第 25 页

His American Piccolo machine pistols, with their mag-azines and ammunition, were due by ship early in the new year, and arrangements were in place for their storage and preparation before issue to the Shi?ah. As he had promised Cyrus Miller, he needed U.S. dollars only for external pur-chases. Internal accounts could be settled in riyals.

That was not the story he had told Steve Pyle. The gen-eral manager of SAIB had heard of Easterhouse and his envi-able influence with the royal family, and had been flattered to be asked to dinner two months earlier. When he had seen Easterhouse?s beautifully forged CIA identification he had been massively impressed. To think that this man was no free-lance, but really worked for his own government and only he, Steve Pyle, knew it.

?There are rumors of a plan afoot to topple the royal house,? Easterhouse had told him gravely. ?We found out about it, and informed King Fahd. His Majesty has agreed to a joint effort between his security forces and the Company to unmask the culprits.?

Pyle had ceased eating, his mouth open in amazement. And yet it was all perfectly feasible.

?As you know, money buys everything in this country, including information. That?s what we need, and the regular Security Police funds cannot be diverted in case there are conspirators among the police. You know Prince Abdullah　

Pyle had nodded. The King?s cousin, Minister of Public Works.

?He is the King?s appointed liaison with me,? said the colonel. ?The Prince has agreed that the fresh funds we both need to penetrate the conspiracy shall come from his own budget. Needless to say, Washington at the highest level is desperately eager that nothing should happen to this most friendly of governments.?

And thus the bank, in the form of a single and rather gullible officer, had agreed to participate in the creation of the fund. What Easterhouse had actually done was to hack into the Ministry of Public Works? accounting computer, which he had set up, with four fresh instructions.

One was to alert his own computer terminal every time the Ministry issued a draft in settlement of an invoice from a contractor. The sum of these invoices on a monthly basis was huge; in the Jiddah area the Ministry was funding roads, schools, hospitals, deep-water ports, sports stadiums, bridges, overpasses, housing developments, and apartment blocks.

The second instruction was to add 10 percent to every settlement, but transfer that 10 percent into his own num-bered account in the Jiddah branch of the SAIB. The third and fourth instructions were protective: If the Ministry ever asked for the total in its account at the SAIB, its own com-puter would give the total plus 10 percent. Finally, if ques-tioned directly, it would deny all knowledge and erase its memory. So far the sum in Easterhouse?saccount was 4 bil-lion riyals.

What Laing had noticed was the weird fact that every time the SAIB, on instructions from the Ministry, made a credit transfer to a contractor, a matching transfer of pre-cisely 10 percent of that sum went from the Ministry?s ac-count to a numbered account in the same bank.

Easterhouse?sswindle was just a variation of the Fourth Cash Register scam, and could only be uncovered by the full annual Ministry audit the following spring. (The fraud is based on the tale of the American bar owner who, though his bar was always full, became convinced his take was 25 percent less than it ought to be. He hired the best private detec-tive, who took the room above the bar, bored a hole in the floor, and spent a week on his belly watching the bar below. Finally he reported: I?m sorry to have to say this, but your bar staff are honest people. Every dollar and dime that crosses that bar goes into one of your four cash registers. ?What do you mean, four　 asked the bar owner. ?I only installed three.?)

?One does not wish any harm to this young man,? said Easterhouse, ?but if he is going to do this sortof thing, if he refuses to stay quiet, would it not be wise to transfer him back to London　

?Not so easy. Why would he go without protest　 asked Pyle.

?Surely,? said Easterhouse, ?he believes this package to have reached London. If London summons him?or that is what you tell him?he will go like a lamb. All you have to tell London is that you wish him reassigned. Grounds: He is unsuitable here, has been rude to the staff and damaged the morale of his colleagues. His evidence is right here in your hands. If he makes the same allegations in London, he will merely prove your point.?

Pyle was delighted. It covered every contingency.

?

Quinn knew enough to know there was probably not one bug but two in his bedroom. It took him an hour to find the first, another to trace the second. The big brass table lamp had a one-millimeter hole drilled in its base. There was no need for such a hole; the cord entered at the side of the base. The hole was right underneath. He chewed for several minutes on a stick of gum?one of several given him by Vice President Odell for the transatlantic crossing?and shoved the wad firmly into the aperture.

In the basement of the embassy the duty ELINT man at the console turned around after several minutes and called over an FBI man. Soon afterward, Brown and Collins were in the listening post.

?One of the bedroom bugs just went out,? said the engineer. ?The one in the base of the table lamp. Showing defec-tive.?

?Mechanical fault　 asked Collins. Despite the makers? claims, technology had a habit of fouling up at regu-lar intervals.

?Could be,? said the ELINT man. ?No way of knowing. It seems to be alive. But its sound-level reception is batting zero.?

?Could he have discovered it　 asked Brown. ?Shoved something in it? He?s a tricky son of a bitch.?

?Could be,? said the engineer. ?Want we should go down there　

?No,? said Collins. ?He never talks in the bedroom anyway. Just lies on his back and thinks. Anyway, we have the other, the one in the wall outlet.?

That night, the twelfth since Zack?s first call, Sam came to Quinn?s room, at the opposite end of the apartment from where McCrea slept. The door uttered a click as it opened.

?What was that　 asked one of the FBI men sitting through the night watch beside the engineer. The technician shrugged.

?Quinn?s bedroom. Door catch, window. Maybe he?sgoing to the can. Needs some fresh air. No voices, see　

Quinn was lying on his bed, silent in the near darkness, the street-lamps of Kensington giving a low light to the room. He was quite immobile, staring up at the ceiling, naked but for the sarong wrapped around his waist. When he heard the door click he turned his head. Sam stood in the entrance without a word. She, too, knew about the bugs. She knewher own room was not tapped, but it was right next to Mc-Crea?s.

Quinn swung his legs to the floor, knotted his sarong,and raised one finger to his lips in a gesture to keep silent. He left the bed without a sound, took his tape recorder from the bedside table, switched it on, and placed it by an electrical outlet in the baseboard six feet from the head of the bed.

Still without a sound he took the big club chair from the corner, upended it, and placed it over the tape recorder and against the wall, using pillows to stuff into the cracks where the arms of the club chair did not reach the wall.

The chair formed four sides of a hollow box, the other two sides being the floor and the wall. Inside the box was the tape recorder.

?We can talk now,? he murmured.

?Don?t want to,? whispered Sam and held out her arms.

Quinn swept her up and carried her to the bed. She sat up for a second and slipped out of her silk nightgown. Quinn lay down beside her. Ten minutes later they became lovers.

In the embassy basement the engineer and two FBI men listened idly to the sound coming from the baseboard outlet two miles away.

?He?s gone,? said the engineer. The three listened to the steady, rhythmic breathing of a man fast asleep, recorded the previous night when Quinn had left the tape recorder on his pillow. Brown and Seymour wandered into the listening post. Nothing was expected that night;Zack had phoned during the six o?clock evening rush hour?Bedford railway station, no sighting possible.

?I do not understand,? said Patrick Seymour, ?how that man can sleep like that with the level of stress he?s under. Me, I?ve been catnapping for two weeks and wonder if I?ll ever sleep again. He must have piano wire for nerves.?

The engineer yawned and nodded. Normally his work for the Company in Britain and Europe did not require much night work, certainly not back-to-back like this, night after night.

?Yeah, well, I wish to hell I was doing what he?s doing.?

Brown turned without a word and returned to the office that had been converted into his quarters. He had been nearly fourteen days in this damn city, becoming more and more convinced the British police were getting nowhere and Quinn was just playing footsie with a rat who ought not to be counted among the human race. Well, Quinn and his British pals might be prepared to sit on their collective butts till hell froze over; he had run out of patience. He resolved to get his team around him in the morning and see if a little old-fashioned detective work could produce a lead. It would not be the first time a mighty police force had overlooked some tiny detail.

Chapter 8

Quinn and Sam spent almost three hours in each other?s arms, alternately making love and talking in low whispers. She did most of the talking, of herself and her career in the Bureau. She also warned Quinn of the abrasive Kevin Brown, who had chosen her for this mission and had estab-lished himself in London with a team of eight to ?keep an eye on things.?

She had fallen into a deep and dreamless sleep, the first time in a fortnight she had slept so well, when Quinn nudged her awake.

?It?s only a three-hour tape,? he whispered. ?It?s going to run out in fifteen minutes.?

She kissed him again, slipped into her nightgown, and tiptoed back to her room. Quinn eased the armchair away from the wall, grunted a few times for the benefit of the wall microphone, switched off the tape recorder, rolled onto the bed, and genuinely went to sleep. The sounds recorded in Grosvenor Square were of a sleeping man shifting position, rolling over, and resuming his slumbers. The engineer and two FBI men glanced at the console, then back to their cards.

Zackcalled at half past nine. He seemed more brusque and hostile than on the previous day?a man whose nerves were beginning to fray, a man on whom the pressure was mounting and who had decided to exert some pressure of his own.

?All right, you bastard, now listen. No more sweet talk. I?ve had enough. I?ll settle for your bloody two million dollars but that?s the lot. You ask for one more thing and I?ll send you a couple of fingers. I?ll take a hammer and chisel to the little prick?s right hand?see if Washington likes you after that.?

?Zack, coolit,? pleaded Quinn earnestly. ?You?ve got it. You win. Last night I told them over there to screw it up to two million dollars or I?m out. Jesus, you think you?re tired? I don?t even sleep at all, in case you call.?

Zackseemed pacified by the thought that there was someone with nerves more ragged than his own.

?One more thing,? he growled. ?Not money. Not in cash. You bastards would try to bug the suitcase. Diamonds. This is how ...?

He talked for ten more seconds, then hung up. Quinn took no notes. He did not need to. It was all on tape. The call had been traced to one of a bank of three public booths in SaffronWaiden, a market town in western Essex, just off the M.11 motorway from London to Cambridge. It took three minutes for a plainclothes policeman to wander past the booths, but all were empty. The caller had been swallowed in the crowds.

?

At the time, Andy Laing was having lunch in the executive canteen of the Jiddah branch of the SAIB. His companion was his friend and colleague the Pakistani operations man-ager, Mr. Amin.

?I am being very puzzled, my friend,? said the young Pakistani. ?What is going on　

?I don?t know,? said Laing. ?You tell me.?

?You know the daily mail bag from here to London? I had an urgent letter for London, with some documents included. I need a quick reply. When will I get it? I ask myself. Why has it not come? I asked the mailroom why there is no reply. They tell me something very strange.?

Laing put down his knife and fork.

?What is that, old pal　

?They tell me all is delayed. All packages from here for London are being diverted to the Riyadh office for a day be-fore they go forward.?

Laing lost his appetite. There was a feeling in the pit of his stomach and it was not hunger.

?How long did they say this has been going on　

?Since one week, I do believe.?

Laing left the canteen for his office. There was a mes-sage on his desk from the branch manager, Mr. Al-Haroun. Mr. Pyle would like to see him in Riyadh without delay.

He made the mid-afternoon Saudia commuter flight. On the journey he could have kicked himself. Hindsight is all very well, but if only he had sent his London package by regular mail ... He had addressed it to the chief accountant personally, and a letter so addressed, in his distinctive hand-writing, would stand out a mile when the letters were spread across Steve Pyle?s desk. He was shown into Steve Pyle?s office just after the bank closed its doors for public business.

?

Nigel Cramer came around to see Quinn during the lunch hour, London time.

?You?ve closed your exchange at two million dollars,? he said. Quinn nodded.

?My congratulations,? said Cramer. ?Thirteen days is fast for this sort of thing. By the way, my tame shrink has listened to this morning?s call. He takes the view the man is serious, under a lot of pressure to get out.?

?He?ll have to take a few more days,? said Quinn. ?We all will. You heard him ask for diamonds instead of cash. They?ll take time to put together. Any leads on their hide-out　

Cramer shook his head.

?I?m afraid not. Every last conceivable property rental has been checked out. Either they?re not in residential quarters at all, or they?ve bought the damn thing. Or borrowed it.?

?No chance of checking outright purchases　 asked Quinn.

?I?m afraid not. The volume of properties being bought and sold in southeast England is enormous. There are thou-sands and thousands owned by foreigners, foreign corpora-tions, or companies whose nominees?lawyers, banks,et cetera?acted for them in the sale. Like this place, for exam-ple.?

He got in a dig at Lou Collins and the CIA, who were listening.

?By the way, I talked with one of our men in the Hatton Garden district. He spoke to a contact in diamond trading. Whoever he is, your man knows his diamonds. Or one of his colleagues does. What he asked for is easily purchasable and easily disposable. And light. About a kilogram, perhaps a bit more. Have you thought about the exchange