Menace (Department Z)

by John Creasey

  It would have been better had he known a little more what he was likely to meet. But he was reasonably sure that he would be able to get on the trail of the man Kryn; and after that –

  Well, as he had told Lois it might end either way, and they certainly had to be prepared for the worst. If it were humanly possible they would discover the real reason for the queer trade business, and the murders. If it was not, Kerr knew, it would be because they were dead: the issue was as simple as that.

  As Lois and Dodo looked down over the rugged country of Vallena, two things stood out.

  One was the silvery streak that wound its way in and out of the hills and ravines, and glistened an occasional gold in the sun. The other was the huddled mass of white-grey buildings apparently set at the foot of one of the higher mountains, and with a spreading, fertile valley in front of it. Neither Lois nor Trale had visited Vallena before, and Kerr explained a little.

  ‘The river’s the Pruda,’ he said. ‘Links up with the Danube near Galatz. Carries half that shipping we’ve been talking about, I shouldn’t wonder. See the white star?’

  He handed Lois a pair of glasses, and as she focussed them she saw the building that looked, from the air, like a white star. It spread in seven directions, radiating from a darker circle that she could not quite make out.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Trale.

  ‘The Vallenian Royal Palace,’ said Kerr. ‘And the square block slightly north is Parliament House; the half-moon to the south is the Princess’s home. Wonderful gardens down there – better, if anything, than the Tuileries or Hampton Court. I was over here for Craigie, nine months back. See that gap in the hills – the one with the white patch in the middle? That’s our landing field. It’s a private one, owned by the Pruda Iron and Aeroplane Company – and subsidised by English money. I wonder how many German fields like that there are in England? Anyhow, Craigie always keeps a plane there, and there are two other fields and planes within fairly easy distance. Just in case of emergency you’d better memorise the directions.’

  Kerr went on brusquely, as though he was repeating a lesson and did not want to waste much time on it.

  ‘Down here at the Pruda Company our man Sihilla is the Works Manager. Married an Englishwoman, and is pretty soundly British at heart. An odd-looking cuss, with long moustaches. At the north station there’s Vincen, as bald as a coot, and with a dreadful nasal voice. Served with the R.A.F. in the war, and is managing a small aeroplane factory in Vallena now. At the south station you’ll find Beltz. Beltz was in our Intelligence during the war, and he’s convinced that the only safe policy for Vallena is friendship with England. Consequently he’s still in our Intelligence,’ added Kerr with a grin. ‘Got the names?’

  ‘Sihilla, Vincen and Beltz,’ repeated Lois and Dodo promptly.

  Lois knew that Kerr was concentrating on the landing field, and only giving them half his attention. She wondered why. Then suddenly she saw two monoplanes take off from the patch of white, and fly towards the Comet. She turned round abruptly, her heart in her mouth.

  ‘What’s it mean, Bob?’

  But Kerr was smiling.

  ‘One plane – get the hell out of here, it’s not safe. Two – come down, you angels, no one but me is expecting you. It’s the arrangement with Sihilla. He knew we were coming, of course. Best place to land. People expect aeroplanes, and they arouse no comment.’

  Kerr took the Comet down smoothly. The land seemed to come towards them with a rush, and Lois shut her eyes. There was the slightest of slight bumps, and then the plane ran smoothly and steadily along an excellent landing.

  Mechanics, looking no different from their counterparts at Heston, were coming up with chocks. Kerr shut off the engine.

  ‘Tuck your chins well in, in case there’s a camera about,’ he said. ‘Ah, there’s Sihilla.’

  The man with the exceptional name was coming forward, his hand extended. Lois, who had pictured all manner of receptions at Vallena except this, stifled a desire to laugh.

  Kerr made the introductions as they went towards the offices of the Pruda Iron Company. It was surprising how few people there were about.

  Sihilla, using a sing-song English, explained quickly.

  ‘They are all away, yess, Kerr? I send them here – there – lots of places. You no want to be seen, no?’

  ‘You’re perfect, as usual,’ said Kerr, and Lois learned from that that Sihilla liked to be praised. He was in fact a vain little man in many ways, but exceedingly good-hearted. In his private dining-room he had prepared a meal for them that it would have been impossible to better.

  It was half-past five when they had finished. Sihilla had fussed round them with the anxious solicitude of a landlady, but had not asked a single question. Kerr had asked plenty.

  ‘What’s the general opinion of the higher tariff, Sihilla?’

  Sihilla pursed his lips.

  ‘Well, well. Some say good, some bad. Always that way, yes. Those who like British goods – bad. Those who don’t – good. How else should it be?’

  ‘Who sponsored the bill?’ asked Kerr.

  ‘Oh-ho! Now you ask. Just the same, Kerr. Those who dislike England, yes. Prell – how sad, Prell – he was for it. Yes, very strong for it. The Nazi party, yes. They wish for all tariffs, up-up-up, but for German and Austrian. The fools! Against was the Rus-sian Party – the Socialist Right.’

  That, Kerr knew, was exactly what Craigie had already learned from his men in Vallena, and it was not helpful. Apparently with the exception of Prell – strangely enough, seeing that he was Foreign Secretary – no particular man had been anxious to put the bill through, but the peculiar makeup of the Baj Government was responsible for the uncertainty.

  The government was made up of four parts Nazi, four parts Socialist, and a fluctuating centre that, though numerically more powerful, might have been likened to the Liberals in England. The leader of the Liberal Party was an old politician, Nestal Silf. He had several times rescued the state from disastrous link-ups with other countries, and he was more trusted than any other individual. Silf was the Vallenian Premier, with a mixed party cabinet but a fluctuating policy. Had he been able to control his own section in the House the Baj Government might have earned more respect, but no one could be sure which way the Middle Party would vote. For some reason or other it had voted for the high tariff, but Kerr – as well as Craigie – knew that it might have done this for any one of a dozen reasons.

  Until a week before, none of the other powers had, apparently, been deeply interested in which way Vallena voted.

  It was a small country, insignificant, badly placed from a strategic position for attack, and of little use even as a defence. It had no substantial industries, but what articles of commerce it did manufacture were absurdly low-priced. The Vallenian worker was among the worst paid in the world. Had it been possible to increase its output it might have become an important factor in world trade, but it would have been unable, even if it had possessed enough workers to do this, to avoid prices going up with a bang. The chief quality of Vallena was its futility. It just did not count.

  And now Kerr and others, including a strong body of English manufacturers, were beginning to realise that if it wanted to be awkward it might have a serious effect on English mid-European trade. And it was certainly getting that way!

  Kerr saw one thing clearly.

  The shipment of wrong goods had been done independently of Parliament. Firms had been blackmailed or frightened into doing it. Then, when English orders stopped coming, the Nazi Party had pointed out the fact, and the tariff had been put up. But had the Nazi Party been behind the whole thing in the first place?

  The murdered Prell had been a Middle Party man, and the leader of the Nazis was a middle-aged militarist named Vonath. Count Paul Vonath, however, had always struck Kerr – and everyone who paused to think about it – as a sabre-rattling windbag. Could they have been wrong?

  On the left was the Socialist Party led
by the youngest member of the trio of party leaders. Meggel had a Russian mother, and that may have been accounted for by his Communist tendencies. He was the most hot-headed of the leading trio, and also the most transparently honest.

  Kerr was convinced that the real leader of the ramp, the man behind Kryn and Cliff, was outside the parties. He was reasonably sure it was not Prince Renol. He was almost as certain that it was not the Princess of Vallena. She had been something of a beauty ten years before, the daughter of a wealthy Vallenian mine-owner. An impoverished Renol had married Katrina, his financial problems had been solved, and then he had turned for his pleasures elsewhere. Just what the Princess thought about it few people knew. Certainly most people felt sorry for her. And there it ended.

  ‘And so,’ Kerr said slowly, ‘you can’t tell us more than that, Sihilla? As far as you know, no one has been getting at Silf, Vonath or Meggel?’

  ‘As I told Craigie – no one!’

  ‘Did you hear any rumours about Doriennet and the others who were told to send the wrong stuff to England?’

  ‘Not – not even –’ Sihilla searched desperately for the right word, and found it with a flourish of moustache. ‘Not even a nibble, Kerr! Not – one – nibble!’

  ‘Oh, well,’ said Kerr. ‘You’ve booked our rooms in Baj?’

  ‘But of course, it has been done.’

  A Packard was put at their disposal, and the trio were driven along a rough road towards the capital.

  Presently Kerr began to swear.

  He was driving, having refused an offer of a chauffeur, and he suddenly put his foot down on the accelerator as hard as it would go. Out of the corner of her eyes Lois saw something flying through the air, towards them. Instinctively she covered her face with her hands.

  The Packard went like the wind.

  Trale was watching the thing. It was perilously near – small, dark and round, with a wisp of smoke coming from it. It looked as though it would land on top of them.

  The needle shot up. Sixty – seventy – eighty. A second seemed a minute and the waiting was ghastly. The bang of the thing on top of the saloon seemed inevitable. And then the roar came, from behind them. The back of the big car was lifted like a handcart and swivelled round. Kerr was helpless to hold it. The windows blew outwards, and Lois’s eyes were dazzled by the blinding yellow flare that had come with the explosion. But in her heart there was the desperate fear so rarely away these days, a fear that they would crash.

  The drop on either side of the road was at least five hundred feet.

  Chapter 15

  Shocks in Baj

  No man on earth could have held the car. It went round like a top, sliding perilously towards the right, and deeper, drop. Lois was gripping Trale’s arm tightly. She saw the rocky slopes of the valley beneath, yawning like the ravenous jaws of a beast as it waited for them. The car lurched further, the engine stalled, and Kerr braked slowly for the first time.

  Touch and go –

  Kerr knew the front wheels were almost over. They were moving slowly, agonisingly, towards the edge and a disaster that could end only in death.

  And then Kerr started the engine, pushing her into reverse.

  For a sickening moment the Packard balanced like a seesaw, over the edge of the valley. Then the wheels found purchase and it moved backwards.

  Lois gave a high-pitched, hysterical laugh.

  ‘We – we’re still here!’

  ‘Trust the old firm,’ smiled Dodo Trale, taking his case out and offering cigarettes as calmly as he had done in Kerr’s flat on the previous night. ‘Not so easy to kill, even in Vallena. Take a cigarette, girl!’

  At the same time Dodo wiped the sweat off his brow, and added that everything always seemed a damned sight worse out of England. Kerr was dabbing at his neck and forehead.

  ‘Funny how they like working in ones. I saw the little swab standing behind a boulder, and he threw well and truly. At the speed we were going it would have been plumb in the middle and goodbye to us. But that’s not the thing.’

  ‘No,’ said Lois, and it was a queer fact, that all three of them forgot how near they had been to death in a realisation that the hoped-for secrecy of their arrival was a flop. Kerr’s cigarette was burning unusually fast.

  ‘Yes, they’ve spotted us. That’s bad for Sihilla, I’m afraid. Dodo, feel like a walk?’

  Trale shrugged.

  ‘I never have, but I’ll try it for once.’

  ‘Cut back to the factory, and tell the old fellow what’s happened. He’ll probably have to get away. Meet us again in the Renol Hotel, Wilstrasse. All right?’

  Trale took a gun out of his hip-pocket and another from his shoulder holster, glanced at them in turn and said that everything was fine. Between Trale and Kerr there was a quick understanding. Kerr hated to see him go, but Sihilla had to be warned if it were possible.

  Lois looked at Kerr, who was watching Trale walk quickly and without the slightest appearance of nervousness, along the rough road.

  ‘And what are we –’ she started, but Kerr moved so quickly that Lois started back. Kerr’s right hand came from his pocket, yet it seemed still to be moving when he touched the trigger of his gun. The report was loud inside the car; but above the noise, a fraction of a second later, came a high-pitched cry.

  ‘First blood I think,’ said Kerr. ‘Stay here, sweetheart, and if anyone comes either way, yell for me.’

  He did not give her a chance to make any other suggestions, but hopped out of the car, and swung towards the wounded man and Dodo Trale, who had turned back at the sound of the shot. They reached the man within a few seconds of each other.

  It was odd, thought Kerr again, that the man was alone: and he remembered Fencer at Camberley.

  The wounded man might not be a Vallenian, but he certainly was not English: the torrent of abuse that poured in French from his lips suggested yet another nationality in the game of high commerce. Kerr’s French was more than good enough to pass muster and he spoke brusquely.

  ‘Who sent you?’

  The man’s sneer suggested that he did not lack courage, and Kerr had an idea that he was dealing with a fanatic. A pair of dark eyes glared at him with hatred.

  ‘You would like to know, yes?’

  Kerr laughed and the sound startled the wounded man. Even Trale looked surprised.

  ‘I’m going to know,’ said Kerr, ‘but it can keep.’ He lifted his gun, butt downwards, and struck the man sharply on the side of the head. The fellow grunted and dropped backwards.

  ‘I saw him behind the boulder, Dodo, his gun trained on you. Watch for others.’

  ‘What are you proposing to do with the blighter?’ asked Trale.

  ‘Cart him into Baj,’ said Bob Kerr.

  It was less than a hundred yards to the car. He picked his man up and flung him fireman-fashion over his shoulder, making his way carefully over the rocky ground.

  Lois was out of the car, and coming towards him. There seemed no one and nothing else within sight or earshot.

  ‘Is he badly hurt?’ asked Lois.

  ‘You’re too humanitarian,’ said Kerr. ‘He ought to be dead. But – no, he’s not at all badly hurt. We might find him useful.’

  ‘But you can’t take a prisoner into Baj!’

  Kerr pushed the unconscious bomb-thrower into the back of the car, used a handkerchief to tie his hands, and then grinned at Lois.

  ‘You’d be surprised what you can do in Baj,’ he said.

  Lois laughed.

  ‘The day-porter at the Renol works for Craigie,’ Kerr added unexpectedly. ‘We’ll get this cove up to our rooms somehow. Loftus and Oundle should be there, and we might get something from them. I only hope Sihilla’s all right.’

  He spent five unhappy moments getting the Packard into position again. Its nose was towards Baj at last, and they started off.

  Between Sihilla’s factory and the capital itself were five miles of rocky countryside. The road was poor, an
d if the depth of the drop on either side lessened, the rocks towered in places perilously close to the car. Lois wondered what would happen if another bomb-thrower or gunman was waiting.

  They came suddenly to Baj.

  Lois could hardly believe her eyes. It appeared to be a walled city. There was actually a gate – open it was true – separating the country from the city itself.

  But there was one welcome sign of modernity. Fifty yards from the gates was a café and petrol station that would not have disgraced the Great West Road. Kerr drove in, without blinking an eye, and shot a spate of words at a one-eyed man who came forward. The one-eyed man promptly disappeared into the garage.

  ‘What was the gist of all that?’ demanded Lois.

  ‘I told him in bastard Vallenian plus a bit of French and a spot of German,’ smiled Kerr, ‘that we’d had an accident, I wanted another car quickly for my friend in the back was hurt, and tell the manager pronto. But it’s all right. We’re among friends.’

  ‘More friends?’

  Kerr looked a little smug.

  ‘The longer you work for Craigie,’ he said, ‘the more you’ll be impressed by the organisation. Every vantage spot holds Craigie’s men. Mostly he picks politically pro-British people. Occasionally money speaks and where money speaks we have to be careful because we haven’t all the cash in the world. The owner of this place was subsidised by Craigie – another bit of tax-payer’s money gone! Watch and listen.’

  From the garage stepped a burly-looking ruffian Lois would have preferred not to meet on a dark, lonely road. He was scowling. His shock of blue-black hair rose upwards sharply from his forehead, and a three-day stubble covered most of his face.

  Kerr put one forearm across the steering wheel and held his hand palm upwards. He tapped the middle of the palm with his other little finger. The ruffian spat on the ground, and then pulled his nose, sharply.

  Kerr spoke in English.