‘A thirsty night’s work,’ George said. He was on his second, or it could have been third, glass of grappa. He looked at the von Karajans’ radios on the deck beside him. ‘These would have been safer in our cabins. Why have them here?’
‘They’d have been too safe in our cabins. Young Michael would never have dared to try to get at them there.’
‘Don’t try to tell me that he might try to get at them here.’
‘Unlikely, I admit. Michael, it is clear, is not cast in the heroic mould. He might, of course, be a consummate actor, but I don’t see him as an actor any more than a hero. However, if he’s desperate enough – and he must have been desperate to try to get off a message at the time and place he did-he might try.’
‘But the radios will be in the safe as soon as Carlos returns. And Carlos has the only key.’
‘Carlos might give him that key.’
‘Oh! So that’s the way our devious mind works. So we keep an eye on our Michael for the remainder of the night? Not that there’s all that much left of it. And if he does try to recover the radios, what does that prove except that there is a connection between him and Carlos?’
‘That’s all I want to prove. I don’t expect either would say or admit to anything. They don’t have to. At least, Michael doesn’t have to. I can have him detained in Ploce for disobedience of orders and suspicion of trying to communicate with the enemy.’
‘You really suspect him of that?’
‘Good Lord, no. But, no question, he’s been trying to communicate with someone and that someone might as well be a spy. It’ll look better on a charge sheet. All I want to see is if there’s any connection between him and Carlos.’
‘And if there is you’re prepared to clap him into durance vile?’
‘Sure.’
‘And his sister?’
‘She’s done nothing. She can come along with us, hang around Ploce or join him in, as you say, durance vile. Up to her.’
‘The very flower of chivalry.’ George shook his head and reached for the grappa. ‘So we may or may not suspect a connection between Carlos and Michael but we do suspect one between Carlos and Alessandro.’
‘I don’t. I do think that Carlos knows a great deal more about Alessandro than we do but I don’t think he knows what Alessandro is up to on this passage. A very simple point. If Carlos were privy to Alessandro’s plans then he, Alessandro, wouldn’t have bothered to bring along a kettle and burner: he’d just have gone to the galley and steamed the envelope open.’ He turned round as Carlos entered. ‘How’s Cola?’
‘He’ll be all right. Well, no danger. His shoulder is a mess. Even if it were a flat calm I wouldn’t touch it. It needs a surgeon or an osteologist and I’m neither.’ He unlocked a safe, put the radio gear inside then relocked the door. ‘Well, no hurry for you, gentlemen, but I must return to the wheelhouse.’
‘A moment, please.’
‘Yes, Peter?’ Carlos smiled. ‘The interrogation?’
‘No. A few questions. You could save us a lot of time and trouble.’
‘What? In interrogating Alessandro? You promised me no torture.’
‘I still promise. Alessandro tried to assault us and steal some papers tonight. Did you, do you know about this?’
‘No.’
‘I believe you.’ Carlos raised his eyebrows a little but said nothing. ‘You don’t seem unduly concerned that your fellow-Italian has been made a prisoner by a bunch of uncivilized Yugoslavs, do you?’
‘If you mean does he mean anything personally to me, no.’
‘But his reputation does.’
Carlos said nothing.
‘You know something about his background, his associations, the nature of his business that we don’t. Is that not so?’
‘That could be. You can’t expect me to divulge anything of that nature.’
‘Not expect. Hope.’
‘No hope. You wouldn’t break the Geneva Conventions to extract that information from me.’
Petersen rose. ‘Certainly not. Thank you for your hospitality.’
Petersen was carrying a canvas chair and the metal box of capsules when he entered the cabin in which Alessandro and his three men were imprisoned. George was carrying two lengths of heaving line and the sledge-hammer with which he had just released the outside clip. Alex was carrying only his machine-pistol. Petersen unfolded the chair, sat on it and watched with apparent interest as George hammered home a clip.
‘We’d rather not have any interruptions, you see,’ Petersen said. He looked at Franco, Sepp and Guido. ‘Get into that corner there. If anyone moves Alex will kill him. Take your jacket off, Alessandro.’
Alessandro spat on the floor.
‘Take your jacket off,’ George said pleasantly, ‘or I’ll knock you out of it.’
Alessandro, not a man of a very original turn of mind, spat again. George hit him somewhere in the region of the solar plexus, not a very hard blow, it seemed, but enough to make Alessandro double up, whooshing in agony. George removed the jacket.
‘Tie him up.’
George set about tying him up. When Alessandro had recovered a little from his initial bout of gasping, he tried to offer some resistance, but an absent-minded cuff from George to the side of the jaw convinced him of the unwisdom of this. George tied him in such a fashion that both arms were lashed immovably to his sides. His knees and ankles were bound together and then, for good measure, George used the second heaving line to lash Alessandro to the cot. No chicken was ever so securely trussed, so immobile, as Alessandro was then.
George surveyed his handiwork with some satisfaction then turned to Petersen: ‘Isn’t there something in the Geneva Conventions about this?’
‘Could be, could be. Truth is, I’ve never read them.’ He opened the metal box and looked at Alessandro. ‘In the interests of science, you understand. This shouldn’t take any time at all.’ The words were light enough but Alessandro wasn’t listening to the words, he was looking at the implacable face above and not liking at all what he saw. ‘Here we have three blue ampoules and three pink. We think, and Captain Tremino who is also a doctor agrees with us, that three of these are lethal and three non-lethal. Unfortunately, we don’t know which is which and there’s only one simple, logical way to find out. I’m going to inject you with one of these. If you survive it, then we’ll know it’s a non-lethal ampoule. If you don’t, we’ll know it’s the other ones that are non-lethal.’ Petersen held up two ampoules, one blue, one pink. ‘Which would you suggest, George?’
George rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘A big responsibility. A man’s life could hang on my decision. Well, it’s not all that big a responsibility. No loss to mankind, anyway. The blue one.’
‘Blue it shall be.’ Petersen broke the ampoule into a test tube, inserted the needle of the hypodermic and began to withdraw the plunger. Alessandro stared in terrified fascination as the blue liquid seeped up into the hypodermic.
‘I’m afraid I’m not very good at this job.’ Petersen’s conversational calm was more terrifying than any sibilant threats could ever have hoped to be. ‘If you’re careless an air bubble can get in and an air bubble in the blood stream can be very unpleasant. I mean, it can kill you. However, in your case, I don’t think it’s going to make very much difference one way or another.’
Alessandro’s eyes were staring, his whitened lips drawn back in a rictus of terror. Petersen touched the inside of Alessandro’s right elbow. ‘Seems a suitable vein to me.’ He pinched the vein and advanced the syringe.
‘No! No! No!’ Alessandro’s voice was an inhuman scream torn from his throat. ‘God, no! No!’
‘You’ve nothing to worry about,’ Petersen said soothingly. ‘If it’s a non-lethal dose you’ll just slip away from us and come back in a few minutes. If it’s a lethal dose, you’ll just slip away.’ He paused. ‘Just a minute, though. He just might die in screaming agony.’ He brought out a pad of white linen cloth and handed it to George. ‘Just in case. But watch your hand, though. When a dying man’s teeth clench they stay clenched. Worse, if he draws blood you’ll get infected too.’
Petersen pinched the vein between fingers and thumb. Alessandro screamed. George applied the pad to his mouth. After a few seconds, at a nod from Petersen, he withdrew the pad. Alessandro had stopped screaming now and a weird moaning noise came from deep in his throat. He was struggling insanely against his bonds, his face was a mask of madness and a seizure, a heart attack, seemed imminent. Petersen looked at George: the big man’s face was masked in sweat.
Petersen said in a quiet voice: ‘This is the killer dose, isn’t it?’ Alessandro didn’t hear him. Petersen had to repeat the questions twice before the question penetrated the fear-crazed mind.