Eye Of The Needle Part 19

The motion of the car was like the rocking of a train, and Faber had his arrival nightmare again, only this time it was slightly different. Instead of dining on the train and talking politics with the fellow-pa.s.senger, he was obliged for some unknown reason to travel in the coal tender, sitting on his suitcase radio with his back against the hard iron side of the truck. When the train arrived at Waterloo, everyone-including the disembarking pa.s.sengers-was carrying a little duplicated photograph of Faber in the running team; and they were all looking at each other and comparing the faces they saw with the face in the picture. At the ticket barrier the collector took his shoulder and said: "You're the man in the photo, aren't you?" Faber found himself speechless. All he could do was stare at the photograph and remember the way he had run to win that cup. G.o.d, he had run; he had peaked a shade too early, started his final burst a quarter of a mile sooner than he had planned, and for the last 500 meters he'd wanted to die-and now perhaps he would die, because of that photograph in the ticket collector's hand...The collector was saying, "Wake up! Wake up!" and suddenly Faber was back in Richard Porter's Vauxhall Ten, and it was Porter who was telling him to wake up.

His right hand was half way to his left sleeve, where the stiletto was sheathed, in the split-second before he remembered that as far as Porter was concerned James Baker was an innocent hitchhiker. His hand dropped, and he relaxed.

"You wake up like a soldier," Porter said with amus.e.m.e.nt. "This is Aberdeen."

Faber noted that "soldier" had been p.r.o.nounced "soljuh," and recalled that Porter was a magistrate and a member of the police authority. Faber looked at the man in the dull light of early day; Porter had a red face and a waxed moustache; his camel-colored overcoat looked expensive. He was wealthy and powerful in his town, Faber guessed. If he were to disappear he would be missed almost immediately. Faber decided not to kill him.

Faber said, "Good morning."

He looked out of the window at the granite city. They were moving slowly along a main street with shops on either side. There were several workers about, all moving purposefully in the same direction-fishermen, Faber reckoned. It seemed a cold, windy place.

Porter said, "Would you like to have a shave and a bit of breakfast before you continue your journey? You're welcome to come to my place."

"You're very kind-"

"Not at all. If it weren't for you I should still be on the A80 at Stirling, waiting for a garage to open."

"-but I won't, thank you. I want to get on with the journey."

Porter did not insist, and Faber suspected that he was relieved not to have his offer taken up. The man said, "In that case, I'll drop you at George Street-that's the start of the A96, and it's a straight road to Banff." A moment later he stopped the car at a corner. "Here you are."

Faber opened the door. "Thanks for the lift."

"A pleasure." Porter offered a handshake. "Good luck!"

Faber got out, closed the door and the car pulled away. He had nothing to fear from Porter, he thought; the man would go home and sleep all day, and by the time he realized he had helped a fugitive it would be too late to do anything about it.

He watched the Vauxhall out of sight, then crossed the road and entered the promisingly named Market Street. Shortly thereafter he found himself at the docks and, following his nose, arrived at the fish market. He felt safely anonymous in the bustling, noisy, smelly market, where everyone was dressed in working clothes as he was. Wet fish and cheerful profanities flew through the air, and Faber found it hard to understand the clipped, guttural accents. At a stall he bought hot, strong tea in a chipped half-pint mug and a large bread roll with a slab of white cheese.

He sat on a barrel to eat and think. This evening would be the time to steal a boat. It was galling, to have to wait all day, and it left him with the problem of concealing himself for the next twelve hours; but he was too close now to take risks, and stealing a boat in broad daylight was much more risky than at the twilight end of the day.

He finished his breakfast and stood up. It would be a couple of hours before the rest of the city came to life. He would use the time to pick out a good hiding place.

He made a circuit of the docks and the tidal harbor. The security was perfunctory, and he noted several places where he could slip past the checkpoints. He worked his way around to the sandy beach and set off along the two-mile esplanade, at the far end of which a couple of pleasure yachts were moored at the mouth of the River Don. They would have suited Faber's purpose very well, but they would have no fuel.

A thick ceiling of cloud hid the sunrise. The air became very warm and thundery again. A few determined vacationers emerged from seafront hotels and sat stubbornly on the beach, waiting for sunrise. Faber doubted they would get it today.

The beach might be the best place to hide. The police would check the railway station and the bus depot, but they would not mount a full-scale search of the city. They might check a few hotels and guest houses. It was unlikely they would approach everyone on the beach. He decided to spend the day in a deck chair.

He bought a newspaper from a stall and hired a chair. He removed his shirt and put it back on over his overalls. He left his jacket off.

He would see a policeman, if one came, well before he reached the spot where Faber sat. There would be plenty of time to leave the beach and vanish into the streets.

He began to read the paper. There was a new Allied offensive in Italy, the newspaper headlined. Faber was skeptical. Anzio had been a shambles. The paper was badly printed and there were no photographs. He read that the police were searching for one Henry Faber, who had murdered two people in London with a stiletto....

A woman in a bathing suit walked by, looking hard at Faber. His heart missed a beat. Then he realized she was being flirtatious. For an instant he was tempted to speak to her. It had been so long.... He shook himself mentally. Patience, patience. Tomorrow he would be home.

She was a small fishing boat, fifty or sixty feet long and broad in the beam, with an inboard motor. The aerial told of a powerful radio. Most of the deck was taken up with hatches to the small hold below. The cabin was aft, and only large enough to hold two men, standing, plus the dashboard and controls. The hull was clinker-built and newly caulked, and the paintwork looked fresh.

Two other boats in the harbor would have done as well, but Faber had stood on the quay and watched the crew of this one tie her up and refuel before they left for their homes.

He gave them a few minutes to get well away, then walked around the edge of the harbor and jumped onto the boat. She was called Marie II Marie II.

He found the wheel chained up. He sat on the floor of the little cabin, out of sight, and spent ten minutes picking the lock. Darkness was coming early because of the cloud layer that still blanketed the sky.

When he had freed the wheel he raised the small anchor, then jumped back onto the quay and untied the ropes. He returned to the cabin, primed the diesel engine, and pulled the starter. The motor coughed and died. He tried again. This time it roared to life. He began to maneuver out of the mooring.

He got clear of the other craft at the quayside and found the main channel out of the harbor, marked by buoys. He guessed that only boats of much deeper draft really needed to stick to the channel, but he saw no harm in being overcautious.

Once outside the harbor, he felt a stiff breeze, and hoped it was not a sign that the weather was about to break. The sea was surprisingly rough, and the stout little boat lifted high on the waves. Faber opened the throttle wide, consulted the dashboard compa.s.s, and set a course. He found some charts in a locker below the wheel. They looked old and little used; no doubt the boat's skipper knew the local waters too well to need charts. Faber checked the map reference he had memorized that night in Stockwell, set a more exact course, and engaged the wheel-clamp.

The cabin windows were obscured by water, Faber could not tell whether it was rain or spray. The wind was slicing off the tops of the waves now. He poked his head out of the cabin door for a moment, and got his face thoroughly wet.

He switched on the radio. It hummed for a moment, then crackled. He moved the frequency control, wandering the airwaves, and picked up a few garbled messages. The set was working perfectly. He tuned to the U-boat's frequency, then switched off-it was too soon to make contact.

The waves increased in size as he progressed into deeper waters. Now the boat reared up like a bucking horse with each wave, then teetered momentarily at the top before plunging sickeningly down into the next trough. Faber stared blindly out of the cabin windows. Night had fallen, and he could see nothing at all. He felt faintly seasick.

Each time he convinced himself that the waves could not possibly get bigger, a new monster taller than the rest lifted the vessel toward the sky. They started to come closer together, so that the boat was always lying with its stern pointed either up at the sky or down at the sea bed. In a particularly deep trough the little boat was suddenly illuminated, as clearly as if it were a day, by a flash of lightning. Faber saw a grey-green mountain of water descend on the prow and wash over the deck and the cabin where he stood. He could not tell whether the terrible crack that sounded a second afterward was the thunderclap or the noise of the timbers of the boat breaking up. Frantically he searched the cabin for a life jacket. There was none.

The lightning came repeatedly then. Faber held the locked wheel and braced his back against the cabin wall to stay upright. There was no point in operating the controls now-the boat would go where the sea threw it.

He kept telling himself that the boat must be built to withstand such sudden summer gales. He could not convince himself. Experienced fishermen probably would have seen the signs of such a storm and refrained from leaving sh.o.r.e, knowing their vessel could not survive such weather.

He had no idea where he was now. He might be almost back in Aberdeen, or he might be at his rendezvous. He sat on the cabin floor and switched on the radio. The wild rocking and shuddering made it difficult to operate the set. When it warmed up he experimented with the dials but could pick up nothing. He turned the volume to maximum; still no sound.

The aerial must have been broken off its sixing on the cabin roof.

He switched to Transmit and repeated the simple message. "Come in, please," several times; then left the set on Receive. He had little hope of his signal getting through.

He killed the engine to conserve fuel. He was going to have to ride out the storm-if he could-then find a way to repair or replace the aerial. He might need his fuel.

The boat slid terrifyingly sideways down the next big wave, and Faber realized he needed the engine power to ensure that the vessel met the waves head-on. He pulled the starter. Nothing happened. He tried several times, then gave up, cursing himself for switching it off.

The boat now rolled so far onto its side that Faber fell and cracked his head on the wheel. He lay dazed on the cabin floor, expecting the vessel to turn turtle at any minute. Another wave crashed on the cabin, shattering the gla.s.s in the windows. And suddenly Faber was under water. Certain the boat was sinking, he struggled to his feet and broke surface. All the windows were out, but the vessel was still floating. He kicked open the cabin door and the water gushed out. He clutched the wheel to prevent himself being washed into the sea.

Incredibly, the storm continued to get worse. One of Faber's last coherent thoughts was that these waters probably did not see such a storm more than once in a century. Then all his concentration and will were focused on the problem of keeping hold of the wheel. He should have tied himself to it, but now he did not dare to let go long enough to find a piece of rope. He lost all sense of up and down as the boat pitched and rolled on waves like cliffs. Gale-force winds and thousands of gallons of water strained to pull him from his place. His feet slipped continually on the wet floor and walls, and the muscles of his arms burned with pain. He sucked air when he found his head above water, but otherwise held his breath. Several times he came close to blacking out, and only vaguely realized that the flat roof of the cabin had disappeared.

He got brief, nightmarish glimpses of the sea whenever the lightning flashed. He was always surprised to see where the wave was: ahead, below, rearing up beside him or completely out of sight. He also discovered with a shock that he could not feel his hands, and looked down to see that they were still locked to the wheel, frozen in a grip like rigor mortis. There was a continuous roar in his ears, the wind indistinguishable from the thunder and the sea.

The power of intelligent thought slipped slowly away from him. In something that was less than a hallucination but more than a daydream, he saw the girl who had stared at him earlier on the beach. She walked endlessly toward him over the bucking deck of the fishing boat, her swimsuit clinging to her body, always getting closer but never reaching him. He knew that, when she came within touching distance, he would take his dead hands from the wheel and reach for her, but he kept saying "Not yet, not yet," as she walked and smiled and swayed her hips. He was tempted to leave the wheel and close the gap himself but something in the back of his mind told him that if he moved he would never reach her, so he waited and watched and smiled back at her from time to time, and even when he closed his eyes he could see her still.

He was slipping in and out of consciousness now. His mind would drift away, the sea and the boat disappearing first, then the girl fading, until he would jerk awake to find that, incredibly, he was still standing, still holding the wheel, still alive; then for a while he would will himself to stay conscious, but eventually exhaustion would take over again.

In one of his last clear moments he noticed that the waves were moving in one direction, carrying the boat with them. Lightning flashed again, and he saw to one side a huge dark ma.s.s, an impossibly high wave-no, it was not a wave, it was a cliff.... The realization that he was close to land was swamped by the fear of being hurled against the cliff and smashed. Stupidly, he pulled the starter, then hastily returned his hand to the wheel; but it would no longer grip.

A new wave lifted the boat and threw it down like a discarded toy. As he fell through the air, still clutching the wheel with one hand, Faber saw a pointed rock like a stiletto sticking up out of the trough of the wave. It seemed certain to impale the boat...but the hull of the craft sc.r.a.ped the edge of the rock and was carried past.

The mountainous waves were breaking now. The next one was too much for the vessel's timbers. The boat hit the trough with a solid impact, and the sound of the hull splitting cracked in his ears like an explosion. Faber knew the boat was finished....

The water had retreated, and Faber realized that the hull had broken because it had hit...land. He stared in dumb astonishment as a new flash of lightning revealed a beach. The sea lifted the ruined boat off the sand as water crashed over the deck again, knocking Faber to the floor. But he had seen everything with daylight clarity in that moment. The beach was narrow, and the waves were breaking right up to the cliff. But there was a jetty, over to his right, and a bridge of some kind leading from the jetty to the cliff top. He knew that if he left the boat for the beach, the next wave would kill him with tons of water or break his head like an egg against the cliff. But if he could reach the jetty in between waves, he might scramble far enough up the bridge to be out of reach of the water.

The next wave split the deck open as if the seasoned wood were no stronger than a banana skin. The boat collapsed under Faber, and he found himself sucked backward by the receding surf. He scrambled upright, his legs like jelly beneath him, and broke into a run, splashing through the shallows toward the jetty. Running those few yards was the hardest physical thing he had ever done. He wanted wanted to stumble, so that he could rest in the water and die, but he stayed upright, just as he had when he won the 5,000-meter race, until he crashed into one of the pillars of the jetty. He reached up and grabbed the boards with his hands, willing them to come back to life for a few seconds; and lifted himself until his chin was over the edge; then swung his legs up and rolled over. to stumble, so that he could rest in the water and die, but he stayed upright, just as he had when he won the 5,000-meter race, until he crashed into one of the pillars of the jetty. He reached up and grabbed the boards with his hands, willing them to come back to life for a few seconds; and lifted himself until his chin was over the edge; then swung his legs up and rolled over.

The wave came as he got to his knees. He threw himself forward. The wave carried him a few yards then flung him against the wooden planking. He swallowed water and saw stars. When the weight lifted from his back he summoned the will to move again. It would not come. He felt himself being dragged inexorably back, and a sudden rage took hold of him. He would not allow it...not now, G.o.dd.a.m.n it. He screamed at the f.u.c.king storm and the sea and the British and Percival G.o.dliman, and suddenly he was on his feet and running, running, away from the sea and up the ramp, running with his eyes shut and his mouth open, a crazy man, daring his lungs to burst and his bones to break; running with no sense of a destination, but knowing he would not stop until he lost his mind.

The ramp was long and steep. A strong man might have run all the way to the top if he were in training and rested. An Olympic athlete, if he were tired, might have got halfway. The average forty-year-old man would have managed a yard or two.

Faber made it to the top.

A yard from the end of the ramp he felt a sharp pain, like a slight heart attack, and lost consciousness, but his legs pumped twice more before he hit the sodden turf.

He never knew how long he lay there. When he opened his eyes the storm still raged, but day had broken, and he could see, a few yards away from him, a small cottage that looked inhabited.

He got to his knees and began the long, interminable crawl to the front door.

18.

THE U-505 WHEELED IN A TEDIOUS CIRCLE, HER WHEELED IN A TEDIOUS CIRCLE, HER powerful diesels chugging slowly as she nosed through the depths like a gray, toothless shark. Lieutenant Commander Werner Heer, her master, was drinking ersatz coffee and trying not to smoke any more cigarettes. It had been a long day and a long night. He disliked his a.s.signment; he was a combat man and there was no combat to be had here; and he thoroughly disliked the quiet Abwehr officer with storybook-sly blue eyes who was an unwelcome guest aboard his submarine. powerful diesels chugging slowly as she nosed through the depths like a gray, toothless shark. Lieutenant Commander Werner Heer, her master, was drinking ersatz coffee and trying not to smoke any more cigarettes. It had been a long day and a long night. He disliked his a.s.signment; he was a combat man and there was no combat to be had here; and he thoroughly disliked the quiet Abwehr officer with storybook-sly blue eyes who was an unwelcome guest aboard his submarine.

The intelligence man, Major Wohl, sat opposite the captain. The man never looked tired, d.a.m.n him. Those blue eyes looked around, taking things in, but the expression in them never changed. His uniform never got rumpled, despite the rigors of underwater life, and he lit a new cigarette every twenty minutes, on the dot, and smoked it to a quarter-inch stub. Heer would have stopped smoking, just so that he could enforce regulations and prevent Wohl from enjoying tobacco, but he himself was too much of an addict.

Heer had never liked intelligence people, he'd always had the feeling they were gathering intelligence on him. Nor did he like working with the Abwehr. His vessel was made for battle, not for skulking around the British coast waiting to pick up secret agents. It seemed to him plain madness to risk a costly piece of fighting machinery, not to mention its skilled crew, for the sake of one man who might well fail to show up.

He emptied his cup and made a face. "d.a.m.n coffee," he said. "Tastes vile."

Wohl's expressionless gaze rested on him for a moment, then moved away. He said nothing.

Forever cryptic. To h.e.l.l with him. Heer shifted restlessly in his seat. On the bridge of a ship he would have paced up and down, but men on submarines learn to avoid unnecessary movement. He finally said, "Your man won't come in this weather, you know."

Wohl looked at his watch. "We will wait until 6 A.M A.M.," he said easily.

It was not an order-Wohl could not give orders to Heer; but the bald statement of fact was still an insult to a superior officer. Heer told him so.

"We will both follow our orders," Wohl said. "As you know, they originate from a very high authority indeed."

Heer controlled his anger. The young man was right, of course. Heer would follow his orders, but when they returned to port he would report Wohl for insubordination. Not that it would do much good; fifteen years in the Navy had taught Heer that headquarters people were a law into themselves.... "Well, even if your man is fool enough to venture out tonight, he is certainly not seaman enough to survive."

Wohl's only reply was the same blank gaze.

Herr called to the radio operator. "Weissman?"

"Nothing, sir."

Wohl said, "I have a feeling that the murmurs we heard a few hours ago were from him."

"If they were, he was a long way from the rendezvous, sir," the radio operator said. "To me it sounded more like lightning."

Heer added, "If it was not him, it was not him. If it was him, he is drowned."

"You don't know this man," Wohl said, and this time there was actually a trace of emotion in his voice.

Heer didn't answer. The engine note altered slightly, and he thought he could distinguish a faint rattle. If it increased on the journey home he would have it looked at in the port. He might do that anyway, just to avoid another voyage with the unspeakable Major Wohl.

A seaman looked in. "Coffee, sir?"

Heer shook his head. "If I drink any more I'll be p.i.s.sing coffee."

Wohl said, "I will please." He took out a cigarette.

Which made Heer look at his watch. It was ten past six. The subtle Major Wohl had delayed his six o'clock cigarette to keep the U-boat there a few extra minutes. Heer said, "Set a course for home."

"One moment," Wohl said. "I think we should take a look on the surface before we leave."

"Don't be a fool," Heer said. He knew that he was on safe ground now. "Do you realize what kind of storm is raging up there? We wouldn't be able to open the hatch, and the periscope will show up nothing that is more than a few yards away."

"How can you tell what the storm is like from this depth?"

"Experience."

"Then at least send a signal to base telling them that our man has not made contact. They may order us to stay here."

Heer gave an exasperated sigh. "It's not possible to make radio contact from this depth, not with base."

Wohl's calm finally broke. "Commander Heer, I strongly recommend you surface and radio home before leaving this rendezvous. The man we are to pick up has vital information. The Fuehrer is waiting for his report."

Heer looked at him. "Thank you for letting me have your opinion, Major," he said. He turned away. "Full ahead both," he ordered.

The sound of the twin diesels rose to a roar, and the U-boat began to pick up speed.

Part Four

19.