by John Glasby
With a superhuman effort, Carradine got his left arm free. He did not waste time or strength in trying to hurl the other off. The corridor was too narrow for him to have any hope of that. Now that the first shock of surprise was over, his mind was working swiftly and smoothly. All of the lessons he had learned in London, lessons that had been taught by a small, wizened Japanese man who looked as though he could not hurt a fly, came back to him. His fingers stiffened, the edge of his palm straight. There was little room in which to move his arm, but enough for his purpose. His hand moved less than six inches but when it connected with the bone just behind his attacker’s ears, there was a hollow, crunching thud and the man’s head fell back on his rubbery neck. He put up both hands to his throat, gasping horribly for breath, the muscles down the side of his neck completely paralysed by the savage blow. His eyes were wide and staring and all of the life seemed to have gone from his body.
Thrusting now with all the strength in his legs, drawing up his knees and twisting them a little to the side, he toppled the other into the more open space immediately in front of the interconnecting door.
For several seconds, Carradine lay on his back, panting hoarsely, sucking air down into his tortured lungs. He stared up at the faint light bulb near the roof of the corridor almost immediately above his head and blinked his eyes several times in an effort to focus properly. Slowly, the roaring in his head went away. Staggering, he managed to get to his feet, holding on to the rail to maintain his balance. There was a shuddering roar, a blast of air passed the outside of the door, and the train thundered into the Simplon Tunnel.
Reeling, he stood over the fallen man. The blow had only partly stunned him and already he was trying to get to his feet. Carradine tugged the gun from his pocket, thumbed forward the safety catch. The sound of a gun-shot would not carry far above the ear-splitting roar of the train thrown back from the walls of the tunnel.
“No!” The man on the floor threw up an arm over his face as if to ward off the bullet. At the same time, he kicked out with a foot, caught Carradine on the shin. For a second the agony of the blow, lancing through his leg, made it impossible for him to do anything. Quick to follow up his advantage, the man braced his back against the side of the carriage and lashed out again with his feet. The toecap caught Carradine on the ankle and he felt his leg give under him. His body was flung back against the door. He wondered if his ankle had been broken by the savage force of that blow.
With a violent surge of strength, the other pushed himself to his feet, stood there swaying slightly, his arms hanging loosely by his side, the fingers curled. He had dropped the gun, knew he had no chance of reaching it.
Teeth bared, he moved in. An arm swung, the fist catching Carradine on the face. There was a taste of blood in his mouth and it felt as though his teeth had been smashed through the flesh of his lower lip. Carradine was seized with a surging wave of red-hot anger. He caught the man’ arm as it came swinging for him again, gripped the wrist tightly and twisted. The other uttered a bleating yelp of pain, tried to pull himself free. Moving swiftly sideways, Carradine hauled with all of his strength, swung the man around.
There was a yell, just audible above the sound of the train, a sound that had risen to an abrupt crescendo as the glass of the door splintered under the man’s weight. He fell back, overbalanced. Arms and legs flailing for a moment, the other hung there, incredibly, while the blast of air that screamed along the outside of the thundering train caught and tore at his body, dragged him slowly but inexorably through the window. For a second, it was hard for Carradine to believe that it was actually happening. He half-reached out to catch at the other’s legs, to drag him back into the train. There was a final shriek as the other suddenly realised what was happening to him and his body slid out of the train and vanished.
The harsh, stinging smell of the air inside the tunnel caught at the back of Carradine’s nostrils as he stood there, sucking air down into his heaving lungs. Sweat was cold on his forehead and his shirt was clinging stickily to his back. Slowly, he moved towards the door. Splintered glass crunched under his feet. He stuck his head out, tried to look back along the tunnel, but it was impossible to see anything. The wind caught at his hair, plastered it over his sweating forehead. There was the flash of light on the black walls of the tunnel, but that was all.
Letting his breath go through his parted lips, he pulled his head back, glanced down at his feet and picked up the two guns lying on the floor of the corridor. No one seemed to have heard anything and he knew that if he stayed there, he would have to answer awkward questions, that he would probably be taken off the train at Lausanne and questioned. He would be backed up by London, of course, and strings would be pulled to have him released, with everything carried out discreetly and undramatically. But that would defeat his purpose. His prime objective was to get Professor Ubyenkov to London and nothing was to be allowed to stand in the way of that.
He gave a deep sigh, made his way quickly back along the corridor to the compartment. The girl looked up quickly as he opened the door and went inside. The look on her face changed as she saw the blood on his face.
“You’re hurt,” she said concernedly. “Did you – ?”
“He’s dead,” he said tautly. “He fell out of the train.”
“And when they find that he’s vanished?”
Carradine shrugged. He took out his handkerchief, wiped at the blood on his lips. “There’s nothing to connect his disappearance with us. He could have felt ill, gone out into the corridor for some air, opened the window at the end of the carriage and then overbalanced, smashing the glass in the process.”
“Do you honestly think they will come to that conclusion?”
“No, but it's best explanation I can offer at the moment.” He leaned his head back against a seat and fingered the bruises on his throat.
*
They drew into Lausanne a little after three o’clock that morning. Even at that hour, the platform seemed to be crowded with people. Carradine stood at the window, looking up and down the station, but there was no unusual activity to be seen. Either the broken glass of the door had not been noticed yet, which seemed unlikely, or no sinister reason had as yet been attached to it. He forced himself to relax. There was no reason, of course, why anyone should go along the compartment, checking on whether anyone was missing.
They stood for almost half an hour at the platform then, just when Carradine felt certain that something had been noticed and they were waiting for the police, the train began to move out. The lights of the station slid away into the distance behind them and they were on the last lap of the journey to France.
He dozed on and off during the rest of the night. When dawn came and they passed through Dijon, he stretched himself, stuck his legs out straight in front of him. For the first time since leaving Bulgaria, he had the feeling that they were definitely going to make it. Surely Kreznikov could not touch them now, he thought wearily. Another three hours or so and they would be in Paris. He felt a faint smile come to his lips. He would have to say goodbye to Francesca there, go on to the airport and try to get on the first plane for London. Maybe they would meet again, though under more congenial circumstances, he hoped.
The sun rose, round and red. Slowly, it began to climb up into the cloudless heavens, lost its redness and assumed a fiery glow that flooded the countryside through which they were passing with a rich, warm yellow light. Everything looked different out there, he thought. More friendly. He recognised several of the landmarks now, could use them to estimate how far they were from Paris.
The girl woke, rubbed her eyes and looked about her. Carradine leaned over and touched Ubyenkov’s knee. The other grunted, then opened his eyes.
“Sorry to wake you so soon,” he said, “but I thought you might like to see this. We’re in France. Another couple of hours and we should be arriving in Paris. Then it’s on to London and freedom as far as you’re concerned.”
Ubyenkov nodded.
He said slowly: “I wonder why the English will be so glad to see me. Because of myself, or because of the process which I have discovered.”
“That’s surely a pessimistic outlook,” Carradine said. “They may want to deny that it was your process which attracted us to you in the first place, and I very much doubt if my Government or any other for that matter, would spend time and money getting you out of Bulgaria, unless you had something like this to offer.”
“At least, you are very frank,” said Ubyenkov harshly.
“In my line of business, there is very little time for the niceties of life. I have my orders and it’s up to me to see that I carry them out.”
“Of course. But in spite of that, I would like to thank you both for what you have done for me.”
“We aren't safe just yet,” said Francesca sharply. “Better not count on that until you reach London.”
“She’s right,” Carradine cautioned. He touched his lips gingerly where they were slightly swollen. For a moment, he thought about the man who had been following them on the train. Had his body been discovered yet, lying somewhere alongside the gleaming rail inside the Simplon Tunnel? Somehow, it did not seem likely.
*
The Orient Express ran into Paris exactly on time. As he helped the girl down from the train, Carradine looked about him, eyeing the crowd that jostled around them as the rest of the passengers alighted. Curiously, the feeling of danger, which had left him a little just after that man had died on the train, was stronger now. Here they were in a friendly country, away from the Balkan states and yet the feeling was back. He tried to ignore it, the reassuring weight of the gun in his pocket. They walked down the platform, into the station square with the rest of the crowd.
No one seemed to be giving them a second glance and as they stepped out into the street, he told himself that he was merely being foolish, sensing danger where none existed.
He paused at the edge of the pavement, made to lift a hand for a taxi. The girl said quickly: “I will arrange for you to get to the airport, Steve. It would be far safer if you were to go in one of our cars. It will only take me a few moments to arrange it. They may have someone watching the station just in case. If they had that man on the train to watch for us, you can be sure that they have made further arrangements just in case he did make a mistake.”
Carradine hesitated, then nodded. What she had said was perfectly true. He cursed himself for not considering it. The fact that they had reached Paris had overridden his natural caution. Compared with Bulgaria and Hungary, the French capital seemed so close to London that he had overlooked the fact that the tentacles of the Russian Secret Service reached out all the way across Europe and those who directed it seldom did anything without having a second string to their bow. Men were fallible and they were the first to realise it. What did it matter to them if one other man was killed and his body vanished off the Orient Express just so long as they had someone else keeping an eye on things further along line. They wouldn't give up until he ushered Ubyenkov into the Chief’s office at Headquarters.
He waited with Ubyenkov while the girl went over to one of the telephones. Through the glass door he could see her dialling a number. Two minutes later, she came out and walked over to them, smiling.
“They will have a car here shortly,” she told him. “It will take us to the airport.”
Exactly five minutes later a black limousine turned up, stopped smoothly by the kerb in front of them. The man behind the wheel was a typical French chauffeur. He got out and opened the door for them, then slipped in behind the wheel once more. The girl sat beside him in the front. Without a word being spoken their car moved off, into the stream of traffic.
“I’ll say this for the Deuxieme Bureau,” Carradine said quietly, sitting back. “They certainly are efficient.”
The girl smiled, but said nothing. The chauffeur drove the big car with a calm and relaxed assurance, a quiet efficiency that seemed to be the hallmark of the Deuxieme Bureau.
Leaving the centre of the city behind, they took one of the wide avenues out to the outskirts, past the little wayside cafes with their multi-coloured awnings, which seemed such a part of Parisian life. If only it were possible to stay here for a few days, he thought, to relax utterly and completely after the nightmare of the past three days and nights. But that was utterly out of the question.
They turned off into a narrow street where there was very little traffic. Carradine sat back for a moment, then jerked himself upright in his seat. “This isn’t the way out to the airport,” he said sharply. “We should have – ”
“Of course not.” The girl had turned her head to look at him. She was still smiling, but there was something in that smile which froze Carradine’s thoughts.
“What do you think you’re doing, Francesca?” he said harshly. “If this is your idea of a joke. If you think you can take the professor to the Deuxieme Bureau to question him first, then I’d advise you to think again. It only needs a word from me to the Head of the Bureau and – ”
Francesca shook her head slowly. The sunlight, streaming in through the window, caught the yellow hair, sending warm gleams of gold through it. “You don’t understand, Steve, even yet,” she murmured softly.
He felt a little warning tingle along the spine, reached down with his hand towards the gun still resting smugly in his pocket. The one that he had taken from the fat man on the train was in his case. What was it in the girl’s voice that heightened the feeling of danger in his mind? The crisp note of authority, or sheer confidence?
Her hand moved, came into sight above the top of the front seat as she twisted round a little more. The gun in her hand did not waver as the barrel lined itself up on his chest. “I think this will save any further argument,” she said coldly. “You know, you were quite correct when you said that we have agents watching everywhere, even as far west as Paris.”
Carradine felt his mouth go dry, swallowed thickly. So it had been a trap all along and he had fallen into it with his eyes wide open. He thought once again of that man he had killed on the train. Almost as if she divined his thoughts the girl said:
“You were supposed to think that I was on your side. Even in Tamariu, I had been ordered to keep an eye on you, to learn everything I could about you. And as for that man who was following me, the man you so kindly disposed of on the train. He was working for the Deuxieme Bureau. It was very good of you to get him off my back. I had thought that I might have to do it myself.”
“I think I’m beginning to get the picture now,” said Carradine tautly. “You can spare me the details.” He felt a sense of disgust run through his mind. How could he have been so criminally blind? Several little points that had been puzzling him would begin to slot into place and made sense now. Those conversations, which she had had with the frontier guards in Bulgaria and Hungary. No wonder she had been able to persuade them to let them through without any questions. She had merely told them who she really was, that she was working for the Russian Secret Service and they had gone out of their way to speed them across Europe.
He felt a wave of anger go through him. How conveniently too had she come on the scene when he had escaped with Ubyenkov from that castle overlooking the Black Sea. She must have been given orders to stick around Balchik just in case something did go wrong and he managed to get away from Kreznikov and his hatchet men.
Hell, what a fool he had been. If only he had paused to think these things out carefully and objectively, he would have seen through this little scheme long before now and he would not have been in the mess he was at this very moment. Here in Paris, so close to England, and his chances of ever seeing London again had receded almost to vanishing point. With an effort, he forced the anger and despair out of his mind. Whatever else happened, he must play along with these two, try to get them off balance. There had to be a way before it was too late.
“Just what is your job?” he asked quietly.
Francesca shrugged her shoulders
, not once taking her eyes off his face. “Let’s say that I act as a decoy for Western agents,” she said, a mocking tone to her voice. “You never really learn, do you? You seem to think that we are nothing more than a lot of foolish people, used only to the ways of violence, with no subtlety about us at all. It’s this continual underestimation of us which will eventually lead to your downfall.”
“You really believe that, don’t you?” he said, his tone deliberately scornful. “You have such a high opinion of yourselves that you fail to recognise your own weaknesses.”
“What do you mean by that?” she asked sharply.
Carradine gave a faint grin. He had touched a nerve, he felt sure of that, by even suggesting that she might have overlooked some vital point. Trust a woman to be ruled by her vanity.
“You’re in Paris now,” he said quietly. He forced evenness into his voice, knowing just how precarious his own position was. He had to make the girl believe that he had more behind him than he really had. Whether or not he could pull it off, he did not know. But he had to try his damnedest, because it was the only chance he had. He knew without question that if he tried to go for the gun in his pocket, or for that which the girl held so steadily in her hand, she would shoot him without a second thought. She had been trained to kill just as he had, and she would not hesitate to do so. He remembered that unholy look in her eyes when he had walked out of that compartment on the Orient Express, going out to kill that fat man who had been following them. The same bright stare was in her eyes now.
“And why should you think that being in Paris worries us?” Her voice was sarcastic. “If you’re relying on the Deuxieme Bureau to help you out of this mess, then you’re wasting your time. You will quietly disappear and our mutual friend, the professor, will be on his way to Moscow by tonight. You upset my plans by insisting that we travel on the Orient Express. Everything was ready for us at Vienna. That had to be cancelled, of course. But it mattered little in the end.” Her smile widened a little, showing the even white teeth. “I must admit now though, that when you warned me that man from the Deuxieme Bureau was on the train, I was worried. If he had managed to get to you before you killed him, he might have told you everything and there was just a chance you would have believed him.”
