Vlaminck had reserved a room for him at a hotel in the town center, but they drank until late, talking about old battles and skirmishes, recalling incidents and people, fights and narrow escapes, alternately laughing at the things that seemed hilarious in retrospect and nodding glumly at the memories that still rankled. The bar stayed open as long as Tiny Marc drank, and the lesser mortals sat around and listened.
It was almost dawn when they got to bed.
Tiny Marc called for him at his hotel in the middle of the morning, and they had a late breakfast together. He explained to the Belgian that he wanted the Schmeissers packaged in such a way that they could be smuggled over the Belgian border into France for loading onto the ship in a southern French port.
“We could send them in crates of spring potatoes,” suggested Marc.
Shannon shook his head. “Potatoes are in sacks, not crates,” he said. “The last thing we need is for a crate to be tipped over in transit or loading, so that the whole lot falls out. I’ve got a better idea.” For half an hour he told Vlaminck what he wanted done with the submachine pistols.
The Belgian nodded. “All right,” he said when he understood exactly what was wanted. “I can work mornings in the garage before the bar opens. When do we run them south?”
“About May fifteenth,” said Shannon. “We’ll use the champagne route. I’ll bring Jean-Baptiste up here to help, and we’ll change to a French-registered truck at Paris. I want you to have everything packed and ready for shipment by May fifteenth.”
Marc accompanied him down to the car ferry to Dover, for the truck would not be used again until it made its last run from Ostend to Paris with its cargo of illegal arms. Shannon was back in London by early evening.
He spent what remained of the day writing a full report for Endean, omitting to mention from whom he had bought the guns or where they were stored. He attached to the report a statement of expenditure and a tally of what was left in the Brugge account.
The first morning mail of that Friday brought a large packet from Jean-Baptiste Langarotti. It contained a sheaf of brochures from three European firms that manufactured the rubberized inflatable semirigid boats of the kind he wanted. They were variously advertised as being capable of use as sea-rescue launches, power boats, speed craft for towing water-skiers, pleasure boats, launching vessels for subaqua diving, runabouts, and fast tenders for yachts and suchlike. No mention was made of the fact that they all had been developed from an original design produced to give marine commandos a fast and maneuverable type of assault craft.
Shannon read each brochure with interest. Of the three firms, one was Italian, one British, and one French. The Italian firm, with six stockists along the Côte d’Azur, seemed to be the best suited for Shannon’s purpose and to have the best delivery capability. Of their largest model, an 18-foot launch, there were two available for immediate delivery. One was in Marseilles and the other in Cannes. The brochure from the French manufacturer showed a picture of their largest example, a 16-foot craft, speeding through a blue sea, tail down, nose up.
Langarotti said in his letter there was one of these available at a shop for marine equipment in Nice. He added that all the British-made models needed to be ordered specially and, last, that, although there were several more of each type available in brilliant orange color, he was concerning himself only with those in black. He added that each could be powered by any outboard engine above 50 horsepower, and that there were seven different makes of engine available locally and immediately which would suit.
Shannon replied with a long letter instructing Langarotti to buy the two models made by the Italian firm that were available for immediate delivery, and the third of French manufacture. He stressed that on receipt of the letter the Corsican should ring the stockists at once and place a firm order, sending each shopkeeper a 10 percent deposit by registered mail. He should also buy three engines of the best make, but at separate shops.
He noted the prices of each item and that the total came to just over £4000. This meant he would overrun on his estimated budget of £5000 for ancillary equipment, but he was not worried by that. He would be under budget on the arms and, he hoped, the ship. He told Langarotti he was transferring to the Corsican’s account the equivalent of £4500, and with the balance he should buy a serviceable secondhand 20-hundredweight truck, making sure it was licensed and insured.
With this he should drive along the coast and buy his three crated inflatable assault craft and his three outboard engines, delivering them himself to his freight agent in Toulon to be bonded for export. The whole consignment had to be in the warehouse and ready for shipment by May 15. On the morning of that day Langarotti was to rendezvous with Shannon in Paris at the hotel Shannon usually used. He was to bring the truck with him.
The mercenary leader sent another letter that day. It was to the Kredietbank in Brugge, requiring the transfer of £4500 in French francs to the account of M. Jean-Baptiste Langarotti at the head office of the Société Général bank in Marseilles.
When he got back to his flat, Cat Shannon lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling. He felt tired and drained; the strain of the past thirty days was taking its toll. On the credit side, things seemed to be going according to plan. Alan Baker should be setting up the purchase of the mortars and bazookas from Yugoslavia for pickup during the early days of June; Schlinker should be in Madrid buying enough 9mm. ammunition to keep the Schmeissers firing for a year. The only reason he had ordered such an excessive amount of rounds was to make the purchase plausible to the Spanish authorities. Clearance for their export should be obtained for mid- to late June, provided he could let the German have the name of the carrier by the middle of May, and provided the ship and its company were acceptable to the officials in Madrid.
Vlaminck should already have the machine pistols stowed for transporting across Belgium and France to Marseilles, to be loaded by June 1. The assault craft and engines should be loaded at the same time in Toulon, along with the other ancillary gear he had ordered from Schlinker.
Apart from smuggling the Schmeissers, everything was legal and aboveboard. That did not mean things could not still go wrong. Perhaps one of the two governments would make problems by taking overlong or refusing to sell on the basis of the provided documentation.
Then there were the uniforms, which Dupree was presumably still buying in London. They too should be in the warehouse in Toulon by the end of May at the latest.
But the big problem still to be solved was the ship. Semmler had to find the right ship, and he had been searching in vain for almost a month.
Shannon rolled off his bed and telephoned a telegram to Dupree’s flat in Bayswater, ordering him to check in. As he put the phone down, it rang again.
“Hi, it’s me.”
“Hello, Julie,” he said.
“Where have you been, Cat?”
“Away. Abroad.”
“Are you going to be in town this weekend?” she asked.
“Yes. Should be.” In fact there was nothing more he could do and nowhere he could go until Semmler contacted him with news of a ship for sale. He did not even know where the German was by this time.
“Good,” said the girl on the phone. “Let’s spend the weekend doing things.”
It must be the tiredness. He was getting slow on the uptake. “What things?” he asked.
She began to tell him in precise and clinical detail until he interrupted her and told her to come straight around and prove it.
Although she had been bubbling with it a week earlier, in the thrill of seeing her lover again Julie had forgotten the news she had for him. It was not until nearly midnight that she remembered. She bent her head low over the half-asleep mercenary and said, “Oh, by the way, I saw your name the other day.”
Shannon grunted.
“On a piece of paper,” she insisted. Still he showed no interest, his face buried in the pillow beneath crossed forearms.
“Shall I tell you where
?”
His reaction was disappointing. He grunted again.
“In a folder on my daddy’s desk.”
If she had meant to surprise him, she succeeded. He came off the sheet in one movement and faced her, gripping both her upper arms hard. There was an intensity about his stare that frightened her.
“You’re hurting me,” she said irrelevantly.
“What folder on your father’s desk?”
“A folder.” She sniffed, on the verge of tears. “I only wanted to help you.”
He relaxed visibly, and his expression softened. “Why did you go looking?” he asked.
“Well, you’re always asking about him, and when I saw this folder, I just sort of looked. Then I saw your name.”
“Tell me about it from the beginning,” he said gently.
When she had finished she reached forward and coiled her arms around his neck. “I love you, Mr. Cat,” she whispered. “I only did it for that. Was it wrong?”
Shannon thought for a moment. She already knew far too much, and there were only two ways of ensuring her silence. “Do you really love me?” he asked.
“Yes. Really.”
“Would you want anything bad to happen to me because of something you did or said?”
She pulled herself back from him, staring deep into his face. This was much more like the scenes in her schoolgirl dreams. “Never,” she said soulfully. “I’d never talk. Whatever they did to me.”
Shannon blinked several times in amazement. “Nobody’s going to do anything to you,” he said. “Just don’t tell your father that you know me or went through his papers. You see, he employs me to gather information for him about the prospects of mining in Africa. If he learned we knew each other, he’d fire me. Then I’d have to find another job. There is one that’s been offered to me, miles away in Africa. So you see, I’d have to go and leave you if he ever found out about us.”
That struck home, hard. She did not want him to go. Privately he knew one day soon he would have to go, but there was no need to tell her yet.
“I won’t say anything,” she promised.
“A couple of points,” said Shannon. “You said you saw the title on the sheets with mineral prices on them. What was the title?”
She furrowed her brow, trying to recall the words. “That stuff they put in fountain pens. They mention it in the ads for the expensive ones.”
“Ink?” asked Shannon.
“Platium,” she said.
“Platinum,” he corrected, his eyes pensive. “Lastly, what was the title on the folder?”
“Oh, I remember that,” she said happily. “Like something out of a fairy tale. The Crystal Mountain.”
Shannon sighed deeply. “Go and make me some coffee. There’s a love.”
When he heard her clattering cups in the kitchen he leaned back against the bedhead and stared out over London. “You cunning bastard,” he breathed. “But it won’t be that cheap, Sir James, not that cheap at all.”
Then he laughed into the darkness.
That same Saturday night Benny Lambert was ambling home toward his lodgings after an evening drinking with friends in one of his favorite cafés. He had been buying a lot of rounds for his cronies, using the money, now changed into francs, that Shannon had paid him. It made him feel good to be able to talk of the “big deal” he had just pulled off and buy the admiring bar girls champagne. He had had enough, more than enough, himself, and took no notice of the car that cruised slowly behind him, two hundred yards back. Nor did he think much of it when the car swept up to him as he came abreast of a vacant lot half a mile short of his home.
By the time he took notice and started to protest, the giant figure that had emerged from the car was hustling him across the lot and behind a hoarding that stood ten yards from the road.
His protests were silenced when the figure spun him around and, still holding him by the scruff, slammed a fist into his solar plexus. Benny Lambert sagged and, when the grip on his collar was removed, slumped to the ground. Standing above him, face shadowed into the obscurity behind the hoarding, the figure drew a two-foot iron bar from his belt. Stooping down, the big man grabbed the writhing Lambert by the left thigh and jerked it upward. The iron bar made a dull whumph as it crashed down with all the assailant’s force onto the exposed kneecap, shattering it instantly. Lambert screamed once, shrilly, like a skewered rat, and fainted. He never felt the second kneecap being broken at all.
Twenty minutes later, Thomard was phoning his employer from the booth in a late-night café a mile away.
At the other end, Roux listened and nodded. “Good,” he said. “Now I have some news for you. The hotel where Shannon usually stays. Henri Alain has just informed me they have received a letter from Mr. Keith Brown. It reserves a room for him on the night of the fifteenth. Got it?”
“The fifteenth,” Thomard said. “Yes. He will be there then.”
“And so will you,” said the voice on the phone. “Henri will keep in touch with his contact inside the hotel, and you will remain on standby, not far from the hotel, from noon of that day onward.”
“Until when?” asked Thomard.
“Until he comes out, alone,” said Roux. “And then you will take him. For five thousand dollars.”
Thomard was smiling slightly when he came out of the booth. As he stood at the bar sipping his beer, he could feel the pressure of the gun under his left armpit. It made him smile even more. In a few days it would earn him a tidy sum. He was quite sure of it. It would, he told himself, be simple and straightforward to take a man, even Cat Shannon, who had never even seen him and did not know he was there.
It was in the middle of a Sunday morning that Kurt Semmler phoned. Shannon was lying naked on his back on the bed while Julie puttered around the kitchen, making breakfast.
“Mr. Keith Brown?” asked the operator.
“Yes. Speaking.”
“I have a personal call for you from a Mr. Semolina in Genoa.”
Shannon swung himself off the bed and crouched on the edge, the telephone up to his ear. “Put him on the line,” he ordered.
The German’s voice was faint, but reception was reasonably clear. “Carlo?”
“Yes. Kurt?”
“I’m in Genoa.”
“I know. What news?”
“I have it. This time I am sure. She is just what you wanted. But there is someone else who would like to buy her also. We may have to outbid them if we want the boat. But she is good. For us, very good. Can you come out and see her?”
“You’re quite sure, Kurt?”
“Yes. Quite sure. Registered freighter, property of a Genoa-based shipping company. Made to order.”
Shannon considered. “I’ll come tomorrow. What hotel are you staying at?”
Semmler told him.
“I’ll be there on the first available plane. I don’t know when that will be. Stay at the hotel in the afternoon, and I’ll contact you when I get there. Book me a room.”
A few minutes later he was booked on the Alitalia flight to Milan at 0905 the following morning, to make a connection from Milan to Genoa and arrive at the port just after one in the afternoon.
He was grinning when Julie returned with the coffee. If the ship was the right one, he could conclude the deal over the next twelve days and be in Paris on the fifteenth for his rendezvous with Langarotti, secure in the knowledge that Semmler would have the ship ready for sea, with a good crew and fully fueled and supplied, by June 1.
“Who was that?” asked the girl.
“A friend.”
“Which friend?”
“A business friend.”
“What did he want?”
“I have to go and see him.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow morning. In Italy.”
“How long will you be gone?”
“I don’t know. Two weeks. Maybe more.”
She pouted over her coffee cup. “So what am I supposed to do all tha
t time?” she asked.
Shannon grinned. “You’ll find something. There’s a lot of it about.”
“You’re a shit,” she said conversationally. “But if you have to go, I suppose you must. It only leaves us till tomorrow morning, so I, my dear tomcat, am going to make the best of it.”
As his coffee was spilled over the pillow, Shannon reflected that the fight for Kimba’s palace was going to be a holiday compared with trying to satisfy Sir James Manson’s sweet little daughter.
sixteen
The port of Genoa was bathed in late-afternoon sunshine when Cat Shannon and Kurt Semmler paid off their taxi and the German led his employer along the quays to where the motor vessel Toscana was moored. The old coaster was dwarfed by the two 3000-ton freighters that lay on either side of her, but that was no problem. To Shannon’s eye she was big enough for their purposes.
There was a tiny forepeak and a four-foot drop to the main deck, in the center of which was the large square hatch to the only cargo hold set amidships. Aft was the tiny bridge, and below it evidently were the crew quarters and captain’s cabin. She had a short, stubby mast, to which a single loading derrick was attached, rigged almost vertical. Right aft, above the stern, the ship’s single lifeboat was slung.
She was rusty, her paint blistered by the sun in many places, flayed off by salt spray in others. Small and old and dowdy, she had the quality Shannon looked for—she was anonymous. There are thousands of such small freighters plying the coastal inshore trade from Haifa to Gibraltar, Tangier to Dakar, Monrovia to Simonstown. They all look much the same, attract no attention, and are seldom suspected of being up to anything beyond carrying small cargoes from port to port.
Semmler took Shannon on board. They found their way aft to where a companionway led down into the darkness of the crew quarters, and Semmler called. Then they went on down. They were met at the bottom by a muscular, hard-faced man in his mid-forties who nodded at Semmler and stared at Shannon.