Endean soon noticed that Shannon was not in a position to talk freely. “Is there someone with you?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Is it connected with business?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to meet?”

“I think we ought,” said Shannon. “What about tomorrow morning?”

“Okay. About eleven suit you?”

“Sure,” said Shannon.

“Your place?”

“Suits me fine.”

“I’ll be there at eleven,” said Endean and hung up.

Shannon turned to the South African. “How are you getting on, Janni?” he asked.

Dupree had made a little progress in the three days he had been working. The hundred pairs of socks, T-shirts, and underpants were on order and would be ready for collection by Friday. He had found a supplier for the fifty combat tunics and had placed the order. The same firm could have provided trousers to match, but, according to his orders, Dupree was seeking another firm to supply the trousers, so that no one supplier would realize he was providing complete sets of uniforms. Dupree mentioned that no one seemed suspicious in any case, but Shannon decided nevertheless to stick to the original idea.

Janni said he had tried several footwear stores but had not found the canvas boots he was looking for. He would go on trying for the rest of the week and start searching for berets, haversacks, knapsacks, a variety of webbing, and sleeping bags next week. Shannon advised him to contact his first export agent and get the first consignment of underwear and tunics off to Marseilles as soon as possible. He promised Dupree to get from Langarotti the name and address of a consignee agent in Marseilles within the next forty-eight hours.

Before the South African left, Shannon typed out a letter to Langarotti and addressed it to him under his real name at the main post office of Marseilles. In the letter he reminded the Corsican of a conversation they had had six months earlier beneath the palm trees, when the talk had turned to the buying of arms. The Corsican had mentioned that he knew a man in Paris who could get End User Certificates from a diplomat in one of the Paris embassies of an African republic. Shannon needed to know the name of the man and where he could be contacted.

When he had finished he gave Dupree the letter and ordered him to post it, express rate, that same evening from Trafalgar Square. He explained he would have done it himself, but he had to wait in the flat for Langarotti to call from Marseilles.

He was getting very hungry by eight, when Langarotti finally called, his voice crackling over a telephone line that must have been created personally by the inventor of that antique masterpiece the French telephone network.

Shannon asked him, in guarded terms, how he had been getting on. Before any of the mercenaries had left him, he had warned them all that under no circumstances was a telephone line to be used to talk openly about what they were doing.

“I checked into a hotel and sent you a telegram with my address on it,” said Langarotti.

“I know. I got it,” shouted Shannon.

“I hired a scooter and toured all the shops that deal in the kind of merchandise we are looking for,” came the voice. “There are three manufacturers in each category. I got the addresses and names of the three boat-makers and wrote off to each for their brochures. I should get them in a week or so. Then I can order the best-suited from the local dealers, quoting the maker’s name and brand name of the article,” said Langarotti.

“Good idea,” said Shannon. “What about the second articles?”

“They depend on the kind we pick from the brochures I shall get. One depends on the other. But don’t worry. On the second thing we need, there are thousands of every kind and description in the shops along this coast. With spring coming, every shop in every port is stocking up with the latest models.”

“Okay. Fine,” Shannon shouted. “Now listen. I need the name of a good export agent for shipping. I need it earlier than I thought. There will be a few crates to be sent from here in the near future, and another from Hamburg.”

“I can get that easy enough,” said Langarotti from the other end. “But I think it will be better in Toulon. You can guess why.”

Shannon could guess. Langarotti could use another name at his hotel, but for exporting goods from the port on a small freighter he would have to show his identity card. Moreover, in the past year or so Marseilles police had tightened up considerably in their watch on the port and a new customs chief had been drafted in, who was believed to be a holy terror. The aim of both operations was to clamp down on the heroin traffic that made Marseilles the start of the French connection with New York, but a search of a boat for drugs could just as easily turn up arms instead. It would be the worst irony to be caught because of something one was not even involved in.

“Fair enough, you know that area best,” said Shannon. “Cable me the name and address as soon as you have them. There is one other thing. I have sent a letter by express rate tonight, to you personally at the main post office in Marseilles. You’ll see what I want when you read it. Cable me the man’s name at once when you get the letter, which should be Friday morning.”

“Okay,” said Langarotti. “Is that all?”

“Yes, for the moment. Send me those brochures as soon as you get them, with your own comments and the prices. We must stay in budget.”

“Right. By-by,” called Langarotti, and Shannon hung up. He had dinner alone at the Bois de St. Jean and slept early.

Endean arrived at eleven the next morning and spent an hour reading the report and accounts and discussing both with Shannon.

“Fair enough,” he said at length. “How are things going?”

“Well,” said Shannon, “it’s early days yet, of course. I’ve only been on the job for ten days, but a lot of ground has been covered. I want to get all the orders placed by Day Twenty, which will leave forty days for them to be fulfilled. After that there must be an allowance of twenty days to collect all the component parts and get them safely and discreetly aboard the ship. Sailing date should be Day Eighty, if we are to strike on schedule. By the way, I shall need more money soon.”

“You have three and a half thousand in London, and seven thousand in Belgium,” objected Endean.

“Yes, I know. But there is going to be a spate of payments soon.”

He explained he would have to pay Johann, the Hamburg arms dealer, the outstanding $26,000 within twelve days to allow him forty days to get the consignment through the formalities in Madrid and ready for shipment; then there would be $4800, also to Johann, for the ancillary gear he needed for the attack. When he had the End User Certificate in Paris, he would have to send it to Alan, along with a credit transfer for $7200, 50 per cent of the Yugoslav arms price.

“It all mounts up,” he said. “The big payments, of course, are the arms and the boat. They form over half the total budget.”

“All right,” said Endean. “I’ll consult and prepare a draft to your Belgian account for another twenty thousand pounds. Then the transfer can be made on a telephone call from me to Switzerland. In that way it will only take a matter of hours, when you need it.” He rose to go. “Anything else?”

“No,” said Shannon. “I’ll have to go away again at the weekend for another trip. I should be away most of next week. I want to check on the search for the boat, the choice of dinghies and outboards in Marseilles, and the submachine guns in Belgium.”

“Cable me at the usual address when you leave and when you get back,” said Endean.

The drawing room in the sprawling apartment above Cottesmore Gardens, not far from Kensington High Street, was gloomy in the extreme, with heavy drapes across the windows to shut out the spring sunshine. A gap a few inches wide between them allowed a little daylight to filter in through thick net curtains. Between the four formally placed and overstuffed chairs, each of them late-Victorian pieces, myriad small tables bore assorted bric-a-brac. There were buttons from long-punctured uniforms, medals won in long-past skirmishes with long-liquidated heathen tribes. Glass paperweights nudged Dresden china dolls, cameos of once demure Highland beauties, and fans that had cooled faces at balls whose music was no longer played.