by Jack Higgins
It was as quiet as the grave and he hesitated for a moment and then crossed the foyer and went up the marble stairs. He reached the landing above and had only taken a couple of steps along it when Molly screamed.
Youngblood turned instinctively to run and then she screamed again and this time called his name. Perhaps what happened next was a reflex action— perhaps it was a product of pride or even shame or of the colossal vanity that knowing her good opinion, refused to let her find him wanting.
He flung open the leather-covered door and went in crouching, aware only fleetingly of the macabre backdrop to what was taking place. Pentecost had Molly back across the bench, a hand at her throat, the scalpel raised threateningly.
As she screamed again, Youngblood grabbed Pentecost by the shoulder, swung him round and knocked him backwards across the bench. The girl flung herself into his arms, her face twisted and ugly with fear and as he patted her reassuringly, Pentecost scrambled to his feet and pulled the revolver from his pocket.
The first clear emotion that exploded in Young-blood’s brain was one of anger at his own stupidity in getting involved, and yet in the same moment the over-riding instinct for self-preservation at all costs that was his most outstanding characteristic made him hurl the girl from him and start for the safety of the door.
Pentecost fired once, the bullet drilling a neat hole in the thick glass plate of the tank and formaldehyde jetting out in a bright stream.
Youngblood straightened slowly and Pentecost said, “That’s better. Hands on head.” He gave the girl a quick push forward. “Now start walking, both of you. I’d like to say do as you’re told and you won’t get hurt, but my old granny always taught me to tell the truth.”
Youngblood moved along the corridor, the girl at his side, her face white. There was no sign of Drummond, but that was only to be expected, he told himself bitterly. The sound of that shot was enough to make anyone run for cover.
They went down the stairs under Pentecost’s direction and through a large iron barred door at the back of the hall. When Pentecost switched on the light, Youngblood found himself standing on a landing at the top of a flight of steps dropping down into what obviously had been a wine cellar at one time. Now it was painted neatly in white and black. There was a complicated switchboard on one wall and several steel oven doors in another. Young-blood didn’t need anyone to draw a picture for him. This was undoubtedly the crematorium and in spite of the oppressive warmth, he was suddenly cold as he went down the steps.
“That will do nicely,” Pentecost said and he moved round to face them, a slight smile on his face. “You know where you are?”
“I don’t need any blueprint,” Youngblood said.
Pentecost reached for a switch on the wall. There was a sudden roar and when he swung back one of the oven doors, they could see flames shooting from all sides of the brickwork through a heavy, armoured glass door.
“Ten minutes,” he said. “That’s all it takes and afterwards, a handful of ashes.”
The girl gave a sudden desperate sob and half collapsed against Youngblood so that he had to catch her. Pentecost circled them warily and stood with his back to the stairs.
“This is what I call the full treatment,” he said. “For most people it’s a privilege that costs two hundred guineas. You’re getting it for free.”
Behind him Chavasse vaulted the rail, landing with a soft thud. Pentecost started to turn, but he was too late. Chavasse moved in fast, sliding an arm around the man’s neck and wrenched the revolver from his grasp.
He staggered forward, gasping for breath as Chavasse released him with a shove and Young-blood swung him round, his face white with rage and fear.
“You bastard!” he said. “You dirty bastard!” He grabbed Pentecost by the shirtfront and hit him again and again in the face with his right, solid, heavy punches that drove him to his knees.
Chavasse forced his way in between them, pushing Youngblood back against the wall. “All right— that’s enough. We want to talk to him!”
“You took your own sweet time getting here, didn’t you?” Youngblood said furiously.
Chavasse ignored him. He heaved Pentecost to his feet and shoved him into a chair that stood beside a small deal table. Pentecost seemed completely dazed and wiped blood from his mouth mechanically with the back of one hand.
“My name’s Drummond and this is Harry Youngblood,” Chavasse said. “Perhaps you’ve heard of us?”
Pentecost nodded. “You’re the two who escaped from Mamringham hospital yesterday. I read about it in the paper.”
“Were you expecting us?”
Pentecost hesitated and Youngblood took a step forward, right fist clenched. “Let me speak to him.”
Pentecost shrank back defensively, one arm raised. “There’s no need for that. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
Chavasse nodded to Youngblood. “All right, give him a chance.” He repeated the question. “Were you expecting us?”
Pentecost shook his head. “I had a phone call this afternoon so I was expecting somebody. I didn’t know it was going to be you two.”
“Who gave you the order?”
“He calls himself Smith. That’s all I know about him.”
“Can you describe him?”
“Good looking, well spoken.” He shrugged. “You’d think he was upper-crust until he starts to work.”
Youngblood frowned across at Chavasse. “Mackenzie?”
“It certainly sounds like it.” Chavasse looked down at Pentecost again. “Are you expecting him?”
“He didn’t say anything definite.”
Youngblood had walked across to inspect the ovens and now he turned. “Do you treat everyone Smith sends you like this?”
Pentecost shook his head. “I pass most of them straight through.”
Youngblood stared at him in genuine horror. “Most of them?” He turned to Chavasse. “For Christ’s sake, find out what we have to know and let’s get out of here. This bloke gives me the creeps.”
“The people you passed on,” Chavasse said. “What was their destination?”
Pentecost didn’t even hesitate. “I used to leave them at a crossroads five miles from here. They were usually picked up by the same van.”
“You stayed to watch?”
Pentecost nodded. “I wasn’t supposed to know the destination, but I took the registration number and got a friend of mine with the right contacts to check it for me. The van belongs to a bloke called Bragg. He runs a small boatyard at a little place on the Dorset coast near Lulworth called Upton Magna. It’s about ninety miles from here.”
Youngblood turned to Chavasse excitedly. “That sounds promising, Drum. It could be the end of the line.”
Chavasse nodded slowly, never taking his eyes off Pentecost’s face. Quite suddenly he rammed the barrel of the revolver against the man!s head and thumbed back the hammer.
“You bloody liar!”
Pentecost panicked completely, his face turning grey. “It’s the truth, I swear it! On my mother’s grave I swear it!”
“You never had a mother,” Youngblood said in disgust and he hooked away the chair with a foot so that Pentecost fell to the floor.
He lay there shaking with fear and Chavasse looked down at him coldly. There was an account to be settled here, but that would have to wait until a more appropriate time.
He slipped the revolver into his pocket and took Molly’s arm. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
“What about this?” Youngblood asked, stirring Pentecost with a foot.
“There’s nothing he can do,” Chavasse said. “If he tries to warn them we’re on our way, they’ll want to know how we found out where to head for in the first place. How long do you think he’d last after that?”
Pentecost looked at him over his shoulder, eyes widening as the significance of what Chavasse had said sank home and Youngblood laughed harshly.
“You’ve got a point there. No re
ason he shouldn’t take a rest for a little while though,” and he kicked Pentecost in the side of the head.
Pentecost rolled over, struggling for breath, aware of the clang of the door closing at the top of the steps and then he plunged into darkness.
==========
Pain exploding in a chain reaction brought him back from darkness as someone slapped him across the face and a voice repeated his name over and over again. He opened his eyes and stared up into Simon Vaughan’s pale face.
“You do look a mess, old man. Presumably they’ve been and gone?”
Pentecost pushed himself up on one elbow. “There were three of them,” he croaked. “Not two like you said. Two men and a girl.”
“So that’s where she got to! Dear me, I have been careless. Unfortunately I had a little mechanical trouble with the car on the other side of Worcester. I was delayed for the best part of an hour.” He helped Pentecost to his feet and sat him in a chair. “When did they leave?”
Pentecost looked at his watch and found that it was almost seven o’clock. “It can’t be more than half an hour.”
“I see. You told them where to go, did you? Bragg’s Boatyard, Upton Magna?” Pentecost stared at him, uncertain of what to say, so confused by the pain in his head that he was unable to think straight and Vaughan sighed. “You shouldn’t have done that, you know.”
“I couldn’t help it,” Pentecost said wearily. “They’d have killed me if I hadn’t told them. You could probably still catch them.”
“I’m sure I can,” Vaughan said. “I have two considerable advantages. A very fast car and the fact that I know exactly where I’m going. They, on the other hand, will have to stick to the backroads and check every signpost and the Dorset countryside can be very confusing at night.”
Pentecost stirred uneasily as Vaughan moved round behind him. “You know your trouble, old man? You think you’ve got brains, but you haven’t—just a certain amount of low cunning. I can’t say it’s been a pleasure.”
His clenched right fist rose and descended in a hammer blow that splintered the bone at the base of Penetcost’s skull. He gave a strange, choking cry and would have tumbled from the chair if Vaughan hadn’t held him upright.
He walked round to the front of the chair quickly, dropped to one knee and then straightened, Pentecost draped across his right shoulder in the fireman’s lift.
Vaughan crossed to the oven Pentecost had turned on and switched it off. As the flames died away, he opened the glass door and the seven-foot base plate rolled out smoothly on its castors. He dropped Pentecost on to it, arranging his limbs neatly, pushed the plate with its burden back inside and closed the glass door.
He paused to light a cigarette, then pulled the switch. Pentecost’s body seemed to jump out of the darkness as great tongues of flame sprang from the brickwork to envelop it. His clothing ignited in a second and then, incredibly, an arm was half, raised, flaring like a torch and the body moved.
Vaughan watched with interest for a couple of minutes, then closed the outer steel door, turned the dial up to maximum and went up the stairs quickly.
A mile the other side of Gloucester, he pulled up at a phone box and dialled World Wide Exports in London.
“Hello, sweetie, I’m afraid things didn’t go according to plan at all here. Our friends are now on their way to Dorset.”
“That’s a great pity. What are you going to do about it?”
“I think I’d better handle things personally from now on. I’ll see they get the usual transportation, but somehow, I don’t think they’re going to manage to raise a landfall.”
“That sounds promising. I’ll pass the message along.”
“You do that. I’ll follow in another boat to report personally. Should be there for breakfast.”
“I’ll let him know.”
The line went dead and Vaughan moved out, whistling softly, got into the Spitfire and drove rapidly away.
10. Three to Four—Rain Squalls
UPTON MAGNA WAS a fishing village which in other times had enjoyed a considerable importance, but now its population had dwindled to little more than two hundred and there were few boats in the small harbour.
Bragg’s boatyard was out on the point beside an old stone jetty, a collection of dilapidated clapboard buildings, untidy stacks of ageing timber and a line of boats hauled clear of the water that looked as if they never expected to sail again.
It was just after half past nine when Vaughan entered the village and drove along the main street. There was a small, whitewashed public house about half way along with a car park behind. He left the Spitfire there, well out of sight in the shadows, and went the rest of the way on foot.
There was a light at the window on the right of the front door of the house directly underneath the faded board sign that carried the legend George Bragg—Boat-builder—Yachts for hire. He went up the steps to the rickety porch and peered in through the window.
The room was half office, half living quarters and hopelessly cluttered and untidy. Beyond the wooden reception desk beside the entrance, George Bragg was reading a newspaper at a table which seemed to be covered with a week’s accumulation of dirty dishes.
He was well into his sixties, a great bear of a man with a grizzled untidy beard. He got to his feet and, to Vaughan’s surprise, reached for a crutch. He picked up an enamel mug and hobbled to the coffee pot on the stove, his right foot dragging awkwardly in a plaster cast.
Vaughan pushed open the door and went inside. Bragg turned quickly in surprise, still holding the mug in one hand and the coffee pot in the other.
“I wasn’t expecting you, Mr. Smith.”
“What happened to the foot?” Vaughan said.
Bragg shrugged. “Bloody silly, really. Tripped and fell over a pile of scrap on my way through the yard the other night.”
“Tanked up to the eyeballs as usual no doubt,” Vaughan said. “How bad is it?”
“I’ve broken a couple of bones.”
“Good! As it happens that suits me very nicely. Is the Pride of Man ready for sea?”
“As always, just like you ordered. Are you taking her out?”
He was a man stamped with failure. It showed clearly in the broken veins on his face, the bleary drink-sodden eyes, but he was desperately eager to please this strange, dark young man with the white face who was the one thing which had stood between him and ruin for almost two years.
“Not this time,” Vaughan said. “But some people will be arriving within the next hour at the outside. Two men and a girl. They’ll give you the usual password and they’ll expect to be passed on.”
Bragg looked dubious. “I’d like to oblige, but I’m not too sure I could make the trip with this foot of mine.”
“As I said before, that suits me fine. The foot gives you an excuse not to go. Make it seem even worse than it is. One of the men is a small boat expert anyway—an ex-petty officer in MTBs. He could probably sail the Pride of Man round the world if he had to.”
“You mean you actually want these people to go out on their own?”
“That’s right. They’ll ask you for a route and destination and you’ll give it to them.” He smiled. “They won’t get there, of course, but there’s no reason why they shouldn’t travel hopefully for a while.”
“What about you?”
“As far as you’re concerned I don’t exist. I’m going down to the boat now to arrange things. I’ll come back along the shore, just in case they turn up early.” He produced his wallet, took out five ten pound notes and dropped them on the table. “Fifty now and fifty after they’ve gone—okay?”
Bragg scooped up the money and stuffed it into his hip pocket. “Fine by me, Mr. Smith. I’ll handle it just the way you said.”
“See that you do,” Vaughan said and the door closed behind him.
Bragg hobbled across to a cupboard by the sink, opened it and took out a bottle of whiskey. There was little more than an inch left in the bottle wh
en he held it up to the light and he cursed softly. He swallowed what there was, tossed the bottle into a corner and sat down at the table to wait for what was to come.
==========
Vaughan went down the stone steps and jumped for the desk of the Pride of Man, wet with rain in the sickly yellow light of the single lamp at the end of the jetty. There was no time to waste and he went straight below, peeling off his raincoat as he descended the companion way.
He opened a locker beneath one of the padded bench seats and took out an aqualung and several other pieces of skin-diving equipment which he laid on the centre table.
He knelt down and reached inside the now empty locker. There was a sudden click and the base of the cupboard lifted right out to disclose a secret compartment. There were several interesting items inside. A Sterling sub-machine gun, two automatic rifles, several grenades and half a dozen limpet mines in a straw filled box, each about the size of a dinner plate.
They were harmless until activated, but it was only the work of a minute or so to prime the fuse on one of them. He checked his watch, saw that it was just coming up to ten o’clock and turned the time switch through four complete revolutions. He stripped to his underpants quickly, pulled on the aqualung and went on deck.
He lowered himself over the side, clutching the mine to his chest with one hand, paused to adjust the flow of air from his aqualung and sank beneath the surface.
The water was bitterly cold, but there was no time to worry about that and he worked his way along to the stern of the boat. At that depth there was enough diffused light from the lamp on the jetty to enable him to see what he was doing and he chose a spot close to the propeller, the limpet mine’s powerful electromagnets fastening instantly to the steel hull. He smiled through the visor of his mask and surfaced, well satisfied.
As he crossed the deck to the companionway, a van turned into the yard and halted by the house. As he watched, the lights and engine were switched off and he went down to the saloon quickly.
He replaced the skin-diving equipment in the locker, dressed hurriedly and went back on deck, pulling on his raincoat. As he paused in the shadows, he heard low voices at the end of the jetty as someone approached and went along the lower board-walk quickly, jumped down to the beach and hurried into the darkness.