Partisans. Alistair MacLean

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      ‘Why “naturally”? In our code?’

      ‘So I believe.’

      ‘Stupid. Who do you think devised that code?’

      ‘I don’t think. I know. You did.’

      ‘It’s still stupid. Why don’t you give me the message verbally? I’ve a good memory for this sort of thing. And there’s more. I may be intercepted, and then two things may happen. Either I succeed in destroying it, in which case the message is useless. Or the Partisans take it intact and decipher it in nothing flat.’ Petersen tapped his head. ‘A clear case for a psychiatrist.’

      Lunz took some more brandy and cleared his throat. ‘You know, of course, of Colonel General Alexander von Löhr?’

      ‘The German Commander in Chief for southeastern Europe. Of course. Never met him personally.’

      ‘Perhaps it is as well that you never do. I don’t think General von Löhr would react too favourably to the suggestion that he is in need of psychiatric treatment. Nor does he take too kindly to subordinate officers—and, despite your nationality, you can take it that he very definitely regards you as subordinate—who question far less disobey his orders. And those are his orders.’

      ‘Two psychiatrists. One for von Löhr, one for the person who appointed him to his command. That would be the Führer, of course.’

      Colonel Lunz said mildly: ‘I do try to observe the essential civilities. It’s not normally too difficult. But bear in mind that I am a German Regimental Commander.’

      ‘I don’t forget it and no offence was intended. Protests are useless. I have my orders. I assume that this time I will not be going in by plane?’

      ‘You are remarkably well informed.’

      ‘Not really. Some of your colleagues are remarkably garrulous in places where not only have they no right to be garrulous but have no right to be in the first place. In this case I am not well informed, but I can think, unlike—well, never mind. You’d have to notify my friends if you were sending in a plane and that message could be just as easily intercepted and deciphered as any other. You don’t know how crazy those Partisans could be. They wouldn’t hesitate to send a suicide commando behind our lines and shoot down the plane when it’s still at an altitude of fifty or a hundred metres, which is an excellent way of ensuring that no-one gets out of that plane alive.’ Petersen tapped the envelope. ‘That way the message never gets delivered. So I go by boat. When?’

      ‘Tomorrow night.’

      ‘Where?’

      ‘A little fishing village near Termoli.’

      ‘What kind of boat?’

      ‘You do ask a lot of questions.’

      ‘It’s my neck.’ Petersen shrugged his indifference. ‘If your travel arrangements don’t suit me, I’ll make my own.’

      ‘It wouldn’t be the first time you’d borrowed shall we say, a boat from your—ah—allies?’

      ‘Only in the best interests of all.’

      ‘Of course. An Italian torpedo boat.’

      ‘You can hear one of those things twenty kilometres away.’

      ‘So? You’ll be landing near Ploče. That’s in Italian hands, as you know. And even if you could be heard fifty kilometres away, what’s the difference? The Partisans have no radar, no planes, no navy, nothing that could stop you.’

      ‘So the Adriatic is your pond. The torpedo boat it is.’

      ‘Thank you. I forgot to mention that you’ll be having some company on the trip across.’

      ‘You didn’t forget. You just saved it for last.’ Petersen refilled their glasses and looked consideringly at Lunz. ‘I’m not sure that I care for this. You know I like to travel alone.’

      ‘I know you never travel alone.’

      ‘Ah! George and Alex. You know them, then?’

      ‘They’re hardly invisible. They attract attention—they have that look about them.’

      ‘What look?’

      ‘Hired killers.’

      ‘You’re half right. They’re different. My insurance policy—they watch my back. I’m not complaining, but people are always spying on me.’

      ‘An occupational hazard.’ Lunz’s airily dismissive gesture showed what he thought of occupational hazards. ‘I would be grateful if you would allow those two people I have in mind to accompany you. More, I would regard it as a personal favour if you would escort them to their destination.’

      ‘What destination?’

      ‘Same as yours.’

      ‘Who are they?’

      ‘Two radio operator recruits for your Četniks. Carrying with them, I may say, the very latest in transceiver equipment.’

      ‘That’s not enough, and you know it. Names, background.’

      ‘Sarina and Michael. Trained—highly trained, I might say—by the British in Alexandria. With the sole intent of doing what they are about to do—joining your friends. Let us say that we intercepted them en route.’

      ‘What else? Male and female, no?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘No.’

      ‘No what?’

      ‘I’m a fairly busy person. I don’t like being encumbered and I’ve no intention of acting as a shipborne chaperon.’

      ‘Brother and sister.’

      ‘Ah.’ Petersen said. ‘Fellow citizens?’

      ‘Of course.’

      ‘Then why can’t they find their own way home?’

      ‘Because they haven’t been home for three years. Educated in Cairo.’ Again the wave of a hand. ‘Troubled times in your country, my friend. Germans here, Italians there, Ustaša, Četniks, Partisans everywhere. All very confusing. You know your way around your country in these difficult times. Better than any, I’m told.’

      ‘I don’t get lost much.’ Petersen stood. ’I’d have to see them first, of course.’

      ‘I would have expected nothing else.’ Lunz drained his glass, rose and glanced at his watch. ‘I’ll be back in forty minutes.’

      George answered Petersen’s knock. Despite Lunz’s unflattering description George didn’t look a bit like a killer, hired or otherwise: genial buffoons, or those who look like them, never do. СКАЧАТЬ