‘Your own?’
She shook her head. ‘I’m sure no.’
Grant was changing as he spoke, stepping into his dark bronze silk evening kit. H.Q. was sure ‘they’ had got on to him. But could ‘they’ guess who he was after? And who in heck were ‘they’ anyhow?
‘Sit on the terrace after dinner,’ he said at last. ‘Keep in the public eye. And tomorrow I’ll see you on the plane for Paris. My people will cover your arrival.’
‘So you are worried,’ her voice was flat calm.
He fixed his tie. ‘Not worried, honey. Just careful.’
He watched her anchor her jade ear-rings and then they turned to the door. She was carrying a chinchilla cloak. Her sandals gleamed crimson beneath her sari and her hair was slicked back behind her ears with a severity which moulded her skull into the shape of a young almond. She took his arm and then walked to the elevator. A man passed on the landing and Grant felt Maya stiffen against his ribs. Crew cut and charcoal grey suit. Aged about thirty. With a slight bulge at his armpit.
Downstairs she whispered again as they entered the taxi. ‘You saw him?’
He nodded and settled down into his own corner as the man sauntered out of the door and into a dark green Chevrolet.
Later that evening as Grant dropped Maya at the Rhône the same man was sitting in the vestibule reading a continental edition of The Times. Grant watched her order a drink and then walked swiftly back to the taxi. It dropped him at Gare Cornavin where he changed to another which paused for a second at his car in Place Neuve. He then gave it the gun and ripped uphill to St. Pierre where he paused again in the shadow of the cathedral and waited. Five minutes later he coasted into rue de la Fontaine and pointed towards the frontier.
He parked at the Savoyarde as the clock chimed eleven.
Stefanie Carmichael was at the bar drinking Pernod and her silver blonde hair shone like a beacon as a dozen pairs of eyes watched her wave him across to her side.
Ten minutes later they returned to his car. It was safer to talk business at night, in the dark, ambling over sinuous country roads and Stefanie’s attitude changed as soon as they were clear of the town. She showed that she was part of a team and Grant relaxed as he realised that the girl was dependable.
She had seen nothing suspicious. H.Q. still hadn’t identified the man on the motor scooter from Spain but was inclined to take him seriously.
‘And how about yourself?’ asked Grant abruptly. ‘Are you sure no one has rumbled you?’
The girl pulled her skirt tautly over her knees and fumbled in her handbag. ‘It isn’t easy to be sure of anything,’ she said at last. ‘Two different men and one woman have turned up too often for my own peace of mind. One of them was a hundred yards away when I left Maria Suza’s pension this afternoon. A car tailed me for a dozen kilometres or so today until I managed to lose it near Gex. And yet I can’t be dead certain that it was really following. All very artistic, if you get me.’
A dark Chev suddenly gave them its headlights and flashed past at a layby on the narrow road. Grant had a glimpse of a Geneva number and then impulsively stopped. ‘I’m going back,’ he said curtly. ‘Things don’t feel right. Tell Sultry to keep to her room and you stick beside her.’
The girl glanced at him curiously and he suddenly felt that, after all, he could discuss things with her. That the job might be too big for one.
He had been followed back from Spain.
So they knew about Maya.
And Maya believed that her room had been searched.
She had seen the same man too often.
And he had worn an armpit holster.
It was Grant’s bet that he was armed.
The same man had tailed them to the Béarn.
Later that evening he had been back in the hotel, but Grant reckoned that he had passed them just now in the Chev. There had been three ‘fives’ in the serial number of both cars. And there had been something familiar about the set of head on broad shoulders.
It would be wise to suppose that they were being kept under continuous observation.
Which meant that they must know about his dinner with Stefanie.
And if Stefanie believed that she too had been followed it meant that they might also have got on to the coloured girls.
He didn’t like the story of a suspect shadow having been seen near Maria Suza’s house.
But at least Winona was probably still O.K. and Stefanie had seen Sultry Mbawa before she had had that dinner at the Bavaria. So chances were that Sultry was also unknown.
‘But who are they?’ said Stefanie quietly.
He continued to think aloud. The Admiral believed that Charles Miller might be tied up with SATAN and SATAN had a long score against himself. No other intelligence organisation was likely to have kept an eye on him unless he was actively engaged on a mission, and it was his own hunch that SATAN was in the offing.
He turned into a narrow side road and cut through the forest to a clearing on a broad belvedere. ‘I remember this place from the old days,’ he said briefly. ‘And I want to check up on weapons. Maybe give you something.’
He fumbled in his pocket and brought out a box of matches. Their heads were twice the average size and he stepped out of the car for a moment to strike one. Filled with ‘nerve gas’ in fluid form which evaporated under heat, each match was capable of paralysing a man for several hours if he breathed in more than a small whiff. They were excellent for close work but he used them chiefly to keep up his own immunity to a chemical which had been developed a year or two earlier by himself and the Department’s leading boffin, Professor Juin. Starting with minute concentrations he had succeeded in building up his personal resistance until now he could breathe in concentrations enough to paralyse a room full of people. But it was essential to take a sniff every few days to maintain his own immunity and the matches were the best way of doing it.
But without the painful ordeal of building up immunity after carefully calculated daily exposures the matches could only be a menace to a person like Stefanie.
He reached down and checked that the heels of his shoes would pivot to a touch. Built into each were containers of the same nerve gas, but with enough to immobilise everyone in a small hall for many hours. And it was on these gas bombs that his future might well depend on the long run. Each consisted of a heavy glass capsule which broke when the heel of the shoe was made to pivot by pressing on a built-in spring and then swinging to a touch.
The girl was watching him curiously as he straightened up and smiled. ‘See this,’ he said and lifted a Parker 51 pen from his pocket.
He explained the mechanism of one of his favourite weapons. A micro-rocket lay inside and was motivated by simple pressure on the clip, the effect of which was to lift off the end of the barrel and trigger off propulsion. A target would be immobilised and dying within two-fifths of a second at thirty feet.
Grant returned it to his pocket and then lifted it out with a natural movement pressing the clip inwards with the barrel pointing towards a low hill a hundred yards away. There was a brisk recoil and a hissing belch as the end of the pen leaped outwards and the rocket struck home.
‘What about a safety catch?’ asked Stefanie quietly. ‘That looks deadly.’
‘One of the most important things since the war,’ said Grant. ‘And safety catch works automatically when the Parker is clipped into position. But the switch turns on when the pen is withdrawn.’
He reloaded and handed it over. ‘Snap it into your stocking top or somewhere safe. Handbag pocket maybe. But clip it somewhere and at least you’ve an ace of trumps up your sleeve.’
The girl smiled. ‘You seem to have gone all serious, David. What bothers?’
‘Nothing yet,’ he said slowly. ‘But too many off-beat things going on for my liking.’
He had not yet tested S.A.M., his electronic noise generator and the place was as good as any other. ‘Stick these in your ears.’ He handed over the cigarette ca
se and showed her how to manipulate the monogram. ‘Let me go away a hundred paces or so and then press for three seconds only. We don’t want to waken the neighbourhood.’
He walked towards a tree and flashed a torch as signal.
For a second he almost thought that he had been struck on the head. Even at a hundred paces the noise was stupefying and whacked into the senses like a knockout blow. He was still wincing with pain as the noise abruptly faded to quivering silence. There was a singing echo from distant hills and then he reached the girl. Her face was pale in the moonlight and he saw that her hands were trembling. ‘I’ve never even imagined a thing like that,’ she gasped. ‘Even with ear plugs it was frightful. Sort of bored into one’s skull. I think you could make a man go crazy simply with noise if he had to listen to this for long.’
He smiled with satisfaction. One device only was left. But he would keep it. The thing had only been used once and was good only for very close work. A button hole badge which could throw a spray of biting acid for up to six feet. And he remembered again how a face had once dissolved into writhing agony as the jet struck it full on the eyes.
It was a light-weight badge shaped like a collar stud and using the letters of his former RAF squadron. Perforations had been worked into the actual lettering and it was operated by turning the badge proper. Release of vapour was delayed by a special plug which dissolved on exposure to air, but the weapon was too sophisticated for anything but highly special emergencies. And Grant wanted only to be sure that Stefanie was well protected. ‘Your gun,’ he asked. ‘That O.K.?’
‘On the inside of my thigh,’ she smiled. ‘And I can use it.’
‘Then let’s go.’ Grant opened the car door. The Maserati Mistrale Convertible was a disgraceful extravagance, but he had bought it after the death of his parents and loved it like a mother. ‘I’ll drop you on the edge of the town and then I’m for Geneva. Give me a tinkle about eight ack emma tomorrow morning.’
The quiet street was deserted when Grant dropped Stefanie at the Hotel de Ville and cut east. He entered the new town by Pont du Mont Blanc and swept along the quaie to Avenue de France. Maria’s pension was within a half kilometre of Place des Nations, a small villa set among trees and he studied it carefully before striding up the steps and ringing the bell.
The patronne looked at him suspiciously.
Miss Suza was in her room and she didn’t encourage late visitors.
Grant forced a thin smile. He was a friend of her brother and newly arrived from the States. He had a message.
The woman shrugged her shoulders and he followed her inside.
Maria’s room was on the top floor. He knocked at the door. The woman knocked again: impatiently: and Grant felt a tingle gnaw at his belly until suddenly a sleepy voice broke the silence and he smiled as he heard the light snick on.
The patronne smiled suggestively. ‘Don’t be late. Lights out at midnight.’
The girl was lying in bed. Her almost jet black skin shone like velvet against the pillow in the soft light and her dark brown eyes were flared with the bloodshot splotches of some Negroes. Her fingernails were enamelled silver and so far as Grant could see she was sleeping naked. The sheets cut across her breasts. She was showing a lot of cleavage and Grant guessed that her bra was a 38 D.
‘Hi,’ she said throatily. ‘What you t’ink you doin’ here?’
He threw her a cigarette. ‘Just checking.’
‘Say,’ said the girl briefly. ‘I’ve been thinking. If you’re gonna heist that Healt’ Clinique you’ve got to be good. And another t’ing,’ she added briefly. ‘If you’re gonna kayo Miller I figure you’ve got a load on your hands.’
‘Why?’
She grinned broadly and her teeth sparked ivory white below her purple-blue lipstick. ‘I cased the grounds yesterday and they’re quite somep’n. You must be confident you can get out before you start t’ings.’
‘Never mind that,’ he said curtly. ‘But I dropped in to tell you to be careful.’
‘No speakin’ to strange men.’ She teased him openly and then her voice became very serious. ‘I’m worried. It seems mos’ly impossible you all can get inside that big place and do what we’ve gotta do.’
He sat down on the edge of her bed and her legs wriggled slightly as he felt them tight against his body. ‘You can trust me, sir. I won’ let you down. In fac’ I’d do mos’ anythin’ in the line of business to help you. This job makes a girl feel her life is really worth while.’
‘Then promise me something.’ He lifted her hand and squeezed it gently. ‘Stay inside till Stefanie comes back. And only go out when you’re with her. Savvy?’
The girl shrugged her shoulders. Her voice was suddenly plaintive and her eyes became hard. ‘You’re the boss-man. But ah don’ need a chaperone.’
He smiled. ‘This is business.’
‘An order, yo’ mean,’ she corrected.
‘Okay. An order. Because I don’t want you to be seen around. So you stay put right here till Stefanie Carmichael arrives and then you go out together. Understand?’
The girl stared at him for a long second. ‘Ah promise. But don’ worry, boss-man. Geneva isn’t the jungle. Maria’ll be okay.’
He snapped out the light and turned to the door. ‘See you.’
He could see the girl’s teeth flash again in the semi-darkness. ‘See you, boss-man. An’ ah promise.’
The Maserati was parked a kilometre away and he returned to the Rhône by a long detour around the city. Traffic was heavy but he would have staked his life that no one had been on his tail.
Maya was waiting in their suite. A bottle of Ayler Herrenberg Auslese was on ice by the window and the hills above Geneva were sparkling with light. She was still wearing her sari and she stretched out her arms. ‘That was the longest two hours I’ve ever known,’ she whispered.
Grant filled two glasses. ‘To us,’ he drawled. ‘And to happy landings tomorrow. Your flight’s at sixteen hundred hours.’
She sipped her wine. ‘To you, David, and to success.’
Chapter Six – ‘Very safe. Very effective.’
Professor Hancke’s Clinique was on the south side of the lake near the frontier towards Yvoire and Grant parked his Maserati beside a bed of salvia. The policies stretched for hundreds of metres around a sprawling nineteenth-century mansion and several dozen small wooden chalets were grouped either along the lakeside or edging minor roads laid with granite chips which sparked like diamonds in the sun.
Each chalet seemed big enough to hold two rooms or more and each was surrounded by enough shrubs or bushes to give a semblance of privacy. A few sat by a pond dancing with fountains and he could see both men and women lazing in the sun on lilos or deck chairs.
An ambulance drew up while he lit one last cigar and two men in white disappeared with a stretcher. He guessed that laboratories and all the gadgets for hospital work were gathered together in the main block and that the chalets were used by convalescing patients or for neurotics who had really come for a holiday with trimmings.
There was an occasional glimpse of a nurse at a window. They were wearing a lilac coloured uniform and the only two of whom he could get a close-up were raving beauties.
He checked on his story, recalling the headlines which Juin had phoned through a week earlier and then he strolled slowly to the front door. The place was surrounded by woods, but the boundary wall was high only where it met the main stream of traffic and otherwise it could be crossed for the asking. There were at least six gardeners within sight and he guessed that some of them might on occasion be used as guards.
Reception reminded him of the London Hilton and he was escorted within minutes to a drawing-room furnished by contrast in Louis Quinze period. Copies of glossy magazines in seven languages lay on the marble table tops and at least one rug was pure silk Kashan. Three other men and two women were sitting by a window alcove and the view must have been one of the best between Lausanne and Evian.
/> A silent girl served him with a silver tray loaded with tea and slivers of buttered toast. Ten minutes later a professional looking woman dressed in dove grey escorted him to a consulting room on the first floor. ‘Professor Hancke,’ she said. ‘Doctor David Grant, our latest arrival.’
The Professor looked at him quizically. ‘You look a very fit man to me, Doctor. What is the trouble?’
Grant admired the crisp way he got to the point. ‘Headaches,’ he said briefly. ‘And a giddy feeling in the morning when I rise. I sleep badly and am inclined to dream about things chasing me through a sort of maze. I get tired more easily than I would like and have lost interest in women.’
Hancke smiled. ‘Assuredly, m’sieur, they will not have lost interest in you. You are very eligible, and I see you run a Maserati. There are not many about.’
Grant nodded. ‘My one extravagance. Got it a few months ago when my parents died.’
‘Professor Juin didn’t mention that you had had an emotional shock.’
‘No shock,’ said Grant curtly. ‘They were in Tasmania and died in a plane crash. But I hadn’t seen them for years and we weren’t particularly close.’
‘Then perhaps you feel guilty.’ The Professor raised his hands expressively. ‘What you say . . . an opportunity lost . . . Perhaps you wish things had been different, that you had been more close to them while they were still in this world.’
Grant lit another Por Larranaga Petit Corona. ‘Perhaps.’
‘Or have you had an unfortunate love affair? The Professor mentioned that you have a very exciting mistress. It must be a great privilege to know Maya Koren. For me she is now the greatest dancer alive.’
Grant leaned forward. ‘That’s one of the things which bothers me. I get complicated when I’m with her. Inadequate. If you know what I mean.’
‘You have been working hard?’ The Professor’s voice was professionally neutral.
‘So I am told.’
‘And burning the candle at both ends?’
‘Possibly.’
‘Professor Juin also reports that you take your work very seriously, that you worry too much about laboratory organisation and research projects.’
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