Ian St James Compendium - Volume 1

by Ian St. James

  "What the hell's that to do with finding Suzy?"

  Her face creased in a tiny gesture of irritation. "Your ex-wife says you wanted children and she didn't."

  "You've seen Elaine?" I said in astonishment.

  "She was interviewed yesterday," Elizabeth smiled. "She sends her regards."

  "She knows where I am?"

  "Of course not. Very few people know that." She paused to let the point sink home. "Did you quarrel with your wife about—"

  "It's none of your damn business!"

  "Everything's our damn business. Get used to that and you won't get hurt," she said sharply. "Now - did you and your wife quarrel about children?"

  I remained silent for a moment. Max looked up from his machine and the doctor licked his lips at the prospect of topping my blood stream up with sodium amytal. Elizabeth tapped her foot and waited until finally I said, "We didn't really quarrel. Not that much anyway. I don't think we cared enough for each other to argue. The marriage was a mistake, that's all."

  "You never loved your wife?"

  "What does it matter? I liked her - to begin with. Isn't that enough?"

  "It wasn't for you, apparently."

  I glowered, tight-lipped and determined they could make whatever they liked of my silence. Eventually Elizabeth said, "The doctor was right wasn't he? Elaine was a substitute for Haleem Katoul."

  "It wasn't a bloody football match. I don't understand the language. Anyway, leave Haleem out of this - it's nothing to do with her."

  "She was Suzy Katoul's mother," Elizabeth said. She stared at me for a while and then spoke in a lighter tone of voice. "Very well, have it your way. Let's talk about Suzy. When you met her again, in '76, she was very affluent. Mink coats, works of art, chauffeur-driven car - what was the car by the way, can you remember?"

  "Mercedes, I think."

  "There you are then - chauffeur-driven Mercedes and an apartment in one of the most expensive areas in Paris. Where did all the money come from, Harry?"

  "I told you, she was a purchasing agent for—"

  "And she was involved in politics. Don't forget the politics, Harry."

  That seemed not to require an answer so I remained silent, like a fighter pacing himself in a slow round.

  "What about her other income? You mentioned an allowance for instance."

  "That was paid to Farida."

  She raised one eyebrow. "Oh, I didn't realise that. Did Farida need the money? Wasn't she working as an interpreter or something?"

  "I got a lot back when she died. It was in a separate account."

  "Which bank?"

  "Bank Commercial Francais, Rue de Lyons, Paris."

  She nodded and stored the information away to check later. I was sweating slightly, but apart from that I had adjusted to the electrodes quite well. Max sat hunched over the machine watching wavy lines trace themselves across graph paper while the doctor stared hard at me from the chair next to Elizabeth. Dog face and Son had withdrawn once I had taken the stand.

  Elizabeth resumed. "So Suzy's newfound wealth didn't come from you?"

  "Obviously not."

  "And you're saying some money was from business and the rest was from politics?"

  "I'm saying I don't know."

  "But you think some was political?"

  "If I don't know, what's the point in guessing?"

  "Try."

  I shrugged. "Well, the PLO have never been short of funds. They had more than fifty million invested in London alone last year. I suppose they might have had cash in Paris and perhaps the Marxist Front did too. Maybe Suzy handled some of that - I just don't know."

  "You just don't know." Her sarcasm was scathing enough to open my sweat glands another millimeter. "Whatever happened to Negib Katoul, by the way?"

  "I've no idea."

  "You never saw him again? After that last meeting at the camp in Lebanon?"

  "I never saw Negib Katoul again," I said carefully.

  "But you asked Suzy about him - when you met her again?"

  "No, I don't think so."

  "And she never mentioned him?"

  "I don't think so. I really can't remember."

  "You really can't remember," she mimicked. "You never discussed politics - you a political journalist and she a political activist. You never inquired where her money came from you, a newspaperman with a renowned sense of curiosity. You never asked about the uncle who changed the course of her life? Don't you find all that a bit odd Harry?"

  "You obviously do."

  "Who are you working for, Harry?"

  "Crusader Press."

  "What are you trying to hide?"

  "Why should I hide anything? I'm as anxious to find Suzy as you are."

  "Did you know she was on drugs?"

  "I - I think she was - used to be I mean - she isn't any more—"

  "How do you know?"

  "I - I just know. She must have told me at some time."

  "Who started her on drugs, Harry?"

  "I - I don't know."

  "It was Negib Katoul, wasn't it?"

  "I tell you - I don't know."

  "But you know damn well Negib Katoul was mixed up in the drug business in Lebanon, don't you?"

  "I didn't know - not for sure - I wasn't there and—"

  "But you found out about it, didn't you? You knew he'd disappeared from Beirut."

  "I may have heard something. I'm not sure - it was a long time ago, and—"

  "What did you hear?"

  "Good God, if I told you all the barroom gossip I've heard over the years—"

  "Just the gossip about Negib Katoul."

  "He got involved in a drug racket. Beirut was full of them. I think the PLO raised some funds that way and—"

  "And Negib got ambitious, didn't he? Went into business for himself."

  "That's what I heard. How true it was—"

  "And he skipped Beirut?"

  "Yes."

  She sighed. "Harry, I'll ask you again. What happened to Negib Katoul?"

  "I don't know."

  The questions were coming thick and fast now, too fast to draw a breath between them, too fast to work out the answers.

  "Harry, I know you met him again."

  "You're wrong. You can't know - nobody can—"

  "He changed his name, didn't he? And the Swiss clinic changed his face."

  "I never saw Negib Katoul again."

  "Why do you phrase it that way, Harry? You've said it twice in the last three minutes."

  "Said what? I don't know—"

  "You never saw Negib Katoul again. But you met him under another name, didn't you? Technically you're telling the truth, but you're trying to beat the machine, aren't you?"

  "Rubbish, why should—"

  "Harry, all over Europe people like me are asking people like you questions. There's a massive search going on. And as time gets shorter we become more desperate. You do understand that, don't you?"

  "Of course I understand, but—"

  "Then what the devil are you hiding?" She lashed out in sudden temper.

  "I'm not—"

  "Harry, you're forcing our hands," she almost cried with frustration. "For God's sake, tell us! Tell us before we all do things we'll be ashamed of afterward!"

  "I've answered every one of your bloody questions—"

  "But not explicitly!" she whirled round in her chair, trembling with exasperation. "What's the machine say, Max?"

  Max tapped a switch and studied his graph paper. It took him a long time to answer, and when he did my blood ran cold. "Says he's lying his head off."

  Her hands bunched into tight fists and her knuckles showed white through her tanned skin. For a moment she looked at the floor, and when she looked up her green eyes were wet with tears. "You damn fool, Harry," she whispered. "You can't hold out. Don't make us do it for God's sake!"

  "I'm not responsible for your actions," I said coldly, "so don't pretend I am."

  "You're leaving
us no choice," her voice broke in a husky sob.

  "So what choice have I got?" I asked angrily.

  Nobody answered that. Elizabeth sat bolt upright in her chair, all colour drained from her face and her lips so tight they might have been stitched together. Then she released a long suppressed sigh of tension. "Very well, doctor, we'll do it your way."

  0700 Saturday

  It was dawn over England. Ross opened one eye and watched the fields below turn to a faded water-colour. They were losing height and the pilot was discussing his descent pattern with the tower ahead, using English place names like Hereford and Worcester and RAF Fairford. Christ, will you listen to the way that kid says Fairford? like he was reading Shakespeare or something. Ross closed his eyes and cursed all Englishmen. Either they were cynical bastards like that clown Brand or damn fool anachronisms like Elizabeth's father. Now he really was a cold-eyed s.o.b. - all stiff upper lip and dry as old bones. Brigadier Sir Maurice Twomey, DSM and Bar and Christ knows what else. Forever spouting crap about duty and discipline and love of one's country, and Britain's role in the world as if she still had an empire or even counted any more. For a boy, a man, okay - a man should be a patriot. But when a man like Twomey puts his only daughter into this business - Christ, how coldblooded can you get? Ross mumbled a few obscenities and twisted in his seat. It bugged him - to run an outfit like Spitari's and then be answerable to Twomey. Brigadier Twomey, whose one human act had been to take part in the conception of Elizabeth in the firm expectation of a son. But spawning a daughter was one thing, raising her another, and Twomey had made a thoroughgoing mess of that. It had taken Ross two years to straighten her out - and even now there were times when she chilled him to the bone.

  The lush Gloucestershire countryside rose to meet them, and Ross abandoned his last chance of rest, opening both eyes to look down one of the longest runways in Britain - two and a half miles of smooth concrete which could take the SR-17 Black Bird or even the Lockheed A-11 spy planes when need be. Not that the local farming folk were told much about that. For the most part only Hercules transporters flying training exercises disturbed the West Country skies, though why RAF pilots should train to fly those old crates was thankfully a question only asked by a few.

  The car met them on the tarmac. A plainclothes sergeant from Special Branch with a uniformed driver, who kept the engine running. Ross flicked his ID card and waited while Dorfman and LeClerc submitted their papers for inspection. Then they were on their way, past the sentries at the gate and out on to the lane which led to Cirencester. Suddenly something caught Ross's attention with almost physical force. He jerked round to stare back through the rear window. Something had changed since his last visit. Something was different. An inner and an outer gate! Last time a simple barrier like a railway crossing had been sufficient. And look at the sentries! The sentries were armed for Chrissakes!

  "Bit of a flap on this morning, sir," the sergeant apologised. "Training exercise I shouldn't wonder." His quizzical look sought confirmation, but Ross's snort was non-committal as he slumped back into his corner.

  A mile or so after Cirencester the road forked and the police driver took the secondary lane to the left-hand side. Trees lined the verge - elms mainly, but with a sufficient scattering of beech and silver birch to make an impenetrable thicket when seen from the road. And the driver hurried, rarely dropping below sixty, so casual sight-seeing was in any case difficult. But not so impossible that Ross missed sight of the marked police car half hidden in the bushes of a small clearing. Nor did he miss the police motorcyclist parked alongside. For a split second he felt the scrutiny of hard eyes, then the lane twisted and they were gone. He scanned the road ahead, thinking "bit of a flap" typical British understatement, then gritting his teeth as, with no lessening of speed, the driver swung the wheel and shot the car between the grey stone pillars marked Bampton House.

  Ross jerked upright. He was no stranger to Bampton - all told he had been there a dozen times. But never to a reception like this. The driver braked hard and the car slewed broadside on the gravel drive, spraying grit in all directions and coming to a halt ten yards from the men with the guns. They stood in a semicircle - grim-faced and steady-eyed as they looked down the sights of Remington pump action shotguns aimed at the car.

  "What the hell?" Ross demanded.

  A police inspector hurried forward, an armed police inspector, whose Smith and Wesson swung from an open holster at his waist. For the second time in fifteen minutes their credentials were examined down to the smallest detail. Ross seethed with irritation, then the car was waved forward to crunch its way up the drive. Armed sentries were posted at twenty yard intervals and LeClerc pointed to a half-track bristling with radio antennae half concealed by the rhododendron bushes. Dorfman hissed "some training exercise" and then fell silent as the car swept round the final curve and Bampton House was revealed in front of them.

  It was an impressive building - a Cotswold manor house of mellowed stone under slate, with its own preservation order to prove its four-hundred-year pedigree. The locals knew it as the residence of Brigadier (Retired) Sir Maurice Twomey, while the department referred to it simply as "the Country House" or, less reverently, "Twomey's Sweat Shop." Ross knew it as "Command."

  An armed guard snapped to attention on the steps and a uniformed marine stepped forward to open the door. "The Brigadier would like you to join him in the breakfast room, sir." Ross nodded, muttered encouragement to LeClerc and Dorfman, and allowed himself to be led down a flagged hall to the corridor which ran to the back of the house. Dorfman and LeClerc were intercepted by other men, who led them away separately for individual debriefing sessions with trained interrogators. "Twomey's Sweat Shop" lived up to its reputation.

  The Brigadier was alone. He sat at a table covered with a yellow checked cloth and a clutter of dishes, a buff folder next to his coffee cup. Ross turned from closing the door to face green-flecked eyes set deep in an emaciated face. Twomey had nicked himself shaving and a tiny spot of dried blood showed on skin drawn so tight that his chin looked like a polished bone.

  "Ah, Ross," Twomey said in his clipped fashion. His head bobbed on a scrawny neck which sprouted from the khaki sweater worn beneath a grey flannel jacket. "Sit down. There's coffee there - and toast if you want some."

  It was four months since last they met. Another man would have inquired about the health of his daughter - or even asked what sort of flight Ross had had. But not Twomey, and Ross had long ceased to expect it. He took the chair opposite and reached for the coffee pot. "Thank you, Brigadier." It was a point of honour never to call the other man "sir."

  "The real thing this time, eh?" Twomey spoke through the pipe clamped hard in his teeth. "Up in Scotland."

  "Scared the living shit out of everyone up there." Ross poured the coffee.

  "And down here - that's what all the commotion is about - bloody performance I can tell you - conference in an hour's time - everyone's coming, Home Office, War House, the lot."

  Ross nodded and sipped the coffee.

  "Hell of a puzzle," Twomey said. "Wasn't our stuff, don't you know."

  "No, Brigadier, I don't know."

  "The cargo on the Marisa - so much sand - no plutonium at all - we changed the route at the last minute. Only three people knew about it."

  If Twomey had hit him, Ross would have been less surprised. "But for Chrissakes?" he checked himself. No plutonium? Sand? What kind of sense was that? He had seen the explosion - hadn't he?

  "And yet they explode a nuclear device." Twomey emptied the dregs of the pot into his cup. "What do you make of that?"

  Ross stared, bewildered, not making anything of it and being unprepared to guess.

  "Means they already had one." Twomey removed his pipe and showed his teeth in a superior smile.

  Ross had anticipated a difficult meeting, but nothing could have prepared him for this. "So why hit the Marisa?" he said with unconcealed astonishment.

  "Simple.
To make it look like our stuff." Twomey scraped his pipe into the ashtray. "They'll leak the story now. Oh, not British press of course - we'll make damn sure of that. Splash it in the Singapore Herald or some foreign rag. Atomic explosion off British coast. Then it will all come out. Bound to, no way of stopping it. Plutonium shipments, risk of accidents, all the very nonsense we've tried so hard to avoid."

  "But if that's all?" Ross struggled to understand. "That could be denied, surely?"

  "Of course it can't be denied! Explosion that size - seismographs all over Europe will have picked it up - let alone the bloody Russian spy ships."

  "The source of the plutonium could be denied," Ross persisted. "If your people shipped sand—"

  "Don't be a bloody fool." Twomey stuffed his pipe with fresh tobacco. "We've denied transporting the stuff for years. To admit any part of the story is tantamount to admitting we've misled the public for God knows how long. We'll be discredited either way. Which is what they want."

  Ross blinked and wondered if the Brigadier had the faintest idea of who they were. He remembered Gaddafi's boast. "Tomorrow we'll be able to buy an atomic bomb - the nuclear monopoly is about to be broken." Had tomorrow arrived?

  Still struggling to understand Twomey's reasoning, he asked, "So the story gets leaked - in the Singapore Herald or wherever - what then?"

  "Public outcry - hell to pay for your people I daresay sneers from the French - NATO inquiry - general bloody panic." Twomey picked at the blood spot on his chin. "Then they'll deliver the blackmail note."

  "On the end of a nuclear warhead?"

  "When they've scared people witless," Twomey guessed.

  "Which gives us time - find this Katoul woman and see what she wants - meanwhile play the whole thing down."

  "And that's playing it down?" Ross jerked his head at the window.

  Twomey bristled. "None of my doing - took me an hour this morning to stop the War House cancelling all leave passes. Even so they'll try to force my hand later." He shook his head. "Your people are as bad - they'll bay for my hide along with the rest when it comes to it."

  Ross kept his face expressionless. Sooner or later he would be asked how close he was to finding this "Katoul woman" and then the sparks would fly.