by John Glasby
“And you’re hoping that I saw someone on the beach after you went into the water?”
“That’s the idea. You must have seen me go in.”
She hesitated, then nodded. “I did. But there was no one else, I assure you.”
Carradine looked the girl in the eye. “You’re sure about that?” It seemed almost impossible to him that anyone could have slipped into the water, anywhere along the beach and not have been seen by someone with binoculars at that window above his. Either the girl was lying for some reason, or there was something he had overlooked.
“I’m quite sure.” There was no doubting the sincerity in her tone. “Did you see anything at all of the man who attacked you?”
“Very little, I’m afraid. It was dark down there on the seabed and when he saw that he had missed with his first shot he didn’t wait to try a second, but turned and swung out towards the deeper water.”
“Then doesn’t that suggest he was heading for one of the fishing boats out in the bay?”
“It’s possible. And you saw nothing on any of the boats?”
“No.” A pause and then: “Why should a person want to kill you, Mr. Carradine? I mean, there’s no reason, is there?” There was something artless in her look, which did not fool Carradine for a second.
“In my line of work, there is always a reason why someone would want to kill me,” he said, his voice grave, sincere. “I’ve had to kill men in my time and I suppose that by the law of averages, there are those who have been ordered to kill me. It could be that – ” He broke off suddenly as one of the waiters approached the table. The other coughed discreetly.
“There is a telephone call for you, Senor Carradine. You may take it in the corner booth.” The other merely inclined his head in the direction of the three small telephone compartments set side by side at the far end of the room.
Carradine rose slowly to his feet. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment, Francesca,” he said the girl. “Even on holiday one can never get away from it all.”
“You make it sound like trouble,” murmured the girl softly. There was a curious look in her eyes. Then she glanced away, her gaze sliding in the direction of the door and the expression changed a little. For a moment, once again, Carradine was certain he saw fear reflected at the back of her eyes. Swiftly, as he moved around the edge of the table, he turned his head. The man who had just entered the dining room was short, fat, rapidly balding, his head glistening a little in the light, forehead faintly beaded with perspiration. A man who disliked heat, Carradine thought. The small eyes were wide and staring, looking around the room as though searching for someone known to be present. For a second, they rested on Carradine’s face, then moved on with a somewhat bored expression, treating him as someone of no consequence. It was a look of a man who did not care whether Carradine was dead or alive, his presence there had been noted, but that was all.
For a moment, he felt a faint stir of anger, then dismissed it at once. He gave the girl one final look, then followed the waiter across the room, into the booth, closing the door behind him.
Lifting the receiver, he waited for a moment while the high-picked humming on the line ceased, then there was a sudden click and a harsh, metallic voice asked: “Is that Mr. Stephen Carradine?” The accent was distinctly noticeable, magnified by the faint hum.
“Speaking.”
“You won’t know who I am, Mr. Carradine,” purred the voice. “I merely wish to give you a friendly piece of advice. The climate in Tamariu can become very uncomfortable at this time of the year.”
“That sounds like a warning – or a threat – to me,” Carradine said tightly. “I don’t like threats.”
“Mr. Carradine,” continued the voice inexorably, without the slightest inflection. “You’re inquisitiveness can make things very difficult for yourself. And also, I may add, for your very charming companion. Curiosity, as you may both discover if you persist in it, can have troublesome, if not fatal, consequences.”
“That’s very clearly put,” Carradine said.
The other ignored the interruption. “There is a coach leaving Tamariu at eight o’clock precisely tomorrow morning. I trust you will see reason to be on it.” The sharp click told Carradine that the other had replaced the receiver. For a moment, he stared down at the black receiver in his right hand as if trying to force it to tell him more than he now knew. Who’s was that voice which had warned him off in no uncertain terms? What had he been on the point of discovering here in this tiny village with its quiet, peaceful bay and whitewashed houses? It seemed incredible that anything could be happening here; yet now he came to think of it, it was in such places as this, out-of-the-way, old-worldly places, where he seemed to stumble on the most trouble.
Vaguely, he wondered whether it was something they ought to know about in London, whether he ought to get a call through to them. After a little heart-searching, he decided against it. Whoever it was, these people obviously considered that, as yet, he knew so little of it that they could afford to let him leave the place on that early coach in the morning. Unless, he reflected grimly, they had already made other plans for him, intended to rid themselves of him permanently somewhere away from Tamariu, where there could be no awkward questions asked concerning his disappearance.
Stepping out of the booth, he made his way back to the table, paused as he realise that the girl was no longer there. Wrinkling his brow, he glanced out on to the terrace. Possibly she had gone outside; the air was still warm and this was undeniably the best part of the day. He went outside. There was a couple standing against the rail a few yards away, but apart from them, the terrace was deserted. Puzzled, he went back into the main dining room, paused near the table. There was no scribbled note to explain why she had suddenly left like that, without any warning.
And what about this girl; this beautiful woman who had obviously been frightened of that man who had entered the room just as he was leaving to take that telephone call? What in hell was she supposed to be doing? Spying on someone on the beach? If so – why? What did she have at stake that made her so interested in what was going on at this place? That warning he had received had also mentioned her.
Making his way over to the door, he buttonholed the waiter standing just inside the room. The man was helpful, showed no surprise at Carradine’s question.
“Certainly, senor. Senorita Romano left a few minutes ago. She seemed to be in quite a hurry.”
“Was there anyone with her when she left? A short, stout man for instance?”
The other shook his head. “No, senor. She was quite alone.” There was a falseness to the other’s tone that made her Carradine think twice about asking his next question. If money was not enough to make this fellow say the right things at the right time, there was little doubt that other pressure could be brought to bear on him.
Yes, Carradine thought, as he walked into the lobby, moved across to the desk, that’s how it would be – a discreet word here and a couple of hundred pesetas there and anything could be hushed up. He leaned forward over the desk and shook the dozing clerk by the shoulder. The other stirred, jerked himself awake.
“You would like your key?” He pulled himself to his feet, stretched out an arm towards the rack behind him, paused with his hand in mid-air, fingers brushing the keys.
“No, just a little information.”
“Information, senor?” The clerk gave an oily smile. “You are looking for somewhere to go this evening? Tamariu is not a large village, but in the main street there is – ”
“I’m looking for Senorita Romano. We were having dinner together, but she left in quite a hurry. Has she gone up to her room?”
“I haven’t seen her. And her key is – ” The other shifted his glance, then nodded. “Still here,” he finished.
Carradine’s eyes were thoughtful as he nodded and stepped back from the desk. Taking his key, he made his way quickly to his room, pulled the small travelling case from its place under the war
drobe, opened it, and took out the Luger pistol which nestled snugly in one corner. Sliding a fresh clip into place, he slipped the weapon into his pocket, went out again, locking the door behind him. There was that feeling in his mind again, a sensation which he had learned over the past years never to ignore.
The narrow winding alley that led down to the waterfront was quite deserted when he entered it and on both sides, the shadows were long and dark. He walked swiftly through an area of high-walled, terraced gardens, passed beside a small church, then almost at once he was moving down to where the fishermen had laid out their nets over the low stone wall that looked down on to the bay. He had a vague impression of the street gleaming a little in the last glow of sunset, then he was making his way up an arched lane, coming out on to the flat stretch of ground which angled out towards a gentle, sweeping curve of the bay itself, the water glistening faintly where it stretched out to the darkened, almost invisible horizon.
There was a flight of steps, innocent of any protective handrail, leading down on to the sand. At the bottom, he paused to look about him, straining his eyes and ears for any slight movement or sound. It was then that he heard it, faint but unmistakable. The pop-pop of an engine starting up. In the instant of hearing it, Carradine debated whether to run forward and throw caution to the wind in the hope of getting down to the beach before the boat pulled away, or whether to be careful and move slowly. It was just possible that there was someone left behind to watch the area.
As he made his way over the upthrusting rocks that littered this section of the beach, he heard the sudden roar of the engine, gathering volume. Seconds later, he saw the boat, still tied to one of the small landing stages less than two hundred yards along the beach. In the faint light, he made out the trio of figures close behind it, the slender figure of Francesca Romano between the two more burly figures, one on either side of her.
Two things impressed themselves on his brain in that same instant. One was that the girl was not leaving of her own accord. The other was that the short, rotund figure standing near the prow of the boat was the man he had seen entering the dining room at the hotel just before he had gone to the telephone. Inwardly, he cursed himself for his own stupidity. A blind man would have been able to see that the call had been timed fortuitously, as it had been no coincidence it had been made at that precise moment. Everything had been done to take him off balance, to get him out of the way while the girl had been abducted from the hotel and brought out here.
What could he make of it all? Was this a kidnapping? A prelude to murder? The voice over the phone had warned that the girl had been too inquisitive for her own safety. Somehow, he told himself fiercely, he would have to try to stick close to her, at least until he was able to prove to himself that his own deadly conclusions about what was happening were wrong.
Moving away from the shadows, his fingers resting lightly on the assuring metal of the Luger in his pocket, he padded over the sand. At any moment, he expected one of the men to turn and see him, to raise the warning; and when that happened, he knew he would have to move fast if the girl’s life was not to be put into immediate danger.
But the danger, when it did come, came from none of the small group clustered around the boat at the small wooden jetty. The figure that moved forward out of the shadows close by and moved silently as he did. Carradine caught a glimpse of the upraised arm, saw the flash of light on the knife blade that plunged downward with a vicious speed, aimed at his chest. It was all over in five seconds – literally. Stepping to one side, completely on balance, Carradine struck the other’s down-plunging arm just above the elbow with his own, shifted his left hand around the other’s wrist, stopping the knife-point in mid-air with the tip less than two inches from his chest. There was a sudden sharp bleat of agony from the other, the ominous cracking of wrist bones as Carradine twisted his left hand sharply.
The man swung, tried to jerk Carradine sideways, sucked air in through his tightly-clenched teeth as the movement merely served to jerk his own arm back in a vicious hammer-lock. The knife dropped from suddenly nerveless fingers as Carradine forced the arm up between the man’s shoulder blades. As a judo hold it would probably have been frowned upon by a purist; as a defensive move it was highly effective. The other’s knees buckled with the pain that lanced along his arm. He tried to turn his head, mouth opening to yell a warning to his companions at the boat. Before he could utter a single sound, Carradine's hand, stiffened into a vicious weapon of destruction, caught him over the Adam’s apple. His body went limp, slumping noiselessly onto the sand.
There was no more danger from him. Carradine let out a long breath, half-sigh, half-whistle. Within fifteen seconds, he was forcing himself over the rocks, running towards the jetty, but already he was too late. The powerful motorboat was already a couple of hundred yards out from the shore, thrashing through the water, creaming foam behind it as a churning propeller thrust it forward at an ever-increasing speed. In the bows, he could just make out the shape of the girl, the wind whipping her hair back from her forehead. It was useless to try to pursue them. Carradine knew that instinctively. There was not a boat in sight apart from a broken-down rowing boat a few yards away, which was in such a dilapidated condition that he doubted if any competent authority would ever give it a certificate of seaworthiness. For a long moment, he stood there in the deepening dusk, feeling the cool sea breeze on his face, congealing the perspiration on his forehead and along the muscles of his back, staring out into the dimness which had spread itself like a dark, velvet cloth over the sea. The motor-boat had almost vanished now, was just visible at the end of the curving wake that stretched out behind it. A couple of seconds later, it swept out of sight behind the cluster of fishing boats standing off in the small harbour.
With a conscious effort of will, Carradine retraced his steps to the point where he had left the unconscious assassin. At least, he told himself grimly, this man would talk – and he would tell the truth. Whatever was going on here, he meant to know of it before the night was through. Where they had taken the girl. What they intended to do with her. Why they had threatened him and made two attempts on his life. He was used to danger. In his profession it was something he was forced to live with. The British Secret Service was no place for babes or those with a squeamish disposition. But he liked to know why he was being made the target of would-be assassins.
Picking his way forward through the rocks, he approached the place where the unconscious man had slumped to the ground when he had delivered that judo chop to his throat. The ground was empty!
Going down on one knee, he let his sensitive fingertips move over the sand. A moment later, he found what he was looking for, what he had half-suspected. The furrow in the sand where a body had been dragged soundlessly towards the stone pathway leading up towards the village.
CHAPTER TWO
A WIDENING WEB
The three-quarter moon burned along the sky off to the right of the plane, glinting brilliantly through the square window next to Carradine’s seat. The faint, eardrum-vibrating whine of the jet’s engines were just audible inside the pressurised cabin, almost on the edge of hearing, a background noise that, in spite of its faintness, still managed to grate slightly on his nerves, setting his teeth on edge. He forced himself to relax, tilting the inclining seat so that he was lying almost supine. Slowly, he let his gaze wander over the faces of the other passengers, those who were visible to him from that position.
They looked to be the ordinary run-of-the-mill tourists one usually met on the night flight from Madrid to London, most of them asleep or giving the appearance of sleeping. He closed his eyes, tried to pull his thoughts into some kind of order. Inwardly, he felt a little angry, dejected and frustrated. That message which had arrived for him that morning, delivered to his room by one of the waiters. Why would the Chief want him back in London so urgently that he had made him break his holiday and, above all, why had the fates decreed that it should arrive at that very moment
? Now it seemed as though he were running away from Tamariu because of that telephone warning and he still did not know what had happened to Francesca Romano. There was a suspicion at the back of his mind that she had been removed to prevent her from talking, that she had perhaps discovered something of importance to those people. When the message ordering him to take the evening plane had arrived, he had been on the point of refusing it. Several ideas had flashed through his mind as he had read it. He could get the people at the hotel to say that he was no longer staying there, that he had left and given no forwarding address. No, that had been dismissed as soon as it had occurred to him. In his position, he had to leave word where he could be found; that went without saying. So what else had been left to him? To deliberately ignore it, face the music once he did get back to London? To get in touch with Headquarters and inform them of what had happened, hoping maybe that permission would be given to him to stay on and get to the bottom of the whole mess? In the end, he had realised that there was absolutely nothing he could do. He had made the necessary arrangements, had caught the plane and now, here he was, flying at eighteen thousand feet, with most of the other passengers asleep around him and only the quiet, unobtrusive movements of the stewardess as she walked occasionally up and down the central aisle.
Settling his shoulders back in his seat, he let his thoughts drift idly. What could be on the Chief’s mind now? he wondered. Another mission in some remote corner of the world? It seemed more than likely. Whenever one of the Government departments came up against something that involved a foreign country they had to call the Secret Service and one of the agents would be sent to deal with it. He closed his eyes wearily. Why couldn’t one of the others have been briefed for this job? Why did they have to drag him back all the way from Spain? The other agents he knew were all good men. They had to be; the Chief had picked them himself, knew them intimately. Carradine had read one or two of their dossiers himself when he had been put on normal duty at the London Headquarters between spells abroad, exhaustive dossiers which had given everything. He smiled a little to himself as he reflected how much the Reds would give to get their hands on those secret documents. Thank God they hadn’t or things would be even more difficult and dangerous than they were at the moment.
