Wrath of the Lion. Jack Higgins

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СКАЧАТЬ people would have said he was lucky, but not Adams.

      He opened a door and walked through a small, neat office. A middle-aged, desiccated-looking spinster with neat grey hair and rimless spectacles sat behind the typewriter. She glanced up, an expression of disapproval on her face, and Adams grinned.

      ‘Don’t say it, Milly. Just tell them I’m ready.’

      He led the way into his own office. Like Sir Charles’s, it commanded a fine view of the river, the desk standing by the window. He opened a cupboard, took out a heavy bathrobe and pulled it on.

      ‘Sorry about the delay. I thought Sir Charles would keep you for an hour at least.’

      ‘More like fifteen minutes,’ Mallory said. ‘He always goes straight to the heart of things with the sticky ones.’

      ‘I wouldn’t call it that,’ Adams said. ‘Interesting more than anything else. Whole thing could be just a storm in a teacup. Let’s go into the projection room.’

      He opened the far door and they descended a few steps into a small hall. There were several rows of comfortable seats and a large screen. The place was quite deserted. They sat down and Mallory offered Adams a cigarette.

      ‘Any gaps in this one?’

      Adams exhaled with a sigh of pleasure and shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. Nothing important, anyway. Has the old man told you much?’

      ‘He’s outlined the job, told me who the principals are. No more than that.’

      ‘Let’s get started, then.’ Adams turned and glanced up at the projection box where a dim light showed. ‘Ready when you are.’

      A section of film started to run a few moments later. It showed a submarine entering port slowly, her crew lining the deck.

      ‘To start with, that’s what all the fuss is about,’ Adams said. ‘L’Alouette. Taken at Oran a couple of years ago.’

      ‘She looks rather small. There can’t be more than a dozen men on deck.’

      ‘Originally a German U-boat. Type XXIII. Just over a hundred feet long. Does about twelve kilometres submerged. Crew of sixteen.’

      ‘What about armament?’

      ‘Two twenty-one-inch torpedoes in the bow and she doesn’t carry spares.’

      ‘Doesn’t leave much room for mistakes.’

      Adams nodded. ‘They never really amounted to anything. This one was built at Deutsches Werft in 1945 and sunk with all hands in the Baltic. She was raised in ’46, refitted and handed over to the French.’

      The film ended and a slide appeared. It showed a young French naval officer, eyes serious beneath the uniform cap, the rather boyish face schooled to gravity.

      ‘Henri Fenelon, full lieutenant. He’s her commander. Age twenty-six, unmarried. Born in Nantes. Father still lives there. Runs a small wine-exporting business.’

      Mallory studied the face for a moment or two. ‘Looks weak to me. Ever been in action?’

      Adams shook his head. ‘Why do you ask?’

      Mallory shrugged. ‘He looks as if he could crack easily. What’s his political background?’

      ‘That’s the surprising thing. We can’t find any evidence of an O.A.S. connection at all.’

      ‘Probably did it for adventure,’ Mallory said. ‘He only needed half a dozen men in the crew to agree with him. They could have coerced the rest.’

      ‘Sounds feasible,’ Adams said. ‘Let’s move on.’

      Various slides followed. There was an Admiralty chart of Ile de Roc, with the harbour, the hotel and General Grant’s house all clearly marked. St Pierre was little more than a rock lifting a hundred or so feet out of the sea and crowned by the Victorian Gothic Castle.

      Mallory shook his head. ‘God knows how they ever managed to build the damned thing out there.’

      ‘Eighteen-sixty-one,’ Adams said. ‘A self-made industrialist called Bryant. Bit of a megalomaniac. Saw himself as king of the castle and so on. Cost him better than a hundred thousand to build the place and that was real money in those days.’

      ‘I can’t see a jetty. Is it on the other side?’

      ‘There’s a cave at the base of the cliffs. If you look carefully you can see the entrance. The jetty’s inside.’

      The castle faded and another picture took its place. It was that of a distinguished-looking man with silvering hair, eyes calm in a sensitive, aquiline face.

      ‘De Beaumont?’ Mallory said.

      Adams nodded. ‘Philippe, Comte de Beaumont. One of the oldest of the great French families. He’s even a rather distant blood relation of you-know-who, which makes the whole thing even more complicated.’

      ‘I know quite a lot about his military history,’ Mallory said. ‘After all, he’s something of a hero to paratroopers the world over. He came over here during the war and joined de Gaulle, didn’t he?’

      ‘That’s right. Received just about every decoration possible. Afterwards he went to Indo-China as a colonel of colonial paratroops. The Viets picked him up at the surrender of Dien-Bien-Phu in 1954. After his release he returned to France and was posted to Algeria. He was always at loggerheads with the top brass. Once had an argument with the old man himself at an official reception over what constitutes war in the modern sense.’

      ‘That should have been enough to get him put out to grass on its own.’

      Adams shrugged. ‘They needed him, I suppose. After all, he was the most outstanding paratroop colonel in Algeria at that time. Handled all the dirtier jobs the top brass didn’t want to soil its fingers with.’

      ‘So he helped bring de Gaulle back to power?’

      ‘That’s right. A prime mover in the Algérie Française movement. The General, of course, kicked him right in the teeth by granting independence to Algeria after all.’

      ‘And de Beaumont cleared out?’

      ‘After Challe’s rather abortive little coup last year. Whether or not he was actually mixed up in that little lot we can’t be certain. The point is that he left France and bought this place on St Pierre from Hamish Grant. Caused quite a stir in the French papers at the time.’

      ‘And he’s kept his nose clean since then?’

      ‘As a whistle.’ Adams grinned. ‘Even the French can’t turn anything up on him. He runs a boat, by the way. Forty-foot twin-screw motor-yacht named Fleur de Lys. The very latest thing for deep-sea cruising with depth-sounder, automatic pilot and 100 h.p. DAF diesels. A bit of a recluse, but he’s been seen in St Helier occasionally. What do you think?’

      ‘I’d СКАЧАТЬ