30
As Tweed walked into the Albemarle Street entrance of Brown's Hotel Commander Noble jumped up from a chair in the lobby. To Tweed's surprise Noble had phoned him earlier, inviting him to dinner.
`I won't say any more – even on scrambler – would six thirty p.m. suit you?' he had suggested.
Tweed, intrigued, had agreed. They walked straight into the luxurious panelled dining-room to a quiet table in a corner. Tweed said he would just have mineral water, ordered for himself a steak and boiled potatoes. When the waiter had gone he turned to his host.
`Why here?'
`Because the tables are set well apart. No one can hear us. That is important.'
`You've taken some decision?' Tweed suggested.
`I have had a private conference with the First Sea Lord. Just the two of us.'
With the Admiral himself. You are treating this seriously.'
We are. Do you think that light Stealth aircraft which Delvaux had constructed inside his plant at Herstal still exists?'
I'm sure it does. Why?'
Tweed waited while the waiter opened Noble's half- bottle of red wine. He glanced round the comfortable restaurant. Very few other guests so far: Noble had timed the dinner well.
`Because,' Noble continued, 'our boffins need that plane. They think the device could work – could detect Stealth vessels. The Admiral's opposite number on the Air Staff is of the same opinion – it may well locate Stealth aircraft.'
`In that case, as it's a plane, won't the Air Staff people want to grab it?'
`They would have done.' The ruddy-faced Noble grinned and raised his glass to Tweed. 'But fortunately you came to me. I get first bite of the cherry.'
`You can't phone Delvaux,' Tweed warned. 'As I told you his chateau is bugged.'
`So we go straight to the plant. I'm taking experts with me. They'll dismantle the light aircraft and bring it back here.'
`You'll need a fleet of trucks. That was the arrangement with Delvaux.'
`Which is another reason why I wanted to see you. Trucks will take too long. Loading them aboard a ferry at this end, disembarking at Zeebrugge, then the whole process repeated in reverse.'
`You have a better idea?'
`Yes. And much quicker. A small fleet of large helicopters is being assembled at this moment. Liege has an airport, Delvaux's company will have its own transport. We use his trucks to carry the dismantled aircraft and the consignment of his new radar devices he offered to Liege airport, then the choppers fly them here.'
`It is a better idea,' Tweed agreed. 'Much faster. But there is one problem – Liege airport. How are you going to explain to the airport traffic controllers why a fleet of choppers is descending on them?'
`I hoped you could help there.' Noble grinned again. `Which is why I asked you to dinner.'
`Benoit,' Tweed said suddenly. 'Of course. Chief Inspector Benoit, a man I would trust with my life. And he doesn't ask a lot of questions. I'll call him, arrange for a team of plain-clothes men to close down Liege Airport while your choppers are there. And it's a good idea to use Delvaux trucks. The airport people will think it is some confidential export order. The Belgians take the view they can sell armaments to anyone with the money to pay for them. Unofficially. Even more so now – when the armaments industry is depressed. Apart from Delvaux, the once huge armaments complexes in Liege are closed down.'
The paperwork at Liege worries me,' Noble remarked. `There won't be any. Benoit will see to that. When do the choppers fly there?'
`Tomorrow evening.'
Tweed was stunned. Admiralty was taking Stealth very seriously indeed. They were moving like lightning.
`I am relying on a woman with a lot of brains plus her exceptional eyesight,' Tweed insisted.
`Paula Grey?'
`Yes.'
`Years ago it was a girl who detected the flying bomb on its launch pad in the Baltic,' Noble reminded him. I'm willing to put my money on Paula Grey. Come to think of it, I may be staking my whole career on her.'
Later that night Tweed went home alone to his new pad in Walpole Street, Chelsea. He was renting it from Howard, his chief, who had once used it as a rendezvous for his secret liaisons with a variety of feminine friends.
Nowadays Howard dutifully went home each night to his estate in Berkshire to spend his evenings with his wife. Monica's theory was he 'had run out of steam'. Tweed doubted that, had a different explanation.
Cynthia, Howard's wife, he knew, had had a long fling with an eminent banker. It was when that affair had broken up he had overheard a snatch of conversation. The door to Howard's office had been half open as he walked past, his mind miles away. Then he had heard Cynthia's shrill voice.
`Ten women I don't mind. Most of you men can't resist a fresh pair of legs. But if there's a number eleven that will be one too many. So, I want to see you at home in the evenings from now on. Or not at all..
Before taking the long walk to Walpole Street, Tweed had taken a taxi from Brown's back to Park Crescent. Monica had phoned Brussels for him.
`Again,' Benoit had mocked Tweed, 'I find myself in the office at the wrong moment. Well, you had better get on with it. What is it at this hour?'
Tweed had outlined tersely Noble's plan. Benoit had listened without comment as Tweed avoided all reference to Stealth.
`… it's the paperwork at Liege we are worried about,' Tweed had concluded.
`What paperwork?' Benoit had replied. 'I will be at the Liege Airport myself. Closing it down to other flights will be no problem. The old chestnut – a bomb alert. I will be there until this consignment is airborne…'
Did you remember the plant manager at Herstal will want proof of identity?' Monica asked as Tweed finished the call.
`Yes. I gave Noble my card with the "T" in my name underlined. The plant manager will co-operate.' He walked over to the largest of the three wall maps – the map he had marked with pins showing where ships had disappeared without trace all over the world. He stuck in a fresh pin.
`What is that for?' Monica asked.
`Commander Noble told me another vessel has vanished off the Cape of Good Hope. The Texel, an 8,000- ton Dutch freighter. Blown a long way south off course and then it disappears like a puff of smoke.'
`By a gale? I suppose it could happen.'
`Then the gale died out as suddenly as it had blown up.' Tweed paused. 'And was succeeded by a dense fog. And again no Mayday signal reported by other shipping further north.'
`It does sound strange.'
`Even stranger when you know the Texel was due to call at Port Elizabeth, three hundred miles or so from its last reported position on its way to Indonesia. When it didn't arrive planes were sent out immediately to search. Not one piece of wreckage was found. No survivors…'
After his long walk home to Walpole Street Tweed should have slept like a log. Instead he tossed and turned the whole night long: at the best he slipped into a brief doze. He came wide awake, a vision of Dr Wand in his mind at the moment when Newman's lighter had flared at the Waterloo villa. The satanic expression behind those glinting gold pince-nez.
Over a thousand miles off the African coast of Angola – and midway between two shipping lanes – the refuelling operation with the Chinese tanker had been completed.
The Mao III was still proceeding on a north-westerly course to sail well clear of the huge bulge of Africa at Dakar. Inside the low-level bridge Captain Welensky checked his chart, then ordered the engine room: 'Full speed ahead!'
`You should have checked with me before giving that order,' reprimanded Kim.
Welensky turned his large bulk to stare down at the small Chinese. He was beginning to lose patience with what he privately referred to as 'the Chinks'. His tone of voice was gravelly.
`I was under the impression that I am skipper of the ship. You want me to slow down? It's still night but soon it will be dawn. We want to be a long way from that tanker when day breaks.'