So, all right, he thought, Drabble will know that we are lying about the beacon because we want to locate him, but that doesn’t mean he will automatically pull the switch on David. If he kills David, he has no bargaining factor left; David is his passport to safety. It was the only comforting thought to hold on to. If it was left to Harper, he would locate the pick-up point, throw a cordon around the area, and then move in, and he might just not have the safety of David paramount in his mind. No matter how futile or illogical, Tarrant knew that he had to do something. He couldn’t leave it entirely to chance and Harper.
He turned away from the window and forced himself to do the mundane things of life. He couldn’t shave but at least he could wash, since the hotel had thoughtfully provided him with a towel and a minute tablet of soap. No one would mistake him for a tramp, but as he would be wearing a rumpled suit and a shirt which smelt of yesterday’s sweat, he would hardly make an impressive figure. Before the day was out, he would have to approach total strangers for help; he hoped his appearance wouldn’t put them off. In the long hours before breakfast, he compiled a list of points to check out; if nothing else, it helped to kill time.
*
The soft light of early morning touched the silver birch trees in the copse and brought the Dutch barn, the stables and the Georgian house into sharp relief. To the casual, untrained eye, Hillglade Farm presented the sort of peaceful and timeless scene which looked well on a calendar, but the random eye could not detect the hidden sentries who kept watch over the empty fields.
Calvert, a dead cigarette clinging to his lower lip, sat on a wooden chair in the kitchen nursing a 30-calibre Springfield carbine in his arms. From where he sat, he had an oblique view of the hall and the back door. Upstairs in the room next to the one occupied by Julyan, Silk was wide awake, a loaded Sten gun within easy reach. Although there was little chance that he could be seen from the road, he sat to one side of the net-curtained window while he observed the narrow, sunken lane which ran past the front of the house and joined the minor road just before the village of Melton Basset. For the very sick, between two and four in the morning is the time of crisis when the human spirit is at its lowest ebb, and it is also during these hours that the risk of a police raid is at its peak. Both Calvert and Silk knew this full well and had made a point of being alert.
Ruth Burroughs was also awake, but for different reasons. The chance encounter with the Scotsons had unnerved her, and although she had convinced Calvert that there was nothing to worry about, a nagging doubt remained in her mind. There was a faint possibility that Tarrant had not been listening to their conversation, but even if he had, of what use was a name to him? She had done nothing which could have aroused his suspicion and he had no reason to connect her with the theft of his car. It was a comfortable hypothesis and she wished she could be convinced of its validity. It had been a mistake not to confide in McKee, but at the time she had thought it best not to, because she was afraid that Paul would really go to pieces if he thought they were in imminent danger. He was already drinking heavily but at least he was sober during the day, and even now, when they were only a few hours away from freedom, it was still necessary to keep up appearances. If any gossip got back to Melton Basset they could be in trouble. The more she thought about it, the more convinced Ruth Burroughs became that McKee had to be told. She satisfied herself that Paul was still fast asleep, and then pushing the bedclothes to one side, she slipped out and tiptoed out of their bedroom.
McKee slept on his stomach, his right hand thrust beneath the pillow was folded around the butt of a Colt.38 automatic, while the index finger rested on the trigger guard. The faint creak as the door was opened brought him out of a light sleep, and instinctively he rolled out of bed and landed softly facing the intruder. His thumb flipped the safety catch on to fire and he held the automatic steady in both hands.
Ruth Burroughs said quietly, ‘Are you awake, Andrew?’
He put the catch back to safe and climbed into bed again. ‘You want to be more careful,’ he said, ‘you almost got your head blown off. What do you want?’
‘I’ve got to talk to you.’
‘Yes?’
‘About last night.’ She came and sat on the edge of his bed.
‘Does it have to be now?’
‘Yes.’
‘What about Paul?’
‘He’s asleep.’
‘I don’t want you making any trouble between us,’ McKee whispered savagely.
‘I don’t propose to.’
‘All right, so long as you remember that. Now, what’s bothering you?’
‘I bumped into the Scotsons at the Cross Keys and they saw me with Calvert.’
‘What happened?’ McKee said warily.
‘I think I passed it off and they were faintly amused to see me with another man, but I’m not sure if Tarrant heard my name or not.’
‘There must be thousands of Ruths about.’
She moistened her lips. ‘The Scotsons were in a group,’ she whispered hesitantly, ‘and I was introduced to the other members of their party as Ruth Burroughs.’
‘You and Calvert were supposed to keep an eye on Tarrant while Silk lifted the Zephyr, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you speak to him?’
‘For a while.’
‘But you didn’t make it seem obvious?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘You don’t sound very sure?’
‘I’m not a mind reader.’
‘How did Tarrant react? Did he appear to be suspicious?’
‘No.’
‘Was he eavesdropping when you were talking to the Scotsons?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Fucking hell, is there anything you do know? Three years at a university and all you can say is, I don’t know. You’re supposed to be one of the intelligentsia.’
‘I’m not stupid.’
‘You could have fooled me,’ he snarled. ‘Did the expression on his face give anything away?’
‘I can’t say, I deliberately avoided looking at him too much.’
‘You’re supposed to be a trained agent. Did he hang around your party?’
‘No, he left the bar a few minutes after the Scotsons arrived and played the fruit machines.’
‘He took a sudden interest in the gaming machines, did he?’
‘Yes. I’m sure he was embarrassed. You know—he felt in the way.’ McKee lay silent and she said tentatively, ‘Andrew?’
‘What?’
‘Supposing he checks up on me?’
McKee considered the problem. ‘We’ve still got the boy,’ he said, ‘he’s the ace up our sleeve.’
‘Would you kill him?’
‘If necessary.’
‘They might not believe that.’
‘They will. If anything goes wrong and they surround this house, I mean to fight it out.’
She drew in her breath sharply. ‘Isn’t there an alternative?’ she whispered.
‘Our people won’t make a trade because they have no one to exchange, and I doubt if they will own us after the way we’ve been forced to operate.’
‘I’m frightened.’
‘There’s no need to be. Up to now we’ve been several jumps ahead of them and nothing has happened to change that.’
But it had. Their luck had started to turn, and McKee knew it. In a moment of pessimism, which was totally out of character, he thought about the records clerk whose office was located in the basement of the Lubianka. For him, total failure was simply a matter of taking correct documentary action. He would extract their cards from the index system, and being a very thorough man, he would check to make sure that he had not made a mistake, and perhaps in doing so, he would read those cards with interest. Those postcard-sized bits of paper represented their life histories. Would he spare a thought for:
KALININE, Andrei, Alias Andrew McKee, born Minsk 26 September 1925. Parents: Father—Sergei Kalinine, Commis
sar with V. I. Kuznetsov’s 3rd Army, executed on or about 6 August 1941 by SS Kommando Dietmeir. Mother—Galina Kalinine nee Gaponovich, killed 28th June 1941. Record of Service: Colonel KGB. Awarded Order of the Red Star 1943, Medal for Battle Merit 1943, Medal for Valour 1945. Current assignment: Controller Borodino Cell.
Or for:
PILDULSKI, Davina, Alias Ruth Burroughs, born New York 17 June 1940. Parents: Father—‘Pan’ Pildulski (Polish National), now deceased. Mother—Corinne Humbert (American National), present whereabouts unknown. Parents divorced 22 May 1941. Mother consented to father having custody of child. Father and daughter returned Poland via Mexico City 10 July 1946. Record of Service: Graduate Warsaw University with Arts Degree specialising in languages 1961. Entered KGB service 6 February 1962. Drafted United Kingdom 4 April 1964. Married ANDERS, Stefan, alias Paul Burroughs, at Lincoln Registry Office 9 April 1965. Current assignment: Cypher Operator Borodino Cell.
Or for:
ANDERS, Stefan, alias Paul Burroughs, born Lvov 2 January 1929. Parents: Father—Bor Anders. Moved family to Soviet Union 11 December 1938 because of persecution of Communists (Note: Bor Anders joined CP in 1924). Lived in Odessa. Father killed in action at Kharkov on or about 22 November 1941. Mother— Ilena Anders, died natural causes Moscow 6 October 1951. Record of Service: degree in Agriculture Moscow University. Entered KGB service 3 March 1951. Drafted United Kingdom 21 September 1962. Married PILDULSKI, Davina, alias Ruth Burroughs, 9 April 1965. Current assignment: Radio Operator Borodino Cell.
The hell he would, thought McKee. That dedicated clerk would feed those three cards into the destructor and he would stand there until they had been sliced into tiny shreds, and he wouldn’t give a damn. And he wouldn’t know about Calvert and Silk because their records weren’t kept in the Lubianka. Only three cards and the Borodino Cell ceased to exist.
In this, McKee was wrong. There was a fourth in respect of Oleg Knoiev, alias Crosby, alias Mark Jarman, alias Marcel Vergat, alias Walter J. Outram; a captain in the KGB whose record included a special commendation for his work with counter- intelligence which had resulted in the Court Martial of five army officers assigned to the GRU Directorate of the Moscow Military District. But of course McKee was not aware that the man he knew as Jarman and Vergat was already dead.
*
Tarrant had an early breakfast at seven-thirty and read through the Daily Express and the Daily Telegraph while he ate to see if there was any mention of David. There wasn’t, but there was a lot of coverage given to the Australian Touring Team, England’s hopefuls in the Munich Olympics and the Nations’ Cup. The world of sport, however, held little interest for him at that moment in time.
Fifteen minutes later he left the dining-room and checked with the police to see if they had any news of the Zephyr and learned that they were still looking for it. They appeared to think that it might have been taken for a joyride and they seemed confident that they would recover it before the day was out. Tarrant didn’t share their optimism, but he thanked them politely and then, looking up Hertz in the Yellow Pages, called to ask if they could deliver a self-drive car to the hotel.
They offered him a Volkswagen at £3.95 a day with one hundred miles free motoring, after which it would cost him two pence a mile plus the petrol. He could either top the car up with petrol himself or they would do it for him at the end of the hire period and deduct the cost from the £10 deposit. They also operated a collision damage waiver of sixty-five pence and a personal accident cover costing another twenty-five pence. Tarrant said he was prepared to accept their offer.
He looked through the telephone directory to see what they had listed under Army. As far as Leicestershire was concerned, it was pretty thin on the ground. There was a Veterinary Corps Depot at Melton Mowbray, a Pay Office in South Wigston and a Careers Information Office in Charles Street. He made a note of their address and decided to call on them first.
He paid his hotel bill, took delivery of the Volkswagen, and then asked the way to Charles Street. Finding the Office wasn’t difficult, finding a place to park was a different matter. He ended up a mile from the Careers and Information Office and walked back.
The sergeant manning the reception desk seemed a little disappointed when Tarrant produced his ID card dispelling any illusion that he might be an applicant. He asked for, and got, the performance data on the Wessex and a set of quarter-inch maps covering England and Wales. They also gave him the use of one of their interview rooms on the second floor where he set about joining the maps together. At the back of Tarrant’s mind there was a vague idea that he might be able to fix Drabble’s position by dead reckoning once he knew the compass heading of the Wessex.
19
THE USUAL STEPS HAD BEEN TAKEN, AND FOR ONCE, HARPER WAS SATISFIED that the close watch on ports of embarkation and airfields, which had been effectively established by 0500 hours, was not a case of shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted. He was absolutely certain that Julyan was still in England and he meant to have him. He was not clear in his own mind yet exactly how this was to be achieved, but he was confident that once he had located their hide-out through the Sarbe beacon, it would not be difficult to cordon it off, but thereafter he would have to tackle the problem as the situation developed.
Ideally, he wanted to incapacitate the opposition before they moved in, but much would depend on the sort of place that Drabble had chosen to use as a hide. He had, in any event, already decided against CS gas, for he considered it likely that they had equipped themselves with respirators, and tear smoke was hardly a surprise weapon—it gave ample warning of its presence and they would know immediately that they were under attack. Psychochemicals were the answer, since they were odourless, tastleless and invisible, and it was just possible that he might be able to contaminate their water supply with LSD. This drug would induce a confused state of mind and impair physical performance, but it also had undesirable side effects; it could release all inhibitions and radically change a pattern of behaviour, and once self-control had vanished, anyone under the influence of this drug became unpredictable. If threatened with conventional force, Drabble might or might not kill David, but if he became irrational he wouldn’t hesitate to do so.
Harper pulled over to the kerb and stopped the car outside the flat. With any luck this would be his last visit, and from a personal viewpoint, he would not be sorry to see the last of Tarrant and his family. He had shown them too much sympathy and that had been an error, for now, looking back over the past week, he knew he would have handled things differently if Mulholland had not persuaded him to see Tarrant. He told himself that he would have taken a much firmer line with Drabble from the outset. He walked up the steps and rang the bell and presently Alex answered the door.
Some of the strain of the last few days had slipped away and she was less brittle. She was, Harper thought, a very attractive woman and she had taken some trouble with her appearance, and this in itself was a sign of hope. He followed her into the lounge and was relieved to see that her mother was not present. He did not greatly care for that lady, and was inclined to think that she wielded too much influence over her daughter.
Alex said quietly, ‘I know it’s foolish, but I have a feeling that this nightmare will soon be over.’
‘It’s not foolish to hope,’ he said.
The reply seemed to disconcert her. ‘When do you think we will get David back?’ she said anxiously.
Harper disliked being pinned down, but he couldn’t ignore her question. ‘Monday or Tuesday, all being well.’ He realised that he had said too much and corrected himself hastily, ‘I’m not too sure of the BOAC schedules,’ he said coolly, ‘they may not have a flight from Brazil.’
‘But couldn’t David return with the VC 10?’
‘Yes, he could, but the RAF are not carrying a slip crew on this trip. They would need to rest before the return flight.’
She played nervously with the rings on the third finger of her left hand. ‘
I see,’ she said faintly. ‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’
Harper smiled. ‘I hardly think we have time for one, do you?’ The phone started to ring urgently. ‘There you are,’ he said calmly, ‘I expect that will be Drabble.’
*
The green-coloured Austin Mini turned off the minor road into the narrow, sunken lane which led up to Hillglade Farm. Hidden from view by the tall hedgerows on either side of the track, the Mini crawled on for the better part of half a mile and then swung sharp left into the yard and stopped outside the kitchen. McKee got out of the car and stretched his arms above his head. His eyes took in the Dutch barn, the stables, the copse which screened the eastern side of the house, and the open fields beyond the neat post-and-rail fence at the far end of the yard, and nothing seemed unusual, but then, as he was so completely in control of the situation, McKee had little reason to suppose that anything would go wrong. The Alsatian lying in the shade of the stables chose that moment to start barking. McKee picked up a stone and hurled it at the dog and the barking ended in a yelp of pain. He turned away and walked into the house where the others were waiting for him.
As soon as he entered the lounge he could see from the expressions on their faces that they were keyed up.
‘You can relax,’ he said. ‘Harper won’t give us any trouble, he’s practically eating out of my hand.’
‘That doesn’t sound like the man I know,’ said Julyan.
‘Then you don’t know him very well, and he doesn’t know you either, does he, friend?’ McKee said icily. ‘I bet he never thought of you as just a grubby little man who could be bought by the highest bidder.’
‘We have a business deal.’
‘That we have.’
‘I’m merely telling you not to underestimate him.’
‘I don’t intend to, because from this moment we are going to turn the farm into a strongpoint and everyone, including you, will carry a gun. Silk will cover the lane outside the front of the house from the landing and Calvert will stand guard over the boy in the end room upstairs.’ He looked at Julyan. ‘And you, friend,’ he said, ‘will stay in the kitchen and watch the back. Ruth will be in the dining-room across the hall from you, and I will be monitoring the helicopter waveband in case Harper tries anything.’ He paused, glanced round the assembled group and said, ‘Any questions so far?’
Seven Days to a Killing Page 17