Pierre Fernet’s secretary told Maxim that he was expected, but he hesitated for a second in front of Fernet’s closed office door, checking for the presence of the notebook in his hand and the sharpened pencil and ballpoint pen in his pocket. After all, the chances were that he was just being called for a simple translation job. He tapped lightly.
“Come in, Monsieur Nevsky.”
The first thing Maxim noticed as he entered was that Fernet had a guest. A small female figure with carefully combed blondish hair and a light blue cotton dress was seated before his desk, her back to Maxim.
Fernet pushed his pudgy frame off his office chair and stood up to his full, rotund, five foot three. His gravelly voice seemed incongruous with his stature. “Monsieur Nevsky, I would like to introduce you to Madame Shannon,” he said.
The lady turned, offering Maxim her hand. “How do you do, Monsieur Nevsky.” Her French had a touch of the English public school in it. She was older than Maxim had expected from his rear view and appeared to be a well-cared-for lady in her early fifties with a bit of gray mixed in the honey yellow of her hair. Her face was smooth, but there was a sadness about her eyes that might have added a few years to Maxim’s assessment of her age.
“We haven’t met before, Monsieur Nevsky,” Pierre Fernet said, “but Monsieur Frenetti has recommended you for a special job. It will require your knowledge of English, Rumanian, and Russian, but I must admit I’m not quite sure you would be, ah, comfortable in this assignment.”
Maxim felt a small wave of excitement rising. Perhaps at last he might be getting away from his desk job.
“I am sure I can handle any assignment you might give me,” he said. “As my dossier indicates, I’ve had quite a bit of experience as an investigative agent. As far as my age is concerned—”
“In this case, your age and appearance are an advantage. The problem is that the assignment I have in mind will take the agent into the old U.S.S.R. We know, of course, that you left there illegally several years ago, but since Interpol is an independent organization, not bound by any one nation’s laws, we felt there would be no problem in our using your particular linguistic abilities here in France — especially since the U.S.S.R. was never a member of Interpol and you had applied for French citizenship. In the old U.S.S.R., however, you would have been considered a defector. There have been many changes there since then, but how would you feel about it if you had to go back?”
“Monsieur Fernet, even though I worked for the KGB in the Odessa region for many years, I was never really at ease in that political environment. As you must know from my dossier, that’s why I, shall we say, ‘departed’ that country. But I always did my job there well, and since I left, I’ve never used any knowledge I might have against my former homeland. In today’s environment, as an agent of Interpol, I don’t believe I would have any difficulty in returning.”
Fernet studied Maxim for a moment. Then he sat down and said, “All right, Monsieur Nevsky. I’ll explain our problem. As you know, the Rumanian and the Ukrainian security police may have their little weaknesses, and they don’t particularly like each other, but when it comes to the illegal importation of narcotics, they are very strict and actually cooperate to some extent. A few months ago, even though the Ukrainians are not members of our organization, we were notified by their police that they had arrested several addicts in the port city of Odessa, and that those men had pointed them to one of the biggest sources of drugs in the area. It is the same type of narcotics that the Rumanian police have been reporting in large quantities around their Black Sea ports. The Ukrainian informants have identified a recently privatized clothing manufacturer in Odessa that calls itself Para Clothing as the source of the drugs. The authorities there have purposely refrained from immediately closing in on that factory because they and the Rumanians would like to know how the drugs are being smuggled into the country and who is at the other end of the pipeline. We are not talking here of a kilo or two a week but of large quantities being supplied over a considerable length of time. The Ukrainians know that if they close up their end of the drug route any suppliers outside their country will simply find another receiver. The way the country is today, it would be very easy for them to do so.”
“It would seem to me, sir,” said Maxim, “that the Ukrainian government should know how and from where Para Clothing receives its imported materials. A surveillance of those routes and sources—”
“Of course,” interrupted Fernet. “The obvious steps were taken by the Ukrainians and by us. The first thing the Ukrainians did was to have two of their operatives obtain jobs in the receiving department of Para Clothing, where they could thoroughly check all the material brought into the factory. In three months they weren’t able to find an ounce of narcotics in any shipment — but the dope was still going out the back door. They were, however, able to get some useful information for us. The Ukrainians determined that almost all the imported material for Para Clothing came from Istanbul—”
“A prime source of narcotics,” said Maxim.
“True, but also a prime source of mohair and other fabrics they legitimately export. All of Para Clothing’s fabrics come from one distributor in Istanbul, Atlas Ltd. Naturally, we notified the Turkish authorities, and they did very much what the Ukrainians had done. They secretly put operatives to work at that distributor, but again, after several months, no narcotics were discovered leaving the plant.”
“So that leaves the transportation between the two,” mused Maxim half aloud.
“Correct. The Ukrainians noted that all imported shipments to Para Clothing were made via Crescent Shipping Company, a small British-owned shipping line operating in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Crescent owns five ships, but one, the Athenia, seems to have been the carrier most used by Atlas. That ship makes regular freight trips from Istanbul to Odessa, with, not incidentally, a stop at Constanza, Rumania. It also carries a few passengers who want a cheap seven-day Black Sea cruise.”
“Do you believe the narcotics could be put into the cargo while it’s on the ship?”
“Not easily,” frowned Fernet. “The Athenia is what is called a ‘break bulk’ cargo ship. That is, all the material is brought to the ship from the distributor packed in crates, covered and sealed with a heavy tarp, and steel-strapped to wooden pallets. The tines of a forklift truck can slip into the spaces provided by the pallet so the cargo can be moved from warehouse to ship and from ship to destination without ever disturbing the security of the package. Even so, for insurance reasons, all palletized packages are thoroughly inspected for tampering both at the Istanbul docks and at the receiver’s docks. Besides that, we have had our own personnel secretly check the loads going to Para Clothing, even to the extent of ‘accidentally’ breaking a load now and then so we could inspect it right down to the last layer of fabric. If pallet loads were being opened and resealed on a regular basis, the dock cargo checkers or our men would have surely discovered it by now. Remember, we are talking about a fairly large quantity of narcotics being consistently delivered for almost a year. It should have been easy for our men to spot any tampering.”