The Nassau Secret (The Lang Reilly Series Book 8) (18 page)

37.

Norwich International Airport

Hellsdon

An Hour Later

              Lang was relieved to turn the Audi in even paying the fee for not returning it at Heathrow. Without argument, he signed the sheet admitting damage to the car’s left side and mirror. He had little doubt the local, if not national, police would be looking for him and Jacob after the abattoir at Cavanaugh House and the car’s tag, easily ascertained from the rental company or Hoste Inn, became the subject of an alert.

              Besides, a man with half of his face bandaged drew stares.

              Jacob disagreed, at least as far as Lang’s fear the law would be looking for them. His wounded face was hardly debatable. “Isaacs will cover our arses, Lang,” he insisted. “No way he’ll tell the coppers those cheeky bastards were after us.”

              “After me,” Lang corrected.

              Jacob cocked his head as he started the Morris. “And what’s the odds they would have let anyone walk out of there?”

              There was no point in replying. Instead, Lang noted a number of buildings dating back to the airfield’s origin as a US Army Air Corps base. The runway, slightly over six thousand feet, should be ample for the Gulfstream which should answer his summons in about eight hours.

              In the meantime, he needed to stay out of sight.

              A quick trip to a stall in the men’s WC in the modest one story terminal building allowed him to change out of his blood-splattered clothing and into the pants and shirt he had worn yesterday. He stuffed the stained ones into the trash bin under the paper towel dispenser. For the moment, cloth from a shirt would have to suffice to staunch the bleeding of the cut along his jaw.  With any luck, he would be halfway across the Atlantic before he was discovered.

              Now, for a place to stay while he awaited the Gulfstream’s arrival. 

              Fortunately, Norwich, about three miles distant, was regarded as one of the best preserved cities in Britain. First fortified by the Saxons in the Ninth Century, it still had the irregular street patterns of the time. Because of its fleece trade, it became second only to London as England’s most important city until the time of the Industrial Revolution. The Elm Hill district boasts some of the finest medieval cobbled streets in the country. Consequently, the town is a tourist attraction, though hardly internationally known.

              He had no trouble spotting the sign with a green cross with “pharmacy” underneath. The clerk could not keep his eyes from Lang’s face as he rang up purchases,

              “Stood too close to my razor,” Lang said, deadpan.

              Little doubt the man would remember him but it couldn’t be helped.

              On Jacob’s suggestion, Lang chose The Wedgewood House, a vaguely Victorian structure in the downtown area.

              “You’ll blend in fine,” he said as Lang climbed out of the car. “When your plane arrives, have the hotel call a taxi to take you out to the airport.”

              Walking around to the driver’s side, Lang reached through the open window to put a hand on his fiend’s shoulder. “What about you? The cops are going to want to talk to you.”

              Jacob shrugged as he put the car in gear. “Perhaps. They won’t get our names from the Marquess, I can assure you.”

              “Our names were at the front desk.”

              “No matter. I’m sure he didn’t involve us in what happened.”

              As the tiny car pulled away from the curb, Lang was not so sure.

              Inside the Wedgewood, he surrendered his passport for copying and American Express black card for imprint. The desk clerk returned both along with a room key. His efforts not to stare at the new bandage Lang had applied with the help of the Morris’s mirror were not entirely successful.

              The room was clean and modern with minimal decoration. Two iron single beds were against the wall facing the single window. A four drawer bureau, a pair of uncomfortable looking contemporary chairs and a desk completed the furnishings.

              From habit as much as curiosity, Lang went to the window. He was on the second, or as the British would have it, first floor. Only Americans counted ground floors. Either way, it was about twenty feet down.

              Lang went into the small bathroom and turned the shower on, hot handle all the way over. He stripped and stood in the burning stream, imagining a river of blood washing away from him. Like Lady Macbeth, he understood blood could become a permanent stain on the psyche.

              Although the Agency had trained him to kill, he had never done so in its service. Only later and then to save his own life. Would it-the events at Cavanaugh House- have bothered him less years ago? He had no way to know. Could it be his assignment to Intel instead of Ops may have been because someone in the Agency’s selection process had detected a reluctance to kill, an aversion to violence even Lang did not know he possessed?

              He was surprised the idea was a total stranger.

              Without warning, the hot water ran out.

              With a howl, he bolted from the stream of frigid water, wrapping himself in a towel.

              A few minutes later he was dressed. The damn shirt, the one he had worn yesterday, definitely had that stale odor of a dirty clothes bin.

              His jaw was beginning to throb. Once in his room, he had employed the bathroom mirror to remove the bandage hastily applied in the car. He winced at the jagged cut, winced even more as he applied antiseptic. At least it had stopped bleeding. He carefully taped a new bandage into place, smaller than the first but still as obvious as a third eye. It was going to leave a scar, something he would have to have removed later. He was not particularly vain but a scar made a face stand out in crowd, something long ago training viewed as anathema.

              He swallowed two Tylenols and hoped the pain would subside.    

              He looked out of the window again, this time at the people, a few of whom wore the universal badge of tourists: a camera hanging from a shoulder strap. Most were hoisting cell phones aloft, shooting selfies  or posing companions in front of the ubiquitous devices.  At the same time, he realized he was hungry.

              Downstairs, the desk clerk regretted the dining room was closed until the dinner hours but gave him directions where he might satisfy both needs: Food and a clean shirt.

              A few blocks away was the ultramodern Forum, a mostly glass structure that seemed to float beneath a spread of steel wings. The effect was of a three story atrium lighted by a blue sky seem through a glass dome. The contrast with Eleventh Century Norwich Cathedral, clearly visible along one side, could not have been coincidental. A library, an auditorium, exhibitions, shops and restaurants drew a sizable crowd of tourist and locals alike.

              Stopping in a small shop, Lang and a clerk discussed the differences between American and English sizes before he decided on a knit of the type she insisted on calling a ‘polo’, although the style was common to tennis players.

              The shirt in a bag, Lang followed the unmistakable aroma of pizza up to the mezzanine and to Pizza Express. Pizza is the one truly international food. Though toppings may differ along with the depth of the crust and exactly how it is sliced, even the British are unable to make it inedible. It was with this thought in mind Lang put down his purchase, ordered a extra cheese and pepperoni and, taking no chances, decided to wash it down with an imported Peroni.

              No matter where, pizza just goes better with Italian beer.

              The tables with views through the glass walls were taken. Lang slid into a seat with a view of the mall below. Families, teen agers, a pair of private security uniforms. Not unlike any mall back home. He had not swallowed the first bite when two men drew his attention.

              The could have been twins of Broken Nose and Timmy: Big men with hard faces wearing jackets despite the warm spring day and who were scanning the crowded floor downstairs.

              Lang’s appetite vanished.

              Possibly, these men were simply here to shop or enjoy the library or exhibitions. Or to have a late lunch. Maybe, just maybe, they were looking for someone else.

              Fat chance. 

              This morning the motorcyclist, this afternoon the slaughter at Cavanaugh House. Now this. Not a trifecta he wanted to bet on.

              He shot a glance at the elevator. No, too confining, a steel tomb if one of those men spotted him getting on.

              The escalator offered more promise.

              Lang entered a shop, more of an open stall, actually, selling soaps and toiletries. The view of the escalator was near perfect while Lang remained near invisible behind a tall stack of towels.

              He didn’t have long to wait before one he saw one of the men get on the ascending stairway. But, where was the other? An opening elevator across the mezzanine answered the question. No doubt he was looking at professionals: The one on the escalator could keep both it, the atrium floor and the escalator under observation while his partner eliminated the elevator as a means of escape.

              Now at the top, the escalator rider showed no inclination to move from his vantage point nor did his partner.

              How the hell had they known he was here at the Forum?

              Only one way: The hotel’s desk clerk had recommended the Forum  as a place to find both shirt and a meal.

              OK, Lang reasoned, how did they find the Wedgewood so quickly?

              The answer: Easily. One electronic swipe of the credit card and passport and any moderately talented teen age hacker could have come up with the information in seconds.

              But he’d never seen these guys before nor, as far as he knew, they him.

              The Electronic Age again: MI6, SAS, either or both surely had the capability to transmit a picture, perhaps one taken clandestinely in the Bahamas, at home, anywhere. The bandaged face didn’t help.                        The Electronic Age may have been the source of his problem at the moment but it was providing few solutions.

              Or was it?

38.

24o 42’ 00”N

77o 46’ 00” W

(Tongue of the Ocean)

O1:32 Local Time

June 1, 1942

              The V-8 Crusader engine burbled at near neutral, just enough power to keep the twenty-two foot Chris-Craft Sportsman Sedan’s bow pointed into the outgoing tide. A near flat sea sloshed gently against the mahogany sides as the boat wallowed in the lazy swell. Half a mile west, the last flickering candle light in Andros Town had gone out over an hour ago.

              Sir Harry Oakes stood at the craft’s stern, holding a pair of binoculars to his eyes. He was searching the eastern horizon where New Providence Island, thirty miles away, was a blur against the star studded sky. The occasional streak of underwater phosphorus punctuated the velvet blackness of the sea.

              At the controls, inside the canvas-topped cabin, Emanuel, Sir Harry’s butler, occasional chauffeur and major domo, was grumbling. He didn’t like being this far out in the ocean at night, subject to the whims of sea, tide and possible Lusca, the Bahamian demon, half octopus, half shark that not only drowned careless seamen but could swallow a whole boat. 

              Sir Harry had despaired of Emanuel’s acceptance of a world without Lusca’s, Obeah spells and chickcharnies, the elf-like three toed bird who could bestow life-long good or bad luck. He supposed superstition was part of the African heritage. With less than a sixth-grade education available to most Bahamians, there was little to replace the old beliefs.

              Those beliefs were why Emanuel was here tonight: Sir Harry would have preferred to have the anonymity of a professional boat captain; but, other than a few hardy fishermen unfamiliar with motorized craft, he could find none in Nassau willing to sail that far from land at night. He needed someone to run the Chris-Craft; he could not do so and observe at the same time.

              He futilely slapped at a buzzing insect, the sound like a rifle shot in the quiet of the night. This was the time of year the trade winds died. As a result, mosquitos, gnats and no-seeums feasted on anything breathing.

              Sir Harry sighed. Maybe he had been mistaken; maybe he had guessed wrong. One thing he knew: Between February and last month, May, twenty-four ships had been sunk in the Straights of Florida, that strip of deep water between the east coast of Florida, the Gulf of Mexico, Cuba and the Bahamas. Those ships were carrying crude oil from Venezuela and Brazil, crude oil desperately needed for the war effort. Half had gone down right off Palm Beach County less than two hundred nautical miles from where the Chris-Craft was now.

              Curious, Sir Harry had written naval friends in the States, Canada and Britain. Military secrecy, most said, prevented a direct answer to his question. One or two guessed the range of the U-Boats to be somewhere in the neighborhood of seventeen hundred miles. He could do the math: Brittany, where the French based boats were, was roughly 4,600 miles from Palm Beach County. Unless . . .

              He thought he saw something. . . something like a light.

              He turned, focusing the glasses on the Andros shore.

              There it was again, emerald green, blinking from the near impenetrable mangrove swamps just south of Andros Town. Blink. . .  Blink.

              Not Morse Code, at least not in English.

              But they wouldn’t use English, would they? For that matter the light itself would be sufficient signal, particularly if . . .

              He whirled around just in time to catch a replying blink, this one pink with distance, from somewhere on New Providence, followed by darkness.

              One minute, then two.

              Sir Harry was not one to let his imagination run wild, but had he really seen those lights?

              Wait, what was that?

              A streak of phosphorus split the ink black water a hundred yards astern.

              The lights on Andros and New Providence came alive again, two blinks each, red and green.

              Seconds later, the sea erupted.

              A massive shape, appeared as though by magic, accompanied by the hiss of escaping air. The chug of a diesel engines carried clearly in the still night. Sir Harry was quite sure that was a conning tower defined only by its silhouette against the starry night sky.

              Behind him, Emanuel was wailing, or rather, praying loudly.

              “Hush man!” Sir Harry hissed. “If they hear you, we are good as dead!”     

              “De Lusca,” he moaned, “Lord, we be dead ennyways!”

              Sir Harry grabbed the man by the front of his shirt, shaking him savagely. “Listen to me! What you see is a bloody German submarine, not some sea monster! If they hear us, you’re right: we will be dead!”

              Shocked at his boss’s uncharacteristic violence, Emanuel had at least stopped his blubbering.

              Sir Harry had a greater problem: Could the Chris-Craft’s motor be heard over the sound of the U-boat’s diesels? Were the Crusaders switched off, he would be risking the outgoing tide carrying the boat right into the German.

              The sound of second submarine breaching the surface made his decision. “Emanuel, run for that creek right beside Andros Town.”

              “Missa Harry,” Emanuel protested, “We do thot ‘n we meybbe gets stuck.”

              “If the bloody creek is too shallow for us, it is far too shallow for those u-boats. Now go!”