Выбрать главу

The sea was pretty calm while the island protected it from the ocean swell. He grabbed the chance to check the petrol reserve and to wrap his coat more tightly around Andre. She was either asleep or had lapsed into unconsciousness again.

The boat moved crabwise because of the current running through the narrows between' the island and the mainland.

On this course he was merely making a return trip right up to the jetty at Thorness.

His headlong flight had been without much reason. His objective had simply been to get Andre away from Geers and all that he represented in cold, efficient care and ruthless questioning.

Now he had time to think up a plan. But not much time.

The sea was getting perceptibly rougher. They were hitting a swell. Foam frothed here and there on the crescents of the heaving water ahead. He made up his mind.

He turned the rudder to port and headed straight into the current. Emergency made his memory crystal clear. He could see this grey, misty waste of angry water as it was in the rare calm of a summer's day. He remembered the haphazard pattern of shoals, rocks, and islets which had made the area forbidden territory to any sailor except a few crab fishermen even before the Admiralty cordoned it off as a rocket range.

Fleming was not unduly worried about crashing the boat.

It wasn't capable of more than ten knots and was as manoeuvrable as a coracle. Though the half-hearted light of a winter's day was already lessening he felt sure that the noise of breaking waves and the swirl of foam would give him all the warning he needed of danger.

What he wanted was something a bit larger than a collection of rocks where maybe a long-deserted crofter's cottage or bird-watcher's eyrie existed. Such places were built to resist wind and cold; they were as strong as the rocks from which they were made. They would give him a breathing space while he thought out the next move. Not for the first time in his life he half-regretted acting precipitately.

A flurry of sleet hit him in the face. The gust of wind which accompanied it shook the boat, and a little water burst over the side, wetting Andre's face. She cried out and lifted her hand to brush away her matted hair. The touch of her hand on her forehead made her moan again.

Fleming opened the throttle still more. There was no point in conserving petrol. He had got to get her out of the boat before the storm grew worse or before nightfall. He wasn't certain which would come first.

For a full hour he sped northwards, straining his eyes and ears for a sign of land. There was nothing but the howl of the increasing wind and the expanse of the spume-flecked sea.

Then, unmistakably, he heard the uneven roar of water crashing on to rocks and shingle. The sea became less broken, turning into a sullen, greenish swell. Beyond the broken mist a dark grey bulk loomed up - much darker than the twilight grey of the sky.

He throttled down and veered to starboard. With the currents and sporadic gale-force winds he had no real idea where he was. He had no intention, even now, of landing on the mainland, right into the arms of some official or meek and law-abiding citizen.

He steered a course a generous forty feet from the breaking waves. He tried to tell himself that he recognised the coast as one of the islands he had visited for recreation back in the summer, but he knew it was just self-persuasion. In such conditions all these islands looked much the same. All he could be certain of was that it was an island, a small one.

Many gulls, disturbed by the noise of the boat as they settled down to roost for the night, wheeled around, with their piteous calling. Gulls preferred islands.

The rock face sloped abruptly downwards at the point where the boat veered round until it was almost east of the land. Where the rocks met the water was a tiny beach, or rather a steep stretch of rounded stones, not more than twenty feet wide.

Without hesitation Fleming steered straight for it, running the boat half out of the water. There was a vicious jerk and the sound of tearing timber. The lower section of the boat had been stove in.

Fleming jumped over the side, feeling for a foothold. Then he caught hold of Andre and lifted her out. He laid her gently down on the stones above the water line and returned to the boat. He manhandled it round until it pointed seawards.

Water was gurgling in fast. Tying the tiller midway, he set the throttle at full. The boat shot crazily away, the nose already down and the thrashing screw almost out of the water. He did not wait to see the boat go under; he lifted Andre once more and clambered as fast as he could to the higher ground beyond the stones.

There was a distinct track where the ground provided some shallow soil where coarse grass and stunted heather struggled to live.

Fleming was not surprised about this. He had expected it.

For just at the moment the boat had swung towards the beach he had seen a dull yellow light a few hundred yards behind and above the landfall.

From the track the light had shape. It was a narrow vertical chink between some patterned curtains.

He did not care who lived there. Coastguard, radar operator, rocket trajectory observer, recluse. The main thing was to get warmth and help for the girl. She was now as lifeless in his arms as when he had first grabbed hold of her at the edge of the cavern pool.

CHAPTER TWO

COLD FRONT

The Azaran Embassy was easily identified in the long row of Edwardian houses whose bed-sitter occupants liked to claim that they lived in Belgravia, while in fact the postal number was Pimlico. It was noticeable because its decaying and crumbling stucco had been repaired and given a coat of glossy cream paint. It also displayed a gaudy flag and a highly polished brass nameplate.

The interior was luxurious. The Ambassador's study was furnished with that refinement of taste and air of luxury possible only when money hardly matters. And Azaran, over the past few years, had floated to superficial and temporary prosperity on the small lake of oil British geologists had tapped beneath the desert.

Colonel Salim, Azaran's accredited representative to the Court of St James's, had been the military strong man of his country's revolution. He had worked hard to make himself indispensable to the idealist whom fate and intrigue had made President, and his reward had been the best diplomatic post the President could offer. As a matter of fact, Azaran did not bother about the status of embassy in any other European country, but Britain, for the time being, was master of Azaran's economy.

Salim enjoyed living in the West more than he enjoyed switching from force to diplomacy. He was a hard man and something of a genuine idealist, but he had forgotten his religious precepts sufficiently to enjoy alcohol and he had tempered his fierce racial beliefs enough to develop a taste for Western women. Much more, he had been impressed with the practical uses to which Europeans put their wealth.

In his country, wealth had to be gaudily displayed. But in the West it was exploited to buy something infinitely more desirable: power.

It was the prospect of unlimited power which kept Salim restlessly walking around his study on this grey winter's evening.

He was getting rather soft with good living and a desk job. Fat was growing at his hips and in the jowl of his swarthy, handsome face, But he was still reasonably young.

It was not merely vanity which told him that he was still impressive.

He turned eagerly when a manservant entered and announced, with a bow, that a Herr Kaufman wished to see him.

'Show him in,' Salim ordered. Quickly he sat down at his desk and opened a file of papers.

The servant returned with the visitor. Kaufman was tall, and rigidly erect. Salim recognised him as a soldier; probably a Nazi junior ex-officer or N.C.O., possibly in a crack S.S.