Alistair MacLean - The Golden Rendezvous

“You have access to sources of information of which I am completely unaware.” his voice was hardly more than a whisper. “What sources, Carter? quickly!”

“There are no sources, Carreras.” I grinned at him. “Should there be?”

“No one plays cat-and-mouse with me.” He was still very quiet.

“The sources, Carter?”

“Here.” I tapped my head. “Only here. This source.” he regarded me for some seconds in cold silence, then nodded fractionally. “I knew it the first time I saw you. There is a — a quality about you. A champion boxer looks a champion boxer even in repose. A dangerous man cannot look anything else but dangerous, even in the most domestic situations, the most harmless surroundings. You have that quality. I have trained myself to recognise such things.”

“Hear that?” I said to Susan. “You never even suspected it, hey? Thought I was just like everybody else, didn’t you?”

“You are even more astute than I thought, Mr. Carter,” Carreras murmured.

“If adding two and two to make an obvious four is what you call being astute, then, sure, I’m astute. My god, if I were astute, I wouldn’t be lying here now with a shattered leg.” An occasional reminder of my helplessness would do no harm. “The Generalissimo needing cash — I should have worked it out long ago.”

“Yes?”

“Yes. Shall I tell you why Brownell, our radio officer, was killed?”

“I should be interested.”

“Because you had intercepted a message from the Harrisons and Curtises, the two families recalled by cable from Kingston. This message said that the cables had been a hoax, and if we knew it had been a hoax we would have started looking very closely at Messrs. Carreras and Cerdan, the people who had taken their places. The point is that the cables they had received came through your capital city, Carreras, which argues post office connivance and, by inference, government knowledge. The government owns the post office.”

“Secondly, there is a long waiting list in your country for berths on the Campari; you were near the bottom but were mysteriously jumped to the top. You said you were the only people who could take immediate advantage of the two suddenly vacant suites. Poppycock. Somebody in authority — in great authority — said, ‘Carreras and Cerdan go to the top.’ and no one squawked. I wonder why?”

“Thirdly, although there is a waiting list, none of the people on it are your nationals, Carreras. They are not permitted to travel on foreign-owned vessels — and, in addition, find themselves immediately in prison if caught in possession of foreign currency. But you were permitted to travel — and you paid in U.S. Dollars. You’re still with me?”

He nodded. “We had to take the chance of paying in dollars.”

“Further, the customs closed their eyes to those crates with your men aboard — and those crates with the cannons. That shown”

“Cannons?” Marston interrupted. He was looking almost completely dazed. “Cannons?”

“The noise you can hear outside,” Carreras said equably. “Mr. Carter will explain by and by. I wish,” He went on, almost with regret, “That we were on the same side of the fence. You would have made an incomparable lieutenant, Mr. Carter. You could have named your own price.”

“That’s just about what Mr. Beresford said to me yesterday,” I agreed. “Everybody’s offering me jobs these days. The timing of the offers could have been improved.”

“Do you mean to tell me,” Susan said, “that daddy offered…”

“Don’t panic,” I said. “He changed his mind. So, Carreras, there we have it. Government connivance on all sides. And what does the government want? Money. Completely desperate. Paid three hundred and fifty million dollars to iron curtain countries in the past year or two for arms. Trouble was, the Generalissimo never had three hundred and fifty million dollars in the first place. Now nobody will buy his sugar, trade’s practically nonexistent, so how does an honest man raise money? Easy. He steals it.”

“Insulting personal remarks we can dispense with.”

“Suit yourself. Maybe armed robbery and piracy on the high seas sounds more moral than stealing. I wouldn’t know. Anyway, what does he steal? Bonds, stocks, shares, convertible drafts, currency? Not on your life. He only wants something that can never be traced back to him — and the only stuff he can get in sufficient quantity is gold. Your leader, Mr. Carreras,” I finished thoughtfully, “must have a very extensive spy network both in Britain and America.” “If one is prepared to lay out sufficient capital on an affair such as this,” he said indifferently, “a large spy system is unnecessary. I even have the complete loading plans of the bullion vessel in my cabin. Most men have their price, Mr. Carter.”

“I wish someone would try me someday,” I said. “Well, there you are. The American government has made no secret recently of its great success in recovering a large proportion of its gold reserves which went to Europe in the past few years. That bullion has to be transported — and part of it, I’ll bet my boots, is in this ship we’re intercepting. The fact that it is not due to arrive in Norfolk until after dark is interesting enough in itself; what is even more interesting is that Norfolk, in this case, almost certainly means the Hampton roads naval operating base where the ship can be unloaded with maximum security. And Norfolk, I would say, is the point that offers the shortest overland route to Fort Knox, where the gold will eventually be stored. How much gold, Carreras?”

“One hundred and fifty million dollars,” he said calmly. “You have missed very little. And nothing of importance.”

One hundred and fifty million dollars. I mentally examined this sum from several different angles, but there didn’t seem to be any comment to meet the case, so I asked, “Why did you pick on the Campari?”

“I thought you would have guessed that one too. In point of fact we had three other ships under active consideration as well, all ships on the New York-Caribbean run. We have been studying the movements of all four ships for some time. Yours suited best.”

“You cut things pretty fine, didn’t you? If we had been a couple of days late in arriving in Carracio — "

“There has been a naval vessel, a frigate, standing by and ready to intercept you on a peaceful pretext ever since you left Savannah. I was aboard. But it wasn’t necessary.” So that explained the vessel we had seen on our radar screens at night after leaving Savannah: not an American warship, as we had thought, but the Generalissimo’s. “This way was much easier, much more satisfactory.”

“And, of course,” I said, “You couldn’t have used the frigate for this job. Hasn’t the cruising range. Hopeless in bad weather. No derricks for heavy trans-shipment lifts. And conspicuous, far too conspicuous. But the Campari — who’s going to miss the Campari if she’s only a few days late in arriving at a destination. Only the head office and…”

“The head office is being taken care of,” Carreras said. “You don’t think we overlooked the obvious, do you? Our own transmitter was brought aboard and is already in circnit. A stream of perfectly satisfactory messages are going out, I assure you.”

“So you fixed that. And the Campari has the speed to overtake most cargo ships; it’s a good large sea boat for practically any weather, has first-class radar for picking up other vessels and jumbo derricks for heavy lifts.” I paused and looked at him. “We even have reinforced decks for gun platforms both forward and on the poop. Most British vessels have had those installed as a matter of course when building. But I warn you that they have to be strengthened from below with angle irons, a couple of days’ job in itself. Without them, anything more than a three-inch will buckle and twist the plates beyond repair after even only a couple of shots.”