Carriers of Death (Department Z)

by John Creasey

  ‘If you don’t allow me a full eight hours sleep,’ Kerr replied, yawning hugely, ‘I’ll drop out.’ He yawned again. ‘Sorry! I’ll stay at the Flying Club, Piccadilly, to-night, and see you to-morrow. Any particular time?’

  ‘No,’ said Gordon Craigie. ‘Suit yourself—but make it as early as you can.’

  ‘Don’t you ever sleep?’ Kerr demanded, and Craigie laughed at what had become a time-honoured question.

  ‘Occasionally,’ he said now. ‘When there’s nothing else to do. I suppose you keep something to shoot with?’

  ‘Plenty,’ Kerr assured him. ‘Large or small?’

  ‘Small but fast. You’ll probably need it. It will be a shame,’ Craigie added, as the car drew up at the Flying Club and Kerr started to get out, ‘if this thing doesn’t explode, Kerr. You’ll get prepared for nothing.’

  ‘I’ve a queer idea,’ said Robert Kerr, ‘that if this misfires you’ll find something else. I...’

  The ‘I’ was as far as he got just then. He heard but did not see the car coming along Piccadilly, for he was on the blind side. But he heard and understood the things pecking into the side of the car, and he ducked automatically, while Craigie slid abruptly to the floor. For a moment the darkness of Piccadilly was split by the yellow flashes from the machine-gun that had blazed into action, and a hundred people or more stood and stared in stupefaction.

  5

  Several queer things

  If Gordon Craigie had entertained the slightest doubt as to the ability of Kerr to act and think quickly, it must have disappeared in the next sixty seconds. The firing had hardly stopped as the attacking car passed out of range, before Kerr was on his feet and tugging at the arm of the saloon driver, who still sat like a waxed figure, too terrified to think.

  ‘Slide out, damn you!’

  As the man slid out, jerked into action by the bellowed command, Kerr jumped into the driving-seat, pressed the self-starter and raced the engine cruelly. Then, ignoring the cries of pedestrians and the whistles of police, he swung the saloon round on two wheels and shot off in pursuit.

  The far side of Piccadilly was comparatively free of traffic; only one red light glowed—that of the car which had carried the gunmen. It was travelling at sixty but the saloon touched sixty-five and rocketed towards its object, its engine wailing like a siren. At the roundabout by the hospital, the green lights were showing and Kerr saw his quarry swing left, towards Victoria. He followed, blessing the clear road as he drew nearer.

  Craigie, unarmed, could only sit on the floor and hope for the best. He knew the machine-gun might start again at any moment, for the gunmen would not lightly give in without a fight. There was another way death could come, too; there would be a crash all too soon. This mad chase couldn’t last long in London, with the late theatre crowds likely to swarm the streets at any moment. He thought of his talk with Sob Kerr and smiled grimly; Kerr was going to prove a safe bet—if he lived through this.

  Robert McMillan Kerr, bending low at the wheel of the saloon, was wondering when the next shots would come. He realised this was the nearest thing to suicide he could imagine: the Atlantic flight had been child’s play, in comparison. But he had never been shot at in cold blood before and didn’t propose to let the gunmen get away with it. His jaw was set, and his eyes were very narrow. He didn’t take them off the red light of the car in front—a Daimler—as the distance lessened from a hundred yards to fifty.

  To forty... thirty...

  Kerr didn’t know the speed limit of the car he was driving, but it was a Talbot and likely to do well. He waited a fraction of a second longer, saw the first streak of flame from the machine gun poking from the rear window of the first car, and trod hard on the accelerator. The Talbot literally lurched forward and he swung the wheel, making for an off-side pass. He heard the bullets pecking into the radiator and the wings; two passed close to his head and through the glass, and he hoped Craigie was keeping low. It was the one thought in his mind, apart from his determination to crash the Daimler.

  Headlights loomed in front of him but he ignored them. Traffic from the other direction swerved to the pavement, while drivers and passers-by bellowing curses at the madmen, and the deadly tap-tap-tap of the machine-gun was drowned in the bedlam.

  Twenty yards... ten...

  The Talbot was well over, now, and out of range from that rear window. Kerr knew the men would swing the gun to the side, but there was just a chance he could beat them to it. He forced the nose of his own car forward until it was inches ahead of the luggage grid of the other. A foot ahead... two...

  He could see the men in the Daimler now—and even the gun, less than five feet from his head. He was grimly conscious that he was very close to the end; but at least the others would not get away now. He saw the machine-gun suddenly poked towards him, and on the same instant he swung the Talbot’s nose hard left, into the side of the Daimler.

  The noise of the crash was incredible. The Talbot’s nose smashed through the Daimler and Kerr actually saw its driver crushed into eternity. He felt his own car shiver as the other heeled over, and wondered fleetingly whether he would see the light of day again. As the Daimler’s off-side reared up, its running-board locked with the Talbot’s, heaving it upwards.

  Craigie crashed against the roof as Kerr grabbed the nearside door-handle. For a moment, the Talbot hung in the air; then it suddenly lurched over and crashed on its side. As it settled down, Kerr was clinging to the topmost door like a fly to the ceiling.

  It wasn’t until the red glow came, that he knew the Daimler had caught fire.

  ‘An auspicious start,’ said Gordon Craigie some twelve hours later, ‘and I’m glad you were with me, Kerr. But for the love of heaven, don’t do things like that again. You deserve to be dead.’

  Bob Kerr rubbed the one square inch of his chin not covered with sticking-plaster, and eyed the bandage round Craigie’s head. There was another bandage beneath Craigie’s coat sleeve and various patches of plaster about both their persons. But if they had not come through unscathed, they could at least be grateful things had been no worse.

  ‘It was a bit abrupt,’ admitted Kerr, with typical understatement. ‘Pity the car caught fire. Everything destroyed, I suppose?’

  ‘Everything. There were three men in it, poor devils.’

  ‘They got exactly what they deserved.’ Kerr’s chin thrust a little forward. ‘They had time enough to give up if they chose, and they had all the odds with them. If that fellow hadn’t been a bit slow with his gun, we wouldn’t be here.’

  Craigie nodded. ‘All the same, you mustn’t take chances like that again.’

  Kerr frowned.

  ‘You wanted to get them, didn’t you?’

  ‘I didn’t particularly want to lose you, or to go out myself. If we’d been nearer the end of the chase, if we’d known who was in the car and could have been sure once they were dead the thing was finished, we could have taken all the risks you liked. But they were paid men, probably. You see what I mean?’

  Kerr rubbed the patch of chin again and smiled ruefully.

  ‘Yes. Sorry, Craigie; I didn’t think of that.’

  The older man returned his smile. ‘I have no doubt you will, another time. For the moment—well,’ Craigie reached for his meerschaum and stuffed the ample bowl: ‘you don’t need much more telling what we’re up against. Now—I’ve seen one or two of my other agents this morning, and I’ve heard what’s happened over here. Ready?’

  ‘Carry on,’ said Kerr.

  Craigie related the story he had heard from Timothy Arran and Horace Miller, cutting it as short as he could without omitting relevant details. Kerr nodded from time to time but did not interrupt. He was silent for a few minutes when Craigie had finished, and the Chief of Z was irresistibly reminded of Jim Burke.

  Burke had been a bigger man, physically, than Kerr, although Kerr’s shoulders were probably wider. But it was not so much physical resemblance as similarity of manner. C
raigie had often watched Jim Burke sitting where Kerr sat now, silently chewing everything over in the same way before committing himself to an opinion. Burke had been in all the biggest Department operations until this one, and Craigie knew that had he been single, he would have given his soul to be in Kerr’s place now. But Burke had married and was happy.

  Craigie kept the ‘no married men’ rule absolutely inviolate, less from concern for the woman than from the fact that no married man worth his salt could be devoted wholly and entirely to the Department. Even ‘Z’ agents were human, although Craigie did his best to cancel the human element when his men were working. They were cyphers, because they had to be: he could not afford to use any man who might instinctively save himself for another’s sake, when danger threatened.

  The Department had to be run like that, or it would have been useless. His men won, or they died: there was no other choice. Craigie knew that the time might come when the Department would lose, despite the immensity of its organisation, and he dreaded to think of the consequences. The matters at stake were vital to the nation; the cogs in the wheel could be, and had to be, replaced.

  Craigie hated the fact, but knew this attitude to be essential, and he never accepted a man to work for him until it had been made crystal clear.

  There were times, of course, when ‘Z’s’ work was confined to minor jobs which carried little danger, but when the necessity arose the Department threw in all its resources. Perhaps once, perhaps twice a year there was an upheaval that would, if all of it had reached the ears of the public, have added considerably to the scares of war and worse.

  It was indicative of the state of things that there were men—in hundreds, too—prepared to take as many risks as the Department men, but for a different cause. Those who paid for gunmen offered a high reward, and the worst that could happen to a man who defied the law and society at large for money, was death, either in action or from the end of a rope. Craigie had learned only too well that there was no limit too high for the men who wanted money or power.

  He couldn’t be sure, yet, what turn this present job would take. The ruthlessness of it suggested the stakes were high. But it was useless to theorise too much; the task was to get Marlin and whoever was helping him.

  If there had been any doubt that Marlin was behind the shooting, it had been removed late the previous day. Marlin had realised that the odds were too heavy for him to risk staying and working as usual, but a police patrol had allowed him to slip through their fingers, and it was an effort for Craigie not to feel bitter about it.

  Kerr broke his silence at last, and Craigie wondered whether their thoughts had been running along familiar lines.

  ‘This man Marlin,’ Kerr said, ‘could tell us a lot. In fact, he’s already told us a lot.’

  ‘How?’ asked Craigie.

  ‘By dodging off. He’s backing the attacks and he’s scared. The job is to get him again.’

  ‘Yes...’ said Craigie slowly. ‘There’s something worse than that, though. Marlin was a stockbroker, and he numbers a hundred big men among his clients. Any one of them might be financing him, and Marlin may have disappeared to make sure he wasn’t detained and questioned about the others. In short, Marlin may be merely a figurehead.’

  ‘You mean the list of suspects is a hundred strong?’

  ‘I wouldn’t go as far as that. Possible suspects only; but of course, we’ll have to consider each one.’

  ‘Hm,’ grunted Kerr. ‘That’s nearly as long a job as waiting to see if there are any more sabotage attempts. What do you think will happen? Will we have to wait for something, or will it come to us?’

  ‘If we don’t pick up Marlin’s trail,’ Craigie told him, ‘I think we’ll have to wait for it. But it’s too early to be sure, yet. The only safe thing we can say is that there are—or have been—serious attempts to damage armament factories, aeroplanes, ships and big guns. We don’t know any more than that, and we’ve got to find out who’s backing it.’

  ‘I see.’ Kerr was silent for a moment, sitting forward with his hands clasped on his knee. ‘Yes. But a thought, Craigie. Not likely, of course, but a possibility, eh? Er—there are fanatics who’ll go to any lengths to destroy arms. Peace at any price. No?’

  For a full sixty seconds, Gordon Craigie stared at him, his first faint smile growing deeper. Then: ‘You’ve stolen a march on me there,’ he said, ‘yes, it is possible, but I hope to heaven you haven’t struck the truth.’

  ‘Why?’ demanded Kerr.

  ‘Try to imagine anyone more difficult to get at than the fanatic,’ Craigie invited. ‘No direct motive, no real method—but it’s absurd. The maddest peace-at-any-price fanatic wouldn’t use machine-guns and the rest of it.’

  ‘They’d be employing someone,’ Kerr reasoned. ‘And in this case, they seem to be using American gunmen.’

  Craigie grinned wryly.

  ‘If you’re right, I’ll sack you. Now—the terms of the job. There’s not much in it, but that won’t worry you. A thousand a year and expenses—expenses unlimited, of course.’

  ‘My bank’s the United,’ said Kerr. ‘Put what you like in there. I’m not hard up. Are there any orders?’

  ‘Find Marlin, that’s all.’

  ‘Do I get any help if it’s wanted?’

  ‘I’ll introduce you to one or two of the others,’ said Craigie, ‘not here—at the Carilon Club. Then you can have police assistance whenever you want. But try to do it through Superintendent Miller; usually he works with us. It wouldn’t be a bad idea,’ he added, rising and tapping out his meerschaum, ‘to go and see Miller now. Give me five minutes.’

  In that five minutes, Bob Kerr was able to look about him. He had a feeling he would be seeing a great deal of this room—the only office of Department Z—in the future. It was rather large, and simply furnished: one end as an office: the other—where a fire blazed cheerfully—very much like any bachelor’s living room. There were two easy-chairs, a built-in cupboard and a small table strewn with all manner of objects from a honey-pot to an automatic revolver.

  Later, Kerr was to learn that Craigie had a flat in Brooke Street, but used it rarely—his men in ‘Z’ said never—for his office hours were non-existent, and there was seldom much respite between jobs.

  Superintendent Miller and Bob Kerr sized each other up and the liking was mutual. The meeting was a brief one, as Miller was due to attend a conference with Sir William Fellowes and his Assistant Commissioners.

  ‘Any time you need help, let me know,’ he told Kerr. ‘Got anywhere, Craigie?’

  ‘No further than Marlin.’ Craigie frowned a little. ‘I wish your men hadn’t let him go.’

  ‘They’ll wish it too,’ said Miller grimly. ‘Still, you’ll get on to him soon, if I’m not mistaken.’

  From Scotland Yard the two men walked back to Craigie’s office, where they parted company, Kerr to go to the Carilon Club, to which he was no stranger, and Craigie to get back to the office and try and catch up some of the threads of the mystery.

  Sabotage on a grand scale—but why? Where would it end, and what was the motive? And equally important, who was behind it?

  Craigie was prepared for the next development, for there were few things he did not know ahead of the press. But the next morning’s headlines carried a surprise for Bob Kerr, and he realised in a flash that it must be connected with the rest of the trouble.

  Geneva was winding up a session in which one of the many ‘final’ inquests on the Italo-Abyssinian War were held. Decriers of the League of Nations had splashed headlines ridiculing the inquest; supporters of it called as stridently for a definite repudiation of Italian claims to Abyssinia, and a declaration that the annexation to Italy was illegal. The League’s final decision would, it was generally acknowledged, be indeterminate.

  In the event, the decision was crowded out of the headlines by the sensational announcement that an agent provocateur had been busy touting for armament orders, that his name was Baer
tin, and that he represented certain American manufacturers. So much was not sensational; that these men existed, agents of most of the larger Powers, was generally acknowledged. The sensation came when three smaller countries announced that they had tried to place orders with Baertin some weeks before and had not been accepted: and that America was arming herself quickly and preparing for war.

  The effect of this on the English people was not startling. Nor was the British Government unduly perturbed. In the first place, Baertin was probably lying. In the second, it was possible he represented another Power than America—and there were several Powers admittedly arming to the teeth, whose export orders might well be cancelled because home consumption was excessive.

  Kerr was concerned by the announcement; Craigie was non-committal; but Mr. Gregory Marlin was inordinately pleased. It was what he liked to call the first step in the fruition of his plans.

  For the first time in his life, Gregory Marlin was displeased with his appearance. He had always taken a peculiar pleasure in the fact that, while far from handsome of feature, he was at least arresting to look at. Now, he would have given worlds to be able to mix with a crowd and pass unnoticed. He did not fully realise that he was one of many who had suffered from the devastating effect of Department Z, that although the Department had been so much below strength it had already forced him to flee from his usual haunts and take cover. It was no pleasure to know that he had a reasonably safe hiding-place.

  He did allow himself a smile of self-congratulation at the way he had escaped from his Hendon house. Once he had discovered the police were watching it, he had made up his mind to get out of their reach, and the fate of the Daimler’s passengers had strengthened his determination. A brief telephone conversation with Benson had been enough: later, he had left his house with a letter in his hand, obviously making for the nearest pillar-box. The two plainclothes men had followed him—but incuriously; never dreaming he would not return. The big saloon Benson had promised had drawn up as he pushed the letter into the box. He had turned, waved to the policemen and climbed into the car, which was lost almost before the watchers realised they had been tricked. Half a mile away, he had transferred to another car...