Red Christmas

by Reginald Hill

  His face lit up in a smile.

  ‘Hey, ironic that! It was easier to get spies in here than ordinary criminals!’

  The yellow-haired man had finished manacling the delegates and was now shackling their ankles with short lengths of chain, just enough to permit short steps.

  ‘You leaked the news that the conference was on, of course,’ said Boswell.

  ‘Come off it, Boz!’ protested Wardle. ‘News of something like this is bound to get out. Hell, I could have sold tickets! No, I just made sure that Tarantyev here was kept especially well informed, so he managed to get himself in charge of the Soviet operation. But naturally these boys weren’t very happy at the thought of blowing themselves. They had a nice little cover. The best! So we had to create a situation where it was necessary. First we stirred things up. I was missing, believed dead. You were running around like a blue-arsed flea. Everyone was after Tarantyev. Next thing, he’s captured. Now, he’d laid it down the line, very big, what they were to do if he was captured. They didn’t like it, but they did it. Well. disciplined this lot.’

  He nodded approvingly at Traherne.

  ‘Came as quite a shock to them when they realised we weren’t doing it all for Mother Russia.’

  ‘You haven’t told us yet what you are doing it for, Jack.’

  ‘Haven’t I?’ His eyes were round with surprise that the question needed to be asked.

  ‘Why, money of course! My days in the service are just about over, Boz. I haven’t got a nice little alternative set-up like you. Literary scholar, grouse and port, touching up the students. No, it was the country cottage with roses up the wall for me. And I hate the bloody countryside! Friendly visits , from old colleagues now and then—checking up to make sure I wasn’t writing my memoirs and that no one was getting to me. No, I’d earned more than that.’

  ‘So you sold out.’

  ‘No! It’s not like that. That would have been easy. And safe. I could have been having a nice steady income for years if I’d been willing to sell out. Any of us could, you know that, Boz. I’m no traitor. All we’re going to do is auction three or four of this lot off! They’re the top security men in their countries. What they know’s worth a bob or two!’

  So that was it. A multiple political kidnapping of a kind where the value of the kidnapped could be as great to another country as his own. It wouldn’t be threats of their man’s death that would make a country pay; it would be threats of his living somewhere else.

  He glanced surreptitiously at the old clock against the wall where the blunderbuss hung. For Godsake! What were they playing at in HQ? Even Wardle couldn’t have fixed it so that radio and telephone silence could be ignored for over twelve hours. Help must be imminent. There was no hope of Jimmy having got through yet, but surely someone somewhere would have acted by now?

  ‘You realise they’ll probably all end up behind the Curtain, Jack?’ he muttered in a low voice. Wardle’s defence of his patriotic loyalty looked like a weak link in the man’s criminal reasoning. He doubted if he could cause a break, but even a delay might be useful.

  ‘Nonsense!’ laughed Wardle. ‘They’re too valuable to their home countries for them to let themselves be outbid. In any case, we’re not going to be greedy. Half a million apiece will bring them back home.’

  ‘If you squeezed what they know out of them, you could probably sell it piecemeal and make a lot more.’

  ‘That’s not the game,’ retorted Wardle, angrily. ‘Returned in good condition, that’s the bargain. No one gets hurt, not even the taxpayers. This lot can be bought out of petty cash.’

  ‘That might be your idea, Jack. But is it his?’ He nodded at Tarantyev. ‘You’ve both killed already. What’s a bit of torture besides?’

  ‘No!’ protested Wardle.

  ‘Don’t get riled,’ intervened Sawyer, who had been listening with broad amusement. ‘The guy’s just playing for time. He figures the cavalry’s on its way.’

  Wardle’s face relaxed into a broad grin.

  ‘Yes, yes! Of course! Boz, you’re thinking all kinds of bells will be ringing in town! A general flap because there’s nothing coming through from Dingley Dell! Don’t worry your head about it. Every hour on the hour, they’ve heard us loud and clear. The Martlet’s van is very efficiently kitted out with radio equipment. You didn’t think I’d let a little thing like that escape me?’

  No. He should have realised. It made good simple sense. And with Wardle himself on this end, who was going to worry about anything, especially on Christmas Day?

  His posture must have shown his absolute despondency for Wardle clapped his hand comfortingly on his shoulder. ·

  ‘Not to worry, Boz. None of it’s your fault. We’ve been lucky, very lucky,’ he said consolingly. ‘Had to change our timing completely. It was all meant to happen last night, but the snow knackered things. We had to get the ’copter here and you can’t fly those things in a blizzard. So everything had to be re-scheduled, and the longer you’re at it, the more chance there is things’ll go wrong, eh? Still, all’s well that ends well.’

  The door burst open and Wardle swung round quickly, revealing as his chatter had already done, how nervous he was. Momentarily, Boswell contemplated going for him, but the sight of Sawyer watching him coldly changed his mind.

  Mrs. Hislop burst into the room, followed by another stranger dressed the same as the yellow-haired man. He too carried a gun and Boswell assumed he was the other arrival on the helicopter.

  Mrs. Hislop was pale with anger. She strode boldly up to Sawyer.

  ‘What’s she doing here?’ he asked his man.

  ‘I’ve come to give you a warning,’ she snapped. ‘Both Herr Himmelstor and the boy Swinburne are very seriously ill. Unless I get them to hospital very soon, I can’t be answerable for their survival.’

  Sawyer continued to ignore her.

  ‘The German bitch,’ he snarled at the man. ‘Where’s she? You haven’t left her?’

  The man looked uncomfortable.

  ‘She wouldn’t come. And this one wouldn’t stay. So I thought it best…’

  ‘No matter,’ said Sawyer. ‘We’re ready for off.’

  ‘Aren’t you listening to what I say?’ screamed Mrs. Hislop. ‘Don’t you care what …?’

  Sawyer caught her a full-blooded back-handed blow on the mouth which sent her reeling back across the room, to end up on one knee by the wall. Sawyer went on as if the incident had never occurred.

  ‘Now there’s just one problem and that’s that we can’t take them all … There’s a shortage of room unfortunately. So we’re restricted to three. Mr. Swinburne and Mr. Leclerc are our first choices, you’ll be flattered to hear. And our German friend too. But if he’s as sick as this gabby dame says, then we’d better take one of the others. Any preference, Wardle, old son?’

  ‘No,’ said Wardle, looking unhappily at Mrs. Hislop. ‘Anyone will do.’

  ‘OΚ. Signor Brucciani, perhaps you’ll join the trip. Harry, just see to these lucky people who are still wandering around free, will you?’

  The yellow-haired man went over to Mrs. Hislop who must have seemed potentially the most violent person there and began to tie her hands.

  ‘Where are the others?’ asked Arabella. Boswell had almost forgotten her presence, so quiet had she been. Now he looked across at her and tried to smile comfortingly. She didn’t look as if she needed it.

  ‘Locked safely away,’ said Sawyer amiably. ‘Women and menfolk separately for decency’s sake. Also each group’s been told that any disturbance from either will result in indiscriminate shooting into the other. Always give people a good altruistic motive for not sticking their necks out! OK, you guys. Quick march!’

  He was addressing the three delegates they were taking with them. Swinburne essayed a pace forward and nearly tripped as the chain between his ankles tautened.

  ‘Take care there,’ laughed Sawyer. ‘We don’t want to damage the merchandise before the sale.’
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  Leclerc, an expression of well-bred fatigue on his aristocratic face, spoke for the first time.

  ‘If your interest in us is purely economic,’ he said in his perfect English, ‘why not cut down on your overheads and start the sale now? I do not doubt my government’s willingness to pay handsomely for my return. A few minutes with your radio transmitter and I am certain I could give you a guarantee of the figure you seem to have in mind. It would save me considerable discomfort.’

  He looked with distaste at the chain which shackled him.

  Sawyer smiled but shook his head.

  ‘A nice thought, Jules baby. But I don’t know if I’d trust any guarantee from a Froggie. Besides, for a good sale you need lots of bidders. Now there’s no one here competent to bid from my own country, is there? And who knows, perhaps even the American’s might be interested in buying themselves a slice of you. Very quietly, of course. You are an ally, after all.’

  ‘Perhaps I can speak for the Americans,’ said a new voice from the doorway.

  Everything stopped. Every head turned. Standing just inside the room, wearing a dressing gown and looking very grey and tired, was old Bloodworth. In his hands was a long barrelled pistol which he held like a shotgun. The butt was very curious. Wooden, bound in red leather. It took Boswell a second to recognise it as the handle of the old man’s stick.

  ‘Uncle Sam!’ said Arabella, anxiously.

  Bloodworth smiled fondly at her.

  ‘A fitting name, eh? Now please, nobody move. I appreciate I can’t cover everyone, Mr. Sawyer, so I intend killing you if any trouble starts.’

  For a moment Boswell thought he was going to get away with it. The two helicopter men looked questioningly at Sawyer. Wardle stood non-plussed by Boswell’s side. Sawyer himself, his gun held slackly before him, seemed to be weighing up the odds.

  Then Bloodworth coughed gently, his face went even greyer, he staggered slightly so that he leaned up against the door jamb, and his hand left the pistol barrel and went to his chest.

  It was like a signal for action on a film set.

  Sawyer’s gun came smoothly up. Traherne standing handcuffed and shackled against the wall, hopped agilely forward and shoulder charged his former ally. They went sprawling to the ground together. Boswell hesitated a fraction of a second between going for Wardle and going for the yellowhaired man. It was a fraction too long, and Wardle caught him a back-arm blow across the bridge of the nose and sent him hurtling, half blinded with pain and tears, down the room towards the fireplace.

  Bloodworth pulled himself together sufficiently to snap two shots at the other helicopter man. The first crashed through the chest of the grandfather clock and set it chiming. The second caught the helicopter man in the throat and he slumped back with grotesque casualness into a huge armchair.

  Arabella meanwhile had flung herself on Wardle and carried him to the floor bringing the tall Christmas tree down on top of them. Sawyer rolled clear of Traherne, rose to his feet and, his face contorted with anger, began to pump bullets into the man’s helpless body. Even the yellow-haired man was transfixed with horror at the sight.

  Boswell staggered to his feet, pulling himself up by the mantelpiece. Facing him on the wall was the old blunderbuss with the notice beneath warning all and sundry that it was loaded. Carefully he lifted it from its retaining brackets and turned back to the fray.

  Wardle had beaten off Arabella who lay on the floor with a badly bloodied nose. Now the fat man was on his feet again, pine needles in his hair and a gun in his hand. Arabella grappled with his knees and, furiously, he kicked her off.

  ‘Arabella!’ cried Bloodworth, who looked in very bad shape. He had slid down the doorway and was now sitting on the floor. But he did not seem to have been hit and the pistol was still in his hand. He flung a shot at Wardle and missed by a yard. The bullet whistled by Boswell’s head and smashed into the wall behind him.

  Bloodworth would certainly have died now as Sawyer turned his attention from the dreadfully mutilated body of Traherene and brought his gun to bear on the old man. But in his fury he had emptied the magazine. Angrily he chucked the gun at Bloodworth catching him in the chest then bent down and took the wooden-butted pistol from the old, nerveless fingers. It looked for a moment as if he was going to use it on the helpless figure before him.

  ‘Hold it!’ yelled Boswell, advancing with the blunderbuss.

  Sawyer turned and began to grin. Wardle shook his head warningly at Boswell. The yellow-haired man stepped into his path and raised his gun.

  ‘Don’t be stupid, Boz,’ said Wardle in alarm.

  He had cause to be alarmed. It had been an odd whim of his own that had caused the blunderbuss to be renovated and rehung, loaded, on the wall. It made a fine jest to fire it out of the window in the presence of disbelieving guests. But it wasn’t funny now.

  Boswell pressed the trigger.

  The noise was tremendous and accompanied by a huge cloud of smoke which, parted to reveal what was left of the yellow-haired man’s face registering complete disbelief before he sank lifeless to the ground.

  Wardle had got the corona of the blunderbuss’s fiery discharge in his right shoulder, and shieked out in pain.

  Other fragments flew in the opposite direction where Leclerc, the only one of the chained delegates who had not sought what cover he could by dropping to the floor, received a few shreds of hot metal in his thigh but, after a single grimace, treated them with the same high disdain he had poured on the whole of the recent violent activity.

  Sawyer reacted to all this with a typical wild-eyed laugh, brought up the pistol and fired.

  The effect was dramatic. Arabella from her vantage point on the floor, saw Boswell stagger back a pace, surprise on his face. The now useless blunderbuss dropped from his hands, which he then clutched gently to his chest as though nursing a very tiny kitten. His knees sagged, he fell forward on them as though in prayer, and slowly toppled sideways. His legs twitched once and then he was quite still.

  ‘Boz!’ she cried in anguish. ‘Boz!’

  ‘You OK, Wardle?’ demanded Sawyer.

  ‘Yes. Well enough,’ answered the stout man, looking round in what seemed like honest puzzlement at the carnage which surrounded him. ‘I’m peppered in the shoulder, but not badly.’

  ‘Let’s go then. Say, with these two gone,’ Sawyer said, indicating the helicopter men, ‘We’ve room for two more passengers. Let’s have ourselves some guilders, eh? Dutchy, you’re coming for the ride. And what about …?’

  He didn’t finish.

  ‘Sawyer!’ gasped Wardle. ‘Look!’

  He pointed out of the window. Everyone standing turned to look.

  Halfway up the drive, belching snow into the air in a great continuous fountain, was a snow-plough. Behind it, just · visible, appeared a Land-Rover. It looked very full.

  ‘Come on. Move!’ snarled Sawyer at Swinburne, ramming the pistol barrel into the small of his back.

  ‘Go to hell,’ gasped the Englishman.

  ‘There’s no time!’ yelled Wardle. ‘We’ve got to get out.’

  So saying, he made for the door. Sawyer looked around the room, his lip curled back wolfishly. Then admitting the impossibility of getting the chained men out to the helicopter in time, he hurried out after Wardle.

  Arabella immediately rose and went over to Boswell. Gently she poked him with her foot. He groaned and opened his eyes.

  ‘All right, Humphrey Bogart. You can get up now.’

  He sat up rubbing his eyes then winced as the movement brought a stab of pain from the graze which Tarantyev’s bullet had left along his right rib-cage.

  ‘I wasn’t going to wait till he got the feel of the gun,’ he explained. ‘Did it look that obvious?’

  ‘Dreadful,’ she answered. ‘Completely and utterly ham.’

  But Boswell wasn’t listening. He had risen and moved over to the window.

  Sawyer was clambering into the helicopter behind Wardle. The
snow-plough was still a good hundred yards away. The cavalry were not after all going to be in time. But a quick alert to the Air Force might still catch the fugitives before they could literally go to earth.

  The radio in the barn. He could use it to summon extra help. His gaze turned automatically towards the snow-covered building.

  There was someone there, standing almost out of sight. He couldn’t make out who it was. One of the rescue party? Then why didn’t he act?

  The helicopter engine burst into life. The great rotors began to spin, gathering speed and strength. The snow-plough was very near but not near enough. The figure behind the barn stepped clearly into view.

  It was Frau Himmelstor. She stood, stolid and inscrutable, watching the helicopter. Once more the snow on the ground was violently disturbed by the gale from the threshing blades. It rose into whirlwinds, swirling madly, settled again, then was lashed to life once more.

  The helicopter began to rise. And Boswell saw it.

  Out of the whiteness of the snow which had hidden it something ran in a dull silver line from the ’copter’s undercarriage to the barn. He knew immediately what it was, how it had got there.

  It was the long chain by which the tractor dragged tree-trunks down from the hillside. Only this time it wasn’t the tractor that was doing the dragging.

  The helicopter hovered a few feet above the ground as if Sawyer at the controls felt some impediment. But the snowplough was very close now and men were jumping from the Land-Rover and scrambling through the snow towards the house. They were armed and one at least looked familiar to Boswell. But they were going to be too late.

  The engine accelerated wildly, and the helicopter leapt mightily into the air, the two figures in it clearly visible through the translucent dome. Beneath it the chain ran out quickly till it was an arrow-straight line and the weight of the tree-trunk was suddenly added to the ’copter’s load. It jerked visibly in the air and for a second it seemed that it might come crashing down. But Sawyer’s superb reactions were able to regain control and he held the machine steady while he peered out to see what had happened.

  The men from the snow-plough were firing up at him and Boswell now seized one of the discarded Sterlings, jumped through the window and ran through the snow, firing as he went.