The White Schooner (21 page)

The hull of the schooner loomed suddenly above them in the darkness and the next moment they were alongside and
climbing
on board. Helmut and Francois clambered from the water into the dinghy and helped lift van Biljon out. The dinghy was brought inboard and deflated, a jib hoisted, the anchor weighed, foresail and mainsail set, and slowly, silently,
without
lights,
Snowgoose
moved to the south-west. Twenty minutes later, when they had cleared Cabo Llentrisca and the light on Vedra was broad on the starboard bow, the diesel engines coughed and boomed into life, the sails were lowered and the schooner shook purposefully as she drove through the water at fifteen knots.

Van Biljon, his lashings removed, had been locked in the single cabin adjoining the owner’s suite. The lights there were on and he could be seen through a portlight from the cockpit, lying on the bunk, his manacled hands resting on the rug which covered him. Francois had reported that he was in good shape and recovering from the effects of the Pentothal.

Manuela had been given a cabin off the saloon. When he’d shown her to it, she’d complained to Francois of a headache. He told her she was suffering from nervous exhaustion and gave her two Codis tablets. ‘Take them in water,’ he said. ‘You will sleep well. To-morrow when you wake up everything will be okay.
Bon
soir,
mam’
selle.’

She had given him a look which he described to Black later as, ‘A stiletto from the eyes. You know,’ and slammed the cabin door.

It was dark in the cockpit but for the dim shaded lights over the binnacle and hooded chart-table where Black was busy with dividers and parallel rulers.

He switched off the light and went over to Dimitrio who was at the wheel. ‘How are we heading?’

‘Two zero-five,’ said Dimitrio.

Black looked at the automatic log repeater. It was reading 15.3 knots.

‘Won’t be a moment,’ he said, taking the chart and going
down the companionway to the saloon. Helmut and Francois were there.

‘Signal sent?’ he asked abruptly.

Helmut nodded. ‘Yes. ZID has acknowledged.’

‘Dinghy stowed away?’

Helmut made a circle with his thumb and forefinger. ‘Also, yes.’

With a start Black remembered something which the torrent of the night’s events had pushed to the back of his mind. ‘Hassan,’ he said. ‘What happened?’

Helmut smiled slowly. ‘Dimitrio and Kamros landed him on Abago this afternoon. Blindfolded until he reached the shore. He still does not know the name of this schooner, or where it is from.’

Black felt again something of the pity and kinship of the night at Rafah. He would have liked to have seen Ahmed ben Hassan, if only to have apologised for the uncavalier
treatment
he’d been accorded. ‘How is he?’ he asked quietly.

‘Very well,’ said Helmut. ‘He laughed and joked with us on the skimmer going into Abago. When we took the blindfold off and handed over the provisions and water he bowed and salaamed in Arabic style. After we had shown him the fisherman’s shelter, he insisted on shaking hands.’

‘He gave us a message,’ said Francois.

‘What was it?’ asked Black.

‘To tell Kyriakou, when we next saw him, that he was the son of an infidel dog.’

Black was puzzled. ‘Why the hate for Kyriakou?’

‘Hassan reckons the police story and the snatch from the island was a frame-up.’

‘With what object?’

‘So that the Greek wouldn’t have to pay him for his last consignment.’

‘Their next meeting should be interesting.’ Black yawned. ‘I see you’ve changed.’

‘Too cold for midnight swimming.’ Francois’ teeth
chattered.

Black looked at the shut door to Manuela’s cabin. ‘She all right?’

The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders. ‘She sleeps, I expect.’

For a moment Black seemed undecided, then he laid the chart on the table. ‘Here. Have a look at this.’ He pointed with a pencil. ‘That’s Rendezvous Gamma. Thirty miles north of Cape Matifu. See Matifu there? On the eastern side of Algiers Bay. The wind has dropped and we’re making a good fifteen point three. We’re here now. The Vedra light is coming up on the beam. At this rate we should make the rendezvous by eight-thirty in the morning. Daylight’s at six thirty-one. Things that worry me are the two hours in daylight, and that all this is happening four days ahead of schedule. ZID’s had less than forty-eight hours’ warning of the possible change of plans. And now it’s happened. Here we are, asking to be met on the fifteenth instead of the
nineteenth
.’

Helmut looked at the chart and measured with dividers, making notes on a pad. ‘Weissner was off Benghazi on the tenth. If ZID moved him westwards on the thirteenth, when they got our stand-by signal, he’ll make it.’

‘It’s a big
if
, Helmut. We don’t know his movements
between
the tenth and thirteenth. Anyway we’ve no option, so let’s get on with it. Check that we can make the rendezvous by eight-thirty.’

Helmut got busy with the dividers again and when he’d finished he confirmed Black’s estimates.

‘Right.’ Black took a signal pad and, calling out the message word by word, he wrote:
Prospect
embarked.
ET A
Rendez
vous
Gamma
0830
to-day
fifteenth.
Request
early
con
firmation
.
How’s that?’

‘Goot,’ said Helmut.

‘
Bon.
’
Francois waved his cheroot in a gesture of approval.

Black yawned, stretched his arms, and then dropped them suddenly. ‘What are you waiting for?’ he barked at Helmut. ‘Get it off to ZID.
Geschwind
Dummkopf
!’

Helmut gave an exaggerated Nazi salute.
‘Jawohl,
Herr
Oberleutnant.
’

Francois made a rude sign and hissed.

An hour later when the light at Vedra had dropped out of sight astern and Punta Rotja, the southernmost light on Formentera, was abeam ten miles to the east, course was altered to 130
degrees
. Now Rendezvous Gamma was dead ahead, distant
73 miles, and Black breathed more freely for they were clear of territorial waters. Anything that happened from now on would be on the high seas.

Not that he had any serious qualms. Even if Weissner failed to make the rendezvous in time, Black felt they were comparatively safe. At daybreak
Snowgoose
would be some eighty-five miles to the south of Ibiza. He accepted the
possibility
that
Nordwind
would be used for seaborne pursuit
if
the Spaniards knew in which direction the schooner had sailed. But how could they know? By daylight, when the farm truck was found abandoned at Cabo Negret, all they would know was the point of departure. From it,
Snowgoose
might have sailed anywhere. They would assume, of course, that she’d keep clear of Spanish territory. But that still left a host of options around three-quarters of the compass. The imponderable which worried him was the extent to which the Spanish authorities might decide to become involved.

The Guardia Civil had known early on of van Biljon’s abduction—the road chase had followed—and there was the hold-up of the farm truck. But somehow he did not feel that these offences, serious though they were, would be regarded by the Spanish as sufficient to warrant activity other than that normally undertaken by the police. There were no naval or airforce units in Ibiza at the moment, though there might well be some not far off. But he discounted the likelihood of their being used for a special search, particularly at such short notice.

The breeze from the south-east had dropped and the sea was calm, the schooner rolling gently to the remains of a westerly swell. The dark blanket of the night was pierced occasionally by the steaming lights of ships, distant and anonymous, and sometimes the whine of high-flying jets could be heard above the thump of the schooner’s diesel, and the splash and tumble of water along the hull.

Black stayed in the cockpit with Dimitrio, silent most of the time, on the edge of physical exhaustion, yet his mind restless, busy interminably with what had happened and what lay ahead. Deliberately, as from the first days in Ibiza, he fought against thinking about van Biljon, conscious always of Kagan’s injunction:
emotional
involvement
is
dangerous:
maintain
always
your
objectivity
. But what of Manuela? Kagan knew nothing of her, of
that
emotional involvement.
He went back in his mind over all that had happened since they’d met on the Barcelona ferry steamer. How had he allowed himself to become emotionally involved? What were the insidious steps by which these things happened? He decided it couldn’t be explained. Why was one woman suddenly more important to you than all the others you’d ever known. The elements were always the same: eyes, nose and mouth; breasts and broad thighs; flesh and skin and bone; ninety per cent water, it was said, the body regenerating itself entirely in a seven year cycle. What then made Manuela important to him? Her eyes? The bones in her face? The way she could look sad? Her smile of recognition? Her voice, the strangely inflected English, North American with a Puerto Rican accent? Her helplessness? How could one say?

He thought of her sleeping in the cabin, not ten feet away. Miserable, exhausted, frightened, not knowing in what she had become involved, believing that he had somehow betrayed her. When they got to the other side, would she stay with him? He didn’t know much about drugs. What if she were an addict? There were clinics, he supposed, where she could be treated, even cured. If he could arrange that, would she co-operate?

The door to the forward companionway opened and shut, and a man came into the cockpit. It was Helmut.

‘Signal from ZID,’ he said.

Black put out his hand in the darkness and took it. Switching on the chart-table light he read:
‘Your
0107.
Meeting
Rendez
vous
Gamma
0830
to-day
fifteenth
confirmed.
ZID.
’

‘Thank God,’ he said wearily. ‘I’ll be glad to hand over.’

‘You know,’ said Helmut, ‘I won’t. This has been terrific. Now it’s just about over, I feel kind of flat. You know. I mean, what’s there to look forward to?’

Black started as he felt someone touch him. It was Francois. ‘I must have dozed,’ said Black. He was sitting on a flap seat, huddled in the corner of the cockpit.

‘You should have rested in the saloon. You weren’t needed here.’

‘Thanks for the compliment,’ said Black. ‘What’s the trouble?’

‘He insists on seeing you.’

‘Who?’ Black rubbed his smarting eyes.

‘Van Biljon. He’s over the worst of the Pentothal. Quite lucid. See for yourself.’

Black went to the portlight and looked in. Van Biljon, back to him, was sitting at the desk beside the bunk, his head in his hands.

The deck-watch showed nine minutes past three. ‘Get Helmut to bring him to the saloon,’ said Black. ‘You take over here.’

When Francois had gone, Black went across to the wheel, spoke to Dimitrio and checked the compass course and log repeater. He looked down the half-open hatch to the engine compartment where Kamros was making an adjustment. ‘Okay, there, Kamros?’ he shouted.

Kamros looked up, his face stained with grease and sweat. ‘Fine. We can manage a few more revs if you need them.’

‘Not at the moment. We’re logging fifteen point two. What’ve you got in hand?’

‘About a knot, if I open everything. Prefer not to, though.’

‘Nice to know, but I don’t think it’ll be necessary.’

Black went down the companionway and forward to the saloon. While he sat there waiting, arms folded, eyes half closed, fighting off sleep, he wondered what line van Biljon would take. I must keep calm, he thought. Think of what I’m saying. Mustn’t bully. Remain detached. Outside it all. Leave to him, at least, the dignity he denied to others.

The saloon door opened and a tall angular shape came in. The dark glasses had gone, lost in the mêlée in the gallery, and for the first time Black saw that van Biljon’s eyes were narrow slits with puffy white surrounds, so little of the eyeballs visible that at first no colour could be ascribed to them then, later, they took on a faded blue against the scarred face. Because of the low deckhead the old man stooped, his manacled hands and his head held forward, the overall effect so predatory that Black was reminded of a mantis.

Standing in the corner of the saloon, silent and
motionless
, he gestured van Biljon to the settee. Awkwardly, because he could not use his hands, the old man edged in between the table and the settee and sat down, his breathing laboured. Francois remained standing at the door until Black nodded to him; then he, too, sat down.

‘You wish to see me?’ said Black.

Van Biljon’s head came up, his body stiffened, and the old air of authority returned. He thumped the table with his manacled hands. ‘I demand an explanation of this outrage. I am a Spanish citizen, well known to influential members of the Spanish Government. You may think you will get away with this …’ He paused, wheezing with the effort he was putting into what he was saying. ‘This
violence.
But you won’t. The Governor is a friend of mine. The full resources of the State will be used to track you down.
You
and
your
gang.
Then you will receive the punishment you deserve.’ The tightly compressed lips, the pink tongue tip spitting the words through them, reminded Black of a snake.

He stared into the narrow eyes, set in the scarred face like coin slots in a vending machine, raking his memory, searching for a spark of recognition, but none came.

‘I doubt if the Governor will do anything,’ he said. ‘By nine o’clock this morning he’ll know that you are Kurt Heinrich Gottwald, formerly of Zurich, wanted by the Israeli
Government
for war crimes against the Jewish people.’