Circus

  Wrinfield was finally located in the radio office, arranging for the dispatch of cablegrams to Henry’s parents and relatives. Now that the initial shock was over Wrinfield was calm and self-composed and in the event had to spend considerably more time in comforting Maria than she him. They left him there and found Roebuck waiting outside.

  Bruno said: ‘Where’s Kan Dahn?’

  ‘In the lounge. You’d think there’s a seven-year famine of beer just round the corner.’

  ‘Would you take this young lady down to her cabin, please?’

  ‘Why?’ Maria wasn’t annoyed, just puzzled. ‘Am I not capable – ’

  Roebuck took a firm grip on her arm. ‘Mutineers walk the plank, young lady.’

  Bruno said: ‘And you lock your door. How long will it take you to get to bed?’

  ‘Ten minutes.’

  ‘I’ll be along in fifteen.’

  Maria unlocked the door at the sound of Bruno’s voice. He entered, followed by Kan Dahn, who was carrying a couple of blankets under his arm. Kan Dahn smiled genially at her, then wedged his massive bulk into the armchair and carefully arranged the blankets over his knees.

  Bruno said: ‘Kan Dahn finds his own quarters a bit cramped. He thought he’d take a rest down here.’

  Maria looked at them, first in protest, then in perplexity, then shook her head helplessly, smiled and said nothing. Bruno said his good night and left.

  Kan Dahn reached out, turned down the rheostat on the flexible bedside light and angled the remaining dim glow so that it was away from the girl’s face and leaving him in deep shadow. He took her hand in his massive paw.

  ‘Sleep well, my little one. I don’t want to make a thing out of this but Kan Dahn is here.’

  ‘You can’t sleep in that awful chair?’

  ‘Not can’t. Won’t. I’ll sleep tomorrow.’

  ‘You haven’t locked the door.’

  ‘No,’ he said happily. ‘I haven’t, have I?’

  She was asleep in minutes and no one, most fortunately for the state of his continued good health, came calling on her that night.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The arrival, unloading and disembarkation at Genoa was smooth and uneventful and took place in a remarkably short space of time. Wrinfield was his usual calm, efficient and all-overseeing self and to look at him as he went about his business it would have been impossible to guess that his favourite nephew, who had been much more like a son to him, had died the previous night. Wrinfield was a showman first, last and all the way between: in the hackneyed parlance the show had to go on, and as long as Wrinfield was there that it would most certainly do.

  The train, with the help of a small shunting engine, was assembled and hauled to a shunting yard about a mile away where some empty coaches and provisions for animals and humans were already waiting. By late afternoon the last of the preparations were complete, the small diesel shunter disengaged itself and was replaced by the giant Italian freight locomotive that was to haul them over the many mountains that lay in their way. In the gathering dusk they pulled out for Milan.

  The swing through Europe, which was to cover ten countries – three in western Europe, seven in eastern Europe – turned out to be something more than a resounding success. It resembled a triumphant progress and as the circus’s fame travelled before it the welcome, the enthusiasm, the adulation became positively embarrassing until the stage was reached that there were half a dozen applications for each seat available for any performance – and some of the auditoriums were huge, some bigger than any in the United States. At dingy sidings in big cities they were greeted and seen off by crowds bigger than those paying homage to the latest fabulous group of singers – or cup-winning football teams – at international airports.

  Tesco Wrinfield, determinedly and with a conscious effort of will, had put the past behind him. Here he was in his element. He revelled in solution of the complexities of the vast logistical problems involved. He knew Europe, especially eastern Europe, where he had recruited most of his outstanding acts, as well as any European on the train and certainly far better than any of his executives or American-born artistes and workers. He knew that those audiences were more sophisticated about and more appreciative of the finer arts of the circus than American and Canadian audiences, and when those people’s papers increasingly referred to his pride and joy as the greatest circus of all time it was undiluted balm to his showman’s heart: even more heady, were that possible, were the increasing references to himself as the greatest showman on earth. Nor was he displeased with the pragmatic side of it all: the packed houses and the very high profits made ledger books a positive pleasure to peruse: one cannot be a great showman without being a great businessman as well. It came to the stage that he began calculating that, even without the United States government backing, he could still, America to America, have made a handsome profit on the tour. Not, of course, that the United States government would be apprised of this.

  At least as happy were those of his artistes – over half of them – who came from eastern Europe. For them, especially for the Hungarians, Bulgarians and Romanians, whose circus training schools were the best in Europe and probably in the world, this was the long-promised homecoming. In front of their own people they excelled themselves, reaching heights of professional brilliance never attained before. The morale in a top circus is always high: even so, Wrinfield had never seen those people so happy and contented.

  They swung through northern Italy, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary then across the Curtain back into Austria. It was after the final show of their first day in Vienna, the finale of which had been greeted with the now standard rapturous ovation, that Harper – who had kept their contacts on the Continent to the barest minimum – approached Bruno. He said: ‘Come to my compartment when you are ready.’

  When Bruno arrived, Harper said without preamble: ‘I promised you I’d show you three things in one night. Here they are.’ He unclipped the bottom of his medical bag and drew out a metal container smaller even than a box of Kleenex tissues. ‘A little transistorized beauty. Earphones and mike. This switch is for power. This button is for a combination of pre-selected wavelengths and call-up – the receiver in Washington is manned twenty-four hours a day. This spring-loaded lever is for speak-transmit. Simple.’

  ‘You said something about a code.’

  ‘I won’t burden you with that. I know if I wrote it out you could commit it to memory in nothing flat but the CIA has a thing about committing codes to paper, however temporarily. Anyway, if you do have to use this machine – which would mean, unfortunately for me, that I would no longer be around – you wouldn’t want to bother with code anyway. You just shout “Help!” in plain English.

  ‘It’s on this machine that I received confirmation of our escape route instructions today – this evening, in fact. There’s a NATO exercise taking place in the Baltic in about ten days’ time. An unspecified naval vessel – they’re a very cagey lot in Washington; I assume it’s American but I don’t even know what type of craft it is – will be standing by or cruising off the coast from the Friday night until the following Friday. It carries an Air-Sea Rescue helicopter. It will land at a place I’ll show you when we get there – I don’t consider it wise to carry maps on me and, besides, I can’t properly locate it until we get there. The ship is tuned to the same wavelength as Washington. We press this top button on the transceiver here – just as simple as that – and the helicopter comes a-running.’

  ‘All seems perfectly straightforward. You do seem to have this organized. You know, I’m beginning to think that the Government regard Van Diemen’s pieces of paper as very valuable indeed.’

  ‘One gathers that impression. By the way, I’m curious. How long does your memory span last?’

  ‘As long as I want.’

  ‘So you’ll be able to memorize the contents of those papers and reproduce them, say, a year later?’

  ‘I should think so.??
?

  ‘Let’s hope that’s the way it’s going to be – that you’re going to be given the chance to reproduce them, I mean. Let’s hope nobody ever finds out that you got in there, did your mentalist bit and left unseen. Let’s hope, in other words, that you don’t have to use these.’ From the breast pocket of his jacket Harper unclipped a couple of pens, one black, one red. They were of the heavy felt-Biro type with the release button at the top. ‘I picked these up in town today. I don’t have to tell you where I picked them up.’

  Bruno looked at the pens, then at Harper. ‘What on earth would I want to use those things for?’

  ‘Whatever the faults of our science and research department, it’s not lack of imagination. They positively dote on dreaming up these little toys. You don’t think I’m going to let you cross two eastern frontiers with a couple of Peacemaker Colts strapped to your waist? These are guns. Yes, guns. The red one is the nasty one, the one with the anaesthetic-tipped needles which are not so healthy for those with heart conditions: the other one is the gas gun.’

  ‘So small?’

  ‘With the micro-miniaturization techniques available today, those are positively bulky. The needle gun has an effective range of forty feet, the gas gun of not more than four. Operation is simplicity itself. Depress the button at the top and the gun is armed: press the pocket clip and the gun is fired. Stick them in your outside pocket. Let people get used to the sight of them. Now listen carefully while I outline the plans for Crau.’

  ‘But I thought you had already agreed to the plan – my plan.’

  ‘I did and I do. This is merely a refinement of the original part of that plan. You may have wondered why the CIA elected to send you with a medical person. When I have finished you will understand.’

  * * *

  Some four hundred and fifty miles to the north, three men sat in a brightly lit, windowless and very austere room, the furniture of which consisted mainly of metal filing cabinets, a metal table and some metal-framed chairs. All three were dressed in uniform. From the insignia they wore, one was a colonel, the second a captain, the third a sergeant. The first was Colonel Serge Sergius, a thin, hawk-faced man with seemingly lidless eyes and a gash where his mouth should have been: his looks perfectly befitted his occupation, which was that of a very important functionary in the secret police. The second, Captain Kodes, was his assistant, a well-built athletic man in his early thirties, with a smiling face and cold blue eyes. The third, Sergeant Angelo, was remarkable for one thing only, but that one thing was remarkable enough. At six feet three, Angelo was considerably too broad for his height, a massively muscular man who could not have weighed less than two hundred and fifty pounds. Angelo had one function and one only in life – he was Sergius’s personal bodyguard. No one could have accused Sergius of choosing without due care and attention.

  On the table a tape recorder was running. A voice said: ‘and that is all we have for the moment’. Kodes leaned forward and switched off the recorder.

  Sergius said: ‘And quite enough. All the information we want. Four different voices. I assume, my dear Kodes, that if you were to meet the owners of those four voices you could identify them immediately?’

  ‘Without the shadow of a doubt, sir.’

  ‘And you, Angelo?’

  ‘No question, sir.’ Angelo’s gravelly booming voice appeared to originate from the soles of his enormous boots.

  ‘Then please go ahead, Captain, with the reservation of our usual rooms in the capital – the three of us and the cameraman. Have you chosen him yet, Kodes?’

  ‘I thought young Nicolas, sir. Extraordinarily able.’

  ‘Your choice.’ Colonel Sergius’s lipless mouth parted about a quarter of an inch, which meant that he was smiling. ‘Haven’t been to the circus for thirty years – circuses had ceased to exist during the war – but I must say I’m looking forward with almost childish enthusiasm to this one. Especially one which is as highly spoken of as this one is. Incidentally, Angelo, there is a performer in this circus whom I’m sure you will be most interested to see, if not meet.’

  ‘I do not care to see or meet anyone from an American circus, sir.’

  ‘Come, come, Angelo, one must not be so chauvinistic.’

  ‘Chauvinistic, Colonel?’

  Sergius made to explain then decided against the effort. Angelo was possessed of many attributes but a razor-sharp intelligence was not among them.

  ‘There are no nationalities in a circus, Angelo, only artistes, performers: the audience does not care whether the man on the trapeze comes from Russia or the Sudan. The man I refer to is called Kan Dahn and they say that he is even bigger than you. He is billed as the strongest man in the world.’

  Angelo made no reply, merely inflated his enormous chest to its maximum fifty-two inches and contented himself with a smile of wolfish disbelief.

  The three-day stay in Austria was by now the inevitable enormous success. From there the circus moved north and, after only one stop-over, arrived in the city where Sergius and his subordinates had moved to meet them.

  At the evening performance, those four had taken the best seats about six rows back facing the centre of the centre ring. All four were in civilian clothes and all four were unmistakably soldiers in civilian clothes. One of them, immediately after the beginning of the performance, produced a very expensive-looking camera with a telephoto lens, and the sight of this produced a senior uniformed police officer in very short order indeed. The taking of photographs was officially discouraged, while with Westerners the illegal possession of an undeclared camera, if discovered, was a guarantee of arrest and trial: every camera aboard the circus train had been impounded on entering the country and would not be returned until the exit frontier had been crossed.

  The policeman said: ‘The camera please: and your papers.’

  ‘Officer.’ The policeman turned towards Sergius and gave him the benefit of his cold insolent policeman’s stare, a stare that lasted for almost a full second before he swallowed what was obviously a painful lump in his throat. He moved in front of Sergius and spoke softly: ‘Your pardon, Colonel. I was not notified.’

  ‘Your headquarters were informed. Find the incompetent and punish him.’

  ‘Sir. My apologies for – ’

  ‘You’re blocking my view.’

  And, indeed, the view was something not to be blocked. No doubt inspired by the fact that they were being watched by connoisseurs, and wildly enthusiastic connoisseurs at that, the company had in recent weeks gone from strength to strength, honing and refining and polishing their acts, continually inventing more difficult and daring feats until they had arrived at a now almost impossible level of perfection. Even Sergius, who was normally possessed of a mind like a refrigerated computer, gave himself up entirely to the fairyland that was the circus. Only Nicolas, the young – and very presentable – photographer, had his mind on other things, taking an almost non-stop series of photographs of all the main artistes in the circus. But even he forgot his camera and his assignment as he stared – as did his companions – in total disbelief as The Blind Eagles went through their suicidal aerial routine.

  It was shortly after their performance that a nondescript individual approached Sergius and murmured: ‘Two rows back, sir, ten seats to your left.’ A brief nod was Sergius’s only acknowledgement.

  Towards the very end of the performance Kan Dahn, who appeared to grow fitter with the passing of every day, went through his paces. Kan Dahn spurned the use of props such as iron bars and bar-bells: a five-year-old could tie an iron bar in knots and lift a massive 400-pound bar-bell, provided they were made of the right material, which could be anything except iron. He invariably worked with human beings: creatures who ran, jumped and turned cartwheels could not very well be made of featherweight plastic.

  As a finale, Kan Dahn paraded around the centre ring, with a heavy wooden pole resting in a yoke on his shoulders. On either side of the yoke sat five circus girls. If
Kan Dahn was aware of the presence of their weight he showed no signs of it. Occasionally, he stopped to scratch the back of his left calf with his right instep. Sergius leaned across Kodes and spoke to Angelo, who was watching the spectacle with an air of determined indifference.

  ‘Big, isn’t he, Angelo?’

  ‘All show muscle. Puffy. I once saw an old man in Athens, seventy-five if he was a day, and not a kilo, I swear, over fifty, carrying a grand piano the length of a street. Friends must have put it on his back – he could never have straightened his legs under the load – and if he didn’t keep them straight he would have collapsed.’

  Even as he spoke, Kan Dahn started climbing a massive step-ladder in the centre of the ring. The platform on top was about three feet square. Kan Dahn reached this without any apparent difficulty, stepped on to an inset turntable, and by a progressive twisting of his tree-trunk legs set the turntable in circular motion, slowly speeding up until the girls on the outer ends of the pole were no more than coloured kaleidoscopic blurs. Gradually he slowed, came to a stop, descended the ladder, knelt, then bowed his shoulders until the feet of the circus girls touched the sawdust. Sergius leaned across again.

  ‘Could your old friend in Athens have done that with his piano?’ Angelo made no reply. ‘Do you know that they say that he can do that with fourteen girls but the management won’t allow him because they say nobody will believe it?’ Angelo remained silent.

  The performance ended and the rapturous applause, a standing ovation, lasted several minutes. When the audience started filing out, Sergius looked for and located Wrinfield, and by judging his pace contrived to meet him at the exit gang way. He said: ‘Mr Wrinfield?’

  ‘Yes. I’m sorry, should I know you?’

  ‘We haven’t met.’ Sergius pointed to the picture on the front of the souvenir programme he carried. ‘The likeness, you will agree, is unmistakable. My name is Colonel Sergius.’ They shook hands formally. ‘Stupendous, Mr Wrinfield. Impossible. Had anyone told me that such a show existed, I would have called him a liar to his face.’ Wrinfield beamed. Beethoven’s Ninth left him cold – this was the music that reached his heart. ‘I’ve been a devotee of the circus ever since I was a young boy,’ – Sergius was as fluent a liar as the next man and a great deal more so than most – ‘but never in my life have I seen anything like this.’