Grant hesitated. The Admiral and Miss Sidders rarely left blind ends. ‘My contact man?’
‘We’ll give you that at the last moment,’ grunted the Admiral. ‘But how about gadgets? Any ideas?’
‘Sure.’ His brain was working overtime, tabbing every pro and con of the possibilities. And one of Grant’s unconscious assets to the department was his instinct for a good cover story. White-slave angles left him cold, but the medical approach might get round almost everything. It was reasonable enough for an adventurously minded forty-year-old medico to try out the new lands of Africa for an opportunity which might either bring him a chair in a new university or a big private income from the capitalist politicians who were all busy out-Jonesing one another from Tangier to Leopoldville and ’cross country to Zanzibar.
Equipment would have to be light, but it would be reasonable to carry essential surgical kit and a load of antibiotics. The whole lot could go into one cabin trunk, still leaving room for a sphygmomanometer and ophthalmoscope, a few textbooks and some vaccines.
‘With no Customs problems?’ asked the Admiral.
Grant smiled sourly. Personal effects. And emigrating. Or so Miss Sidders suggested. Should be no more complicated than anything else one might think up. And at worst they can only charge duty.
‘Drugs?’ said Miss Sidders. ‘Forbidden in some places.’
‘Then we’ll bribe. It should still be possible to get anything through so long as we steer clear of Mary Jane and opium or cocaine.’
The Admiral fidgeted slightly. It was close upon elevenses, and he was a stickler for his half-pint of cold black coffee. ‘Any requests?’
‘I’ll write out a list and let you have it by night.’ He paused. ‘Are you going to my funeral, sir?’
His chief stifled a yawn. The overnight trip had upset his sleep routine. ‘No. With some private eye mugging every face as it goes into the crematorium and then tying up connections to see who is family and who isn’t! That’s the sort of security risk which is asking for trouble.’
His jaw suddenly hardened and his voice became very soft. ‘ADSAD don’t rate many countries very high when it comes to handling state secrets. You have a foot in two camps: an American mother and a British father, and your record is clean as a new tooth. Your personal standing with the top men is still plus-plus, and in spite of what I said about your name being dirt it is com-plete-ly understood that you are one hundred per cent dependable. Your work for several years has transcended national boundaries and has been exclusively for the advancement of freedom with democracy. But you will keep it that way, and that is an ex-plicit order. No one—repeat no one—must know of this present mission. And no one—repeat no one—must presently know about riodorium or its uses in regard to America’s space programme. The Director General, the President and myself will decide when other member states within the Alliance can be told about it, but until then it remains top-secret. So that is an order, son. And you will not forget to obey it in de-tail. Understood?’
Grant had never heard his chief speak with such determination. He seemed suddenly to have aged and to have become a lonely old man half asleep on a chair beside an elderly hausfrau who might have been his wife. But she too seemed suddenly old and the room was very quiet as Miss Sidders rose to her feet. ‘I’ll get coffee, Admiral.’ Passing Grant she paused and unexpectedly laid her hand upon his arm. ‘If anyone can pull this off you can, David. But be careful. In our work we can’t afford to let imagination run riot or get worried about hunches. And we both have a feeling that before this is over someone will die.’
Chapter Four – ‘I’ve earned the right to live’
Grant always appreciated ADSAD’s flair for organization.
The funeral had been stage-managed to perfection, but elementary security measures confined him to a back room away from probing field-glasses which might have been covering the flat, and he was more embarrassed than he cared to admit when Fengsted later described an impressive list of mourners.
But the same need for continued secrecy left him alone for two more days, forced to live in corners and avoid even running a tap.
He left the flat crouching inside a Victorian wardrobe and was jostled in a furniture van to a repository in Brompton Road where he remained until nightfall before breaking into a neighbouring house rented by the department and then slipping through a basement entrance into a mews.
Still following instructions he was wearing a double-breasted blue serge suit with merchant seaman’s cap and brown shoes delivered on the previous day by Miss Sidders, who had characteristically treated him to a lecture on disguise. ‘The important thing is not only to “look” different but to “be” different. The suit is not enough. Your tan helps a lot but the Admiral asks me to remind you that you must behave like a seaman. Drop the pose of off-handed laziness. Look as though you were accustomed to giving orders. A bit of a swagger and a glad eye for any good-looking woman. A beer in two or three pubs, but choose places with double entrances and don’t be too sure, too soon, that you are really safe. Take no chances and tie up for the night in the YMCA hostel near Russell Square.’
He felt stifled after almost four full days indoors with no exercise and the evening air felt like wine. A long walk had become more than a luxury and he cut directly back to the West End, pausing only for a drink in Shepherd’s Market. The district was quiet and if the Admiral felt that he might still not be in the clear there could be no better place for pin-pointing a ‘tail’. He remembered that the same car had passed twice within ten minutes. A coloured man had walked behind him for several hundred yards and two girls paced him level on the other side of the road. The car had a taller-than-usual radio aerial and one of the girls a hearing aid: which might have been anything.
Cupping his hands in the shelter of a door-way he paused to relight his pipe. A black MG purred along in second gear, its bearded driver scanning the sidewalk and ogling a red-head leaving Garrick House. An elderly couple were walking their dogs and a solitary middle-aged man standing outside a lighted café.
Everything seemed normal enough but subconscious tensions were still tingling Grant’s senses as he walked abruptly back towards Piccadilly and the protection of bright lights. He was within a hundred yards of the Royal Academy when he felt a sharp sting in his back just below his left shoulder. It was enough to make him squirm with pain and he hesitated, unable to place the cause. It hadn’t felt like a bullet. There had been no kick and almost it might have been a twinge of fibrositis. But his arm had gone heavy and his neck was stiffening. As always at that hour the street was quiet, though there were still enough people about to make attempted murder dangerous. And no one had been within yards of him when it happened.
Traffic was slight and he walked swiftly towards the Ritz, where he could at least book a room. In spite of merchant seaman’s rig they would give him one even if it meant cash down on arrival. But he hesitated at the kerb. Headlamps were blinding and it had become difficult to focus. He staggered towards a lamp-post and tried to prevent himself from falling. A car drew up alongside and he heard people arguing.
‘Just a drunk, my boy. An old pal. Let’s get him into the car.’
‘Ain’t no smell o’ drink on ’is kisser, guv’nor. Looks like an ’eart attack ter me.’
Someone laughed. A woman. Her voice was high-pitched and shrill. ‘Don’t be so silly. He’s mate on the yacht of a friend of mine. But a frightfully heavy boozer. Lost his master’s ticket over it.’
He felt himself being pushed into the car. His tongue was thick and his lips dry and parched. It was difficult to keep his balance, and although he knew what he wanted to say it was impossible to string words together. But he heard the woman laugh with satisfaction as he collapsed on the back seat. ‘Well, we’ve got you at long last.’
The car shot off towards Regent Street and as Grant slumped against her shoulder she stubbed a cigarette out against his wrist. ‘But although you’ve wasted my even
ing I’d hate to be in your shoes when we get to Zero.’
The car was now moving fast towards the City. The woman’s bones were hard and Grant’s head jerked helplessly at every corner. His dissociation from reality was different from anything he had known in the past. One half of his mind was still clear and he could even understand that somehow or other he had been kidnapped. But it didn’t seem to matter. Zero! An odd name. A place, or a man? Or a woman?
His limbs were stiff and it was difficult to control movements. His wrist was aching like hell and the woman blowing smoke into his face. But she had a cheroot this time and it smelt like Burma. And her scent was too strong. A vulgar sickliness like night-club dressing-rooms.
The driver said little. But he had a phoney accent and Grant placed him as a mixed breed. Touch of West Indian maybe. The back of his head was a rounded blob against the darkness of ill-lit streets, his neck powerful and hair plastered flat with oil. ‘Still alive?’ he asked.
The woman’s voice was impatient. ‘Sure. And let’s hope he stays that way for a bit.’
Grant glanced at his watch. They had been driving for over an hour and were now south of the river. His fingers were less stiff and his mind beginning to clear. He guessed that he could even speak if he wanted to. There was a smoothness about the operation which was strictly professional. He would have bet anything that the sting on his back was either a bullet or dart moulded from one of the more swiftly acting hypnotics and fired from an air-gun. They were now being used by police in certain American states, but so far as he knew still hadn’t reached Europe. The drug dissolved in the tissues and was better than a bullet if one wanted to catch a man alive. But, of course, they could be made from anything. Just a development of curare-tipped blowpipe barbs, really. There was nothing new under the sun! He realized that he was again becoming confused. He ought to have been worried. But he wasn’t. It was bloody interesting, in fact. Though the Admiral would have another word for it. Bloody incompetent, more likely.
The woman was watching him curiously. ‘I think he’s beginning to come round.’
The driver glanced backwards. His eyes were set widely apart below a bulging forehead. ‘Then cosh him if he starts anything. But gently. We want to keep him alive.’
The woman lifted her skirt. Her stocking tops were wrinkled and there was an expanse of pasty white skin as she unclipped the cord of a policeman’s baton from her suspender belt and lifted it out of a two-inch sheath fixed liked a garter above the knee. It had lain along the inside of her thigh and she slipped the loop over her right wrist, measuring its weight as Grant allowed himself to lurch forward and slithered half to the floor, his chest and head sprawling over the seat beside her.
He was breathing heavily, but with every breath his mind seemed to clear again, though his limbs were tingling and his muscles still stiff.
He had seen enough to know that they were through Chatham and on the A2 for Canterbury.
Canterbury! Zero? The names tied up somewhere. And then he remembered. Force X! For ‘X’ say ‘unknown’. The unknown organization which ADSAD had begun to suspect lay behind several international sensations which had helped to keep the Cold War fanned to ember-smouldering heat. And somewhere along the line Zero had been named as the top man. He was said to be a cosmopolitan with careers in three continents—a genius at blending with his background—and there had been a report that he often posed as a clergyman.
That was it! Two different reports had hinted that Zero might have a bolt-hole in Canterbury. Canterbury. Zero. Force X!
He was beginning to think more rationally. His limbs were less awkward and the stuff clearing from his head. But the woman was watching suspiciously, one hand resting on his pulse. ‘He’s excited,’ she said at last. ‘Heart goes fast and slow. Gets fast while I’m speaking. I’m sure he can hear what we’re saying.’
The driver laughed. ‘Peculiar stuff, that drug. I’ve noticed before that it makes them go queer an hour or so before the end. Anyhow, we’re nearly there.’ He slammed into second gear and thrust round a right-angled corner. ‘But I’d still cosh him if he gets restless.’
Grant saw the woman’s knuckles tighten on the truncheon. Her finger was steady on his wrist and he forced himself to think of other things. Hold your breath and the heart rate slows down. He allowed his breathing to become more and more shallow until his lungs were empty. He felt the woman’s suspicions subside. Her finger moved restlessly over his pulse and she laughed. ‘The thing is hay-wire. I thought he was a gonner just now. Couldn’t feel a flicker.’
The driver stepped on the gas. ‘Our orders were to bring him in alive if possible. And when they say possible they mean “do it that way or else”.’ He was driving with the gears. The road had become narrow and was winding up a long, low hill. The car snarled through a gateway in a high wall, made a U-turn in front of a small mansion house and ground to a violent stop beside the front door.
Two men stepped from the darkness and someone pushed Grant in the ribs. ‘Get out.’
He lay limply across the back seat, his head in the crook of his right elbow and his legs sprawled on the floor.
‘Carry him.’ Grant recognized the driver’s voice. His head was lolling to the side and his eyes closed as he was pulled by the shoulders and half dragged across the gravel until someone lifted his ankles and carried him indoors. Either a radio or a record-player was muted to a background noise and he recognized the second movement of Beethoven’s Seventh.
‘You got him alive, then.’ There was a note of satisfaction in the new voice. ‘What happened? And in detail, please.’
‘We covered his flat from the hour that the hearse arrived, and although we couldn’t be sure there was anyone in the coffin we had to accept Paris’s word for it and act accordingly.
‘Grant’s photograph was up to standard. But, of course, it was possible that he might have been disguised during the funeral. However, the guests were all accounted for and shadowed back to their homes. One therefore supposed that he was still in his flat, and especially when a woman arrived on the following day with a suitcase. She had originally appeared at the same time as the coffin, and Paris confirmed that she is secretary to an Admiral with an office job in NATO. But Paris now believes that this is only a front for a special intelligence department.’
‘And so?’ The words reminded Grant of a cat purring with satisfaction.
‘We kept the flat under constant observation and it was impossible for anyone to enter or leave the place without being considered by our own people. But when a furniture-removal van arrived and a wardrobe was carried out by three men, each of whom seemed to feel the weight, we decided that Grant must be inside. One man ought to have been enough. Or two at most. It was stupid to use three.’
‘That was quite shrewd. But it also shows that this suspect intelligence department is not quite up to standard in spite of its absurd preparations to make someone or other believe that Grant is dead.’ Grant heard the tinkle of glass and the splash of a soda siphon. There was a whiff of Scotch and a toast. ‘To happy endings. But continue.’
‘We followed the van to Brompton Road where the furniture was off-loaded into a basement store. And then we covered the block. I believed that no one was likely to break out in daylight but arranged to meet every contingency. Two cars kept in touch by radio and there was full cover for every door in the area. There were also several false alarms, but Grant eventually left by a back entrance, using his own key. There had been no attempt to disguise his features and it was easy to identify him when he reached the first street lamp.’
‘But you let him go.’ The voice was menacing. ‘Why?’
‘Because, sir, it was possible that his own people would check up to see that he got a clear start. And indeed we think that at least one car and two girls were tailing him. It seemed safer to wait, though I might have taken him at Shepherd’s Market when he stopped for a drink. But the same car was still coasting about and we didn’t w
ant any scene. Our best chance came in Piccadilly.’
He laughed. ‘I’ve often found it best to do things openly. The public sees nothing and Grant was getting more confident. My Number Two was running behind on a Lambretta scooter, but getting instructions by radio. It is a one-way apparatus with the receiver disguised as a crash-helmet, and it does well at such times. So I sent him ahead with instructions to fix Grant near the Academy gates. It is dark there and so far as I could judge it was likely to be fairly quiet. We used a medicated bullet and I coasted to the kerb whenever he began to stumble. The drug worked in less than a minute and we got clean away without any bother.’
‘Excellent.’ Grant heard the pad of movement and felt the warmth of someone standing beside him. His senses were tuned to concert pitch and he picked up the soft movement of metal upon metal. It ‘felt’ like a knife being opened, but he guessed that whatever happened he would not be killed out of hand. The driver had been anxious to deliver him alive. He tried to remember all that he had ever learned of yoga and again dived deeply into the escape hatch from knowledge of the present which had so often helped him out in the past. He forced himself to lie limply slack: to breathe with the shallow irregularity of Cheyne Stokes rhythm, that sinister warning of approaching death, and was disciplining his mind into a passive acceptance of whatever might happen when he felt a searing agony shoot down his forearm. Fingers with the bite of steel had fastened on his elbow and triggered his ulna nerve like an electric shock.
It was impossible not to squirm, and his arm jerked convulsively. ‘Not very far under,’ said the voice slowly. ‘What strength was the bullet?’
‘Two hundred milligrammes, sir. Exactly as you ordered.’
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