Ian St James Compendium - Volume 1

by Ian St. James

  The message sank home. "You mean like Kim Philby writing for The Observer while collecting royalties from the KGB?" I humoured her. "Okay, I'll come clean - I'm working the same racket."

  She shook her head, "Nikki Orlov doesn't think so."

  "That's where we were clever. He and I staged that act back there to throw you off the scent."

  "It doesn't work like that, Harry."

  "You would know."

  "You wouldn't be the first newspaperman moonlighting for somebody's security service."

  At least I knew that was true. There had been a time in the sixties when so many American journalists in Egypt were working for CIA that the papers thought they had a strike on their hands.

  "Okay, what gave me away?" I shrugged, still humouring her and not believing for a moment that she was serious.

  "There are too many coincidences. You're Suzy Katoul's godfather. You know Tubby Hayes. You were introduced to Monique Dcbray. You even met Philby for God's sake!" She looked puzzled. "And in the. background is this tall dark stranger."

  "It's not much of a case."

  "You are tall and dark, Harry."

  I patted her hand. "But hardly a stranger."

  She frowned. "You see, I've got this little idea nagging at the back of my mind, and it won't go away."

  "Until you tell me about it." Nothing would stop her, I could see that.

  "We get glimpses of meetings from you. Not many and nothing very substantial - but enough to send us back to the archives, burrowing away like mad, questioning, interviewing, searching. That kind of thing." She smiled an apology. "You know, the terribly boring things we go in for. And from time to time your little glimpses coincide with those of other people. They too remember a tall, dark man - and they describe you. Of course, we say 'not him - the other one.' And they frown and scratch their heads and scowl furiously - but you're the only one they remember."

  I stared at her. She was deadly serious.

  She smiled again and cocked her head to one side. "Well, this little idea of mine says perhaps there isn't another man at all. Perhaps we're all looking for someone who doesn't exist? Silly, isn't it - but it won't go away."

  I sipped my drink. "And what are the implications of this little idea."

  "Tubby Hayes was an agent. We know that much. And we think the tall dark man was running him - and Suzy Katoul."

  "Tubby Hayes must know hundreds of people - thousands probably. Why me?"

  "Because Nikki Orlov thinks so."

  "And you'll take his word - against mine?"

  She pouted. "I told you it was just a little idea."

  "Yeah? Well kill it before it grows up into a big mistake."

  "I will - if you'll help me."

  "And how do I do that?"

  "By telling me everything." A faint smile touched the corners of her mouth. "You see, as Ross says, what you've told us so far is fine. I mean it all checks out beautifully. But are you sure you're not holding some little piece back? Some vital little piece?"

  I glared furiously and said nothing at all.

  "You see, Harry," she said thoughtfully. "What worries me is time. We're getting frightfully short of it."

  I remained silent even at that. The big green eyes blinked and then she said, "Did you ever wonder what happened to Ross's hand?"

  I busied myself refilling the glasses, feeling in sudden need of yet another scotch.

  "It was in Vietnam," she said. "He was up behind the lines somewhere and they caught him. Time was short and they wanted answers quickly. So they staked him out and rolled a ten ton truck over his hand - an inch or so every ten minutes. They promised to do his arms first and then his legs, so as not to kill him. And all the time he lay there with the truck's engine blasting hot air into his face, expecting it to crush him to death at any second."

  "So he talked?" I tried not to let her see how shaken I was.

  She shrugged, and sculptured bronzed shoulders moved inward in a way which accentuated the cleavage of her breasts. "He says his own kooks counter-attacked and got him out in time. Perhaps they did - perhaps they didn't - who knows?"

  "And something like that is going to happen to me?"

  "Oh, Harry, I do hope not." Her concern was touching. "It's just that I'm so worried about you."

  I waited for her to make the point she was leading up to.

  She smiled the kind of shy, hesitant smile people give you with bad news. "For instance, something you don't know is that Ross got you out of your London flat just in time. Six hours later the place was raided. Luckily Special Branch had called back and the men were chased off." Her eyes clouded with concern as she shook her head in bewilderment. "But you do see what I mean?"

  "No." I had an idea but she was going to have to spell it out for me.

  "Of course you do, Harry," she corrected gently, still in the seductive feline voice. "It means other people are afraid you'll tell us what you know. Afraid enough to kill you to stop that happening."

  I tried to make it into a joke. "Perhaps it's as well I came along with Ross."

  "That's what I thought," she nodded as her eyes locked on mine and her mouth dimpled into a smile of perfect innocence. "But well, you can't stay here forever, can you?"

  CHAPTER FIVE

  "I asked Tom if countries always apologised when they had done wrong, and he says: 'Yes; the little one does'."

  Mark Twain - Tom Sawyer Abroad (1894)

  The Fifth Day

  0145 Saturday

  Ross chewed the end of a cigar and thought about the message he had just decoded. It had taken three years to infiltrate the PLO. Three years and the loss of eighteen men and one brave woman - all of whom had died violently when their real loyalties had been discovered. But now they had one man in a key position, one man who had risked everything to meet the deadline Ross had handed him. No evidence monkey loves candy, the message read, repeat, no evidence monkey loves candy. Monkey Arafat and Candy Katoul were not in bed together. But Ross had long ceased to suspect they were - even if confirmation had been needed for the meeting with Twomey. But if not Arafat, who? Someone was running Katoul. The Khomeini, who sat in his French villa and meddled in the politics of Iran? Hardly, if he had the bomb he was unlikely to waste any part of its destructive power in a demonstration off the coast of Scotland. Why Scotland anyway? What for? To pressurise the British?

  Into what, for Chrissakes? What was the next move? There had to be one.

  "Fifteen minutes to go," LeClerc said. "Shall we go up to the bridge?"

  Ross made him repeat the question before it registered. Dorfman was already climbing into a borrowed Navy anorak. The three of them were alone in the wardroom of HMS London, the RN destroyer which had been designated control ship for "Operation Flashpoint" as some humorist had named it.

  "You mean there's still room up there?" Ross asked drily.

  The destroyer was crawling with top brass - not just British either. Somebody had pushed a panic button and word had gone out to half of NATO. Ross had been furious. And he was still crusty with temper as he followed LeClerc up to the bridge, with Dorfman bringing up the rear to close the hatches which LeClerc opened, while Ross clambered through with both hands thrust deep in his pockets.

  "One of your naughty boys got a bit out of hand, what?" an English voice greeted him. He recognised a junior SIS courier. "Shove it! And I'll report your breach of security to James when I see him." The Englishman backed away, blushing as he realised that the reason why Ross and his party were simply designated "observers" on ship's orders was because few men there knew the exact nature of their function.

  Ross looked about the bridge. There must have been thirty men crowded into the confined space, most of them Admirals if the gold braid was anything to go by. He chewed a bit more on his cigar and nursed bitter thoughts about the potential security leak until Dorfman caught his eye and they squeezed through to a space on the far side.

  "We're on station ten miles from where
we expect 'Flashpoint,' " another youngish English voice explained to a Rear Admiral standing next to Ross. "It's as near as Admiralty permit."

  Ross wondered how near the bloody fool wanted to get to a one Kiloton bomb, but he said nothing. He was under orders to say nothing. "Simply observe and report to Command in the morning," Twomey had told him. Very well, that's what he would do - but he needn't like it. And he damn well didn't.

  "There're a hundred weather balloons in ahead of us," the English voice continued. "The RAF have been at it for hours - purpose being to measure radiation of course, sir." The Rear Admiral nodded.

  "The RAF are upstairs now, sir. Vulcans I think at about seventy thousand feet. And above them's a couple of Yank spy planes," the Englishman chuckled. "Trust the Yanks, eh, sir? Always that bit further away from the real action."

  Ross glowered and the Rear Admiral answered in a chilling voice. "You were much too young for the war Lieutenant, but the Yanks I fought with then weren't afraid of getting close to - what did you call it - the real action."

  "No sir," the lieutenant was properly contrite. "Of course not. Er, I didn't mean to imply. ..." The sentence remained unfinished as he squirmed with embarrassment. Listening, Ross warmed to the Admiral and wished he had been allowed to wear uniform instead of a nondescript suit.

  "All shipping been cleared?" asked the Rear Admiral.

  "Hours ago, sir. Bit of trouble with some Russian trawlers, but they moved off in the end - though I daresay they're only a few miles adrift of us now."

  You bet your sweet ass, Ross thought. He edged past LeClerc and peered down to the forward decks. A mass of scientific equipment had been bolted into position and men in spacesuits hovered behind lead screens to monitor the readings. Ross wondered what the Admiral made of it. Bit different from the last war, eh Admiral? When the biggest bomb dropped on Germany was a ten ton block-buster. Ten tons of TNT! Four years of bombing to kill 400,000 people. Suzy Katoul could kill more in half an hour. Oh Sweet Jesus Christ, don't let it happen!

  "Five minutes to go," a voice crackled. "Glasses everybody please."

  Ross fumbled into infra-red goggles and listened to others fidget as they did the same. One Kiloton, Ross thought. Why one Kiloton? One Kiloton was nothing - a kid's sparkler at a fireworks party. A thousand tons of TNT, that's all. Even the Hiroshima weapon was twenty times that big. One Kiloton today and ten megatons tomorrow - was that the plan? Ten megatons! Jesus Christ, even the crater would be seven miles across. Seven miles in which all construction would be pulverised and all living matter vaporised. There would be no fires in the crater because there would be nothing left to burn, but fires would blaze for twenty miles around it - and catastrophic damage would occur for another twenty miles beyond that.

  "Four minutes."

  Ross calculated the fallout from a ten megaton bomb. The lethal area alone would extend to two thousand square miles. The radiation fallout would kill even more people than the initial heat blast! Even those who found a deep shelter fast would have to stay there for two whole days - and then get out afterwards like bats out of hell.

  "Three minutes."

  Hell, it had to happen. Sooner or later. The Pugwash Conference was up in arms about the risk factor years ago, but no one had listened. What's a ten megaton bomb anyway compared to the stocks held around the world? The States was sitting on at least 50,000 megatons, and the Russians had about 40,000. Add the British and the French and the Chinese and what have you got? At least 150,000 megatons. The governments of the world had bequeathed more than a hundred tons of TNT to every man, woman and child on the planet. Manufactured it, stockpiled it, hoarded it - and then told everybody "hands off." But Suzy Katoul had turned a deaf ear. Like Eve in the Garden of Eden.

  "Two minutes."

  But Suzy Katoul had just stolen the raw materials. She needed more time to make a bomb, or so the scientists said. They said it couldn't happen, not this fast. But nobody would pull a stunt like this without being sure of being able to deliver. They would lose all credibility for the next round. And there had to be a next round. Didn't there?

  "One minute."

  Who's running you, Katoul? Who's pulling the strings? What are you anyway? Some screwed-up bitch with an Arab militant for a mother and a Jewish terrorist for a father? What does that make you - daughter of Dracula or something? And what's bugging you so much that you're playing God on a scale this size?

  "Thirty seconds. Quiet please everyone."

  Ross felt the palm of his right hand turn to grease. He hoped that the sweat didn't show on his face. He always sweated. Once a man had mistaken it for fear until Ross had loosened a few teeth for him. Please God - don't let it happen. We need more time! Three days gone and we're nowhere. But more time could make all the difference. We might get lucky, strike a new trail, find a clue, something, anything! But give us more time.

  "Fifteen seconds!"

  Oh, God in Heaven, I know I'm a miserable bastard but you've got to help me this time. Just this once. If this thing goes off this screwed-up bitch can make all the demands she likes and get away with it. You see that don't you? We need time, some more time!

  "Ten seconds."

  Look, if you are God, be on the side of the good guys just for once, eh? This bitch is evil! Dammit, there's not another word for her. So just let the scientists be right for once - let nothing happen. Let it fail to go off. That's all I'm asking for Chrissakes! Let it be that way and we get more time.

  "Four - three - two - one."

  Silence. No flash in the night sky, no noise, nothing. Nothing! Just beautiful, blissful silence. The sea glittered under a yellow moon and rain clouds hung low in the sky, and not a bloody thing had happened! Oh God, thank you. Most of the time you're a miserable stubborn unyielding bastard, but for once you've delivered. Baby, you're beautiful. Nothing damned well happened! Hear that Katoul - nothing! Screw you to hell, baby - you gambled and lost.

  Then the sky lit up. For two whole seconds it was daylight again. Brighter than daylight. A "blaze of white lit the sea and sky like the floodlights of hell. And a second later the heat wave sighed through the night like a soft summer wind. Then came the noise. Men forward on the London crouched behind lead screens and played with their dangerous toys for all they were worth; on the bridge Ross closed his eyes. One Kiloton, that's all that was. One Kiloton exploded three hundred feet down on the sea bed. One Kiloton seen from ten miles away. And Suzy Katoul could deliver ten megatons!

  Without a word to Dorfman or LeClerc he turned and walked slowly back to the wardroom, clambering through hatches and passing along passageways as if in a dream. Then he went to the heads and was violently sick.

  0630 Saturday

  They really liked their early mornings at the Health Farm. Mostly I'm never out of bed before eight in the morning and not even then unless it's a work day, but Max woke me at six and insisted I join Elizabeth for breakfast. I dressed and followed him downstairs, wondering what had happened in Scotland and guessing that Elizabeth would know the outcome by now. Max probably knew too, but he was doing his coloured-butler-been-in-service-for-years bit, grave and dignified with downcast eyes and a buttoned lip.

  "The scientists made it one Kiloton exactly," Elizabeth said over orange juice. "It's all the proof we needed. We're convinced she's got the bomb."

  I don't think I said much. Something like that is a real conversation stopper anyway. Especially first thing in the morning. Muzzy-headed, I listened while she told me that nobody had been hurt and that the explosion had barely been heard in the Orkneys. And after coffee we went down to the studio.

  "Harry, I want to wire you up to the lie detector," she said, as she closed the door behind us. "It's not painful and it just might help."

  The doctor stood one side of her and Max towered behind like a cardboard cut-out of Othello. Except there was nothing cardboard about Max's biceps.

  "And if I refuse?"

  "Drugs," Elizabeth said briskly. "Pentothal
if it takes with you. If not, sodium amytal and LSD. The amytal is painful and combined with LSD it takes a long time to wear off." She shrugged. "But if we've no choice?"

  She sounded as efficient as a hospital matron and the white sweater and slacks she wore even lent colour to the part. I remembered the sexy looks of last night - all the come-on signs she had put out - the hand squeezes and the act with the bikini in the steam room. Act was right.

  "You bitch," I said.

  "Open your shirt, man," Max said. "And come and sit down. It won't hurt none, believe me."

  I was still looking at Elizabeth. "What don't you believe?"

  "Oh, I don't think you've lied to us. It's more that you haven't told us everything." She dimpled her smile, just to prove she was the same sweet girl - deep down. "But you will tell us - eventually."

  "Harry, baby," Max coaxed. "Come and sit in the chair, man. We don't want no foolishness now, do we?"

  The door opened and Smithers and Son arrived to make sure.

  I'm fifty-three years old. I know I look younger and most of the time I feel younger, and even fifty-three isn't really old. But my kind of life hasn't equipped me to take on the likes of Max, let alone Son of Smithers who was less than half my age. Especially when the doctor and old dog face looked set to lend a hand if need be. For a moment I stood my ground, trying to think of someone who could help me, then realising that not a single friend as much as knew where I was. Max led me to the chair and after that I let them wire me up. He was right, having electrodes fastened to your head and chest and wrists isn't painful - but it's damn worrying.

  Max flicked a few switches on the machine, while Elizabeth made herself comfortable in the chair opposite. Then she began by saying: "The doctor's theory is that you've only loved one woman in your life. And that was Haleem Katoul."

  I shrugged until the electrodes pulled the skin on my chest. "Psychologists talk a lot of cock."

  The doctor beamed his plastic smile. "Freud was obsessed with it, Mr. Brand."

  "What went wrong with your marriage, Harry?" Elizabeth asked.