Десмонд Бэгли - The Spoilers

His finger traced a line from Iran into northern Iraq and from thence into Syria. He returned to his desk and said to his companion, ‘The Iranians are certain it crossed the border.’ He shrugged. ‘There’s nothing we can do about it — not with the political situation being what it is in Kurdistan right now. I’d better make a report — copies to go to Syria, Jordan and the Lebanon.’

Al-Khalil sat down and prepared to dictate his report, and said in parenthesis, ‘The Iranians think there’s as much as five hundred kilos of morphine or heroin loose. Somebody has been very lax over there.’ He shook his head in regret.

The reports proliferated and one dropped on the desk of Jamil Hassan of the Narcotics Bureau in Beirut. He read it and took action, and life became very difficult for the Lebanese underworld. One of those picked up for questioning was a small-time crook named André Picot, suspected of being involved in narcotics smuggling. He was questioned for many hours but nothing could be got from him.

This was for two reasons; he knew very little anyway, and his interrogators did not know enough themselves to ask him the right questions. So, after an all-night session in front of the bright lights which gave him eyestrain but nothing else, he was released a little before nine in the morning — which was a great pity.

At ten minutes to nine the cruiser rocked gently on the blue water of the Mediterranean, one engine ticking over gently so that the boat barely had steerage way. Hellier was sitting in the open cockpit apparently interested in nothing else but the fishing-rod he held, but Tozier was in the saloon and keeping careful watch on the Orestes through binoculars. A curl of smoke from the single funnel stained the sky to show that her boilers were fired and she was preparing to move.

Warren sat in the saloon close to the door and watched Metcalfe at the wheel. He thought Metcalfe handled the boat very well, and said so. Metcalfe grinned. ‘I learned in a hard school. A few years ago I was running cigarettes out of Tangier into Spain with a Yank called Krupke; we had a biggish boat — a war-surplus Fairmile — which I had re-engined so she could outrun the Spanish excise cutters. If you can’t learn to handle a boat doing that sort of thing you’ll never learn.’

He leaned down and looked into the saloon. ‘Any change, Andy?’

‘No change,’ said Tozier, without taking his eyes from the binoculars. ‘We go in ten minutes.’

Metcalfe straightened and said over his shoulder, ‘We’re going to abandon this tub, Sir Robert. The charterers won’t like it — you’ll have a lawsuit on your hands.’

Hellier grunted in amusement. ‘I can afford it.’

Warren felt the hard metal of the pistol which was thrust into the waistband of his trousers. It felt uncomfortable and he shifted it slightly. Metcalfe looked down at him, and said, ‘Take it easy, Nick, and you’ll be all right. Just follow up the rope and take your cue from me.’

It made Warren uncomfortable that Metcalfe should have seen his nervousness. He said curtly, ‘I’ll be all right when we start.’

‘Of course you will,’ said Metcalfe. ‘We all get butterflies at this stage.’ He sighed. ‘I’ve talked myself into things like this all my life. I must be a damned fool.’

There was a metallic click from behind Warren and he turned his head to see Follet slamming a full magazine into the butt of his pistol. Metcalfe said, ‘It takes us different ways. Johnny there is nervous, too; that’s why he keeps checking his gun. He can never convince himself that it’s ready to shoot — just like the old lady who goes on holiday and is never sure she turned off the gas before she left.’

Warren shifted the gun again, and said quietly, ‘We’re going on board that ship with guns in our hands, ready to shoot. The crew may be quite innocent.’

‘Not a chance,’ scoffed Metcalfe. ‘You can’t fit torpedo tubes aboard a scow that size without the crew knowing it. They’re all in on the act. And there’ll be no shooting, either — not unless they start first.’ He looked across at the Orestes. ‘It’s quite likely she’ll have a skeleton crew, so that’ll make it easier for us. Jeanette won’t let one more person in on this than she has to.’

Tozier said, ‘I don’t see why we can’t go in now. She’s as ready as she ever will be, and so are we. We can’t wait until she begins to haul anchor.’

‘All right,’ said Metcalfe, and swung the wheel gently. Over his shoulder he said, ‘Make like a fisherman, Sir Robert.’ He opened the throttle a fraction and the boat moved more purposefully through the water. With a wink at Warren, he said, ‘The whole idea is to be gentle. We don’t roar up with engines going full blast — we just edge in nice and easy so that even if they see us coming they won’t know what the hell to make of it. By the time they do, it’ll be too late, I hope.’

Tozier put down the glasses and got busy. He slung the sub-machine-gun over his shoulder and checked a coil of rope for unwanted kinks. At one end of the rope was attached a three-pronged grapnel, well padded for quietness, and he tested that it was secure. He tapped Warren on the shoulder. ‘Stand back and let the dog see the rabbit,’ he said, and Warren made way for him.

To an onlooker from the shore it might have seemed that the boat was drifting dangerously close to the Orestes which, after all, showed all the signs of getting under way. If the boat were to be caught when the screw began to turn then there could be a nasty accident. It was a thoroughly bad piece of seamanship which could not be excused even if the big, fat Englishman had caught a fish and the helmsman was diverted in his excitement,

Hellier hauled the fish out of the sea. He had bought it that morning in the fish market near the Suq des Orfèvres and a very fine specimen it was. It was a last-minute bit of camouflage devised by Follet, the master of the con game, and Hellier dexterously made it twitch on the line as though still alive. With a bit of luck this by-play would allow them to get ten yards nearer to the Orestes without being challenged.

The boat edged in still nearer, and Metcalfe nodded to Tozier. ‘Now!’ he said sharply, as he opened the throttle and spun the wheel, turning them towards the stern of the Orestes, but still keeping the bulk of the ship as a screen between the boat and the quay.

Tozier leaped up into the cockpit and whirled the grapnel twice about his head before casting it upwards to the stern rail. As the grapnel caught, Hellier dropped his fish smartly and grabbed the rope, hauling it taut and swinging the boat in to the side of the ship while Metcalfe put the gears into neutral. Even as he did so Tozier was climbing hand over hand, and Warren heard the light thump of his feet as he landed on deck.

Metcalfe abandoned the wheel and went next, and Warren felt apprehensive as he looked over the side of the boat towards the underhang of Orestes ’s stern. The screw was only two-thirds submerged, the ship being in ballast, and if the skipper gave the order to move the turbulence would inevitably smash the little boat.

Follet pushed him from behind. ‘Get going!’ he hissed, and Warren grasped the rope and began to climb. He had not climbed a rope since his schooldays when he had been driven up ropes in the gymnasium by an athletic games master wielding a cricket stump. Warren had never been athletically-minded. But he got to the top and a hand grasped him by the scruff of the neck and hauled him over the rail.

There was no time to rest and, breathlessly, he found himself following Metcalfe. Tozier was nowhere to be seen but when Warren turned his head he found Hellier padding behind and looking ridiculous in the bright floral shirt and the shorts he had chosen as his fisherman’s get-up. But there was nothing at all funny about the gun held in Hellier’s meaty fist.