Eric Ambler - Journey Into Fear

He turned his head. “What’s this Colonel Haki like?”

Kopeikin grunted. “Very chic and polished-a ladies’ man. There is also a legend that he can drink two bottles of whisky without getting drunk. It may be true. He was one of Ataturk’s men, a deputy in the provisional government of nineteen-nineteen. There is also another legend-that he killed prisoners by tying them together in pairs and throwing them into the river to save both food and ammunition. I do not believe everything I hear, nor am I a prig, but, as I told you, I do not like him. He is, however, very clever. But you will be able to judge for yourself. You can speak French to him.”

“I still don’t see …”

“You will.”

They pulled up soon afterwards behind a big American car which almost blocked the narrow street into which they had turned. They got out. Graham found himself standing in front of a pair of double doors which might have been the entrance to a cheap hotel. Kopeikin pressed a bell push.

One of the doors was opened almost immediately by a sleepy-looking caretaker who had obviously only just been roused from his bed.

“Haki efendi evde midir,” said Kopeikin.

“Efendi var-dir. Yokari.” The man pointed to the stairs.

They went up.

Colonel Haki’s office was a large room at the end of a corridor on the top floor of the building. The Colonel himself walked down the corridor to meet them.

He was a tall man with lean, muscular cheeks, a small mouth and grey hair cropped Prussian fashion. A narrow frontal bone, a long beak of a nose and a slight stoop gave him a somewhat vultural air. He wore a very well-cut officer’s tunic with full riding breeches and very tight, shiny cavalry boots; he walked with the slight swagger of a man who is used to riding. But for the intense pallor of his face and the fact that it was unshaven, there was nothing about him to show that he had recently been asleep. His eyes were grey and very wide-awake. They surveyed Graham with interest.

“Ah! Nasil-siniz. Fransizca konus-abilir misin . Yes? Delighted, Mr. Graham. Your wound, of course.” Graham found his unbandaged hand being gripped with considerable force by long rubbery fingers. “I hope that it is not too painful. Something must be done about this rascal who tries to kill you.”

“I’m afraid,” said Graham, “that we have disturbed your rest unnecessarily, Colonel. The man stole nothing.”

Colonel Haki looked quickly at Kopeikin.

“I have told him nothing,” said Kopeikin placidly. “At your suggestion, Colonel, you may remember. I regret to say that he thinks that I am either mad or hysterical.”

Colonel Haki chuckled. “It is the lot of you Russians to be misunderstood. Let us go into my office where we can talk.”

They followed him: Graham with the growing conviction that he was involved in a nightmare and that he would presently wake up to find himself at his dentist’s. The corridor was, indeed, as bare and featureless as the corridors of a dream. It smelt strongly, however, of stale cigarette smoke.

The Colonel’s office was large and chilly. They sat down facing him across his desk. He pushed a box of cigarettes towards them, lounged back in his chair and crossed his legs.

“You must realise, Mr. Graham,” he said suddenly, “that an attempt was made to kill you to-night.”

“Why?” demanded Graham irritably. “I’m sorry, but I don’t see it. I returned to my room to find that a man had got in through the window. Obviously he was some sort of thief. I disturbed him. He fired at me and then escaped. That is all.”

“You have not, I understand, reported the matter to the police.”

“I did not consider that reporting it could do any good. I did not see the man’s face. Besides, I am leaving for England this morning on the eleven o’clock train. I did not wish to delay myself. If I have broken the law in any way I am sorry.”

“Zarar yok! It does not matter.” The Colonel lit a cigarette and blew smoke at the ceiling. “I have a duty to do, Mr. Graham,” he said. “That duty is to protect you. I am afraid that you cannot leave on the eleven o’clock train.”

“But protect me from what?”

“I will ask you questions, Mr. Graham. It will be simpler. You are in the employ of Messrs. Cator and Bliss, Ltd., the English armament manufacturers?”

“Yes. Kopeikin here is the company’s Turkish agent.”

“Quite so. You are, I believe, Mr. Graham, a naval ordnance expert.”

Graham hesitated. He had the engineer’s dislike of the word “expert.” His managing director sometimes applied it to him when writing to foreign naval authorities; but he could, on those occasions, console himself with the reflection that his managing director would describe him as a full-blooded Zulu to impress a customer. At other times he found the word unreasonably irritating.

“Well, Mr. Graham?”

“I’m an engineer. Naval ordnance happens to be my subject.”

“As you please. The point is that Messrs. Cator and Bliss, Ltd., have contracted to do some work for my Government. Good. Now, Mr. Graham, I do not know exactly what that work is”-he waved his cigarette airily-“that is the affair of the Ministry of Marine. But I have been told some things. I know that certain of our naval vessels are to be rearmed with new guns and torpedo tubes and that you were sent to discuss the matter with our dockyard experts. I also know that our authorities stipulated that the new equipment should be delivered by the spring. Your company agreed to that stipulation. Are you aware of it?”

“I have been aware of nothing else for the past two months.”

“Iyi dir! Now I may tell you, Mr. Graham, that the reason for that stipulation as to time was not mere caprice on the part of our Ministry of Marine. The international situation demands that we have that new equipment in our dockyards by the time in question.”

“I know that, too.”

“Excellent. Then you will understand what I am about to say. The naval authorities of Germany and Italy and Russia are perfectly well aware of the fact that these vessels are being rearmed and I have no doubt that the moment the work is done, or even before, their agents will discover the details known at the moment only to a few men, yourself among them. That is unimportant. No navy can keep that sort of secret: no navy expects to do so. We might even consider it advisable, for various reasons, to publish the details ourselves. But”-he raised a long, well-manicured finger-“at the moment you are in a curious position, Mr. Graham.”

“That, at least, I can believe.”

The Colonel’s small grey eyes rested on him coldly. “I am not here to make jokes, Mr. Graham.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Not at all. Please take another cigarette. I was saying that at the moment your position is curious. Tell me! Have you ever regarded yourself as indispensable in your business, Mr. Graham?”

Graham laughed. “Certainly not. I could tell you the names of dozens of other men with my particular qualifications.”

“Then,” said Colonel Haki, “allow me to inform you, Mr. Graham, that for once in your life you are indispensable. Let us suppose for the moment that your thief’s shooting had been a little more accurate and that at this moment you were, instead of sitting talking with me, lying in hospital on an operating table with a bullet in your lungs. What would be the effect on this business you are engaged in now?”

“Naturally, the company would send another man out immediately.”

Colonel Haki affected a look of theatrical astonishment.

“So? That would be splendid. So typically British! Sporting! One man falls-immediately another, undaunted, takes his place. But wait!” The Colonel held up a forbidding arm. “Is it necessary? Surely, Mr. Kopeikin here could arrange to have your papers taken to England. No doubt your colleagues there could find out from your notes, your sketches, your drawings, exactly what they wanted to know even though your company did not build the ships in question, eh?”