by John Denis
Sonya then walked back to Philpott, apparently contrite, even affectionate, and lay her head on his shoulder. ‘Did you make the switch?’ he whispered. ‘Of course,’ she replied, pressing C.W.’s lighter into his hand.
Philpott slung his arm around Sonya’s shoulders, picked up his bag, started to manoeuvre her towards a SORTIE sign — and suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. He pushed Sonya behind the corner of the information desk, and turned towards her, so that his face was hidden from the main body of travellers.
‘What’s wrong?’ she hissed.
‘There’s a man walking towards the exits,’ Philpott whispered, urgently, ‘tall, brown hair, no hat, leather flying-jacket, dark jeans. See him?’ She nodded.
‘The one with the radio slung over his shoulder?’ she said.
‘Radio?’ Philpott echoed. ‘Fantastic! I didn’t spot that. Then it must be him.’
‘Him?’ she queried. ‘The laser-gun thief?’
‘Yes. I know him — or at least I know of him. And I’ve met him a couple of times. I can’t understand why he wasn’t in my file … he fits the bill so perfectly. His name’s Michael Graham, and he’s ex-CIA.’
‘Ex?’
Philpott nodded. ‘Yes. Three years ago he had a breakdown of sorts. I don’t know what caused it, but he upped and left the Company. Since then, I believe, he’s been thought of as a renegade. Certainly he’s violent and unstable. He could be extremely dangerous.’
‘Is he good?’ Sonya asked, trying not to look too closely at the retreating figure.
‘The best,’ Philpott answered. ‘Grade “A” weapons and weapons systems. Fabulous opera tor. Knows lasers inside out. In fact —’ his brow furrowed, ‘I’ve got an idea …’
‘What?’ she pressed.
‘I’ve got an idea,’ Philpott said slowly, ‘that the reason why he isn’t in my file must be that someone took him out, to throw me off the track, because he would surely have been included in any list of potential laser-gunners. It can only mean Smith has a CIA plant.’
Sonya gasped, ‘That could be critical.’
Philpott said, ‘It could. Also — there’s … something else about Graham that’s at the back of my mind, but what it is I can’t for the life of me think at the moment. I know it’s important, though … Ah well,’ he shrugged, ‘no doubt it’ll come back. Anyway, first things first: we’ve got to follow them and find out what they’re up to.’
They had lost Graham, but C.W hung back on the pretext of buying a carton of Lucky Strike, and made it easy for them to trail him. He increased his speed, curious to meet at last the man from Munich, the third conspirator in the Smith caper, whose special skills neither he nor Sabrina had been able to guess.
C.W., who knew the location of his next destination from previous visits to Charles de Gaulle Airport, got to the helipad a minute before Sabrina. Claude was there, and identified himself as the radio voice. They would meet Smith later, he promised.
Sabrina arrived, looking breathless and devastating, and C.W. shook hands with her courteously when they were introduced by Claude. ‘How nice to be working with such a beautiful lady,’ he gushed, but managed to make it sound sincere. They accompanied Claude into the helicopter standing on the launch-pad.
Philpott and Sonya, hanging back at a safe distance, and peering around the corner of a cargo hangar, stared at each other in consternation. ‘That,’ Philpott remarked heavily, ‘has torn it. Smith has been too crafty for us again. Almost as if he knows every move we’re making, and is laughing up his sleeve when we get hung up at each turn.’
‘You’re right,’ Sonya agreed. ‘How the hell can we follow them in a helicopter?’
‘We can’t. It’s my fault. Bad planning. I should have had something laid on in case of an eventuality like this.’
‘With a Red priority,’ Sonya pointed out, ‘you still could.’ Philpott shook his head. ‘Good idea,’ he said, ‘but it’s too late They’ll be off immediately. No point in their hanging about. The best I can do is get their flight plan, if they’ve filed one, which I doubt. In any case, what’s to make them stick to it?’
What could they do? Sonya asked. They’d have to make the best of it, Philpott answered. ‘Sabrina’s good, C.W.’s very good, in a corner like this. It’s up to them now. They’ll get in touch if they can. I only hope that bastard doesn’t foul things up for them.’
She followed the direction of his outstretched finger. Mike Graham, who’d been re-oriented by a helpful airport employee, hurried to join the aircraft. The door swung open to admit him, the motor exploded into life, and the giant rotors started to turn.
Sabrina and C.W. were on their own …
* * *
Graham counted six people in the large chopper. He knew none of them, from the brief glances he’d had at their faces. One was a doctor, white-coated, and with a stethoscope hanging around his neck. Four of the others lay on stretcher bunks lining the sides of the aircraft. Mike reasoned that the only other man standing must be the one in charge; he nodded at Claude and said, ‘Mike Graham.’ Claude shook his hand.
Sabrina, who had been studying him covertly from her stretcher, turned her head quickly and faced the helicopter’s curving internal wall. First the face, she thought … now the name! She knew him. And she knew what he was — or what he had once been. For what she had heard about him since they last met had not been good news.
‘Meet the others later,’ Claude said to Graham. Mike noted that one of his colleagues was a sassy-looking black, another a woman, the third a seemingly short, beefy, bull-necked man, and the last one an Asian of some kind. The doctor was — a doctor; and Claude, the scar-faced man, was clearly French. When Claude motioned him to a bunk, he sank on to it without argument.
He closed his eyes, since everyone else seemed to have, but a sinister hissing sound made his eyelids spring open. The doctor was bending over the bulky thug, holding an anaesthetic to his face.
Mike guessed it was Smith’s idea of total security, and made no objection when the doctor crossed to his stretcher, hovered low, and administered the gas. In fact, he welcomed it. The doctor had bad breath.
* * *
Philpott and Sonya listened in stony silence to the recording C.W. had made of Smith’s tape on his cigarette lighter — a bugging device of great sophisti cation and accuracy, invented by UNACO, and plugged now into the stereo system of the chauffeured limousine placed at their disposal by the French Government.
‘… if you accept my terms you will, from that moment, be incommunicado … punishment for treachery is death … carry out an order to kill … one million dollars — each.’
Sonya whistled, and Philpott grimaced. ‘Thank God,’ he said, ‘that I can rely on the loyalty of C.W. and Sabrina, because that’s a great deal of temptation. But they’re too well trained to fall for it … I hope.’
The radiotelephone in the car sounded a warning bleep. Sonya picked it up — and as she did so, Philpott lifted his hand and smacked it down on his thigh. ‘That’s it!’ he shouted. ‘I’ve got it! Training! Of course. That’s where it was.’
Sonya was speaking urgently into the mouthpiece, and making notes on her ubiquitous message-pad. She finished, cradled the receiver, tore the top sheet of paper off the block, and handed it to Philpott. He studied it intently, and nodded, grimly.
‘It’s him all right,’ Sonya said. ‘Dismissed from the service January 14 1977, after a severe breakdown. Erratic behaviour ever since. And that —’ her lacquered fingernail tapped the page ‘— is what you couldn’t remember, isn’t it, Malcolm?’
‘I just did,’ Philpott replied, closing his eyes and letting his head slump back on the expensive upholstery. The tinted-windowed car pulled up outside the Ritz.
‘He was their best weapons man, and it was only natural that he should turn up occasionally at training courses for CIA and invited outside personnel, as guest lecturer. It’s just our luck — or Smith’s — that Graham should have be
en specialist demonstrator on the CIA course we fixed up for Sabrina just after she joined us.’
Sonya reached for his hand. ‘A teacher doesn’t always remember every student he’s ever lectured to,’ she said softly.
Philpott opened his eyes, and flashed her a grateful smile. ‘Honey,’ he said, ‘if you were a man, would you remember Sabrina Carver?’
Sonya blinked. ‘I see what you mean.’
Philpott opened his eyes again, and sank back into the cushions. ‘What I mean is precisely this,’ he murmured. ‘If Mike Graham does remember her — as I believe he will — he will almost certainly denounce her as a spook plant to Smith.’
‘And?’ Sonya said, not wanting to hear the answer.
‘And Smith will kill her. Don’t you recall what he said? “The punishment for treachery is death”.’
SIX
Claude stood at the doctor’s shoulder as he leaned solicitously over Sabrina’s inert form. The doctor peeled back a dark-fringed eyelid, and exposed the milky-blue white of her eye and the tremendously dilated pupil.
‘Is she OK?’ Claude wondered, anxiously.
The doctor rounded on him. ‘Of course she is,’ he snapped, ‘why shouldn’t she be?’ Claude began, ‘Well —’ but the peppery little medico bridled and started a tirade of medical inconsequence. Claude held up his hands, and backed off.
‘It’s all right, I’m not criticising you,’ he assured the doctor. ‘It’s just that … well, Mister Smith said … you know —’
‘I am perfectly aware,’ the doctor announced pompously, ‘what Mister Smith said. Let me remind you that I am the medical authority here, and while these people are in my care, and provided ignorant outsiders do not attempt to interfere, no harm will come to them. Of course, if you want me to tell Mister Smith that you made a thorough nuisance of yourself and got under my feet —’ he let the proposal hang in the air.
‘No, no,’ Claude protested, the panic rising in his throat. ‘You’re in charge. I just wanted to be absolutely certain that nothing was going — sort of — wrong.’
‘Wrong?’ the doctor thundered. ‘This young lady’s pulse, blood pressure, respiration, heart and lungs, and for all I know her pelvic girdle and her big toe, are in excellent condition. She is as fit as a Stradivarius, and has a better colour than you do. I am about to examine my other patients — if you would be so kind as to get out of my way.’
Claude slid aside, and took himself forward to plague the pilot. He looked moodily out of the window, but even the mellow beauty of a perfect early Autumn day failed to cheer him. The helicopter chased and followed its own shadow across a succession of emerald green fields, great pastures of corn and barley, tidy little farms, and ruminative Charolais cows. They were barely an hour out of Paris, but Claude, a blinkered Metropolitan Parisian, was already homesick for the city. He mistrusted the countryside, and everyone in it.
He peered more closely at the incoming horizon. The château grew larger in the vision frame.
‘Piss off, Claude, there’s a good chap,’ the pilot said. ‘You make me nervous.’
Claude threw up his hands, and returned to the main cabin, where the doctor was completing the examination of his last patient.
‘Are they clean, doc?’ Claude enquired, respectfully. All five unconscious passengers had their clothing loosened or removed. The doctor sighed, but good humouredly. ‘They have no obvious diseases, they do not take drugs intravenously, and, with varying degrees of proficiency, they have washed today. Also, which is what I imagine you are seeking to establish, none has a concealed weapon. Right?’
‘Right,’ said Claude, flashing him a conciliatory grin. He knelt on an unoccupied bunk, and looked out of a side port-hole. The château was close now, and Claude was at last moved, if not to wonder, then at least to admiration.
It was one of the thirty or so great châteaux of the Loire Valley, which span in age a period of more than five hundred years. It lacked, perhaps, the glamour and renown of the fabulous Blois trio of Chambord, Chaumont and Cheverny, or the royal palace of Blois itself. Nor was it a massive fortified keep like Sully-sur-Loire or Château Angers, with its seventeen round towers.
It was not garishly splendid, like Jacques Coeur’s renaissance palace at Bourges, nor conspicuously gracious, like Talleyrand’s Château Valençay. But Mister Smith’s Château Clérignault was secluded, immensely comfortable and stylish, and probably housed more art treasures than most of the other castles combined. It was indecently sybaritic, and truly beautiful.
Its roof was crowned by a great bronze eagle, surmounting a forest of spires, bell-turrets (in working order), gilded weather-vanes and tall, noble chimneys. Three fantastically contrived towers formed a triangle at either end, and bisected the rear stabled quadrangles. Narrow dormers near the eaves gave way to windows of majestic proportions moving further down the ivy-mantled front elevation. Steps, lined with statues, rose from the lawns to the great double doors, which were flanked by naked caryatids supporting a huge crenellated shell.
Outside, the gardens rivalled the landscape park in glory and inventiveness, from the high, mirrored surface of the water garden, down to the ornamental garden and the Italian garden, and the vegetable and herb gardens, surrounded by box trees. Hornbeams and fountains stood where the myriad paths crossed, and there were trysting bowers everywhere, which in past years had shivered to the sighs of adulterous love. Smith preferred his Jacuzzi or his king-sized round bed with wall-to-wall mirrors.
‘Give them their wake-up juice, will you, please?’ Claude requested. The doctor set to work cheerfully with a hypodermic.
Ten minutes later, the helicopter banked over the magnificent park, and settled decorously on the lawn immediately in front of Smith’s castle.
Leah waited for the rotors to stop. The door opened for her, and she climbed gracefully enough into the cabin. Smith’s new recruits had by then recovered consciousness, and Sabrina was leaning forward at the window marvelling at the splendour of the château.
She turned round when Leah spoke. ‘Welcome to Château Clérignault,’ the Austrian woman said. ‘My name is Leah Fischer, and I am Mister Smith’s personal assistant. I hope you’ve had a pleasant journey, and are suffering no unsettling aftereffects from the anaesthetic. Do you have any immediate questions?’
‘I do,’ said Graham. He held up a finger and rubbed it along one of the windows. A colourless grease mark was deposited on the glass. ‘Why was I fingerprinted when I was knocked out?’ he demanded.
‘You all were,’ Leah remarked, pleasantly. ‘Clearly we have to confirm your identities against our files. When that’s been done, both you and we can sleep more easily in the knowledge that we’re among friends.’
Mike relaxed, looked across at Sabrina, and grinned. She smiled back, trying to disguise the rising tension and uneasiness she felt.
Never by any word or sign or hint had Mike Graham betrayed that he even recognized her, let alone knew her for what she was. Was he merely biding his time for a dramatic denouncement? she wondered. Did he want to betray her to Smith in person, perhaps to earn part of her million dollar share as well as his own? Or could it be that he had failed to spot her, even though she instantly knew him? Sabrina thought not; she had no false illusions about herself; she was convinced that to a man like Graham, she was nothing if not memorable.
Her grin became rather fixed, and as she looked away she saw that his still appeared genuine, unforced, and guileless. It was the kind of smile a man might try on a pretty girl whom he didn’t know at all … or no one he remembered all too well.
‘Follow me, please,’ Claude instructed them. C.W., nearest the door, jumped out first, and turned to help Sabrina. She held his arm for balance, and he guided her down.
‘My, but you’re polite, fella,’ Graham sneered. C.W. turned, and met Graham’s cold, disdainful eyes with his own challenging gaze. Mike grinned, and said, ‘D’you mind moving now — unless you’re going to help me down t
oo?’ C.W. spun on his heel, and stalked away.
‘Watch yourself, Graham,’ cautioned Leah. ‘Mister Smith doesn’t like friction, and he may decide that Whitlock or Sabrina are more important to the operation than you are. Now that you’re committed, that would not be pleasant for you. Nobody leaves a Smith project once begun, unless it’s in a box.’
‘Well, Mister Smith may be due for a surprise,’ Graham said, ‘Meanwhile, it’s kind of you to mention it. I’m grateful.’
‘I’m so glad,’ said Leah, levelly.
* * *
Leah, clad in a rough-spun one-piece jump suit, but still managing to look decorative, led the way — not into the imposing entrance of Château Clérignault, but to the rear of the house, skirting the kitchen gardens. They came to a stable yard, where half a dozen men, dressed as Leah was, sat hunched round a weapons demonstrator. A large target in the form of a fresco of four running figures spanned the far end of the yard.
Leah held up a hand, and the file halted. The demonstrator swivelled the powerful heavy-calibre machine-gun on its tripod to face the target, a hundred yards away. She shouted a command, and the figures began to move: down until they almost disappeared, darting up again, lurching from side to side, all at bewildering speed.
Casually, with crisp, economic bursts of fire, the gunman cut them to pieces, one by one. As far as Graham could tell, not a single bullet was wasted. He concentrated on just one cut-out dummy — a sideways-on, crouching commando. The head went first; then a projecting arm was slashed off; the torso was neatly bisected; and finally each leg was separated at the kneecap. It was an impressive performance, and Mike got the feeling it had been laid on specifically for his benefit.
‘Are these guys part of our operation?’ C.W. enquired. ‘Not necessarily,’ Leah replied. ‘Mister Smith has many little — exercises — in train in various parts of the world, under different field commanders. Yours, however, will have his individual attention.’
