The QE2 Is Missing

The time came a few minutes later when the old man took a shortcut down a filthy alley between two streets. There was no one else in sight.

“Now,” Klaus said.

Juan ran down the alley as Klaus unbuttoned his coat. The grey scabbard hung down under his armpit to below his waist. The bayonet was long and sharp as a razor. A clumsy weapon to carry about, but one he was secure with. A faithful companion in the east. It slipped free easily as he stepped forward.

“What…. “ was all the old man said as he was seized from behind and spun about. That was all that he had time for.

Klaus slammed his large hand over the man’s mouth and drove his head back against Juan’s chest. With his other hand he brought the bayonet up in a hard, precise motion, placed exactly. To slide through clothes and skin, up across the man’s stomach, through his diaphragm, inside his rib cage and directly into his heart.

The guard heaved up once and was dead.

Juan tore the guard’s watch from his wrist, ripped his pocket away to get at his wallet. Klaus pulled the bayonet free and stopped to wipe the blood off on the old man’s clothing before they left. One more robbery with murder. It wouldn’t be investigated. There were five or six like this every day in the city. These things happen.

Once it was free of the traffic the Mercedes picked up speed. Dr. Joachim Wielgus hummed a bit of lieder as he bit the end off his cigar. Yes, the doctor had said only one a day after dinner, but today was something special. One little extra cigar could not do much harm.

12

“It’s been just like a honeymoon,” Frances said, touching up her nails with nail polish, then blowing on them. “Two weeks at sea in this floating hotel. Long days in the sunshine, glorious nights in bed. A real honeymoon. Too bad we’re not married.”

“We can do it today in Honolulu,” Hank said. He was threading a new tape through the heads in the recorder. “Hawaii is part of the States. We can go to a Justice of the Peace, get the knot tied while we wait.”

“I don’t know. Sounds more like getting your hair done than getting married. I think it would be far better to wait until we get back to London. I’m compromised already, so a few more weeks won’t make any difference.”

“Your choice, my love. There!”

Hank was getting more adept at the spying job. The reels turned and the new tape ran through. He snapped shut the front of the set, put it into position on the settee and plugged in the lead to the microphone. When the earphone jack was inserted it switched off the loudspeaker and he could listen with the volume turned up. Nothing. Music playing dimly in the background, something being banged down on a table. No voices. He switched on the voice-operated switch and put the earphones back into the case.

“Are the natives restless this morning?” Frances asked.

“Nothing happening at all. Maybe they’re all out on the deck admiring the view.”

“We should be there, too. All I can see from our exclusive and expensive verandah are the roofs of warehouses.”

“Why don’t you go on deck then? I have some things to do here first.”

“I’ll wait for you. I might run into our neighbors who give me the shivers. It’s a good thing they cut us dead because that’s easy enough to do in return. I’m sure if I had to talk to one of them that I would say something terribly insulting.”

“That’s only because of what’s on these tapes.”

“I can understand little or nothing of what’s on those tapes. It’s just that they radiate a feeling of intense evil. Now don’t laugh. I’m sure I would feel that way even if I didn’t know who they were.”

Hank came over, carefully avoiding her widespread and drying finger nails, to plant a warm kiss on her forehead. “I imagine you would. And I’m not laughing. Nothing about those sons of bitches is humorous. Not that I can understand much of what is on the tapes, my schoolboy German isn’t up to it. There is a plan of some kind, they keep referring to that, and when they do it is always associated with the Herr Doktor. We can be pretty sure who that is, though they have never mentioned him by name in my hearing. Anyway, there are I don’t know how many hours of guttural kraut conversation on these tapes and I wish I could get rid of them.”

Hank was packing the reels of tape into a plastic carrier bag when there was a knock on the door. They moved together, in a familiar routine now. While Hank closed the bag of electronic equipment and put it into the closet with the tapes, Frances unplugged the microphone lead, stowed it out of sight, and pressed the play button on the portable. The soft, nasal rhythms of Dolly Parton warbled out.

“Just a minute,” she called in the direction of the door. “But I don’t really like country music” she whispered.

“Pretend you do. This ship has six radio channels, but country and western is the one thing they don’t program, OK?”

“All clear.”

He opened the door and Robert, the steward, was waiting there. “Post has just come aboard, sir. Letter for you.”

“Thanks.”