Line of Succession

The Admiral. “I thought you’d better know — the rival firms are moving in.”

Lime went back inside, somewhat depressed. It was not to be avoided that agents for the other side would come into the case. The Russians, the Chinese, an indeterminate number of others. Suppose an Albanian hard-line field agent got in ahead of you, rescued Fairlie — suppose the Albanians decided to keep Fairlie? Farfetched, but it was a risk; you didn’t want to exchange one set of kidnappers for another. What it amounted to was that you had to try and prevent the rival firms from finding out what you had found out. It wasn’t easy, not with communications tapped routinely and areas of the world where members of the opposing teams sat on the corners of one another’s desks. It meant Lime had to tighten his communications, use safe lines whenever possible, code his transmissions — another time-consuming chore.

More likely the rival firms were eager to help out. For a Russian or a Chinese team to rescue Fairlie would be a propaganda victory unprecedented in decades — a triumph of public relations if nothing else. But you still couldn’t afford to work with them. Once you admitted them to partnership you would be delayed at every junction place; your partners would be required to check back with superiors and clear every decision through layers of bureaucracy.

You could expect a certain amount of help — technical stuff, manpower, communications — from the allies; but these were equally hamstrung by tiers of authority and in the end you had to keep your hand free. So you used everyone and gave nothing to anyone. In a very short time all of them would begin to resent Lime and he would find resistance when he sought further assistance.

The CIA had a hundred thousand employees of whom twenty thousand were field agents; of these a thousand or more were strung through the Mediterranean area, on call if and when Lime needed them. At the moment they merely had orders to check whatever contacts they had, find out what sort of rumors were floating through the underground.

The English sailor arrived at half past eight with the Basque fisherman in tow. The fisherman’s name was Mendes; his smile looked slack-muscled, as if he had been posing too long for a slow photographer. His eyes were a faded blue and his drooping pinched mouth suggested a discontented lifetime of anxieties and disappointments. He smelled faintly of fish and the sea. He spoke no English and minimal Spanish. Lime had summoned a Basque-speaking Guardiano two hours ago; now he brought the Guardiano into the circle and began the session.

It was very kind of Señor Mendes to make the time to assist. The commandante’s unfortunate manner was regrettable; it was to be hoped Señor Mendes had not been too offended — everyone was under great strain, perhaps the commandante’s abruptness was understandable? Would Señor Mendes care for an American cigarette?

Lime made sure he had Mendes on the hook before he began to tug the line — gently at first: a day’s fishing was being lost by Señor Mendes’s detention, the American government assuredly wished to compensate him for his loss of time — would a thousand pesetas be sufficient? But very gently always because you couldn’t afford to offend; when Mendes took the money it was with the proud agreement he was not being bribed but rather being paid a suitable wage for his time and labor as a detective assisting in the search for the abducted American President-elect.

It took time to undo the damage Dominguez had inflicted but in the end the Basque’s story came out. He had not seen any faces, only the Arab robes of three figures; a fourth man in some sort of uniform. Arriving on the coast in a hearse. Mendes had been a few hundred yards up the beach, walking from the boat basin to his home which was above the dunes not far from the breakwater where the hearse had drawn up. It had come without headlights; it was met by a dinghy from a boat lying close to shore.

The three Arabs and the man in uniform had carried a coffin from the hearse to the dinghy. Someone — a fifth one, unseen by Mendes — had driven the hearse away. The others had gone aboard the boat with the coffin and the boat had set out to sea.

Plainly it was not all Mendes had to say. Lime waited him out, not prompting; the man’s agreeability was fragile, the wrong question might close him up.

Finally it came in a blurted rush: Mendes had recognized the boat.

He had agonized; it troubled him deeply; the boat belonged to a friend, a colleague, and in Spain a Basque did not inform on a fellow Basque — yet it had to do with the kidnapping of the presidente...