^ He stopped talking when he saw Winter's expression. Jesus, the Britisher was an iceberg, unlike the Frenchie behind who would sit and drink brandy with a guy like any other normal human being. Walgren tightened his thick lips and concentrated on his driving. For thirty grand he could put up even with Winter…
^ Heavy grey clouds hung over the Matanuska valley as they sped north-east along the highway and there was snow on the hills. More snow up in those clouds too, Walgren thought. 'You're exceeding the speed limit,' Winter said icily. Swearing inwardly, Walgren dropped down to fifty-five. Everybody exceeded the speed limit if they thought there was no patrol car ahead. It began to rain, a steady, depressing drizzle which blotted out the surrounding countryside. Walgren switched on the wipers, hunched over the wheel, hating the silence inside the car. He drove for almost an hour.
^ 'That's the Swan home coming up,' Walgren told Winter. 'You're almost ten minutes out on your timing,' the Englishman snapped.
^ 'So, I beat the limit a couple of times. Swan keeps the needle on fifty-five the whole way. At least he did the three times I followed him out here from the airport.'
^ Winter said nothing, hiding his annoyance. British, American or French, it seemed impossible to find people who were precise. He had the same trouble with LeCat. So he had to check every damned thing himself.
^ Walgren turned off the lonely highway down a track leading through a copse of snow-covered fir trees. Inside the copse he backed the car in a half-circle until it faced the way they had come. Through a gap in the snow-hung trees the Swan home was clearly visible, an isolated two-storey homestead three or four hundred yards back from the highway with a drive leading up to it. Behind the house stood an old Alaskan barn and a red Ford was parked at the front. In the bleak, snowbound landscape there was only one other house to be seen.
^ 'Won't that car freeze up?' Winter asked as he lowered the window and focused a pair of field glasses.
^ They got it plugged into a power cable,' Walgren replied. That keeps the immersion heater under the hood going. You forget to plug in your cable and inside two hours you got a block of ice instead of a motor…'
^ It was already getting cold inside Walgren's car; to save gas he had switched off the motor while he parked. From a chimney in the Swan household blue smoke drifted, spiralling up in a vertical column. The rain had stopped and the leaden overcast was like a plague cloud covering the Matanuska valley.
^ That house in the distance beyond the Swan place – know anything about it?' Winter enquired.
^ 'Belongs to some people called Thompson, friends of the Swans.' Walgren lit a cigarette. 'Sometimes when Charlie Swan is home the two couples get together – they did on the last trip.'
^ 'No, visit each other's homes. The Swans went over to the Thompson's. When you're home only once in ten days like Charlie Swan is you don't drive into town. You meet up with the folks next door.'
^ 'Used to be a private dick. There are ways. And,' Walgren said aggressively, 'I can't see why we came out here – the snatch is set up for tomorrow…'
^ 'Trial run,' Winter said brusquely. There was no point in explaining that this was another rehearsal, just as Cosgrove Manor had been a rehearsal for the ship hi-jack. He studied the house for a minute or two longer, then told Walgren, 'Drive back into town.'
^ On January 15 it was dark in Anchorage at three in the afternoon. Walgren dropped Winter near the Westward and the Englishman had a late lunch at a coffee shop. So that he was remembered as little as possible he would eat only one meal in the hotel restaurant. Walgren, who ate very little – he was badly overweight and had been reading the health ads – dropped LeCat at his own hotel. Next, he picked up Armand Bazin and started the long drive to Nikisiki oil terminal on the Kenai ^ ^ peninsula.
^ It was six o'clock in the evening when Walgren collected Winter again from the Westward after returning Bazin to his hotel. He drove the Englishman out of the city to an isolated spot where an old barn stood amid a clearing surrounded by evergreens. 'Everything is OK,' he told Winter as they pulled up in front of the building. 'You didn't really have to make the trip…'
^ Winter inspected the barn where Swan and his wife would be kept prisoner for a week. Everything, as Walgren had said, seemed OK. The place was secure, new padlocks had been put on all the windows and doors, and there was a Primus stove for cooking and an adequate supply of canned food, milk and fruit juices. The Swans should be as comfortable as it was possible to make them – including the provision of five oil-heaters and enough fuel to last them a month. Winter didn't bother to ask the American whether he had stolen the oil or brought it on the black market. 'Satisfied?' Walgren enquired drily when they were leaving.
^ 'It will do. Get me back to the hotel fast, Mackay should be arriving soon. But keep inside the speed limit…'
^ Which was a bloody contradiction in terms Walgren thought sourly as he gunned the motor and headed back for the highway. And this was one hell of a long day, the American reminded himself, a day which was by no means over. As soon as he had left Winter at his hotel he had to drive out to the airport, wait for the Cessna bringing Mackay and Swan, the radio operator, from the ^ Challenger's ^ berth at Nikisiki, then follow Swan all the way out to his home in the Matanuska valley.
^ 'Swan is the key to this part of the operation – we must be sure he has arrived home safely,' Winter had replied.
^ Winter got out of Walgren's car a short distance from the Westward and walked the rest of the way to the hotel. He had kept the key of his room in his pocket to avoid appearing too often at the reception desk and went straight up in the elevator. Once inside his room he checked his watch and then went over in his mind the present whereabouts of everyone involved.
^ 7pm. Captain Mackay would be landing at the airport in the Cessna in fifteen minutes; Walgren would be waiting there to follow Swan home. As he stripped off to take a shower Winter went on checking in his mind. LeCat would be at his own hotel, ten blocks away, probably in his room nursing a bottle of cognac. Armand Bazin and Pierre Goussin, who would guard the Swans while they were held in the barn, would beat their own hotel, eating dinner provided by room service while they pretended to pore over a pile of papers. No one would leave their hotel tonight -Winter was not risking someone falling on the icy sidewalks and breaking a leg – and Winter would be the only man eating in a restaurant. He turned on the shower. Finally, Kinnaird, the substitute wireless operator, would be keeping under cover at the Madison.
^ Ten thousand pounds. Every man has an amount at the back of his mind which he feels would give him freedom from the cares and worries of the world. For 'Shep' Kinnaird it was ten thousand pounds. Pulling back the curtain of his bedroom at the Madison he peered through the gap. It looked reassuring: a deserted, snowbound street dimly lit by street lamps which would be turned ^ off ^ at ten o'clock, and no car parked where someone might be keeping an eye on the hotel.
^ Kinnaird, thirty-seven years old, twice divorced – neither woman had been able to endure his gambling habits – was the wireless operator Winter had hired for the ^ Pecheur's ^ radio cabin during the smuggling days in the Mediterranean. Prior to that, Kinnaird had been with the Marconi pool of radio operators, working on the Persian Gulf-West Coast run. Now the ten thousand pounds was within his grasp – it was the payment for substituting himself for Swan, the ^ Challenger's ^ regular wireless op.