The Striker Portfolio q-3

by Adam Hall

'What like?' she asked tonelessly.

  'Did you see him with anyone? Was he alone when you left him last night? Did he talk to you about anything?'

  She came up to me with dulled eyes and her voice on the edge of the breakdown she was going to have as soon as I left. 'I can't help you. I don't know who you are. Bill's dead. That's all I know. It doesn't matter to me how it happened. It might later but it doesn't now. I've got enough to be going on with.'

  It hadn't been nice telling her the way I did but I'd wanted to know if she was involved. Pretty girls on the translation staffs at international conferences get a lot of attention from recruiting officers and some of them do things just for the kick.

  I went to the door where the two dressing-gowns hung.

  'When will you be seeing your friend?'

  'My friend?'

  The girl you share with.'

  'I don't need anyone.'

  It began the moment I shut the door after me and I didn't envy whoever it was that the Bureau would send along to see his wife because that was going to be even worse. We ought not to marry or if we marry we ought not to do the things we do.

  No one tagged me from the block where she had her flat.

  During the afternoon I showed up a few times at the Carlsberg where the manager was looking more cheerful: apparently the exodus of guests had stopped. He gave me the names of a couple of people known to be friends of Herr Lovett and I went to see them but it was no go: instead of telling me anything useful they just kept asking me why 'poor old Bill' should ever have 'done such a thing'.

  One of them was at the conference hall and I hired a car to get there because it's easier tagging a car than a man on foot and I wanted to make it easy for them. It was a 250 SE and I chose the new grey because most of them were that colour and I didn't want them to think I was actually advertising or they'd wonder why, I was still drawing blank by nightfall. Either they weren't interested or they thought that with Lovett neutralized the rot had been stopped. All I could do was hang about at the hotel. Normal routine in the case of a bump is to stay clear but sometimes we're told to go in and find out what happened, and quite often the people who did it will keep in the area hoping for more trade. This time they didn't seem ambitious.

  Finally I got fed up and drove down to Wernerstrasse and had a meal at the Bavarian place on the corner and when I came out they were sitting in a dark-coloured Opel parked twenty yards or so behind the 250 SE. It was the one that had been outside the Carlsberg when I'd started off from there.

  The thing to do now was to make them lose me without my losing them. It's not an easy operation but it's always worth trying because if you're lucky you can find out where they go and that's halfway to finding out who they are. Ferris wanted to know that and it would be nice to ring him up and tell him.

  I got in and had a look in the mirror. There were some traffic lights a hundred yards behind where the Opel was parked and that was almost the ideal distance. They were red at the moment. One or two cars were going past, turning out from a street not far up from the restaurant, but it was better to wait for the main bunch of traffic that was held up at the lights.

  When they flicked to green I started the engine and sat watching for a bit to judge the conditions. The bunch of cars were coming up from behind me, two abreast and stringing out. I decided to call this one a dry run and wait for the next sequence of lights: it would give the oil more time to get round the engine before I used it as hard as I was going to. The 250 SE had a shoulder-type seat-belt so I put it on, watching the mirror. The lights were at red again and the tail-end of the bunch came past and left the street empty on this side.

  It would be useful to edge the revs up a couple of hundred while I was waiting but they might notice the gas-haze and it wasn't worth risking; the engine was at fair working temperature and there shouldn't be any flat-spot even under full gun. There was nothing coming up from in front of me on the other side. In the mirror the lights were green and I touched the gearshift into low and kept the clutch down. The only thing that worried me now was that it was beginning to look too easy.

  They must have got their own engine running by now but that wouldn't help them: what they would need was a tank.

  In the mirror the two leading cars were halfway down the empty stretch and closing on me fast from behind and it looked about right so I brought the revs up and the wheel hard round and put the 250 broadside on to the bunched traffic in a turn so tight that I felt the nearside front stub-axle hit the buffer even though the weight was shifting aft under the acceleration. The initial wheel-spin cost a little traction but the curve was under control and I cleared the two leading cars with enough to spare although of course they didn't like finding me broadside on across their bows without any warning and they were braking hard and hitting their horns as I straightened out of the U-turn and dragged at the gear-shift and headed for the lights with the power still piling on.

  There was some noise behind me on the left as the bunch began shunting and breaking their rearlights but it wasn't my fault because continental drivers never leave enough room for their brakes and they're always leaving red glass on the roadway even when there isn't a 250 across their bows. But the noise wasn't serious so I knew that the Opel hadn't even tried. In any case they wouldn't have stood a chance of making the same U-turn after me because the first two cars had already passed them when I'd pulled out and they could only have rammed into the rest of the bunch and they didn't have a tank.

  The start I had on them now wasn't much more than sixty seconds but it was the most these particular conditions could allow: the whole operation was controlled by the traffic lights and their time sequence and when they went red again the hundred-yard stretch would become empty and the Opel would have room to manoeuvre. The lights would have stopped my run and brought the sixty seconds' start to a grinding halt if it weren't for the side-street halfway between the lights and the restaurant, the one where a few cars had been turning out while I was waiting for the off.

  I went into it just as the Opel got under way with a lot of tyre-squeal and came up the street in my direction. I didn't lift my foot to give them time to see me because it wasn't necessary: they knew I wouldn't head straight on for the lights — which were now red again — and there was nowhere else to go except into the side-street.

  It took seven or eight minutes to lose them. It would have taken less than that to lose them entirely but I wasn't trying to do that: I had to stay near enough to find them again. There was a dodgy bit where someone had double-parked a yolk-yellow Volkswagen and I thought for a minute I was going to clip it but it was all right. The only risk was a one-way street which I had to take in the wrong direction but the single car I met there tucked in so fast to let me through that they must have thought they were going in the wrong direction instead of me.

  The engine was smelling a shade hot by now because the acceleration needs had kept me in second gear all the time but the oracle had been worked quite nicely and I put her into third and slowed down for cruising as soon as we were back in the Wernerstrasse.

  They were the third car ahead and I stayed where I was for the moment. They seemed to have lost a lot of their excitement but they wouldn't be giving up until they'd combed the area in the hope that I'd pulled into a good place to play possum. They were doing that now.

  One of the cars between us peeled off into the Bahnhof and I slowed to let a bus go past. There was more traffic about because people were coming away from the restaurants and the early shows and this was a help. The bus was a hazard though and when it drew in at the next stop there was nothing to do but overtake and expose the image of the 250 SE.

  The Opel wasn't ahead any more. It was nearly alongside and we were in a group at some lights. I didn't turn my head to look at them but I knew they were looking at me. They must have spotted me some way back and they'd known I'd have to overtake the bus before long so they'd slowed under its cover and waited till I had to come past.


  I decided to call the whole thing off for the night. They knew what I'd been trying to do: flush and follow. They wouldn't let me do it again so I wasn't going to find where their boss was and ring up Ferris and tell him. All I could do now was to get clear and hole up in a different hotel: if I went back to the Carlsberg the people at the Bureau would have to get out the form and deal with it, the one that said next-of-kin unknown.

  The lights went green and I found a gap and took it and fouled into the wrong lane and got away with it and started a series of feints through the streets at the back of the Bahnhof but this time they were breaking all the rules too and the Opel left the mirror only twice before it came back again and sat there weaving about on its springs.

  Then I lost them in a full turn at a roundabout and gunned up and found a right-angle and went in fast with the mirror still clear but there was only one lamp in the street and when I nicked the heads on there was just time to hit the brakes. It was a cul-de-sac and the 250 finished up slewed sideways within a foot of a notice that said if I parked my Wagen there the Polizei would be informed immediately. I hoped they would hurry.

  By the sound of things the Opel was overshooting and braking hard and backing up. My lights were out by now but the cul-de-sac grew bright suddenly and I turned my head and saw the passenger-side door of the Opel swing open as it pulled up.

  They turned off their engine and it was very quiet except for their footsteps.

  Chapter Four — THE DUMP

  There was a blank wall at the end of the cul-de-sac and they'd left their headlights on to see with, so that their shadows were very big on the wall. They came side by side.

  They didn't rush. They thought I might have a gun on me. They came slowly and once or twice halted, ready to drop fiat and fire from the ground. It looked a bit silly.

  I sat where I was.

  One idea would be to drop the gear into reverse and scatter them and try reaching the main street with the head well down and the fingers crossed. It was chancy because you can't dodge about when you're driving a car; you can only dodge the car about; they know where you are: stuck with the controls; and they only have to stand there and pump the stuff into you. No go.

  The other ideas were worse so I sat there and worked up some anger about what they'd done to Lovett; anger is a prerequisite for action: it turns on the adrenalin.

  I left my hands on the wheel for two reasons: I didn't want the indignity of having to put them there by order; and I wanted them there anyway so that they were free to do things quickly.

  One of the men had fan-teeth which you normally associate with honest people of cheerful disposition but I didn't think this one was very honest and he didn't look cheerful. The other one smelt vaguely of almonds. They were both about my weight and I left my hands on the wheel while they frisked me and then one of them stood back a bit to keep me covered while his friend looked in the glove-pocket and under the seats and the dashboard. They spoke with a Luneburger accent. 'Where is your gun?' 'Please?'

  'Where is your gun?' 'More slow of talking, please. I do not — '

  'You speak better German than that,' he said and his friend laughed.

  'Everyone has their off days,' I said. The laugh came again and I didn't like it. Perhaps it was the walls making an echo that distorted it or something but this man's laugh was a kind of wet guttural spasm as if someone was being carefully strangled. He was the one who smelt of almonds.

  'Don't you have a gun?'

  'No.'

  'Why not?'

  'The bang frightens me.'

  Their faces were pale in the headlights. They both had hats on to look respectable. One of them wasn't happy about it and went diving about in the back of the car and I thought he must be taking the stuffing out of the seats. He was the kind who couldn't understand anyone not carrying a gun, which meant he depended on his own quite a lot, so he was the one I'd go for if a chance came.

  'There isn't a gun anywhere,' he said.

  'It doesn't matter,' his friend said.

  They both climbed into the back of the car and shut the doors.

  'What are you doing in Hanover?'

  'Having a look round.'

  'Who are you?'

  'A bad-tempered ferret.'

  'Don't mover It was jabbed into my neck.

  'I was going to show you my papers.'

  'We're not interested in false papers.'

  'Then I'll leave them where they are.'

  'Yes.' There was a rustling noise.

  'Would you like some marzipan?'

  I angled my head round politely. He was holding a packet to me with the silver paper half peeled off.

  'Not just now, thank you.'

  'Don't you like it?'

  He was the one who couldn't understand anyone not carrying a gun either.

  'Not very much. It's got prussic acid in it'

  'It's got what?'

  'Bitter almonds. Not very much, of course. What you might call a homeopathic dose, but somehow the idea puts me off.'

  They wanted me alive or they could have done it by now and left the body here: it was an excellent place and no one would come up here until the morning. They wanted me to tell them things first. They couldn't make me do that here because there's no really useful technique available when the subject isn't tethered: hurt him too hard and he'll get violent and it's no good waving a gun at him when he realizes he's got a value; you're not going to kill him with it because then he can't talk and he knows that.

  'I like it, anyway,' he said. He began smelling of almonds again.

  His friend with the fan-teeth said: 'We're not going to kill you.'

  'That's good.'

  'But after we've finished with you I must warn you to leave Germany. You mustn't think about it any more. He did himself in like a lot of people do, so why do you have to worry about it? Do you know how many people in Germany commit suicide?'

  'A lot of people, you said.'

  They were enjoying themselves and it worried me. It meant they'd enjoy 'finishing' with me too and sometimes that kind of situation can get out of hand: they go od for the pleasure and then it's suddenly too late; the sigmoid colon becomes too bruised or the blood-loss increases to the point where the heart starts trying to pump a vacuum.

  'Yes,' he said. 'Approximately ten thousand every year. That's almost one every hour. So you mustn't think any more about him. Start your engine and drive back into the main road.'

  They were very cautious, not wanting to do it here. It was an excellent place but they obviously knew of a better one.

  I said: 'You've left your car in the way.' I looked round and through the rear window.

  'Can't you get past?'

  'I don't think so, but I'll try.'

  'No, I'll go and move it. I've got to switch off the lights anyhow.'

  He got out and his friend sat very still with the Walther P38 lined up with the bridge of my nose. The catch was off and his hand was dead steady. He'd stopped munching on the marzipan so that he could concentrate. His face was plump and the stare had a slight smile in it as if he wanted me to know that for him it was a special thing, to kill a man, a special pleasure, a substitute for orgasm, and that he wanted badly to do it and he would in fact do it if I made him and that he hoped I would make him.

  I wondered who his controllers were.

  'Switch your headlights on,' he said.

  Just as, a little while ago, the time sequence of the traffic lights had governed that situation, unseen people — his controllers — now governed this one. Their orders, through the media of his memory and his motor-nerves, were operating the fixator muscles of his finger so that it remained still, three millimetres from the end of the primary spring's travel, two millimetres from the end of the secondary spring's travel and the percussion.

  I would have liked to know who his controllers were. He had respect for them but I couldn't rely on that. All I had to do was make too sudden a move and the flexor muscles
would contract in nervous sympathy.

  'You want to do it,' I said, 'don't you?'

  'Yes.' The smile was going out of his stare. 'Switch your head-lights on.'

  I thought I'd better do that. Target attraction is a fairly common phenomenon in most physical disciplines and if I let him go on staring at the bridge of my nose long enough he might easily lose his control.

  It happens to military pilots on exercise, especially with dive-bombers: they home in on the target with such concentration that sometimes they become hypnotized and can't pull out. I wondered if the Strikers were always on dummy-gunning trips when they went straight in: but someone would have thought of that already.

  His friend moved the Opel and doused the lights and we were sitting in reflected glare from the wall now that my own were on.

  We listened to his footsteps coming back. If there had been a chance it was over now. The advantage had been that they didn't expect me to try anything while he was busy with the Opel. They both had faith in the gun even though there was only one of them with me. The main disadvantage had been the springs of the driving-seat: it would have needed an inflexible base for the body so that sudden movement wouldn't be shock-absorbed, giving the equivalent of a pulled punch.

  'Good,' the man behind me said.

  I knew he'd been watching me in the mirror but I didn't know he was so skilled: he understood that however poker-faced I was, the decision to move fast and suddenly would have shown in my eyes a tenth-second before the muscles were given the order; and in that tenth-second he would have tightened his finger.

  'You're jumpy,' I said. 'You need more sugar.'

  'I do what I can,' he said, and bit off another piece of marzipan.

  His friend climbed in and said: 'Drive carefully.'

  I put off the headlights and backed into the main street 'Ernst-August-Platz.'

  'Where's that?'

  'Go left just here.'

  Halfway along Georgstrasse the one with fan-teeth said:

  'Switch off your headlights.'

  'I did.'

  'Yes, but then you switched them on again.'