Fingers forced open his eyelids and he glimpsed a smooth-faced man dressed in a smoking-jacket with dark grey trousers. He was holding a penknife in his right hand but stared straight into Grant’s eyes as he thrust the blade into his thigh. And then he smiled. ‘This man is conscious. Confused possibly. But conscious. Not even David Grant could keep the hate out of his eyes just now.’ His manner became quietly affable. ‘So how about stopping this nonsense, Dr. Grant? The situation is simple. I can either go on hurting you until you are forced to stop pretending or else you can behave like the rational human being which a man of your talents must be.’
Grant hesitated. Blood was trickling down his leg and he was almost sick with pain. He opened his eyes. At least he could still pretend that he had no strength. ‘Who are you?’
The man beamed. ‘Splendid. It is much better to be sensible. But let’s see just what you can do. Walk.’ He was holding an unfamiliar make of gun in his hand and almost spat out the word.
‘I can’t.’ Grant’s voice was thick but he guessed that he was speaking the truth. His legs were awkward and it was difficult even to sit upright.
‘Then try.’
He caught hold of a chair and eased himself to his feet. A pool of blood had gathered on the cushions of the divan and now it trickled on to the carpet. Moving slowly he forced himself to walk across the room. The woman was sitting near the door and the car-driver with two other men standing along one wall. He stumbled twice and toppled to his knees. But he knew that with every step he took his strength was returning. Gritting his teeth and breathing deeply he staggered round the place like a drunk and finally sat gasping on an upright chair. ‘I feel terrible,’ he lied.
‘But the thing that interests me is that you can walk at all. With that dose, conscious—yes. But mobile—no.’
Grant forced a smile. ‘Maybe I’m tough.’
The man nodded briefly. ‘No. There must be another reason. But it is academic. Later, perhaps, my research people will have to find out whether or not any particular substance neutralizes the effect of this chemical. But right now there are other things to think about. For example, what exactly is ADSAD? And how is it organized?’
Time had become essential. Time to work the effects of the thing out of his system. And time to figure some sort of bluff. ‘First who are you,’ asked Grant, ‘and was it one of your people who tried to knife me in Paris?’
The man nodded. ‘Yes. It was a simple commercial proposition. Certain people wanted you out of the way and I accepted the commission.’
‘Who?’
‘Dr. Grant, there are such things, even in my profession, as ethical secrecy and I don’t betray the confidence of clients.’
‘But when your people found that things had gone wrong you kept an eye on events. Somehow or other you also discovered that I was not dead and traced me through to London.’
‘Precisely.’ The man was sipping his whisky and relaxed on a chair.
‘But by that time something had also happened to raise my market value. Or else you wouldn’t have cared whether I got here alive or not.’
‘That is correct.’
‘Then may I ask what happened?’
The man smiled. ‘Clearly something important was being arranged or else your superiors wouldn’t have gone to so much trouble to deceive the world. And that being so I have a commercial interest in knowing what you were hoping to do. I may add,’ he explained, ‘that I know about your career in detail and that you are a rather superior type of spy.’
‘You talk about commercial interests. Are you in this for money?’
The man laughed. ‘Naturally. Although, of course, there are other angles as well.’
‘Power perhaps?’ Grant’s mind had begun to work at top speed. The drug was clearing and his limbs less heavy. He had stumbled on the most important thing in his career but God alone knew if he would live to scotch it. ‘Your name wouldn’t be Zero, by any chance? And you wouldn’t be running an international murder incorporated?’
‘Well, now.’ The man paused and stared curiously at Grant. ‘You know my name. Who gave it to you?’
Grant pointed towards the door. ‘The woman. When I was pulled into the car she said that she wouldn’t want to be in my shoes when Zero got me.’
There was a total silence. The woman was almost grey with fear. And then: ‘I didn’t,’ she screamed.
The man glanced towards the car-driver. ‘You know the rules. Did she say that?’
The driver swallowed his spittle and nodded. ‘She thought he was “out”.’
The woman had rushed across the room and was kneeling on the floor beside Zero. ‘I never thought he could hear me,’ she gasped. ‘So help me God I would never have said your name if I had known.’
‘But you did say it, didn’t you?’ The voice was overlaid with menace. ‘And you know our rules. Not even the Mafia is more strict. Any member of our organization who breaks the rules must die. It doesn’t matter when, or where, or for what reason, because the rules say that my name must not be mentioned in front of anyone who is not a committed member of the company.’
The woman was desperate, her hands clutching Zero’s thighs as she burst into a flood of explanations. The bullet had been strong enough to knock an ox unconscious. Even Zero himself had been deceived. . . .
‘But you said it again,’ he whispered. ‘You said it again just now and in front of a stranger.’
‘Please,’ she begged. ‘Please. I’ve done everything for you. Everything you ever asked. I’ve earned the right to live.’
Zero shook his head. His grey-green eyes were cold as ice. She had only earned the right to die. And Grant felt stunned as he heard the man’s sentence. She was a ‘wanted’ murderess. And evidence was in his safe somewhere in Europe. Photostat copies could be sent to the police and she would be released in the same hour with no shoes, no money and somewhere in the centre of the Downs. If she could escape, good and well. But Zero believed that the police would find her long before she could leave the country. Indeed he would make it his business to see that they did. And then she would hang. Because her crime was capital murder of a brand which would get no reprieve. So she must choose either that long chance or kill herself there and then in front of them all. ‘With a gun,’ he ended, ‘and through the heart. You will fire just below the left breast inside the nipple line and strip to the waist to see that it is done properly. And you will do it in front of a mirror. Take your choice.’
‘Ple—ase. Sir. Please. I’ll do anything. Slave for you. Get you girls. Or boys even. Just give me one more chance.’ She was fighting desperately to control herself.
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘We have three witnesses. Not to mention David Grant. And our company runs efficiently because every member of my staff knows that I’m a man of my word. Good service brings big money but mistakes bring punishment, and mention of my name or any other form of treachery brings death. Where would my authority go if I broke the rules even once? Even for you. One or more of the witnesses would talk and the principles which keep my staff under control would be undermined. My weapons, as you know, are a judicious blend of terror and generosity.’
He turned to Grant. ‘You probably know nothing about me. But if you did you would appreciate that no member of this organization has ever been known to squeal. The reason, of course, being that their chief’s reputation for keeping his word has made such an impression that people take no chances. They know that if they earn a death sentence it will be carried out no matter where they go or who tries to protect them. So you see,’ he added apologetically, ‘there is nothing I can do about this.’
Grant threw out a bait. ‘You made the law. Can’t you do as you wish in your own house?’
The man smiled. ‘That remark alone shows how little you know about us. But since you will shortly be dead I can tell you at least a little. I am the sixth controller in the last hundred or so years. Indeed your Disraeli once referred to our soc
iety when he spoke about forces behind governments which could make even great powers sometimes bend to their will. We have had a little something to do with shaping world history and more than a little to do with directing events over the last fifteen years. Even during 1963. All staff members work under firm terms of reference and the chairman of our society—who is myself at present—would himself earn a death sentence from his directors if he broke any of the company’s rules.’
‘You sound like Phillips Oppenheim,’ drawled Grant. ‘The mastermind who pulls the strings which make puppet governments jump.’
‘Very well put.’ Zero eased himself in his chair. ‘But not Phillips Oppenheim, please. He was rather amateurish. Though it is amazing, for example, how the death of a world leader can really alter balances of power and upset the markets.’
The woman was still kneeling on the floor, her eyes staring with hope as she clasped Zero’s legs and rubbed her cheek against his grey silk trousers. He absent-mindedly fondled her hair, his hands stroking sensuously through the long blonde waves which rippled over her neck. ‘Better get it over,’ he said softly. ‘Use this.’ He opened a drawer in his desk and lifted a Mauser. ‘Dum-dums with half-charge. You won’t feel much.’
She screamed and rushed towards the window, but the two guards caught her as she clenched her fist to smash the glass and dragged her back to a mirror hanging above the fireplace.
‘Have you made up your mind?’ asked Zero. ‘I’ll forgive one outburst of hysteria. What has it to be? Police or an honest bullet? Weeks of waiting for a rope? Or a clean death surrounded by good company?’
She hesitated. Her face was suddenly old, dark blotches below her eyes shading high cheek-bones and tiny wrinkles which had been masked with powder. Her lips had blenched and her legs were trembling, but Grant guessed that she might go through with it. She reminded him of a rat hypnotized by a snake. There was the same glazed anguish and the expressionless, frigid immobility of terror. It even reflected in her voice, which had lost its shrill overtones and quivered with fear even when she was forcing herself to seem outwardly calm. ‘You said I was to strip to the waist.’
Zero nodded. ‘And in front of the mirror. We want reports about what happened to circulate amongst the others and our witnesses can talk freely. Your death will help to make others more careful. But would you like a Scotch and soda first?’
She shook her head and slowly unfastened her blouse. She was standing with her back to Grant and it fell on the floor by his feet. He could see her reflection in the mirror, the racing pulse in her neck and the rise of her breasts, floppy in a sagging brassière. He looked again at the blouse. His legs were almost back to normal and he reckoned that although the drug was still slowing him down he could now move fast enough to make an impression.
The woman had unclipped her bra and was lifting the gun. Grant’s eyes glinted as he saw that the magazine was fully loaded, and he tensed himself for action. She was framed by the heavy gilt of an Italian mirror and her fingers were steady as she held the Mauser with both hands, pointing inwards from the nipple. Zero was watching her like a hawk, his own pistol levelled straight at her flank, and only the record-player broke the silence, final cords from the Fourth Movement blending with sudden chaos. She had turned at the last split second, her words drowned in the exchange of shots. ‘I’m not going to do it. I’m not.’
Zero’s mouth blenched to a tight line and Grant saw his fingers tighten on the trigger. But still he hesitated. And then, swinging towards him, the woman flung a wild shot which chipped the fire-piece a foot away from his head in the same instant that he ripped open her side.
He lowered his gun and lifted the glass. ‘To the memory of an unfortunate and stupid woman.’
She was dropping to the floor when Grant moved with the speed and precision of a juggler, catching her Mauser before it hit the carpet. Only three months earlier he had passed several days with that very make of weapon, and a weekly hour of practice had kept him up to scratch. He got the driver with his first shot and the light with his second. As he threw open the door and rushed into the hall a bullet creased his shoulder, tearing his suit and grazing skin.
He paused to turn the key, stood against the wall and threw a vase against the glass of the front outside door. As it crashed on the tiles a shot shattered the lock beside him and a man rushed out. Grant took him cleanly through the back of the neck and smiled as he dropped twitching on the rugs.
‘Two left,’ he muttered. His legs were still stiff and his thigh bleeding. An elderly woman suddenly appeared behind him. ‘A cook or some damn thing,’ he muttered, and grinned cynically as she ducked and scuttled back to her kitchen.
Darting forward he picked up the weapon dropped by the man he had shot. A Colt this time. And then there was the sound of an opening window. He reached the porch in time to see Zero dive for the car. The second guard was already in the driver’s seat, and rushing outside to the corner he took a long shot at the petrol tank as the car surged forwards towards the entrance gate.
The house almost literally exploded behind him as he saw the bullet spatter against gravel. Blast flung him face down on a flower-bed and six feet of coping stone buried itself within a yard of his chest. Flames were towering above the shattered roof and fragments of masonry ricocheting for fifty yards around.
A second crash then seemed to lift what was left from its foundations and the walls blew outwards in a series of earsplitting gusts which shot glass and rubble into showers of jagged particles more dangerous than bullets.
The rear light of Zero’s car was now half a mile away and swinging on to the main road. Flames were leaping high over the ruins behind him and he guessed that little trace of any bodies would ever be discovered. The place was an inferno, heat warping a summer house on the lawn and almost singeing his skin as he ran on all fours towards the woods.
Clearly the place had been mined and Zero was cutting his losses. His shot from the hall had given the show away. Zero had realized that he was still in the house and blown the lot, with time only to enable him to get out of range before the fuses triggered off a mixture of incendiaries and explosive. If Grant had not picked up the noise of a window being opened he would still have been in the hall and incinerated with the others.
Trees ran along the side of a hill to end at a farm road which connected with A290 between Canterbury and Whitstable. A fire brigade passed him as he faced a five-mile or more walk to the coast. He hesitated. Zero might have the roads patrolled. Better cut across country. And in the least probable direction. He retraced his steps to the farm and struck due east towards Sturry. He felt cut off. It was easy to isolate a man in that corner of Kent. And then he sighted a week-end cottage tucked in the shelter of a shallow valley. A Citroen was parked outside. Keys were in the ignition and the car open. He manhandled it on to a slope and jumped in as it coasted downhill towards the Herne–Sturry road, grinning when it started first kick and purred into gear.
A light-weight overcoat lay on the back seat beside a fore-and-aft hat, some fishing tackle and a half-bottle of Clanrana—the most subtle and satisfying whisky liqueur in Scotland. Pausing for a few seconds he wriggled into the coat, pulled the hat well over his forehead and then drove directly to Sandwich. The long way round might prove faster in the end. The petrol tank was three-fourths full and at Sandwich he followed the coast to New Romney and Lydd. He paused at the airport. His pockets were well lined and the office open. At least a charter was worth trying!
He left the stolen clothes in the car and was back to seaman’s rig but his story was convincing. A radio SOS had caught his ship nearer shore than usual and he had landed at Littlestone-on-Sea looking for quick transport to Edinburgh where his mother was said to be dying. Could he charter an aircraft right away?
He was airborne within two hours. A pot of coffee had driven away the last sensations of weakness and his wounds been dressed in the airport toilet. More important, he was back on schedule. Ahead of it,
in fact, though Volkswagen 6878SF was already waiting for him at Turnhouse.
He drove north to his prearranged rendezvous with the Admiral with five hours in hand. The Big House was one of Admiral Cooper’s pets. A one-time Victorian shooting lodge which was now one of the most deceptive-looking buildings in Scotland.
Chapter Five – ‘They’ll rub you out for sure, David’
Grant lingered over the last twenty miles between Perth and the Big House. Tucked away in a fold of hills carpeted with heather-bell the place was enfolded by a peaceful serenity more reassuring than anything he had ever experienced even in Switzerland or the Aegean.
Which was probably why it had been converted during the fifties into a rest-house for men from the Polaris base on Holy Loch. But research work carried out within its system of growing laboratories had become so highly evolved that the Admiral had finally wangled a take-over, until now it had become an integral part of ADSAD’s complex facilities for training and preparing agents, the success of whose missions might depend upon intricate devices which had to be tested and evolved under maximal security restrictions.
Grant’s last visit had ended only a few months earlier after weeks of dangerous investigations designed to build up a tolerance against the action of a certain ‘nerve gas’, one of that series of horrific chemicals which could paralyse a nation even with fractional concentration in the atmosphere.
He smiled reminiscently. Without it he might never have got out of the Kremlin alive. And after what he had gone through in the previous twenty-four hours he was determined in future to carry supplies as the basis of his permanent equipment. Especially his own brand of matches. These cunningly made capsules filled with enough liquid gas to knock a man unconscious in less than five seconds, yet covered with paste which ignited on friction, heat vaporizing the liquid into a cloud which could knock a man out for hours if released at nose-level. And convincing in appearance even although the head might be twice as large as that of a standard Swan Vestas or Vulcan. No use, of course, for outside work, but deadly at close quarters within a confined space. And, of course, he would have to breathe in a few more ‘boosting’ exposures to get his own tolerance of the chemical back up to standard.
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