Message From Malaga (37 page)

I’m promoted, thought Ferrier, and repressed a joke about inner circles in smoke-filled rooms. “See you before six,” he said. “But now, if I were you, I’d keep my right hand on that automatic.” He closed the door behind him, locked it securely. He could still see O’Connor’s serious face, slightly startled, slightly amused, as he reached the second floor, bolted it firmly behind him. He started up the first slope, mounted the first steps at a slow even run. Interesting, he thought, to see how long he could keep up this pace in a steady ascent. He had just about an hour, all told, before he came walking through the front gate of the museum courtyard. Possible? He’d make a damned good try.

* * *

O’Connor heard the lock turn, securing the door which now looked only like part of a panelled wall, and came back into the room. He was thinking of Ferrier as he glanced at his watch. Would he manage it? Ferrier was capable of it—strong enough physically, lean, well muscled, no apparent flab; and he was quick enough mentally to improvise his way around some unexpected snag. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have sent him out on this job. But yet—O’Connor stopped short, stared at the revolver that pointed at his chest, stared at Fuentes who held it so steadily.

“Take your hand away from your pocket,” Fuentes told him. “Don’t be foolish. We don’t want any loud noises frightening the tourists. You will notice that I have a silencer already in place. You don’t. So I could risk shooting you if necessary. But
you couldn’t risk shooting me. So place your pistol on that table behind you. Now come forward. To this desk.”

“What—” began O’Connor angrily. But he was already guessing what Fuentes wanted. If Fuentes had intended to kill him, take off on his own, O’Connor would already have been dead.

“To this desk!” repeated Fuentes. “Now empty your pockets. Take off your watch. Cuff links, too. Put them all on the desk.” He kept his eyes fixed on O’Connor’s hands as they obeyed his command. “Now, do I have to search through all these things to find the miniature recorder you are carrying around with you? It would be simpler if you tell me how it is disguised. That would save me breaking open this handsome watch, for instance.”

“I need that watch, damn you.”

“Then open it for me.”

“You are wasting—”

“Only a couple of minutes. Two minutes wasted, but years saved. Mine, O’Connor. I do not intend to have any recording of our talk fall into the wrong hands. And it could. Such things happen, don’t they?”

“Why should I carry such a device?” The puzzle is, thought O’Connor, that he suspects me but never suspected Reid. I hope to God he’ll answer that question, not leave it floating around.

“At least you don’t deny it outright. And you are clever enough to know the only answer. Of course I must be suspicious of you: you were coming to meet me; you would not come unprepared. So open that watch. It seems the most likely candidate—a little thicker than normal, you’d agree? Oh, just a little thicker—not enough to be noticed when worn, only
when handled and examined.” He had picked up the watch, glanced at it, looked back at O’Connor. “I’ll smash it on the floor, grind it with my heel,” he warned. “A pity to destroy such an expensive piece of equipment. Made to your special order?” He held it out.

O’Connor took the watch, opened the back, extracted a flat coil of thin wire, handed it over.

“So delicate, so miniature, so dangerous.” Fuentes examined it briefly. “Yes, quite similar to a watch I have. A little more elegant perhaps.” He pushed aside the cuff links contemptuously. “Useless,” he said of them. He moved over to the table near the door, pocketed O’Connor’s automatic with a flourish. “I’ll return it when we are ready to leave. But this—” he held up the little coil of wire—“this I shall now destroy. A little fuel from my lighter, and a match, will make it quite unusable.” He was in excellent humour now; even expansive. “I notice you don’t carry a lighter. Reid did. But—” he shrugged—“that’s all it was. A simple ordinary straightforward lighter. Of course, he hadn’t expected to be meeting me. And he was young. It takes an old dog to know all the tricks and apply them.”

And sometimes a young dog can outsmart the old, O’Connor thought. “Did you examine his watch, too?” he asked sarcastically.

“I did. One of those wafer-thin fashions, quite uninteresting.”

“You’re a nimble-fingered son of a—”

“No compliments, thank you. We’ll get on very well without them. No reason why we shouldn’t have an amicable arrangement between us for the rest of our tour. It is much pleasanter, that way. Improves the quality of information. You agree?” O’Connor nodded, put the contents of his pockets
back in place, fastened his cuff links, strapped on his watch. “Let’s get this place straightened up.”

“That won’t take long. First, let us have a clear understanding about my journey.”

“Oh, yes—those final requests, as you called them. They
are
final ones? No afterthoughts when you are in Madrid?”

“I know exactly what I need. No direct transportation to Switzerland. Munich will be far enough. And the plane will be a private one, and not American-owned. You will furnish me with a passport, papers, adequate travel money, a car, two suitcases with clothes—all West German. You will do that?”

“It can be managed.” And then to draw any possible attention away from that careful phrase, O’Connor added, “I just hope your German is good enough.”

“It’s fluent. I worked in West Berlin for two years.”

So, thought O’Connor, he will probably head for a German-speaking area of Switzerland. That could be his ultimate hideout. “Between 1957 and ’59?” he asked.

Fuentes looked at him. “What made you think I was in West Berlin then?”

“Oh, just a couple of clever assassinations. Unexplained heart attacks, weren’t they? Rebet. And Bandera. Two important anti-communists wiped out neatly.”

“Not so neatly as we had hoped. You learned about it.”

Yes, thought O’Connor, through a defector... But he decided that would be a tactless reminder. “Don’t be long in there,” he told Fuentes, now carrying the miniature coil of wire in modest triumph toward the bedroom. “Want any help?”

“I can manage. I don’t need much time. We can start having our first real talk in ten minutes. A general survey. We’ll leave
the particulars until I get that typewriter. Oh, by the way—the typewritten report will be quite lengthy, depending on the way you treat me, of course. I’ll hand it over to you once we arrive at the Munich airport and I step off the plane.”

O’Connor began to laugh. “You really know how to milk a bargain down to the last drop. And what’s to stop us taking that report when we damn well want it?”

“You know the answer to that, and it is no joke. How many defectors would apply to the Americans for help if they heard I had been badly treated? Such news gets around. And without defectors and high-placed informants, where would you be? Groping in the dark. Fumbling your way through a maze of guesses and suppositions. Why, you wouldn’t even have known the cause of Rebet’s and Bandera’s deaths if their executioner hadn’t developed a misplaced conscience and come running to you!”

The bedroom door closed firmly. O’Connor glared at it, then turned away. Oh well, he thought grimly, let’s keep Fuentes happy; let’s allow him the last word. This time.

Interesting, Ferrier had thought. Disconcerting, too. He only managed two thirds of the distance before he was forced to drop into a walk. He tried to keep his pace brisk, his breathing controlled. Even so, the last pull up the final slope—it seemed steeper than any other part of this strange progress through the long white tunnel—was a sudden assault on every part of his body. Breathing became irregular, taking a gasp of air where he could find it; but saliva scalded his throat and chest; there were tremors in tightened thigh muscles, and enough thumpings through his head to start up last night’s pain all over again. He reached the first of the two doors at the top of the ascent, pulled it open, bolted it behind him with some difficulty; but whether that was from an over-tense hand forcing too hard or his rising excitement, he wasn’t sure. He leaned against it for almost a minute while he steadied himself. Then he walked at a normal rate, feeling more in command of his body, to the last
door. I managed it, he was thinking, I managed it, and in better time than I expected when I was two thirds up that tunnel.

He eased the door only slightly open, stood there for interminable moments, listening for any sound of footsteps or voices in the hall. Nothing, except the beat of his heart pumping steadily. Quickly, he pulled the panel wide, stepped through, locked it securely. As he adjusted the scroll of carved wood to hide the small keyhole, he heard a voice in the big room just around the curve of the semi-circular hall. He froze instinctively. Tavita’s voice, speaking a torrent of Spanish. Then silence. Again speaking. Silence. Speaking. She’s on the telephone, he thought, and walked into the room.

Tavita’s eyebrows went up as she turned to see who it was. “So soon?” Then she covered the receiver with one hand. “And where is your friend? Has he already left?”

“He will see you later.” Ferrier handed over the key with a kiss for her outstretched hand. “With our thanks. And admiration.” Tavita’s annoyance disappeared. He added, “Will you have dinner with me tonight? I’ll collect you around ten o’clock.”

“It will all be over by then?”

“Hope so.” He had already started back towards the hall.

“Ian—wait!” She spoke quickly into the telephone. “Call me back later. I think I can arrange an interview at ten o’clock this evening.” She dropped the receiver, came running after him. These people,” she said in mock disgust—actually, she was pleased by their attention—“they are so eager to talk with me. They say they have a date-line.”

“Deadline.” He had reached the front door, opened it cautiously.

“Oh!” The expression on her face told him she didn’t care for that word so much. “We’ll have dinner here tonight. Come at eleven and chase those interviewers away.” She stamped her foot to draw his attention to what she was saying. He was now looking up the driveway, studying the front gate.

“I’ll come at ten and keep an eye on them.” The road outside seemed empty. He tried to guess what to expect there. Surveillance of some kind?

“You hurry too much,” she told him laughingly. “You look like a Red Indian—a blond Red Indian.” Then quickly serious again, she caught his arm as he stepped into the driveway, gestured toward the garage. “Take my car—the big or the small, whichever you need. They are yours.”

A small one? He had already thought of the car he had seen her use in Málaga, and discarded the idea: too noticeable, too imposing, too much Tavita. It would have drawn everyone’s attention in the parking space outside the Palace. “The keys?”

“In the cars, of course. Where else?”

He was already at the garage door before she had finished the question. He swung it open, saw a compact Simca coloured the usual light cream. It was ready to go, too, with the keys just as she had said. He waved his thanks, accelerated and got neatly up the hill of the driveway, nosed cautiously out of the gate.

Yes, two men were walking along the road, measuring their distance perhaps, for they turned to retrace their steps. Keeping watch over the house? He put on speed and passed them just as they were realising a car had come shooting out of the gateway. He had averted his head, but he managed a glimpse of their faces in his rear-view mirror as they swung round to stare at the car’s number. He hadn’t seen them before. Could be anyone, he
thought as his suspicions subsided: just two nondescript types in quiet grey suits, taking a stroll through the neighbourhood while the wives and kids were at church.

The road was otherwise deserted. He risked breaking local regulations about speed limits, bounced along merrily for about four hundred yards, then slowed down as he reached the parked cars massed in front of the hotel. He eased the Simca into a modest position beside an overwhelming Rolls. As he switched off the ignition, pocketed the keys, he was remembering Tavita’s Ian—wait!” and his own stifled groan. So you waited, wasted three minutes, and gained at least ten. And regained your breath and recovered your normal colour.

* * *

Ferrier walked smartly into the hotel, past the little shop at its entrance where lace fans and worked leather and Toledo letter openers and fringed shawls and postcards and wood carvings were drawing the usual crowd of visitors, and headed straight for the bar. It was a pleasant room with plenty of daylight—windows opening on to a long narrow terrace. He glanced around the tables. Only two of them occupied. At one, there was a broad-shouldered man with a tanned face, strong features, a handsome head of dark hair, an elegant suit in the sharpest French style that contrasted with his equally French, slightly tired, slightly bored expression. He looked as if he had spent an interesting Saturday in bed and was wondering what to do with Sunday noon. And at the other table, her back turned to the Frenchman—possibly as a mild rebuff to any possible ideas now forming inside his mind—there was a girl. A most attractive girl. Amanda Ames. She knew exactly what to do on a late Sunday morning. She was putting in time sipping
coffee, writing postcards, and paying no attention to anybody. Ferrier averted his eyes quickly, walked straight ahead to the wide doors on to the terrace. This was not the moment for any delay, however attractive. And Ben Waterman had better be there, he thought worriedly.

He was. Ferrier’s tension relaxed. Ben was sitting at one of the long row of tables on the narrow terrace—all terraces in this part of Granada seemed to be narrow, with nothing below them except a steep plunge of cliff—and he was enjoying the sun. He was almost alone; the other tables were empty except for a couple of young Spaniards in neat dark suits. His face was tilted up, his eyes closed, his light fuzz of hair ruffled with the breeze, his spread of newspapers anchored by heavy ashtrays and quite forgotten. There was a bottle of light Spanish beer in front of him, half emptied, and a glass that was full. I could use some of that, thought Ferrier. He touched Waterman lightly on the shoulder. “Wake up, Ben. Help needed.” He sat down, lifted the glass, had a long drink. “D’you mind?” he asked as Waterman’s eyes opened and focused.