The general was much the same as when they had last met on the darkened airstrip, the same luxuriant beard, the same deep bass voice.
“Well, Major Shannon, so soon. Couldn’t you stay away?”
He was bantering, as he usually did. Shannon grinned as they shook hands.
“I’ve come down because I need something, sir. And because there is something I think we ought to talk over. An idea in the back of my head.”
“There’s not much that an impoverished exile can offer you,” said the general, “but I’ll always listen to your ideas. If I remember rightly, you used to have some fairly good ones.”
Shannon said, “There’s one thing you have, even in exile, that I could use. You still have your people’s loyalty. And what I need is men.”
The two men talked through the lunch hour and through the afternoon. They were still discussing when darkness fell, Shannon’s freshly drawn diagrams spread out on the table. He had brought nothing with him but clean white paper and a variety of colored felt-tipped pens, just in case of a skin search at customs.
They reached agreement on the basic points by sundown and elaborated the plan through the night. Only at three in the morning was the car summoned to drive Shannon back to the coast and the airport for takeoff on the dawn plane to Paris.
As they parted on the terrace above the waiting car and its sleepy chauffeur, they shook hands again.
“I’ll be in touch, sir,” said Shannon.
“And I’ll have to send my emissaries immediately,” replied the general. “But in sixty days the men will be there.”
Shannon was dead tired. The strain of the constant traveling was beginning to tell; the nights without sleep, the endless succession of airports and hotels, negotiations and meetings, had left him drained. In the car driving to the south he slept for the first time in two days, and dozed again on the plane trip back to Paris. The flight stopped too many times to allow a real sleep: an hour at Ouagadougou, another at a godforsaken strip in Mauretania, and again at Marseilles. He reached Le Bourget just before six in the evening. It was the end of Day Fifteen.
While Shannon was landing in Paris, Martin Thorpe was boarding the overnight sleeper train to Glasgow, Stirling, and Perth. From there he could take a connecting train to Dundee, where were situated the old established offices of Dalgleish and Dalgleish, attorneys-at-law. He carried in his briefcase the document signed before the weekend by Lady Macallister and witnessed by Mrs. Barton, along with the checks issued by the Zwingli Bank of Zurich, four of them, each in the sum of £7500 and each enough to purchase 75,000 of Lady Macallister’s shares in Bormac.
Twenty-four hours, he thought as he drew down the blinds of his first-class sleeping compartment, blotting out the sight of the scurrying on the platform of King’s Cross station. Twenty-four hours should see it through, and they would be home and dry, and three weeks later a new director on the board, a nominee responding to the strings pulled by him and Sir James Manson. Settling himself on the bunk, his briefcase under the pillow, Martin Thorpe gazed up at the ceiling and enjoyed the feeling.
Later that Tuesday evening Shannon was settled into a hotel not far from the Madeleine in the heart of Paris’s 8th arrondissement. He had had to forsake his regular Montmartre hideout, where he was known as Carlo Shannon, because he was now using the name of Keith Brown. But the Plaza-Surène was a good substitute. He had bathed and shaved and was about to go out for dinner. He had telephoned to reserve a table at his favorite eating place in the quarter, the Restaurant Mazagran, and Madame Michèle had promised him a filet mignon the way he liked it, with a tossed-lettuce salad by the side and a Pot de Chirouble to wash it down.
The two person-to-person calls he had put in came through almost together. First on the line was a certain M. Lavallon from Marseilles.
“Do you have that shipping agent yet?” asked Shannon when they had exchanged greetings.
“Yes,” said the Corsican. “It’s in Toulon. A very good one, very respectable and efficient. They have their own bonded warehouse on the harbor.”
“Spell it out,” said Shannon. He had pencil and paper ready.
“Agence Maritime Duphot,” spelled Langarotti and dictated the address. “Send the consignments to the agency, clearly marked as the property of Monsieur Langarotti.”
Shannon hung up, and the hotel operator came on the line immediately to say a Mr. Dupree was calling from London.
Shannon dictated the name and address of the Toulon agent to him, letter by letter.
“Fine,” Janni said at length. “I’ve got the first of the four crates ready and bonded here. I’ll tell the London agents to get the stuff on its way as soon as possible. Oh, by the way, I’ve found the boots.”
“Good,” said Shannon, “well done.”
He placed one more call, this time to a bar in Ostend. There was a fifteen-minute delay before Marc’s voice came through.
“I’m in Paris,” said Shannon. “That man with the samples of merchandise I wanted to examine…”
“Yes,” said Marc. “I’ve been in touch. He’s prepared to meet you and discuss prices and terms.”
“Good. I’ll be in Belgium Thursday night or Friday morning. Tell him I propose Friday morning over breakfast in my room at the Holiday Inn near the airport.”
“I know it,” said Marc. “All right, I’ll put it to him and call you back.”
“Call me tomorrow between ten and eleven,” said Shannon and hung up.