And Tilson, sipping his tea in the Caff.
'Who was operating that one?'
'Quiller.'
'Good grief, I've never known him miss'
'We all do, old boy, in the end.'
Exhaust gas blew past me from the DC-6.
The next plane out was at noon tomorrow and the night plane had already taken off for the coast: I'd heard it when I was with Shadia.
'By the way,' I said, 'they think I'm dead,'
'Oh do they?'
But it was shut-ended.
It was the perfect cover, and she'd handed it to me when she'd stood there in the lamplight pumping six slow shots into the shape of the rolled-up rug on the bed, firing blind through the mosquito net but making sure, taking her time, working from the head and down along the spine to the coccyx. The perfect cover.
But I couldn't use it.
'There's no way,' Ferris asked rather tightly, 'of going aboard with them?'
'No way.'
I could see them from where I stood, waiting at the departure gate and checking everyone in sight. They thought I was dead but they'd recognize- me and realize there was a mistake and they'd rectify it and this time they'd make sure.
'Can you think of anything,' Ferris asked me, 'that I could do?'
'No.'
I'd already thought about it and there was nothing. I'd thought of a hundred things, and there was nothing.
Ferris couldn't get here before take-off in nine minutes and even if he could get here it'd be no go because he'd come into Manaus from Belem on the same flight as Satynovich Zade and Zade would recognize him and if he tried to follow the Kobra group they'd know it and deal with him. Ferris was in any case the director in the field and his function was totally different from the executive's: he was here to run me from phase to phase and keep me in signals with Control and provide me with access and cover and directives, and if the opposition wrote me off or I became missing or overdue on a rendezvous then Ferris would remain in the field where London could find him. In any mission me end-phase can blow wide open and the director can go through half a dozen executives and finally bring in a hit for Control, regardless of cost.
The executive is dispensable; the director is not.
I looked at my watch.
04:12.
'What about Interpol?' I asked him.
'No,' he said. 'Not twice.'
The rules are quite explicit on this: London can use Interpol at its own discretion but the director in the field can only make one appeal to its services unless a signal permits it. The Bureau doesn't exist and if too much contact is made with other services the involvement deepens and becomes dangerous: Ferris had asked for Interpol's help when I was holed up in quarantine and the local police had co-operated; but if we asked them again they'd start taking an interest and they'd want to know who this group of Europeans were and finally they'd want to know who we were and we couldn't tell them. And there was only a hairline between that point and a breach of security.
Further: the United States Secretary of Defence had called on the Bureau for an ultra-secret operation, exclusive of the FBI and me CIA and therefore exclusive, by definition, of the Brazilian police.
The four engines of the DC-6 gunned up a degree and then fell to idling. Movement came towards my right and I looked in that direction and saw the passengers being led across the tarmac to the plane.
04:13.
One of the major functions of the local director is to think for his agent.
'Ferris.'
'Yes?'
He knew what I was going to ask.
'Have you got a directive for me?'
At this moment the Kobra mission was still running.
'No.'
Then it stopped.
Chapter Fifteen: GHOST
Noise.
Darkness.
The noise deafening but the darkness not total.
Vibration beginning as the power came on. Increasing vibration.
I couldn't see my watch. Its digits were luminous but it was out of sight and I couldn't bring my hand down. In any case time wasn't significant: the Amazonas Airlines DC-6 was down for take-off at 04:20 hours and that would be the approximate time now because the engines were hitting peak revolutions and the wheels were rolling.
Very little was visible in my immediate environs: vague dark shapes, the gleam of a highlight on metal, nothing more. Below me the rubber-streaked surface of the runway was slipping past mesmerically, the streaks becoming a blur in the faint glow from the exhaust flames.
Estimated ground-speed seventy.
The roaring was infinite, quelling the senses: the ears being deafened, vision seemed impaired, and I believed it was growing darker. Perhaps it was. During this phase I could do nothing except wait and hope to survive.
Estimated ground-speed a hundred and twenty plus.
Errant and abstract thought: a noise like this could bring the sky down. Thunder must sound like this in the instant of its inception.
The runway was now blurred to the point of looking perfectly smooth, and the last chance of changing my mind had gone: if I dropped to the ground now the spinning tonnage of the twin wheels would leave a sudden red smudge along the concrete.
I hadn't told Ferris what I was going to do. There hadn't been time.
My right foot was slipping again and I pulled upwards, feeling the electrical conduit flex critically under the strain. The problem was to keep my body arched against the curved top of the wheelbay, giving me a chance of escaping the Wheels when they slammed home and locked. This was the only place where I could hope to survive: right at the top and right at the back, lodged against the transverse flight-control cables and their rack of pulleys. The engine-control cables ran fore and aft above my head and I had to remember they were there and keep clear of them. I had also to remember that if I lost purchase and grabbed for any handhold available, the flight-control cables were within dangerously easy reach and my weight on them could disturb the aircraft's trim to the point of crashing it.
The vibration was easing.
Easing.
Lift-off.
The nick-flick-flick of the runway lights, falling away.
It was going to happen now and I was suddenly exposed to the last-second thought that I'd got it wrong: there wasn't enough room in here. The landing lock was going to fold on the fulcrum and the oleo strut was going to swing up and bring the wheels with it, their huge tyres spinning and their weight forced into the bay by the hydraulics, slamming home as the doors came together below.
There hadn't been time to measure anything, even crudely. There'd only been time to look upwards and assess the chances and I'd done that and I'd thought the chances were good but at that time I'd been on the ground and in no immediate danger and now I was jammed into a death-trap and when the wheels came up they were going to crush me against the bulkhead and the only think I knew for certain was that it was going to be quick.
Lights falling away.
Then darkness below. The jungle.
There hadn't been time to tell Ferris what I was going to do because I hadn't known I was going to do it till a few minutes before take-off. This flight and the night-mail service were the only traffic movements between dusk and dawn and there was a skeleton staff at Manaus and I'd had the choice of a dozen pairs of mechanic's overalls in the ground crew locker room, together with the ear-mufflers. The baggage-trolley had gone out past the emergency bay and I took a lift at the rear end where the driver couldn't see me.
The electrician had been busy with his gear and the checker was talking to the navigator through the flight deck window when I'd looked into the wheelbay and made the decision. To vanish into the wheelbay of a DC-6 takes approximately three seconds and kids do it in Cuba and some of them survive.