by John Glasby
The smile on the other’s face did not touch his eyes. Sitting back, he linked his fingers together, then pushed the button on his desk. In answer to the faint look of inquiry on Carradine’s face, he said: “You may have heard from Wilson that I’ve been up all night, working on the reports which have been coming through in a constant stream. I’m going to have a coffee now. Would you like some, or is it whisky for you?”
“Bourbon – straight, sir,” said Carradine.
“So be it,” nodded the other. When the drinks came, he settled himself back in his seat and stared moodily at the cup of coffee. At length, he said: “This isn’t going to be an easy business. Still you know that already, I suppose. Any ideas yet how you're going to go about it?”
“Nothing definite as yet, sir. I’d like a little time in which to think this thing out. At the moment, I’m afraid I can’t see much beyond getting in touch with this man Volescu. A lot is going to depend on what he can tell me – if anything. It’s obvious that Ubyenkov has slipped across the frontier somewhere and I guess that a man in his position, secluded in some laboratory for most of his life, just isn’t the sort of man who would know what to do when it comes to getting past frontier guards. He has evidently had help of some kind and it’s just possible that Volescu has contacts who may be able to discover something about this.”
“It’s possible,” nodded the other. “But equally so, if he has, then so have the Red agents and they’re a little closer to things in Bulgaria than we are. They have the edge on us this time I’m afraid and if I’m quite honest with you, I can’t see Ubyenkov staying free for very long unless we get to him in time. Even then, you have to convince anyone close to him that you’re not a Russian agent, playing a double game.”
“You make it all sound so very straight-forward, sir,” said Carradine dryly. He finished the whisky, set his glass down. “When do you want me to leave?”
The Chief lifted his head and laid a stern glance on Carradine. “It will have to be soon, I’m afraid. Shall we say the day after tomorrow. Give you a few hours in London. Then it’s the flight to Sofia for you.”
Carradine nodded, knit his brow in sudden thought.
The Chief noticed the look at once, said: “Something on your mind?”
“I’m wondering why he made for Bulgaria. Surely it would have been easier for him to have slipped across into Romania. He must have crossed the frontier around Izmail or Reni, then move through Dobrogea and into Bulgaria around Silistra. Seems to me to be a dangerous and roundabout route to take when he could have gone directly into Romania.”
The other’s eyes had suddenly turned speculative. “I suppose he had a reason for doing things that way. Probably he had friends in Bulgaria whereas there was no one he could trust in Romania. Whatever the answer, you have all the information available to me. If I learn anything further within the next thirty-six hours I’ll see to it that you get it. In the meantime, if I were you, I’d check up on everything there is to know about that part of the world. Also, look in on Jones and see what the Identikit shows. You might also want to have a word with Forbes.” The Chiefs face looked grim. “He has one or two ideas he wants to put into practice and I’d say you’re just the usual suspect he’s looking for.”
Carradine rose lithely to his feet. The interview was obviously over. He knew it was possible he would not see the other again before leaving for Sofia. He had been given his instructions and now it was up to him to carry them out to the best of his ability.
*
After leaving the office, he made his way first to the room on the second floor, knocked, pushed open the door and went inside. There was a man seated behind the low desk in one corner of the room and his face broke into a smile as he said: “Thought you’d be along as soon as you’d had a talk with the Old Man. I suppose you want to take a look at Professor Ubyenkov as we see him.”
“That’s why I’m here,” Carradine said. He had always had, at the back of his mind, a vague distrust of the Identikit. It seemed all too pat to be really true. This building up of a picture from scattered pieces of information. How close it really came to a person’s true identity, he wasn’t sure about. But at the moment it was all they had to go on and anything was better than nothing at all. The picture that they built up for him might possibly eliminate half of the population of Bulgaria.
“All right, let’s take a look at my pigeon.” He seated himself in the chair near the desk as the other swivelled in his seat, snapped on a switch and gave a nod towards the face that flicked on the apparatus. Carradine eyed it closely. Reasonably ordinary, damnit, he thought inwardly. Nothing outwardly to go on, which might make this man stand out in a crowd – and there was, of course, always a possibility that he was sufficiently frightened to have tried to alter his appearance, knowing that there would be Red agents hot on his trail at any moment.
“Not too much to go on, I’m afraid,” murmured Jones apologetically. “This is about as close as we can get with this machine.”
“And how much faith do you put in it?”
The other shrugged, forced a quick smile. He said cheerfully: “I can see from your expression that you’re not too taken with it.”
“Not really. Only had to use it once. Gave me a completely wrong picture of my man. If I’d taken it as gospel, I’d have been arrested for going after the head of one of our biggest banking concerns. But I suppose it’s better than nothing. This is put together from what that science delegate brought back?”
“That’s right,” agreed Jones. “Naturally, I’d have preferred to have had some corroboration from other witnesses, but it seems that the professor did not want to trust too many people. Seems that Foster was the only man he approached, the only one who saw him.”
“Then this will have to do.” Carradine glanced again at the picture on the Identikit, impressing it on his mind. The balding head with the wide, square features so characteristically Russian, but with the faint look of a dreamer about it too. He could visualise this man working in a laboratory, smouldering inwardly against the badgering of a bureaucratic government, poking its nose into everything that went on, directing and ordering, making it virtually impossible for a research scientist to get on with his job. Such a man could not be rushed, could not be ordered about, if he was to give his best. Sometimes Carradine wondered how the Russians ever got any original research work done at all. Certainly, they were good copyists, and they had had the benefit of the German and Czech scientists which they had taken back with them during the first few weeks following the end of the war when a great many of the top European men had vanished without trace, only to turn up later in Russia. Gradually, it was true, they were now beginning to realise that they were behind the rest of the world in original research and were doing their best to catch up.
He felt a little sense of grim amusement. The Russian scientists had one big incentive to work, which the Western men did not have, the threat of extinction if they failed in their task.
“Well now, have you got everything you want from me?” Jones asked as Carradine got up from his chair.
“I think so. If anything else comes to me in the next day or so, I’ll drop in and have another talk.”
“Certainly, any time,” nodded the other. He flicked off the switch.
Leaving Jones, Carradine debated whether to return to his flat and get something to eat, or whether to pay a call on Forbes. In the end, he decided to get something to eat first, have a bath and then come back. After all, his watch said that it was still before nine o’clock. He had plenty of time in which to make his preparations and he did not think very well on an empty stomach.
He returned to the Headquarters shortly after eleven o’clock. The drizzle had given way to a broken-cloud sky, with occasional brief rays of sunlight streaking the pavements and buildings. Determined to keep in condition, he had walked it back from his flat, a matter of a mile and a half through crowded London streets.
Forbes was a small, m
eek-looking man, a pair of rimless glasses perched precariously on the edge of his nose. He had a habit of continually peering over them, as though they were for the benefit of his nose and not his eyes. It seemed incredible, looking at him, that he was in charge of one of the most up-to-date and varied arsenals in the whole country. It was doubtful, Carradine reflected, as he let himself into the room, whether any collection such as this existed anywhere else in the world, although he had not seen the Russian counterpart which, rumour had it, existed within a stone’s throw of the Kremlin in Moscow.
Forbes glanced up at Carradine with a hint of conspiracy in his smile.
“Heard you might be giving me a visit,” he said genially, nodding towards a chair. “I gather you will be out of the country for a little time.”
“That’s right.” Carradine nodded. “The Chief thinks you may have something of interest for me.” He doubted if the other knew his destination. That was probably something known only to the Chief and perhaps PM.
“Cigarette?” The other fished in his pocket, withdrew the slender gold case, offered a cigarette to the other, then snapped the case shut again.
“Thanks.” Carradine lit the other’s cigarette and then his own.
Forbes still held the case in his right hand. He said softly: “Quite an interesting thing this.” He held it out. “You’ll notice the monogram.”
Carradine leaned forward, took the cigarette case. On the front, worked into the metal, was a crest and the initials S. C. Underneath. “Why does it have my initials on it?” he asked curiously.
Forbes took it back without answering, placed his forefinger over the raised initials, twisted it sharply to the left. There was a faint, almost inaudible click and a six-inch blade of a knife slid from the top of the case, the metal gleaming in the light.
“One of our weapons.” Forbes’s voice had taken on a fresh briskness. “The knife blade is based on a telescopic principle but it’s quite deadly all the same. Better handle it carefully until you get used to it. I wouldn’t want you to injure yourself.” His smile widened. “Here’s something else to go with it.”
The lighter looked quite ordinary. With a feeling of trepidation, Carradine flicked it down. For a moment, he looked surprised as the wheel merely rasped on the flint and it lit first time. Brows raised, he glanced up.
Forbes took it from him. “If you press the other lever,” he explained, “this is what happens.” Holding it a little distance from him, he pressed down on the other side of the level mechanism. There was no sound at all as it depressed under his thumb, but a thin jet of liquid shot into the air. There was no smell but almost at once, Carradine felt his eyes begin to water and the sharp stinging sensation almost blinded him. He took an involuntary step backward.
“If that jet had hits your eyes it would have temporarily blinded you and also put you completely out of action for an hour or so. It’s a mixture of one of the latest tear gases and a nerve gas which our men have recently developed. Quite harmless in the long run, but extremely efficient.”
Gingerly, Carradine took the lighter and slipped it into his pocket. “Do you have any more delightful playthings?” he asked.
Forbes nodded briefly. For a moment, the meek look vanished and there was a hard, cunning expression in his eyes. “I think we can pride ourselves on keeping just one jump ahead of the Reds when it comes to designing and producing weapons of protection and destruction. Let me show you the latest range we have. If there’s anything that takes your fancy, I’m sure we can let you have it – and quickly.”
A little over an hour later, Carradine left the tiny room at the rear of the building. He had the odd feeling that maybe a man like Forbes, so utterly out of character according to his external appearance, might manage things better than he would. Who would have thought that a man like Forbes worked with these deadly pieces of machinery, these delicately-figured mechanisms that could destroy a man within seconds, or put him out of action without him ever knowing that he was in deadly danger.
He took the lift to his office on the sixth floor, spent the rest of the afternoon behind his desk, working on the reports that were furnished for him, learning by heart all the details of this case. By the time it was night, he had most of it in his head, knew what he was up against. As he walked through the darkening streets to his flat, he was already turning over ideas in his mind.
CHAPTER THREE
DARKNESS IN THE CITY
The clamour of the aircraft’s engines were still echoing in Carradine’s ears as he made his way across to the Customs Bay at the airport. He had seen the lights of Sofia down below him as they had circled the city before coming in to land and a faint sense of nostalgia went through him. It was now several years since he had last been in the city. Doubtless many things would have changed since those days.
Everything he carried on him was examined by the customs official. He felt a sense of grim amusement as they went through his luggage. It was an acid test for the weapons that Forbes had given him before he left England that none of them was suspected. There were the two bottles of whisky, placed carefully, but not too carefully, at the bottom of this case. The man took them out, turned one over in his hands for a long moment and sniffed it appreciably, cocked an eye in Carradine's direction and said something rapidly in Bulgarian before putting it back and snapping down the middle of the case, scrolling some squiggle in chalk on top of it and sliding it towards him over the counter.
Passing through into the lounge, he looked about him. He had not liked the look of the custom official back there. A suspicious man. His eyes and face gave him away. Someone who distrusted everything Western and yet he had the feeling that if he could have got him alone, away from any chance of hidden microphones and the like, the other would have plied him with questions about England and western Europe. It had been the same whenever he had been in Russia, he recalled; everyone wanted to know of England but talked little of their own country. In Russia, he remembered, every block, every building, had its own watchdog, who reported on everything that happened, who watched any foreigners who might go into a private flat. Almost certainly, it was the same here.
The man who stood leaning against the wall ten yards from the entrance to the airport was short, dark, with a thin, ferret-shaped face. He gave Carradine a quick glance, then sidled forward silently, pointed to the car which stood at the kerb a short distance away.
“I was told to meet you here,” he said in halting English. “I’ll take your case.”
Without bothering to ask Carradine his name, the other took the case from him, marched in front of him along the street, let the case drop into the back of the battered old car, then opened the door and motioned Carradine inside. Shrugging, the other lowered his head and seated himself. The springs creaked ominously under his weight, repeated their performance as the driver got in, started up the engine with a quick jab of his forefinger at the start button. The engine coughed, spluttered, then started up, the ancient car vibrating in every bolt and seam, shaking like a man with the ague.
They moved away from the pavement, out into the desultory stream of traffic, all of which seemed to be moving in the one direction. Very soon, they moved down a modern street, wider than Carradine remembered from his previous visit.
“Are we going straight to Volescu?” Carradine asked as the silence grew long.
The driver shook his head. “Volescu thought that you would need some rest after your flight here. I’m to take you to one of the hotels and then pick you up in the morning. Ten o’clock exactly. Please remember. It is important that we leave Sofia. We have a long distance to travel and although everything is peaceful and quiet at the moment, we don’t want anyone sniffing around and following us.”
“Then Volescu doesn’t live in Sofia?”
“No, we must go to Kazanluk. That is about a hundred and seventy kilometres east of here. Sometimes there are roadblocks set up and for the past two weeks, maybe a little longer, there has been
a tightening of controls in eastern Bulgaria.” He shot Carradine a sudden, quizzical glance. “Perhaps that is why you are here, eh?”
“Perhaps.” Carradine nodded. Inwardly, he was turning this fresh piece of information over in his mind. Road blocks and a tightening up of the checks made on traffic moving around eastern Bulgaria pointed to the Reds knowing that Professor Ubyenkov was in that area. No doubt the Soviet agents were moving in quickly, trying to find him before he could slip through the Iron Curtain to the West.
He was booked in at a hotel in one of the narrow streets, set some distance from the main residential area of the city. Whether it had been chosen deliberately so that he might remain unobtrusively out of sight, he could not tell. Very likely this had been done on the orders of Anton Volescu. But the hotel was certainly not one of the most comfortable he had known.
Early the next morning, he was awake, staring about the dingy room into which he had been shown the previous evening. It had been late when they had arrived there, but nevertheless, he felt oddly refreshed after his six-hour sleep. Pulling aside the heavy curtains that successfully blotted out every trace of daylight, he stared down into the narrow cobbled street outside. At first, it appeared to be deserted in the grey light. Then his keen-eyed gaze fastened on the dark shadow, which lay between two of the buildings on the other side of the street. Had it been his imagination, or had that really been a slight movement there, back in the shadow, the sort of movement a man might make easing a cramped leg after standing for some time watching the windows of the hotel. He edged back a little, keeping the curtains parted. He felt sweat on his forehead, resisted the urge to wipe it away with the back of his hand.
