When Signor Ponti had finally drawn up the necessary papers, Cat Shannon dispatched a series of letters from his Genoa hotel. The first was to Johann Schlinker to tell him that the ship that would be engaged to carry the ammunition from Spain would be the MV Toscana, owned by Spinetti Maritime Shipping Company of Genoa. He himself would need from Schlinker details of where the arms shipment was supposed to be heading, so that the captain could draw up the appropriate manifest.

He included in his letter full details of the Toscana and had already checked with Lloyds Shipping List, to make sure the Toscana was listed there. He told Schlinker he would be contacting him within the next fifteen days.

Another letter went to Alan Baker, so that he could inform the Yugoslav authorities of the name and details of the carrying vessel, so the export license could be granted. Shannon already knew what the manifest would have to read. It would say the vessel was proceeding with her cargo from the Yugoslav port of embarkation to Lome, the capital of Togo.

He wrote a long letter to Mr. Stein as chairman of Tyrone Holdings, instructing him to prepare the papers for a board meeting of the company in his office four days hence, with two resolutions on the agenda. One would be for the company to buy Spinetti Maritime and all its a.s.sets for 26,000 and the other would be to issue a further 26,000 bearer shares of 1 each to Mr. Keith Brown in exchange for a certified check for 26,000.

He dashed off a line to Marc Vlaminck, telling him the pick-up of the cargo in Ostend would have to be delayed until May 20, and another to Langarotti, putting back the Paris rendezvous to May 19.

Last, he sent Simon Endean a letter in London, asking him to meet Shannon in Luxembourg four days hence and to have at his disposal funds amounting to 26,000 for the purchase of the ship to carry the whole operation to the target area.

The evening of May 13 was soft and cool, and several hundred miles along the same coastline Jean-Baptiste Langarotti was driving his truck westward from Hyres on the last stretch into Toulon. He had the window down and sniffed the smell of conifer and maquis coming off the hills to his right. Like Dupree in Lon- don, who was preparing that evening to fly to Ma.r.s.eilles, like Vlaminck in Ostend, who was putting the final touches to his fifth and last oil drum of guns, Langarotti was content with life.

He had in the back of the truck the last two outboard engines, bought for cash and equipped with underwater exhaust attachments for silent running. He was on his way back to Toulon to deliver them to the bonded warehouse. Already in the warehouse of Maritime Duphot were three inflatable black dinghies, each crated and unopened, and the third engine. Also there were four large crates of a.s.sorted clothing that had arrived over the past two weeks from London in his own name. He too would be ready on tune.

It was a pity he had had to move from his hotel. A chance encounter with an old underworld friend as he left the doorway three days ago had forced him to make a quick excuse and move out the following morning. He was now in a new hotel and would have informed Shannon of this, except he did not know where Shannon was. It made no difference. In forty-eight hours, on May 15, he would keep his rendezvous with his chief at the Plaza-Surne hotel in Paris.

The meeting in Luxembourg on May 14 was surprisingly short. Shannon was not present. That morning he had taken delivery from Endean of the 26,000 purchase price for the ship. Just before the board meeting he had met Mr. Stem in his office and handed over to him the doc.u.ments for the sale of the Spinetti Maritime Shipping Company and its vessel, the Tos cana, along with a certified check for 26,000, payable to Tyrone Holdings SA.

Thirty minutes later, Mr. Stem emerged from the board meeting and handed Shannon 26,000 ordinary bearer shares in Tyrone Holdings. He also showed him an envelope which contained the doc.u.ments concerning the sale of the ship to Tyrone, and Tyrone Holdings' check in the name of Signor Alessandro Spinetti. He sealed the envelope, which was addressed to Signer Giulio Ponti at his Genoa office, and gave it to Shannon. The last doc.u.ment he handed over was a board decision to appoint Herr Kurt Semmler managing director of Spinetti Maritimo Shipping Company.

Two days later, in the Italian lawyer's office, the deal was finished. The check for the purchase of the Tos cana had been cleared, and Tyrone Holdings legally owned 100 per cent of Spinetti Maritimo. In respect of this, Signor Ponti dispatched by registered mail the 100 ordinary shares in Spinetti Maritimo to the company office of Tyrone in Luxembourg. As a separate matter, Signor Ponti accepted a package from Shannon and locked it in his vault for safekeeping. He took two sample signatures from Shannon, in the name of Keith Brown, to be able later to certify the authenticity of any letter from Shannon regarding disposal of the package. Unknown to Ponti, the package contained the 26,994 controlling shares of Tyrone.

Carl Waldenberg received his captaincy and his six-month contract, and the Serbian engineer was kept on. One month's salary was paid to each man in cash, and the remaining five months' pay for each was placed in escrow in the hands of Signor Ponti.

The Italian deckhand was persuaded without difficulty to take his 500 severance pay, plus a bonus of 100, and left the crew. Semmler was installed as managing director.

Shannon had had a further 5000 transferred from Brugge to his credit in Genoa, and with this he had covered the two salaries of the crewmen who were remaining with the Toscana, Before he left Genoa on May 18, he handed the rest over to Semmler and gave him his briefing.

"How about the two replacements for the crew?"

"Waldenberg is seeing to it already," Semmler told him. "He reckons this port is crawling with men available for recruitment. He knows the place inside out. He also knows what we need. Good hard men, the kind who ask no questions and do what they are told, particularly if they know there is a bonus at the end of it. Don't worry, he'll have a good pair before the end of the week."

"Right. Fine. This is what I want. Get the Toscana ready for sea. A complete engine overhaul and servicing. Port dues paid up, papers in order with the new captain's name. Manifest prepared for Toulon to pick up general cargo for Morocco. Get her fueled and supplied. Take on enough stores for the crew plus a further dozen men. Extra fresh water, beer, wine, cigarettes. When she's ready, take her to Toulon. You have to be there by June first, at the latest. I'll be there with Marc, Jean-Baptiste, and Janni. Contact me through the shipping agent, Agence Maritime Duphot. They're in the port area. I'll see you then. Good luck."

17.

Jean-Baptiste Langarotti was alive, in part, at least, because of his ability to sense danger before it came looking for him. The first day he reported to the Paris hotel, he just sat quietly at the appointed hour in the residents' lounge and read a magazine. He gave Shannon two hours, but the mercenary leader did not show up.

On the off chance, the Corsican inquired at the reception desk, for although Shannon had said nothing about staying the night, it might be he had arrived early and taken a room. The reception clerk checked the register and informed Langarotti there was no Monsieur Brown from London in the hotel. Langarotti a.s.sumed Shannon had been delayed and would make the rendezvous at the same hour on the next day.

So the Corsican was there, sitting in the residents' lounge, at the same hour on May 16. There was still no Shannon, but there was something else. Twice the same staff member of the hotel peeked into the room and vanished as soon as Langarotti looked up. After another two hours, Shannon still not having come, he left the hotel again. As he pa.s.sed down the street he had a glimpse of a man in the corner doorway showing a bizarre interest in the window into which he was staring with such fixed intensity. The shop window was full of women's corsets. Langarotti had the feeling the man was one component that did not fit into the pattern of that quiet back street on a spring morning.

Over the next twenty-four hours the Corsican began to sniff the wind in the bars of Paris where mercenaries forgather, using his old contacts of the Corsican Union in the Paris underworld. He continued to go to the hotel each morning, and on the fifth morning, that of May 19, Shannon was there.

He had arrived the previous evening by plane from Genoa and Milan, and had stayed the night at the hotel. He seemed in good spirits and told his colleague over coffee in the lounge that he had bought a ship for their operation.

"No problems?" asked Langarotti.

Shannon shook his head. "No problems."

"But here in Paris we have a problem."

Unable to strop his knife in such a public place, the small Corsican sat with his hands idle in his lap. Shannon put down his coffee cup. He knew if Langarotti referred to problems, that meant trouble.

"Such as?" he asked softly.

"There's a contract on you," said Langarotti.

The two men sat in silence for a while, as Shannon considered the news. His friend did not interrupt. He usually answered questions only when they were asked. *

"Do you know who placed it?" asked Shannon.

"No. Nor who has taken it up. But it's high, about five thousand dollars."

"Recently?"

"The word is, the contract was placed some time in the past six weeks. It seems uncertain whether the contractor, who must be Paris-based, is the one who placed it, or whether he is acting for someone behind the scenes. The word is, only a good hit-man would take a contract on you, or a stupid one. But someone has taken it. Inquiries are being made about you."

Shannon cursed silently. He had little doubt the Corsican was right. He was too careful a man to go bandying unchecked information like that around. He tried to think back to any incident that might have given rise to the placing of a contract on his head. The trouble was, there were so many possible reasons, some of which he knew he could not even guess.

Methodically he began to go over the possibilities he could envisage. Either the contract stemmed from something to do with the present operation, or it came from a motive that lay further back. He considered the first option first.

Had there been a leak? Had some government agency received a whiff of intelligence that he was mounting a coup in Africa and decided to stop it permanently by snuffing out the operations commander? The thought even crossed his mind that Sir James Man-son had learned of his ewe lamb's multiple ravishing -if that was the word for such an experienced Lolita. He rejected all three possibilities. It could be that he had offended someone in the murky world of the black-market arms dealers, who had decided to settle the score the hard way while remaining in the background. But such a move would have been preceded by an argument over a deal, a squabble over money, a stand-up row, or threats. There had been none.

He turned his memory further back, to the wars and the fights gone by. The trouble was, one never knew if one might at some time have angered a big organization without meaning to. Perhaps one of the men he had gunned down had secretly been an agent of the CIA or the KGB. Both organizations bore long grudges and, being peopled by the world's most savagely unprincipled men, insisted on settling scores even when there was no pragmatic motive, but simply for revenge. He was aware the CIA still had an open-ended hit contract out on Bruce Rossiter, who had shot an American in a bar in Leopoldville because the man was staring at him. The American, it had later turned out, was one of the horde of local CIA men, though Rossiter had not known this. His ignorance did not help him. The contract still went out, and Rossiter was still running.

The KGB was as bad. It sent a.s.sa.s.sins across the world to liquidate fugitives, foreign agents who had hurt the KGB and had been blown for all to see, and were thus unprotectable by their own former employers; and the Russians needed no practical motive, like the information in the man's head that he had not yet spilled. They did it just for revenge.

That left the French SDECE and the British SIS. The French could have taken him a hundred times over the past two years and made sure it happened in the jungles of Africa. Moreover, they would not place the deal with a Paris contractor and risk a leak. They had their own men, good ones, on the staff. The British were even less likely. Legalistic to the end, they would have to get permission from almost Cabinet level for a hit and used the method only in the direst emergency, to prevent a vital leak, to create a nasty example to encourage others to have confidence in the Service, or occasionally to even a score where one of their own men had been knowingly knocked over by an identifiable killer. Shannon was sure he had never hit a white-carded Britisher, and that left the motive of preventing an embarra.s.sment. The Russians and French would kill for that reason, but not the British. They had left Stephen Ward alive to stand trial and nearly ruin the Macmil lan government; they had left Philby alive after he was blown, and Blake too; in France or Russia both traitors would have entered the road-accident statistics.

That left a private firm. The Corsican Union? No, Langarotti could not have stuck by him if it had been the Union. So far as he knew, he had never upset the Mafia in Italy or the Syndicate in America. That took the matter back to a private individual with a private grudge. If it was not a government agency and not a big private firm, it had to be an individual. But who, for G.o.d's sake?

Langarotti was still watching him, waiting for his reaction. Shannon kept his face still, his air bored.

"Do they know I'm here in Paris?"

"I think so. I believe they know about this hotel. You always stay here. It's a mistake. I was here four days ago, as you had said-"

"Didn't you get my letter, putting the meeting back to today?"

"No. I had to move from my Ma.r.s.eilles hotel a week ago."

"Oh. Go on."

"There was someone watching the hotel the second time I came. I had already asked for you by the name of Brown. So I think the leak came from inside this hotel. The man was watching yesterday and today."

"So I change hotels," said Shannon.

"You might shake him. You might not. Someone knows the name of Keith Brown. They could find you elsewhere. How much do you have to be in Paris over the next few weeks?"

"Quite a bit," admitted Shannon. "I have to go through several times, and we have to bring Marc's stuff down from Belgium to Toulon through Paris in two days."

Langarotti shrugged. "They might not find you. We don't know how good they are, or how many of them. Or who. But they might find you a second time. Then there would be problems, perhaps with the police."

"I can't afford that. Not now. Not with Marc's consignment sitting in the truck," said Shannon.

He was a reasonable man and would much prefer to have negotiated with the one who had placed the contract on him. But whoever it was had chosen to do it the other way.

Shannon would still have tried to talk to the man, but first he had to identify him. There was only one man who could do that for him: the man who had taken the contract to kill him. He put this to the Corsi-can, who nodded somberly.

"Yes, mon ami, I think you're right. We have to take the hit-man. But first he must be lured out."

"Will you help me, Jean-Baptiste?"

"Of course," said Langarotti. "Whoever it is, it is not the Union. It is not my people, so I am your man."

They spent close to an hour with a street map of Paris on the table in front of them. Then Langarotti left.

During the day he parked his Ma.r.s.eilles-registered truck at an agreed prearranged spot. In the late afternoon Shannon went to the reception desk and asked the way to a well-known restaurant a mile away. He was within earshot of the hotel clerk who had been described to him by Langarotti. The chief receptionist told him where the restaurant was.

"Within walking distance?" asked Shannon.

"But certainly, m'sieur. About fifteen minutes, maybe twenty."

Shannon thanked him and used the desk telephone to make a reservation in the name of Brown for ten o'clock that night. He did not leave the hotel all day.

At nine-forty exactly, carrying his overnight bag in one hand and a light raincoat over the other arm, he left the hotel and turned up the street in the direction for the restaurant. The route he took was not direct. It led down two streets even smaller than the one in which the hotel was situated. As he walked, he left the other pedestrians behind and entered streets in the first ar-rondiss.e.m.e.nt which were dimly lit and where no pa.s.sers-by came his way. He dawdled, pa.s.sing the time staring into lighted shop windows, killing time until the hour of his restaurant reservation was long past. He never looked back. Sometimes, in the quiet, he thought he could hear the soft slap of a moccasin somewhere up the dim-lit streets behind him. Whoever was there, it was not Langarotti. The Corsican could move without disturbing the dust.

It was past eleven when he reached the dark, black alley he had been told was there. It led to his left and had no lights in it at all. The far end was blocked by a row of bollards, making it into a cul-de-sac. On each side the walls were blank and tall. Any light that might have entered the alley from the other end was muted by the bulk of the French truck that stood parked there, empty but with its rear doors open. Shannon walked toward the truck's gaping back and, when he reached it, turned.

Like most fighting men, he always preferred to face danger rather than knowing it was somewhere behind. He knew from past experience that, even when moving backward, it is safer always to face the danger source. At least, then, you can watch it. Moving up the alley with his back to the entrance, he had felt the hairs on his neck p.r.i.c.kling. If the psychology was wrong, he could be very dead. But the psychology had been right. Keeping to empty streets, the man behind him had stayed well back, hoping for just such an opportunity as now presented itself.

Shannon tossed his bag and raincoat to the ground and stared at the hulking shadow that blocked the vertical streak of lamplight from the end of the alley. He waited patiently. He hoped there would be no sound, not in the center of Paris. The shadow paused, a.s.sessed the situation, and evidently checked Shannon for a gun. But the sight of the open truck rea.s.sured the hit-man. He a.s.sumed Shannon had simply parked it there for discretion's sake and had been all this time returning to it.

The shadow in the alley moved softly forward. Shannon could make out the right arm, out of the raincoat pocket now, held forward, holding something. The face was in shadow, the whole man was a silhouette, but he was big. His form stood dead center in the cobbled cul-de-sac, stopped now, raising his gun. He paused for several seconds as he aimed, then slowly lowered it again, straight-armed, down to his side. It was almost as if he had changed his mind.

Still staring at Shannon from the shadow-black face, the man slowly leaned forward and went onto his knees. Some shots do this to steady themselves. The gunman cleared his throat, leaned forward again, and placed both his hands, knuckles down, on the cobbles in front of him. The metal of the Colt .45 clattered on the stones. Slowly, like a Moslem facing Mecca at the hour of prayer, the gunman bowed his head, staring for the first time in twenty seconds not at Shannon but at the cobbles. There was a light splashing sound, as of a liquid running fast onto cobbles, and finally the man's arms and thighs gave out. He slumped forward into the puddle of his own aortic blood and went to sleep, quite gently, like a child.

Shannon was still standing against the doors of the truck. With the man down, a shaft of lamplight came from the lit end of the alley. It glistened on the polished black sheen of the four-inch bone knife-handle that protruded upward from the mackintoshed back of the man on the pavement, slightly left of center, between the fourth and fifth ribs.

The Cat looked up. There was another figure against the lamplight, small, spare, motionless, still standing fifteen yards from the body at the point where it had made its throw. Shannon hissed, and Langarotti padded noiselessly down the cobbles.

"I thought you'd left it too late," said Shannon.

"Non. Never too late. He could not have squeezed the trigger of that Colt at any time since you emerged from the hotel."

The rear of the truck was already laid with a large sheet of tough industrial plastic over a canvas tarpaulin. The tarpaulin had loopholes all around the edge for easy lashing into a bundle, and plenty of cord and bricks were stacked at the far end. Each taking an arm and a leg, the two men swung the body up and inward. Langarotti climbed in to retrieve bis knife, while Shannon shut the doors. He heard them securely locked from the inside.

Langarotti climbed into the front seat and started up. Slowly he backed out, down the alley and into the street. As he swung the truck around before driving off, Shannon approached the driver's window.

"Have you had a good look at him?"

"Sure."

"You know him?"

"Yes. Name of Thomard, Raymond. In the Congo once for a short period, more of a city type. Professional hit-man. But not quality. Not the sort one of the big contractors would use. More likely to work for his own boss."

"Who's that?" asked Shannon.

"Roux," said Langarotti. "Charles Roux."

Shannon swore quietly and viciously. "That b.a.s.t.a.r.d, that stupid, ignorant, incompetent fool. He could have fouled up a whole operation just because he wasn't invited to come in on it."

He fell silent and thought for a while. Roux had to be discouraged, but in a way that would keep him out of the Zangaro affair once and for all.

"Hurry up," said the Corsican, the engine still running. "I want to get this customer put to bed before anyone comes along."

Shannon made up his mind and spoke urgently and rapidly for several seconds.

Langarotti nodded. "All right. Actually, I like it. It should fix that b.u.g.g.e.r for a long time. But it will cost extra. Five thousand francs."

"Done," said Shannon. "Get moving, and meet me outside the Porte de la Chapelle metro station in three hours."

They met Marc Vlaminck for lunch in the small South Belgian town of Dinant by agreement. Shannon had called him the previous day and given him the instructions and the rendezvous. Tiny Marc had kissed Anna good-by that morning, and she had given him his lovingly packed suitcase of clothes and his snack box with half a loaf, some b.u.t.ter, and a hunk of cheese for midmorning break. As usual, she had told him to take care of himself.

He had driven the truck, carrying in the back five 200-liter drums of engine oil by Castrol, across Belgium without being stopped. There was no reason why he should be. His license was in order, as were the permit for the truck and the insurance.

As the three men sat over lunch at a main-street cafe, Shannon asked the Belgian, "When do we go over?"

"Tomorrow morning, just before sun-up. It's the quietest time. Did you two sleep last night?"

"Nope."

"You'd better get some rest," said Marc. "I'll watch over both trucks. You can have till midnight."

Charles Roux was another one who was tired that day. All the previous evening, since he had received the telephone call from Henri Alain about Shannon walking to his restaurant meal, he had waited for news. There had been none by midnight, when there should have been a call from Thomard to say it was all over. There had been none by three in the morning and none by sunrise.

Roux was unshaven and puzzled. He knew Thomard was no match for Shannon on equal terms, but he was sure the Irishman would be taken in the back as he walked through one of the quieter streets on his way to the evening meal.

At midmorning, as Langarotti and Shannon in their empty truck were pa.s.sing without trouble into Belgium north of Valenciennes, Roux finally slipped on a pair of trousers and a shut and took the elevator five floors down to the lobby to check his mailbox.

There did not seem to be anything wrong with the lock of his mailbox, a container some twelve inches tall, nine wide, and nine deep, screwed to the wall of the lobby along with a score more for the other tenants. There was no indication that it had been opened, but of course a clever burglar would have picked the lock.