Gabriel's Moon, page 24
‘Let’s say Friday.’
‘My pleasure, Mr Dax.’
‘Please call me Gabriel, Ryszard.’
‘Of course, my honour, Gabriel.’
Gabriel went back to the bar, had another shot, noticed there was no sign of Celia Bird and took the elevator back to his room. All sorts of benefits accrued from this spontaneous change of plan, he calculated, not least avoiding having to run the gauntlet of Warsaw airport, now that the Seabird had undoubtably voiced her suspicions about him. He was rather impressed with his sudden thinking. He was learning fast. Yes, he would defy expectations.
The next morning, from his elevated position in his room, he watched Celia Bird and the other journalists climb aboard the minibus heading for Warsaw Okęcie airport. He would not be far behind them.
He waited an hour, then he strewed his clothes all over the room. Sign of a man who was staying on. He shaved and cleaned his teeth, then left his razor and toothbrush carefully visible by the sink. Then he opened the secret compartment in his suitcase and retrieved his Baby Browning. He placed the suitcase – open – on the folding luggage stand. He stuffed the pistol deep in the pocket of his greatcoat. Everything he needed would be on his person. Documentation, money, cigarettes, house keys, travellers’ cheques, dollars, driving licence, passport – gun.
He placed his hotel key on the bedside table and hung the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door handle as he left the room. Then he took the stairs down, walked through the lobby, out into the scrubby patch of garden that led to the swimming pool and circled round to the taxi rank and asked to be taken to the airport.
He felt a quiet tremor of nervous excitement shiver through his body as he ran through the various aspects of his new plan. He had been worried about going to the airport, with its checks and controls, its barriers and sealed zones, the ease with which a person could be whisked away for interrogation or arrest – it had happened to him before, after all, in Madrid. He had no idea what insinuations Celia Bird might have made against him but he felt strongly that the airport was an area of risk that he would be well advised to avoid.
This particular ruse he had set up meant, in theory, that nobody was expecting him to leave for several days. Maybe this evening the housekeeping department of the Metropol might insist on opening the door to his room, or they might wait until the next morning but, in any event, he reckoned he had a good twelve- to twenty-four-hour start before anyone became suspicious and discovered he was long gone.
At the airport, at the bureau de change, he signed several travellers’ cheques and converted them into zlotys. One of his habits as a travel writer, along with having his passport on him at all times, was to have more money than he would reasonably need for whatever trip he was undertaking. It was a precaution that had often served him well. He had a wad of cash now, more than enough, and he still had his emergency supply of US dollars. At the airport bookstall Gabriel bought maps of Poland and East Germany. He went to the cafeteria and drank a coffee and ate a ham sandwich while he plotted his route. Fed and watered, he set off to find a car-hire company in the airport concourse.
He opted for the smallest he could find, called ‘SZYBKI Cars to Hire’. The car he was offered was a Warszawa 200, a large and cumbersome-looking vehicle painted in fire-engine red. He didn’t care. The staff at Szybki were delighted to be paid in cash for a two-day hire.
He familiarized himself with the car’s components and controls – nothing out of the ordinary – and set off. He had plotted a route that would take him through northern Poland and northern East Germany, avoiding at all costs the pulsing hot-spot that was Berlin. Warsaw to Szczecin, and from there into East Germany to Rostock and then aim to cross the border into West Germany at Selmsdorf near Lübeck and then on to Hamburg. He calculated that the journey would take him around fourteen hours and that he’d do it in two stages, parking somewhere remote for a night and sleeping in the car.
There was little traffic on the road and he made good progress – but the miles-per-litre ratio of the Warszawa was poor. Every couple of hours he had to refill the tank but he used the opportunity at the petrol stations to buy sweets and chocolate and luridly coloured fizzy drinks to keep his energy up.
He crossed the border into East Germany beyond Szczecin with no trouble, joining a small queue of cars and lorries. His licence-to-travel pass and his journalist’s accreditation document seemed more valid than his Polish visa and the guards and customs officers waved him through on to the road for Rostock.
Driving through a landscape of flat farmland and pine forest, the trunk roads taking him through provincial towns and small, mean-looking villages, he suddenly thought that this trans-European journey could be written up as an interesting piece for Interzonal. Yes, waste not, want not. He peered out of the window with more interest, beginning to compose a paragraph or two in his head . . .
‘The pine forests were dank and rain-drenched, the black-green conifers tightly bunched together like refugees or prisoners seeking bodily warmth. The dirty, impoverished villages seemed to rebuke me for my powerful car as I hurried through, indifferent to their wordless suffering. As dusk approached, a fine smear of rain veneered the tarmac, the car’s fat tyres shushing through the puddles. Underpowered street lights barely lit the roadway. I felt as though I was running away from something dark and terrible, keen to be in the clear light of free Europe . . .’
Yes, he thought – the full plum-pudding. He could imagine Faith’s wide smile, and he smiled to himself too, happy to be thinking of her: his tormentor and his solace.
As darkness fell he sensed his own tiredness beginning to build. He turned off the main road by a small town called Gnoien and found an overgrown farm track by a water tower, overhung with autumnal maples. He parked under the largest tree and walked back up the muddy lane to check that the car couldn’t be seen from the road. He ate a stodgy jam-filled doughnut, drank some cola, then crawled on to the Warszawa’s rear seat and locked the doors. It was cold, so he slept wrapped up in his tweed overcoat, removing the uncomfortable bump of the Baby Browning from under his hip and placing it in the rubber-lined footwell by his head. He was glad he had insisted on being armed – it made him feel safer, sleeping in his car like this, lessened his vulnerability, even if it was only symbolic.
He woke at dawn, recognizing, paradoxically, that he’d enjoyed one of his best sleeps of the year, curled up on the hard back seat. He stepped out of the car, urinated, jumped up and down, windmilled his arms and set off for Rostock.
He had decided to use the border crossing into the West at Selmsdorf because he knew that it was open to all travellers – there were other border crossings that were Germans-only – and as he joined the long, almost static queue he was pleased to see other foreign number plates on some of the cars and lorries – Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, even one from Italy.
When his turn came he had to drive the Warszawa over a vehicle inspection pit. Then the interior of the car was thoroughly searched. His documents were scrutinized, taken away to be stamped, then returned. The hefty barrier was swung to one side and he drove into West Germany to be greeted by British Military Police.
Here, however, despite his British passport, he was treated with much more suspicion. The Warszawa was directed into a small parking area to be searched again and he was led to a windowless room in the customs building where his passport and documents were taken away once more. He had smoked three cigarettes before a young lieutenant from the Green Jackets, who didn’t introduce himself, briefly interrogated him.
Gabriel told the truth, to a degree. All lies, he knew, were only convincing if they had an element of truth about them. He told the officer he had been covering an event in Warsaw for a British magazine, the New Interzonal Review – he could establish that from his accreditation document – and part of his assignment was to drive back through Poland and East Germany and write it up as an article about life in the communist bloc. He felt surprisingly calm – he was in the West, after all – and, if need be, he could always suggest they made contact with the Institute to verify who he was.
The lieutenant went away – to make some phone calls, no doubt, Gabriel thought. Fairly soon, he was sure, Faith Green would learn of his arrival in West Germany. He was no longer incognito – he was back on the map once more. One cigarette later, his passport was returned and he was allowed to drive on to Hamburg.
He left the Warszawa at Hamburg airport in a long-term car park and walked to the terminal building where he offered a taxi driver twenty US dollars to drive him the three hours to Cuxhaven at the mouth of the Elbe. The sight of the two ten-dollar notes produced an audible gasp of joy. As Gabriel climbed into the rear of the old Mercedes-Benz he felt himself properly relax for the first time since he’d left the Metropol. He leant back in the seat and closed his eyes. At Cuxhaven he could catch the night ferry to Harwich – with a bit of luck he’d be back home in Chelsea by lunchtime tomorrow.
Gabriel stood on an upper deck of the DFDS ferry as it pulled away from the dockside at Cuxhaven and headed out into the North Sea. He was looking across the vast estuary of the Elbe as the sun set, feeling the same sensations as he had at Léopoldville, staring across the huge expanse of the Congo at distant Brazzaville: awe, insignificance, an odd humbling at the scale of the natural world. Here at Cuxhaven he couldn’t see much of the northern bank, miles away – just a low dark shape with the lights of towns and villages beginning to wink and shine in the gloaming. He was hungry, he realized, tired of two days of sweets and sandwiches – he needed something hearty and calorific. He turned and wandered off to find the cafeteria.
He ate steak and chips and then an apple crumble washed down with half a bottle of red wine. Then he went to the bar and ordered a post-prandial brandy. The place was crowded and noisy with British soldiers returning on leave from Germany. When they started singing he decided to go up on deck for some fresh air.
Out in the open there was a steady drizzle falling so he found a sheltered spot on a rear deck and smoked a cigarette looking over the pale foaming stripe of the ferry’s wake being swallowed up by the darkness. He turned up the collar of his overcoat and tightened his scarf. A cold night, winter coming, he thought: maybe he should plan a trip to a river in a warmer climate rather than go to Krems. The Nile, he thought, or the Orinoco perhaps, or even the Murray river in Australia. Winter in Europe was summer in the southern hemisphere. He could do with some sunshine—
‘Ah. There you are, Mr Dax. The elusive Mr Dax. At last.’
Gabriel stiffened; the accent was American and he thought he recognized the voice. He turned slowly. Raymond Queneau stood there, smiling. He reached into his coat and removed a large automatic pistol.
‘Let’s go for a stroll, shall we? Have a little chinwag. Isn’t that what you English say?’
‘Maybe. Not heard it uttered in my lifetime.’
Queneau gently guided him down a flight of stairs to the furthest rear deck, overlooking the creaming wake, starker white now as the darkness of the night was absolute and moon-less, Gabriel noticed. Thickly overcast. Where was Gabriel’s moon? he wondered. Shining brightly somewhere behind the clouds?
The night was squally and the patchy rain, now they were out at sea, felt colder, icy, stinging his face. Queneau was wearing a trench coat and a brown trilby. They stood by the rear guard rail, Gabriel turning against the wind, hands thrust deep in the pockets of his coat. He knew, with sudden cold assurance, that Queneau was going to kill him, eventually, so he had to play for time.
‘How the hell did you find me?’ he asked.
Queneau shrugged. He was holding the gun down, his arm loose. Drops of rain gleamed in his Hemingway beard.
‘We usually find someone when we’re seriously looking for them,’ he said flatly. ‘You crossed into West Germany at around ten-thirty this morning. Your Polish car was discovered at Hamburg airport around noon. Nice touch, that. But as you hadn’t boarded any plane it was likeliest you’d take a train or a boat back to England.’ He sniffed, wiped his nose. ‘You bought your ticket from Cuxhaven to Harwich at around four p.m. this afternoon. I had just enough time to get here. It was tight. But, goddam it, here I am.’ He smiled emptily. ‘Made it.’
‘Why were you looking for me?’ Gabriel asked. His hair was now slick with cold rain. He could feel drops running down his face.
Queneau smiled again, seemingly ignoring Gabriel’s question.
‘Oh, thanks for giving up the Lumumba tapes, by the way. Much appreciated,’ he said.
Gabriel’s mind was working at super-fast speed: analysing, making connections, deducing. How did Queneau know about the tapes? Because Faith must have told him she now had them, he realized, dug up from beneath the holly bush in his garden.
‘If it’s appreciated,’ Gabriel said, desperately wanting to keep the conversation going, ‘then why do you have that gun in your hand?’
‘Because the whole thing is, you know, still kind of untidy. I’ve a tidy mind and I don’t like untidiness. Je déplore désordre,’ he added in his execrable accent.
Yes, Queneau wasn’t satisfied. Queneau liked his world neat and secure, all squared away, and Gabriel was the dog turd on his clean sidewalk, the squashed cigarette butt in his cut-glass ashtray, the bird shit on his car’s roof.
‘Untidy?’ Gabriel said. ‘Is this all about the tapes?’
‘Three people knew about those tapes,’ Queneau said. ‘Only three people had listened to that conversation. Patrice Lumumba, Thibault N’Danza and you, Mr Gabriel Dax.’
‘So what?’
‘Lumumba’s dead. N’Danza’s dead. But you are very much alive. Unfortunately, you know the names that were mentioned on the tapes.’
‘What happened to Thibault?’ Gabriel said, feeling a sudden jolt of sadness. Clever, sweet, lanky Thibault.
‘Died in a car crash in Nairobi. Great shame.’
‘Listen, Queneau. I gave up those tapes voluntarily. One of the reasons I did so was because Faith Green said it would make me “safe”, OK?’
‘This has nothing to do with Faith Green. She shouldn’t have told you that. She made a mistake.’
Gabriel stared at him – as understanding arrived like a great charge of light.
‘You’re Hillcrest, aren’t you?’ he said spontaneously, suddenly realizing. ‘You’re the clear link to Eisenhower. You’re fucking Hillcrest! Of course, of course. That’s what this is all about. The Hillcrest connection. You.’
Queneau/Hillcrest was clearly not amused to be so identified.
‘Has anyone ever told you that you’re too clever for your own good?’ he said, coldly. ‘Mmm? It can be a flaw in a person.’
Queneau raised his automatic and pointed it at Gabriel’s face. He smiled.
‘Nice knowing you, Mr Dax. But you should never—’
Gabriel shot Queneau though the pocket of his greatcoat, the Baby Browning making a short, snappy retort like a firecracker going off. The bullet hit Queneau somewhere in his groin area and he went down, thud, in a split-second, making a muffled moan, his gun falling on the deck with a clatter. He wasn’t dead but the wound seemed to have immobilized him, almost totally. He was jerking and squirming, making little squeaking sounds in the back of his throat. Gabriel wasn’t thinking – he was acting on instinct and adrenaline-fuelled strength. He hauled Queneau up as if he were a child and bent him over the guard rail. He quickly searched his pockets and threw his wallet and his ID badge on the deck. Then he grabbed both his ankles and tipped him over.
He was expecting a splash but he heard the impact of the body falling on something solid with a crack. Fuck! He peered over.
Queneau had fallen on to the upper plastic canopy of a lifeboat hanging from its davits. There was no way Gabriel could reach him. He watched as Queneau stirred and then heard him scream – the noise of his agony snatched away by a gust of wind. Queneau effortfully tried to rise to his knees, but he fell heavily and his sideways momentum immediately tipped him overboard. Gabriel didn’t hear the splash – but Queneau had gone.
Gabriel reeled away from the guard rail, his mind blank, inert. He goaded it back into life. Think, think, he told himself. He looked around – no witnesses, nobody else out in the icy rain. There was Queneau’s big automatic. He picked it up and hurled it into the sea. Queneau’s trilby, fallen as he went down, was tossed over the guard rail, followed by the wallet and the ID. He took the Baby Browning from his pocket and threw it overboard also. Then he unbuttoned his greatcoat, noticing the tiny exit hole the bullet had made and – briefly thinking that it might not be noticed – he bundled it up and it too went into the North Sea.
He walked back into shelter, standing beneath the stairway, looking around, regaining his breath. Nobody could have seen them – who would be out on deck on a night like this? He ran his fingers through his wet hair, wondering if his heart was going to burst. He took deep breaths – inhale, exhale. Him or me, he said to himself, him or me, him or me. The mantra slowly calmed him; his breathing eased. He looked around for the last time. There was no evidence that anything at all had taken place on the rain-washed rear deck. He climbed the two flights of stairs, opened the bulkhead door, walked along the corridor, turned a corner and went into the bar.
The place was emptier, though there was still a hard core of a dozen British squaddies getting drunker and playing cards. The fug seemed more intense – a smell of beer, cigarette smoke and a thin stratum of human perspiration and damp clothing. Gabriel ordered a triple Scotch and water and went to the furthest corner of the bright room.
He returned to the bar for a box of matches – his lighter had been in his coat pocket. Then he lit a Gitanes and sipped his whisky. He thought about himself and what he’d done. His response to the situation he had found himself in had been a simple reaction to unexpected, dangerous and ultimately lethal provocations. He’d planned nothing, he was simply countering – instinctively – perilous circumstances that were out of his control and for which he had no responsibility. Flee or fight? – the old prehistoric imperatives. He’d had no option but to fight, this time. He felt no guilt about killing Queneau. He knew that, if he hadn’t, it would have been Gabriel Dax who was shot in the head and heaved over the guard rail into the sea. Him or me, he repeated a few times. It made all the difference.
