The Night Manager (53 page)

"Likee?" Roper enquired in his ear.

Like a nervous impresario, Roper was moving among the other spectators collecting opinions and congratulations.

"But who on earth were they?" Jonathan demanded, still reluctant to be mollified. "Those crazy pilots? What about the plane? That was millions of dollars of stuff!"

"Couple of clever Russkies. Hell-bent. Slipped down to Cartageña airport, pinched a jet, put her on automatic pilot second time round and bailed out. Hope the poor owner doesn't want it back."

"That's outrageous!" Jonathan declared as his indignation gave way to laughter. "That's the most disgraceful thing I ever heard!"

He was still laughing when he found himself caught in the cross-gaze of the two American trainers, who had just arrived from the valley by jeep. Their similarity was eerie: the same freckled smile, the same gingery hair and the same way of resting their hands on their hips while they studied him.

"You British, sir?" asked one.

"Not particularly," said Jonathan pleasantly.

"You're Thomas, aren't you, sir?" said the second. "That Thomas Something or Something Thomas? Sir."

"Something like that," Jonathan agreed, more pleasantly still, but Tabby close beside him heard the undertow in his voice and placed a restraining hand discreetly on his arm.

Which was unwise of Tabby, because in doing so he enabled the close observer to relieve him of a wad of American dollars nestling in the side pocket of his bush jacket.

Yet even at this gratifying moment, Jonathan cast an uneasy glance after the two Americans in Roper's train. Disenchanted veterans? Settling a grudge with Uncle Sam? Then get yourselves a couple of disenchanted faces, he told them, and stop looking as if you ride first class and charge the company for your time.

Intercepted handwritten fax relayed to the Roper jet, marked most urgent, from Sir Anthony Joyston Bradshaw in London, England, to Dicky Roper care of the SS Iron Pasha, Antigua, received 0920 hours and transmitted to the jet at 0928 hours by the Iron Pasha's skipper, with a covering note apologising if he had taken the wrong step. Sir Anthony's handwriting bulbous and illiterate, with misspellings, underlinings and the occasional eighteenth-century flourish. The style telegraphic.

Dear Dicky,

Re our conversation two days ago, have discussed matter with Thames Authority an hour ago and have assertained that offending information is documentary in your hand, and irrifutable. Am also led to beleive that the late Dr. Law was used by unfriendly elements to squeeze out previous signatory in favour present incumbant. Thames are taking evasive action, suggest you do same.

In view of this crucial assistance trust you will send another immediate ex gratia care of usual bank, to cover farther essential expenses your urgent interest.

Best, Tony.

This intercept, which had not been passed to Enforcement, was surreptitiously obtained by Rynn from a source in Pure Intelligence sympathetic to his cause. In his chagrin following the death of Apostoll, Rynn had difficulty overcoming his native mistrust of the English. But after a half-bottle of ten-year-old Bushmills single malt, he felt strong enough to slip the document into his pocket and, having driven pretty much by instinct to the operations centre, present it formally to Burr.

It was months since Jed had flown on a commercial flight, and at first she found the experience liberating, like riding on the top of a London bus after all those dreary taxi rides. I'm back in life, she thought; I've stepped out of the glass coach. But when she made a joke of this to Corkoran, who sat beside her as they headed for Miami, he sneered at her condescension.

Which surprised as well as hurt her, because he had never been rude to her before.

And at Miami airport he was equally unpleasant, insisting that he pocket her passport while he went in search of a luggage trolley, then turning his back on her while he addressed two flaxen-haired men hanging around the departure desk for the onward flight to Antigua.

"Corky, who in heaven's name are they?" she asked him when he returned.

"Friends of friends, my dear. They will be joining us on the Pasha."

"Friends of whose friends?"

"Of the Chief's, actually."

"Corky, they can't possibly be! They're absolute bruisers!"

"They're additional protection, if you wish to know. The Chief has decided to raise the strength of the security to five."

"Corky, why on earth? He's always been perfectly content with three before."

Then she saw his eyes and was scared, because they were vindictive and triumphant. And she realised that this was a Corkoran she didn't know: a slighted courtier on his way back to favour, with long-held grievances to settle with interest.

And on the plane he didn't drink. The new protection were flying in the back, but Jed and Corkoran sat in first class, where he renounced all alcohol rather than drink himself into a stupor, which was what she expected him to do. Instead, he ordered himself mineral water with ice and a slice of lime, and slurped it while he admired his reflection in the window.

TWENTY-FIVE

Jonathan was also a prisoner.

Perhaps he had always been one, as Sophie had suggested.

Or perhaps he had been one ever since he had been spirited to Crystal. But an illusion of freedom had always been conceded him. Till now.

The first warning came at Faberge, as Roper and his party were about to take their leave. The guests had left. Langbourne and Moranti had left with them. Colonel Emmanuel and Roper were exchanging last bear hugs as a young soldier came running up the track, calling and waving a piece of paper above his head. Emmanuel took the paper, glanced at it and handed it to Roper, who pulled on his spectacles and took a pace away to read in greater privacy. And as Roper read, Jonathan saw him shed his customary lassitude and stiffen; then methodically fold the paper and put it in his pocket.

"Frisky!"

"Sir!"

"A word."

Parade-ground style, Frisky marched facetiously over the bumpy ground to his master and came to attention. But when Roper took him none too gently by the arm and murmured an order in his ear, Frisky must have wished he hadn't been so damn funny. They entered the helicopter. Frisky went purposefully ahead and brusquely beckoned Jonathan to take the seat beside him.

"I've got the runs, actually, Frisk," Jonathan said. "Jungle tummy."

"Sit where you're fucking told," Tabby advised from behind him.

And on the plane Jonathan sat between them, and whenever he went to the lavatory Tabby stood outside. Roper meanwhile sat alone at the bulkhead, acknowledging nobody but Meg, who brought him fresh orange juice and, halfway into the journey, an incoming fax, which Jonathan saw to be handwritten.

Having read it, Roper folded it into an inside pocket. Then he put on his eye mask and appeared to sleep.

At Colón airport, where Langbourne was waiting for them with two chauffeur-driven Volvos, Jonathan was again made unmistakably aware of his altered status.

"Chief. I need to talk to you at once. Alone," Langbourne yelled up from the runway, almost before Meg had got the door open.

So everyone waited aboard while Roper and Langbourne conferred at the foot of the gangway.

"Second car," Roper ordered, when Meg had allowed the rest of the passengers to emerge. "All of you."

"He's got jungle tummy," Frisky warned Langbourne aside.

"Fuck his tummy," Langbourne retorted. "Tell him to contain himself."

"Contain yourself," said Frisky.

It was afternoon. The police box was empty; so was the control tower. So was the airfield, except for the white Colombian-registered private jets parked in rows beside the wide runway. Langbourne and Roper got into the front car, and as they did so, Jonathan noticed a fourth man, in a hat, seated beside the driver. Frisky opened the back door of the second car, Jonathan got in. Frisky got in after him. Tabby sat the other side of him, leaving the passenger seat empty. No one spoke.

On a huge billboard, a girl in frayed shorts spread her thighs round the latest brand of cigarette. On another she teasingly licked the erect aerial of a transistor radio. They entered the town, and a stench of poverty filled the car. Jonathan remembered Cairo and sitting beside Sophie while the wretched of the earth grovelled in the rubbish. In streets of former grandeur, between shanties built of planks and corrugated iron, stood old timbered houses crumbling with decay. Bright-coloured washing hung from the rotting balconies. Children played in the blackened arcades and floated plastic cups in the open drains. From colonial porches, workless men, twenty at a time, stared expressionlessly at the passing traffic. From the windows of an abandoned factory, hundreds of immobile faces did the same.

They had stopped for lights. Frisky's left hand, low behind the driver's seat, was drawing a bead with an imaginary revolver on four armed policemen who had stepped off the curb and were walking toward the car. Tabby read his gesture at once, and Jonathan felt him ease against the backrest and unfasten the middle buttons of his bush jacket.

The policemen were huge. They wore pressed uniforms of light khaki, lanyards and medal ribbons, and Walther automatics in burnished leather holsters. Roper's car had parked a hundred yards down the road. The traffic lights turned green, but two of the policemen were blocking the car's way while a third talked to the driver and the fourth scowled into the car. One of the men at the front was inspecting the Volvo's tires. The car rocked as another tested the suspension.

"I think the gentlemen would like a nice present, don't you, Pedro?" Frisky suggested to the driver.

Tabby was patting the pockets of his bush jacket. The police wanted twenty dollars. Frisky gave the driver ten. The driver gave them to the policeman.

"Some bugger nicked my cash off of me at the camp," Tabby said as they drove again.

"Want to go back and find him?" Frisky asked.

"I need a lavatory," said Jonathan.

"You need a fucking cork, is what you need," said Tabby.

Following close behind Roper's car, they entered a North American enclave of lawns, white churches, bowling centres and army brides in curlers pushing prams. They emerged on a seafront lined with pink 1920s villas with giant television aerials, razor-wire fences and high gates. The stranger in the front seat was looking for house numbers. They rounded a corner and kept looking. They were in a grassy park. Out to sea, container ships, cruise ships and tankers waited to take their turn on the Canal. The front car had pulled up before an old house set in trees. The driver was tapping the horn. The door of the house opened, a slender-shouldered man in a white jacket tripped down the path. Langbourne lowered his window and called to him to take the car behind. Frisky leaned forward and opened the passenger door. Jonathan glimpsed a studious Arab-looking young man in spectacles. He took his place without speaking.

"How's the runs?" said Frisky.

"Better," said Jonathan.

"Well, keep them that way," said Tabby.

They entered a stretch of straight road. Jonathan had been to an army school like this. A high stone wall festooned with cables ran along their right side. It was topped with a triple strand of barbed wire. He remembered Curaçao and the road to the dockyard. Billboards appeared to their left: Toshiba, Citizen and Toyland. So this is where the Roper buys his toys. thought Jonathan absurdly. But it wasn't. It was where he collected his reward for all the hard work and hard cash he had invested. The Arab student lit a cigarette. Frisky coughed ostentatiously.

The front car swung through an archway and stopped. They stopped behind it. A policeman appeared at the driver's window.

"Passports," the driver said.

Frisky had Jonathan's and his own. The Arab student in the front raised his head far enough for the policeman to recognise him. The policeman waved them through. They had entered the Free Zone of Colón.

Sleek shopfronts for jewellery and furs recalled Herr Meister's lobby. The skyline was ablaze with trade names from across the world and the pure blue glass of banks. Shiny cars lined the streets. Lurid container lorries backed and shunted and belched exhaust fumes over the crowded sidewalks. Shops are forbidden to sell retail, but everyone was selling retail. Panamanians are forbidden to buy here, but the streets were thronged with them, in all their different races, and most had come by taxi because taxi drivers have the best arrangements at the gate.

Every day, Corkoran had told Jonathan, the official workers arrive in the zone bare-necked, bare-wristed and bare-fingered.

But when evening comes they look as though they are going to a wedding, in their shining bracelets, necklaces and rings.

From all over Central America, he said, shoppers fly in and out unmolested by immigration or customs, some spending a million dollars in a day and depositing millions more for next time round.

The front car entered a dark street of warehouses, and they followed it nose to tail. Spots of rain rolled like fat tears down the windscreen. The hatted stranger in the front car was studying names and numbers: Khan's Comestibles, Macdonald's Automotor, the Hoi Tin food & Beverage Company, the Tel Aviv Goodwill Container Company, El Akhbar's Fantasias, Hellas Agricultural, Le Baron of Paris, Taste of Colombia Limitada, Coffee & Comes. Then a hundred yards of black wall and one sign saying Eagle, which was where they got out.

"Are we going indoors? Maybe they've got one there," said Jonathan. "It's getting urgent again," he added, for Tabby's benefit.

Tension now, as they stand in the unlit side street. A fast tropical dusk is gathering. The sky is aglow with coloured neon, but in this canyon of walls and dingy alleys, the dark is already here. Everyone's eyes are on the hatted man. Frisky and Tabby stand either side of Jonathan, and Frisky's hand is on Jonathan's upper arm: not grasping it exactly, Tommy, just making sure nobody gets lost. The Arab student has gone ahead to join the forward group. Jonathan sees the man in the hat enter the blackness of a doorway. Langbourne, Roper and the student follow him.