Miss Turquoise

by George B Mair

  MISS TURQUOISE

  George B. Mair

  © George B. Mair 1964

  George B. Mair has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1964 by Jarolds.

  This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  This book is dedicated with affection

  to

  DONNIE and DAVID THOMSON

  of Callander, Scotland. Dental surgeons

  par excellence, connoisseurs of living, good shots and good friends, to whom

  David Grant is obliged for advice on the use and abuse of small-arms

  Table of Contents

  Author’s Note

  Chapter One – ‘Have you ever read your own obituary?’

  Chapter Two – ‘Guinea-pigs can’t be choosers'

  Chapter Three – ‘The name Grant is mud from White House to Downing Street’

  Chapter Four – ‘I’ve earned the right to live’

  Chapter Five – ‘They’ll rub you out for sure, David’

  Chapter Six – ‘If I were you I’d treat her carefully’

  Chapter Seven – ‘Sometimes life is better when it is complicated’

  Chapter Eight – ‘Nothing must happen to him in our hotel’

  Chapter Nine – ‘It is enough that he does not die in public’

  Chapter Ten – ‘I am very frightened’

  Chapter Eleven – ‘So smooth and so warm’

  Chapter Twelve – ‘It is not good for a man always to have a slave around’

  Chapter Thirteen – ‘How shall I die?’

  Chapter Fourteen – ‘’Ow nice to see you again’

  Chapter Fifteen – ‘By the time I was sixteen I knew everything’

  Chapter Sixteen – ‘So what do we do?’

  Chapter Seventeen – ‘I thought we were safe’

  Chapter Eighteen – ‘Please give me the ring’

  Author’s Note

  Spanish Sahara had long been forbidden territory to all but National Servicemen, government officials and a handful of American geologists who, in the early ’sixties, earned big money drilling for possible oil along the borders of Mauretania, Algeria and Morocco. The author and his wife are amongst the tiny handful of non-official Europeans who have been given a ‘safe conduct’ by Madrid and enabled to enter a colony which has, since 1938, virtually been sealed to the outside world.

  The book was completed two weeks before President Kennedy made his sensational approach to Mr. Khrushchev at the United Nations in September 1963.

  Chapter One – ‘Have you ever read your own obituary?’

  Grant lay awake and tuned for danger as his subconscious mental alarm system suddenly jarred him out of the deep sleep which always seemed to follow late evenings with Jacqueline, his bewitching secretary at SHAPE.

  Forcing himself to continue breathing with the same slow rhythm, he opened his eyes a hair’s breadth and studied the long mirror built in flush with the wall by his bedside where reflections from moonlight were blending with the diffused haze of street lamps to play tricks with the darkness.

  Some flecks of plaster dropped inside the wall as traffic rumbled along Avenue de Villiers, three storeys below, and in the silence which followed he again heard the clink of metal as someone manipulated the door lock.

  His recent mission to Moscow had made him more enemies than he cared to think about, but it had begun to look as though he had now been caught like an amateur with his guard down. The flat was empty and zero hour had hit him with less than seconds’ warning. The door was only ten feet away, but already its handle had begun slowly to turn as he eased himself round upon his left side and slackened the top half of the bedclothes.

  Whatever might happen he must have freedom to move.

  And move to fox an unknown who was almost certainly professional.

  A cold draught was whipping his cheeks now that the door had opened, though a long streak of darkness was still giving up few secrets as he waited for the gleam of metal, the soft thwack of a safety-catch slipping to ‘off’ or the tell-tale change of rhythm as a man fixed his lungs before throwing a bullet. But there was only a whisper of rustling clothes, the tread of shoe leather against hall parquet and a flicker of movement as a figure entered the room.

  Grant’s face had begun to quiver under the strain of staring through hooded eyelids, but he froze as a taxi screeched round a nearby corner into the avenue, its headlamps momentarily etching the outline of a young man gripping a stiletto. Welter-weight, he guessed, and thick round the thighs, firm-bellied and with shoulder girdle muscles which could give plenty of punishment.

  The man paused for the longest seconds in Grant’s memory while he forced himself to breathe out the sounds of sleep and until the figure began to approach the bed, its right arm on guard, tensely balanced for action.

  Everything now depended upon split-second timing, but as Grant stared at the thin blade, bracing himself for a freak dive, it twinkled in the half-light and swung upwards.

  Later he remembered only his relief when the bed proved heavy enough to take the strain as he leapt sideways and almost parallel to the floor, butting the man full on the navel as the stiletto arched down in a vicious curve.

  He saw it coming in time to twist in mid-air and wriggle clear, his ankles striking wood with a thud which made him grunt with pain. But he had broken the force of his fall by grabbing at the man’s waist and screwing a fist deep into his crutch as the figure crashed beside him.

  The weight landed across his flanks and a knee jabbed into his buttocks. There was a heavy scent of hair oil and an arm was wrenched backwards into an old-fashioned half-nelson which buried his face in the carpet. The pain was sickening, but habits learned from judo days forced him almost automatically to relax, dropping extra weight on the man behind. As he swayed slightly Grant broke clear, seized an ankle and threw him flat on the floor.

  It was enough to give a breathing space, but although the other man was on his feet first Grant rolled a left hook against the side of his chest and then swung for the jaw. His fist ached as though it had hit concrete, but teeth crunched under his knuckles and he followed with a low jab straight to the heart. The man gasped for breath and slithered to the carpet.

  The knife was buried to the hilt in the mattress, but the bed had hardly been disarranged and even the furniture was only slightly askew, though Grant’s thoughts were racing far ahead of events as he smacked a final blow against the carotid plexus. They had not been disturbed, but professional killers of this type more usually operated in pairs and he grinned maliciously as the figure slumped into an unconsciousness which was next to death. Swiftly he drew the curtains, snapped on the lights and lifted a Smith and Wesson .357 from the bed-side locker. The hall and rooms were clear, but the front entrance had been neatly forced open and left ajar, though the fire-escape rear exit was untouched.

  Back in the bedroom the man was alive, though almost pulseless as Grant bolted the door and lifted him on to a heavy armchair, lashing him to the spars with nylon rope, and strapping a handkerchief against his mouth with strips of elastoplast bandage.

  He fumbled subconsciously for his pipe, and then, his mind made up, laid it beside the phone before dialling the unlisted number of his chief. A new gadget for scrambling messages had lately been installed in the homes of selected Service personnel and he could speak freely, although it was still an almost unforgivable sin to phone the Old Man direct except in cases of top priority, and it remained to be proved whether or not Admiral John Silas Cooper would rate a stiletto hoodlum as the red light for action.

  ‘Yes?’ The voice was gruff and non-committal, with a resonant Am
erican twang.

  ‘David Grant here, sir. Sorry to bother you at this hour but I’ve got a visitor trussed up in my bedroom. Age probably late twenties. Nationality anyone’s guess but might be French. Initials G.A. inscribed on back of his wrist watch. Entered by front door. Looks like a professional. Only one slightly off-beat angle. A sort of stiletto. Which I’ve left sticking in the mattress of my bed in case you might want to see it.’

  ‘You O.K.?’ The voice was still dead-pan.

  ‘Yes, sir. A few bruises. Nothing special, but thought I’d better ask for instructions.’

  ‘Right. It’s 2.15 a.m. now but I’ll have my secretary round within the hour. She’ll be wearing black and carrying a shopping bag, so it’s not likely that any of your friend’s buddies will rate her suspicious. However, she’ll minimize risk by taking the house elevator to the top floor and then walking down. Just confirm that the immediate coast is clear on your landing and leave the rest to her.’

  ‘Very good, sir. And we keep the police out of it.’

  ‘We keep everyone out of it until my secretary takes over and then you will do exactly what she says, how she says it and exactly when she says it. Understand?’

  Grant knew better than to ask any more what the Admiral would call damn-fool questions. Miss Sidders was highly privileged and spoke with her master’s voice. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And, David. . . . One more point. Don’t be surprised by anything you are ordered to do, I’ve got some very big business in the offing and this fracas tonight may be exactly the opening which could suit us very well.’

  As the line went dead Grant turned again to the figure on the chair. It was alive but still unconscious and for the time being at least could be forgotten. He again snapped out the lights and opened the shutters a fraction, keeping in the shadows as he scanned the avenue through night-glasses. One car was parked within shooting distance, a man at the wheel and a blonde lying with her head against his shoulder. A few figures were strolling on the sidewalks, but surrounding windows were either blank or shuttered. On the face of things it was a solo effort by G.A., whoever he might be.

  He glanced impatiently at his watch and settled down to a drink. Miss Sidders was the original dame formidable, a battle-axe to end all battle-axes, though no one would suspect it when they first met the stout, motherly-looking little woman, who, at sixty, served as confidential secretary to the Chief Administrator of ADSAD, NATO’s Administrative Department controlling Security measures relating to Attack and Defence.

  ADSAD had been founded in 1958, with Admiral Cooper given complete discretion under the Director General to create a security network which would be second to none, and the outcome of several years’ build-up was an organization which had now become one of NATO’s most effective weapons.

  The Admiral had developed techniques drawn from a concentrated study of methods followed by America’s Central Intelligence Agency and by Britain’s M.I. divisions. But he had also applied some well-tested principles adopted during the Second World War by both the French Maquis and Hitler’s Gestapo, nor had he hesitated to cull ideas from what had been learned about Russia’s own secret police. Every new scientific advance was vetted by the department and nothing which could further its work was ever missed.

  But ADSAD’s staff members still relied upon total secrecy for their protection and it was there that Grant had slipped up. Originally posted to SHAPE as Deputy Adviser Medical Aspects of Physical Survival, his medical career and years with UNO had made DAMPS an ideal front for the work which really mattered. Indeed everything had gone smoothly until a recent assignment to Moscow had ended in near disaster and Soviet police had pin-pointed him as a top-flight intelligence agent. For the last six weeks he had been kept with his nose to a desk, forced to realize that his years of usefulness might have ended.

  Admiral Cooper played every hand close to his chest and was obsessed with secrecy. An agent who had become ‘known’ automatically became redundant.

  He again looked at his watch and restlessly scanned the avenue. Over seventy minutes had passed, but a bus was now drawing away from the nearest stop and an elderly woman shuffling along the gutter, her elastic-sided boots gripping wrinkled stockings, and two flute loaves sticking out fore and aft from a hold-all bag. He lost sight of her as she angled across the pavement towards the houses, but four sips of rum later the lift whined past and clicked to a halt above whilst he checked that the landing was clear and the old lady in black walked quickly down the staircase.

  Raising a finger to her lips she cocked her head to the side, listening, and then gently closed the Chubb lock of his front door.

  Laying her bag carefully down upon a side table she glanced in a mirror, patted a curl into place and turned to the figure on the chair. ‘This man’s face is familiar.’ She hesitated. ‘I think he’s called Georges Amman, though we’ll have to confirm. But if so he’s a professional killer with a record of international subversion since 1960.’

  She seemed completely composed and neither apologized for nor seemed embarrassed by a rig-out which looked like a caricature of an elderly Parisian concierge: until he remembered that every concierge he knew looked like a caricature.

  ‘Stop staring, Doctor,’ she said brusquely. ‘And do put on a dressing-gown. You look indecent standing there in pyjamas.’

  When he returned from the dressing-room she was running her fingers over the knots and checking up on G.A.’s pockets. ‘You weren’t quite thoughtful enough. Instead of wrapping this man up like a trussed chicken three or four correctly placed loops would have done equally well and left fewer marks on the body.’

  ‘What body?’ Grant watched curiously as she fumbled with her rexine shopping bag, laid aside the bread and withdrew a German Lilliput .425 fitted with a silencer.

  Ignoring him she turned towards the bed. ‘Tell me exactly what happened after you woke up and heard this man break into the house.’

  ‘Right.’ She had listened with a fixed intensity which was almost frightening, but now relaxed and spoke almost normally. ‘Remember that a stiletto kills rather slowly. The blade penetrates skin and causes an internal haemorrhage, but when it is withdrawn there may be almost no mark on the surface and a few moments pass before the victim dies. Though during that time he may not even be aware of what has happened. Presumably this man hoped to prick your heart, leaving little sign of external injury, and in the belief that if you were found dead with no obvious cause diplomatic pressure would be brought to bear upon the police to avoid an autopsy and that you would simply be sent home to your family, probably with an official death certificate labelled coronary thrombosis.

  ‘However,’ she added slowly. ‘Let us suppose that you did waken up and found your assailant leaving the room. In that event you might have had time to shoot him. Then again, lying on your bed as you must have been, and bearing in mind that he would be leaving in a hurry, the chances are that you would aim for his back. Let us further suppose that you panicked and shot high. He might, therefore, have stopped a bullet at about eight to ten feet and fallen to the carpet shot through the side of the neck. So undo these ropes and bring him over here.’

  Nodding briefly Grant untied the knots and carried the limp figure to where Miss Sidders was pointing at a worn patch on the carpet.

  ‘There,’ she said. ‘Exactly right. But remove the gag and let’s prepare the scene properly.’ Cautiously measuring distance she raised her right arm as though at target practice and shot Amman below the right ear. ‘The Admiral’s idea,’ she explained. ‘And I haven’t gone mad. But rub this gun clean while I position the body. Then we must get your own fingerprints all over it before you finally drop the thing beside your bed. And in proper relation to where you sleep,’ she added grimly.

  Grant had never before seen Miss Sidders in action outside her office and he jumped to attention as he had rarely done since his training days with the RAF during the early forties.

  ‘Well now,’ she said,
‘let’s sit down for a moment, but there is very little time to get you briefed and Admiral Cooper’s instructions are complicated.’

  ‘May I smoke?’

  ‘If it soothes your nerves, yes,’ she said curtly. ‘But if not I would prefer to have your undivided attention. Since you returned from Moscow two months ago the question of your future has been much in mind and this affair tonight has brought matters to a head.

  ‘As we understand it the position is this. Some organization or other wishes to see you dead and it suits the department to try and oblige them . . . at least if you are going to be of any further use to ADSAD. We must, therefore, try to stage a situation which will lead people to think that you were knifed in bed but that you lived long enough to kill your assassin before he could leave the room.

  ‘The first part has been taken care of,’ she added, ‘and much of the rest now depends upon getting the right people here at the right time. So first you must phone that secretary of yours—Jacqueline I think you called her—and ask her to come round at once. You will give no reason for disturbing her sleep, but if she tries to get one I want you to gasp and drop the receiver, leaving the thing off its hook. That is almost certain to bring her, and she will find you lying in bed, apparently dead, but with a puncture wound on your chest wall and holding a blood-stained knife which you have obviously managed to pull out just before dying. Because I,’ she added, ‘will have pricked your chest with it, right over the heart, just before I leave.

  ‘And I will also fuse the wires so that the girl will see you only in the half-light. So one supposes that she will then phone the police. But in the meantime Colonel Fengsted, your immediate chief, will have been briefed, and ought to arrive, apparently on a late business call, on or about the same time as Jacqueline de Massacré. He will then certify death, claim diplomatic immunity for your body, refuse to allow a post-mortem examination and have it removed in a hearse or ambulance to a funeral parlour where you will later be again identified by Maya Koren.’