Denison unrolled his sleeping bag and sat on it. What do you think of her?
Personally or professionally?
Maybe a bit of both.
She seems to be a well-balanced young woman. There was amusement in Hardings voice. She certainly knew how to handle Carey she caught him coming and going. And she jabbed me in a sore spot. Shes very capable, Id say.
She took her fathers death pretty coolly.
Harding threw away the blade of grass and lit a cigarette. She lived with her mother and stepfather and didnt have much to do with Meyrick apart from quarrelling. Id say her attitude to her fathers death was perfectly normal. She had other things to think about at the time.
Yes, said Denison pensively.
I dont think you need worry about Lyn Meyrick, said Harding. Shes used to making up her own mind and the minds of others, come to that.
Diana Hansen came down the hill looking trim and efficient in the neat shirt and the drab trousers which she wore tucked into the tops of field boots a world removed from the cool sophisticate Denison had met in Oslo. She cast a look at Lyn and walked over to the two men. Time to do your bit with the theodolite, Giles.
Denison scrambled to his feet. Are they still with us?
So Im told, said Diana. And theres another party. Were becoming popular. Id go up on that ridge there and stay in sight.
All right. Denison took the theodolite out of its case, picked up the lightweight tripod, and walked up the hill in the direction Diana had indicated.
Harding smiled as he watched Denisons retreating figure. He thought that Lyn Meyrick would make up Denisons mind were she allowed to. From a psychiatric point of view it was most interesting but he would have to have a word with the girl first. He got up and walked over to where Lyn was pumping the pressure stove.
Denison stopped on top of the ridge and set up the theodolite. He took the sheet of paper from his pocket, now much creased, and studied it before looking around at the view. This was the bit of fakery Carey had given him to make the deception look good. It had been written with a broad-nibbed pen No ballpoints in 1944, Carey had said and artificially aged. Across the top was scrawled the single word, Luonnonpuisto and below that was a rough sketch of three lines radiating from a single point with the angles carefully marked in degrees. At the end of each line was again a single word Järvi, Kukkula and Aukio going around clockwise. Lake, hill and gap.
Not much to go on, Carey had said. But it explains why youre wandering around nature preserves with a theodolite. If anyone wants to rob you of that bit of paper you can let him. Maybe we can start a trade in theodolites.
Denison looked around. Below ran the thread of a small river, the Kevojoki, and in the distance was the blue water of a lake pent in a narrow valley. He bent his head and sighted the theodolite at the head of the lake. Every time he did this he had a curious sense of déjà vu as though he had been accustomed to doing this all his life. Had he been a surveyor?
He checked the reading on the bezel and sighted again on the hill across the valley and took another reading. He took a notebook from his pocket and worked out the angle between the lake and the hill, then he swept the horizon looking for a possible gap. All this nonsense had to look good because he knew he was under observation Careys red herring appeared to be swimming well.
It had been at lunchtime on the first day that Diana had said casually, Were being watched.
How do you know? asked Denison. Ive seen nobody.
McCready told me.
McCready had not been in evidence at Kevo Camp and Denison had not seen him since Helsinki. Have you been talking to him? Where is he?
Diana nodded across the lake. On the other side of the valley. He says that a party of three men is trailing us.
Denison was sceptical. I suppose you have a walkie-talkie tucked away in your pack.
She shook her head. Just this. From the pocket of her anorak she took a small plate of stainless steel, three inches in diameter; it had a small hole in the middle. Heliograph, she said. Simpler than radio and less detectable.
He examined the double-sided mirror that is what it amounted to and said, How can you aim it?
I know where George McCready is now, she said. Hes just been signalling to me. If I want to answer I hold this up and sight on his position through the hole. Then I look at my own reflection and see a circle of light on my cheek where the sun comes through the hole. If I tilt the mirror so that the circle of light goes into the hole, then the mirror on the other side flashes light into Georges eyes. From then on its simply a matter of Morse code.
Denison was about to experiment when she took the gadget from him. I told you were being watched. I can get away with it by pretending to make up my face you cant.
Has McCready any idea of who is watching us?
She shrugged. He hasnt got near enough to find out. I think its about time you started your act with the theodolite.
So he had set up the theodolite and fiddled about checking angles, and had repeated the charade several times during the past two days.
Denison was about to experiment when she took the gadget from him. I told you were being watched. I can get away with it by pretending to make up my face you cant.
Has McCready any idea of who is watching us?
She shrugged. He hasnt got near enough to find out. I think its about time you started your act with the theodolite.
So he had set up the theodolite and fiddled about checking angles, and had repeated the charade several times during the past two days.
Now he found what might, by a stretch of imagination, be called a gap and took the third reading. He calculated the angle, wrote it into his notebook, and put the notebook and the fake paper back into his pocket. He was dismantling the theodolite when Lyn came up the hill. Suppers ready.
Thanks, he said. Hold this. He gave her the theodolite. Did Diana say anything about another group following us?
Lyn nodded. Theyre coming up from behind very fast, she says.
Wheres the first group?
Gone on ahead.
Were like the meat in a sandwich, Denison said gloomily. Unless its all a product of Dianas imagination. I havent seen anyone around and I certainly havent seen George McCready.
I saw him signalling this morning, said Lyn. He was on the other side of the valley. I was standing next to Diana and saw the flash, too.
Denison collapsed the tripod and they both set off down the hill. You and Harding have had your heads together lately. What do you find so interesting to talk about?
She gave him a sideways glance. You, she said quietly. Ive been finding out about you; since I cant ask you Ive been asking him.
Nothing bad, I hope.
She smiled at him. Nothing bad.
Thats a relief, he said. Whats for supper?
Bully beef stew.
He sighed. I cant wait.
Twenty-Seven
McCready was desperately tired. He lay on a hillside in a grove of dwarf birch and watched the group of four men making their way up the valley on the other side of the river. He had had very little sleep in the last two days and his eyes were sore and gritty. He had long since come to the conclusion that it needed two men to do this job.
He lowered the binoculars and blinked, then rubbed his eyes before checking on the camp on the top of the bluff across the river. There was a new figure on the rock above the camp which looked like Denison. At three in the morning there was quite enough light to see; the sun had skimmed the horizon at midnight and was already high in the sky. It seemed that Diana had insisted that a watch be kept.
He shifted his elbows and checked on the higher reaches of the valley and his mouth tightened as he saw a movement. The three men of the first party were coming down, keeping close to the river. Earlier he had crossed the river to scout their camp and, although he had not got close enough to hear clearly what they had been talking about, he had heard enough to know they were not Finns. Their tones had Slavic cadences and he had seen that they were very lightly equipped with no tents or even sleeping bags.
He switched his attention to the group of four who were coming up the valley. The two groups could not see each other because of a bend in the river where the water swirled around the bluff. He judged that if both groups kept up the same pace they would meet under the bluff and just below Denison.
McCready frowned as he watched. If the first group was under-equipped the second was well-outfitted to the point of decadent luxury. He had watched them stop for a meal and had seen what seemed to be a collapsible barbecue. Two of the men carried coils of rope as though they might expect rock climbing. Maybe Finns, he had thought, but now he was not so certain; not even Finns made route marches at three a.m.
At the time he had first seen the second group he had been too far away to distinguish faces, but now the men were nearer and he had a better chance. As he waited patiently he pondered over the differences between the two parties and came to the conclusion that they were indeed quite separate. Two minutes, later he was sure of it when he saw the face of the leading man of the four.
It was Jack Kidder, the big loud-mouthed American who had cropped up in Oslo and, later, in Helsinki.
Whatever the first group had been speaking it had been neither Finnish nor English. It was reasonable to assume that not only were the two parties quite distinct but also that neither knew of the existence of the other. Even more interesting, they were going to run into each other within twenty minutes.
McCready put down the binoculars and twisted around to open the pack which lay beside him. He took out what appeared to be the stock of a rifle and slapped open the butt plate which was hinged. From inside the hollow glassfibre stock he took out a barrel and a breech action and, within thirty seconds, he had assembled the rifle.
He patted the stock affectionately. This was the Armalite AR-7, originally designed as a survival rifle for the American Air Force. It weighed less than three pounds and was guaranteed to float in water whether knocked down or ready to fire, but what made it suitable for his purpose was the fact that, stripped down, it measured less than seventeen inches in length and so could be smuggled about unobtrusively in a back pack.