by Greenberg
“You needn’t stare,” she said. Nick heard false teeth clicking grotesquely. “I am not his daughter. I am his wife. But there are certain reasons why it was more secure for me to remain well hidden under large hats, in dark places.” Her voice was dead level. Only a quick glance at Yonov’s red-throated corpse betrayed her contempt. “Perhaps you might say I was his guardian. I was his contact, his link with the East, you see. I am the one who gave him a cause, a purpose for his work. Except for the affection the poor idiot felt for me, perhaps you Englishers – I suspect that’s what you must be since the young lady has the sound of it in her voice – as I say, but for me, he might have sold you his little bottles instead. Well, I am not so fond of the theatrical as he was. I shall do this quickly. But with pleasure.”
Again the eyes flicked bright and fanatic at the dead Sweetkill. She added: “I did not care for Genther personally. It was my duty to care for him. He was valuable. You have destroyed that value. I am duty-bound to finish what he began.”
Nick stared at her. He heard the alarm bells still ringing, jangling down the night. He heard voices now, male voices, guards, shouting off in the direction of the main building. They hammered on the steel doors, unable to get in.
On the floor, perhaps a yard away, lay the attache case.
I wonder if I can? Nick thought.
His mind went briefly black. He heard a thunder of a hundred thousand voices on a Sunday afternoon under an Ohio sky. There was no other way. It would never work but he had to try. Up came Judith Yonov’s gun muzzle.
With a wide bash of his arm, Nick threw Charity out of the way and did the run.
His right foot came up with less speed but as much fluid power as in the past. The kick! The kick! they were screaming somewhere. His foot connected.
Judith Yonov’s gun flamed, missed. He had kicked the attache case hard but it seemed to slide forward slowly. Actually there was power in the kick. The case flew. It struck Judith Yonov in the left calf, not hard, but enough to distract her. Her gun hand jerked. A second bullet went upward.
A glass pipe burst, began to leak down viscous greenish fluid that smoked when it hit the concrete. Then, before Nick could stop her, Charity was past him, screaming like no civilized woman should scream.
Judith Yonov tried to shove her back. Charity clawed, pushed. Judith Yonov went tumbling into the centrifuge. Her foot caught the attache case handle. Charity saw the case skitter and gave it a swift kick, almost as an afterthought.
She moved on fast, a blur of hate, of foul words. Her nails broke as she punched and punched at the centrifuge control box.
With a whine, as Judith Yonov howled down there with the case, the centrifuge began to spin.
Now guards were battering at the steel doors with what sounded like sledges. “Damn fool,” Nick shouted in a rage at Charity. “The spin of that thing may detonate all the juice in the case and – ”
His chest hurt. Time was pitifully short. He quit squandering time and words and bowled broadside into Charity. “Run!”
He drove her along with his shoulder. They tore their clothing and their flesh getting through the shattered window The dash across the field of dead policemen was nightmarish. Nick had to pick Charity up once when she faltered. He hurled her bodily out through the open gate. Then the black tore open behind them in one blinding, thundering red cloud of detonation that hurled them forward half a dozen yards onto their faces.
On his neck, Nick felt the heat of the death works dying.
7
“What a mess,” Nick said.
He was panting so hard, he was barely able to speak. “What a damned indescribable mess.” He dragged tired hands over his clothes. They were covered with sap, quilled with pine needles.
He and Charity had run parallel with the winding road, all the way down to the village, while the fire vehicles roared up.
The inn was empty. All the personnel and guests were out in the narrow street, watching the furnace-hued sky. They had got in via the back stairs. Now, in the sanctuary of their room, Nick had shot home the iron bolt.
He sat heavy and tired on the bed, saying again, “A mess. We both look like things off the garbage heap.”
“But we made it.”
Charity’s words came out as a bare squeak. She tried to laugh about it. Nick scowled. He scowled because her tan trench coat was an untidy collection of blood spots and tears and sap stains. She looked sick, wretched, tired and happy.
Nick said the first thing that came into his head:
“That was a stupid thing – ”
Disbelief, utter fury sparked in the girl’s eyes as her head came up.
“What?”
“Killing the Yonov woman. Going crazy. It was a callous, dirty thing.”
“Are you so blasted tired you don’t know what you’re saying?”
“You murdered her.”
“Who told you this was dancing class anyway, you son of a bitch?” Tears were on her cheeks, tears coming fast as she balled her fists at her sides. “I seem to remember a man named Tenderly in Gib. A man you killed, and here I’d got it into my head that maybe I had to forgive you and now you pull this on me!”
She sank down.
“Don’t you know why? Don’t you know why I did it?”
Slowly she lifted her head to look at him. She was no longer crying out of anger:
“Because, Nick, I wanted you to live, not her.”
He let out a breath which was more like a choke. The relief came. An end to the guilt. Wiped clean. Understanding seeped into his fatigue-dulled mind. He went toward her and sat beside her. New shiny-bright Jaguars no longer existed. Even Wilburforce hardly seemed worth bothering about.
Charity kissed him, hungrily, open-mouthed. He tried to show her he understood, and wanted her. He reached and fumbled at her clothing. Finally, when he had her living, round breast cupped in his fingers, feeling the warm rising life of it, there was no longer a need for fear.
“The local police, Nicky.”
“Tomorrow.”
“But – ”
“Old Icy-Guts will fix it.”
“I still worry that – ”
“Please shut up.”
They fell back together, tired, wanting. Soon the antidote was there for both of them, close together. The curtains of the inn room had been drawn tight when they crept in, so they never saw the red light of burning anymore in the German sky that night.
PETER O’DONNELL
The Giggle-Wrecker
The minister lightly underlined a few words on the report in front of him, then looked across his desk at Sir Gerald Tarrant and said, “I’m advised that Professor Okubo is the best bacteriologist in the world. It’s a vital aspect of defense today, and if he’s available we want to have him. We must have him.”
Tarrant sighed inwardly. He held Waverly in good esteem and liked the man personally. But, perhaps like all politicians, Waverly sometimes allowed his judgment to be swayed by a particular enthusiasm; and as Minister of Defense, Waverly’s great enthusiasm was scientific research in the military field.
“If you want Okubo badly, Minister,” Tarrant said, “then I think you should talk to somebody else about it. My organization in East Berlin isn’t geared for getting a defector out.”
Waverly began to fill his pipe. He was a stocky man with small, intelligent eyes in a heavy face. “I’ve persuaded the PM that this calls for a special effort,” he said.
Sixteen years ago Okubo had slipped away from American surveillance in Tokyo and reappeared in Moscow. It had long been known that he was a brilliant young scientist, but of suspect political yiews. Until his defection it was not known that he was a dedicated Communist. Now, at the age of forty, he had become disenchanted with Marx’s brave new world, and had defected anew, but it was a messy and poorly planned defection. Tarrant did not like it at all.
He said, “Even if we got him out, I don’t think you could hold him for long. The Americans would
offer him a million-pound laboratory set-up. Why should he stay with us and make do with a Bunsen burner and a bit of litmus paper?”
Waverly smiled. “Come now. You know I’ve wrung enormous increases from the Treasury for scientific work. And we seem to be Okubo’s personal choice. Just get him out and leave the rest to me.”
First news of Okubo’s disappearance from Moscow had come direct to Waverly from the Embassy Intelligence there. Within forty-eight hours there had been rumors in foreign newspapers, followed by denials. It was then that Tarrant had been called in. He did not like being handed a job that was already begun and had been botched, though there was nobody to blame for this but Okubo himself.
The Minister said, “You’ve done very well so far.”
“I haven’t had the chance to do either well or badly yet,” Tarrant said courteously. “You asked me to get a line on Okubo, and then he just turned up.”
“Yes.” Waverly looked down at the report again. “This is very brief. How did he get from Moscow to Berlin?”
“By way of Prague. After the Russians walked in there our Prague Section managed to recruit one or two embittered Czech party members One was a scientist who knew Okubo well. Apparently they hatched this clumsy escape plan between them. Okubo got to Prague under his own steam without any difficulty and went to ground there. Then his friend informed Prague Control, and they managed to get Okubo as far as East Berlin. I don’t think it was the best thing to do, but from the report sent to me I fancy Okubo is an awkward customer who likes things done according to his own ideas. Anyway, Prague found themselves holding this very hot potato and I don’t blame them for getting rid of Okubo as fast as they could. If he’d given us any warning of his intention to defect we could have handled things much more smoothly. Even now, given time and given his cooperation, I can get Okubo out, either by the Baltic coast or back through Czechoslovakia and over the border into Austria. But the man who’s keeping Okubo under wraps at the moment reports that he won’t cooperate.”
Waverly shrugged. “It’s understandable. When you’re little more than a stone’s throw from freedom, you don’t want to start traveling the other way. Besides, we have to make allowances for scientific genius. You’ll just have to accept the situation, and bring him out from East to West Berlin.”
Tarrant said bluntly, “I’m sorry. I haven’t the facilities.”
The Minister frowned. “If he can be got from Moscow to Berlin, surely you can get him over the Wall? It’s only another hundred yards or so.”
“A very particular hundred yards, Minister. Okubo is Japanese, and only four feet ten inches high. In an Aryan country he couldn’t be more obvious if he carried a banner with his name on it. Getting him out would require a major operation. Worst of all, we’re not the only ones who know he’s in East Berlin. The KGB knows it, too.”
Waverly had been about to draw on his pipe. Now he paused. “How do you know that?”
Tarrant hesitated. He hated giving needless information, even to a Minister of the Crown. Reluctantly he said, “We’ve had a man in East German Security HQ for seven years now.”
“I see. I won’t mention it at cocktail parties,” Waverly said with mild irony. He got up from his desk and walked to the window. “If the Russians know Okubo is there, I imagine they’re turning East Berlin upside down, and as you say, it can’t be easy to hide a Japanese. The sooner he’s out, the better.”
“The Russians aren’t making a tooth-comb search,” Tarrant said. “They know we have Okubo in a safe-house, and they’re simply waiting for him to move. Then they’ll net him. Starov’s no fool.”
“Starov?”
“Major-General Starov. Head of Russian Security in East Berlin. He’s very devious. A man I fear.”
Waverly returned to the desk. “You said it would require a major operation to bring Okubo out. I see what you mean. But you’ll just have to mount one.”
Tarrant kept a tight hold on the fear and anger he felt. “We’ve spent fifteen years building up the network we have in East Berlin,” he said quietly. “It takes time to recruit safely and to get people planted, but we have a very nice tight little network now. Agents have been spotted carefully. They don’t do anything. They’re sleepers, and they’ve been placed there for one purpose only – so that we can activate them if and when the Berlin situation ever really catches fire. That’s the real crunch, and they shouldn’t be activated for anything else, however tempting. I suggest Okubo isn’t worth it, Minister. It’s like using kamikaze pilots to sink a row-boat.”
Waverly stared into space for a while, then said, “Can you hire agents for the job? Money’s no object for this.”
Tarrent sat up a little. “No object to whom, Minister? The budget for all Secret Service departments was cut last year and again this year. We now have just over ten million pounds annually. I doubt if that would pay the CIA’s telephone bill.”
Waverly shook his head. “You’re too old a hand to be disenchanted by Government parsimony. The Americans can afford it, and we can’t. But you needn’t touch your budget for this. I can secure money from the Special Fund. Surely you can hire the necessary personnel? I understand there are more freelance agents in West Berlin than we have civil servants in Whitehall.”
“There are almost as many Intelligence groups as that,” Tarrant said dryly. “Some agents have become so entangled in the situation that they find it hard to remember who they’re working for. And since there’s precious little liaison, they spend most of their time industriously liquidating each other’s agents by mistake. The fact that many of the groups have been penetrated by Russian Intelligence complicates matters. Add in the free-lances, the doubles and the triples, and you have a situation which must make the Russians laugh themselves to sleep at nights.”
Waverly smiled. It was a small and not very humorous smile. “Then if you can trust nobody else, you’ll have to use your own people.”
“I thought I’d covered that point, Minister.”
“No.” Waverly looked into Tarrant’s eyes. “No, not really. You said Okubo wasn’t worth risking your network for. But what Okubo is worth is a Ministerial decision. My decision.”
There was a very long silence in the room. “Of course,” Tarrant said at last, and got to his feet. “I’ll keep you fully informed, Minister.”
When Modesty Blaise came into the reception hall of the penthouse block she appeared to be accompanied by a small but very handsome walnut tallboy of Queen Anne’s day, moving on human feet that protruded from beneath it.
Willie Garvin set the tallboy down and wiped his brow. He had sat with it resting across him in the back of Modesty’s open Rolls while she drove the eighty-odd miles from the country house where the auction sale had been held.
She was looking apologetic now, as well as stunningly attractive in the powder-blue matching dress and jacket she wore. “I’m sorry, Willie,” she said as he stretched his cramped muscles. “I ought to have let them send it.”
“That’s right,” Willie agreed amiably.
“But I kept remembering how that lovely little table was ruined last year.”
Willie nodded judicially. “That’s right, too.”
“So it was better to bring it with us, really.”
“That’s right, Princess.”
She grinned suddenly, patted his arm. and said, “You ought to get mad at me sometimes for my own good.”
“Next time.” He looked past her and registered mild surprise. “Look who’s ’ere.”
A man had risen from an armchair in the reception hall and was moving toward them. He carried a bowler hat and a rolled umbrella. His name was Fraser, and he was Sir Gerald Tarrant’s personal assistant.
Fraser was a small bespectacled man with a thin face and a timorous manner. The picture he chose to present most of the time was one of nervous humility. This was a role he had acted for so long that it was a part of him. Sometimes, within a tiny circle of close intimates, the role was
dropped and the real Fraser appeared. This was another man, and a very hard personality indeed. Fraser had served as an agent in the field for fifteen years before returning to a desk job, and he had been one of the great agents.
Now he said with an anxious smile, ‘I hope my visit isn’t . . . I mean, I tried to telephone you, Miss Blaise, but – er . . . so I thought I’d come along and wait for you.”
“That’s all right. I wanted to go over the policy with you before I signed,” Modesty said, and turned to the porter behind the reception desk. “George will you give Mr. Garvin a hand to get this thing in the lift?”
A private lift served Modesty’s penthouse. There was just room for the three of them and the tallboy. Going up in the lift, Fraser retained his servile manner, commenting fulsomely but knowledgeably on the tall-boy.
Willie lifted it out and set it down in the tiled foyer. Modesty led the way into the big sitting-room, taking off her jacket, and said, “Is something wrong, Jack?”
Fraser grimaced, threw the hat and umbrella on to a big couch and stared at them sourly. “Tarrant’s resigning,” he said, discarding his image. “Bloody hell. The longer I live, the more I sympathize with Guy Fawkes, except that blowing up politicians is too good for ’em. Do you think I could have a drink?”
Modesty nodded to Willie, who moved to the bar and poured a double brandy. He knew Fraser’s tastes.
“Why is he resigning?” Modesty asked.
“If I tell you that,” Fraser said, “I shall be breaking the Official Secrets Act.” He sipped the brandy, sighed, and said, “God, this is good. If anyone ever wants to ruin it with dry ginger, I hope you break their teeth.”
Modesty and Willie glanced at each other. Fraser was a badly worried man, and that was so unlikely as to be alarming.
“So let’s drive a truck through the Official Secrets Act,” Fraser said with gloomy relish. “There’s some bloody Jap bacteriologist who’s been working for the Russians for years. Professor Okubo. He’s defected and he’s in East Berlin now, being kept under wraps by our liaison man. Our masters want him. Waverly’s told Tarrant to get him out – even though Starov knows he’s in hiding there. We can’t do it without activating the sleeper network. Tarrant’s been told to go ahead and do just that.” Fraser shook his head. “My sister’s husband would have more sense, and I wouldn’t match him against a smart dog, the thick bastard.”