Barry Unsworth - Land of Marvels

He had decided against locking his door when he was inside the room and awake. It gave the wrong message; he wanted to appear confident that Manning would keep his word and allow him the time they had agreed on. However, he kept his revolver always within reach, in the drawer of his table or under his pillow. And while he slept he kept the door locked.

He had cause for self-congratulation this evening, in spite of his troubles. He had completed his investigations, more or less; he had sufficient evidence. It was only necessary now for him to get out of here and back home with a whole skin.

He had been since early in the morning on the site of what he was now convinced was a gravity-induced, piercement salt dome, a vast pillar of Cenozoic and Mesozoic salt something like three hundred million years old, which had traveled through several miles of sedimentary rock to reach the surface. Everything had confirmed it. The caprock was composed of limestone, anhydrite, and traces of calcite over a large part of its surface, the result of groundwater interacting with the salt and causing mineral changes. A good deal of the calcite had dissolved through this exposure to water, forming cavernous expanses; he had discovered the existence of a system of linked caves not far below the surface, and he was now sure that these were filled with oil.

This promised extremely well in regard to the amount of oil trapped in the flanks of the dome; he had reason now to think it was there in vast quantities. But when a zone like this one was penetrated by the drill, the oil would come out fast and furious; there was danger of a gusher that could be sudden and violent in the initial stage, before it could be brought under control. This would make the operation more difficult and dangerous—and more expensive. The risk was increased by the difference in pressure between the strata that had been broken and pushed upward in the slow rise of the salt and the shallower strata these had penetrated. This meant there would be overpressured layers—floaters, as they were called—near the surface, and these posed a threat of violent outflow when attempts were made to drill through them.

All this would go down in his report, the one that neither the British nor the Germans would see. He would describe the site and give the exact location; he would specify the risks and give his estimate of the quantities; he would include sketches and diagrams and notes of depth and densities. And this report he would carry with him at all times. It would be with him on the morning, coming soon, when he rode out with his helpers as if for another day combing the ground, carrying with him the few possessions he would need. And it would be there, still with him, when he dismissed these men and paid them and made his way on horseback, accompanied only by Alawi, to Lataku, where the boats left for Cyprus and Smyrna. Here he would say good-bye to Alawi and give over the horses to him. Only in the evening would his presence be missed, and he would be well on his way by then…

He was disturbed in these reflections by a light tapping at his door. His first thought was that Manning had taken it into his head to come and inquire into the progress he was making with his report. No attempt was made to turn the handle, so it could not be Edith. “Who is it?” he called through the door.

“It is I, Spahl.”

Elliott opened the door to find the Swiss smiling on the threshold, a smile that looked as if it had been there already, prepared in advance.

“I hope you will forgive this lateness of hour,” Spahl said. “I wanted to lose no time.”

Elliott smiled and held the door open. He said, “I will have to come clean with you right from the start. I never give interviews after ten o’clock in the evening.”

“Ha-ha, no,” Spahl said as he entered the room. “It is not for that I am coming.” He was a big man, heavily built, but he moved very lightly, Elliott noticed now, and with short steps. He looked very carefully about him as he advanced into the room. “No, it is for business,” he said.

“Have a seat.” Elliott pointed to one of the two upright chairs at the table, the one on the opposite side to the drawer where his revolver lay. “Would you care for a drink? I’ve still got some of the Scotch that I brought from London with me.”

“Thank you, yes.”

“Water with it?”

“No, I like it straight, as you Americans say. Why make crooked what is made to be straight? That is a joke I am making.”

“Well, I agree with you. Your very good health, sir.”

“Gesundheit!”

“I was wondering,” Elliott said, “just out of curiosity, you know, which paper do you work for?”

“I work for this one or that one. I am freelance.”

“Freelance, eh? I see, yes.”

“But it is not for the newspaper I come to see you. For the newspaper it is to talk with archaeologists, not geologists, that is my purpose.”

These words cleared any doubt remaining in Elliott’s mind as to the true nature and purpose of his visitor. “Naturally,” he said. “We are a lesser breed altogether.”

“Ha-ha. Lesser breed, very good. You Americans have a sense of humor very special. My good chap, I do not want to take up your time, so I will come to the point without delaying more. I am carrying a letter from Herr Kruckman of the Deutsche Bank giving me authority to collect the reports that so far you have made and take them back with me to Berlin when I return. Herr Kruckman is a close friend of your Lord Rampling, they have many interests in common.”

“You mean Zurich, I suppose.”

“Eh? No, no, I am stationed in Berlin.”

By this time Elliott was feeling constrained to keep to the lines of the dialogue as far as he could remember them, as if there were an audience somewhere that expected it of him, having enjoyed the first performance. “I have not made any reports as yet,” he said. “It was not part of my commission to make reports at this stage. There must be some mistake.”

“No, there is no mistake. I have the letter here.” Spahl’s hand went to the inside pocket of his coat.

“I don’t need to see the letter; I have no doubt it is genuine. I mean some mistake in the instructions, some misunderstanding about the terms on which I was employed.”

“If reports you do not have, it will be enough to take your notes and papers.”

“How is it that you were landed with this job?”

“Landed? Oh, yes, to land from a ship. It is an accident. They know I am leaving for Mesopotamia to do the article, they know I am traveling here in this region—”

“I see, yes. It seemed a good idea for you to pick up the papers as you were passing by.”

“Exactly, yes.” Spahl shot a sharp glance around the room. “You have them here, the notes?”

Elliott explained—he was more fluent now than on the first occasion—that he had notes, yes, but for reasons of security he had used a private language of symbols that no one else could possibly decipher. He would need some days in order to summarize these in the form of a report and add some important facts that had come to light recently and had not been written up yet.

He watched Spahl considering, guessed at the calculations going on behind those small, sharp eyes. And it was now, in these few moments, while he was hoping Spahl would understand that he had to be kept alive, at least until the report was made, that the idea came to him for a radical departure from the script. It was a difficult decision to make; Manning was keeping a watch on all his movements; it was almost certain that he would already know about this nighttime visit. He would have guessed immediately what Spahl was up to. He would have decided to kill Spahl to make sure no private arrangements were made, no privileged information passed on to him. Spahl would be a sitting duck; he could have no idea that the major was any other than he seemed. Was that more, or less, dangerous to himself? If they were both in the know, it might give him a breathing space. And there was a chance that one of them would succeed in killing the other, thus halving the opposition.