‘I bet you have,’ Shaw snapped. ‘If the sound of the British Ambassador scares you, I’d like to ring someone else, or send a cable. A certain Senor Carlos Villroel in Concepción, Bolivia…’
‘I am sorry. I have my orders,’ the sergeant repeated.
After a while Shaw was forced to subside, keeping hold of his temper as best he could. What was the use, he thought bitterly. Fleck was far too well organized. This had clearly been all laid on and the authorities just weren’t going to be interested in anything he had to say. He’d walked into a trap — and he had walked into it with his eyes open, to some extent. He’d been a complete fool. Once he got to the gaol, he supposed they might let him talk for the sake of appearances, but none of it would go any farther than the Governor’s office, he was quite convinced of that. They would write him off as crazy. The one hope now was Debonnair.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Rio Grande’s gaol was a grim, depressing place, cold and draughty and utterly forbidding — as bad in its different way as the desolate area where the Moehne was on station. Shaw and Patricia were separated again now. Shaw felt desperate, claustrophobic in a small cell at the end of a long stone-floored passage, a feeling which worsened with every hour that ticked so slowly and yet so inexorably away. Time was running out and no one would listen to him. His requests to see the Governor had all been turned down flat.
The four days he had given Debonnair, the four days after which she was to contact the British Ambassador to the Argentine, had elapsed and nothing had happened. Just — nothing.
Had she forgotten… or hadn’t anyone taken any notice of her either? Who was in this thing, where did the list of involved persons end, for heaven’s sake?
Shaw groaned aloud in the privacy of his cell.
As things were, he might just as well have stayed aboard the Moehne—stayed, and tried in whatever way he could dream up to put that control room out of action before Friday. Lindrath might have been able to help; as it was, all the old man had done had been wasted.
Worrying about what was past didn’t help, though…
With difficulty Shaw ate the meals provided for him; they seemed to stick in his throat, but somehow he choked down the coarse, ill-cooked, horrible food. He took his solitary exercise in the prison yard under escort of a frigid-faced warder whose one concern was to prevent his charge speaking to any of the prisoners they sometimes chanced to pass in the yard. Shaw took that lonely and depressing exercise under grey, unfriendly skies, which increased his terrifyingly pessimistic gloom. There was no reason to doubt that Fleck had his facts right and that meant there were five days left now before Warmaster went on test. Five days in which he could save so many lives, so many unsuspecting lives in the most terrible and wicked danger — if only someone would listen to him! Patricia O’Malley, he was certain, would be having no more luck. If they wouldn’t listen to him they would hardly listen to her. This thing was far too well planned, far too many people had had their bankrolls enhanced in order to quieten their consciences. They wouldn’t help. And Rudolf Fleck, that astute attorney, must be killing himself laughing.…
It was the most anxious and the most frustrating period Shaw had ever undergone. But — a couple of days later something happened.
The summons came just after he had had his midday meal, the summons by a gaoler to the Governor’s office. Shaw obeyed that summons initially with a sinking heart, a nasty feeling in the pit of his stomach and his thoughts going round in circles. The date of his trial had been fixed — or even the date of his execution. Each footfall along the stony prison corridors seemed a knell of doom to him.
But all that changed when he was pushed forward into the Governor’s office. General Ario, a gross, flabby man sitting scowling blackly behind a desk, was clearly furious and discomfited; and in a chair on the right of the room was a tall, elegant man with an amused, offhand manner, slightly greying hair and an authoritative mouth — an Englishman, who smiled and nodded at Shaw.
The sun began to shine again, figuratively — and Shaw knew who he had to thank for that: Debonnair, up in Concepción, hadn’t forgotten after all. He’d never really believed she would do that, of course. Probably it had taken time for the official wheels to grind over.…
The Governor had looked up briefly at Shaw as he came in and had then gone on reading something on his desk, or pretending to. Then he looked up again and glanced across at the tall man. He said stiffly, ‘This is the man, Senor Etherington.’ He spoke to Shaw next. ‘This is Senor Etherington of the British Embassy in Buenos Aires. He has come to me with certain — I can only call them — demands.’
‘Oh, come! Surely not that.’ Etherington spoke in a light and pleasant voice. He smiled almost gaily. ‘I’m in no position to make demands, oh dear me no! General, I really wouldn’t presume… no, it’s only that we’re naturally somewhat concerned about a British national charged with a serious crime.’ He grinned in a friendly way. ‘Wouldn’t you be, about one of yours, if you were in my shoes?’
‘That is scarcely the point, Senor Etherington. You have not yet explained satisfactorily how you know about this.’
‘Ah well,’ the diplomat said vaguely, ‘we have our means of — er — communication, as you, no doubt, have yours. What? But surely it was never your intention that we shouldn’t know, was it, General?’
‘You would, naturally, have been informed in due course through the proper channels,’ the Governor answered sharply.
‘Yes, quite… he’s been in custody how long? Three and a half days? That’s not long enough for the proper channels to operate, I take it?’
The Governor glared and snapped his teeth angrily, but he didn’t answer that one. Etherington went on, ‘Anyway, I’ve been instructed by my Embassy to take an interest in this man. I expect you know already from one source or another that he’s a serving officer of the British Navy. We’re convinced that in fact he did not commit this crime.’
‘Is there, then, some connexion between the non-commission of crimes and serving officers of your Navy?’
Etherington smiled. ‘No, not necessarily, not necessarily at all. It just happens that we don’t believe this one did. Commit the crime, I mean.’
‘That is entirely a matter for—’
‘For your judiciary. Yes, of course it is, General, and I don’t dispute that for one single moment, since the alleged offence—’
‘The actual offence—’
‘… since the alleged offence took place in your territory. Naturally, I’m only giving our opinion. Still, it is our opinion and we’re sticking to it. There are certain factors I don’t propose to go into just now, factors which make us anxious to take temporary delivery of this man — and the girl also, I might add.’
‘The girl also?’ Ario threw up his hands in despair.
‘Why yes,’ Etherington said casually. ‘She’s American, I know, but I’m sure you’ll understand.’
‘But I do not understand!’ The Governor waved his arms in the air, wildly, then thumped the table. ‘This is impossible — impossible, I tell you, quite impossible!’
‘Quite, quite.’ Etherington’s voice was soothing again. ‘So you have already said. Pray do not overexcite yourself, General. At your age it isn’t wise, really it isn’t…’ He sighed and, closing his eyes, leaned back in the chair. Still with his eyes closed, and his fingertips pontifically together, he murmured, ‘This is all rather distressing, General, for me as well as for you. I do hate to bring up… well certain matters, but… really, our Government is most concerned about this affair. So, for that matter, is the United States Government. Er… I don’t know if I make myself perfectly clear, but you’ll understand, I’m sure, that governments can occasionally be — well—obliging to each other, General Ario?’