He had filled his coffee flask at the Four-Ways in Dunblane, where he always broke the journey north for a snack, and he poured a final cup within sight of the last rise before dropping into the approaches to Admiral Cooper’s most expensive and necessary toy. The Big House was now served by only two official caretakers, an elderly couple accepted locally as retired gentlefolk living on pension plus capital. But it was obvious that they must rate among the most reliable staff members in the department. Graded ASAC in fact, like Fengsted and himself, Above Suspicion, Above Corruption. He knew that all other staff members would have been sent on leave: that for this visit the Admiral was clearing all decks and that he would have to move fast to get all essential weapons ‘laid on’.
He sipped the coffee lingeringly and smoked one full pipe. It was essential to have a cut-and-dried campaign before reporting to a chief whose probable reaction to last night was unpredictable.
But where had things gone wrong? Only a few pointers might lead to any clue.
Force X had been hired to arrange a murder.
When Zero’s man failed to return to base his Paris agents had promptly covered Grant’s flat.
So far so good. And understandable.
But how did they discover that he was still alive and that the coffin angle had been a red herring?
On the face of it only Miss Sidders, Fengsted and the Admiral knew the facts.
Only Jacqueline, a few French police and two ambulance men had entered the flat. How could any of them have suspected the truth?
Or was it someone on the staff of NATO’s Director General? Admiral Cooper had implied that the Director had been briefed on the purpose of his mission to Africa. And in that case a confidential secretary might also know.
In fact, he cursed, almost any stricken person in Paris might know. Possibly the funeral parlour people. Perhaps there had been a spyhole even there. Or one of these damnable midget television cameras which could be planted in a room and connected with a standard tube and screen. Perhaps someone had even planted one in his own flat and tied it up next door. Or downstairs. Or on the floor above. The possibilities seemed endless. And for the first time in his life he began seriously to doubt if any organization could ever hope completely to insulate itself against a really clever agent who planned far ahead.
But at least he himself could get his facts straight and act accordingly.
The Admiral greeted him with high good humour. ‘Did a three-mile hill walk last evening, son. We ought to use this place a bit more.’ And then he paused. ‘What in hell is wrong with you, David? You’ve got a limp. You look bloody awful and there’s a cigarette burn on your wrist.’
Grant looked at him thoughtfully. A few miles on these darkly purple hills would do him more good than anything else. And they could talk freely. He had begun to suspect even departmental offices. Even the Big House. ‘Tricky situation, sir,’ he ended. ‘And if you feel like it a walk would be just the job.’
They strode over peat hags towards the saucer-shaped depression where Grant had first been introduced to the micro-rocket, that deadly pocket weapon with more destructive and penetrating power than any bullet of comparable calibre ever made. And he touched, almost unconsciously, the Parker 61 beside his wallet. The micro-rocket had been built inside and was motivated by simple pressure on the clip, a safety device operating automatically when the pen was attached to his clothes.
The Admiral paused beside a stream and lay back against a rock. ‘Give, son.’ His eyes were narrowed to pin-points of blackness glinting below hooded lids and his face creased into as many lines as a walnut shell. He forgot even to relight his pipe as Grant delivered a factual report which contained enough explosive material to keep the entire department busy for months.
‘So!’ He was unexpectedly mild. ‘Any ideas about how they caught us out?’
‘Plenty. But no evidence to support anything.’ A miniature television camera was a long shot. But it could be done. Already it had become the rage at sophisticated parties, and in shady hotels it had even replaced the two-way mirror. The lens might be disguised somewhere and flex lead through the building to a standard screen in a neighbouring flat. But that presupposed that someone had a guarantee of at least a full day without interruption to rig the thing up.
Then there was the possibility of a mini-microphone with built-in transmitter. Easier to hide. And able to pick up conversation. But with only a very short range. And implying a receiver in a nearby house. Possibly no further than the other side of the avenue.
Or the mike, with sound being taped in some well-hidden base! Although that was less possible. Tapes didn’t last so very long. A few hours at most.
But nothing further must now be done without careful preparation. His Saharan mission had promoted itself to a different category. Whereas it had once seemed as though he might wander in almost at leisure, it now looked as though trouble was going to hit him the moment he returned to circulation.
‘We’ll have your flat examined, of course.’ said the Admiral. ‘But you are ignoring the two things which probably matter most. We now know that Force X does exist and that you’ve met its top man. Which means that your life isn’t worth a bent dime.’ He hesitated, speaking with deliberate emphasis and slapping his fist against his thigh with every word. ‘They’ll rub you out for sure, David.’
Grant forced a smile. ‘Not if we get in first.’
‘Meaning?’
‘I’ve been thinking about weapons.’ Indeed he had been thinking about practically nothing else since boarding the flight at Lydd, and his list of requirements was going to be comprehensive.
The micro-rocket, of course, went without saying. And refills were carried inside a box of miniature cigars. For close and accurate work it could not be equalled and as a surprise packet it was almost unrivalled.
Except for the nerve gas.
At his best, three months or so earlier, he had been able to breathe concentrations enough to paralyse everyone in an average-sized ballroom. And without ill-effects. But tolerance had been dangerously and painfully acquired. And kept up only by sniffs every few days from the minute quantities packaged so cunningly within the glass-tipped matches. He would have to boost his system again with much heavier doses before he would feel really safe. Which meant using Professor Juin’s special laboratory. But it also meant that the department’s boffins would have to supply the same device which he had used before in the heels of his shoes. And that had been a masterpiece of ingenuity. Swivel the heel and burst the glass capsule. Everyone unconscious or immobilized by the paralysing vapour within half a dozen breaths. And he remembered from personal experience that a man was virtually helpless even after one single whiff: unless, of course, he had painstakingly built up a tolerance to it!
But so far as Grant knew he was the only man ever to have done this. And it had saved his life once. The ‘gas matches’ had been his own idea. More supplies were essential. But the shoes had been a department baby and he would want refills.
The Admiral nodded. ‘No problems there, though time is short. The Berber woman is due next week on Gran Canary. In fact we’ve had a flash that a suite has been booked at the Hotel Santa Catalina. And I want you over before she checks in. Give you time to blend with the background. If you’re still alive,’ he added caustically. ‘However, what else?’
‘Gold. A dozen or so sovereigns. Or gold dollars. A long shot. But some of these desert people bite every coin to check that it’s genuine, so I want some real hard currency coated with prussic-acid paste. And enough to kill. Or if not prussic acid something equally lethal so that any bloke taking a bite at the coin will pass out. Fast.’
The Admiral grinned. ‘You’re a dangerous man, David. But that should be easy. Carry on.’
Grant hesitated. His next order might be less attractive. A really irritative acid sealed under pressure inside a container might offer endless possibilities for creating a diversion. Especially if the thing could be fak
ed up as a jacket button or a lapel badge, either of which would be perforated to release a spray of acid under enough pressure to carry at least two feet. But the dicey part would come when rigging up a trigger mechanism. His own first choice would be a gadget timed to operate, say, ten to fifteen seconds after the button had been given a full half-turn clockwise.
The Admiral listened without enthusiasm. ‘Might take time, David. But I get the idea. And we’ll see what the back-room boys can fix up. Anything else?’
‘Radio.’ Grant knew that here, at least, there should be no problem. It could be married to a portable electro-cardiograph and only an expert would detect the difference.
‘Guns?’ The Admiral was suspicious of Grant’s interest in scientific new-fangled gimmicks and a stout believer in ‘real stopping guns’.
‘The usual,’ drawled Grant. ‘Your people sold me on the Smith and Wesson Magnum. The long barrel can sometimes be clumsy but I’ve got used to it.’
‘Then we’re all set. You’ll stay here for three days getting into trim and playing with your nerve gas whilst my people see what they can do about gimmicks. Then it’s a Boeing 707 to New York, a weekend on the expense account and airlift to Las Palmas with overnight baggage. Your heavy stuff will arrive a few days later per s.s. Volendam, by which time you will be on your own, but keeping in touch whilst on the Canaries with our monitoring station at Lanzarotte.’
‘And Force X?’ asked Grant. ‘I’d appreciate any information that’s going. No matter how unreliable or how much based on rumour.’
‘Then we’ll have it over dinner tonight.’ He smiled and delivered his surprise. ‘In the light of what has happened you’ll be glad that I guessed you might want to talk about these gas things to Professor Juin. So he’s due to arrive at almost any time now.’
Grant smiled broadly. The Old Man was always on the ball. And Professor Juin, that wizard in so many sciences, was badly needed. Apart from anything else Grant wanted to know why Zero’s dope had failed to work properly. Traces might still be in his system.
Juin was more than Medical Director of ADSAD: he was probably the world’s leading expert on experimental physiology and possessed of a vitally alert imagination which was prepared to consider any possibility in the strange type of war which Grant had learned to wage against subtle and calculating enemies.
He was already in the parlour when Grant and the Admiral returned to the house. Several months had passed since they had last met and conversation over luncheon flowed like a spy-thriller. It was Juin who had first listened to Grant’s suggestion that a man might establish a personal tolerance to the action of nerve gases by daily exposure to increasing concentrations. And it was Juin who had conducted the research programme which had led to success.
‘But at what price?’ he asked. ‘This is a perfect opportunity to vet you from head to toe and make sure that it has not been too high.’
Grant squirmed. He could guess the rest. Every conceivable body fluid would be tapped and analysed. Renal function would be assessed in detail. Heart, lungs, brain and nerves would be tested by the most sensitively modern equipment in laboratories which were second to none in the United Kingdom.
Changing the subject he described the bizarre sensations which had followed a direct hit from Zero’s medicated bullet and how it seemed that the thing had gone off at half-cock. How Zero himself had suggested that some other chemical might have had an antagonistic reaction to his own poison.
The Professor shrugged his shoulders. ‘That is possible. And we shall check this afternoon.’
An hour later Grant followed him through the corridors to a small operating theatre. ‘I’m going to put in a little local anaesthetic and then excise a piece of tissue,’ he explained. ‘I shall analyse it on the spot. Or if necessary send it to Paris. And with luck enough traces will remain to let us detect the drug.’ He smiled and rubbed his chin. ‘There are many possibilities. But one clue may lie in the dose, because from what I can gather he expected that two hundred milligrammes would knock you out, render you immobile and yet after a few hours leave you in a condition where you could speak, think and answer questions rationally.’
Grant felt only the prick of the needle and a few moments later a curious crunching sensation as Juin ran a knife round the area of the entrance wound and carefully removed a core of skin and deep tissues larger than a pigeon’s egg. ‘And now our other specimens,’ he continued briskly. ‘Urine; blood; cerebro-spinal fluid.’
Grant loathed this last test more than almost anything else. It was a psychological revulsion to a large needle being thrust between his vertebrae and into the layer of fluid which surrounded his spinal cord. Not dangerous, of course, in the hands of any reasonable individual, and utterly safe with a man like Juin. But still disagreeable. Though essential when studying the possible effects of drugs on nerves and brain.
He sat on the side of the chair and leaned forward. He was fully stripped and resigned to disagreeable discomfort as the needle slipped between the bones, hesitated for a second and then burrowed deeply inwards until, with a grunt of triumph, Juin stood up and Grant heard the trickle of spinal fluid being collected in a test-tube.
The routine with electro-cardiographs and electro-encephalographs was familiar, but he sighed quietly with relief when Juin held up the tracings and laughed. ‘Normal, monsieur. At least your brain and heart are still good for another forty years.’
And then the worst moments of all when they returned to a specially ventilated room with observation windows where preliminary work had been done during the previous winter. An initial exposure of five drachms of vaporized fluid—enough to immobilize a houseful of people—produced no response whatsoever. Not even the flashes of light which had been such a nuisance during earlier experiments.
The Professor relaxed and lit a cigarette. ‘Enough. Tomorrow we shall try seven drachms. And I brought some of your special matches. Very difficult indeed to make, but from all accounts deadly in action.’
The man had a personality which convinced that everything would always end satisfactorily, and Grant warmed with affection as he dressed. ‘How about the acid thing?’ He asked, ‘Did the Admiral tell you?’
Juin nodded. ‘Simple. We can assemble a light-weight apparatus shaped like a collar stud or the figure 8. It can be a lapel badge, your former RAF squadron, for example. Perforations will be worked into the actual lettering. The base, which will be no more than five centimetres in diameter, need be no thicker than a few millimetres and it can be operated by turning the badge proper. The base will be fixed in position to the suit and it will contain enough concentrated vitriol under very high pressure to eject a fine spray within fifteen seconds of operating the release mechanism. The actual technique of contriving this delay is simple enough—a matter of using a plug which will dissolve on exposure to air—and I promise that it will be delivered on schedule.’
They returned in time for dinner to find the Admiral in roaring form. ‘Discovered how they got on to us,’ he beamed. ‘News from Paris. They had your flat taped. Probably the Russians tipped them off. Mike inside the ormolu fitment of a chandelier. So they know the lot. God help you, son! But, to coin a phrase, let’s eat and drink, lest next week you die.’
Grant smiled. He guessed what was coming. And an aged claret with the fantastically expensive Annaberg Scheurebe Trockenbeerenauslese which followed showed that he was very much in favour. The Palatinate wine ran at 135s. per bottle and everyone in the Admiral’s circle knew that when it was produced the old man was paying the highest compliment possible.
The chief found it easier to express his feelings in actions rather than words. And he had developed a vocabulary of his own, using nothing but wine. A half-bottle of non-vintage Mâcon was almost the deepest insult at his disposal, equalled only by an offering of home-made sherry before lunch. Non-vintage Champagne Rosé suggested that the victim was unstable both morally and professionally. Magnums of anything appeared only when e
verything was very right indeed or when one of his ‘young men’ had pulled off a coup which mattered. Vintage white wines of a decent year meant that the guest had yet to prove himself, but that in the meantime nothing could be held against him. Promotion to a robust red Rhône suggested that spurs were being earned, though a good burgundy, château bottled, proved that they were firmly in position.
Claret was the penultimate distinction, but a rather rare claret followed by the Admiral’s greatest weakness was the ultimate accolade and Grant knew that the Admiral had only fourteen bottles of 1945 Annaberg Scheurebe left in his cellar. He also knew better than to comment further than a discreet whistle of appreciation as his chief topped his glass and offered a toast. ‘To the river of gold, son. To Ri-o-dorium. And to suc-cess.’
Grant smiled contentedly. When the Admiral began to hyphenate his words outside of business it meant that he was supremely optimistic.
Later, over a Clanrana, he received final instructions.
An American passport had been issued in his new style: Dietrich Gunten. Born 1921. Naturalized American citizen. German by birth. A dirty-looking identity card in the same name was souvenir of his German origin and a faded parchment diploma showed that he was a graduate of Leipzig Medical School. International vaccination certificates were up to date and a dozen books of travellers’ cheques guaranteed that he was a man of substance. Banker’s drafts drawn on Switzerland supported a cover story that he was intending, finally, to settle in another place and that he had removed all his capital from Arkansas. Best of all he had been provided with a well-chosen wardrobe of American-cut suits, all trade-tabbed from local stores in his own, supposed, state, and sufficiently worn to appear convincing: another tribute to the speed with which the Admiral’s people could work when fighting the clock.
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