Quiller Barracuda

by Adam Hall

You have a point.

  'I need to know a little more,' I told her.

  'We can't talk now. I asked you to come here to meet that man, not to discuss what I know. My apartment has a security guard, and you'll be absolutely -'

  'I'm used to looking after my own security. That's why I need to know more.'

  She looked hunted, glancing around her. 'But in a public place like this -'

  'It's very private, actually. There are no bugs in the walls. Give me the gist. I need to know how serious this thing is.' Whether, in fact, it was serious enough to force me to take the risk of going to her apartment.

  She looked around her again, pressed, frightened. That was my impression. 'All right,' she said in a moment, 'here it is.' She moved back against the wall, against the big mural of sails heeling across a choppy sea with spindrift blowing, and said quickly and softly, 'I told you there were plans, with Senator Judd as the prime mover, to buy America. I know more about it now. On board the Contessa there's a faction calling itself the Trust, frighteningly powerful, awesomely influential in world affairs. It has people like Apostolos Simitis, the shipping magnate, Lord Joplyn of Eastleigh, who controls more than half the mineral deposits in South Africa, Takao Sakomoto, the leading industrialist in Japan. Maybe you haven't heard of these men -'.

  'No -'

  'Then take it from me, they're the puppet masters behind the scenes of international finance. People like Stylus von Brinkerhoff, the Swiss banker – the man I was hoping you could meet here tonight. They -' she broke off as someone came through the arches towards the rest rooms, passing within a dozen feet of us. In a moment – 'My God, this is so dangerous, talking in a place like this. But you wanted the gist, and it's this, Richard. These men plan to buy America – and sell it to the Soviets. In the declared interests of the final and permanent laying down of arms among nations, they propose the creation of a single world government, behind whose public throne they can exert their private power. And to meet the enormous demands of demographic reorganisation they envisage the setting of that throne to be in Moscow.'

  Watching me for my reaction, didn't see anything. But my pulse was elevated: I could feel it. It was going to be worth it, then, worth going to her flat, taking the risk, because she couldn't be making this up: it had the appalling ring of truth.

  'We'll go there separately,' I said.

  To my apartment?'

  'Yes.'

  'I have the limo here. We can talk -'

  'No,' I said. 'For the sake of security.'

  'Yours, or mine?'

  It seemed to worry her.

  'Both.'

  Mine, if this whole thing was a trap. Hers, if they put me in the cross hairs out there and missed, and hit her instead. It wasn't a night for taking chances.

  'Okay. You have my address?'

  'You gave me your card.'

  She got up, straightening the lame belt. 'I'll be there inside of forty-five minutes, depending on the traffic. You'll be alone?'

  'Of course.'

  She left me.

  Setting me up.

  She's setting you up.

  Probably.

  This is a trap, you know that.

  Probably.

  So don't go there. Don't be such a -

  Oh for Christ's sake shut up. I know what I'm doing.

  It's a trap, it's a trap, it's -

  Shuddup.

  Snivelling little bloody organism, scared of its own shadow, one of them over there by the french windows, he'd been there since I'd first come in, another one by the doors, talking to a girl, chatting her up, good cover, another one on the dance floor, engrossed, or seemingly engrossed until he saw my signal and said something at once to the girl and she laughed quickly so I imagine he'd said if he didn't go and wring out a kidney soon there'd be an accident, because he was coming towards the men's room and I went back through the archway and cut across him in the corridor, a small neat-looking man with glasses, never look at him twice unless you noticed his eyes, cold as the eyes of a reptile, the kind of man I like to see when they're meant to be keeping me as far as possible from the slab in the morgue, stretched out under the shroud and stinking of formaldehyde, it's a trap, oh for God's sake bugger off.

  'Have you seen Lucas?' he asked me.

  'No, but I've seen Baldwin. The way I want it is like this. She's leaving here in about fifteen minutes and it's going to take her another thirty to reach her flat. Here's the address. I'm -'

  'I know the address.'

  'I'm going over there by the bar and wait until I see her leave. I want her tagged and I want you to see if she makes any kind of signal and if she does I want you to see who gets it and what he does, where he goes, if he -'

  'Normal routine,' he said.

  Starchy bastard, as bad as Ferris, put on a pout when they think they're being told how to do their job, but I liked that because only the real professionals have got that degree of pride and tonight I wanted real professionals about me, my good friend, not yonder Cassius.

  'Whatever happens, I'm going to follow her to her flat as if I didn't know any better, and if you people find you've got a lot to deal with I want you to do exactly as much as you need to, including deadly force if you think I'm endangered – has C of S cleared you on this?'

  'Yes.'

  'What have you got for me out there? Something with smoked glass?'

  'A limo, yes.'

  'I'll sit in the back. Providing -'

  'As long as you don't tell Nancy, you know what I mean?'

  'She thinks you don't sleep around?'

  'That's exsh – exactly what she thinks.'

  Peals of restrained mirth, their voices fading.

  'Providing I reach her flat without any diversions, I want all the cover you can give me at the moment when I get out of the car. How many people are there outside her flat now?'

  'Four. Crosby, Mace -'

  'Where will you be?'

  'Following your limo, two cars behind. Black Honda coupe, Florida plates.'

  'All right, when you -' broke off to let him concentrate on the two men over there by the reception desk. He turned his head an inch and got a signal from the man standing by the curtains picking at his nails.

  'They're okay.'

  'Have you seen any Sicilians here?'

  'Nine. They haven't seen you, not to recognise.'

  'Where are they?'

  'Five outside, two of those are in the car park. The others are in here, that one over there, the one on the far side with the cummerbund, those two by the bar.'

  He meant he'd seen them before or they'd been seen before by one or more of the other support people here tonight, seen and recognised. There could be a dozen more of them, a hundred, they've got a vote too, got political views, go to political parties, eat cookies, crap, close in on you, aim for the head, splinters of bloodied bone from the site of exit in the skull, you're taking a risk, you're playing Russian roulette again, you -

  Oh for God's sake piss off.

  'When you see me getting out of the car I shall want your personal signal as to whether you think I should go into the building. You're Hood, aren't you?'

  'Yes.'

  Seen him before, North Africa, Loman had put him into the field for Tango, he'd impressed me, knew how to drive, how to subdue, a man, how to make no noise, ask no questions, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't send him up to Norfolk for training as a shadow if he lived long enough, though it's a fraction chancy for the troops, as you know, look at the one they got last night in Riverside Way.

  'All right,' I said, 'tell someone to get my car moved within sight of her limo. She -'

  "That's been taken care of. You're on the west side, three rows from the gates and five cars along from the middle aisle. She's on the same side, two rows from the gates and six along, the gaps counting as cars, because there's a lot of movement down there now with people still leaving. Your driver's waiting for you there, name of Treader. I'd better fade.'
>
  I moved round the room, keeping behind people when I could, watching for Erica. In ten minutes she came through one of the arches with a man, talking intently. I hadn't seen him before. Hood was watching him from the bar. I moved again, this time towards the reception area, and I was outside by the time she came across the porch. She was still talking to the man, listening to him, neither smiling, nothing social, and when they parted she simply turned away and he went back inside.

  There were other people drifting across the lawns and along the pathways, dinner jackets, bare suntanned arms, cigars, the glitter of jewellery, sudden laughter, a drunk getting rather loud and then being hushed, chauffeurs coming forward, some of the men in blue serge moving into the crowd, music still coming from the building through the open french windows, a three-quarter moon afloat in a clear sky above the turreted roof, a fine night, windless but close, oppressive.

  I didn't know where Croder was, or if in fact he was here by now; he hadn't necessarily been on board the shuttle chopper I'd heard earlier. There was another one on the pad with its rotor turning but I think it was taking off, not landing. Croder might not be here at all, though I assumed he'd be somewhere in Miami by now. There was still a chance that Erica would agree to meet him, give him the whole thing.

  That had been Ferris, I think, doing his homework, going through my debriefing on the Kruger Drug meeting and suggesting that Croder follow me in to Miami in case Erica was ready to talk.

  She was walking down to the gates, another man with her now, a bodyguard, keeping pace from a short distance behind, his head turning the whole time. Someone was laughing in the little group on the west side of the car park – the chopper was airborne over the pad and some balloons were blowing across the people's heads in the down draught.

  I went through the gates not far behind Erica and peeled off to the left, walking five cars along and three rows down. I was in a small open space now, with no one near me, and I saw the man signal me from the limousine. I didn't see anyone looking in my direction, but I'd seen Hood over towards the aisle, covering me, and I felt the pressure coming off, the pervasive fear that had been with me since I'd arrived here.

  My shoes – Monck's shoes – slipped a little over the brick-red tiles; I suppose they were new ones. The chopper was passing overhead now and some of the coloured balloons were sent blowing to the ground and bouncing and flying up again in the draught from the rotors as the chopper slowed, hovering, and I looked up and saw the door coming open a few inches and the submachine gun poking through the gap and the dark orange flame as it began firing.

  Chapter 19: MAZDA

  Picked up the phone and dialled.

  'Yes?'

  Voice I didn't know.

  'DIF.'

  'He's not here.'

  'Then give me the number.'

  Rage, great rage.

  'Parole?'

  'Barracuda. Give me that number.'

  'He's mobile. Here it is.'

  Wrote it down on the pad. 'Christ,' I told the driver, 'is this the best you can do?'

  'We're jammed solid,' he said. Treader.

  Ringing tone.

  Smoked windows, I couldn't see much more than highlights outside, glass, chromium, police cars with their roofs lit up. Sirens fading in, a fire truck, an ambulance, rage, great rage.

  'Yes?' Ferris.

  'Listen,' I said, 'they've hit Cambridge.' Get in control, accommodate it, but Jesus Christ we should have seen it coming. We -'

  'Where are you?' Ferris asked.

  'In the limo, outside the Yacht Club.'

  Good evening. Brilliant smile. This is Erica Cambridge, and these are my views.

  The bloody thing pumping out rapid fire and her white silk dress turning crimson and the bodyguard trying to reach her but going down too, his body humped and jerking as the shots went in, then the chopper lifting suddenly and very fast, leaving the balloons blowing across the car park, blue and green and red and yellow, whirling in the wind above the people's heads as some of the women screamed and went on screaming until a kind of silence came, the sound of the chopper fading across the sea.

  'Get in!"

  Treader, dragging me to the car and hustling me into the back, slamming the door and getting behind the wheel and starting up and moving off, someone hysterical in the crowd just here where the woman was lying, the woman and the man, their blood pooling in the moonlight.

  Rage, fierce rage.

  And these are my views.

  Let them stand.

  'You saw it happen?' I heard Ferris asking.

  'Yes. I saw it happen.'

  Get in control. It was nasty but the executive in the field is reporting to his director and there is the need for control, for decorum, you understand, there is no room here for personal feelings.

  'How did it happen?'

  You're perfectly right, how indeed did it happen, they'll want it for the signals board in London. 'A chopper took off from the pad here and came across the car park and someone opened the door and used a submachine gun at a range of fifty feet.'

  In a moment, 'Where were you?'

  'Not that close. They weren't making any mistake. It was a straight, accurate hit.'

  We moved forward, slowed again. The cars were jamming at the stop sign where the Yacht Club drive met the main road. Police whistles blowing – they were trying to clear the exit roads but it was difficult because a lot of people had obviously stopped their cars to see what had happened, some of them standing on the roof.

  'They didn't know you were there,' Ferris said. 'The chopper didn't shift its -'

  'No. This was just for her.'

  We'll go to my apartment and I'll show you what I'm talking about. It's actually on paper, duplicated. You know what I'm saying? A whole brief, do you understand?

  The product. Mission completed.

  Not now.

  'All right.' Ferris sounded a touch over-controlled, very cool, his articulation precise. We had come, after all, so very close to wrapping this one up and going home. 'Your instructions are to -'

  'Listen,' I said, 'her phone must have been tapped. They picked up her call to Nassau tonight.'

  'You think so?'

  'She'd been on the yacht and she asked me along to the club to meet Stylus von Brinkerhoff and said it was very important for me to meet him. She also named Proctor. We were bugged. We must have been.'

  'It didn't cross your mind,' Ferris asked carefully, 'at the time?'

  'All that crossed my mind was that she could be trying to trap me.'

  Scared for my own skin, it doesn't do, you know, it doesn't get you anywhere except on the bloody slab, but the problem was that I was still scared because I was still in a red sector and we were jammed solid in a pack of cars and if one of Toufexis's hit men had seen me leaving the club and going down to the car park they'd come for me and it wouldn't do any good keeping the doors locked because they'd just smash a window with the muzzle and start pumping.

  Control, yes. There must be a modicum of clear thinking. 'Listen,' I told Ferris, 'this won't wait for debriefing. There's an international syndicate called the Trust, and von Brinkerhoff is a member. Their objective is to "buy America and sell it to the Soviets" – I quote.' I gave him the other names she'd told me, and filled in the details. 'She said she'd got it all on paper, a whole brief, she called it, at her apartment. So if you can get permission to go and look around -'

  'Someone broke in there, half an hour ago.'

  Merde.

  'How do you know?'

  'I had some people stationed there in case it was in fact some kind of trap. Two patrol cars arrived and they followed the police inside the building and said they were reporters. The doorman told them he'd been attacked and tied up, fifteen minutes before. They found Cambridge's door open, with the lock smashed.'

  The place ransacked, every drawer pulled out, the pictures dragged off the wall to find the safe, the bedding all over the floor, the mattress ripped, an
d in the end they'd found it, the brief, they must have, because she hadn't even thought about checking for bugs on the phones in her flat or the phone in her car, she wasn't intelligence, she was political, didn't understand things like cover, had probably just dropped the brief onto the coffee table or somewhere and they'd looked right past it at first and then they'd seen it and there was nothing we could do about it now.

  We were moving suddenly, free of the jam, going north-east along Bayshore Drive.

  'It could have been Proctor,' I said.

  'That is our thinking.' His and Croder's. 'He was seen landing from the yacht's cutter.'

  'When?'

  'Earlier tonight, just before eleven.'

  Slight jolt to the nerves.

  'They lost him?' They must have, or Ferris would be telling me where Proctor was now.

  'Within minutes.'

  Support people are exactly that: they are troops in the field and they lack the refined, exhaustive training of the shadow executives. Even if I'd tagged Proctor myself he would have made it difficult for me because he was on my own level, competent and seasoned.

  So Proctor was off the Contessa and back in the streets of the city and he'd probably conducted the break-in himself because he was very good at it and he'd been looking for a vital piece of product. He had also cut right across the potential end-phase of Barracuda and put us back onto square one.

  'If he landed at 10:45,' I said, 'that was about an hour after Cambridge phoned me in Nassau. It would've taken him about an hour to reach land from the Contessa. That call must have been bugged and Proctor himself could have been listening in.'

  The thought of it gave me another jolt. 'Hold on,' I told Ferris. 'Treader, how far are we to the safe-house?'

  He half-turned his head. 'Ten minutes, bit more.'

  'Don't go any closer. Keep on the move but don't circle that area.'

  'Got it.' I saw him checking the outside mirrors.

  'Is Hood with us?'

  'Two cars behind.'

  12:41 on the digital clock.

  I said to Ferris, 'She must have taken that brief without their knowing – they wouldn't have given it to her. There would have been several copies, and they didn't know that copy was missing until she phoned me in Nassau over a bugged line. Then Proctor knew.'