‘You cart a! ways trust a man like Mr Agnelli.’
Agnelli, O’Brien and Daniken were waiting in the lounge when the two men
descended. Van Effen said: ‘Fixed?’
‘Yes. But one thing we overlooked – or I overlooked. I said I’d call them
back. I didn’t know whether to ask them to come here or not.’
‘We’ll let them, know when we move out in the truck.’
‘Why not call them from here?’
Van Effer, looked at him as if in faint surprise. ‘Do you ever make two
consecutive calls from the same phone?’
‘Do I -‘ Agnelli shook his head. ‘And to think that I thought I was the
most suspicious, most security-conscious person around. Do we move now?’
‘The heating in Dutch army trucks is rather sub-standard. I suggest a
schnapps. We have time?’
24
‘We have. Very well. Until the Lieutenant comes, I assume.’ ‘He doesn’t
join us. We join him. That’s why I suggested a schnapps. Takes him a
little time.’
‘I see. Rather, I don’t. He’s not going to join
‘He’s leaving by the fire escape. Ile Lieutenant has a penchant for
unorthodox exits. Also, he’s bashful about calling attention to himself.’
‘Unorthodox. Bashful. I understand now.’ Standing by what appeared to be
a freshly painted army truck in an otherwise empty, brightly lit small
garage, Agnelli surveyed the rather impressive figure of Vasco who was now
attired in what was obviously a brand new Dutch army captaid’s uniform.
‘Yes, I understand. The desk staff in the Trianon would have found the
change rather intriguing. But I thought – um – the lieutenant was a
lieutenant?’
‘Old habits die hard. You don’t change a man’s name just because he
changes his suit. Promoted last month. Services to Queen and country.’
‘Services to – ah, I see.’ Agnelli, it was clear, didn’t see at all. ‘And
what’s this bright orange dagger flash on the radiator?’
‘ “Manoeuvres. Do not approach.” ‘
‘You don’t miss much and that’s a fact,’ Agnelli said. ‘May I look
inside?’
‘Naturally. I wouldn’t like you to think that you’d bought a pig in a
poke.’
‘This, Mr Danilov, is the most unlikely’looking pig in a poke that I’ve
ever seen.’ Agnelli had inspected the neady stacked and, in the case of
the missiles and launchers, highly gleaming contents of the truck and was
now actually rubbmg his hands together. ‘Magnificent, quite magnificent.
By heavens, Mr Danilov, when George here is given a shopping list I must
say that he delivers. I wouldn’t have believed it.’
George made a dismissive gesture. ‘A little assistance from the
Lieutenant here. Next time, something a little room difficult.0
‘Splendid, spiendid.’AgneW looked towards the front of the truck and at
the heavily side-curtained bench seat behind the
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front seats. ‘That, too? I see, Mr Danilov, that you share my passion for
privacy.’
‘Not I. Senior Dutch army officers on manoeuvres.’
‘No matter. Mr Riordan, I am sure, will be delighted. When you meet him
you will understand why. He is. a man of a rather striking appearance and
rather difficult to conceal, which is a pity, as he does like his
privacy.’ Agnelli was silent for a moment, then cleared his throat and
said: ‘In view of all this and the very, very stringent security
precautions you have taken, Mr Danilov, I do feel a bit – in fact, very
– diffident about asking – but, well, do you mind if Mr O’Brien here
carried out a closer inspectionY
Van Effen smiled. ‘I’ve often wondered what Mr O’Brien’s function might
be. But this? Well, I’m slightly puzzled. If Mr O’Brien knows more about
explosives and arms than we three do, then he must be Europe’s leading
expert and our services would seem to be superfluous.’
‘Explosives, Mr Danilov?’ O’Brien was an easy smiler and had a pleasant
light baritone voice, a natural for the rendering of ‘When Irish eyes’.
‘Explosives terrify me. I’m an electronics man.
‘Mr O’Brien is being modest,’ Agnelli said. ‘He’s an electronics expert
and one of the very best in the business. Security. Alarms. Installation
-or deactivating.’
‘Ah. Burglar alarms. Photo-electric rays, pressure pads, things like
that. Always wanted to meet one of those. It’ll be a pleasure to watch
one at work. Little enough scope, I would have thought, for an
electronics m2n around an army truck. Wait a minute.’ Van Effen paused
briefly then smiled. ‘By all means go ahead, Mr O’Brien. I’ll take long
odds against you finding one, though.’
‘Finding what, Mr Danilov?’
‘One of those dinky little location transmitters.’
Agnelli and O’Brien exchanged glances. Agnelli said: ‘Dinky little – I
mean, how on earth -‘
‘Because I removed one this morning. Rather, the Lieutenant did it for
me.’
Agnelli, as van Effen had said, would never stand in line for
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an Oscar. He was perplexed, apprehensive and suspicious, all at the same
time. ‘But why should one – I mean, how did you suspect-‘
‘Don’t distress yourself.’Van Effen smiled. ‘Perfectly simple explanation.
You see-‘
‘But this is an army truck!’
‘Precisely. Far from uncommon on Army trucks. Use them on their silly war
games, especially at night, when there’s no lights permitted and strict
radio silence. Only way they can locate each other. The Lieutenant knew
where they were usually concealed and found and detached this one.’
Vasco opened a map compartment by the driver’s seat, removed a tiny
metallic object, and handed it to van Effen, who passed it over to O’Brien.
‘That’s it, all right,’ O’Brien said. He looked doubtfully at Agnelli. ‘In
that case, Romero -‘
‘No, no,’ van Effen said. ‘Go ahead and search. Be happier if you do. Damn
truck could be littered with them, for all I know. Speaking personally, I
wouldn’t know where to start looking.’
Agnelli, trying with his usual lack of success to conceal his relief,
nodded to O’Brien. Van Effen and George left the truck and wandered idly
around, talking in a desultory fashion. Agnelli, they could see, was
displaying a keen interest in O’Brien at work, but none in them. In a far
corner van Effen said: ‘Must be an interesting profession being a
professional dismantler of alarm systems.’
‘Very. Useful, too. If you want to get at the private art collection of
some billionaire or other. Or into a secret army base. Or bank vaults.’
‘It’s also useful if you want to blow up a dyke or a canal bank?’
‘No.’
‘I didn’t think so either.’
Although it was only just after i p.m. when they left the garage it could
well have been night-time for the amount of light left in the sky. And
although it seemed impossible that the amount of rain could have increased,
it undoubtedly had: the truck was equipped with two-specd wipers but might
almost as
217
well have been equipped with none at all. And the wind blew even more
strongly from the north. Apart from the occasional triple tram the streets
were deserted. One might almost have thought that the efforts and intention
of the FFF were wasted: Holland, it appeared, was about to drown under the
weight of its own rainfall.
Agnelli had made his phone call from the garage. Shortly after leaving it,
at a word from Agnelli, Vasco, who was driving, pulled up outside an
undistinguished caf6 off the Utrechtsestraat. Two cars were parked there,
both small, both Renaults. Agnelli got out and spoke hurriedly to the
invisible drivers of the cars: he had need to hurry, he had no umbrella and
his gaberdine raincoat offered no protection at all to the pitiless rain.
‘Joachim and Joop,’ he said on his return. ‘They are following us to a
restaurant just this side of Amstelveen. Even the FFF must eat.’ Agnelli
was probably back to his smiling again but it was impossible to say. The
inside of the truck was almost totally dark.
‘If they can follow us,’ van Effen said. ‘In this weather, I can see that
my precautions were superfluous. I thought we were to meet your brother and
Mr Riordan. I must say I shall be most interested to meet your Mr Riordan.
If the newspaper accounts are anything to go by, he must be a most
extraordinary character.’He ignored George’s heavy nudge in the ribs.
‘He’s all that. They’ve elected to remain in the cats – I don’t suppose
they fancied getting wet. We’ll meet up in De Groene Lanteerne.’
Riordan was indeed an extraordinary character. For some extraordinary reason
– known only to himself – he had elected to dress himself in a sweeping,
neck-buttoned, black-and-white shepherd’s tartan cloak with matching
deerstalker, of the type much favoured by Highland lairds and Sherlock
Holmes. As the cloak ended six inches above his knees and hence made him
took even more incongruously tall and skeletal than ever, he couldn’t
possibly have been trying to make himself as inconspicuous as possible. He
had greeted everyone civilly enough –
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when he wasn’t declaiming against the IRA he was, it seemed. a normally