by John Gardner
Extract from The Liquidator by John Gardner
Prologue: Paris
August 1944
Mostyn was fighting for his life. Twice he had thrown the short one into the gutter, but now they were both at him: the short one trying to pinion his arms while the big fellow's hands were almost at his throat. He was tiring now, sweating and furious: furious with himself for being caught like this. It was an object lesson in lowering one's guard while still operational.
That morning he had seen British tanks in the Place de la Concorde. He had whistled all the way back to Jacques' flat - feeling that life was his again. The job was nearly over - and now, to be jumped by the very two men he had so carefully avoided during the past long six weeks. It was unforgivable.
The big one reached for his throat: he could feel himself being pressed against the wall: the cold bricks hard at the back of his neck as he pushed his chin down on to his chest to stop the great hot hands forcing through to his windpipe.
But the big man was winning: the world was going red. He could hardly breathe, and the pain had begun to paralyse his shoulders and arms as he threshed about, panicking to set himself free. What a way to die - in a back alley off the Boulevard Magenta, with all Paris singing at her emancipation on this gorgeous afternoon.
Somewhere, far away beyond the waterfall noise in his ears, he thought he could hear the tanks again. One last effort. He heaved upwards with his arms, kicked out and brought his knee sharply between the big one's legs. He felt the knee-cap make a squashy contact. The man yelped and dropped back, growling a German oath before springing in again. Out of the corner of his eye, Mostyn saw something flicker farther up the street. Still grappling with the two men, he gave a quick turn of the head. The newcomer was running out of the sunlight at the alley entrance, the mottled camouflage jacket unmistakable. Mostyn shouted - shocked at the frightened falsetto of his own voice: 'Help! Quickly! I'm British! Help! Intelligence!'
The big fellow looked round, startled and off-guard. There was a moment's hesitation, then he began to stumble away. The little man had lost his balance, pushing himself from the wall in an attempt to follow his companion.
They only managed three steps - four at the most. To Mostyn, panting against the wall, the shots sounded like cannon fire. Then, suddenly, it was all over. The two Germans lay like crumpled piles of clothes - the big one sprawled face-down, his head resting on the pavement, a matted patch of spreading red where the base of his skull had been: the little one was on his back, a bullet through the neck, his eyes looking up with the reproachful surprise of one who has met his Maker unready and with unexpected swiftness.
Mostyn looked at his saviour. He was a sergeant: from a tank crew, judging by the accoutrements - map-case and binoculars - slung round his neck. Now the big Colt automatic seemed too heavy for him. His wrist sagged as though the weight was dragging it down; a thin trickle of blue smoke turning to wispy grey as it filtered from the muzzle, up the barrel and over his hand.
But it was the eyes that made Mostyn catch his breath, sending the short hairs tingling on the nape of his neck: ice-blue, cold as freezing point, looking down at the bodies with immense satisfaction.
Mostyn prided himself that he could read the truth in other men's eyes. These told the story all too plainly. This man, a perfect technician in death, had enjoyed shooting to kill. He was, thought Mostyn, a born assassin, a professional who would blow a man's life from him as easily, and with as little emotion, as he would blow his own nose.
The sergeant was still gazing at the corpses, his mouth curved slightly at one corner in a wry smile. This one, thought Mostyn, will be worth watching. One day he might be useful again.
1 - London
Saturday June 8th 1963
BOYSIE
Boysie Oakes slid the razor smoothly over the last froth of lather below his chin and ran the side of his third finger carefully in its wake. Satisfied, he rinsed the razor, doused a flannel and proceeded to sponge away the surplus foam. Drying his face, a moment later, he paused, peering into the mirror, searching for the least sign of wear or tear.
For a man in his mid-forties, Boysie was in peak condition. Not a single fold of skin showed on the neck or up the hard jaw line. His mouth, with the built-in slight upward curve at the left corner, had not deteriorated into the full sensual thickness which he had once feared. Momentarily he turned his head, slanting his eyes to get a better look at the left profile which a woman had once called his 'Mona Lisa side'.The striking ice blue eyes were as clear as they had been in his teens - the tiny laughter lines and minute crows' feet revealing a dependable maturity instead of the prophetic marks of encroaching age. Time had neither thinned his eyebrows nor pushed back his hairline: the only concession to approaching middle age seemed to be the shining flecks of grey at his temples.
Boysie spilled a tiny pool of Lentheric Onyx into the hollow of his left palm, crossing it to the right and working the mixture up his long fingers before running both hands quickly down and over his cheeks and chin. His eyes twitched fractionally as the lotion stung into the pores, the clean tang catching at his nostrils. He followed it with a tiny puff of talc from the black and gold container, rubbing it down and away until no trace was visible.
Replacing the requisites of good grooming in the clear glass cupboard, he stepped away from the magnifying mirror, running the backs of his right-hand fingers to and fro over the freshly barbered jowl, now smooth as nylon stretched tight over arched female buttocks. His complexion - burnished by the daily half-hour stint with the sunray lamp - was as clear and tough as well-waxed leather, with none of the danger marks of purple-red veining under the eyes or at nose tip.
Ablutions completed, Boysie padded from the bathroom, across the carpeted passage into the luxurious little bedroom. Brubeck and his boys brought their arithmetically steady improvisation on Leonard Bernstein's Somewhere to its nostalgic climax. The record-player clicked as the next disc fell into position on the turntable and the liquid peace of Bach's Goldberg Variations filled the flat. The quiet pace of the harpsichord made Boysie feel more than usually conscious of the luck that had come his way.
Ten years ago he had never heard of the Goldberg Variations, or, for that matter, Matisse - one of whose original geometrically brilliant oils hung over the white and silver headboard of the big double bed. Boysie lit a king-sized filter and took a quick look at himself in the wall-length mirror. The picture seemed pretty good to him: his body, utterly male, hard, balanced and straight as a lath. He posed conceitedly - a Sunday heavy ad in azure string vest and Y-front briefs.
Coming out of the little fantasy, he took a long draw at his cigarette, rested it on the ashtray - which stood next to a deluxe copy of the Kama Sutra on the bedside table - and slipped a cream poplin tailored shirt over his head. Pulling out the tie rack, he selected a Thailand silk in bronze to match the autumn-tinted Courtelle suit which lay ready on the bed. Johann Sebastian's intricate keyboard practice weaved on.
Whatever else one felt about Mostyn, thought Boysie adjusting the waistband of his trousers, at least he was a thorough swine. He was really deeply indebted to Mostyn. A complete new world had been opened up to him almost from the moment he had signed the Official Secrets Act, together with that ominous piece of paper which made him a particular slave to the Department of Special Security. Art, Literature, Music, the Drama, food, wine, the knowledge of a gourmet (if not the true palate) - all had been brought to him through Mostyn: together, of course, with the £4,000 a year, the regular bonuses and the white custom-built E-type Jaguar.
Fully dressed, he slipped his wrist-watch over the fingers of his left hand and glanced at the dial. Ten-thirty: must get going. For the second time that morning Boysie felt the disconcerting butterfly flutter in the pit of his stomach - always the prelude to flying. He walked into the living-room where the battered multi-labelled tan Revelation stood packed and locked; poured himself a double jigger of Courvoisier and pressed the stud
that opened the secret drawer in his rebuilt Sheraton bureau. The small, pearl-handled automatic pistol lay snugly in its crimson velvet recess. He checked the mechanism and slid the weapon into the leather holster sewn into the hip pocket of his trousers, slipping the patent quick-release strap over the butt to keep it in place, and dropping three fully loaded spare magazines into the tailored clip on the inside pocket of his jacket. Mostyn would have a fit, he thought, if he knew of that gun. The business of only allowing him to go armed when on an actual assignment was one of the few things Boysie hated about the Department. There was no doubt that Mostyn would shoot up the wall with the agility of a monkey on a stick if he even heard of the existence of the weapon. But then, what Mostyn - now Second-in-Command of Security - believed about Boysie, and what Boysie knew about himself were as far removed from each other as the proverbial chalk and Stilton. When one really got down to cases, carrying that pistol - which couldn't be classed as a real man-stopper anyway - was Boysie's own private little joke against Mostyn. Even so, he invariably experienced a trickle of cold sweat whenever he thought too deeply on the consequences of Mostyn discovering his tiny secret.
The telephone jangled in the bureau recess. That would be Iris. He picked up the handpiece and heard her voice - an amalgam of honey and rough sand - soft in his ear:
'Boysie?'
'Yes, sweetie?'
He could feel his body rise even at the sound of her. It had been like that for six months now - half a year of concentrated technique between assignments. She knew the game all right. When you dealt with the luscious Iris, it wasn't just a matter of one night in the Savoy Grill then oops into bed with no remorse. There had been moments of frustration of course, but, on the whole, Boysie had enjoyed the protracted love-play which, all being well, would end that very night on a bed not a spit from the palm fronds and surf of the Mediterranean. Again the spectre of Mostyn slunk quietly through his mind. One didn't take Mostyn's personal secretary for a dirty weekend on the French Riviera every day - and get away with it. Oh well, let's hope she's worth it, he thought.
'Boysie? I'm just leaving the flat. Everything all right?'
'Right as rain, sweetie. Don't worry about a thing. I'm going to ring the duty officer in a minute.' For a second he wondered if he was allowing his manner to assume too much urgency.
'You do think it'll be all right?'
'I've told you. Don't worry. Your boss never appears before midday on a Saturday, and by that time, sweetie, we'll be off into the wide blue yonder.' His stomach gave another twitch. There was silence, and for a moment he thought they had been cut off:
'Sweetie?'
'Yes, Boysie?'
'Don't forget, will you? You mustn't even notice me on the plane. Get a seat right up front, I'll sit at the back. We meet accidentally by the taxi rank outside Nice airport. Got it?'
'Uh hu.'
'You go straight through the Customs' Hall and out of the swing doors; it's ...'
'I know, Boysie ...' she cut in on him, 'I've been there before ...'
'And where else have you been, sweetie?'
'You'd be surprised.'
'I bet. Looking forward to it?'
'Of course.'
'You sound like a bride, darling.'
'See you, Boysie.' She had hung up on him. Still playing it distant, he smiled, dialling the Whitehall number. The signal burped at the other end and he heard a woman's crisp efficient voice.
'Mandrake Club.'- The code name for the day.
'I have a reservation. Number Two, please.' Better be on the safe side just in case Mostyn had come in early for a change.
'Do you want Number Two personally?'
'Yes.'
'He's not in yet.'
'OK. Give me Two Five.'
'Very good. One minute.' He heard the exchange click and a man's voice came on:
'Two Five. Duty Waiter.'
'This is "L'',' said Boysie.
'Yes. Go ahead "L''.'
'I'm off duty and want to catch some real sun ...'
'One moment.' There was a pause. 'All right: yes, you're off duty, I was just checking.'
'I only wanted to say that I will be out of the country until Tuesday morning. In emergency you can get me at the Hotel Miramont, Menton, Alpes Maritimes, under my own name.'
'Understood. Thank you, "L". Behave yourself.'
'And you.' Mentally, Boysie gave him a 'soldier's farewell'.
He put down the receiver and grinned. In a grey building off Whitehall a young man sitting shirt-sleeved at a battery of coloured telephones made a note on an official file. 'Ten thirty-eight. Direct call from "L''. "L'' will be out of the country from a.m. today until a.m. Tuesday. Address, Hotel Miramont, Menton, Alpes Maritimes, France. Non-operational: under own name. Memos to Colonel Mostyn and pass to relieving D.O.' He pushed the slip across the desk to the honey-blonde secretary sitting at a small typing table in front of him. She smiled winningly and slid a sheet of paper into her typewriter. The Duty Officer of Special Security gazed into space and returned to pondering on the possibility of persuading the honey-blonde to spend Sunday at his flat in Knightsbridge - a vain hope, as he well knew that it was against the rules to frat with the hired help.
*
There was no doubt about it, Boysie was petrified with fear. It was the one thing that really worried and haunted him. Flying. Try as he could, the fear always swept into his guts just before take-off. The couple of twinges he had felt back in the flat were merely forerunners to the screaming terror that was now beginning to give him what Mostyn called 'the rectal twitch'. Seat belt tight across his midriff, he closed his eyes, and in a moment the whole wretched picture was clear. The Comet quivering on the runway. Brakes off. Wheels slashing the tarmac. The steep angle of climb; then, at about three hundred feet, the sudden, horrible shudder of engine failure or an incomprehensible error up on the flight deck.
There would be silence as the whole machine strained upwards against the sky, then dipped like some fairground monster to go whistling down. He could even hear the screams of his companions as he watched, from behind tightly shut lids, the slowmotion ball of fire and twisted metal gyrating towards him. Prophetically, the headlines of the evening papers were printed across his mind (HORROR AT LONDON AIRPORT), together with the familiar photograph of wreckage - a denuded tailplane pointing to the clouds, the ground mist of sinking smoke playing round a fireman's boots and, way down in column seven, his name among the bold-typed list of dead.
As the aircraft neared the turning point at the end of the runway, an arm of sunlight reached through the port nearest to him and, for a moment, the trick of light reflected his left eyebrow in the corresponding lens of his dark glasses. For a couple of seconds he glimpsed a bushy little forest speckled with tiny bulbs of sweat. He ran his hand over his forehead and blinked, feeling the pearls of water under his armpit change into rivulets, at the sudden movement, and trickle down his left side until they were blotted where his vest caught tight against the skin. His hands were unnaturally hot and his stomach jerked.
He dared not look around. A cursory glance as they had taxied away from the departure building had been enough. To the eye, his fellow travellers were unmoved by the imminent leap into the unusual environment of air and clouds. They looked calm, even matter-of-fact, chatty and relaxed. This was what he found so humiliating - the normal sense of loneliness magnified by the thought that he was the only terrified person among these insensible fleshlings: what rankled most was that, for him, it was so out of character.
Departure Building! Wasn't it the lounge at Tokyo Airport which bore the sinister legend FINAL DEPARTURE? The fear, he told himself, was irrational. Must think of something else. Statistics showed that the chances of being killed in a commercial airliner were infinitesimal: smaller even than the chance you took crossing Piccadilly Circus. (Immediately Boysie remembered the morning when a taxi's mudguard had caught him a glancing blow on the right buttock just after he had steppe
d off the pavement opposite the Trocadero. 'Mind your arse, guv'nor!' The driver had shouted through a grin embellished with National Health dentures.) Every time he flew, Boysie went through the same kind of personal hell; and after every trip, he swore that he would never do it again. But, in his kind of business, time and clients would not wait. The last occasion - only a week ago - had been a quick flight from London to Manchester, and he had been faced with the awful experience of sitting next to a man who, green-gilled, had muttered: 'The last time I was in an aeroplane, I was the only survivor.'
He wondered if Iris knew. Thank heaven she was not sitting with him, or behind him, to sense the fear. What would she think if she knew Boysie Oakes - Liquidator for Special Security - was transformed into a jelly at the thought of flying?
If he looked down the cabin he could see her hand resting on the aisle seat five rows to his right; her forefinger running rhythmically up and down the edge of the ashtray, as though she were trying to smooth out the metal. Perhaps this was the outward sign of some inward trepidation. Perhaps she was frightened as well. But he would never know. Boysie could never bring himself to ask her - even if they ever did get to Nice!
'Good-morning, ladies and gentlemen. Captain Andrews and his crew welcome you on board this Comet of British European Airways. In a few minutes we will be taking off for Nice. We will be flying at a height of...' The stewardess' voice pattered out the mechanical greetings in English and French. Boysie blanched at the usual request for passengers to read the safety instructions, and the qualifying sentence about this being only a 'routine measure'.
Up on the flight deck, they were completing the long pre-take-off drill as the aircraft neared the threshold - '...rudder limiter out, cabin signs on, inverters on, fuel cocks check, radio check ...' Cleared by Control, the big silver dart swept in a tight turn on to the runway, the Captain twisting the nosewheel steering to line up for the final race into the air.
