“And so, we’ve lost him.”
“No, we haven’t. I also made sure that he’d learn that he already had enough of his new weapon, that he needn’t bother with making any more. I even told him how to use it at maximum efficiency, in aerosol canisters. So now, he’ll head for home, glad that we’ve made it so easy for him.”
Estrilla silently reached over and filled my wine glass for me; Astrid threw her a look.
I said: “He’s down on the beach somewhere, less than a mile from here, waiting for the wind to drop so that he can go aboard his boat. That’s why I thought it would be nice if we all gathered together here. Comfortable, and handy.”
Now, Fenrek was furious. He said angrily: “His boat? You know where it is?”
“Yes, I do. Histermann told me. He told both of us. If you go over what he said, and cast your mind around a bit, you’ll see just how he told us.”
“For God’s sake...” Fenrek half rose from his chair, and then sat down again with an expression of utter defeat.
I said: “As soon as this unseasonal wind drops, he’ll go into the Bocca do Inferno, which is where his escape hatch is. A twenty-five-foot whaler with a gasoline engine. The wind will calm down any minute now, and he’ll have four, maybe five hours before daylight in which to get the boat, unseen, out of the Bocca and hit the high seas. He’ll presumably land somewhere on the North African coast where, no doubt, there’ll be a plane waiting to pick him up. And, of course, he’ll be carrying his precious toxin with him, won’t he? It won’t be hidden somewhere so that when we pick him up we won’t find what were really after. That was the danger in Rua Vicente, wasn’t it, that we’d find him but not the botulin? And I couldn’t allow that to happen.”
Fenrek said calmly: “You are waiting for me to leap to my feet and order out the coastguard, but I’m going to spoil your fun by just sitting here and enjoying my dinner.” He began to pick at his food, his heart not in it.
Estrilla said suddenly: “There’s the singer.”
A dark, pleasant-looking woman was moving towards the tiny stage, and soon she began to sing a low, melancholy love song, her whole body tense and emotional, her eyes closed, her dark eyebrows knitted in a frown, her head thrown back.
We listened for a while, and then Fenrek threw down his knife and fork and whispered angrily:
“All right, you bastard, what did you do to that boat?”
I whispered: “I blocked the exhaust with a handful of mud and one of my best cambric handkerchiefs. Before he finds out why the motor won’t start, he’ll strip it down to every last nut and bolt, and when he reassembles it, it still won’t fire. And by then, it’ll be daylight, and he’ll have missed his only chance of skipping the country tonight. A twenty-four hour delay, with Loveless and his bacteria, which we’ll separate from him, where we can safely get at him without endangering the whole of the city. That’s all we want, isn’t it? And I don’t see why I should have to do all your work for you.”
Some people nearby, absorbed in the lovely fado, turned and shushed us. Fenrek glanced at them, lowered his voice another tone, leaned forward and whispered:
“Separate him from his toxin?”
“Of course. I don’t want him uncorking a vial as soon as he sees us and daring us to touch him.”
“I know that, damn you! But how?”
I shrugged. “We just let him send the telegram he’s got to send.”
“Go on.” The light was dawning, and Fenrek’s tanned, handsome face had lost some of its anger; but not all of it.
I said: “A boat means he’s either going to land further along the coast for a rendezvous, or else cross over to North Africa, which is most likely.”
“Why?”
“Because, once he leaves the Lisbon area, which means danger to him because of you and me, he’d be a fool to land anywhere in Portugal for more danger if he could just as easily get to the North African coastline, where there’s virtually nothing to stop him landing wherever he wants.”
Grudgingly: “Right, I suppose. Even if it is a trifle tenuous.”
“And if he intended a short trip along the coast, he’d have prepared an outboard motorboat, something small and easy to hide. Instead, he chose a damn great whaler, twenty-five feet of it, that must have been one hell of a job to maneuver into the cave at the Bocca. As Histermann said, it took all day to get it in there, right?”
“Go on.”
“He is trying to get away tonight.”
Fenrek said swiftly: “You can’t be sure of that.”
I said: “He called the lighthouse a couple of hours back, worrying about the southwest wind. He’s planning on leaving tonight, there’s no doubt of it.”
He was getting impatient again. He said testily: “And so?”
“And on the North African coast, no doubt, someone is going to pick him up by plane.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s taking his new weapon to Nigeria, Histermann told us that. And he’s sure as hell not going to walk. Or do you think he might take a commercial airline? Of course not. One of his own pilots will pick him up.”
“So far, so good. Perhaps. But a telegram?”
“Of course. Even on the deserted beaches of the North African coastline, where a plane can land and take off easily without too much official interference, the same plane can’t just set down and wait for more than a few hours in safety. Certainly, within twenty-four hours someone is going to ask what the hell goes on, and I don’t suppose for one moment Loveless and his men will risk that. He doesn’t mind taking risks in the least; but that would be just plain stupid. Ergo, he’ll send a telegram to his contact over there, telling him to delay the pickup for twenty-four hours.”
For a long time Fenrek was silent while he tried to find a hole in my reasoning. They don’t like working on assumptions at Interpol, they prefer facts. But personally, I always find that facts can be terribly misleading, while likelihoods seldom are.
I sat back and listened to the mournful plaint of the fado for a while; somehow it reminded me of the sad old pibrochs of the Scottish Highlands, the plaintive dirges they mourned the deaths of the fighting men. Here, the words were lighter, with a lilt of love to them; only the music was the same.
He said at last: “I hate it, but I’m forced to agree. Now tell me what a telegram’s going to do for us?” Before I could speak, he raised a hand and said: “Yes, I know, he’s got to use the post office in Cascais, or in Estoril, or in Guincho, and we can watch all three and take him when he shows. But, for God’s sake, why do we have to go to all that trouble? We could have taken him just as well in that cave, once we knew he was there.”
I said: “No. In the cave, he’ll have four vials of his bacteria, and if it’s the end for him and he recognizes it; what’s he going to do? I’ll tell you. He’s going to bust them the moment he sees an unfriendly face, because he just doesn’t give a damn. If he goes down, he’ll want to take us all with him, and that means half the coastal population as well. Because that’s precisely the kind of man he is. But the next few hours of daylight, for him, are just a waiting period till he can get that motor running again. He’ll hurry into Guincho, at a guess. You want to bet on that?”
“I’ll settle for Guincho, its the most likely.”
