‘Well.’ Carlos was almost smiling. ‘That wasn’t very clever of me, was it? I mean, if you had wished to dispose of all of them you’d have thrown Cola in here, too. I missed that.’ He sniffed the air professionally. ‘Nitrous oxide, I’d say. You know, laughing gas.’
‘Not bad for a doctor,’ Petersen said. ‘I thought that gas was confined only to dentists’ surgeries. Nitrous oxide, a refined form of. With this, you don’t come out of the anaesthetic with tears in your eyes, laughing, singing and generally making a fool of yourself. Normally, you don’t come out of it at all, by which I mean you’d just keep on sleeping until you woke up at your usual time, quite unaware that anything untoward had happened to you. But I’m told that if you’ve recently undergone some sort of traumatic experience immediately before you’ve been gassed, the tendency is to wake up directly the effects of the gas have worn off. They also say that if you had something weighing on your mind, such as a nagging conscience, the same thing happens.’
Carlos said: ‘That’s a strange sort of thing for a soldier to know about.’
‘I’m a strange sort of soldier. Alex, take up your gun while I have a look around.’
‘Look around?’ Carlos did just that. The cabin, if one could call it such, held five canvas cots and that was all: there wasn’t as much as even a cupboard for clothes. ‘There’s nothing to look around for.’
Petersen didn’t bother to reply. He ripped blankets from the cots and flung them on the deck. Nothing had lain beneath the blankets. He picked up a rucksack – there were five of them in the cabin – and unceremoniously dumped the contents on a cot. They were innocuous. Among some clothes and a rudimentary toilet kit there was a considerable amount of ammunition, some loose, some in magazines, but those, too, Petersen considered innocuous: he would have expected nothing else. The second rucksack yielded the same results. The third was padlocked. Petersen looked at Alessandro, who was sitting on the deck, his ravaged face expressionless: the effect was chilling, even a hint of balefulness would have been preferable to this emptiness but Petersen was not the man to be moved by expressions or lack of them.
‘Well, now, Alessandro, that wasn’t very clever, was it? If you want to hide a thing you do it inconspicuously: a padlock is conspicuous. The key.’
Alessandro spat on the deck and remained silent.
‘Spitting.’ Petersen shook his head. ‘Unpleasant, for second-rate villains. Alex.’
‘Search him?’
‘Don’t bother. Your knife.’
Alex’s knife, as one would have expected of Alex, was razor sharp. It sliced through the tough canvas of the rucksack as if through paper. Petersen peered at the contents.
‘Yes, indeed, twinges of conscience.’ He extracted a very small butane burner and an equally small kettle. The kettle had no top – the spout had a screwed top. Petersen shook the kettle: the glugging of water inside was unmistakable. Petersen turned to Carlos.
‘Doesn’t say much for the hospitality of the Colombo, does it, when a man has to bring along his own equipment for making tea or coffee or whatever.’
Carlos looked slightly puzzled. ‘Any passenger aboard this ship can have as much tea or coffee or any other drink that he wants.’ Then his face cleared. ‘For shore use, of course.’
‘Of course.’ Petersen tipped the remainder of the contents of the rucksack on to another cot, rummaged briefly around, then straightened. ‘Although, mind you, it’s difficult to see how we can make any of those refreshing beverages without any tea or coffee to make them. I’ve found out all I want to know even although I knew in advance anyway.’ He turned his attention to the fourth rucksack.
Carlos said: ‘If you’ve already found out what you want to know why keep on?’
‘Natural curiosity together with the fact that Alessandro, I’m afraid, is not a very trustworthy man. Who knows, this bag might contain a nest of vipers.’
There were no vipers but there were two more gas-grenades and a Walther with a screwed-on silencer.
‘And a stealthy killer to boot,’ Petersen said. ‘I’ve always wanted one of those.’ He put it in his pocket and opened up the last rucksack: this yielded only a small metal case about half the size of a shoe-box. Petersen turned to the nearest of his prisoners who happened to be Franco.
‘You know what’s inside this?’
Franco didn’t say whether he did not not.
Petersen sighed, placed the muzzle of his Luger against Franco’s knee-cap and said: ‘Captain Tremino, if I pull the trigger, will he walk again?’
‘Good God!’ Carlos was used to war but not this kind of war. ‘He might. He’ll be a cripple for life.’
Petersen took two steps back. Franco looked at Alessandro but Alessandro wasn’t looking at him. Franco looked at Petersen and the levelled Luger.
Franco said: ‘I know.’
‘Open it.’
Franco released two brass clips and swung back the lid. There was no explosion, no release of gas.
Carlos said: ‘Why didn’t you open it?’
‘Because the world is full of untrustworthy people. Lots of these boxes of tricks around. If an unauthorized opener doesn’t know where a secret switch or button is he’s going to inhale a very nasty gas. Most of the latest safes incorporate some such device.’ He took the box from Franco. The interior was shaped and lined with velvet and contained glass ampoules, two round boxes and two small hypodermic syringes. Petersen took out one of the round boxes and shook it: it rattled. Petersen handed the box to Carlos.
‘Should interest a medical man. At a guess, a variety of liquids and tablets to render the victim temporarily or permanently unconscious, by which I mean dead. Seven ampoules, you observe. One green, three blue, three pink. At a guess, the green is scopolamine, an aid to flagging memories. As for the difference in colour in the other six ampoules, there can be only one reason. Three are lethal, three non-lethal. Wouldn’t you agree, Captain?’
‘It’s possible.’ It was Carlos’ night for being unhappy and Petersen was no longer as surprised by his unhappiness as he had been earlier, nor at the obvious apprehension in which he held Alessandro. ‘There’s no means of telling one from the other, of course.’
‘I wouldn’t bet on that,’ Petersen said. He turned round as George came through the doorway. ‘All is well?’
‘A little trouble with the young lady,’ George said. ‘She put up a surprisingly spirited resistance to the confiscation of her radio.’
‘Nothing surprising about that. Fortunately, you’re bigger than she is.’
‘I’m hardly proud of that. The radios are in the captain’s cabin.’ George looked around the cabin which looked as if a small tornado had lately passed by. ‘Untidy lot, aren’t they?’
‘I helped a little.’ Petersen took the box from Carlos and handed it to George. ‘What do you make of that?’
It is difficult to conceive of a beaming, plump and cherubic face changing in an instant to one of graven stone but that was what happened to George’s.
‘Those are death capsules.’
‘I know.’
‘Alessandro’s?’
‘Yes.’
George looked at Alessandro for some seconds, nodded, and turned back to Petersen. ‘I think perhaps we should have a talk with our friend.’
‘You’re making a mistake.’ Carlos’ voice was not quite as steady as it could have been. ‘I’m a doctor. You don’t know human nature. Alessandro will never talk.’
George faced him. His expression hadn’t changed and Carlos visibly recoiled.
‘Be quiet, little man. Five minutes alone with me, ten at the most, and any man in the world will talk. Alessandro is a five minute man.’
‘It may come to that,’ Petersen said. ‘It probably will. But first things first. Apart from the capsules, we picked up one or two other interesting objects. This silenced gun, for instance.’ He showed George the Walther. ‘Two gas-grenades and a spirit burner and kettle and about tw
o hundred rounds of ammunition. What do you think the kettle was for?’
‘One thing only. He was going to gas us, steal some real or imagined document, steam open the envelope – odd, that he should be convinced that there was an envelope around – study the contents, reseal the envelope, return it to our cabin, gas us again, wait a few seconds, replace the envelope, remove the gas-canister and leave. When we woke up in the morning we almost certainly wouldn’t be aware that anything had happened.’
‘That’s the only way it could have happened or was intended to happen. There are three questions. Why was Alessandro so interested in us? What were his future plans? And who sent him?’
‘We’ll find all that out easily enough,’ George said.
‘Of course we will.’
‘Not aboard this ship,’ Carlos said.
George studied him with mild interest. ‘Why not?’
‘There will be no torture aboard any vessel I command.’ The words sounded more resolute than the tone of the voice.
‘Carlos,’ Petersen said. ‘Don’t make things any more difficult for yourself – or us – than you can help. Nothing easier than to lock you up with this bunch of villains: you’re not the only person who can find his way to Ploe. We don’t want to nor do we intend to. We realize you find yourself in an invidious situation through no fault of your own. No torture. We promise.’
‘You’ve just said you’ll find out.’
‘Psychology.’
‘Drugs?’ Carlos was immediately suspicious. ‘Injections?’
‘Neither. Subject closed. I had another question but the answer is obvious – why did Alessandro choose to surround himself with such a bunch of incompetents? Camouflage. A dangerous man might well be tempted to surround himself with other dangerous men. Alessandro’s too smart.’ Petersen looked around. ‘No heavy metal objects and only a cat could get out of that port-hole. Carlos, would you have one of your men bring us a sledge-hammer or as near to it as you have aboard.’
The suspicion returned. ‘What do you want a sledge-hammer for?’
‘To beat out Alessandro’s brains,’ George said patiently. ‘Before we start asking questions.’
‘To close this door from the outside,’ Petersen said. ‘The clips, you understand.’
‘Ah!’ Carlos stepped into the passage-way, gave an order and returned. ‘I’ll go and have a look at the fallen hero. Not much I can do for him, I’m afraid.’
‘A favour, Carlos. When we leave, may we go up to your cabin or whatever you call the place we met you first?’
‘Certainly. May one ask why?’
‘If you’d been standing frozen in that damned passage-way for an hour and a half you’d understand why.’
‘Of course. Restoratives. Help yourselves, gentlemen. I’ll step by and let you know how Cola is.’ He paused then added drily: ‘That should give you plenty of time to prepare your intensive interrogation of me.’
He left almost immediately to be replaced by Pietro, bearing a small sledge-hammer. They closed the door and secured one of the eight water-tight clips. One was enough. George struck it with one blow of the hammer. That, too, was enough – not even a gorilla could now have opened that clip from the inside. They left the sledge-hammer in the passage-way and went directly to the engineroom, which was unmanned, as they had known it would be: all controls were operated from the wheelhouse. It took them less than a minute to find what they were looking for. They made a brief excursion to the upper deck then repaired to Carlos’ cabin.
‘A thirsty night’s work,’ George said. He was on his second, or it could have been third, glass of grappa. He looked at the von Karajans’ radios on the deck beside him. ‘These would have been safer in our cabins. Why have them here?’
‘They’d have been too safe in our cabins. Young Michael would never have dared to try to get at them there.’
‘Don’t try to tell me that he might try to get at them here.’
‘Unlikely, I admit. Michael, it is clear, is not cast in the heroic mould. He might, of course, be a consummate actor, but I don’t see him as an actor any more than a hero. However, if he’s desperate enough – and he must have been desperate to try to get off a message at the time and place he did – he might try.’
‘But the radios will be in the safe as soon as Carlos returns. And Carlos has the only key.’
‘Carlos might give him that key.’
‘Oh! So that’s the way our devious mind works. So we keep an eye on our Michael for the remainder of the night? Not that there’s all that much left of it. And if he does try to recover the radios, what does that prove except that there is a connection between him and Carlos?’
‘That’s all I want to prove. I don’t expect either would say or admit to anything. They don’t have to. At least, Michael doesn’t have to. I can have him detained in Ploe for disobedience of orders and suspicion of trying to communicate with the enemy.’
‘You really suspect him of that?’
‘Good Lord, no. But, no question, he’s been trying to communicate with someone and that someone might as well be a spy. It’ll look better on a charge sheet. All I want to see is if there’s any connection between him and Carlos.’
‘And if there is you’re prepared to clap him into durance vile?’
‘Sure.’
‘And his sister?’
‘She’s done nothing. She can come along with us, hang around Ploe or join him in, as you say, durance vile. Up to her.’
‘The very flower of chivalry.’ George shook his head and reached for the grappa. ‘So we may or may not suspect a connection between Carlos and Michael but we do suspect one between Carlos and Alessandro.’
‘I don’t. I do think that Carlos knows a great deal more about Alessandro than we do but I don’t think he knows what Alessandro is up to on this passage. A very simple point. If Carlos were privy to Alessandro’s plans then he, Alessandro, wouldn’t have bothered to bring along a kettle and burner: he’d just have gone to the galley and steamed the envelope open.’ He turned round as Carlos entered. ‘How’s Cola?’
‘He’ll be all right. Well, no danger. His shoulder is a mess. Even if it were a flat calm I wouldn’t touch it. It needs a surgeon or an osteologist and I’m neither.’ He unlocked a safe, put the radio gear inside then relocked the door. ‘Well, no hurry for you, gentlemen, but I must return to the wheelhouse.’
‘A moment, please.’
‘Yes, Peter?’ Carlos smiled. ‘The interrogation?’
‘No. A few questions. You could save us a lot of time and trouble.’
‘What? In interrogating Alessandro? You promised me no torture.’
‘I still promise. Alessandro tried to assault us and steal some papers tonight. Did you, do you know about this?’
‘No.’
‘I believe you.’ Carlos raised his eyebrows a little but said nothing. ‘You don’t seem unduly concerned that your fellow-Italian has been made a prisoner by a bunch of uncivilized Yugoslavs, do you?’
‘If you mean does he mean anything personally to me, no.’
‘But his reputation does.’
Carlos said nothing.
‘You know something about his background, his associations, the nature of his business that we don’t. Is that not so?’
‘That could be. You can’t expect me to divulge anything of that nature.’
‘Not expect. Hope.’
‘No hope. You wouldn’t break the Geneva Conventions to extract that information from me.’
Petersen rose. ‘Certainly not. Thank you for your hospitality.’
Petersen was carrying a canvas chair and the metal box of capsules when he entered the cabin in which Alessandro and his three men were imprisoned. George was carrying two lengths of heaving line and the sledge-hammer with which he had just released the outside clip. Alex was carrying only his machine-pistol. Petersen unfolded the chair, sat on it and watched with apparent interest as George hammered home a clip.
r /> ‘We’d rather not have any interruptions, you see,’ Petersen said. He looked at Franco, Sepp and Guido. ‘Get into that corner there. If anyone moves Alex will kill him. Take your jacket off, Alessandro.’
Alessandro spat on the floor.
‘Take your jacket off,’ George said pleasantly, ‘or I’ll knock you out of it.’
Alessandro, not a man of a very original turn of mind, spat again. George hit him somewhere in the region of the solar plexus, not a very hard blow, it seemed, but enough to make Alessandro double up, whooshing in agony. George removed the jacket.
‘Tie him up.’
George set about tying him up. When Alessandro had recovered a little from his initial bout of gasping, he tried to offer some resistance, but an absentminded cuff from George to the side of the jaw convinced him of the unwisdom of this. George tied him in such a fashion that both arms were lashed immovably to his sides. His knees and ankles were bound together and then, for good measure, George used the second heaving line to lash Alessandro to the cot. No chicken was ever so securely trussed, so immobile, as Alessandro was then.
George surveyed his handiwork with some satisfaction then turned to Petersen: ‘Isn’t there something in the Geneva Conventions about this?’
‘Could be, could be. Truth is, I’ve never read them.’ He opened the metal box and looked at Alessandro. ‘In the interests of science, you understand. This shouldn’t take any time at all.’ The words were light enough but Alessandro wasn’t listening to the words, he was looking at the implacable face above and not liking at all what he saw. ‘Here we have three blue ampoules and three pink. We think, and Captain Tremino who is also a doctor agrees with us, that three of these are lethal and three non-lethal. Unfortunately, we don’t know which is which and there’s only one simple, logical way to find out. I’m going to inject you with one of these. If you survive it, then we’ll know it’s a nonlethal ampoule. If you don’t, we’ll know it’s the other ones that are non-lethal.’ Petersen held up two ampoules, one blue, one pink. ‘Which would you suggest, George?’ George rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘A big responsibility. A man’s life could hang on my decision. Well, it’s not all that big a responsibility. No loss to mankind, anyway. The blue one.’