He had reserved Shannon a room in the Malaga Palacio in the name of Brown, and Shannon checked in there first. It was just after four when they strolled through the wide gates of the south face of the Acera de la Marina square and onto the docks.

The Albatross was drawn up alongside a quay at the far end of the port. She was as Semmler had described her, and her white paint glistened in the sun and heat. They went aboard, and Semmler introduced Shannon to the owner and captain, George Allen, who showed him over the vessel. Before very long Shannon had come to the conclusion that it was too small for his purposes. There were a master cabin to sleep two, a pair of single cabins, and a saloon where mattresses and sleeping bags could be laid on the floor.

The after hold could, at a pinch, be converted into a sleeping area for another six men, but with the crew of four and Shannon’s five, they would be cramped. He cursed himself for not warning Semmler there were six more men expected who would also have to be fitted in.

Shannon checked the ship’s papers, which appeared to be in order. She was registered in Britain, and her Board of Trade papers confirmed it. Shannon spent an hour with Captain Allen, discussing methods of payment, examining invoices and receipts showing the amount of work that had been done on the Albatross over recent months, and checking the ship’s log. He left with Semmler just before six and strolled back to the hotel, deep in thought.

“What’s the matter?” asked Semmler. “She’s clean.”

“It’s not that,” said Shannon. “She’s too small. She’s registered as a private yacht. She doesn’t belong to a shipping company. The thing that bugs me is that she might not be accepted by the exporting authorities as a fit vessel to take on board a load of arms.”

It was too late back at the hotel to make the calls he wanted to make, so they waited till the following morning. Shortly after nine Shannon called Lloyds of London and asked for a check of the Yacht List. The Albatross was there all right, listed as an auxiliary ketch of 74 tons NRT, with her home port given as Milford and port of residence as Hooe, both of them in Britain.

Then what the hell’s she doing here? he wondered, and then recalled the method of payment that had been demanded. His second call, to Hamburg, clinched it.

“Nein, not a private yacht, please,” said Johann Schlinker. “There would be too great a possibility she would not be accepted to carry freight on a commercial basis.”

“Okay. When do you need to know the name of the ship?” asked Shannon.

“As soon as possible. By the way, I have received your credit transfer for the articles you ordered in my office. These will now be crated and sent in bond to the address in France you supplied. Secondly, I have the paperwork necessary for the other consignment, and as soon as I receive the balance of the money owing, I will go ahead and place the order.”

“When is the latest you need to know the name of the carrying vessel?” Shannon bawled into the phone.

There was a pause while Schlinker thought. “If I receive your check within five days, I can make immediate application for permission to buy. The ship’s name is needed for the export license. In about fifteen days after that.”

“You will have it,” said Shannon and replaced the receiver. He turned to Semmler and explained what had happened.

“Sorry, Kurt. It has to be a registered company in the maritime freighting business, and it has to be a licensed freighter, not a private yacht. You’ll have to keep on searching. But I want the name within twelve days and no later. I have to provide the man in Hamburg with the ship’s name in twenty days or less.”

The two men parted that evening at the airport, Shannon to return to London and Semmler to fly to Madrid and thence to Rome and Genoa, his next port of call.

It was late when Shannon reached his flat again. Before turning in, he called BEA and booked a flight on the noon plane to Brussels. Then he called Marc Vlaminck and asked him to be present at the airport to pick him up on arrival, to take him first to Brugge for a visit to the bank and then to the rendezvous with Boucher for the handover of the equipment.

It was the end of Day Twenty-two.

Mr. Harold Roberts was a useful man. Born sixty-two years earlier of a British father and a Swiss mother, he had been brought up in Switzerland after the premature death of his father, and retained dual nationality. After entering banking at an early age, he had spent twenty years in the Zurich head office of one of Switzerland’s largest banks before being sent to their London branch as an assistant manager.

That had been just after the war, and over the second twenty-year period of his career he had risen to become the manager of the investment accounts section and later overall manager of the London branch, before retiring at the age of sixty. By then he had decided to take his retirement and his pension in Swiss francs in Britain.

Since retirement he had been available for several delicate tasks on behalf not only of his former employers but also of other Swiss banks. He was engaged on such a task that Wednesday afternoon.

It had taken a formal letter from the Zwingli Bank to the chairman and the secretary of Bormac to achieve the introduction to them of Mr. Roberts, and he had been able to present letters corroborating his engagement as agent of the Zwingli Bank in London.

Two further meetings had taken place between Mr. Roberts and the secretary of the company, the second one attended by the chairman, Major Luton, younger brother of the deceased under manager for Sir Ian Macallister in the Far East.

The extraordinary board meeting had been agreed on, and was called in the City offices of the secretary of Bormac. Apart from the solicitor and Major Luton, one other director had agreed to come to London for the meeting and was present. Although two directors made up a working board, three gave an outright majority. They considered the resolution put by the company secretary and the documents he placed before them. The four unseen shareholders whose interests were being looked after by the Zwingli Bank undoubtedly did now own between them 30 per cent of the stock of the company. They certainly had empowered the Zwingli Bank to act on their behalf, and the bank had incontrovertibly appointed Mr. Roberts to represent it.

The argument that clinched the discussion was the simple one that if a consortium of businessmen had agreed together to buy up such a large amount of Bormac stock, they could be believed when their bank said on their behalf that their intention was to inject fresh capital into the company and rejuvenate it. Such a course of action could not be had for the share price, and all three directors were shareholders. The resolution was proposed, seconded, and passed. Mr. Roberts was taken onto the board as a nominee director representing the interests of the Zwingli Bank. No one bothered to change the company rule stipulating that two directors constituted a quorum with power to pass resolutions, although there were now six and no longer five directors.

Mr. Keith Brown was becoming a fairly regular visitor to Brugge and a valued customer at the Kredietbank. He was received with the usual friendliness by Mr. Goossens, and the latter confirmed that a credit of £20,000 had arrived that morning from Switzerland. Shannon drew $10,000 in cash and a certified bank check for $26,000 in the name of Johann Schlinker of Hamburg.

From the nearby post office he mailed the check to Schlinker by registered mail, accompanied by a letter from himself asking the arms dealer to go ahead with the Spanish purchase.

He and Marc Vlaminck had nearly four hours to kill before the rendezvous with Boucher, and they spent two of them taking a leisurely pot of tea in a café in Brugge before setting off just before dusk.