There is a lonely stretch of road between Brugge and Ghent, which lies 44 kilometers to the east. Because the road twists and winds through flat farmland, most motorists prefer to take the new motorway E5, which also links the two Flemish towns as it runs from Ostend to Brussels. Halfway along the old road the two mercenaries found the abandoned farm that Boucher had described, or rather they found the faded notice board pointing down the track to the farm, which was hidden from view by a clump of trees.

Shannon drove on past the spot and parked, while Marc got out and went to check the farm over. He came back twenty minutes later to confirm the farm was indeed deserted and there were no signs that anyone had been there for quite a time. Nor were there any preparations in progress to provide an unpleasant reception for the two buyers.

“Anyone in the house or outbuildings?” asked Shannon.

“The house is locked front and back. No signs of interference. I checked out the barns and stables. No one there.”

Shannon glanced at his watch. It was dark already, and there was still an hour to go. “Get back there and keep a watch from cover,” he ordered. “I’ll watch the front entrance from here.”

When Marc had gone, Shannon checked the truck once again. It was old and rattled, but it was serviceable and the engine had been looked over by a good mechanic. Shannon took the two false number plates from the facia and whipped them onto the real number plates with sticky insulating tape. They could be ripped off easily enough once the truck was well away from the farm. On each side of the truck was a large publicity sticker that gave the vehicle a distinctive air but which could also come off in a hurry. In the back were the six large sacks of potatoes he had ordered Vlaminck to bring with him, and the broad wooden board sawn to make an internal tailgate when slotted into place. Satisfied, he resumed his vigil by the roadside.

The truck he was expecting turned up at five to eight. As it slowed and swung down the track to the farm, Shannon could make out the form of the driver hunched over the wheel and beside him the blob surmounted by a pimple of a head that could only be M. Boucher. The red taillights of the vehicle disappeared down the track and went out of sight behind the trees. Apparently Boucher was playing it straight.

Shannon gave him three minutes; then he too pulled his truck off the hard road and onto the track. When he got to the farmyard, Boucher’s truck was standing with sidelights on the center. He cut his engine and climbed down, leaving his own sidelights on, the nose of his truck parked ten feet from the rear of Boucher’s.

“Monsieur Boucher,” he called into the gloom. He stood in darkness himself, well to one side of the glow of his own lights.

“Monsieur Brown,” he heard Boucher wheeze, and the fat man waddled into view. He had evidently brought his “helper” along with him, a big, beefy-looking type whom Shannon assessed as being good at lifting things but slow-moving. Marc, he knew, could move like a ballet dancer when he wished. He saw no problem if it came to trouble.

“You have the money?” asked Boucher as he came close.

Shannon gestured to the driving seat of the truck. “In there. You have the Schmeissers?”

Boucher waved a pudgy hand at his own truck. “In the back.”

“I suggest we get both our consignments out onto the ground between the trucks,” said Shannon. Boucher turned and said something to his helper in Flemish, which Shannon could not follow. The man moved to the back of his own truck and opened it. Shannon tensed. If there were to be any surprises, they would come when the doors opened. There were none. The dull glimmer from his own truck’s lights showed ten flat, square crates and an open-topped carton.

“Your friend is not here?” asked Boucher.

Shannon whistled. Tiny Marc joined them from behind a nearby barn.

There was silence. Shannon cleared his throat. “Let’s get the handover done,” he said. He reached into the driving compartment and pulled out the fat brown envelope. “Cash, as you asked for. Twenty-dollar bills. Bundles of fifty. Ten bundles.”

He stayed close to Boucher as the fat man flicked through each bundle, counting with surprising speed for such plump hands, and stuffing the bundles into his side pockets. When he had reached the last he pulled all the bundles back out and selected a note at random from each. By the light of a pencil flashlight he scanned them closely, the samples, checking for forgeries. There were none. At last he nodded.

“All in order,” he said and called something to his helper. The man moved aside from the truck doors. Shannon nodded at Marc, who went to the truck and heaved the first crate onto the grass. From his pocket he produced a wrench and prised up the lid. By the light of his own flashlight he checked the ten Schmeissers lying side by side in the crate. One of them he took out and checked for firing-mechanism pin and breech movement. He replaced the machine pistol and smacked the loose lid back down tight.

It took him twenty minutes to check all ten cases. While he did so the big helper brought by M. Boucher stood nearby. Shannon stood at Boucher’s elbow, twelve feet away. Finally Marc looked into the open-topped crate. It contained five hundred magazines for the Schmeissers. He tested one sample magazine to ensure it fitted and that the magazines were not for a different model of pistol. Then he turned to Shannon and nodded.

“All in order,” he said.

“Would you ask your friend to help mine load them up?” asked Shannon of Boucher. The fat man passed the instruction to his assistant. Before loading, the two beefy Flemings removed the potato sacks, and Shannon heard them discussing something in Flemish. Then Boucher’s helper laughed. Within another five minutes the ten flat crates and the carton of magazines were loaded in Marc’s truck.

When the crates of arms were loaded, Marc placed the board in position as a tailgate which came halfway up the back of the truck. Taking a knife, he slit the first sack, hefted it onto his shoulder, and emptied the contents into the back of the van. The loose potatoes rolled about furiously, finding the cracks between the edges of the crates and the sides of the van and filling them up. With a laugh, the other Belgian started to help him. The quantity of potatoes they had brought more than covered every trace of the ten crates of guns and the carton of magazines. Anyone looking in the back would be confronted with a sea of loose potatoes. The sacks were thrown into the hedge.

When they were finished, both men came around from the back of the truck together.

“Okay, let’s go,” said Marc.

“If you don’t mind, we’ll leave first,” said Shannon to Boucher. “After all, we now have the incriminating evidence.”

He waited till Marc had started the engine and turned the truck around so that it was facing the drive back to the road before he left Boucher’s side and leaped aboard. Halfway down the track there was a particularly deep pothole, over which the truck had to move with great care and very slowly. At this point Shannon muttered something to Marc, borrowed his knife, and jumped from the truck to hide in the bushes by the side of the lane.

Two minutes later, Boucher’s truck came along. It too slowed almost to a halt to negotiate the pothole. Shannon slipped from the bushes as the truck went past, caught up, stooped low, and jammed the knife point into the rear offside tire. He heard it hiss madly as it deflated; then he was back in the bushes. He rejoined Tiny Marc on the main road, where the Belgian had just ripped the stickers from the sides of their vehicle and the false number plates off front and back. Shannon had nothing against Boucher; he just wanted a clear half-hour’s start.

By ten-thirty the pair was back in Ostend, the truck loaded with spring potatoes was garaged in the lockup Vlaminck had hired on Shannon’s instructions, and the two were in Marc’s bar on Kleinstraat, toasting each other in foaming steins of ale while Anna prepared a meal. It was the first time Shannon had met the well-built woman who was his friend’s mistress, and, as is the tradition with mercenaries when meeting each other’s womenfolk, he treated her with elaborate courtesy.