“Trust me,” said Rowse.
“Now that, my dear chap, would be insulting ... in our world.”
“I need to know about shipment. Where to collect, when.”
“And so you shall. Soon. You asked for a port in Europe. I think that can be arranged. Return to the Apollonia, and I will be in touch very soon.”
He rose and handed Rowse his remaining pile of chips. “Do not leave the casino for another fifteen minutes,” he said. “Here—enjoy yourself.”
Rowse waited for fifteen minutes, then cashed in the chips. He preferred to buy Nikki something nice.
He left the casino and strolled toward his car. Because of the narrow streets of the Old Town, parking was at a premium even late at night. His car was two streets away. He never saw Danny or Bill, who were in doorways up and down the road.
As he approached his car, an old man in blue denim and a forage cap was brushing the garbage from the gutters with a yard-broom.
“Kali spera,” croaked the old road-sweeper.
“Kali spera,” replied Rowse. He paused. The old man was one of those, finally beaten by life, who do the menial jobs all over the world. He remembered the wad of money from al-Mansour’s winnings, pulled out a large-denomination note, and tucked it into the old man’s top pocket.
“My dear Tom,” said the road-sweeper, “I always knew you had a good heart.”
“What the hell are you doing here, McCready?”
“Just keep jiggling with your car keys and tell me what happened,” said McCready as he pushed his broom.
Rowse told him.
“Good,” said McCready. “It looks like a ship. That probably means they’re tacking your small cargo onto the much larger one for the IRA. We must hope so. If yours is simply sent as a one-shot by a different route in a different container, we’re back to where we started. Left with Mahoney. But as your load is only a van-full, they may pack them all together. Any idea which port?”
“No, just Europe.”
“Go back to the hotel, and do what the man says,” ordered McCready.
Rowse drove off. Danny, on a motorcycle, went after him to ensure that Rowse had no follower other than himself. Ten minutes later, Marks arrived with the car and Bill to pick up McCready.
On the drive back, McCready sat in the rear and thought. The ship, if ship it was, would not be Libyan registered. That would be too obvious. Probably a chartered freighter, with a no-questions-asked captain and crew. There were scores of such to be found all over the eastern Mediterranean, and Cyprus was a favored country of registry.
If it was chartered locally, it would have to go to a Libyan port to take on the arms, probably to be buried beneath a perfectly normal cargo like crated olives or dates. The IRA team would probably go with it. When they left the hotel, it was vital that they be followed to the loading dock so the name of the ship could be noted for later interception.
Once noted, the plan was for the vessel to be tracked by a submarine at periscope depth. The submarine was on standby under the waters off Malta. A Royal Air Force Nimrod from the British air base at Akrotiri on Cyprus would guide the sub toward the steaming freighter, then make itself scarce. The sub would do the rest until Royal Navy surface vessels could make the intercept in the English Channel.
McCready needed the ship’s name, or at least the port of destination. With the name of the port, he could have his friends at Lloyds Shipping Intelligence find out what vessels had reserved berthings in that port and for which days. That would narrow the choice down. It could be he no longer needed Mahoney, if only the Libyans would tell Rowse.
The message to Rowse came twenty-four hours later by telephone. It was not al-Mansour’s voice but another. Later, McCready’s engineers traced it to the Libyan People’s Bureau in Nicosia.
“Go home, Mr. Rowse. You will be contacted there shortly. Your olives will arrive by ship at a European port. You will be contacted personally with arrival and collection details.”
McCready studied the intercept in his hotel room. Did al-Mansour suspect something? Had he seen through Rowse but decided on a double-bluff? If he suspected Rowse’s real employers, he would know that Mahoney and his group were also under surveillance. So was he ordering Rowse to England in order to take the watchers off Mahoney? Possibly.
In case it was not only possible but true, McCready decided to play both ends. He would leave with Rowse for London, but the watchers would stay with Mahoney.
Rowse decided to tell Monica the next morning. He had got back to the hotel from Paphos before
her. She arrived from Limassol at three A.M., flushed and excited. Her stallions were in beautiful condition, now stabled outside Limassol, she told him as she undressed. She only needed the transit formalities to be completed to bring them to England.
Rowse awoke early, but she was ahead of him. He glanced at the empty space in the bed, then went down the corridor to check her room. They gave him a message at the reception desk, a brief note in one of the hotel’s envelopes.
Dear Tom,