Eric Ambler - The light of day

Fischer borrowed a screwdriver from Enrico and we went ashore. Nobody seemed to take any notice of us, probably because we looked so scruffy. I couldn’t see the Opel or the Peugeot anywhere about, but that didn’t worry me. I knew that one or other of them would be on tap. We found the car without difficulty and I started on the door. It was an ordinary screwdriver I had to work with, but the earlier removals of the panel had eased the screws and I didn’t do any more damage to the leather. It took me ten minutes to take the panel off, five seconds for Fischer to wedge the velvet bag in clear of the window mechanism, and fifteen minutes for me to replace the panel. Then Fischer and I got into the back seat. Two minutes later, Miss Lipp came out of the restaurant and got behind the wheel. If she had slept the previous night it could only have been at the inn in Corlu; but she looked as fresh as she always did.

“Good morning, Hans. Good morning, Arthur. The others are just coming across the square now,” she said.

They arrived a moment after. Harper got in the front seat with her. Miller sat on my left. She said “good morning” to Miller, and drove off the moment she heard the door close.

From Serefli to Corlu, where we would join the main Istanbul-Edirne road, there are twelve miles of narrow secondary road. The first mile or so is winding, and I waited until we got to a straighter part before I risked a look back.

The Peugeot was there, and I caught a glimpse of another car behind it. The Opel was on the job as well.

Harper had started telling Miss Lipp about the night’s work and the size of the haul. Miller was putting in his word, too. There was a lot of mutual congratulation. It was like being in the winning team’s bus. I wasn’t needed in the conversation, and didn’t have to listen to it either. I could think.

There were several possible explanations for the two cars being there. Miss Lipp had probably driven straight to Corlu from the garage, after dropping us the previous afternoon. By the time she had left the Istanbul area, Tufan must have been told that the men were no longer in the car, and realized that his only hope of re-establishing contact lay in keeping track of the Lincoln. The Opel could have been sent to make sure that there were no further mistakes. Or it may have been to compensate for lack of radio communication outside the Istanbul area. The two cars could talk to one another; if an urgent report became necessary, one car could stop and reach Istanbul by telephone while the other continued the surveillance. Then a third possibility occurred to me. Tufan must have been told about the attack on the guard post. As soon as he heard the details-smoke, tear gas, concussion grenades, six men in respirators-he would know that the attack and the Lincoln were related. If he also knew that the Bulut had left Pendik and that the Lincoln had stopped at Corlu, he might have decided that reinforcements were necessary in that area.

The only certainty, I decided sourly, was that Tufan would not be the “big brain” who would think of checking the Treasury Museum. He would still be off on his political wild-goose chase. Well, he would have some surprises coming.

At that moment Miss Lipp said sharply: “Karl!”

Miller had been in the middle of saying something and he broke off abruptly.

“What is it?” Harper said.

“That brown car behind us. It was behind me yesterday when I drove out from Istanbul. I thought then that I’d noticed it before, earlier in the day. In fact, I was so sure that when I stopped at Corlu I waited to get a look at it. When it didn’t show up I figured it had turned off somewhere and thought no more about it.”

“Don’t look around, anyone,” Harper said. He swiveled the driving mirror so that he could look behind. After a moment, he said: “Try slowing down.”

She did so. I knew what would happen. The Peugeot would keep its distance. After about a minute, Harper twisted the mirror back into position. “Do you think you could lose it?” he said.

“Not on these roads.”

“Okay. Just keep going. Doesn’t look like a police car. I wonder…”

“Franz!” Fischer said suddenly.

“All set for a little hijacking operation, you mean?”

“Why not?”

“He could have done that better last night when he had us in the van,” said Miller.

“I’m not so sure,” said Harper. “He might have figured that it would be safer to wait until we were all outside the city.”

“But Franz didn’t know this end of the plan,” Miss Lipp objected.

“If he put a tail on you,” Fischer said, “he could have guessed.”

“Well we’ll soon find out,” Harper said grimly. “There are only two of them in that car. If it’s Franz we’re dealing with, that probably means that he’s set up an ambush somewhere ahead with his other two mugs. That makes five. We only have three guns, so we’d better take care of this lot first. We’ll pick a spot with some trees and then pull off the road. Okay?”

“May I look round at this car?” I asked.

“Why?”

“To see if I recognize it.”

I knew that I had to do something. If they started shooting at Turkish security agents, Turkish security agents were going to start shooting back-and they weren’t going to stop to ask questions or worry about who got hit.

“Okay,” he said; “but make it casual.”

I looked back.

“Well?” he asked.

“I don’t recognize the brown one,” I said; “but there’s another one behind it, a gray Opel.”

“That’s right,” Miss Lipp said; “it’s been there some time. But so what? The road’s too narrow for passing.”

“I’m almost sure it was outside that garage yesterday afternoon.” I tried to sound like a really worried man. It wasn’t very difficult.

“There are many gray Opels,” Miller said.

“But not with such a very long radio aerial. That is why I noticed it.”

Harper had swiveled the mirror again and was peering into it. “You’d better look, too, Leo,” he said grimly. “See the antenna?”

Miller looked and swore. “It could be a coincidence,” he said.

“Could be. Do you want to take a chance on it?”

“No,” said Fischer.

“I agree,” said Miller; “but what do we do about them?”

Harper thought for a moment. Then he asked: “How much farther to Corlu?”

“About three kilometers,” Miss Lipp answered.

“Then he must have it set up somewhere between Corlu and Edirne.”

“So?”

“So, instead of turning left at Corlu and going to Edirne, we change our plans and turn right.”

“But that would take us back to Istanbul,” Miller objected.

“Not all the way,” Harper said; “only as far as the airport and the first plane out.”

“Leaving the car behind?” asked Miss Lipp.

“Don’t worry, sweetie. We’ll all be able to buy fleets of Lincolns when we cash in this pile of chips.”

Suddenly they were all smiles again.

I tried to think. It was barely seven-thirty and the run from Corlu to the Istanbul Airport at Yesilkoy would take little more than an hour. It was Wednesday, which meant that the Treasury Museum would normally stay closed until the following day. Unless the big brain had already started working, or unless Tufan had decided to stop uncovering nonexistent terrorist plots and let the police know what was going on, there was every chance that, within a couple of hours, Harper and the rest would be out of the country. In that case, if anyone were going to stop them it would have to be me. The question was: Did I want to stop them? Why didn’t I just go along with them and collect my two thousand dollars?

I was still tired and confused or I would have remembered that there could be only one answer to that-my passport was not valid and an airline would not carry me. But instead of the answer, another stupid question came into my mind; and, stupidly, I asked it.