Десмонд Бэгли - The Spoilers

Hellier checked back. ‘Yes, sauces and pickles. He bought it quite recently. What about it?’

‘I’ll tell you,’ said Warren deliberately. ‘The acetylation of morphine makes a hell of a stink, and it’s exactly the same stink you find in a pickle factory. It’s the acetic acid; it smells just like vinegar,’

‘Now we’re getting somewhere,’ said Tozier with satisfaction. ‘I suggest we split this lot up. Nick investigates the pickle factory — he’s the expert there. Johnny keeps tabs on Delorme, and I’ll help him with that if necessary. Tom takes the shipyard angle.’ He turned to Metcalfe. ‘You’d better steer clear of the woman. Fahrwaz will have been screaming blue murder and she must know about it by now, and of your implication.’

‘All right,’ said Metcalfe. ‘But I’ll want her later.’

‘You’ll get her,’ said Tozier grimly. ‘Sir Robert can keep digging into Fuad because that’s already paying dividends and might pay more. He’s also HQ staff — he stays here and we telephone in; he correlates the operation.’

Parker hummed happily as he prepared to tackle the last torpedo. He had been working long hours, eating bad food, and had been confined to the shed and its immediate vicinity for a long time, but he was supremely happy because he was doing the work he liked best of all. He was sorry the job was coming to an end for two reasons — the pleasurable part would be over and the really dangerous part beginning. But right now he was not thinking of what would happen on the other side of the Atlantic, but concentrating on opening the warhead.

Abbot was becoming increasingly edgy. He had not been able to get out of Jeanette anything concerning the operation on the American side. He badly wanted to know the place and the time, but that valuable information she kept to herself. He did not think that Eastman knew, either. Delorme played her cards very close to her beautiful chest.

Ever since the night he had taken her to the Paon Rouge he had been confined, like Parker, to the shed. He had seen a copy of the newspaper and knew that his advertisement trick had worked, but what good it would do he did not know. He frowned irritably and turned his head to see the Arab, Ali, leaning on the rail at the top of the stairs and watching him with unblinking brown eyes. That was another thing — this sense of being continually watched.

He became conscious of a sudden stillness in the workshop and looked at Parker who had his head down and was looking at the warhead. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Step over here,’ said Parker quietly.

He joined Parker and looked down at the warhead, and at Parker’s hands which trembled a little. Parker put down the tool he was holding. ‘Don’t make a scene,’ he said. ‘Don’t do anything that’ll attract the attention of that bloody Arab — but this thing is full.’

‘Full of what?’ asked Abbot stupidly.

‘TNT, you bloody fool. What do you suppose a warhead would be full of? There’s enough in here to blow this whole place a mile high.’

Abbot gulped. ‘But Eastman said they’d be delivered empty.’

‘Then this one got through by mistake,’ said Parker. ‘What’s more — it has a detonator in it which I’m hopin’ isn’t armed. It shouldn’t be armed, but then, it shouldn’t be there at all — an’ neither should the TNT. You’d better do your walkin’ around here very quietly until I take it out.’

Abbot looked at the warhead as though hypnotized, and Parker did the necessary operation very carefully. He laid the detonator on a bench. ‘That’s a bit better — but not much. I don’t know why this hasn’t blown before. To leave a detonator in a warhead is criminal, that’s what it is.’

‘Yes,’ said Abbot, and found himself sweating. ‘What do you mean — it’s not much better?’

‘TNT is right funny stuff,’ said Parker. ‘It goes sour with age. It’s not so stable any more. It becomes that sensitive it can explode on its own.’ He looked sideways at Abbot. ‘It’s best you don’t go near it, Mike.’

‘Don’t worry; I won’t.’ Automatically Abbot took a cigarette packet from his pocket, and then changed his mind at the unspoken look in Parker’s eyes. ‘No smoking, either, I suppose. What do we do about it?’

‘We get it out. In the service they’d steam it out an’ flush it away, but I want to hold on to this little lot — it could come in useful. I don’t want Ali to know about it, either.’

‘It’s hardly likely that he’d know,’ said Abbot. ‘He’s not a technical type. But Eastman might if he came in and saw what we were doing. What you want the stuff for, Dan?’

‘It’s in my mind that a torpedo ought to explode,’ said Parker. ‘That’s what it’s made for, an’ it don’t seem right it shouldn’t. When these fish are launched I want them to go off wi’ a bang. That this one is full o’ TNT is an act o’ providence to my way o’ thinkin’.’

Abbot thought of four torpedoes, each loaded with heroin worth $25,000,000 and each exploding on the American shore before the unbelieving eyes of the waiting reception committee. It would be a good ploy. ‘What about your weights? You’ve bitched about the difficulties often enough.’

Parker winked. ‘Never tell the whole truth. I’ve been keepin’ somethin’ in reserve.’

‘You have only one detonator.’

‘A good artificer can always make do,’ pronounced Parker. ‘But like as not I’ll probably blow us both to hell gettin’ the stuff out, so let’s leave that problem until later. It may never come up.’ He studied the warhead. ‘I’ll need some brass tools; I’ll start makin’ those up now.’

He went away, and Abbot, after looking at the warhead for some time, also left — walking very quietly.

Four days later Eastman surveyed the torpedoes with satisfaction. ‘So you reckon we’re ready to go, Dan,’

‘All ready,’ said Parker. ‘Bar loadin’ the warheads. Then you can stick the fish in the tubes an’ shoot.’

‘Putting that other tube in the Orestes improved her handling,’ said Eastman. ‘The skipper says she’s not as cranky.’

Parker smiled. ‘It equalized the turbulence. I’m ready to begin loadin’ if you’ve got the stuff.’

‘The boss is a bit worried about that,’ said Eastman. ‘She wants to do it herself — just to make sure.’

‘Well, she can’t — an’ that’s flat,’ said Parker abruptly. ‘It’s a tricky job. I have to see that the centre o’ gravity comes in the right place because if it doesn’t I can’t guarantee how the fish will behave. They have to be balanced just right.’

To have someone prying into the warheads was the last thing he wanted. ‘She can stand over me an’ watch while I do it,’ he said at last. ‘I don’t mind that.’

Abbot said, ‘Dan was telling me that if the balance isn’t right the torpedo might dive to the bottom.’

‘It would affect the steering, too,’ said Parker. ‘They’d be bloody erratic.’

‘Okay, okay,’ said Eastman, holding up his hands. ‘You’ve convinced me — as usual. Jeanette will be here pretty soon with the load for one fish. See if you can convince her.’

Jeanette took a lot of convincing but at last she agreed, bowing to the superior weight of technical know-how which Parker dazzlingly deployed. ‘As long as I’m here when you do it and the warhead is sealed,’ she said.

Abbot grinned. ‘You don’t trust us very much.’

‘Correct,’ she said coolly. ‘Help Jack to get the stuff in here.’

Abbot helped Eastman to haul a big cardboard box into the shed and down the stairs, and then they went back for another. Jeanette delicately tapped the box with a neatly shod foot. ‘Open it.’