Die Rich Die Happy c-2 Read online

  Die Rich Die Happy

  ( Craig - 2 )

  James Munro

  Oil is a sensitive commodity for Western governments so when problems arise for a rich man who can deliver the oil rights Department K is quick to send in someone they can easily disavow. Craig already knows he can't trust anyone in the Department but soon finds he really can't trust anyone at all. When the stakes are high enough everyone acts in their own interest.

  James Munro - Die Rich, Die Happy

  * Chapter l *

  Philip Grierson drove to Queen Anne's Gate, and all the way ham Chelsea his mind was doing sums about petrol. The Lagonda did fifteen to the gallon, and at her age that wasn't too bad. Even so, it meant five and sixpence just to go to the ofBce and back. Garage, three pounds a week. Insurance, two pounds a week. Maintenance another thirty bob. Odds and ends another pound. Altogether his transport cost him at least six-fifty a year, and he couldn't fiddle half of it back on expenses. He would have to ask for a rise.

  He parked in the mews behind the house then went in by the front door, past the row of brass plates: Dr. H. B.

  rington-Low, Lady Brett, Major Fuller, the Right Rever-end Hugh Bean. None of the bells below the nameplates worked. Grierson pressed the bell marked "Caretaker," and the door opened at once. The man who opened it wore over-ill;. ar.d a caretaker's air of grudging y)oJiteness. He was short, muscular, and fast-moving, an ex-Commando sergeant who, to Grierson's certain knowledge, had killed three men. Beneath the overalls he carried a Smith and Wesson and a Commando knife. From time to time, Grierson was obliged to practice unarmed combat with him. He found the sessions invigorating but painful.

  "Morning, guv," said the caretaker.

  Grierson, still absorbed in mental arithmetic, scowled.

  "That's right," said the caretaker. "His Nibs came in early this morning. He wasn't happy either."

  Grierson went up the stair to his office, the flat marked Lady Brett. His secretary was already waiting for him, a mass of correspondence and memoranda before her. Grierson thought of the day when he had first been asked to join Department K, and had learned to his astonishment

  that M.I.6 had been watching him ever since he left the Royal Marines. The dry little civil servant who had approached him had warned him that Department K was the most ruthless branch of the service, the branch that tackled the jobs that were too dangerous—or too dirty—for anyone else to handle, and Grierson had almost wept with joy. Well, he'd had his share of danger, and of dirt, for that matter. But always in between there was paperwork, mountains of it. He frowned again, and his secretary, a grim widow, remorselessly efficient, reflected for the millionth time how beautiful he was, and crushed the thought down ruthlessly.

  "Conference at eleven," she said. "Just one item—the Middle East situation. I've got all the documents here." Grierson sighed. "Mr. Loomis said I had to tell you—" She hesitated.

  "Let's have it verbatim," said Grierson. "I'm used

  to it."

  The secretary said, her voice expressionless: 'Tell the lazy bastard to get his bloody facts straight, just for once." She paused. "Mr. Loomis was not in a good mood," she added. "I should do as he says."

  Grierson toiled at his homework until five minutes to eleven, then went to stand outside Loomis's office and to remember, as he always did, the other identical times when he had waited outside the door of his headmaster's study. As the sweep second hand of his watch passed the hour, he raised his hand and knocked discreetly, then went in at once to Loomis's growl.

  Loomis was vast: a gross monster of a man with a face the color of an angry sunset, pale manic eyes, red hair dusted with white like snow on a wheat field, and an arrogant nose. Grierson had known him in two moods only, insultingly surly or savagely rude. Today it was to be the second. He wondered why he worked for this bitter-tongued mastodon, and decided there was only one possible reason. Loomis did his job superbly.

  "You're on time then," Loomis snarled. "You must want something.''

  Grierson abandoned all hope of a rise.

  "No, sir," he said.

  "So long as it isn't money," Loomis went on. "I had a memo from the Treasury. No more money. You'd think it was the P.M.'s blood." He opened a drawer with a fat man's deliberate economy of movement, and took out a map.

  "I wish it were," he said, and swept the map open, weighted its corners with ashtrays, a desk lighter, an ebony ruler, then pointed at it with a meaty forefinger.

  "This," he said, "is the Middle East."

  "Yes, sir," said Grierson.

  "And that's the last fact I'll tell you that you know already, so don't try any more of your polished irony on me," said Loomis, then the forefinger stabbed again.

  "Aden, Kuwait, Muscat, Oman. On our side. Good chaps. Yemen. Against us. Bad chaps. But they have their own troubles. They don't bother us. Here's what bothers us." The finger stabbed again, at a small almost square area south of the Yemen, biting into the Aden Protectorate. Zaarb. 'The autonomous Republic of Zaarb. Tell me about it, Grierson."

  "Zaarb's going to go Red," said Grierson. "The Communist Party is the only one with any power, and the place is stacked with Chinese technical advisers. When it does go, it'll be Chinese Red, not Russian. The same as Albania. Even Nasser doesn't like it."

  "And we'll be up the creek," said Loomis. "Why?"

  Grierson hated Loomis in his Socratic mood.

  "Zaarb's right next door to Aden; and God knows we've got enough trouble there. Besides, it's one vast oil well," he said. "We—Great Britain, I mean—own 47 /2 percent of it. So does Zaarb. The other 5 percent belongs to a Greek millionaire. Chap called Naxos. He always votes with us, which is why we've been able to protect the oil fields with troops."

  "Nearly right," Loomis said, "but not quite right enough. Naxos has always voted with us so far. He might be persuaded to change his mind."

  "But why on earth should he?" Grierson asked. "If he votes with Zaarb they'll nationalize him."

  "He could be made to," said Loomis.

  "But is that so tragic? We're getting far more oil from Kuwait anyway," Grierson said.

  "My God, you're bright this morning," said Loomis. "It's important for prestige reasons, sport. We got ourselves kicked out of Egypt—we can't afford to be kicked out of anywhere else. We got a treaty with Zaarb that still has forty years to run. That treaty says we can take oil out, and put troops in for our protection. And that's what we'll do. Zaarb can nationalize itself puce for all I care. The troops will stay. And there's another thing." His forefinger descended again, blotting out a long strip of territory that buffered Zaarb from the Yemen. "There's this back of beyond here. Calls itself the Haram. What d'you know about that?"

  "There's nothing there, sir. Mostly scrubland, mountains, and very hostile tribesmen. They want to be left alone and they shoot very straight, so why bother?"

  "It's been thought," said Loomis portentously, "I won't say by whom, but it's been thought these bloody-minded straight shooters might be a help if ever we had a to-do in Zaarb. Create a diversion, d'you see? So I sent a man out there, a very good chap. Fluent Arabic, used to the desert, sound knowledge of local customs, all that. The tribesmen caught him in two days. Sent his body to our embassy in Zaarb. Upset the Ambassador so much he nearly forgot his cliches.

  "Our chap got one message out. Shortwave radio. Trouble was there was an electrical storm at the time. Screwed up the reception. All we got was five words— 'pottery,' mountain,' 'executive level,' and what we think was 'Englishman,' then finish. I hope they killed him quick, poor bastard. You know what it means?"

  Grierson shook his head. The only words with a context were "executive level." They meant that there was danger in the Haram, a th
reat of violent menace that could be countered only by the specialist talents of Department K.

  "No more do I," said Loomis. "But our feller thought it was our cup of tea—this thing he'd found. Then there's Naxos. The millionaire. His agreement with us comes up for renewal next month, and there's rumors somebody may try to kill him, d'you see, and we feel he'd be much better off living. And so would we, so he's our cup of tea too. And then there's Craig."

  "Craig, sir?" Grierson looked bewildered. "But Craig's disappeared."

  "I've had him reappeared," Loomis snarled. "Took me a hell of a time to find him, too. He's on a Greek island, boozing. It's time he came back."

  "You're going to put him on to this?"

  Loomis nodded, then glanced quickly at Grierson.

  "Not jealous, are you?"

  Grierson said: "No, sir." He meant it.

  "Just as well," Loomis grunted. "He'll need help on this one. But he's the only fellow who can sort this mess out." He sighed. "You get on with your homework, sport. I'm going to Greece to reform a boozer. It's ridiculous. A man in my position. I'll end up in the bloody Temperance League."

  * Chapter 2 *

  -Schiebel finished off his dinner with a couple of fines, and thought as he drank the second that the Swiss were Germans with a talent for French cooking. He looked from the restaurant's windows to Lake Leman, and observed how punctually the steamers ran, how meticulously the pleasure craft obeyed the rules, and then, remembering his dinner, considered his judgment correct. Switzerland was too small to conquer the world, he thought, but it had a right to be smug, even more smug than it was. He called for his bill, and when it came, he over-tipped, because tonight, he was sure, was a night to celebrate. As he left the restaurant, he passed the cocktail bar. Above it was a mirror. He hesitated, then looked at his watch. He still had twenty minutes to kill. Schiebel ordered another fine, then sat down at the bar to drink it, and look at his face in the mirror.

  What he saw was an English aristocrat, the head long and narrow, the nose copious yet elegant, the thin-lipped mouth wryly, fastidiously comic, the skin, tanned brown by ultraviolet lamps, stretched tight across the cheekbones. Looking at his new self gave Schiebel infinite amusement. He savored the last brandy with conscientious pleasure, winked at the mirror face that winked back at him, then set off to keep his appointment. After a bottle of Clos de Vougeot and three brandies, he still walked straight. Perhaps he swaggered a little, but the swagger was excusable. It isn't every day a man finds a new substance for blowing up the world.

  He passed the discreet baroque of the Temple Neuf, and the flower stalls and caf6s of the Place du Molard. Schiebel hated the cafes that were filled with intellectuals arguing about Camus and Genet and Henry Miller, and waving their copies of Encounter and les temps Modernes and Bot-teghe Oscuri in angry triumph; talking always, never listening. They reminded him of Swyven, but Swyven had at least achieved a sense of purpose, and worked now to fulfill his role in history: the order and discipline of a truly Communist world, as Marx, Stalin, and Chairman Mao had foreseen it. One day those others, those talkers, would have to discipline themselves too, and work for the one, inevitable, classless society. If they refused, they would be punished severely, as an example to other reluctant intellectuals. Schiebel thought how much he would enjoy superintending such punishment.

  The thought took him up the long, weary climb to the H6tel de Ville. He walked steadily by its unemphatic facade, and turned a corner into a poor, dimly fit quarter, dismissed in the guidebooks as of no interest to tourists. No one famous or notorious had died there, or even lived there. Schiebel walked on, then deliberately broke the rhythm of his stride. There was someone following him. Schiebel tensed, then moved a little farther from the shelter of the houses toward the edge of the pavement. His follower increased his pace as he neared an empty building, but Schiebel continued to saunter. This was a rough area by Geneva's standards, and if he ran he might be shot at and nobody in this part of the town would be rash enough to interfere. Schiebel slowed a little more, waiting for the sound of running footsteps behind him, and when it came he managed very nicely, very nicely indeed. He felt quite pleased with himself.

  The man moved fast, but Schiebel waited until he'd almost reached him, then whirled round, crouching low, swinging one hard-muscled leg like a solid bar at his attacker's shins, chopping down with his hand as the other man fell past him; seeing the iron bar in his hand, kicking at once for the ulna bone, grinning in satisfaction as he heard the man scream. A tricky shot, that one, but he'd broken the wrist. Bloody good show, old boy. He grinned again, and hauled the other man to his feet, rammed him against the wall.

  "Who are you?" he asked. "What do you want?"

  The other man hesitated and Schiebel hit him, once. The attacker gasped and said, "Bloch, Ludwig Bloch. I—I was going to rob you."

  "You were unlucky," said Schiebel. He looked at his attacker, staying himself in the shadows. A cheap crook. Cheap suit, cheap shoes. Cheap cigarettes in his pocket and twenty Swiss francs, and nothing else. A small man with small ideas, and an iron bar. Then the moon came out and shone full on Schiebel's face.

  "You really are unlucky," said Schiebel, and his right hand moved in a blur of speed to bis pocket, a knife blade flicked out, a pale gleam in the moonlight, and Bloch, too late, tried to scream as Schiebel spun him round, struck under the rib cage and up, and Bloch was dead, still pressed against the wall, till his knees started to sag and he slid down, very slowly, as Schiebel pulled the knife free, wiped it on Bloch's jacket (a dead man isn't fussy) and examined his own clothes for bloodstains. There were none. There rarely are, if you strike from behind correctly.

  Schiebel walked on, to an old, battered house with "T. K. Soong—Souvenirs and Curios," painted on its window. Schiebel decided he would say nothing to Soong about the man he had killed. Soong would consider such conduct incorrect, even though it had been successful, and a bottle of wine and three brandies would not excuse it.

  He rang the bell, and a short, heavily built Chinese opened the door. Schiebel tried a phrase in carefully learned Mandarin, and the Chinese sneered, then stood aside and motioned him in. Schiebel walked along a corridor, the Chinese behind him. The Chinese, he was sure, was holding a gun.

  He reached an open door and went inside. Soong was there, waiting for him, a tall, elegant North Chinese in a dark, Italian-made suit with a rosebud in the buttonhole. He stood up at once, hesitated, then went to meet SchiebeL

  "My dear fellow, how splendid you look," he said, and dragged him into the light. "An out and out imperialist. I really do congratulate you." He took the photograph Schiebel had sent him, looked at the portrait, then at the man himself, and shook his head in amazed delight. "Utterly fantastic," he said. "You look so British. Spot of whiskey, old man?"

  Schiebel said: "No. Brandy," and his voice was cold.

  "Sorry, old man," Soong said. "But if you will go around looking like a Kipling hero—" He broke off then, and spoke to the squat Chinese in Mandarin. The bodyguard went out, came back with a bottle and glasses, then left them alone. Soong poured two big ones, and motioned Schiebel to a chair. The two men sipped, then Schiebel sat, waiting.

  "That little thing you sent us," Soong said. "We've had a couple of our chaps look at it—flew them over specially from Peking actually." He broke off and looked at Schiebel, who continued to sit, and sip his cognac. Of the two men, he was by far the more inscrutable. "They loved it," said Soong. "It's exactly what we need."

  "Really?" Schiebel said.

  "You've no idea," Soong said, "the way they went on. Quite shatters one's image of the scientist. Not that I can really blame them." He stood up and rummaged in a cupboard, lifted a heavy lead canister on to the table, then rummaged again, and produced an instrument like a clumsy torch.

  "Geiger counter," he said.

  He opened the box then, and held the Geiger counter a couple of feet from its contents. At once it chattered like an infuriated mon
key, and the chattering increased as he brought the instrument nearer, and the sound it made was almost unbroken; a pulsing, metallic click without pause, until Soong pulled it away.

  "Cobalt shot with uranium," Soong said. "What a clever chap you are. May one ask where you found it?"

  "On a mountain in the Haram," said Schiebel. "One of my men was there for a while. He's moved to the Greek islands now. Nice and close to Naxos. He'll have the emir of Haram's daughter with him soon to negotiate the deal. The emir wants to sell the stuff."

  "That's absolutely perfect," said Soong. "I suppose you've no idea how soon we can get our hands on a piece of it?"

  This time it was Schiebel who said nothing, and the young Chinese made an abrupt, nervous gesture, and the Geiger counter chattered again, until he dropped the box lid into place.

  "It's very, very important," Soong said. "The uranium is of a special order of richness, superior to uranium 235. That means a bigger charge for a smaller bomb. It is also an excellent trigger for a new device our people are working on now. For that we need the cobalt. With it we could make a fallout so great that we could kill every living thing in any area we chose. We would not, of course, use it— except once perhaps, to show that we are in earnest. Simply to possess it—that is all we need. America would listen to us; very carefully, very humbly. Russia would be persuaded to act as a Communist country once more. All deviations would be corrected."

  He looked almost pleadingly at Schiebel.

  "Marshal Chen Yi sent me himself when he heard what this stuff might be. The two scientists will report direct to Comrade Chou. Can we get at it?"

  Schiebel smiled then; smiled with the certain arrogant charm of a very superior person.

  "Of course," he said. "I'm arranging to have it delivered to you."

  "Albania?" Soong asked. "You could get it to Albania?"

  "No," said Schiebel. "That's too clumsy. I like things to be"—his hand made a graceful gesture—"elegant. It will take a little time of course, and the British won't like it—" Soong sniggered. The noise was an ugly contrast to his smooth-fitting clothes. There was rage in it, as well as disgust.