The Hidden Target (42 page)

“Almost ready. A few minutes.” Klaus hurried into the room he shared with the radio-transmitter expert.

Theo was impatient, Theo was glancing at his watch again, Theo was restless. He rose, went to the room where Klaus was typing a last line on a sheet of paper. “That will do, that will do,” Theo said and dropped his voice as he gave further instructions. Then he came back with two passports and two sheets of paper. “Here you are. Brief histories. They will carry you and Marco safely enough to New York. There you will receive other passports and much more detailed legends. Call the Soviet Consulate as soon as you arrive. Now I think that’s about all. Safe journey, Erik.”

Kiley glanced at the sheets of paper. “Shouldn’t I memorise them here—they’re short—destroy them before I leave? I’d rather not carry them around.”

“Of course, of course,” Theo agreed, but not too willingly. “Would you excuse me? I have much to do. Let me know when you leave.” He picked up the folder from the table, pointed to the envelope and bundle of traveller’s cheques, and went into his room. The door closed.

He is packing up, thought Kiley, clearing out. Movements from the room next door were careful, subdued, that sound might be said to belong to a drawer creaking open. Certainly, from the other bedroom, the activity wasn’t disguised. But why conceal his departure from me? Kiley wondered. It could be that Theo’s “storm signals” were of hurricane strength; perhaps he hid the worst from me in case Marco and I cleared out, too, and the hell with Bali and our five idiots. But what about Nina? Your problem, Theo had said. Not enough; he’d better be more precise than that. Quickly, Kiley began memorising the two new histories. Graduate students returning from a year’s study abroad; Marco came from Quebec, Kiley from Toronto, et cetera, et cetera...

In ten minutes, he was sure of place names and dates. Brief legends, compared to others he had learned in the past, but enough to skate through an entry into New York. It would have been a different matter if Marco and he had to face Quebec or Toronto. Changes, changes, he thought as he set the pages alight over the ashtray and watched them turn to black quivering leaves.

Yet change was the essence of his beliefs: spontaneity in action, flexibility in thought—he had praised them in his manifesto, had attacked stability and the status quo as enemies of true progress. As they were. So welcome change, he told himself, and stilled a qualm of regret for the end of four months that had been a pleasant interlude, could have been more... But there had been successes in recruitment: that was one achievement that couldn’t be halted—the tide was running his way. And Nina? He could have won her, but he had followed Theo’s plan—no personal involvement for him—and whatever he had hoped for the future, in his return to America with Nina, was now ended.

He pocketed the cheques and the money and knocked on Theo’s door. “I’m leaving. Everything taken care of. Except...” He waited until the door opened.

“Except what?” Theo’s tone was sharp. He was in shirt sleeves. The white wig and moustache were gone. Suitcases were on the bed. “What?”

“Marco takes five of them to Bali. Where do I take Nina?”

“Nowhere. She can identify every stop you made on your journey. Get rid of her.”

“Kill her?” Kiley asked. His face was tense.

“What else?” Theo stared at him unbelievingly. “Do I need to tell
you
how to make it look natural? No gun. Use your cyanide pistol. Or an overdose. She isn’t one of your addicts, but who is to know that?”

Abruptly, Kiley turned to leave.

“It is possible,” Theo said, “she has duped you completely. She may be one of Renwick’s agents. As you said, he has good taste in women. He knew O’Connell—very well indeed, I heard.”

Kiley left. In the corridor, he paused. A lie, he thought, a lie to make sure I’d deal with Nina. Because if she’s one of Renwick’s agents, then the stupidity in sending her on the world trip belongs to Theo. He selected her; I didn’t. And before he ever chose her to accompany me, he had checked her background: no intelligence training of any kind. It was a lie. Nina and Renwick? Ludicrous. He pulled out Renwick’s photograph, tore it into shreds, thrust them deep into the sand of a giant ashtray.

He walked on, almost forgot to take one of the small selfservice elevators, found himself still arguing with Theo. Then about to pass through the lobby to its huge front door, he came to his cool calm senses again and switched direction. Five entrances, Theo had said. Kiley chose one that led out of the bar on to a side street. He’d take the usual evasionary tactics, allow himself a spell of wandering around, catching a taxi here, another taxi there, before he headed for the house near the docks. He had told Nina he’d return by four o’clock. His watch said it was now past that hour. For a second he was tempted to go back directly, but habit and training prevailed. He began his torturous, seemingly purposeless journey. No one followed.

Kiley’s roundabout route was long enough to bring him back to normal, to a sense of reality. No matter how he felt about Nina, she was a danger. The sooner he dealt with that problem, the safer for him, for Marco. His pace increased as the houses on the harbour road came in sight. Joined together to form a continuous line, they seemed so similar that he might have passed Gopal’s place had he not spied Madge—Madge and the little Indian girl—loitering in front of its entrance. What the devil were they doing there? he wondered, his mood changing into sharp annoyance.

Madge saw him. Like the idiot she was, she came running to greet him right there in the open street. “I’m worried about Tony,” she began. “Have you seen him?”

“Let’s get inside.” He pulled her into the cover of the entrance almost as far as the foot of the veranda stairs but out of sight from the courtyard. A murmur of distant voices told him that the men still sat there.

The Indian girl followed them, saying, “She is gone, she is gone. The Englishman went looking. Gopal, too. And Gopal’s friend who drives the car.” Her words, spilling out in her excitement, were scarcely understandable.

Kiley stared at her. “What the hell is she talking about? Nina?” Nina gone? Gone? He mastered his rage.

Madge, almost as incoherent, tried to explain. It was Tony’s absence that worried her. Two, almost three hours since he went searching for Nina. Yes, Nina had left. That’s the way she wanted it, so let her go. But Tony—

“Yes. You need Tony,” Kiley interrupted harshly. Tony and some more hashish to meet the evening ahead. He looked at Madge with contempt: gaunt face, vacant eyes, drooping lips; she had become a caricature of herself. In anger, he turned on the little Indian, who was still babbling away about a ’phone call and the American in her pretty dress and a taxi ride. “Shut up and listen! Is Gopal’s cousin here—the man with the scar on his cheek? Bring him to me. At once!”

Storm signals, Theo had said. Kiley was sensing them now, and taking their warning. “Madge, you’ll all have to leave. This place will be raided for drugs. You’ve got to get out, all of you. Get the others together. Tell them to pack. Gopal’s cousin will take you to a plane. It leaves tonight. For Bali.”

“Bali?” Her sudden smile of delight faded. “But what about Tony?”

“He will join you at the airport. He’s making the arrangements now. And if he is delayed—don’t worry. Gopal’s cousin will travel all the way to Bali with you, keep you safe. Tony will join you there. Now hurry—don’t waste a moment! Get the others down here in ten minutes—five, if you can manage it.”

Madge started towards the staircase. “How long did Tony search for Nina? Really, she caused so much trouble. But he shouldn’t have worried. No need.”

Something is behind these words, Kiley thought. Carefully, he said, “Tony had travel arrangements to make. He has more on his mind than Nina.”

“Just as well. She met her friends. I saw them. They drove past here.”

“When?”

“Oh, just before you came back. Shahna and I had gone walking to the market. I was—I was restless after Nina left. Trust Nina to travel in style—a Mercedes!” She giggled nervously. “And with Robert Renwick. Did she ever tell you about him?”

“Often.” He even smiled. “Now, get the others. Quick! Make them understand you could all be arrested.”

“I haven’t any drugs.” But she was climbing the staircase.

Gopal’s cousin was interested in the job that Kiley offered him, still more interested in the fee for his services—half paid now, the rest in Bali. Certainly he could find the runway where the cargo planes loaded. Certainly he could arrange for transport among the returning Muslims. Certainly he would see everyone safe—as far as Bali. His sharp brown eyes glistened at the prospect. They were a little dashed when Kiley handed over the money, for fares and food and his fee’s second instalment, to the tall Dane, who came downstairs with his French wife and her guitar, followed by the Dutchman and the Italian and the American girl.

“What about transportation to the airfield?” Sven Dissen wanted to know, stowing the wad of notes inside Marie-Louise’s handbag, which he’d carry under his arm.

“The cars that brought us here this morning,” Kiley answered. Yes, he had been right to make Dissen the treasurer.

“There’s only one left,” Gopal’s cousin said. “The Englishman took the other along with—”

“Then get the one that is left,” Kiley said sharply. “It’s parked in the courtyard next door.”

“There will be a payment necessary.”

“Yes, yes,” Kiley said, and handed out more money. “Now get to it!”

There was a short wait. To Kiley it seemed interminable. No one around him had much to say: they were all a little dazed, but no objections were voiced. There was the usual lament from Henryk Tromp about his stolen camera—and now he was going to Bali, where he’d need it more than ever. “I’ll lend you my Kodak,” Madge told him. “Just don’t talk about your camera any more. Or the film that disappeared with it.” She looked around her, said, “This place is really crummy. I’ll be glad to leave.” She led the way to the street, where the Fiat had drawn up at the kerb. Then she noticed Kiley wasn’t following. She turned and waved, “See you in Bali, too?”

He nodded.

They settled into the Fiat with squeals and laughs at the tight pack, everything forgotten except the excitement of the journey ahead. The car moved off. Twenty minutes to six, he saw by his watch. Time to start leaving.

Ignoring the men sitting in the courtyard, he ran up the stairs to the room he was to have shared with Shawfield. Both their duffel bags were padlocked. He opened his own, extracted the cyanide pistol and some extra pellets. The knife he strapped above his ankle. His .32 was anchored in his belt. His movements were brisk, precise. Soon he was ready.

In haste, he checked the rooms to make sure those clowns hadn’t left any identifications behind. Strange how quickly they had moved at the threat of a narcotics raid, although they pretended they never took drugs, never began squirrelling them away as soon as they were safely across a frontier. Hooked on hashish—and heroin, too: Lambrese and Tromp had graduated to that along with the gold chains around their necks. Well, they could sell those for food when the money ran out in Bali. And after that? If they had any will power left, and that was improbable, they might find a way to leave. Perhaps Sven Dissen could manage that, unless he was kept paralysed by his Marie-Louise. As for Madge—he could see nothing for her. But no one had forced hashish or morphine sulphate tablets down their throats. It had been their own free choice, and their stupidity.

In Nina’s room he halted. Her canvas bag lay on the window seat: two shirts unfolded and abandoned. The blue one matched her eyes, he remembered, and then choked off that treacherous thought. A movement from the entrance to the room caught his ear: the little Indian girl was there, looking at the shirts and the open bag.

“Take them,” he told her. “But don’t let the police see them.”

She shook her head. She ran forward, swept up the bag and shirts in her thin arms, hurried to the door. “Wait!” he called, stopping her at the threshold. She looked at him fearfully, brown eyes pleading, while she clutched her new possessions more tightly to her chest. “Take this, too.” He tossed over Shawfield’s bag, watched her drag it away with her other arm still full of Nina’s clothes. Like a little pack rat, he thought. “Remember,” he called to her, “tell the police nothing. Nothing! Or you’ll get arrested for stealing.”

Out of fright, she almost dropped her load, but gripped it again, and vanished from sight. The last of Antony Shawfield... The last of James Kiley, too, as soon as a brazier or a kitchen oven could be found on the ground floor, and a passport could be destroyed.

He gave a final glance at the window seat where the blue striped shirt had lain, his lips tight, his jaw clenched. Suddenly, he felt a surge of relief: he didn’t have to face Nina, deciding— even as he smiled and talked—how she would die. She’d stay alive. And Theo couldn’t blame him.

And that reminded him: he must find the nearest telephone, call Theo, tell him what had happened. The news about Renwick would send him flying out of Bombay. That should be easy for Theo: he was already preparing to leave.

He hoisted his duffel bag over his shoulder, stepped out on to the veranda. And where do I go? he wondered. To New York? Hide there, inactive, waiting for Theo’s orders while someone else takes over my Washington assignment? But damned if I know why Theo cancelled me because of Greta and a onetime green camper and a column on Erik. There was no identification of Erik with Kiley or of Marco with Shawfield. So why was I ordered to drop out after all the work I’ve put into the mission? To hell with New York: I’m not a puppet, jerking at the end of a string.

He heard a movement from the room just ahead of him, its door flung wide open for air. He halted, waited until the footsteps had ceased, made sure that no one would emerge. Marco, he was thinking, Marco wouldn’t be in New York, either. Once he gets back here—what the hell has detained him?—and finds we have all cleared out, he will get the message. He will head for Germany and our friends there. That’s where our connections are. Ours. Not Theo’s.