Panic! (Department Z)

by John Creasey

  Clarke scrambled to his feet, his chin swelling.

  ‘You damned fool, I’ll …’

  He moved forward, and Errol fired.

  There was hardly a sound, for the gun was silenced. But a stab of flame shot out and Clarke gasped as the bullet tore through his shoulder. Again a woman screamed, and the band stopped. Everyone stood transfixed, staring towards Mike Errol.

  The window was wide open, thanks be …

  ‘You’ve been more than warned,’ he snapped. ‘If …’

  He did not see the arm stretching past the curtains.

  He did see a dozen pair of eyes turn towards the window in unspoken, unwitting warning. He half-turned, but he was a fraction of a second too late. Something hard and heavy crashed on the back of his head. As he staggered, it came again—and he pitched forward, the automatic clattering to the floor from his nerveless fingers.

  From outside the window, a steward pulled back the curtains as Clarke crossed to the unconscious man’s side and kicked him viciously in the ribs.

  ‘Come and get him!’ he snarled to the steward.

  And then the band began to play. Hot rhythm swept through the room as the women turned to their partners, and the dancing started again.

  * * *

  That was at half-past nine.

  At eleven o’clock, Loftus entered Craigie’s office and he did not look pleased with life. He threw himself into a chair and, since Craigie was on the telephone, filled his pipe in silence as he waited.

  ‘Well, Bill …?’ Craigie asked, hanging up at last.

  ‘Who was that?’

  ‘Fellowes. There’s no news of any kind. The Army’s in readiness for martial law, if it should be necessary, but there isn’t an inkling of what will happen next. The Government’s attitude is defiant, of course …’

  ‘It’s got to be,’ Loftus stirred uneasily. ‘Anything from Mike Errol?’

  ‘Not a word. Nor from the two men I had near the houseboat. It suggests that Errol and this Letty woman didn’t go to the Luxa—although they were seen on the Maidenhead Road. We’d have had a report by now, I think.’

  ‘Yes … Better send someone to check up, though—I’ll give Carrie a ring.’ He went to the telephone, gave Carruthers instructions to get to Maidenhead at all speed and report, then returned to his chair. ‘Well, the position’s as you were, Gordon. Apart from the men we’ve got, there’s Neb himself, Lore, Frazer-Campbell and Tiarney—not to mention Amondier—all missing.’

  ‘Lore dropped Fay cold, did he?’

  A tired grin crossed Bill’s face.

  ‘I’m afraid so. What with Jaffrey and Lore, she’ll begin to think her charms aren’t working as they should. Of course Lore recognised Mark Errol, and that seemed to make him suspicious. If he knew what happened to Jaffrey, it would be enough—and probably Fay isn’t as convincing a newspaper-hound as we’d like. However, she tried. Clarke was on the houseboat, and I expect he’s still there. Rogerson and Myra haven’t turned up, and everything considered, it’s safe to assume they’ve gone to a joint rendezvous.’

  ‘Yes …’ Craigie pulled at his under-lip. ‘But I don’t like the way these people seem to disappear into thin air. Or …’

  ‘Into the hereafter,’ Loftus supplied, soberly. ‘Oh, the organisation is good, all right—more like a thousand-and-one, than a hundred! However, we’ve done everything we can. Oh, hell—this blasted silence is getting on my nerves!’ He pushed his chair back and stood up, glowering down at Craigie as if the Chief of Department Z were to blame. ‘Good God—here we are, nearly midnight, the whole country awake and waiting—waiting for some ungodly tragedy that might kill tens of thousands! It’s unbearable. It’s …!’

  ‘Steady,’ said Craigie.

  Loftus stopped. After a moment, he shrugged, shamefaced:

  ‘Sorry, old man. But …’

  ‘It gets you, as it gets us all. But as you said, we’ve done everything possible, and all we can do is to wait. It can’t succeed, of course.’

  Loftus looked ten years older.

  ‘No?’

  Craigie’s lips drooped as he insisted:

  ‘Not over here …’

  ‘It can!’ Loftus retorted, sharply. ‘They can do it, Gordon. They’ve been preparing for this for years. And we depended on a chance word from Fay to know anything at all about it! Secret Intelligence!’

  Craigie lifted a hand.

  ‘It’s not as bad as that, and you know it. We were after the men who were after Fay, before she told us what she knew. She only confirmed it. We were late starting, but with an organisation among people like Nebton, Jaffrey and the others—well, what could we do? Men you would imagine to be as loyal as anyone living! And don’t say we’ve never liked Nebton.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Loftus grunted, and glanced at his watch. In the past ten minutes, he had checked it half-a-dozen times, watching the minute-hand move nearer to midnight.

  It was eleven thirty-five …

  Zero hour was twenty-five minutes off. Something, God knew what, was to happen. They knew that from the General Plan they had discovered—knew that it was to put the finishing touches to the panic already started by Operation B.

  That had been dreadful enough.

  Operation C would be worse—much worse …

  Brrr-brrr!

  The telephone jangled sharply in the silence, making them jump. Craigie answered it, and Carruthers announced himself. He sounded as if he had been running.

  ‘The Luxa’s missing. Our men were laid out, around nine o’clock, just after Mike and the girl arrived. Locals say it went down-river—it’s probably through the last lock by now.’

  ‘Nothing else?’

  ‘Clarke was on board: no one else we know.’

  ‘Clarke again,’ said Craigie. ‘All right, get there as soon as you can.’ He replaced the receiver slowly, and passed the news to Loftus. ‘Carrie will be back here, soon,’ he added.

  And neither of them knew that Carruthers proposed, in fact, to disobey Craigie for the first time in his life.

  ‘So Carrie’s little Neil is in it, is he?’ Loftus mused. ‘You’ll have his office and home searched?’

  ‘Yes—and we’ll do it ourselves. Miller and Fellowes are too busy on special work. Who’ve we got handy?’

  ‘Di and Fay, Wally, Dodo, Spats … That ought to serve.’

  ‘Get the girls on that line,’ Craigie nodded. ‘There’s Mark Errol, too, of course.’

  Loftus said, bleakly:

  ‘Seeing there’s a faint chance they’re not all they should be, let’s leave the Errols.’

  ‘Right,’ said Craigie.

  In five minutes, from their various flats within half a mile of one another, Diana, Fay, Wally Davidson, Spats Thornton—and one Dodo Trale, recently back from Paris—were converging on the St. James’ Street flat of Neil Clarke.

  In half an hour they were agreed there was nothing of use there and left, in two cars, for his Mincing Lane office, A caretaker, at first obstreperous, was soon overwhelmed by Loftus’ manner and Craigie’s obvious authority.

  It was Fay who made the discovery …

  In Clarke’s sumptuously-furnished private office, there was a trap in the wainscoting—as there had been at Moorton Road. From it, Fay took files of papers, exclaiming as she did so; and Diana working near her called the others from the outer offices. A three-minute inspection proved that they had found enough to incriminate Neil Clarke beyond any doubt, but little else to help them.

  For the papers were exact duplicates of those found in Korrel’s office at Moorton Road.

  * * *

  ‘Which,’ commented Loftus, ‘is useful, up to a point.’

  ‘Useful!’ cried Fay, almost in tears. ‘It’s turned twelve, we’re no futher forward, and …’

  ‘Easy, lass,’ Loftus soothed her. ‘It’s a blow, but it can’t be helped. There’s another thing we might get hold of, Gordon—Clarke’s recent transactions. We know he’s
done a lot for Neb, and others on the schedule might be on his books.’

  ‘Dodo’s going through the safe right now,’ said Craigie.

  Dodo Trale, a man of medium build and considerable good looks, whistled as he sorted through the papers he had extracted from the safe. Dodo was an expert in picking locks—a sign, Loftus was wont to say, of a misspent youth.

  They went into the larger office.

  ‘Find anything?’ Fay demanded. She was on tenterhooks now; more nervous than they had ever seen her. Loftus sympathised. He felt a heaviness within him; a fear that somewhere not far away, disaster was coming. Zero hour was past: if the General Plan was adhered to, the third operation was about to be demonstrated.

  All of them were worked up, brittle, sharp-tempered.

  Of them all, Diana seemed to be the least tense. But Dodo’s whistling got on Spats Thornton’s nerves.

  ‘For God’s sake shut up. Dodo!’

  ‘Sorry, sergeant!’ said Trale, and the little man with the Punch-like face shrugged wryly. They had taken a number of files apiece, and were going through each of them at speed.

  This time, Loftus made the find.

  ‘Here’s Neb’s papers! I—hallo! Jaffrey—Lore—Morely—McKenzie—Fraser-Campbell—Anson! The whole damned bunch—he’s been working for them all!’

  ‘Anson!’ exclaimed Thornton.

  ‘The same …’ Loftus had taken the files and was spreading them on a desk in front of him. The others crowded round. They all read the records of the transactions, all saw—with Loftus and Craigie a little ahead of the others—that Neil Clarke had handled the buying and selling of millions of pounds’ worth of armament companies’ shares.

  The minutes passed unnoticed …

  The extent of the negotiations Clarke had handled was beyond anything they would have dreamed. The stockbroker had been working for years for all the bigger armament firms, and there in front of them was a full record of his activities. They saw, for instance, how many shares of the Anson group Nebton had bought, and how many of Nebton’s group had been bought by Anson. The system was intricate: the negotiations must have been delicate in the extreme—but one supreme fact emerged.

  Anson and Nebton, between them, held more of all the other companies’ shares than the companies themselves.

  Anson and Nebton virtually controlled the combined output of the Empire Armaments Manufacturers Association.

  ‘Which makes it look,’ Loftus remarked, deceptively mild, ‘as if Anson is very deep in this after all. A visit to the Regal is indicated, whether he’s still convalescent or not.’

  ‘I can’t believe Anson …’ began Fay, oddly.

  ‘We won’t prejudge him,’ said Loftus, but he looked as if he had already done so. ‘We …’

  Brrr-brrr!

  The telephone, in the office which was supposed to be empty, startled them all. Loftus was nearest to it and at Craigie’s nod answered it crisply:

  ‘Yes—who is that?’

  ‘Oundle. Is Loftus …?’

  ‘Speaking! Ned, how the devil ..?’

  ‘Fay told me you were after Clarke—I knew you’d be there. Bill …’ Oundle’s voice was urgent, charged with alarm—perhaps with horror. ‘The Regal’s on fire—blazing like a hayrick, and they can’t get to Anson’s room!’

  22

  Operation C

  No human being could have got through.

  The Regal, when Loftus and the others reached the nearest point they could approach, some fifty yards away, was blazing at all corners. Flames roared two hundred feet into the air, the smuts falling on the seething onlookers like a blanket of black snow. Debris was crashing all around, and walls tumbling, showering sparks and flame over the cordon which police and military tried desperately to maintain.

  The regular and auxiliary fire brigades had given up hope of saving the hotel within ten minutes of arriving on the scene. They were concentrating, now, on the adjoining buildings, some of which were burning fiercely and several of which would be razed.

  The hissing water from a hundred powerful hoses, the smell of burning, cries of alarm and of pain, added to the bedlam. Loftus and Diana watched, sick at heart. Craigie, with Dodo and Spats, had gone to see Miller, who was at the scene. Wally had a hand on Fay’s shoulder. She was looking white and hollow-eyed, her lips dry and colourless. The strain was clearly beginning to tell on her.

  Diana, on the other hand, looked as cool and fresh as it was possible to look under such extremes of heat and smoke.

  ‘Wally had better get Fay to the flat,’ she murmured. ‘Ned will look after her. She’ll crack, if she doesn’t get some rest.’

  ‘Idea,’ admitted Loftus and spoke, sotto voce, to Davidson.

  The lethargic gentleman agreed that Fay should be taken to the flat, dosed with veronal, and sent to bed. He helped her through the crowd with some difficulty, a hand on her waist all the time. She walked like a woman in a trance, and as they disappeared, Diana protested:

  ‘It’s been too much for her, Bill. Isn’t there a thing we can do?’

  ‘Not a damned thing,’ said Loftus, savagely. ‘The League wanted to stop Anson talking, or it looks that way. They meant to get him, and they’ve managed it …’

  But suddenly, shockingly, came the start of Operation C—although at first they did not realise it.

  ‘The damned fools!’ Loftus roared. ‘They’ve turned the water off!’

  From a dozen nozzles near them, the water had receded to the merest trickle and firemen were looking at each other, puzzled and worried. The flames seemed to redouble as they watched, and the adjoining buildings, which had been partly under control, suddenly burst into a roaring, uncontrollable blaze.

  Loftus and Diana fought their way to where Craigie and Miller stood with a Brigade Superintendent. A lieutenant reached the little group at the same time.

  ‘It’s off at the main, sir—nothing wrong here.’

  ‘Get it on!’ snapped the superintendent.

  But they did not get it on.

  There was no water …

  The mains had been destroyed, by sabotage on a grand scale. From every part of London reports came to Craigie and Loftus, who had gone to Miller’s office at Scotland Yard. Fires were starting in a hundred places …

  And there was no water to fight them!

  North, south, east and west, the reports were the same. Pumping and control stations had been attacked, in most cases by a dozen or so armed men. The engines had been wrecked and pipe lines blown up: reservoirs had been attacked and thousands of gallons of water were devastating whole areas and driving hundreds of people from their homes.

  In other areas, fires had been started at cinemas and hotels, public houses and club rooms, theatres and meeting halls: there could be no doubt that they were the work of incendiaries. And the brigades could only stand by, watching hopelessly. There was no water, nothing to fight the encroaching flames.

  London was burning.

  Operation A had started the disquiet, with the blowing up of key-points.

  Operation B had begun the panic, with the slaughter of thousands and the demolition of their homes.

  Operation C seemed planned to raze London to the ground.

  But the emergency regulations which had been put into force showed that the authorities were not as unprepared as might have been expected. With speedy efficiency, sand was rushed in lorries to every danger spot. Around the Regal, a dozen buildings were blown up to prevent the spread of the fire, and the same plan was put into operation elsewhere. And although millions of pounds’ worth of damage was done, slowly the regular and auxiliary services, with the Army’s help, fought back with not a little success.

  But the panic was there.

  Thousands of people homeless … Lurid glows in the sky from all directions … Fear and horror and pain played their part in the mass evacuation of London which started soon after the fires—and quickly threatened chaos.

  All roads and hig
hways were crammed with people; in small cars and large, in lorries and vans, on cycles and on foot. They began as a straggling stream, and developed into a surging mass, intent on one thing only: to get away from London, the City that seemed fated.

  Main lines were besieged, hundreds of extra trains were put on; but confusion reigned. There was no order in that great exodus. In three places at once—Euston, Victoria and Charing Cross—rioting started. At Victoria, a gang of men seized over-loaded trains and drove them from the station with no real knowledge of what they were about.

  Incoming trains had no warning …

  Two miles outside Victoria, there was a crash which involved four trains, each one crammed full with sweating, frightened humanity. Men, women and children were smashed to pieces in the collision, and all the lines from Victoria were put out of action for days …

  Yet thousands besieged the terminus.

  A series of crashes added to the chaos, and slowed the traffic to a crawl. And with the roads so crammed with people, many preferred to abandon their cars and join them in that blind exodus to somewhere—anywhere—away.

  And a hundred parts of London burned.

  Panic—chaos—madness.

  And on the morrow?

  A few—a very few—knew that if plague were averted, it would be by a miracle.

  * * *

  The Rt. Honourable David Wishart, grey-faced with anxiety and fatigue, addressed the emergency meeting of the Cabinet summoned when London’s water supplies had been cut off.

  ‘There is no way,’ he was saying, wearily, ‘of communicating with the country, outside of London, except by aeroplane and carrier-pigeon and, in certain places still, by radio. All main routes are jammed, and the exodus increases hour by hour. All telephone services have been cut off, and most of the exchanges deserted. We are doing everything possible, but …’

  He paused.

  Bryce-Scott, the fiery little Scotsman, spoke with less vehemence than usual:

  ‘Is the best use being made of the river, Prime Minister?’