“When you and your associates wish to buy a company in the chosen field of operations, to be owned by Tyrone Holdings,” he told Shannon, “you will then need to come here, present us with a check for the appropriate amount, and buy the new issue at one pound per share. The formalities you can leave to us.”
Shannon understood. Any inquiries would stop at Mr. Stein as company chairman. Two hours later he caught the evening plane for Brussels, and he checked into the Holiday Inn just before eight.
The man who accompanied Tiny Marc Vlaminck when they knocked at Shannon’s door the following morning just after ten was introduced as M. Boucher. The pair of them, standing on the threshold when he opened the door, looked like a comic turn. Marc was bulky, towering over his companion, and he was beefy in every place. The other man was fat, extremely fat—the sort of fatness associated with fairground sideshows. He seemed almost circular, balanced like one of those children’s spherical plastic toys that cannot be overturned. Only on closer examination was it apparent that there were two tiny feet in brilliantly polished shoes beneath the mass, and that the bulk constituting the lower half was divided into two legs. In repose, the man looked like one single unit.
M. Boucher’s head appeared to be the only object to mar the contours of the otherwise uniformly globular mass. It was small at the top and flowed downward to engulf his collar and hide it from view, the flesh of the jowls resting thankfully on the shoulders. After several seconds Shannon conceded that he also had arms, one on each side, and that one held a sleek document case some five inches thick.
“Please come in,” said Shannon and stepped back.
Boucher entered first, turning slightly sideways to slip through the door, like a large ball of gray worsted fabric on casters. Marc followed, giving Shannon a wink as he caught his eye. They all shook hands. Shannon gestured to an armchair, but Boucher chose the edge of the bed. He was wise and experienced. He might never have got out of the armchair.
Shannon poured them all coffee and went straight to business. Tiny Marc sat and stayed silent.
“Monsieur Boucher, my associate and friend may have told you that my name is Brown, I am English by nationality, and I am here representing a group of friends who would be interested in acquiring a quantity of submachine carbines or machine pistols. Monsieur Vlaminck kindly mentioned to me that he was in a position to introduce me to someone who might have a quantity of machine pistols for sale. I understand from him that these are Schmeisser nine-mm. pistols, of wartime manufacture but never used. I also understand and accept that there can be no question of obtaining an export license for them, but this is accepted by my people, and they are prepared to take all responsibility in this regard. Is that a fair assessment?”
Boucher nodded slowly. He could not nod fast. “I am in a position to make available a quantity of these pieces,” he said carefully. “You are right about the impossibility of an export license. For that reason the identity of my own people has to be protected. Any business arrangement we might come to would have to be on a cash basis, and with security arrangements for my own people.”
He’s lying, thought Shannon. There are no people behind Boucher. He is the owner of this stuff and works alone.
In fact M. Boucher in his younger and slimmer days had been a Belgian SS man and had worked as a cook in the SS barracks at Namur. His obsession with food had taken him into cooking, and before the war he had lost several jobs because he tasted more than he served through the hatch. In the starving conditions of wartime Belgium he had opted for the cookhouse of the Belgian SS unit, one of the several local SS groups the Nazis recruited in the occupied countries. In the SS, surmised the young Boucher, one could eat. In 1944, when the Germans pulled back from Namur toward the frontier, a truckload of unused Schmeissers from the armory had been on its way east when the truck broke down. There was no time to repair it, so the cargo was shifted into a nearby bunker and the entrance dynamited. Boucher watched it happen. Years later he had returned, shoveled away the rubble, and removed the thousand weapons.
Since then they had reposed beneath a trapdoor built into the floor of the garage of his country cottage, a building left to him by his parents, who died in the mid-1950s. He had sold job lots of Schmeissers at various times and had “unloaded” half of his reserve.
“If these guns are in good working order, I would be interested in buying a hundred of them,” said Shannon. “Of course, payment would be by cash, in any currency. All reasonable conditions imposed by you would be adhered to in the handing over of the cargo. We also would expect complete discretion.”
“As for the condition, monsieur, they are all brand-new. Still in their maker’s grease and each still wrapped in its sachet of greaseproof paper with seals unbroken. As they came from the factory thirty years ago and, despite their age, still possibly the finest machine pistol ever made.”
Shannon needed no lectures about the Schmeisser 9mm. Personally he would have said the Israeli Uzi was better, but it was heavy. The Schmeisser was much better than the Sten, and certainly as good as the much more modern British Sterling. He thought nothing of the American grease-gun and the Soviet and Chinese burp-guns. However, Uzis and Sterlings are almost unobtainable and never in mint condition.
“May I see?” he asked.
Wheezing heavily, Boucher pulled the black case he carried onto his knees and flicked open the catches after twirling the wheels of the combination lock. He lifted the lid and held the case forward without attempting to get up.
Shannon rose, crossed the room, and took the case from him. He laid it on the bedside table and lifted out the Schmeisser.
It was a beautiful piece of weaponry. Shannon slid his hands over the smooth blue-black metal, gripped the pistol grip, and felt the lightness of it. He pulled back and locked the folding stock and operated the breech mechanism several times and squinted down the barrel from the foresight end. The inside was untouched, unmarked.
“That is the sample model,” wheezed Boucher. “Of course it has had the maker’s grease removed and carries only a light film of oil. But the others are identical. Unused.”
Shannon put it down.
“It takes standard nine-mm. ammunition, which is easy to come by,” said Boucher helpfully.
“Thank you, I know,” said Shannon. “What about magazines? They can’t be picked up just anywhere, you know.”
“I can supply five with each weapon,” said Boucher.
“Five?” Shannon asked in feigned amazement. “I need more than five. Ten at least.”
The bargaining had begun, Shannon complaining about the arms dealer’s inability to provide enough magazines, the Belgian protesting that was the limit he could provide for each weapon without beggaring himself. Shannon proposed $75 for each Schmeisser on a deal for 100 guns; Boucher claimed he could allow that price only for a deal of not less than 250 weapons, and that for 100 he would have to demand $125 each. Two hours later they settled for 100 Schmeissers at $100 each. They fixed time and place for the following Wednesday evening after dark, and agreed on the method for the handover. Shannon offered Boucher a lift back in Vlaminck’s car to where he had come from, but the fat man chose to call a taxi and be taken to Brussels city center to make his own way home. He was not prepared to assume that the Irishman, who he was certain was from the IRA, would not take him somewhere quiet and work on him until he had learned the location of the secret hoard. Boucher was quite right. Trust is silly and superfluous weakness in the black-market arms business.
Vlaminck escorted the fat man with his lethal briefcase down to the lobby and saw him away in his taxi. When he returned, Shannon was packing.
“Do you see what I mean about the truck you bought?” he asked Tiny.
“No,” said the other.
“We will have to use that truck for the pickup on Wednesday