Алистер Маклин - Floodgate

‘I have to admit that I’m not all that madly keen on it myself. But we’ve agreed – it’s our only way in. And there’s another thing I don’t like too much and makes me more than glad that your friend gave those scars a degree of permanence. I mean, they may have reservations about me that I didn’t suspect before.’

‘What makes you suspect now?’

‘A rather disquieting remark that one of those gentlemen let drop a few minutes ago – Professor Span, it was. He said he came from Utrecht. He is firmly of the opinion that the Agnelli brothers come from the same place.’

‘So?’

‘It may have escaped your memory, sir, but Vasco – Sergeant Westenbrink – also comes from Utrecht.’

‘Damn it!’ De Graaf said softly. The implications had struck him immediately. ‘Oh, damn it all!’

‘Indeed. Cops and criminals generally have a working knowledge of each other. Two things may help, though. Vasco spent much of his time in Utrecht working under cover and he’s been in disguise – sort of – since he took up residence in Krakerdom. Imponderables, sir, imponderables.’

‘Your continued existence would seem to me to be another imponderable,’ de Graaf said heavily. ‘There is no call –’

‘Yes, sir, I know, over and above the call of duty. Let’s just say in for a penny in for a pound, or, if you like, a calculated risk. By my calculations, the odds are on me.’ He pulled up outside de Graaf’s house.

‘I am glad that I’m not a betting man.’ He peered at his watch. ’Six-Seventeen. If I want to reach you in the next hour or so you will, of course, be in your room in the Trianon.’

‘Briefly only, sir. For about forty minutes, from, say, six forty-five onwards, I’ll be in La Caracha.’

‘The devil you will! La Caracha. I thought someone was delivering some data or whatever it is in the Trianon at six-thirty and that you were going to study that?’

‘I don’t have to look at it. I know how to operate radio-controlled detonations. When I explained to them at length the difficulties involved in radio detonation, that was for their benefit and my benefit. Their benefit, to convince them that I really was what I purported to be, a whizz-kid in explosives: my benefit, to find out how much they really knew about the subject, which appears to be singularly little. Work that one out, sir – why so highly organized a group is anything but organized in what would appear to be a very – if not the most – vital department. That’s one of the reasons why I said that by my calculations the odds are on me – I think they may really need me and be prepared to lean over just so slightly backwards to give me the benefit of the doubt.

‘But the real reason for whatever optimism I have lies in La Caracha. You may remember I asked Vasco to meet me in Julie’s flat. I changed my mind about that: I think that the further he and I – in my capacity of Danilov – keep away from the flat the better. So I’ve arranged to meet him in La Caracha. I also took the liberty of phoning George and asking him if he would be interested in giving me a little assistance. He said he would be more than pleased. I did not – I repeat not, sir – co-opt him in your name. I thought there were some things you’d rather not know about – officially, that is.’

‘I see. You have a point. I sometimes wonder, Peter, how many things I don’t know about, officially and unofficially, but now is not the time for brooding. I mean, you haven’t the time. And how do you propose to have those two help guarantee your continued existence?’

‘They will, I hope, be keeping an eye on me. A close eye. Vasco, as I think I’ve mentioned, has no equal as a shadower. And George – well, he has other virtues.’

‘So I’ve noticed. May heaven help us all.’

Agnelli’s messenger arrived punctually at six-thirty, less than two minutes after van Effen had arrived back in his room at the Trianon. A man, van Effen reflected, ideally suited for his task – a small, drab, unremarkable nonentity of a man who could have been first cousin of the other nonentity who consumed so remarkably few jonge jenevers in the close vicinity of the reception desk in the lobby. He handed over a yellow envelope, said that someone would be around to pick him up at seven forty-five and left, less than twenty seconds after his arrival.

‘No,’ Sergeant Westenbrink said. He was seated with van Effen and George in a small private room in La Caracha. ‘I don’t know the Annecys – the two that you didn’t put in prison, that is.’

‘Do they know you?’

‘I’m sure they don’t. I never came into contact with them. They left for Amsterdam about three years ago.’

‘Ah, I’d forgotten. Either of you hear this broadcast that was supposed to be made to the FFF?’

‘It was made,’ George said. ‘Minister of Justice’s house. 8 p.m. Guarantees of immunity – I assume the government believed in the threat to turn the Oostlijk–Flevoland into a new sea.’

‘Well, doesn’t concern us at the moment. You are sure you want to come in on this, George?’

George seemed to reflect. ‘Could be difficult, even dangerous. There might even be violence.’ He frowned, then brightened. ‘But one does get so tired of serving Rodekool met Rolpens.’

‘So. If you’ll be kind enough to have your car outside the Trianon – or, shall I say, in the discreet vicinity – by seven-forty. Might leave in my Volkswagen, might be in the car of whoever comes to pick me up. I don’t for a moment think you’ll lose us but, in any case, you know we’ll be heading in the general direction of the royal palace.’

George said: ‘Does our Chief of Police know about us – our plans?’

‘He knows about you two and that you’ll be keeping a very careful watch – I hope – over me. The rest, no. It would never do for us to go around breaking the law.’

‘Of course not,’ George said.

At precisely seven forty-five, none other than Romero Agnelli himself came to collect van Effen from the Trianon.

As far as one could tell, Romero Agnelli was in high good humour: but, then, as far as one could tell, Romero Agnelli was always in high good humour. Even the torrential rainfall drumming on the roof of the car had no effect on his spirits. The car was Agnelli’s, a large and, van Effen had been glad to note, fairly conspicuous green Volvo.

‘Dreadful night,’ Agnelli said. ‘Quite dreadful. And worse still to come, I’m sure. Bad time of the year, this. Always a bad time. Gales, spring tides, north wind – must listen in to the eight o’clock forecast.’ Agnelli, van Effen thought, was uncommonly interested in the weather conditions. ‘Busy day, Mr Danilov?’

‘If you call sleeping being busy, yes, then I’ve had a busy day. Late in bed last night – late this morning, actually – and I didn’t know what hour you’d keep me up to tonight. You have not, Mr Agnelli, been too free with information about your plans.’

‘Would you have been in my situation? Don’t worry, we won’t keep you late. That data I sent round – it proved useful?’

‘Everything I required.’ Van Effen pulled out the yellow envelope from under his coat. ‘Returned with thanks. I don’t want to be found with that in my possession. Where’s the radio?’

‘In the boot. In perfect condition, I assure you.’

‘I don’t doubt it. Nevertheless, I shall want to see it. I trust the amatol, primers and the rest are not in the boot?’

Agnelli looked at him in amusement. ‘They’re not. Why?’

‘I’m thinking of the detonator. Usually made of some fulminating powder, commonly a mercury derivative. Delicate. Doesn’t like being jounced around. And I don’t like being around when it’s jounced around.’