Mirage

by James Follett

  ‘Let’s hope you soon get your incinerator,’ Jacob grunted. ‘Can’t have expensive shredders being ruined. Good night.’

  ‘Good night, sir.’

  Jacob was getting into his car when he suddenly thought of something. He hurried back into the building, showing his pass to the security girls even though he had only just left, and hurried up the stairs two at a time to Emil’s ‘cover’ office - the office that had last been used when Emil’s son, Daniel, had done some typing. The Adler typewriter was in a cupboard. Jacob heaved it on to the desk and pulled off the typebar cover. Underneath the cover were the instructions for removing and renewing ribbons. He flipped up the carbon ribbon reels and peered at the exposed portion of ribbon. Emil Kalen’s name was punched on to the ribbon and was perfectly legible. He spooled back the reel by hand and was able to read a note from Emil declining a dinner invitation. He rewound another metre of ribbon and came to a query from Emil to the paymaster concerning his pension. Another metre rewound dropped him into the middle of a sentence: ‘... primarily industrial but the sixth largest town in Switz ...’

  Jacob read no more. He plugged the typewriter into a wall socket and studied the instructions for rewinding the ribbon. It took a few minutes for the machine’s motor to rewind the ribbon. He took out his notebook and painstakingly copied down the first paragraph. It had been typed twice, the first time in lowercase letters:

  ‘... a report on the feasibility of israel building its own supersonic fighters...’

  Jacob read the opening paragraph several times. He read the next paragraph and the implications of the awesome concept conveyed by those opening passages dropped sickeningly into place.

  He removed the incriminating ribbon from the typewriter, returned the machine to the cupboard, and took the ribbon home where he spent four hours carefully transcribing the ribbon’s contents with a portable typewriter. By midnight he was in possession of Daniel’s entire plan. Suddenly Eshkol’s opposition to the Hunter deal made ghastly sense.

  The irony of the situation struck Jacob while he was considering his next move. Emil, the secretive director of the most secret government department of them all, had been unwittingly harbouring a traitor all these months.

  The next morning he flew to London, booked in at the Savoy Hotel, and put a call through to Lucky.

  33

  CHERBOURG

  ‘M’sieur!’

  The shouted warning prompted Joe to stick his head out of Honey's wheelhouse window. The bunkerage attendant was pointing agitatedly down at the water.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Joe queried in his atrocious French.

  The attendant quickly shut off the refuelling valves. The flexible hoses snaking across Honey’s deck stopped pulsating. Joe scrambled on to the sidedeck and leaned over the rail. He groaned. All four fuel breathers were blasting diesel oil down the side of the hull, creating a spreading pattern of iridescent colours on the water.

  ‘Must be a blow-back!’ he called out.

  ‘Of course, m’sieur,’ said the attendant solemnly, apparently not curious as to why supposedly empty 5000-litre tanks should blow fuel as if they were full.

  34

  WINTERTHUR Christmas Eve 1969

  Lucky felt that it was about time that fate should help him start living up to his nickname. He and Robbie had been driving virtually non-stop for twenty hours since leaving Le Havre. It was after 1.00am when they arrived in Winterthur and yet the first pedestrian they spotted and stopped to ask directions knew exactly what they were looking for once he had focused on the problems of speaking English after an evening spent consuming double whiskies.

  ‘New bar or restaurant?’ the pedestrian slurred. He leaned unsteadily on the passenger door and was surprised at Lucky’s lack of steering wheel. ‘Oh - British .... Well, there’s Cinderella’s. Not new. It’s been open over a year ...’

  ‘Do you know the name of the people that run it?’

  The pedestrian swayed. ‘Should do. Just been there. Closed now. Daniel... Daniel... Odd name ...’

  ‘Daniel Kalen?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said the pedestrian admiringly. ‘Not far from here.’ After a couple of false starts, the pedestrian got his act together and managed to give reasonably concise directions.

  Lucky muttered profuse thanks. Robbie eased the three-litre Rover around in a tight U-turn. The streets were virtually deserted but he resisted the temptation to speed. Lucky’s reasons for driving to Switzerland instead of flying were twofold: firstly, he and Robbie would be unlikely to get flights in the pre-Christmas rush; secondly, they were ‘tooled-up’ - armed. The spate of recent attacks and bomb plants on aircraft meant that even hold luggage was being subjected to spot searches by airport security staff.

  Five minutes later they were within two hundred yards of Cinderella’s when a Glendale motorcamper pulled out of the bar’s side alley.

  ‘What do I do?’ Robbie queried.

  Lucky came to a snap decision. What the hell was a camper doing around an industrial area at this time? And, more especially, why had it been parked round the back of the bar? ‘Follow it!’ he barked.

  The watcher in the Citroen DS noted down the time that the motorcamper left Cinderella’s. He was about to start his engine when a three-litre Rover with a British registration passed him. British cars in Winterthur were rare, and this one, although not speeding, nevertheless took the same turning at the end of the road as the motorcamper.

  35

  The woodland where Jack and Katra parked the Glendale after their quarterly visits to Cinderella’s was ten miles outside Winterthur, some four miles up a lonely track - miles from habitation and safe from curious eyes when they stowed the drawings and film in the camper’s numerous secret compartments.

  Jack stopped the camper in their usual spot. He and Katra slid into each other’s arms. They kissed hungrily in the darkness for a few minutes, Jack’s hands roving over Katra’s body - tickling and teasing until she laughingly bundled him out of the door.

  He groped his way along the side of the Glendale until he found the door to the soundproof compartment that housed the generator. One yank on the cord and the three-hundred-watt Honda purred alive. The camper’s neon lights flickered and burned steadily. Katra was pushing the drawing parcels out of the way to prepare their bed when he opened the rear door.

  ‘Hold it,’ said a voice. ‘Hold it right there. Don’t make any sudden moves.’

  Katra’s hand went to her mouth in shock. Jack spun round to confront the noisy end of a Smith and Wesson .38 Airweight held in the paw of a huge, bull-necked man. The smaller, lantern-jawed man standing slightly behind him was also holding a .38 - his face taut with anger. For a moment Jack was tempted to lunge, but the big man was holding the gun in the correct fashion: arms outstretched, both hands clasped firmly on the butt to cancel the recoil. It meant that several rounds could be pumped into Jack before he made body contact.

  ‘Get in!’ said Lucky.

  Jack backed into the camper, not taking his eyes off Robbie’s gun.

  ‘Over by the driver’s seat! Both of you!’

  Instead of clutching Jack’s arm in terror, Katra merely changed her position to give Jack some room. Like Jack, her dark eyes remained fixed unwaveringly on the guns and the two men as they climbed into the camper and closed the door. Her expression was one of alertness rather than fear - behaviour that confirmed Lucky’s suspicions. These two were professionals.

  ‘So,’ said Lucky, sitting on the berth and pulling one of the parcels towards him. ‘What have we got here? Christmas presents?’ He cut the string with a penknife, opened the wrapping paper and pulled out the top drawing. Lucky had seen plenty of aircraft sectional drawings before: he knew what it was even before he had completely unfolded it. It was what was printed at the foot of the drawing that interested him ....

  Mirage.

  He looked at the couple. This time the unbridled hate in his eyes made Katra shrink from
him. He tipped the bag containing the rolls of film on to the bed and thumbed the cap off one of the plastic containers. He pulled out a length of 35-millimetre film and held it up to the neon light. Examination of the first few frames was enough.

  ‘Is this the complete set?’ he demanded, waving a hand at the parcels and the rolls of film.

  Robbie’s eyes flickered for an instant in curiosity to the film that Lucky dropped on to the bed. Jack suddenly made a sideways dive away from Katra. Robbie’s gun crashed twice, hitting Jack in the chest. The force of the shots threw him backwards against the steering wheel. Despite his terrible injuries, he was able to yank the automatic from under the driver’s seat. He swung it towards Robbie but Robbie merely took careful, unhurried aim and shot Jack in the left eye, causing his entire face to cave in like a collapsed balloon. The exiting slug starred the driver’s quarter light and splattered the windscreen with globs of brain tissue and fragments of bone. The once living, loving body became an awkward rag-doll bundle of nothingness that slipped into a tangled heap on the floor. A soft cry of terror escaped like a moth from Katra’s mouth. A rash-speckle of Jack’s blood was sprayed across her face. Robbie flipped on the electric extractor fan over the kitchenette. The motor sucked greedily at the cordite fumes. Tendrils of smoke were drawn from the interior of the camper like a departing spirit.

  The shooting had the effect of unleashing the check on Lucky’s temper. He stood over the terrified girl - his eyes a window into the awesome battle between madness and calculating rationality that was being fought deep in his soul. He grabbed her as best he could by her bobbed hair and yanked her head back.

  ‘Is this a complete set of drawings?’

  Katra mustered her saliva and spat square in Lucky’s face.

  ‘Bitch!’ he snarled. ‘Bitch! Bitch! Bitch!’ Each shouted word was punctuated with a savage blow across Katra’s face.

  ‘You’d best let me ask her the questions, Mr Nathan,’ said Robbie politely.

  Lucky calmed down and moved out of the way. Robbie knelt beside Katra. He smiled beguilingly. His hand reached out and smoothed her thin jumper over her nipple. He rolled it gently between his thumb and forefinger but there was no lust in his dispassionate eyes.

  ‘Shame about your boyfriend, Angel. It looks like you’re the only one left to answer our questions.’

  36

  ZURICH

  The telephone rang in McNaill's rented apartment. He groped for the bedside receiver and dragged it under the sheet. ‘Yeah?’

  It was Grant - one of the best men in his team. Grant reported that the camper had left and been followed by a British registered Rover. He had followed the Rover for three miles to be certain it was definitely following the camper, albeit at a very discreet distance.

  ‘Did the camper go to its usual spot?’ McNaill demanded, now fully awake.

  ‘I didn’t follow them all the way. But they took the usual road out of the town.’

  McNaill thought fast. ‘Okay. Wait for me by the turning on to the unmade road. Make sure you hide your car. Don’t do anything until I get there. Give me thirty minutes.’

  37

  WINTERTHUR

  When Katra stopped her muffled screaming against her gag and fainted again, it was possible to hear the creak of the aluminium folding chair in the camper as Robbie shifted his bulk. He inhaled thoughtfully on his cigar. There was no lust in his eyes as he studied Katra’s naked body, nor any sign of remorse at the sight of the pattern of ugly, festering burn marks that he had created across her torso with his cigar. If he felt any respect for the girl’s courageous defiance, he did not allow it to show.

  ‘Stubborn,’ he remarked to Lucky.

  Robbie rose and checked the cords that bound Katra by the wrists and ankles to the slats of the camper’s berth. He aimed a soda siphon at her face and squirted. She came to with a low moan and opened her eyes.

  Robbie leaned forward and spoke in a low, soothing voice. ‘Angel

  - we don’t want to do this to you no more. Please believe me. Just tell us if this is the complete set of drawings. Just a nod if it is, Angel, and it’ll all be over.’

  Katra mumbled against her gag. Thinking that she was about to say something, Robbie pulled the gag away from her mouth. Mustering her dwindling reserves of strength and spirit, she spat feebly in his face. Robbie rocked back, his small eyes gleaming with hate. He wiped away the saliva and tugged the gag back into place.

  ‘Let’s kill the bitch and have done with it,’ Lucky muttered.

  ‘I’ve not finished yet, Mr Nathan.’ Robbie glanced at the neon light and at a table lamp that was clipped to the built-in side locker. ‘A two-forty volt supply,’ he commented. ‘Might be useful. There must be a toolbox somewhere.’

  Lucky found a toolbox under a berth. Robbie rummaged inside and produced a length of wire and a roll of electrical tape. He stripped back the insulation from the conductors at each end of the wire, switched off the table lamp and used its bulb to anchor the bared ends of the wire into the socket. More rummaging in the toolbox led to the discovery of a tubular spark-plug wrench. Robbie grinned. ‘The right size. Just the job.’

  Lucky watched intently as Robbie taped one of the free ends of the wire securely to the spark-plug wrench. He nodded with approval when he realized what Robbie was planning. ‘That’s what I like about you, Robbie. Resourceful.’

  Robbie grunted. Katra’s eyes were on him as he spat on her breast and worked the saliva around her nipple. ‘Has to be wet to make a good electrical contact,’ he explained while twisting the bared wire of the second conductor tightly around her nipple. He grinned and help up the spark-plug wrench. ‘Won’t have no bother with this end of the circuit.’ With that he pushed the length of tubular steel roughly into her. She didn’t make a sound - the pain was nothing compared to the agony that had been inflicted on her so far, but a renewed fear was mirrored in her eyes.

  Robbie straightened and moved clear of the bed. He nodded. ‘Okay. Best not to touch her.’ He looked down at Katra and rested his finger on the table lamp’s press-button switch. ‘I think you know what we’ve got in store for you, don’t you, Angel? Just nod your head if you want to talk and nothing more will happen to you. I promise.’

  Katra made no attempt to answer.

  Robbie sighed. He glanced at Lucky who was watching the girl intently, counted slowly up to five and pressed the button.

  Katra’s muffled scream carried into the trees of the still countryside and was answered by a marauding owl. The lights dimmed in the camper as the generator took the load. Her backbone arched like a bow; the cords binding her wrists and ankles stained crimson as she heaved and twisted in a demented but futile attempt to escape the agony that the purring Honda was pumping into her like a river of molten lava.

  Then the terrible tension in her jaw broke the gag. The awesome scream that was released seemed to solidify the chill air in the camper. It suddenly became a gasping croak and stopped. Katra’s tortured, hideously distorted body dropped shapeless on to the bed as if all her joints had been simultaneously dislocated and then crushed. Urine trickled past the spark-plug wrench and soaked into the mattress. She gave a final shuddering gasp and stopped breathing.

  Robbie moved with surprising speed. In one swift movement he yanked the wires from the table lamp and thrust down sharply several times on the girl’s breastbone with outstretched fingers. He then forced her mouth open and blew roughly into her lungs. Lucky joined in. They worked feverishly for several minutes, grunting with their exertions and even changing places in their futile attempts to restore life to the hapless creature that they had so brutally abused and then destroyed.

  They stopped and stared down at the body. The only sound in the camper was the soft purr of the Honda generator in its soundproofed compartment, and the slow drip of urine on to the floor.

  For once Robbie looked helpless. ‘From the way she held out, we must have the complete set of drawings.’

&nb
sp; ‘Maybe,’ said Lucky, wiping the sweat from his eyes. ‘But we don’t know for certain and we don’t have the time to go ploughing through hundreds of cans of microfilm .... Fuck.’ And then vehemently, ‘Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!’

  Robbie looked down at the girl almost regretfully and shook his head. ‘Maybe she had a weak heart?’

  Lucky scowled in anger and frustration. ‘Maybe. Fucking academic now, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Nathan.’

  ‘Not as sorry as I am. You can dig the fucking hole for the pair of them.’ He stared down at Katra’s body. And then, as a grudging tribute to the girl who had finally beaten him, he added: ‘Christ - was she tough.’

  38

  Grant tensed when he heard twigs breaking. He saw clouds of white breath like a labouring locomotive before the bulky figure loomed out of the darkness. It was McNaill. Grant hadn’t even heard his car arrive but there was no mistaking the sound of his breathing.

  ‘Where are they?’ McNaill panted.

  Grant pointed up the track. ‘The camper’s there and the Rover. I took a look as soon as I got here. I didn’t stay in case you showed early. There was a scream about ten minutes ago.’

  ‘A scream?’

  ‘Sure sounded like one.’

  ‘Okay. Let’s take a look.’

  ‘Don’t you want to get your breath back?’ But McNaill was already pushing up the track towards the wooded area on the brow of the hill. The two men knew the area: several times during their long surveillance of Cinderella’s they had followed the camper to this lonely spot.

  McNaill was panting hard by the time they entered the woods. Despite the cold, the ground was soft underfoot which made for hard going. They had no trouble locating the camper. There were bright lights shining from its windows. Parked about fifty yards away was the dark shape of the Rover. They drew nearer, moving from tree to tree. There was someone in the camper.