Гарри Гаррисон - The QE2 Is Missing

“Gotta get the film to the lab, boss. Too much of this high life is bad for a working stiff.”

“You’ll have to excuse us, Sheila.”

“Wish you were sailing with me,” she said, squeezing his hand. “So far this trip has been old-fartsville. We could have some fun.”

“We could, I’m sure, I know. My pleasure.”

He finally extricated his moist hand and fled.

“That’s a lot of good old girl there,” Nino said as they went down the corridor.

“Quite. Of slightly greater importance are the photographs. How did it go? I couldn’t see a thing.”

“I did, which is what counts, and I got the pix, which is what counts more. No broads, but five guys went into the two suites. A couple of old ones and three punks. Look like heavies. You’ll see in the pix.”

“I will indeed. That’s something I’m looking forward to.”

They went into Nino’s darkroom, which had formerly been the bathroom of his flat. This was located in a rundown building located in the seamier part of the city. Nino opened a bottle of South African brandy, very sweet and very nasty, Rivelles realized when he took a sip, then set to work. He was a professional who knew just what he was doing.

“Got to do a bit of forcing,” he said, loading the film into the developing tank. “Could have used some more light or faster film, but I wanted fine grain so we could blow up the detail. I was shooting at a thousand, so we should be OK.”

He developed and dried the rolls of film, then spread the negatives out on a light box and examined them with a magnifying glass, muttering happily to himself.

“Great, really great, if I say so myself. I’ll make you a blow-up of this one and you’ll see what I mean.”

The projected image had Rivelles and Sheila large in the foreground, which Nino ignored. He moved the print frame until they were completely out of it, and concentrated on the figures in the corridor behind them.

When the print came out of the drier he took it into the front room and thumbtacked it proudly to the well-scarred wall and focussed a spotlight on it. “Those the guys you’re looking for?” he asked.

“If they went into those suites, they are.”

“Went in and never came out.”

Rivelles looked closely at the photograph, then examined it even more closely with a magnifying glass. It meant nothing to him. All five of the men were unknown to him. Three young, two old, just as Nino had said. They did not look like Latin Americans, certainly the young ones weren’t. The mystery was still a mystery. The people in London might be able to identify them.

“They OK?” Nino asked.

“They’re just perfect. You’re an artist, Nino, just like you said. There’s a plane I can take in just three hours time. Will they be ready by then?”

“A piece of cake. You make the reservations while I finish off the prints. Help yourself to the brandy — you’re paying for it.”

There were three of them around the dining room table. The table was spread with old newspapers in place of a cloth, papers that were stained and marked and ragged. Diaz sipped at a cup of black coffee while the other two stared into space. The flat was large, old, shabbily furnished and drab. There was an air of impermanence about it as though the men had only stopped temporarily, were just passing through. Yet they had been here for years and might stay for many more. But their hearts, their thoughts, were far across the Atlantic in a small tropical country that most people had never heard of. Though they lived out their existence in these cold rooms, the echoing hallway and the grubby kitchen, they lived with an air of impermanence. Their home was far, far away indeed.

The tapping on the hallway door was very light, but all three men around the table heard it, turning together towards the sound. One of them started to pull a gun from his pocket but Diaz shook his head in a silent no. He stood and walked down the dank hallway and stood next to the door.

“Who is it?”

“The wanderer returned,” a voice said. “And I’ll collapse if you leave me out here an instant longer.”

Diaz quickly unlatched the door and opened it wide, looking out quizzically at the man who was standing there.

“You know, my friend,” he leaned against the wall while the door was closed and locked, “there have been times when I have felt a good deal better. I’ve spent two out of the last three days on planes. Not only haven’t I slept, but my stomach is being ruined by the fresh frozen filth they serve for food.”

“There’s some black beans and rice in the kitchen.”

“I’ll sell my soul to the man who brings me a plate of them. Here are the pictures.”

He passed over the envelope which was instantly seized and opened. “Do you know who they are? In the photographs,” Diaz asked.

“Sorry, no. I hope you do.”

Rivelles dug into the food with a happy sigh while Diaz, and two others, spread the pictures on the table and examined them closely. There were loud comments and differences of opinion and one of them went to fetch a magnifying glass. Rivelles had a beaker of Spanish wine to hold down the food and was resting comatosely when Diaz turned from the table.

“Unhappily, they are unknown to us as well. Did you speak with them or hear them talk at all?”

“No. I was with this unusual woman the entire time. I didn’t even see them go by. Why?”

“Just a guess. Come look through the glass. At this picture here, the man looking into the camera with the frown.”

“The photographer was pretty good. He set off the flash to draw their attention so he could photograph them full in the face as well as profile. I see him, ugly devil — what about it?”

“Look at his cheek, there. Could that be a scar?”

Rivelles looked close and grunted agreement. “Could be. Why do you ask?”

“Because he could be German. That could be a saber scar. He’s old enough to have gone to school in the twenties when saber scars were almost a requirement for graduation. They had these fencing clubs in the universities where they used sharpened sabers and masks that only covered part of their faces. Apparently the idea was to cut the other man up and get cut a bit your-self.”

“That sounds sort of stupid. What did it prove?”

“That one had plenty of macho. We don’t have a monopoly on machismo, you know.”

“No, I’m sure we don’t. Stupid ideas travel widely. But looking at him, at the others, they all could be German. But what does that prove.”

“For the young ones, nothing. But the old ones, scars, the military, more than old enough to have fought in World War II____”

“Nazis!”

Diaz nodded. “Very possibly. But how do we find out?”

“We have some in Argentina, but small fry for the most part. You have them in Paraguay, don’t you?”

“A few. Military advisors they call them. But as far as we know small fry like yours. But — wait! — not too far down the river is…. “

“Uruguay! Where they all are! The concentration camp commanders, the SS bullies, the mass murderers. They are everywhere there, in the government and out, like filthy roaches.”

“Just a few kilometers down the river,” Diaz said quietly. “If what we think is true, we may have established the link we are looking for. But we must find out who these men are.”

“The Tupamaros might know. Do you have contacts with them?”

Diaz shook his head. “Not any more. Most of them were killed in 1974, then the movement collapsed. But I can make enquiries. But that will take time. The QE2 has left Cape Town and will be in Australia in a few days. We must find out at once who those men are. Who would know?”