Kisses From Satan

by George B Mair

  And blackmail!

  Film stars, actresses, the beau monde and much of the world’s top society went to Hancke for patching up when the strain of living became too much. He could just imagine what happened. That first scientific physical overhaul. And then a consultation about emotional problems. The explanation that he would have to ‘reinforce’ his therapy with an injection. A shot of pentothal and then expert questioning until enough material for blackmail had been dug out to keep other people busy for months. Hancke would be the man who collected dirt. Other members of SATAN would then promote the blackmail angle while the wretched victim wondered where they had got the information.

  But no one would ever suspect Professor Hancke, the man who gave them new lives for old, who massaged away their wrinkles or hired plastic surgeons to give a full face lift. The man who could titivate overtired hearts and cut down weight, get the kidneys going again and bring down the blood pressure.

  He was above suspicion. With just the sort of set-up one would expect of SATAN, perfect organisation, a faultless ‘front’ and access to secrets which could be converted into hard cash.

  Not only through blackmail but on the stock exchange. Because many of the world’s millionaires had said publicly that they relied on Hancke to keep them alive and Grant would have bet a fortune that before the Professor was finished with them he had pumped out enough dope about investment policies or trends to coin millions in francs or dollars.

  And then he forced himself back to reality.

  Maya!

  If Hancke kept his threats what could he do?

  He had got back to the beginning in a vicious circle of hopelessness. Either he talked or the girl was for it. Only one slender chance remained. That someone might have tapped the phone and picked up enough to guess what was happening.

  And then what? A police raid?

  While killers at an unknown address watched what was happening on the screen and quietly murdered her after the penny had dropped.

  Hancke knew his stuff. It was stalemate.

  And if he did talk? Grant had no illusions. Maya might come out alive, but for sure he himself would be for the high jump and a swift execution was the best he could hope for.

  There was a footstep outside and he heard a click. Switching off the electricity, he guessed, and lay back with his eyes closed as the handle turned.

  He recognised the voice. Martinez was back in circulation and he forced himself to breathe deeply and regularly as they stopped beside him.

  The Spaniard was livid with rage and wanted Hancke to bring him upstairs right away, but the Professor was firm. The drug had not yet been worked out of the system. Another hour and then Grant ought to be ready for anything.

  He stirred slightly and rolled on one side.

  ‘You see,’ drawled Hancke in French, ‘he begins to recover. A little longer and he is all yours.’

  The Spaniard was silent for a while and then: ‘Do you really believe that I failed to hypnotise him yesterday?’

  ‘Yes.’ Hancke sounded amused. ‘Why else did he not take the girls to Messery and kill them as instructed?’

  Martinez abruptly changed the subject. ‘The whole affair has been grossly mishandled. Lloyd Marsden was not notified to cancel the killing of that Suza woman and in my view he exceeded his duty in rushing things.’

  A third voice interrupted with cold crisp authority. ‘I have re-read the minutes of our last general meeting and the relevant passage reads . . . “the coloured girl Maria Suza will be erased at your convenience.” Marsden had no reason to expect the sort of developments with which we have been faced. He acted wisely and with his usual efficiency. The woman was better dead and she was the only one about whom we then had any knowledge.’

  Martinez was heard to snort with indignation. ‘I still want to know what has happened. Who laid me out last night? How was it done and why was it done? I am bursting with questions and if Grant knows the answers I’ll feel happier grilling him under hypnosis.’

  ‘In spite of having already failed.’ Hancke spoke almost as an equal and without a trace of respect.

  Martinez’ voice was very controlled. ‘I told Miller, and I am telling you, that after one more session I could do anything with Grant. Already I have been able to give you a host of facts which ought to have been used with more wisdom. Miller phoned the gist of what we discovered. Why then if you felt we were being less than wise in our plan of operation, did you not discuss matters with Zero and advise accordingly?’

  The third man again interrupted. ‘Leonardo was not available. He had to visit Berne.’

  ‘So the responsibility is yours. You knew that the Suza woman was due to be removed by Marsden’s people yet you didn’t tell us. In spite of Miller having explained that we expected Grant to kill her and then pin all three deaths at his door.’

  Grant stirred restlessly and rolled face downwards. His breathing became more shallow but he remained limply slack on the divan and disciplined himself to relax. SATAN was rattled. Otherwise they would hardly have argued as they were doing in public. Even although they thought he was asleep.

  ‘I still say that the whole affair has been botched, and I request permission from Zero to hypnotise Grant again. How else can we know that he will tell the truth?’

  ‘How can you tell that he wouldn’t put on an act?’ The third man sounded sceptical. ‘You had your chance and slipped up. Our people waited up all night at Messery and nothing happened. Instead we have lost a valued board member and Grant is still unsuspected by the police.’ He paused, and Grant heard him slap the small table impatiently. ‘Is there any other place called Messery?’

  The third man sounded impatient. ‘Not near Geneva.’

  ‘Then he must have killed the girls somewhere else. After all the women who were tied up with Miller have the wrong names, were different people entirely.’

  ‘Or else Grant gave you the wrong names when he was supposed to be hypnotised.’

  Tomas was exasperated. ‘You laymen make me angry. It is impossible to deceive an expert. Grant was in the second stage. Possibly even in a light third stage. He told the truth. And you can’t deny that Miller died. Or that he died under circumstances exactly similar to what Grant said had been planned. The only thing is that we have different women.’

  ‘At least they have different names,’ said Hancke slowly. ‘The police have discovered their passports. Mary James and Dinah Moses. But look, Tomas,’ he said quietly. ‘You have done enough for today. You were a sick man this morning.’

  ‘That was this morning,’ snapped the Spaniard. ‘Now I feel better and I want to know what happened.’

  Grant felt Hancke lift his wrist and check his pulse. He thanked God for a low metabolic rate and a normally slow beat. He guessed it at less than sixty-five and allowed his hand to fall limply on the cushions as Hancke stepped back and walked towards the door. ‘He is recovering. Pulse under seventy and colour improving. We’ll see him again in half an hour. But on the whole I am really inclined to agree with Tomas. It would be interesting to see if Grant can again be hypnotised. We might get one story out of him and then when we grill him using Maya Koren as a threat we could see how the two stories compare. A double check, in fact. But of course,’ he added as the voices faded through the door, ‘we must ask Zero. Without his agreement nothing should be done.’

  Grant sat up and stretched himself. He had heard Hancke pour himself a drink from the decanter and guessed that it must be safe enough. His mouth was dry as leather and he figured he was going to need any help that was going before the evening finished.

  The minutes passed with exasperating slowness, but he had enough gen to begin to figure out an approach. Chances were that they would turn him over to the Spaniard, but Neville with Juin had made sure that it would be impossible to hypnotise him. And they had also thumped it in that when it came to the bit Grant would have the know-how to see it through and twist their tails.

  Over half a
n hour had passed since the men had left the room. His senses were keyed up to the limit and he had forced himself into a weird sense of acceptance. Whatever happened he would never talk. And he had a strong hunch that SATAN was rattled. Given the breaks there was going to be the chance of a life-time to catch most of the top men red-handed.

  And then there were footsteps outside. The door opened with unexpected violence and two men came in carrying guns. One of them looked at Grant and pointed. ‘Outside. And no funny business.’

  A flight of stone steps rose from a narrow basement and he saw that he had been in a lushed up cellar. A man prodded him in the ribs and at the top of the stairs elbowed him to the right. There was a solid oak door ahead and his jailor knocked three times. A tall distinguished looking man opened it and stared at Grant impassively. ‘Right inside, Doctor, and sit down on the chair which you will see at the window alcove.’

  There was a long table. Ten men were seated around it and he recognised Hancke at the far end staring dead pan at the sheet of blotting paper in front of him. All the men excepting Hancke and Martinez wore masks and a figure at the top of the table seemed to be in control. Grant guessed that this might be the latest Zero himself and marked the shape of his head, the high brow and narrow skull dropping to an almost Grecian nose and firm chin. He glanced outside. There was a curving drive in the distance and a broad patio immediately beside the window. An old-fashioned well with a low cope stood in one corner and several cars were drawn up in a park ten metres away. Beds of crimson flowers opened out from the patio to extend right back to lawns which had been cut as though by a razor. The place was surrounded by trees and Grant recognised the silhouette of mountains where he had often skied near Gstaad.

  He sighed gently. This looked like being the end—for someone.

  A television screen had been mounted flush with one wall and another stood in a corner close beside Zero. A standard television camera had been pulled back so that it was almost unnoticed behind the entrance door and Grant marked three different mikes placed around the room.

  The man at the head of the table pressed a button and a red light flashed. Seconds later lines darted across the screen and then a picture snapped into focus.

  Maya was sitting handcuffed on a chair. Ankle bands bound her to the legs and she was wearing a two-piece suiting designed by Hardy Amies which was one of Grant’s favourite creations. Her face was strained and he saw her hands twist restlessly inside the cuffs.

  ‘We do not intend to have any secrets, Doctor,’ said the tall man who had opened the door. ‘You are sitting with the Board of Directors of a Society which has crossed your path on several occasions. We call ourselves the Society for Activation of Terror Anarchy and Nihilism.’

  He pointed to Hancke and Martinez. ‘These gentlemen you already know and we do not propose to introduce you to anyone else except our Chairman whose name may be familiar. Zero succeeds our former leader who died in an aircraft accident not so long ago and since evidence points to your having been responsible for his death we have all rather a personal interest in everything concerning you.’

  Grant forced a smile. ‘I can tell you how he died.’ He had decided to play for time: to prolong the agony and hope that delay would pay off even if it played havoc with Maya’s nerves. He could see her suddenly look up as he spoke and her eyes were fixed on the screen.

  He looked straight at the camera. ‘Relax, sweetie. Nothing to worry about.’

  She half smiled and he fancied that some of the tension flowed from the tight muscles around her mouth.

  ‘Enough.’ Zero was rapping the table with strong flexed fingers which showed impatience. ‘How did he die?’

  Grant looked at the screen rather than at Zero. ‘We were flying through bad weather when the aircraft developed engine trouble. There was a good deal of panic and in the end a woman passenger shot him through the skull. He died almost immediately.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘By that time I had regained control of the machine and managed to ditch it near the Thames Estuary.’

  The room had rippled to a deadly silence and Grant sensed its change of mood as Zero turned to Martinez. ‘You said that you could hypnotise anyone even if they were blindfolded and with their ears plugged. For the moment Doctor Grant is all yours.’

  The Spaniard rose from his chair and walked slowly across to where Grant was watching the TV screen. Maya was now sitting on the edge of her chair. He knew that she could hear every word and he risked sending another message. At worst the others wouldn’t believe him but at best it would give her encouragement. ‘You’ll be out of there within the hour, Maya. Keep your chin up and don’t worry.’

  The girl smiled and then he heard her voice rise crystal clear in the same moment that Martinez struck him across the mouth. ‘Not one more word,’ snapped the Spaniard.

  But Maya had said enough to send Grant’s spirits soaring . . . ‘I did as you said, David, and swallowed it.’

  The girl had kept her wits and a complicated project which had been arranged in Paris might yet pay dividends. H.Q. had been disturbed by the story of the man on the motor scooter in Spain. They had been even more disturbed when Stefanie reported that both Maya and Grant were probably being tailed in Geneva. And so a sophisticated monitor system had been arranged to keep tabs on Maya while she was in Paris. It centred round a device no larger than a grape which had been evolved by Juin’s backroom boys months earlier. Motivated by tiny transistors the thing transmitted a radio signal which could be thrown for upwards of two kilometres. A drill had been arranged whereby Maya would carry it in her handbag and never go out of range of H.Q. without first notifying them of her movements. Which meant that the signal registered automatically at a receiving station inside the Admiral’s rabbit warren of laboratories and offices. But it could operate as efficiently when buried in the human body as it could outside—and she had swallowed it!

  If the signal faded without a warning phone call the Department would instantly be alerted and mobile patrols armed with receivers might still pick it up if they moved fast enough. Once pinpointed she could be followed from a safe distance and Grant knew that there was at least an even chance of success.

  The Spaniard was staring at him suspiciously. ‘What did the girl mean?’ He turned to Zero. ‘That message could be important. Have you any comments?’

  There was a long silence. And then: ‘I think we’ll play this safe,’ said Zero slowly. ‘But first put Grant under and see what he has got to say.’

  Martinez walked across to Grant and gently fingered his neck. His hands moved with the same delicacy which Grant had sensed with Neville, and then a finger poised near the angle of his jaw. The man was speaking to him in a crisp parade ground voice and Grant felt a steady pressure which made his head swim. The carotid technique! He remembered the name from Juin and forced himself to go through the motions. Both Neville and Juin had given him a detailed briefing as to how Martinez would expect him to react, and he allowed himself, suddenly, to relax. His mouth slackened and he tried to drive every sense of expression from his eyes.

  He could almost ‘feel’ the silence in the room: a silence which lay heavy behind the monotone of Martinez’ voice.

  He obeyed every order.

  Left arm up to the side. Level with shoulders. Right arm vertically upright. And keep them there. Something of Neville’s suggestion seemed to have penetrated his subconscious and given him strength to do almost the impossible. Over five minutes later his arms were still bone rigid in position and poised without a tremor.

  ‘See!’ Martinez sounded very controlled. ‘No man could stand up to the strain of this test unless he was in a trance.’ And then he rapped out an order. ‘Arms relaxed in front of you.’

  He tapped Grant’s knee just below the patella and Grant tensed himself enough to give a slow, sluggish response. ‘Normally,’ said Martinez, ‘for a man like Grant there would be a brisk knee jerk but this is the reaction of a chi
ld.’ His voice whispered close to Grant’s ear and a succession of orders intended to drive Grant deep into the third stage of hypnosis converted him to a lolling adolescent sitting with a fixed grin and vacuous eyes which stared impersonally round the room.

  ‘And now,’ said Martinez quietly, ‘tell me what your friend Maya Koren swallowed.’

  Grant could feel the mounting tension around him and glimpsed Maya watching from the screen, her eyes wide open beside a swarthy man who covered her with an automatic. He tried to keep his voice steady. Whatever he said would have to be good. ‘A piece of paper.’

  ‘And why did she swallow the paper?’

  Grant knew that the reason would have to be a bull’s-eye. ‘Because it had a message which she was taking to a man in Paris.’

  ‘What was the message?’

  Grant was speaking almost in a monotone. ‘It was to let him know final details about how I was going to attack Mr. Charles W. E. Miller Junior.’

  ‘And why did you give it to the girl Koren?’

  ‘Because I could trust her, she was going back to Paris and it was safer to let her deliver it to my chief than to use the phone.’

  ‘And what is the name of your chief?’

  Grant counted ten before he answered with a lie which could not immediately be proved. And he knew that Martinez would expect resistance to a question which cut deep into all Grant’s normal instincts. ‘Major General Walter K. Broder.’

  Martinez turned to Zero ‘Anything else?’

  Zero pressed a button and spoke into an intercom. ‘Bring in our other prisoner.’ He glanced towards Lloyd Marsden. ‘Give Martinez your shooting stick.’ And then he whispered for a moment with the Spaniard in a far corner of the room. Not even the mikes picked up what they were saying but Grant saw a glint of expectation spark into the Spaniard’s deep set eyes as he nodded briefly and walked back to the window alcove.

  His voice was now persuasive. ‘A dangerous wild cat is coming into the room. At first sight you may think it is a man. But it is a vicious wild animal, a leopard which could rip you to pieces. You understand, Grant. A wild animal is coming. It may attack you. You may at first expect a man but it is a leopard which is coming and we all expect you to defend us.’ He put the shooting stick into Grant’s hand. ‘Beat it to pulp with that. Get in first. Kill the leopard with that stick before it can kill us.’