The Dogs of War Read online

  The board was composed of five directors, and the company rules stipulated that two of them made a quorum for the purposes of passing a resolution. The company office’s address was given and turned out to be the premises of an old established firm of City solicitors, one of whose partners acted as company secretary and was also on the board. The original offices had long since been given up because of rising costs. Board meetings were rare and usually consisted of the chairman, an elderly man living in Sussex, who was the younger brother of Sir Ian’s former undermanager, who had died in Japanese hands during the war. Sitting with the chairman were the company secretary, the City solicitor, and occasionally one of the other three, who all lived a long way from London. There was seldom any business to discuss, and the company income consisted mainly of the occasional belated compensation payments now being made by the Indonesian government under General Suharto.

  The combined five directors controlled no more than 18 percent of the million shares, and 52 percent was distributed among 6500 shareholders scattered across the country. There seemed to be a fair proportion of married women and widows. No doubt portfolios of long-forgotten shares sat in deed boxes and banks and solicitors’ offices up and down the land and had done so for years.

  But these were not what interested Thorpe and Manson. If they tried to acquire a controlling interest by buying through the market, first, it would take years, and second, it would become quickly plain to other City watchers that someone was at work on Bormac. Their interest was held by the one single block of 300,000 shares held by the widowed Lady Macallister.

  The puzzle was why someone had not long since bought the entire block from her and taken on the shell of the once-flourishing rubber company. In every other sense it was ideal for the purpose, for its memorandum was widely drawn, permitting the company to operate in any field of exploitation of any country’s natural assets outside the United Kingdom.

  “She must be eighty-five if she’s a day,” said Thorpe at last. “Lives in a vast, dreary old block of flats in Kensington, guarded by a long-serving lady companion, or whatever they are called.”

  “She must have been approached,” said Sir James musingly, “so why does she cling to them?”

  “Perhaps she just doesn’t want to sell,” said Thorpe, “or didn’t like the people who came to ask her to let them buy. Old people can be funny.”

  It is not simply old people who are illogical about buying and selling stocks and shares. Most stockbrokers have long since had the experience of seeing a client refuse to do business when proposed a sensible and advantageous offer, solely and simply for the reason that he did not like the stockbroker.

  Sir James Manson shot forward in his chair and planted his elbows on the desk. “Martin, find out about the old woman. Find out who she is, where she is, what she thinks, what she likes and hates, what are her tastes, and above all, find out where her weak spot is. She has to have one—some little thing that would be too big a temptation for her and for which she would sell her holding. It may not be money—probably isn’t, for she’s been offered money before now. But there has to be something. Find it.”

  Thorpe rose to go. Manson waved him back to his chair. From his desk drawer he drew six printed forms, all identical and all application forms for numbered accounts at the Zwingli Bank in Zurich.

  He explained briefly and concisely what he wanted done, and Thorpe nodded.

  “Book yourself on the morning flight, and you can be back tomorrow night,” said Manson as his aide left.

  Simon Endean rang Shannon at his flat just after two and was given an up-to-date report on the arrangements the mercenary was making. Manson’s assistant was pleased by the precision of Shannon’s reporting, and he noted the details on a scratch pad so that he could later make up his own report for Sir James.

  When he had finished, Shannon put forward his next requirements. “I want five thousand pounds telexed direct from your Swiss bank to my credit as Keith Brown at the head office of the Banque de Luxembourg in Luxembourg by next Monday noon,” he told Endean, “and another five thousand telexed direct to my credit at the head office of the Landesbank in Hamburg by Wednesday morning.”

  He explained tersely how the bulk of the £5000 he had imported to London was already spoken for and the other £5000 was needed as a reserve in Brugge. The two identical sums required in Luxembourg and Hamburg were mainly so that he could show his contacts there a certified check to prove his credit before entering into purchasing negotiations. Later, most of the money would be remitted to Brugge and the balance fully accounted for.

  “In any case, I can write you out a complete accounting of money spent to date or committed for spending,” he told Endean, “but I have to have your mailing address.”

  Endean gave him the name of a professional accommodation address where he had opened a box that morning in the name of Walter Harris, and promised to get the instructions off to Zurich within the hour to have both sums of £5000 awaiting collection by Keith Brown in Luxembourg and Hamburg.

  Big Janni Dupree checked in from London airport at five. His had been the longest journey: from Cape Town to Johannesburg the previous day, and then the long SAA flight, through Luanda in Portuguese Angola and the Isla do Sol stopover, which avoided overflying the territory of any black African country. Shannon ordered him to take a taxi straight to the flat.

  At six there was a second reunion when the other three mercenaries all came around to greet the South African. When he heard Shannon’s terms, Janni’s face cracked into a grin.

  “We going to go fighting again, Cat? Count me in.”

  “Good man. So here’s what I want from you. Stay here in London, find yourself a small bed-sitting-room flat. I’ll help you do that tomorrow. We’ll go through the Evening Standard and get you fixed up by nightfall.

  “I want you to buy all our clothing. We need fifty sets of T-shirts, fifty sets of underpants, fifty pairs of light nylon socks. Then a spare set for each man, making a hundred. I’ll give you the list later. After that, fifty sets of combat trousers, preferably in jungle camouflage and preferably matching the jackets. Next, fifty combat blouses, zip-fronted and in the same jungle camouflage.

  “You can get all these quite openly at camping shops, sports shops, and army surplus stores. Even the hippies are beginning to wear combat jackets about town, and so do people who go shooting in the country.

  “You can get all the T-shirts, socks, and underpants at the same stockist, but get the trousers and blouses at different ones. Then fifty green berets and fifty pairs of boots. Get the trousers in the large size—we can shorten them later; get the blouses half in large size, half in medium. Get the boots from a camping-equipment shop. I don’t want heavy British army boots. I want the green canvas jackboots with front lacing and waterproofed.

  “Now for the webbing, I need fifty webbing belts, ammo pouches, knapsacks, and campers’ haversacks, the ones with the light tubular frame to support them. These will carry the bazooka rockets with a bit of reshaping. Lastly, fifty light nylon sleeping bags. Okay? I’ll give you the full written list later.”

  Dupree nodded. “Okay. How much will that lot cost?”

  “About a thousand pounds. This is how you buy it. Take the Yellow Pages telephone directory, and under Surplus Stores you’ll find over a dozen shops and stockists. Get the jackets, blouses, belts, berets, webbing harnesses, knapsacks, haversacks, and boots at different shops, placing one order at each. Pay cash and take the purchase away with you. Don’t give your real name—not that anyone should ask it—and don’t leave a real address.

  “When you have bought the stuff, store it in a normal storage warehouse, have it crated for export, and contact four separate freight agents accustomed to handling export shipments. Pay them to send it in four separate consignments in bond to a shipping freight agent in Marseilles for collection by Mr. Jean-Baptiste Langarotti.”

  “Which agent in Marseilles?” asked Dupree.

&n
bsp; “We don’t know yet,” said Shannon. He turned to the Corsican. “Jean, when you have the name of the shipping agent you intend to use for the export of the boats and engines, send the full name and address by mail to London, one copy to me here at the flat, and a second copy to Jan Dupree, Poste Restante, Trafalgar Square Post Office, London. Got it?”

  Langarotti noted the address while Shannon translated the instructions for Dupree.

  “Janni, go down there in the next few days and get yourself poste restante facilities. Then check in every week or so until Jean’s letter arrives. Then instruct the freight agents to send the crates to the Marseilles agent in a bonded shipment for export by sea from Marseilles onward, in the ownership of Langarotti. Now for the question of money. I just heard the credit came through from Brussels.”

  The three Europeans produced slips of paper from their pockets while Shannon took Dupree’s airline ticket stub. From his desk Shannon took four letters, each of them from him to Mr. Goossens at the Kredietbank. Each letter was roughly the same. It required the Kredietbank to transmit a sum of money in United States dollars from Mr. Keith Brown’s account to another account for the credit of Mr. X.

  In the blanks Shannon filled in the sum equivalent to the round-trip airfare to and from London, starting at Ostend, Marseilles, Munich, and Cape Town. The letters also bade Mr. Goossens transmit $1250 to each of the named men in the named banks on the day of receipt of the letter, and again on May 5 and again on June 5. Each mercenary dictated to Shannon the name of his bank—most were in Switzerland—and Shannon typed it in.

  When he had finished, each man read his own letter and Shannon signed them at his desk, sealed them in separate envelopes, and gave each man his own envelope for mailing.

  Last, he gave each £50 in cash to cover the forty-eight-hour stay in London and told them to meet him outside the door of his London bank at eleven the following morning.

  When they had gone, he sat down and wrote a long letter to a man in Africa. He rang the writer, who, having checked by phone that it was in order to do so, gave him the African’s mailing address. That evening Shannon mailed his letter, express rate, and dined alone.

  Martin Thorpe got his interview with Dr. Steinhofer at the Zwingli Bank just before lunch. Having been previously announced by Sir James Manson, Thorpe received the same red-carpet treatment.

  He presented the banker with the six application forms for numbered accounts. Each had been filled out in the required manner and signed. Separate cards carried the required two specimen signatures of the men seeking to open the accounts. They were in the names of Messrs. Adams, Ball, Carter, Davies, Edwards, and Frost.

  Attached to each form were two other letters. One was a signed power of attorney, in which Messrs. Adams, Ball, Carter, Davies, Edwards, and Frost separately gave power of attorney to Mr. Martin Thorpe to operate the accounts in their names. The other was a letter signed by Sir James Manson, requesting Dr. Steinhofer to transfer to the accounts of each of his associates the sum of £50,000 from Sir James’s account.

  Dr. Steinhofer was neither so gullible nor so new to the business of banking as not to suspect that the fact the names of the six “business associates” began with the first six letters of the alphabet was a remarkable coincidence. But he was quite able to believe that the possible nonexistence of the six nominees was not his business. If a wealthy British businessman chose to get around the tiresome rules of his own Companies Act, that was his own business. Besides, Dr. Steinhofer knew certain things about quite a number of City businessmen that would have created enough Department of Trade inquiries to keep that London ministry occupied for the rest of the century.

  There was another good reason why he should stretch out his hand and take the application forms from Thorpe. If the shares of the company Sir James was going to try to buy secretly shot up from their present level to astronomic heights—and Dr. Steinhofer could see no other reason for the operation—there was nothing to prevent the Swiss banker from buying a few of those shares for himself.

  “The company we have our eye on is called Bormac Trading Company,” Thorpe told him quietly. He outlined the position of the company, and the fact that old Lady Macallister held 300,000 shares, or 30 percent of the company.

  “We have reason to believe attempts may already have been made to persuade this old lady to sell her holding,” he went on. “They appear to have been unsuccessful. We are going to have another try. Even should we fail, we will still go ahead and choose another shell company.”

  Dr. Steinhofer listened quietly as he smoked his cigar.

  “As you know, Dr. Steinhofer, it would not be possible for one purchaser to buy these shares without declaring his identity. Therefore the four buyers will be Mr. Adams, Mr. Ball, Mr. Carter, and Mr. Davies, who will each acquire seven and a half percent of the company. We would wish you to act on behalf of all four of them.”

  Dr. Steinhofer nodded. It was standard practice. “Of course, Mr. Thorpe.”

  “I shall attempt to persuade the old lady to sign the share-transfer certificates with the name of the buyer left out. This is simply because some people in England, especially old ladies, find Swiss banks rather—how shall I say?—secretive organizations.”

  “I am sure you mean ‘sinister,’” said Dr. Steinhofer smoothly. “I completely understand. Let us leave it like this, then. When you have had an interview with this lady, we will see how best it can be arranged. But tell Sir James to have no fear. The purchase will be by four separate buyers, and the rules of the Companies Act will not be affronted.”

  As Sir James Manson had predicted, Thorpe was back in London by nightfall to begin his weekend.

  The four mercenaries were waiting on the pavement when Shannon came out of his bank just before twelve. He had in his hand four brown envelopes.

  “Marc, here’s yours. There’s five hundred pounds in it. Since you’ll be living at home, your expenses will be the smallest. So within that five hundred you have to buy a truck and rent a lockup garage. There are other items to be bought. You’ll find the list inside the envelope. Trace the man who has the Schmeissers for sale and set up a meeting between me and him. I’ll be in touch with you by phone at your bar in about ten days.”

  The giant Belgian nodded and hailed a taxi at the curb to take him to Victoria Station and the boat train back to the Ostend ferry.

  “Kurt, this is your envelope. There’s a thousand inside it, because you’ll have to do much more traveling. Find that ship, and inside forty days. Keep in touch by phone and cable, but be very discreet and brief when using either. You can be frank in written letters to my flat. If my mail is on intercept we’re finished anyway.

  “Jean-Baptiste, here’s five hundred for you. It has to keep you for forty days. Stay out of trouble and avoid your old haunts. Find the boats and engines and let me know by letter. Open a bank account and tell me where it is. When I approve the type and price of the stuff, I’ll transmit you the money. And don’t forget the shipping agent. Keep it nice and legal all down the line.”

  The Frenchman and the German took their money and instructions and looked for a second taxi to get them to London airport, Semmler bound for Naples and Langarotti for Marseilles.

  Shannon took Dupree’s arm, and they strolled down Piccadilly together. Shannon passed Dupree his envelope.

  “I’ve put fifteen hundred in there for you, Janni. A thousand should cover all the purchases and the storage, crating, and shipping costs to Marseilles, with something to spare. The five hundred should keep you easily for the next month to six weeks. I want you to get straight into the buying first thing Monday morning. Make your list of shops and warehouses with the Yellow Pages and a map over the weekend. You have to finish the buying in thirty days, because I want the stuff in Marseilles in forty-five.”

  He stopped and bought the Evening Standard, opened it at the “Properties to Let” page, and showed Dupree the columns of advertisements for flats and flatlets for rent,
furnished and unfurnished. There were, as usual, about 300 flats to rent, ranging from £6 a week to £200.

  “Find yourself a small flat by tonight and let me know the address tomorrow.”

  They parted just short of Hyde Park Corner.

  Shannon spent the evening writing out a complete statement of accounts for Endean. He pointed out that the total had eaten up the bulk of the £5000 transferred from Brugge and that he would leave the few hundreds left over from that sum in the London account as a reserve.

  Last, he pointed out that he had not taken any part of his own £10,000 fee for the job and proposed either that Endean transfer it straight from Endean’s Swiss account into Shannon’s Swiss account, or remit the money to the Belgian bank for credit to Keith Brown.

  He mailed his letter that Friday evening.

  The weekend was free, so he called Julie Manson and suggested taking her out to dinner. She had been about to set off for a weekend at her parents’ country house, but called and told them she was not coming. As it was late by the time she was ready, she came to collect Shannon, looking pert and spoiled at the wheel of her red MGB.

  “Have you booked anywhere?” she asked.

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Let’s go and eat at one of my places,” she suggested. “Then I can introduce you to some of my friends.”

  Shannon shook his head. “Forget it,” he said. “That’s happened to me before. I am not spending the whole evening being stared at like a zoo animal and asked damn fool questions about killing people. It’s sick.”

  She pouted. “Please, Cat darling.”

  “Nope.”

  “Look, I won’t say what you are and what you do. I’ll just keep it secret. Come on. No one will know you by your face.”

  Shannon weakened. “One condition,” he said. “My name is Keith Brown. Got it? Keith Brown. That’s all. Nothing else do you say about me or where I come from. Nor about what I do. Understood?”