The Burning Sky by Jack Ludlow Page A

return, with Jardine putting in an immediate telephone call to his office, which had, of necessity, to be discreet and in German, which he had been told the man, like many of his countrymen, spoke fluently. It took ages and some insistence to get through.
    ‘We have not met, Colonel, but we have a mutual acquaintance and he has kindly given me your name as someone who can advise me about certain aspects of a country I do not know at all.’
    ‘This acquaintance is?’
    ‘A resident of Monte Carlo and a man with whom you have done business in the past.’
    That led to a pause: this was not a man to be rushed. ‘Is he an elderly gentleman by any chance?’
    ‘Newly into his eighth decade, Colonel.’
    ‘And your purpose in being in Bucharest, Herr Jardine?’
    ‘I am looking for business opportunities in a general sort of way.’
    Jardine emphasised the word ‘general’ and he was not disappointed, given his hint seemed to be picked up. ‘And how can I be of assistance?’
    ‘Might I suggest we have dinner together at my hotel tomorrow night and I can outline my needs?’
    ‘Allow me to consult my diary.’
    That was just a holding tactic: Jardine suspected a man like Dimitrescu, even if he had never met him, would know precisely what commitments he had. ‘Where are you staying?’
    ‘The Athénée Palace.’
    ‘Tomorrow evening?’
    No doubt after a day of making enquiries to find out who I am, one of which would be a telegram to Zaharoff. ‘Around nine perhaps, Colonel; I am informed you do not dine early in Rumania.’
    Jardine and Vince spent the next day finding out about their surroundings, including a very quick way to get out of the hotel unseen, this while Lanchester saw to the banking. A wander round the city showed a mixture of the very new and the timeless, expensive cars many times required to use their horns to move aside horse-drawn transport, like the cabs called trăsurăs , with Vince sure he was able to recognise the swear words.
    The language was akin to Italian, derived as it was from the Latin left behind by the Roman Empire, which had established a frontier in this part of the world to keep out the barbarians from further east, and one held onto by a population that refused to speak Turkish when ruled by the Ottomans. They hated the Austrians and Russians who had occupied the city several times with as much passion, but German was a second language, hardly surprising given the monarch was Carol von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, part of the same extended family as the exiled German kaiser.
    Mentally, as he always did, Jardine was imagining ways to leave the country; while what he was involved in carried none of the dangers of Hamburg, the arms trade was inherently risky, peopled by shadowy types in whom it would be foolish to repose any trust. In reality there was only one way to move speedily and that was by car – public air travel was non-existent in this part of the world and the trains were too obvious.
    Walking aimlessly, seeking to imprint the place on his mind, he and Vince came across a crowded flea market down by the Dambovita river, a sluggish and ugly watercourse, and there he bought a couple of flat caps and two old sets of overalls, which went into a battered old suitcase. His next task was to find a second-hand car.
    They took a tram along one of the main boulevards leading to the suburbs, and sure enough, as the road left the quarter of big shops and offices, the businesses became smaller and more diverse. Vince spotted a forecourt of dust-covered cars and what followed was a farcical pieceof haggling that went on for an hour and ended up with Jardine, thanks to Vince’s inherited Italian skills, paying less than half the opening price demanded.
    ‘How the British ever got an empire beats me,’ Vince said.
    ‘Easy, Vince, we just overpaid.’
     
    ‘A Citroën, old boy,’ Lanchester scoffed. ‘Could you not find anything British?’
    ‘The make doesn’t matter, Peter,