Toyota.

They passed an ancient anchor embedded in concrete and entered an alley of many-coloured containers, each marked with a letter combination and seven digits.

"Left here," Langbourne said. They swung left, the Toyota after them. Jonathan ducked his head as the arm of an orange crane swooped down on them out of the sky.

"Now right. Here" said Langbourne.

They swung right, and the black hull of a tanker rose out of the sea toward them. Right again, and they were skirting a row of half a dozen moored ships. Two were grand and newly painted. The rest were scruffy feeder ships. Each had a lighted gangway to the waterfront.

"Stop," Langbourne ordered.

They stopped, still in darkness, the Toyota on their tail. This time they waited only a few seconds, before another pinlight appeared in the windscreen: first red, then white, then back to red.

"Open all the windows," Langbourne told Gus. He was worried about hands again. "On the dash where they can see them. Chief, shove 'em on the seat in front of you. You too, Thomas."

With unaccustomed meekness Roper did as he was told. The air was cool. The smell of oil mingled with the smells of sea and metal. Jonathan was in Ireland. Then he was in Pugwash docks, stowed aboard the filthy freighter, waiting to steal ashore by darkness. Two white flashlights appeared either side of the car. Their beams scanned the hands and faces, then the car floor.

"Mr. Thomas and party," Langbourne announced. "Come to inspect some tractors, pay the other half."

"Which is Thomas?" said a man's voice.

"Me."

A pause.

"Okay."

"Everybody get out slowly," Langbourne ordered. "Thomas, behind me. Single file."

Their guide was lank and tall and seemed too young to be carrying the Heckler that swung at his right side. The gangway was short. Reaching the deck, Jonathan saw across the black water to the lights of the town again, and the flare stacks of the refinery.

The ship was old and small. Jonathan guessed four thousand tons at most, converted from other lives. A wooden door stood open in a raised hatch. Inside, a bulkhead lamp glowed over a spiral flight of steel stairs. The guide once more went first. The echo of their feet was like the tramp of a chain gang. By the poor light Jonathan made out more of the man who was leading them. He wore jeans and sneakers. He had a blond forelock, which he flipped back with his left hand when it got in his way. The right hand still held the Heckler, the forefinger crooked snugly round the trigger. The ship too was beginning to reveal herself. She was fitted for mixed cargo. Capacity around sixty containers. She was a tub, a roll-on-roll-off workhorse at the end of her usefulness. She was a throwaway if things went wrong.

The party had come to a halt. Three men stood facing them. all white, all fair, all young. Behind them was a steel door, closed. Jonathan guessed on no evidence that they were Swedes. Like the guide, they carried Hecklers. It was now apparent that the guide was their leader. Something about his ease, his choice of posture as he joined them. His hacked and dangerous smile.

"How is the aristocracy these days, Sandy?" he called. Jonathan could still not place his accent.

"Hullo, Pepe," said Langbourne. "In the pink, thanks. How's yourself?"

"You all students of agriculture? You like tractors? Machine parts? You want to grow crops, feed all the poor people?"

"Let's just get on with the fucking job," Langbourne said. "Where's Moranti?"

Pepe grabbed the steel door and pulled it open at the same moment that Moranti appeared out of the shadows.

My Lord Langbourne is a weapons freak. Burr had said. Played gentleman soldier in half a dozen dirty wars... prides himself on his killing skills... in his spare time he dabbles as a collector, same as the Roper... it makes them feel better to think they're part of history.

The hold constituted most of the belly of the ship. Pepe was playing host, Langbourne and Moranti walked beside him, Jonathan and Roper followed, then came the help: Frisky, Tabby and the three ship's hands with their Hecklers. Twenty containers were chained to the deck. On the lashing straps, Jonathan read a medley of transfer points: Lisbon, the Azores, Antwerp, Gdansk.

"This one we are calling the Saudi box," Pepe announced proudly. "They make it side-opening so Saudi customs can get inside and sniff around for booze."

The customs seals were steel pins banged into each other. Pepe's men hacked them apart with cutters.

"Don't worry, we got spares," Pepe confided to Jonathan. "Tomorrow morning everything look fine again. Customs don't give a shit."

The side of the container was slowly lowered. Guns have their own silence. It is the silence of the dead to come.

"Vulcans," Langbourne was saying, for the edification of Moranti. "High-tech version of the Gatling. Six twenty-millimetre barrels fire three thousand rounds a minute. State of the art. Ammo to match, more to follow. Each bullet's as big as your finger. One burst sounds like a horde of killer bees. Choppers and light aircraft don't stand a chance. Brand-new. Ten of 'em. Okay?"

Moranti said nothing at all. Only the barest nod betrayed his satisfaction. They moved to the next container. It was end-loaded, which meant they could view the contents only from the front. But what they saw was already enough.

"Quad fifties," Langbourne announced. "Four coaxially mounted point-five-oh-calibre machine guns designed to fire simultaneously at a single target. Shred any aircraft you like with a single burst. Trucks, troop transports, light armour--the Quad'll take 'em out. Mount 'em on a two-and-a-half-ton chassis, they're mobile and they hurt like hell. Also brand-new."

With Pepe leading, they crossed to the starboard side of the ship, where two men were gingerly extracting a cigar-shaped missile from a fibreglass cylinder. This time Jonathan had no need of Langbourne's expertise. He had seen the demonstration films. He had heard the tales. If the Micks ever get their hands on these, you're dead, the bomb-happy sergeant major had promised. And they will, he added cheerfully. They'll nick them off Yankee ammo dumps in Germany, they'll buy them for a bloody fortune off the Afghans, the Izzies or the Pals; or whoever else the Yanks have seen fit to hand them out to. They're supersonic, man-packed, they're three to a carton, they're Stingers by name and they're Stingers by nature....

The tour continued. Light anti-tank guns. Field radios. Medical gear. Uniforms. Ammunition. Meals Ready to Eat. British Star-streaks. Boxes made in Birmingham. Steel canisters made in Manchester. Not everything could be examined. There was too much stuff, too little time.

"Likee?" Roper asked Jonathan quietly.

Their faces were very close. The expression on Roper's was intense and strangely victorious, as if his point were somehow proved.

"It's good stuff," Jonathan said, not knowing what else he was supposed to say.

"Bit of everything in each shipment. That's the trick. Boat goes astray, you lose a bit of everything, not all of something. Common sense."

"I suppose it is."

Roper wasn't hearing him. He was in the presence of his own accomplishment. He was in a state of grace.

"Thomas?" It was Langbourne, calling from the aft end of the hold. "Over here. Signing time."

Roper went with him. On a military clipboard, Langbourne had a typed receipt for turbines, tractor parts and heavy machinery as per attached schedule, inspected and certified to be in good order by Derek S. Thomas, managing director for and on behalf of Tradepaths Limited. Jonathan signed the receipt, then initialled the schedule. He gave the clipboard to Roper, who showed it to Moranti, then passed it back to Langbourne, who handed it to Pepe. A cellular telephone lay on a shelf beside the door. Pepe picked it up and dialled a number from the piece of paper that Roper was holding out to him. Moranti stood a little distance from them, with his hands curled to his sides and stomach out, like a Russian at a cenotaph. Pepe passed the phone to Roper. They heard the banker's voice saying hullo.

"Piet?" said Roper. "Friend of mine wants to give you an important message."

Roper handed the phone to Jonathan, together with a second piece of paper from his pocket.

Jonathan glanced at the paper, then read aloud. "This is your friend George speaking to you," he said. "Thank you for staying awake tonight."

"Put Pepe on the line, please, Derek," said the banker's voice. "I would like to confirm some nice news for him."

Jonathan handed the receiver to Pepe, who listened, laughed, rang off and clapped a hand on Jonathan's shoulder.

"You're a generous fellow!"

His laughter stopped as Langbourne drew a typed sheet of paper from his briefcase. "Receipt," he said curtly.

Pepe grabbed Jonathan's pen and, watched by all of them, signed a receipt to Tradepaths Limited for the sum of twenty-five million U. S. dollars, being the third and penultimate payment for the agreed consignment of turbines, tractor parts and heavy machinery delivered to Curaçao as per contract for onward transit on the SS Lombardy.

It was four in the morning when she rang.

"We're leaving for the Pasha tomorrow," she said. "Me and Corky."

Jonathan said nothing at all.