Cloak of Darkness E-Book

Helen MacInnes

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Bob Renwick, founder of counter-terrorist agency Interintell, is handed a list of names, compiled by the ruthless executive of an international munitions firm, intent on removing anyone in his way. To be on the list means death, and Renwick's name is third. On a desperate mission from New York to Djibouti, Renwick must unmask his nemesis to save all he holds dear.

Leseprobe

ALSO BY HELEN MacINNES

AND AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS

Pray for a Brave Heart

Above Suspicion

Assignment in Brittany

North From Rome

Decision at Delphi

The Venetian Affair

The Salzburg Connection

Message from Málaga

While We Still Live

The Double Image

Neither Five Nor Three

Horizon

Snare of the Hunter

Agent in Place

Ride a Pale Horse

Prelude to Terror

The Hidden Target

I and My True Love

Rest and Be Thankful (December 2013)

Friends and Lovers (January 2014)

Home is the Hunter (February 2014)

Helen

MacINNES

CLOAK OFDARKNESS

TITAN BOOKS

Cloak of Darkness

Print edition ISBN: 9781781163375

E-book edition ISBN: 9781781164310

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

First edition: November 2013

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

© 1982, 2013 by the Estate of Helen MacInnes. All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

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For Keith and Nancy, with love

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

1

It was the usual Monday-morning fever in Robert Renwick’s office. After a slow week-end with scarcely a report coming in, there was a deluge of cryptic messages—most by shortwave radio, some by coded cable or Telex, and even two by scrambled phone calls from Berlin and Rome requiring immediate attention.

But now it was five o’clock, the working day drawing to an end, his desk almost free of questions needing answers, of memoranda and suggestions to be considered. The easy replies would go out tonight; the difficult problems would need more computer research and analysis, perhaps further queries to agents in the field, certainly some scrambled phone discussions with agencies in various capitals. The Intelligence services, not only of the NATO countries but also of those that had allied themselves with the West, were finding the London headquarters of Interintell a useful clearing house of information.

Interintell—or International Intelligence against Terrorism. It had been Renwick’s brain child, conceived in Brussels, set up in London, staffed by ex-NATO Intelligence men like Renwick himself. As an American, he would have been pleased to see Washington as Interintell’s headquarters for shared information on terrorist conspiracies and connections. But he had decided on London for several valid reasons. Western Europe had been under savage attack by organised terrorism; the United States— so far—hadn’t experienced the same intensity. Then there was the matter of co-operation between Intelligence services, and that came more willingly from Europeans: they had felt the need. The United States—so far, again—had not.

But then, America had been having its own headaches: the CIA under attack at home, in danger abroad from the exposure of its agents. Small wonder that Washington, overloaded with bureaucrats and competing agencies, had been in a foot-dragging mood when Renwick put forward his tentative idea almost three years ago: the necessity for pro-NATO countries to share Intelligence information if terrorism was ever to be challenged successfully.

France, of course, had been interested—it was already establishing its own counter-terrorism department. But even though Paris had its attractions, it also had the headquarters of Interpol, the International Police Organisation that tracked the criminals who once thought crossing a frontier would solve their problems. Fair was fair, Renwick had decided, and so London was the choice. In the two years since Interintell had been established, in a quiet house on Grace Street with the modest plate of J.P. Merriman & Co., Consultant Engineers marking its front entrance, it had prospered. Business, alas, was booming: too many damned terrorists, Renwick was thinking as he rearranged three remaining reports on the desk in front of him.

He would read and compare them once more—they were succinct, only a page to each of them—and then go home, still brooding about them, to be ready by tomorrow morning for a conference with Gilman and Claudel. (They were reading the duplicates right now.) He glanced at the clock, looked at Nina’s photograph smiling at him across the small room. “Tonight,” he told her, “I’ll even be home in time for dinner.”

And then the telephone rang, the green one, his own private line to the outside world without benefit of the telephone switchboard downstairs. Serious business, he thought with a frown as he picked up the receiver. A man’s voice asked, “Renwick?”

“Yes.”

“Say a few words, will you?” The voice was strong, confident, American.

Someone who knows me, a careful type, making sure. Renwick said, “‘O what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive.’”

There was a pause, then a smothered laugh. “Yes, Colonel, sir. You’re Renwick all right.”

“And who are you?”

“That doesn’t matter. What I know, does. Is this line safe?”

“It should be.”

“No other connection? No one listening?” The questions were tense.

“No one.” And who the hell was this? Not more than twenty people had Renwick’s private number, and the voice didn’t belong to any of them.

The man’s brief anxiety was over. He spoke more easily now. “I’ll take your word for it. Meet me at six o’clock. In your favourite pub.”

“Sorry. I’m meeting a friend there for a quick drink this evening. Why not join us?” Renwick would like to see this character who had ferreted out his private number. But not alone. He would get Ronald Gilman or Pierre Claudel to accompany him.

“I’m not joining you there. Just passing by your table. I’ll stop to light a cigarette—a red throwaway lighter. You’ll see a heavy gold ring on my right hand. Give me five minutes— five exactly—and then follow. Alone. Take a cab. Drive to Paddington Station. I’ll be waiting just inside the main entrance. Follow me again. We’ll stop at a newsstand, and I’ll slip you a ticket. Then trail behind me, and we’ll have us a little train ride. An empty compartment is a good place for serious talk.”

“If it’s empty.” A compartment? Did they exist any more? This must be an amateur, and a stranger to Britain, too, who had worked out his own security plans.

“Leave that to me. You just leave your friend sitting in the Red Lion. Got that?”

“Which Red Lion? There must be fifty of them.” On Bridle Lane? If so, this man had been watching him. A disquieting thought.

“Come on, Renwick! Your favourite pub. Not too far from the office.”

So Bridle Lane it was.

“Six o’clock. Prepare for a short stay. But your friend stays there. No one follows you outside. No one follows me. I’ve got your word on that?”

“No one follows us into the street.”

“And no one waits for us outside, either. Agreed?”

Renwick glanced at the reports in front of him. “Agreed, but I’ve some work to finish. Make it seven o’clock.” And what have I to lose? he thought. If I sense something wrong about this man, I don’t have to walk out of the Red Lion after him. He seems to know me. I feel I’ve heard that voice before, can’t quite place it, but if I can see him I may remember where we’ve met. And was that what he wanted, my recognition? So that I’d follow him, have confidence in him?

“Six o’clock. There’s a train to catch. And I hold you to your promise. No one watching the Red Lion. Remember!”

Renwick restrained a surge of annoyance, kept his voice cool. “Why should I go through all these antics? I don’t know who you are or your credentials, or even—”

“Three weeks ago, I met a man who had just escaped from a prison in India—sentenced for murder in Bombay, 1979.”

Renwick’s spine stiffened. That was Erik—it had to be. News of his escape had reached Interintell six weeks ago. Since then, silence. And it had been Interintell (chiefly Renwick and Claudel) who had tracked Erik in 1979 through Europe and the Mideast and Iran, through Pakistan and India to Bombay, where the long chase had ended. Erik, the founder and leader of a West German group of anarchists calling themselves “Direct Action”. Erik, or Kurt Leitner, or James Kiley, or a dozen other identities that he had used in his ten years of dedicated terrorism... Renwick recovered. “You met him where?”

“I’ll tell you when we meet. I’ll tell you that and more important things, too.” The call ended.

More important than Erik wandering free? Renwick replaced the receiver. He picked up the three sheets of paper, placed them in a folder in his safe and locked it. (Tomorrow he would come into the office before nine, finish his homework on their problem before the meeting with Gilman and Claudel at ten o’clock.) The rest of the litter on his desk was gathered into neat piles, placed methodically in a drawer with a dependable lock: nothing of much importance there. The room was orderly once more.

Antiseptic, Renwick called it. Apart from the large maps on the walls above the low bookcases, the only decoration was Nina’s photograph. The one comfortable item was the black leather armchair with its footrest. Everything else was practical: desk, two chairs, three telephones, good lamps, wall safe, filing cabinet with a radio on top, an electric fire, and windows close to the ceiling with plenty of air and daylight and even more privacy than the room already possessed. Nina had suggested colour for the walls, a bright carpet on the floor, but he had kept the room as plain as possible—white walls, wooden floors, nothing to distract or seduce him from the work on hand.

He called Nina on his regular outside line. “Honey—I’ll be late tonight. Sorry. Terribly sorry, darling. Don’t keep dinner— I’ll have a sandwich. And get to bed, will you? Early?”

Nina took it well. She always did. It was as if she could sense some real urgency whenever he was forced to alter their plans. Now, she only said, “Take care, darling. Please?”

“Sure. I love you, don’t I?” He was the luckiest guy, he told himself for the thousandth time.

There was no need to call Gilman on the interoffice phone. Their doors were always open to each other. He lifted his Burberry off its hook on the wall, checked his hat in its pocket, and entered the passage that led into the main house. The filing room, vast with its steadily increasing data, was still at work. Next door, the computer room had its two experts busy with their question-and-answer games. And at the end of the corridor was Ronald Gilman’s office. He was the director of this establishment, elected by Renwick as much for his diplomatic connections as for his expert knowledge. It was Gilman who had arranged for the lease of this building, for the initial acquiring of equipment, and had managed to attract the unobtrusive support of his own government. The English had a quiet way in such matters.

Gilman, busy comparing the three reports, looked up in surprise. “Finished?” he asked. “Well, it looks as if you were right in your prediction two years ago.” He tapped the pages in front of him. “Right-wing terrorism is now as ruthless as left-wing. Joining each other, too, in some cases. An unholy alliance.”

“But I didn’t foresee any right-wing terrorists being trained in Communist camps.” That was what the three reports, each from a different source—France, Turkey, Lebanon—had indicated. “I’ll have to finish studying the evidence tomorrow morning. Something else has come up.”

Gilman looked at the American’s quiet face. Nothing there to show any worry or alarm: thoughtful grey eyes, brown hair slightly greying at the temples, even features, a pleasant mouth relaxing into one of his reassuring smiles. Yet Renwick’s voice had been too casual, always a small storm signal. “Something interesting?”

“I don’t know. It’s the damnedest thing.” Renwick began pacing the room, no larger than his own and just as sparingly furnished. “I had a call—my green line—” He halted, frowning at the floor, and began an accurate but brief account of that strange conversation.

Gilman was a good listener, silent, expressionless, but as Renwick ended, he said quite flatly, “I don’t like it, Bob. It could be a trap.”

“It could also be important.”

“The man knows you?”

“Seemingly. He certainly knows my phone number. How did he get that? And where did he meet Erik? He didn’t just see Erik. He met him. Exact word.”

“Three weeks ago...” Gilman’s glasses were off, his hair— blond, thinning on top—was ruffled and smoothed and ruffled again. “Erik will have moved on by this time.”

“At least we get a direction. We don’t know, now, whether Erik left India, or travelled east or north or west.”

“Certainly not south,” Gilman said, “unless he was taking a header into the Indian Ocean.” Then he looked at his watch, began gathering the pages in front of him. “You go ahead. I’ll take my car and join you in the Red Lion.”

“I hoped you would. Just as well for two of us to see this man.”

“He had no objection to someone meeting you?”

“No. Only to being followed.”

From the pub or from the street, Gilman remembered. “He didn’t mention anything about being followed at Paddington, did he?”

“No.” Renwick raised an eyebrow.

“Start moving, old boy.” Gilman locked up the three agents’ reports, “I’ll see you at six.”

Renwick left, still speculating. Why should Ron choose to delay, then take his car instead of walking the short distance to the Red Lion? Renwick could guess the answer, and felt the better for it. Gilman would now be on the phone to Claudel. And Renwick wouldn’t be heading out on a train, as yet unknown, to some benighted part of the country without someone nearby as a backup. Of course, if Gilman’s first objections were true, then he could be trapped. A train, to quote the man on the phone, might be a good place for a serious talk, but it was also a useful place for throwing out a body.

Renwick stopped, hurried back to his office, unlocked its door. Quickly, he opened the filing cabinet, found his Biretta and its lightweight holster. Almost two years of marriage and the sweet life had turned him—what? Soft? Careless? Not altogether, he decided as he made sure the Biretta was loaded and slipped it into the holster, now under his tweed jacket. Cigarette case and lighter were in his pocket. All set. He left, using the rear staircase and avoiding the main-floor offices of J.P. Merriman & Co., whose full-time surveyors and practical engineering advice brought in, and legitimately, the profits that kept Interintell expanding.

It was raining hard.

2

Twelve minutes at a smart pace brought Renwick in good time to the lower end of Bridle Lane. It stretched northward for a hundred yards, even less, close-packed on either side by low-storied buildings, before it was obliterated by the blare and bustle of Fleet Street. Up there, as in all the main arteries this evening, the roadway would be jammed with traffic and bad tempers, the sidewalks filled with umbrellas and sodden raincoats. The calendar might say June; today’s onslaught of cold wind and rain made it feel like March. But there was no need to approach the Red Lion by an overcrowded highway; there were shortcuts if you knew this part of the city, a loose haphazard web of short and narrow streets that merged and separated and changed their names as unexpectedly as their direction. And Renwick knew this area.

Each day after lunch, usually a sandwich in his office, he seized half an hour for a couple of miles in various directions and got the tension of too much desk-sitting out of his shoulder muscles. This evening he could even take a brief detour once he left Merriman’s by its inconspicuous rear exit, and still have six minutes to spare when he reached the pint-sized square where Bridle Lane began. So he slowed his step, making note of everything around him: no one loitering, no one following—the footsteps behind him hurried on, drew ahead, passed into the lane, kept hurrying. The shops and businesses, all small-scale, were closed, and if people lived up above them, then this was a night to stay indoors. The café at the corner of the square had its usual enticing suggestions on the hand-printed card displayed in its window, chief among them “Hot Peas and Vinegar”. That possibly explained the empty taxi, desolate and abandoned, that had been parked in front of the café while its driver enjoyed some sausages and mash. But it also reminded Renwick that taxis were scarce on a wet evening like this, and he wondered how—in this place, at this time of day—he would find a cab to take him to Paddington. That was one detail forgotten, perhaps not even imagined, by the man who had telephoned with such precise instructions. It was a revealing omission. The man might know the name and location of the Red Lion, but he didn’t know this district. So how did he get the address? From someone who had met Renwick there? Someone who also had access to Renwick’s private number? If so, decided Renwick, that narrowed down the field: few of his contacts possessed both pieces of information, very few. In grim mood, he entered the Red Lion.

From the outside, it didn’t look particularly inviting: it could have used some paint and polish. If that was its method of discouraging tourists in their search for quaint old London pubs, it was highly successful. It had its own clientele, some regular, some—like Renwick—occasional. And that was another point to remember: his visits here had no fixed routine, formed no pattern. Even constant surveillance—and he hadn’t seen or sensed any such thing—wouldn’t have marked the Red Lion as a special meeting place. No, that information had come from someone who had been here with Renwick. A mole in our group, a real professional sent to infiltrate? Or someone greedy for money, or open to blackmail? Or just a blabbermouth, overflown with wine and insolence?

Renwick resisted a searching look around the long room, seemed to be paying all attention to shaking out his raincoat and the old, narrow-brimmed felt hat he kept for bad weather. As yet, the place was only half filled—it opened at five thirty— but that would soon be remedied, and the smell of tobacco smoke would be added to the smell of ale that impregnated the dark woodwork of walls and tables. Casually, he noted two groups of men standing near the bar—no high stools here, no chrome or neon lighting, either—and three more groups at the central tables. He chose a high-backed wooden booth, one of a row on the opposite side of the room from the stretch of highly polished counter, hung coat and hat on a nearby hook, and sat down to face the back of the room. It was from somewhere there that the man must come in order to pass this table on his way to the door. I’ll make sure of a good look at his face, Renwick thought as he ordered a beer and tried to look totally relaxed, but he felt a tightening in his diaphragm, an expectation of something unexpected, something over which he would have no control. Not a pleasant prospect.

Even before his beer was brought by a pink-cheeked, red-haired barmaid, the room was beginning to fill: journalists in tweeds, conservatively clothed civil servants interspersed with exactingly dressed barristers, music students in leather jackets, and business-men in three-piece suits. Renwick smoked a cigarette, seemed normally interested in the growing crowd, wondered if his man was in the group gathered around a dartboard at the far end of the bar.

“Sorry,” Ronald Gilman said, ridding himself of coat and umbrella, taking a seat opposite Renwick. “I’m late—this weather.” He smoothed down his hair, asked, “Seen any likely prospect?”

“No. But he’s here.” Renwick could feel he had been observed and studied for the last few minutes. “Where did you park your car?” Gilman hadn’t walked—his raincoat was dry, his umbrella rolled.

“I didn’t. Claudel dropped me at the door and then drove on.”

“Oh?”

Gilman only nodded and ordered a double whisky with water, no ice. “I’m more nervous than you are, Bob. You know, you needn’t follow this blighter out. If you have the least doubt—”

“Here’s someone now,” Renwick warned. The man didn’t pause to light a cigarette. “False alarm,” Renwick said with a small laugh.

“Have you managed to place his voice?”

“I’ve heard it before. I think. I could be wrong.” But a telephone did accentuate the characteristics of a voice—its tone, its inflections.

“Strange that he didn’t disguise it. Muffle it. He didn’t?”

“No. He wants to be identified, I guess. Hence the double play. There was no need to meet twice, first here and then at Paddington.” Another man, could be a student from the school of music near Magpie Alley, passed their table. This one was lighting a cigarette. But no red lighter.

“One meeting with proper signals would be enough,” Gilman agreed. “An odd bird. Perhaps—” He heard footsteps slowing down behind his left shoulder, barely turned his head to glimpse the man who was about to light a cigarette, went on speaking. “Perhaps this foul weather will be over before the Wimbledon finals.”

“Did you get tickets?” Renwick looked down at his watch. The man continued towards the door. A red lighter, a heavy signet ring... And a face that was deeply tanned, fine wrinkles at the side of the brown eyes glancing briefly in Renwick’s direction; hard features, thick black hair. His suit was well cut, fitted his broad shoulders, but its fabric was too light in weight for London. Passing through? Certainly the opaque plastic raincoat over one arm was easily packable.

Gilman, with a good view of the man’s departure, dropped his voice. “Straight spine, strong back, about six feet tall. Did you get a full view of his face?”

Renwick’s voice was now at a murmur, too. “His name is Moore. Albert, Alfred—no, Alvin Moore. He was one of the drivers at NATO—his second enlistment. First one was in Vietnam, saw a lot of action, good record. But in Belgium he got involved with a couple of sergeants who were caught selling stolen supplies to a dealer in Brussels—they drew seven years each. There was no real evidence against Moore. They used his car, that was all. He had a mania for automobiles and speeds of ninety miles an hour.” Renwick kept an eye on his watch.

“Did he drive for you?” That couldn’t have been very often. Renwick liked to drive himself.

“Occasionally—when I had a meeting and had to be in uniform. Staff car, driver, that kind of thing.”

“Then how did you remember him?”

“When he was brought up on charges, he needed me as a character witness.”

“And you appeared?”

“He was honest—as far as I knew. One time I carried a briefcase, some sealed folders, an armful of maps. I had a clip of dollars—emergency cash—in my trouser pocket. Belgian francs were in my wallet. The dollar bills slipped out. I didn’t notice, didn’t even remember where I had lost them. Corporal Moore was my driver that day. He returned the bills intact. Found them slipped down in the back seat of the car.”

“Did your testimony clear him?”

“Every little bit helps, doesn’t it? But he was transferred stateside, discharged. Joined something more to his taste—the Green Berets, I heard.” Renwick glanced at his watch once more. “That was about seven years ago.”

“He’s the type who needs action, I think.”

Renwick agreed. “His trouble at NATO was boredom.” Then his voice changed. “On the phone he addressed me as colonel. Just once. Yet I was a captain when he knew me.”

“Where did he get that information?” Gilman asked quickly. Renwick’s promotion had been kept very quiet indeed; he never used his rank, just as the others in the Interintell group didn’t use theirs. Civilians for the duration and the preservation of peace, it was to be hoped.

“That,” said Renwick, “needs finding out.” There were too many damned questions needing answers. His eyes left his watch. “Time to start trying. It’s five minutes to the second.” He rose, unhooked his coat and hat. In a voice back to a normal level, he said, “Sorry I have to leave. Be seeing you.”

“See you, old boy.” Gilman’s eyes were troubled, but he gave one of his rare smiles, warm and real. Just hope that Bob has been keeping up his karate sessions, he thought as he watched Renwick pull on his Burberry and jam his rain hat well down on his brow before he stepped out into the cold world of Bridle Lane.

***

For a moment, Renwick hesitated on the sidewalk. Walk to Fleet Street, try to find a cab there? Or would that taxi parked outside the café still be waiting? He started down Bridle Lane toward the square, then halted. Luck was with him: the driver had finished his sausages and mash, or was it hot peas and vinegar? The taxi was coming this way. He signalled, and it stopped. He opened the door. A man raised himself from the back seat, held out an arm covered with a thin raincoat. Renwick saw the business-like nose of a revolver just showing from under the coat’s folds. “Hop in. I’ll give you a lift,” said Alvin Moore.

Renwick got in. “Unnecessary,” he said, looking at the pistol. The driver hadn’t even noticed; he had had his instructions, for the cab started forward with not a minute lost. A red-necked man, well fed, too, he was only intent on entering Fleet Street and gauging the traffic flow. “And much too noisy,” Renwick went on, controlling his anger. Moore was looking back at Bridle Lane.

“Not so noisy.” Moore lifted the raincoat’s fold to show a silencer was attached. “And not unnecessary. What guarantee did I have that you wouldn’t use a gun to make me redirect the cabbie to your office?” He kept looking back.

“No one was there to follow us. As promised.” Renwick was watching the direction the taxi was taking. So far, it seemed normal—allowing for one-way streets. They were now out of Fleet Street, driving north and then swinging west. They could be heading for Paddington Station.

Moore took the rebuke with a shrug. He was tense, though.

Preserve me from a jumpy man holding a pistol, Renwick thought. If he releases the safety catch, I’ll grasp his wrist, twist it up. I could draw the Biretta in that split second, but I won’t: a shoot-out in a cab is faintly ridiculous—would upset my British friends, too. Renwick eased his voice and kept a careful eye on Moore’s right hand. “You’ve got some strange ideas about the way we carry on our business at the office. Forcing people inside is not the way we work.”

“You sure don’t consult or engineer.”

“No?”

Moore stared. “You an engineer?” he asked, unbelieving.

“I was.”

“Before the army?”

“And for the first two years of my service.”

“As I heard it, you engineer more than dams and bridges now.”

“You’ve heard a lot of things, it seems.” Renwick looked pointedly at the driver’s red neck. “A friend of yours? Then we can start talking about what you’ve heard and where you heard it.”

Moore shook his head. “Don’t know him. Just doing his job. And we’ll need more time than we’ll have in this cab. There’s a lot to talk about.” He was no longer on edge.

So Renwick kept the conversation innocuous, nothing to stir up any more tension in Moore. “How did you produce a taxi at the right moment? Quite a triumph.”

“Easy. I took a cab to Bridle Lane, found it couldn’t park there, so I settled for the square. All thirty feet of it. Some district, this.”

“And you paid double the fare, promised double again if it waited for you?”

A grin broke over Moore’s face. “With the cost of a hot supper thrown in. Easy.” He was back to normal, more like the corporal Renwick remembered from seven years ago. There were interesting changes, though: he carried more weight, but that was muscle, not fat. The deep tan, the leather skin with its creases at the eyes, and the furrows on either side of the tight mouth indicated much time out of doors in strong sun and tropical heat. His suit spelled city, however, some place like New York, where summer needed thin clothing. It looked fairly new, expensive but not custom-made. Not enough time for a tailor to measure and fit? A quick visit to America? The crisp white shirt had a buttoned-down collar, the tie was recognisably from Brooks Brothers. A nice picture of an affluent man. Except for the raincoat—definitely incongruous, probably bought in an emergency this morning when the rain had set in.

Moore noticed the quiet scrutiny. “Well?” he demanded, his eyes defensive.

“Pretty smooth. But you always did like a smart uniform.” Renwick touched the sleeve of the plastic coat. “Bought today, thrown away tomorrow. Heading for a drier climate?”

Moore’s eyes widened for a moment. Then he laughed. “I came to the right man, that’s for sure.” He looked long at Renwick. “Engineer!” he said, shook his head. “Never met one yet who noticed anything except stress and strain on a pontoon.” He settled back, began watching the streets.

Again, Renwick checked the direction they were taking. It could indeed be Paddington. Fleet Street and the Strand area were well behind them. Piccadilly Circus, as bright and garish as Times Square, lights at full glitter even in daylight, had led them to the curve of Regent Street. But not for long. A quick left turn took them into quieter streets, rich and restrained, where people didn’t stand on pavements waiting for double-decker buses. The taxi driver knew his London: a left turn, a right turn, travelling west, then north, then west and north again, through an area of exclusive shops, imposing houses, and most correct hotels. This part of London always seemed to Renwick to be floating on its own cloud nine, far above the dreams of ordinary mortals. But soon the cab would be nearing Oxford Street and touching reality again. Still a long way to travel. Renwick glanced covertly at his watch. Pierre Claudel should be already at Paddington, waiting to track him into the station. “We may miss that train,” Renwick said.

It didn’t seem to worry Moore. With an eye on a corner sign reading Park Street, he stopped lounging. “Nearly forgot about this.” With quick, expert touch, he removed the silencer from the revolver, slipped them into separate pockets of the raincoat. “When we leave the cab, you walk ahead. I follow.”

“And if I don’t walk ahead? Will you reassemble that piece of artillery, use it in front of a hundred people?” Renwick’s voice was soft, his eyes hard.

“I can put it together in three seconds flat. But I don’t need to use it now.”

“Why the reprieve?”

“It did its job. Got you into this cab damn quick.”

Renwick remembered Moore’s anxiety as they had left Bridle Lane. “You weren’t nervous only about one of my friends following us, were you?”

No answer to that. Moore watched the street ahead. “Just do as I say. If you took off, you mightn’t live to regret it.”

Renwick looked at him sharply, wondering if that negative had crept in by mistake.

“You might not live,” Moore repeated. He saw Renwick’s glance at the bulge in his plastic raincoat’s pocket. “No, not that. I’m no assassin. I’m doing you a favour. I owe you one.” Then he looked at the street ahead, raised his voice for the driver. “Is this it? Okay, okay. Stop at the corner. How much?” His wallet was in his hand.

Good God, thought Renwick, we’re at Marble Arch. Moore frowned at the wad of English pound notes, made a guess, began counting them. He spoke to Renwick from the side of his mouth. “Buy a ticket for Tottenham Court Road. We’re taking the subway.”

“Tube,” Renwick corrected quietly as he opened the taxi door.

Moore halted him with another half-whispered command. “When we reach there, reverse positions. I lead. You follow. Room 412.”

Renwick nodded and left Moore handing over a clutch of notes; more than enough, judging by the driver’s sudden geniality. Marble Arch, he thought again, Marble Arch! Damn me for an idiot. He fooled me. I fell for Paddington. And Claudel hanging around there, watching, worrying? Pierre Claudel would do more than raise a fine French eyebrow when he waited and waited... The French could produce a flow of curses that would outdo anything an Anglo-Saxon tried.

Can’t even dodge into a telephone booth and warn Gilman— if I could reach him. Moore would take that as a breach of faith; he’d walk away and leave me flat, and I’d learn nothing in Room 412, wherever it was. In some hotel, obviously. In the neighbourhood, again obviously, of Tottenham Court Road: no mention of another tube, or a bus, or a taxi. In Soho, perish the thought? Or in Bloomsbury? Let’s hope it’s a short distance. Tonight, I’m in no mood for a walk in the rain.

3

The distance was short, a two-minute walk up Tottenham Court Road, which looked even worse than usual by the grey light of a wet evening. Moore set a sharp pace, plunging through the clots of pedestrians seemingly paralyzed by weather and traffic. Although he walked at a quick march through the crowd, Renwick managed to keep Moore’s black hair in sight. He almost lost him when a left turn was made into a quiet, narrow street but reached the corner in time to see Moore disappear into the Coronet’s doorway. It was one of the new hotels, rising high, a flat-faced block of building with innumerable windows that was attempting to uplift the neighbourhood and edge in on the tourist trade of Bloomsbury.