The Dogs of War

“You do have the money, I suppose?” asked Baker, fingering a lump of sugar.

Shannon flicked through a booklet of large-denomination dollar checks under Baker’s nose. The arms dealer smiled.

They left the table and on the way out used the restaurant telephone to call a Hamburg charter company specializing in package tours for the thousands of Germans who vacation along the Adriatic coast. From this company they learned the names of the three best hotels in the Yugoslav resort. Baker was told he would find Shannon in one of them under the name of Keith Brown.

Johann Schlinker was as confident as Baker that he could fulfill his arms deal, though he had no idea that Baker was also doing business with Shannon. No doubt the men knew of each other, might even be acquainted, but there would not be a question of discussing each other’s business together.

“The port should be Valencia, though this has yet to be fixed and is in any case the choice of the Spanish authorities,” he told Shannon. “Madrid tells me the dates have to be between the sixteenth and twentieth of June.”

“I’d prefer the twentieth for loading,” said Shannon. “The Toscana should be permitted to berth on or during the night of the nineteenth and load in the morning.”

“Good,” said Schlinker. “I’ll inform my Madrid partner. He habitually handles the transporting and loading side of things, and employs a first-class freight agent in Valencia who knows all the customs personnel very well. There should be no problem.”

“There must be no problems,” growled Shannon. “The ship has been delayed already once, and by loading on the twentieth I have enough sailing time but no margin to fulfill my own contract.”

It was not true, but he saw no reason why Schlinker should not believe it was true.

“I shall want to watch the loading also,” he told the arms dealer.

Schlinker pursed his lips. “You may watch it from afar, of course,” he said. “I cannot stop you. But as the customers are supposed to be an Arab government, you cannot propose yourself as the buyer of the merchandise.”

“I also want to board the ship at Valencia,” said Shannon.

“That will be even harder. The whole port is sealed off inside a chain-link fence. Entry is by authority only. To board the ship you would have to go through passport control. Also, as she will be carrying ammunition, there will be a Guardia Civil at the bottom of the gangplank.”

“Supposing the captain needed another crewman. Could he engage a seaman locally?”

Schlinker thought it over. “I suppose so. Are you connected with the company owning the vessel?”

“Not on paper,” said Shannon.

“If the captain informed the agent on arrival that he had permitted one of his crewmen to leave the vessel at its last port of call to fly home and attend his mother’s funeral, and that the crewman would be rejoining the vessel at Valencia, I suppose there would be no objection. But you would need a merchant seaman’s card to prove you were a seaman. And in the same name as yourself, Mr. Brown.”

Shannon thought for a few minutes. “Okay. I’ll fix it.”

Schlinker consulted his diary. “As it happens, I shall be in Madrid on the nineteenth and twentieth,” he said. “I have another business deal to attend to. I shall be at the Mindanao Hotel. If you want to contact me, you can find me there. If loading is for the twentieth, the chances are the convoy and escort from the Spanish army will run the shipment down to the coast during the night of the nineteenth to arrive at crack of dawn. If you are going to board the ship at all, I think you should do so before the military co

nvoy arrives at the docks.”

“I could be in Madrid on the nineteenth,” said Shannon. “Then I could check with you that the convoy had indeed left on time. By driving fast to Valencia, I could be there ahead of it, and board the Toscana as the rejoining seaman before the convoy arrives.”

“That is entirely up to you,” said Schlinker. “For my part, I will have my agents arrange the freighting, transportation, and loading, according to all the normal procedures, for dawn of the twentieth. That is what I contracted to do. If there is any risk attached to your boarding the vessel in harbor, that must be your affair. I cannot take the responsibility for that. I can only point out that ships carrying arms out of Spain are subjected to scrutiny by the army and customs authorities. If anything goes wrong with the loading and clearance of the ship to sail, because of you, that is not my responsibility. One other thing. After loading arms a ship must leave a Spanish port within six hours, and may not reenter Spanish waters until the cargo has been off-loaded. Also, the manifest must be in perfect order.”

“It will be,” said Shannon. “I’ll be with you in Madrid on the morning of the nineteenth.”

Before leaving Toulon, Kurt Semmler had given Shannon a letter to mail. It was from Semmler to the Toscana’s shipping agents in Genoa. It informed them there had been a slight change of plan, and that the Toscana would be proceeding from Toulon not directly to Morocco but first to Brindisi to pick up further cargo. The order, Semmler informed the agents, had been secured locally by him in Toulon and was lucrative, since it was a rush order, whereas the consignment of mixed cargo from Toulon to Morocco was in no hurry. Because he was the managing director of Spinetti Maritimo, Semmler’s instructions were those of the boss. He required the Genoa agents to cable Brindisi reserving a berth for June 7 and 8, and to instruct the port office to hold any mail addressed to the Toscana for collection when she berthed.

Such a letter was what Shannon wrote and dispatched from Hamburg. It was to Signor Kurt Semmler, MV Toscana, c/o the Port Office, Brindisi, Italy.

In it he told Semmler that from Brindisi he should proceed to Ploc?e on the Adriatic coast of Yugoslavia, and that if he had no charts to negotiate the tricky straits north of Korcula Island, he should get them locally. He had to get the Toscana there on the evening of June 10, and his berth would be reserved. There was no need to inform the agents in Genoa of the extra leg from Brindisi to Ploc?e.

His last instruction to Semmler was important. He told the German ex-smuggler he wanted him to acquire a merchant seaman’s card for a deckhand called Keith Brown, stamped and up-to-date, and issued by the Italian authorities. The second thing the ship would need was a cargo manifest showing the Toscana had proceeded straight from Brindisi to Valencia without a halt, and would be heading from Valencia to Latakia, Syria, after taking cargo aboard in Valencia. Semmler would have to use his old Brindisi contacts to obtain these documents.

Before he left Hamburg for Yugoslavia, Shannon’s last letter was to Simon Endean in London. It required Endean to meet Shannon at a rendezvous in Rome on June 16, and to bring certain maritime charts with him.

About the same time, the MV Toscana was chugging steadily through the Bight of Bonifacio, the narrow channel of limpid blue water that separates the southern tip of Corsica from the northern end of Sardinia. The sun was blistering, but mellowed by a light wind. Marc Vlaminck was stretched out, stripped to the waist, on the hatch cover of the main hold, a wet towel beneath him, his torso like a pink hippopotamus covered in suntan oil. Janni Dupree, who always turned brick red in the sun, was propped up against the wall of the after structure, under the awning, swigging from his tenth bottle of beer of the morning. Cipriani, the deckhand, was painting part of the rail around the forepeak white, and the first mate, Norbiatto, was snoozing on his bunk below after taking the night watch.

Also down below, in the stinking heat of the engine room, was the engineer, Grubic, oiling some piece of machinery that only he could understand but which no doubt was vital to keep the Toscana steady on her eight knots through the Mediterranean. In the wheelhouse Kurt Semmler and Carl Waldenberg were sipping cold beer and exchanging reminiscences of their respective careers.