The Way to Dusty Death

by Alistair MacLean

  Harlow eased the transporter in and stopped it precisely under the main longitudinal loading beam. He stopped the engine, shook the sleeping twins and climbed down to the garage floor. Jacobson was there to meet him. He didn’t seem particularly glad to meet him but then Jacobson never seemed particularly glad to meet anyone. He looked at his watch and said grudgingly: ‘Two o’clock. Fast trip.’

  ‘Empty road. What now?’

  ‘Bed. We’ve an old villa just round the corner. It’s not much but it serves. We’ll be here in the morning to start loading – after we unload, that is. The two resident mechanics will be here to help us.’

  ‘Jacques and Harry?’

  ‘They’ve left.’ Jacobson looked even more sour than usual. ‘Homesick, they said. They’re always getting homesick. Homesick means too much hard work. New boys are Italian. Not half bad, though.’

  Jacobson did not appear to have noticed the back of the transporter until then. He said: ‘What the hell are those marks?’

  ‘Bullets. Somebody tried to hi-jack us this side of Toulon. At least I think it was an attempted hi-jack but if it was they weren’t very good at their job.’

  ‘And why the hell should anyone want to hi-jack you? What good could a couple of Coronados be to anyone?’

  ‘None. Maybe their information was wrong. This is the kind of wagon they use for transporting those very large cargoes of scotch or cigarettes. A million, two million francs a load – something really worth hi-jacking. Anyway, no harm done. Fifteen minutes with a panel-beater and a spray gun and she’ll be as good as new.’

  ‘I’ll report this to the police in the morning,’ Jacobson said. ‘Under French law it’s an offence not to report such an incident. Not,’ he added bitterly, ‘that it will do any bloody good.’

  The four men left the garage. As they did, Harlow glanced casually at the black Citroën. The number-plate read PNIIIK.

  As Jacobson had said the old villa round the corner was not much but it served. Barely. Harlow sat in a chair by the side of a sparsely furnished room which, apart from a narrow bed and some worn linoleum, had as its only other item of furniture another chair which served as a bedside table. The window of the bedroom, which was on street level, had no curtains, just thin gauze netting. Although the room light was out, some faint degree of illumination was afforded by the weak street lights outside. Harlow twitched the netting fractionally aside and peered out. The mean, narrow little street outside, compared to which the rue Gerard was an arterial highway, was completely deserted.

  Harlow glanced at his watch. The luminous hands said that it was two fifteen. Suddenly Harlow cocked his head, listening intently. It could have been his imagination, he thought; or perhaps what he heard was the sound of faint footfalls in the passageway outside. Noiselessly, he crossed to his bed and lay down on it. It did not creak because it was a flock mattress that had a long if probably dishonourable history behind it. His hand reached under the pillow, which was of the same vintage as the mattress, and brought out his blackjack. He slipped the thong over his right wrist then returned his right hand under the pillow.

  The door opened stealthily. Breathing deeply and evenly, Harlow partly opened his eyes. A faint shadow stood in the doorway, but it was impossible to recognize who it was. Harlow remained as he was, perfectly relaxed and apparently soundly asleep. After a few seconds, the intruder closed the door as stealthily as he had opened it and Harlow’s now highly attuned hearing could distinguish the soft sound of footsteps fading away. Harlow sat up, rubbing his chin in puzzled indecision, then left his bed and took up his vantage point by the window.

  A man, this time clearly identifiable as Jacobson, had just left the house. He crossed the street and as he did so a dark car, a small Renault, rounded the corner and stopped almost directly opposite. Jacobson stooped and talked to the driver, who opened the door and stepped out. He removed his dark overcoat, folded it neatly – there was an unpleasant and rather menacing certainty about all his movements – placed it in the back seat, patted his pockets as if to reassure himself that nothing was missing, nodded to Jacobson and began to cross the street. Jacobson walked away.

  Harlow retreated to his bed, where he lay with his black-jacked right hand under his pillow, facing the window, his eyes fractionally open. Almost at once he saw a shadowy figure, his features indistinguishable because he was illuminated from behind, appear at the window and peer in. He brought up his right hand and examined what it held: there was nothing indistinguishable about this, it was a large and very unpleasant looking pistol, and as Harlow watched he slid back a catch on the side. It was then that Harlow saw that the gun had a lengthy cylindrical object screwed on to the end of the muzzle. A silencer, a piece of equipment designed to silence a shot for a fraction of a second and Harlow for ever. The figure disappeared.

  Harlow left his bed with considerable alacrity. A blackjack, as compared to a silenced gun, had its distinct limitations. He crossed the room and took up position against the wall about two feet from the hinged side of the door.

  For ten long seconds, which even Harlow found rather wearing on the nerves, there was total silence. Then there came the barely audible creak from a floor-board – the villa didn’t go in much for deep-piled carpeting – in the passageway outside. The door handle depressed with almost millimetric stealth then slowly returned to position as the door, very very smoothly and gently, began to open. The gap between the door and jamb widened until it was about ten inches. Momentarily, the door ceased to move. A head began to poke its way cautiously through the gap. The intruder had a thin swarthy face, black hair plastered close to his narrow head and a pencil-line moustache.

  Harlow leaned back on his left leg, raised his right leg and smashed the heel of his right foot against the door, just below the key-hole, from which the key had been thoughtfully and earlier removed. There was a muffled half-cough, half-scream of agony. Harlow jerked the door wide open and a short, thin dark-suited man stumbled into the room. Both hands, the right still clutching the gun, were clasped to the blood-masked shattered middle of his face. The nose was certainly broken: what had happened to cheekbones and teeth were, at the moment, a matter for the most idle conjecture.

  It certainly didn’t concern Harlow. His face was entirely without pity. He swung his black-jack, none too lightly, and brought it down over the intruder’s right ear. Moaning, the man sank to his knees. Harlow took the gun from an unresisting hand and ran his free hand over the man’s body. At his belt he discovered a sheath knife, which he withdrew. It was six inches long, double-edged, needlepointed and razor-sharp. Gingerly, Harlow slipped the knife into his outside leather jacket pocket, changed his mind, switched over gun and knife, entwined his hand in the man’s black greasy hair and pulled him ruthlessly to his feet. Equally ruthlessly, he pressed the blade of the knife into his back until he was sure the tip had penetrated the skin,

  Harlow said: ‘Outside.’

  With the knife pressing ever deeper into his spine, Harlow’s would-be killer had little option. The two men emerged from the villa and crossed the deserted street towards the little black Renault. Harlow pushed the man into the front seat while he himself got into the back.

  Harlow said: ‘Drive. Police.’

  When the man spoke it was, understandably, with some muffled difficulty. He said: ‘No can drive.’

  Harlow reached for his black-jack and struck the man with approximately the same force as before but this time over the left ear. The man sagged wearily against the wheel.

  Harlow said: ‘Drive. Police.’

  He drove, if his performance could be called driving. It was, understandably, the most erratic and harrowing journey Harlow had ever experienced. Apart from the fact that the man was barely conscious, he had to drive with one hand only, having to take his hand off the wheel to change gear, using the other hand to hold a blood-saturated handkerchief against his shattered face. Fortunately, the streets were deserted and the police station only ten
minutes away.

  Harlow half-pushed, half-carried the unhappy Italian into the station, deposited him not too gently on a bench, then went to the desk. Behind it were two large, burly and apparently genial policemen, both in uniform, one an inspector, the other a sergeant. They were studying with surprise and considerable interest the man on the bench who was now in a state of almost complete collapse, holding both hands to his blood-smeared face.

  Harlow said: ‘I want to lodge a complaint about this man.’

  The inspector said mildly: ‘It looks more to me that he should be lodging a complaint against you.’

  Harlow said: ‘You will be requiring some identification.’ He pulled out his passport and driving licence but the inspector waved them away without even looking at them.

  ‘Even to the police your face is better known than that of any criminal in Europe. But I had thought, Mr Harlow, that your sport was motor racing, not boxing.’

  The sergeant, who had been studying the Italian with some interest, touched the inspector on the arm.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ he said, ‘If it isn’t our old friend and true, Luigi the Light-fingered. Difficult to recognize him, though.’ He looked at Harlow. ‘How did you make his acquaintance, sir?’

  ‘He came visiting me. I’m sorry there was some violence.’

  ‘Apologies are out of order,’ the inspector said. ‘Luigi should be beaten up regularly, preferably once a week. But this one should last him a couple of months. Was it – ah – necessary – ?’

  Wordlessly, Harlow produced the knife and gun from his pockets and laid them on the counter.

  The inspector nodded. ‘With his record, a minimum of five years. You will press charges of course?’

  ‘Please do it for me. I have urgent business. I’ll look in later, if I may. Incidentally, I don’t think Luigi came to rob me. I think he came to kill me. I’d like to find out who sent him.’

  ‘I think that could be arranged, Mr Harlow.’ There was a grim-faced thoughtfulness about the inspector that boded ill for Luigi.

  Harlow thanked them, left, climbed into the Renault and drove off. Apart from the fact that he had no compunction in the world about borrowing Luigi’s car, it was highly unlikely that its owner would be in any fit state to use it for quite some time to come. It had taken Luigi ten minutes to drive from the villa to the police station. It took Harlow just under four, and then less than another thirty seconds to be parked fifty yards away from the big roller door of the Coronado garage. The door was closed but bars of light could be seen on either side of it.

  Fifteen minutes later Harlow stiffened and leaned forward. A small side door let into the main door had opened and four men emerged. Even in the negligible street lighting provided for the rue Gerard, Harlow had no difficulty in recognizing Jacobson, Neubauer and Tracchia. The fourth man he had never seen before: presumably he was one of Jacobson’s mechanics. Jacobson left the closing and locking of the door to the others and walked quickly up the street in the direction of the villa. As he came abreast on the other side of the street, he didn’t as much as glance in Harlow’s direction. There are thousands of small black Renaults on the streets of Marseilles.

  The other three men locked the door, climbed into a Citroën and drove off. Harlow’s car, light-less, pulled away from the curb and followed. It was to be in no sense a chase or pursuit, just two cars moving at a leisurely pace through the suburbs of the city, the one following the other at varying but always discreet distances. Only on one occasion did Harlow fall well back and switch on his side-lights at the sight of an approaching police car, but he had no difficulty in making up the lost ground.

  Eventually, they came to a fairly broad tree-lined boulevard in an obviously well-to-do area. Large villas, hiding behind exceptionally high brick walls, lined both sides of the road. The Citroën rounded a right-angled corner. Fifteen seconds later Harlow did the same and immediately switched on his side-lights. About 150 yards ahead the Citroën had pulled up outside a villa and a man – it was Tracchia – had already left the car and was advancing towards the gates with a key in his hand. Harlow pulled out to overtake the parked car and as he did so he saw the gates swing open. The other two occupants of the Citroën ignored the passing Renault.

  Harlow turned into the first side street and parked. He got out, pulled on Luigi’s dark coat and lifted the collar high. He walked back to the boulevard which bore the corner name plate of rue Georges Sand and made his way along it till he came to the villa where the Citroën had turned in. It was called The Hermitage, a name that Harlow considered singularly inappropriate in the circumstances. The walls on either side of the gate were at least ten feet high, topped with broken bottle glass embedded in concrete. The gates were of the same height and had what appeared to be very sharp spikes on top. Twenty yards beyond the gates was the villa itself, a rambling old-fashioned Edwardian building much behung with balconies. Lights showed through chinks in the curtains on both floors.

  Cautiously, Harlow tested the gates. They were locked. He glanced both ways to ensure that the boulevard was deserted, then produced a ring of fairly large keys. He studied the lock, studied the keys, selected one and tried it. It worked first time. He pocketed the keys and walked away.

  Fifteen minutes later, Harlow parked his car in an undistinguished little street, almost an alleyway. He mounted a flight of street steps and at the top did not even have to knock or ring a bell. The door opened and an elderly man, plump, grey-haired and wrapped in a Chinese dressing-gown, beckoned him inside. The room into which he led Harlow seemed to be a cross between an electronic laboratory and a photographer’s dark room. It was filled with, festooned with, impressively scientific-looking equipment which appeared to be of the most advanced kind. It did, however, possess two comfortable arm-chairs. The elderly man waved Harlow towards one of them.

  He said: ‘Alexis Dunnet warned me, but you do come at a most inconvenient hour, John Harlow. Pray, a seat.’

  ‘I have come upon most inconvenient business, Giancarlo, and I haven’t time to sit down.’ He produced the film cassette and handed it over. ‘How long to develop this and give me separate enlargements of each?’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Frames, you mean?’ Giancarlo nodded. ‘Sixty. Give or take.’

  ‘You do not ask for much.’ Giancarlo was heavily sarcastic. ‘This afternoon.’

  Harlow said: ‘Jean-Claude is in town?’

  ‘Tsk! Tsk! Tsk! Code?’ Harlow nodded. ‘He is. I will see what he can do.’

  Harlow left. On the way back to the villa he pondered the problem of Jacobson. Almost certainly the first thing that Jacobson would have done on his return to the villa would have been to check his, Harlow’s, room. The absence of Harlow would have caused him no surprise at all: no worthwhile assassin was going to incriminate his employer by leaving a corpse in the room next to his: there were acres of water in and around Marseilles and heavy lead weights would not be difficult to come by if one knew where to look and Luigi the Light-fingered had given the distinct impression of one who wouldn’t have had to look too far.

  Jacobson was going to have a mild heart attack whether he met Harlow now or at the arranged meeting time of 6 a.m. But if he did not meet Harlow until 6 he was going to assume that Harlow had been absent until that time, and Jacobson, who was nothing if not suspicious, was going to wonder like fury what Harlow had been up to in the long watches of the night. It would be better to confront Jacobson now.

  In the event, he had no option. He entered the villa just as Jacobson was about to leave it. Harlow regarded two things with interest: the bunch of keys dangling from Jacobson’s hand – no doubt he was en route for the garage to perform some double-crossing operation on his friends and colleagues – and the look of utter consternation on the face of Jacobson, who must have been briefly and understandably under the impression that Harlow’s ghost had come back to haunt him. But Jacobson was tough and his recovery, if not immediate, was made in
a commendably short time.

  ‘Four o’clock in the bloody morning!’ Jacobson’s shock showed through in his strained and over-loud voice. ‘Where the hell have you been, Harlow?’

  ‘You’re not my keeper, Jacobson.’

  ‘I bloody well am, too. I’m the boss now, Harlow. I’ve been looking and waiting for you for an hour. I was just about to contact the police.’

  ‘Well, now, that would have been ironic. I’ve just come from them.’

  ‘You’ve – what do you mean, Harlow?’

  ‘What I say. I’m just back from handing over a thug to the police, a lad who came calling on me in the still watches of the night, gun and knife in hand. I don’t think he came to tell me bed-time stories. He wasn’t very good at his job. He’ll be in bed now, a hospital bed, under heavy police guard.’

  Jacobson said: ‘Come inside. I want to hear more about this.’

  They went inside and Harlow told Jacobson as much as he thought it was prudent for Jacobson to know of his night’s activities, then said: ‘God, I’m tired. I’ll be asleep in one minute flat.’

  Harlow returned to his spartan accommodation and took up watch by the window. In less than three minutes Jacobson appeared in the street, the bunch of keys still in his hand and headed in the direction of the rue Gerard, headed, presumably, for the Coronado garage. What his intentions were Harlow for the moment neither knew nor cared.