Night of Error. Desmond Bagley
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this and enjoy your leave now. The South Atlantic is waiting for you when you return.’
He turned and strode away, jauntily waving his stick. I looked after him with affection; I thought he would be genuinely sorry to lose me if the deal with Campbell came off and I went to the South Pacific instead of the South Atlantic. He would once more angrily bewail the economic facts of life which drew researchers into industry and he would write a few acid letters to the journals.
I turned to Geordie. ‘What do you make of that?’
‘Norgaard vanished just about the same time that Mark kicked the bucket. I wonder if …’
‘I know what you’re thinking, Geordie. Is Norgaard still alive? I do hope to God Campbell comes through – I want to do some field work in the islands.’
‘You had something to tell me,’ he reminded me. But I had decided to save it up.
‘I’ll tell you and Campbell together. Come with me to see him.’
V
Campbell was less crusty than at our first meeting. ‘Well,’ he said, as we entered his suite, ‘I see you’re not entirely a hardened criminal, Trevelyan.’
‘Not a stain on my character. The coroner said so.’ I introduced Geordie and the two big men sized one another up with interest. ‘Mr Wilkins is willing to contribute a ship – and skipper her, too.’
Campbell said, ‘I see someone has faith in your crazy story. I suppose that getting hurt added to your conviction.’
‘What about you?’ I asked.
He ignored this and asked what we would drink. ‘We must celebrate a successful evasion of the penalty of the law,’ he said, almost jovially. He ordered and we got down to business. I decided to keep the Kane episode to be revealed at the proper moment and first hear what Campbell had to say.
‘I knew my hunch about your South Americans would work out,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a pretty good intelligence system – you have to in my line of work – and I find that Suarez-Navarro are fitting out a research ship in Darwin right at this moment. It’s new business and new territory for them, so my guess is that they are heading your way.’
I looked at him blankly. That didn’t mean a thing to me.
I think he enjoyed my lack of comprehension because he left me dangling for a while before elucidating. ‘Suarez-Navarro is a South American mining house, active in several countries,’ he said. ‘I’ve tangled with them before – they’re a crowd of unscrupulous bastards. Now, why would a mining house be fitting out an oceanographical research ship?’
‘Nodules,’ said Geordie succinctly.
‘How unscrupulous are they?’ I asked. ‘Would they stoop to burglary?’ I didn’t mention murder.
Campbell folded his hands together. ‘I’ll tell you the story and let you judge for yourself. Once I had a pretty good set-up in South America, never mind just where. The mines were producing well and I ploughed a lot back in the interests of good labour relations. I had a couple of schools, a hospital and all the civilized trimmings. Those Indian miners never had it so good, and they responded well.
‘Suarez-Navarro cast an eye on the operation and liked the look of it. They went about things in their own smelly way, though. They had a trouble-shooter, a guy called Ernesto Ramirez, whom they used for that type of operation. He pitched up, got at the government, greased a few palms, supported the Army, and then suddenly there was a new government – which promptly expropriated the mines in the interests of the national economy – or that’s what they said. Anyway, I never got a cent out of it. They just took the lot and Ramirez vanished back into the hole they dug him out of.
‘The next thing that happened was that the government wanted somebody to run the mines, so Suarez-Navarro offered to take on the job out of the kindness of their hearts and a hefty percentage of the profits. I had been paying 38 per cent tax but Suarez-Navarro got away tax free since they claimed it was really government property anyway. They had a sweet set-up.
‘They closed the schools and the hospital – those things don’t produce, you see. Pretty soon they had a strike on their hands. If you treat a man like a man he kind of resents going back to being treated like a pig – so there was a strike. That brought Ramirez out of his hole fast. He called in the Army, there was quite a bit of shooting, and then there was suddenly no strike – just fifty dead Indians and quite a few widows.’
He smiled grimly. ‘Does that answer your question about the scruples of Suarez-Navarro?’
I nodded. It was a nasty story.
Campbell seemed to go off at a tangent. ‘I’m attending a conference here in London, a conference on mineral resources.’
‘That’s how I found you,’ I murmured, but he took no notice.
‘It’s a Commonwealth deal really but various other interested parties have been invited to send observers. Suarez-Navarro have two – you can’t keep them out of anything – but another one arrived last week. His name is Ernesto Ramirez.’ Campbell’s voice was hard. ‘Ramirez isn’t a conference man, he’s not a negotiator. He’s Suarez-Navarro’s muscle man. Do I make my point?’
We both nodded, intently.
‘Well, I’m going to hammer it home really hard. I’ve found Kane for you.’
‘Well, I’ll be damned!’ I said.
‘You were going about it the hard way. I put someone on to watch Ramirez and was told that a man called Kane had a two-hour talk with him yesterday. We had Kane followed to where he’s in digs and I have the address.’
I reeled it off.
It was effective. Campbell said, ‘What?’ disbelievingly, and Geordie gaped at me. I enjoyed my moment.
‘Kane came to visit me this morning,’ I said, and told them both what had happened. ‘I suggest you get him down to the docks and have a serious talk with him,’ I said to Geordie.
Campbell frowned and then his great smile broke on his face. ‘No, you don’t,’ he said. ‘Don’t ask him a damn thing. Don’t you see what’s happening?’
Geordie and I shrugged helplessly. We weren’t quick enough for Campbell in matters like this.
‘Ever heard of industrial espionage? Of course you have. Every big outfit runs a spy system. I do it myself – don’t much like it, but I’ve got to keep up with the hard-nosed bastards in the business.’ He actually looked as if he enjoyed it very much. ‘Now let’s reconstruct what’s been happening. You got hold of something you shouldn’t have – from the point of view of Suarez-Navarro. Ramirez hotfoots it to England – he arrived the day before Kane came to see you, so it’s a cinch they came together. Kane comes to you to find out if Mark’s stuff has arrived yet, and he knows it has because you tell him so yourself. He spins you a yarn as cover – it doesn’t really matter what it is. Then Ramirez tells his boys to snatch the stuff but you surprise them in the middle.’ He lifted his eyebrows. ‘Does that make sense so far?’
Geordie said, ‘It makes sense to me.’
I said nothing. I was a little more doubtful, but if this served to keep up Campbell’s interest I was all for it.
He continued, ‘But something goes wrong – they leave the diary and one nodule. Ramirez doesn’t know this, but he does know you’ve contacted me and that all sorts of enquiries are out – including questions in court about nodules. Oh yes, I bet he was there – or someone for him. He must have had a shock when you came to see me. You see, he’d keep a tail on you as a matter of routine just to see if you did anything out of the ordinary – and you did. So what does Ramirez do now?’
‘I’ll