Paid and Loving Eyes l-16

by Jonathan Gash

  “Ta, love.” I meant shut up. Some hopes.

  “Plantations, domestics, factories.” Christ, had the stupid bitch never heard of inflexion? She sounded on automatic. “Thailand’s supposed to lead the world, Lovejoy. For exploitation of over three million child slaves, I mean: drug-packers, child prostitutes, leading exporter of bonded or chattelled slaves to the Gulf, Europe. Rongmung Road, near Bangkok’s railway station, the children are sold, to be chained workforces, or to baby brothels. Jan was horrified, not knowing, you see. He isn’t commercially minded. They told him at the Anti-Slavery place. I think they said ten pounds sterling to buy one child slave, though you can get wholesale deals…”

  “Excuse me, please. Can you stop half a sec, Gobbie?”

  I stared at the ceiling some more. I’d actually uttered the words, remembering, in the privacy of my own hotel doss-house room. Gobbie’d not stopped, of course. How could he, million miles an hour on some fast roads? I’d grumbled, finally told Gobbie to shut her up. She’d only obeyed when Gobbie gravelled out, “That’ll do, Lysette.” Why did she never do as I said, only that gerontic old sod? It gets my goat.

  “Lovejoy?” Veronique opening my door made me leap a mile. She laughed, eyes shining with that unholy thrill that came from within. “What were you doing? I startle you?”

  “Er, no, love, ta.” I was bathed in sweat. “Time, is it?” In every one of Great Britain’s old manufacturing towns, Glasgow to London, through the industrial North and Midlands, immigrant children are beaten, flogged to labour…

  “We’ve just had word.” She spoke coyly. “It’s tomorrow afternoon. You can get on with your merrymaking.” She paused, hand on the door, provocative. At least, she would have been provocative, except drugs meant she was no longer Veronique. She was a trillion different other folk, people I’d never met and didn’t know. Like talking to a chemistry set.

  “Off?” I said stupidly, mind cogging slowly into action.

  “Postponed.” She smiled over her lie, really more of a leer. Hideous. To think that I’d —“Worth it, was she?”

  Lost. “Worth it?”

  “You look, how d’you say in English, shagged out, Lovejoy.”

  Whoops. Forgotten I was supposed to have been wassailing with a local bird. “Superb, love,” I said weakly. Well, Swiss national honour and all that. “Beautiful.”

  “Good as I?”

  “Not quite, no.”

  “Tomorrow, Lovejoy, you and I will make sweet music, no?”

  “No. I mean yes.”

  She smiled. I’d never seen eyes so brilliant. “It will be such lovely music, Lovejoy. Like never before!” Her sentences were fraying in their chemical heaven.

  “Great. See you tomorrow, then. Ah, the money, love?”

  She pouted. “You do not trust little Veronique?”

  “Well, I need to, er, take the lady for supper.”

  “Guy is sleeping, Lovejoy. He has your money. I shall wake him eventually and bring it to you.”

  She left then, me calling a ta, see her later, all that. I let their bedroom whoopee start, heard them sink to silence, then departed that place, taking neither scrip nor purse nor staff to aid me on my way. Well, not exactly. I actually went into their room, stole Guy’s car keys from his jacket while they slept their sleep of the dust, and nicked their Porsche. My lies were as good as her lies any day.

  The Repository, I worked out as I drove, was model for Colonel Marimee’s mock-up. At the garden party, it had slowly swivelled, the way military models do when top brass play tactical planning. That way, the sun, moon, prevailing winds can be controlled, varied to whatever time their plodding minds plan the action. It’s called actual simulation, as if there can be such a thing.

  No daytime action, so night, with a moon as now, fitful yet businesslike. While admiring Lorela Chevalier’s territory, I’d particularly admired the surrounding hillsides. Quite nice mountains, really. Two positions overlooked the Repository mansion house. One was severely wooded, the other somewhat more sparsely. I paused to look at Guy’s map. The bloody thing didn’t give me phases of the moon. Just typical, I raged. The one time I needed it, they leave it out. Cartographers don’t deserve the money we spend on them, that’s for sure. I’d been under fire once or twice, and knew that you want to look down on a target. You leave it in light, while staying in shadow. I watched for the moon as I drove. The wretched thing never seemed to stay in one position. Was it always like that? Ours back in East Anglia wasn’t. Ours is tranquil, restfully there until it sinks behind some clouds to kip the day out. This Swiss moon rolled about like a puzzle pill, sodding thing. Dishonest.

  Odd that I wasn’t at all tired. Must be an adrenalin thing. Of the two sharp hills dominating the Repository, I’d already decided the one from which to watch the action. The wooded one, further along the twisting contoured road but more concealment for your actual coward. I felt excited, like going to a film I’d been awaiting. The Repository would be in darkness, leaving me blindly guessing which method Colonel Marimee had chosen to pull the robbery. Or the Repository would be lit like a football field, in which case I’d be the lone spectator at the grandest slickest action ever devised. I had no doubts about Marimee’s military genius. He’d scam the stuff out somehow, no problem. I was quivering to see how, though. Tonight I’d have all the excitement, and none of the risks. Like a holiday. I had to stop myself from singing that Vivaldi bit about a hundred sexy maidens.

  And after this, home. Please.

  Off the road, on the summit among trees. Pity about Swiss trees, really, all pines or pine-lookers. No variation, planted by some maths teacher with a theodolite, growing to order. Snow, surprised me, mainly because some of it was starting to fall thick, unwieldy. A sky glow showed me direction, though I’d already worked that out. Left? I thought about the motor, backed it on a more pronounced part of the slope so I could hop in and release the handbrake to course downhill. If I needed, I could either race off uphill in the direction I’d been heading, or swing back the way I’d come. I’d decide later. If Marimee’s men were slick and got the hell out in millisecs, I could simply drive off anywhere I liked, a simple innocent passing motorist. I parked safely.

  Up into the trees, a slow climb. From the car clock I worked out I had plenty of time. Two whole hours before the rip happened. It was perishing cold, no wind but those big flakes falling. I was surprised. They seemed to ignore the trees and fall down anyway. Perished, I went back for the car rug. I was in a forest, for Christ’s sake. Snow’s supposed to hit the trees, lodge in the blinking branches, make pretty for wandering artists, not slip through and land on me. Stupid snow, Switzerland’s. No hat, either. I hate getting my head wet. Under the blanket like a squaw, I plodded back up among the monotonous evergreens. Footprints now, I saw uneasily. Well, as long as nobody came by and glimpsed the Porsche, okay.

  Fifteen minutes, me blundering into those straight tree trunks every few yards. I was sure the bloody thing moved. And I hated the big snowflakes that came on my eyelashes. I had to keep pulling my hands out and wiping my vision free, damned stuff. Why didn’t Swiss snow give warning, like sending different sea winds so you could get ready? I call it basic lack of organization.

  Then, of a sudden, the best seat in the house. The Repository was laid out like a toy below, lit by floodlights. Lovely old mansion, with extensions that weren’t too bad as modern architecture goes. I could see the smaller separate place where our genuine antiques had gone for shipment. Mustard-coloured sills and doors, I noticed. Nice touch, Lorela. It was a cardboard cutout copy of Marimee’s garden-party mansion. No, the other way round. The Repository was the genuine place, his the one with the copycat garden to practise on.

  No real nooks in a Swiss forest, either. Once you stand still, a wind springs up, sends snowflakes swirling round your ankles. I finished up crouched down, close to a bole as I could get, hooded under my blanket. It stank, I noticed. What the hell had they been doing on the thing, for h
eaven’s sake?

  Looking down at the great house, I started thinking defensive. I mean, when I was a little lad, bits of those interminable Latin lessons stuck in my mind. Not very well. But it seemed that every time Caesar came across an oppidum, a fortified camp, he had to storm it for no other reason than it was there. Like, that’s what they’re for. The Repository’d had, what, seventy attempted robberies in two years?

  All unsuccessful, too, Lorela implied. She exuded confidence: nobody was going to besmirch her reputation. Confidence is daunting. I thought back. I’d never heard of anybody doing the Repository over. Plenty of failures, yes, but that’s life. Which was odd, very strange, almost so wrong it must be a fake story in itself. I mean, even the Tower of London’s Crown Jewels have been filched in their time. Down below, a small vehicle moved in silence across the snow-covered grounds. Nobody alighted. Another vehicle moved to meet it, disgorging dogs. Six, four huge and two short waddlers puffing along, pausing to stare at the perimeter fence and wall. No men stepped down.

  Except the more I looked at the place, the less I believed in it. Surely somebody could get in? Or were the guards in the blackedout vehicles down there actually Marimee’s hoods? Or in his pay? I was sure the Ali Baba must have been tried—hiding a team inside the antiques as they went into storage. Lorela had said as much. And all the rest of the thieves’ dodges, the Oliver, the donk, the lep, trackle, bammo, the over-and-over, the shagnast, the burnout, the Sunday joint, the spang, not forgetting all the electronic scams the lads are at these loony-tune days. Yet there the famous Repository was, being gently snowed upon. Inviolate, pristine, virgin.

  The floodlights went out. Plunge, all black. I almost exclaimed aloud.

  God, but Swiss hillside forests are dark when you take electricity away. It was suddenly colder. The chill non-wind came that bit faster. I creaked upright to make sure I could still move. Was it the syndicate’s first move, a fuse ploy? I peered, saw nothing. Just when I was getting really disgruntled, the floodlights slammed back on, frightening me half to death. Then, within a few seconds, off again. On after a count of forty-nine. After that they settled down to a steady hum. I don’t like that abrupt bland crash they make, not even at football matches. It makes me think they’re going to take off.

  They stayed on, and I thought. A warning device? The Repository computer had programmed erratic switch-offs, and notified the various cop shops and guard depots accordingly. Any variation from the plan meant somebody intruding. You wouldn’t need men watching. Police or other security teams’ computers would detect any unwonted variance within a split millisec. Clever. Not new, but on this big scale a definite deterrent. I smiled, wondering if the Commandant knew. I’ll bet he did. Was he watching even now, ready to go?

  But fortified places aren’t. Not really. They all get done sooner or later, because mankind’s ingenuity is tempted to the task. Take that terribly secret Code Black place the Yanks have. You know the one, where the President and his High Command will go the instant nuclear war starts. It’s so secret that the Federal Emergency Management Agency—it runs the place—doesn’t even mention it in its budget, for heaven’s sake. It’s even left out of the Classified Secret FEMA’s own phone book, except under “Special Facility”. And nobody knows its name. Between our secret selves, it’s called Mount Weather, secret code name SF, and is seven hundred secret acres of prime Virginia wooded land on County Road 601 some eight secret miles from Berryville near Washington. But if it’s so secret, how come I know? It can’t just be me and the United States President, can it?

  Off. Plunge into darkness. I waited, counting. The floods crashed-walloped on after more than two minutes. Erratic, planned to be. Good thinking, Lorela. A game girl—

  Engines, faint in the distance. I strained to hear. No vehicle lights that I could see, but then I was looking along the hillside ridge, so naturally wouldn’t. Waspish, snarly sorts, two or three, churning and whirring. Jeeps? Something like them, anyhow. No pretence at stealth.

  Nearer, savage gear changes, a swathe of headlights now, quickly extinguished, then on from another direction.

  The floodlights plunged out with a crash. On in an instant. The vehicles’ band-saw engines nearing, no lights now. What the hell? The two security motors in the illuminated grounds below had crawled away, leaving the arena empty. Curious how like a stage set it was, a studio’s rig for some shoot-out, brilliant panto lights for the purpose.

  The engines slumped. Silence. Me, the snow, the distant mansion elegantly occupying the illuminated terrain in that high perimeter wall

  Something went thump, a couple of miles to my left. I was still looking that way like a fool, so missed the Repository roof falling in with a cloud and shatter. I gaped. Two more thumps, so horribly familiar. The windows imploded, the whole front Repository wall falling in, bricks and dust and snow everywhere. I saw rooms, furniture inside, tumbling upwards into the sky. Flames whooshed out. The explosion felt like a charring oven wind.

  Thump, thump. Silence. Thump. And new explosions from the Repository. The main building was being incendiaried. No, that’s wrong. Past tense. The engines were already started, churning and snarling away. I stared.

  The Repository erupted, crackling, burning, what was left of it. Only the storage place stood untouched.

  “You silly buggers!” I yelled at the night sky, at the fires, at the beautiful buildings smashed to blazes in a few seconds. “You stupid sods! Couldn’t you have…?”

  Couldn’t they have what? They’d destroyed the syndicate’s fakes, by the hundred. All of them, torched to oblivion. The result of all those child-bondeds. They’d created slave-labour factories, gone to absurd lengths to have the fakes accepted in the Repository, then blown them to oblivion? Not to mention hiring a mob of ex-Legionnaires, with the Legion’s famed “battery flash” of six one-twenty mortars. Why?

  I’d seen it happen. Start to finish. The enslaved immigrant children, now the flaming rubble. Only the genuine antiques remained. Their building stood unharmed.

  How long I stood there I don’t know. It was only the sight of those two security motors crawling back to halt in bafflement at the appalling sight that made me move again. I started down the hillside, blundering so fast I missed my footing and several times went tumbling, but got myself up and ran on. Lost my blanket, of course, but who can trace a blanket?

  The metalled road’s surface jarred under my heel, practically knocking the teeth from my head. No sign of my red motor. I looked left, right. Which way had I come among the trees? The sky glow behind was brighter now, far more than the floodlight’s glim, and orange. No clues. Had I angled right, left? I was sure I’d climbed directly up. At least, I was almost nearly certain I was sure.

  Right. Only a guess, but that was the way Marimee’s vehicles had come. The speed of the thing had been devastating. Famous Foreign Legion stuff, that, the flying column, the swift four-minute unlimbering, shell the enemy with one-twenties, and off. But mortaring the damned place to smithereens?

  Something coming up behind me. I ducked into the trees, up a slope, ran and hid. The motor seemed familiar, if one ever can. I gaped as it came at a fast lick, slithering on the snow at the bend. I almost shouted, but something was closing on it fast. They arrived almost opposite me, the motor hitting a pine tree and sliding sideways, lodging there. In for the night, it seemed to say, after that run. The pursuing motor was a jeep. It stopped by simply sticking to the ground, the way four-wheel-drive militaries do.

  A man got out, familiar, walking slow. He came at the saloon car. Its engine was still going, lights on.

  And Gobbie looked out. Left-hand drive, of course, so he was my side. Marc walked at him, without speaking. He was armed, a long single-barrelled high-velocity job. I drew breath to bawl out, “Leave him alone, you bastard.” But shouted nothing.

  Gobbie must have known what was coming, because he raised his fist to strike at least one blow before Marc clubbed him. Quite ineffectual, natura
lly. The Swiss simply swung his stock in through the car window, on Gobbie’s temple. It splatted on the side of Gobbie’s head, an abrupt, horrid thick sound that made Gobbie dead that instant. He fell away inside the car.

  Marc opened the door, casually shoved Gobbie across with his foot, got in, moved the car a few feet to point downhill, and released the brake. He stepped out, watched the motor trundle down the slope. I thought, almost delirious, Hey, hang on, that’s Gobbie. And did nowt. Marc drove his own vehicle in watchful pursuit. I saw his red tail-lights go on. And Gobbie’s car slid, even where the road curved, straight into the trees. It crumped, burst into a guttering flame for a minute, then erupted with a whoosh.

  Marc’s motor drove sedately off, its light fading among the trees. My mind went. He murdered a pathetic old man, my pal. And I did nothing. I was afraid, scared, too terrified even to try to distract the killer. Who had stood a second beside Gobbie’s car, pounding my old mate with the stock of his hunting rifle, a murderous washerwoman action.

  That meant my motor was concealed upslope, my nonfunctioning brain went, or they’d have seen it, come hunting me.

  In silence I waited, snowed on, quiet, still. The sounds of vehicles died. No lights as yet. Why not? Too far from the fire station? No police stations, this far from anywhere? Watchers don’t get medals. They get life. Like all cowards. Like me.

  A crunch from below sounded. I swear I felt a waft of heat on my face. Something more had exploded near some bend downhill.

  My face was unbelievably cold, partly because it was wet. The snowflakes, I suppose, melting on me. You can’t keep them off your eyes. Why not, if you can keep rain away? I found my—Guy’s—motor untouched, no footmarks round it. They’d see mine when they came, unless the snow got on with it and obscured everything. Except people who carry out a reconnaissance like Marimee’d done, and who could obliterate a mansion as swiftly as I’d just seen, don’t tend to leave loose ends. Marc the henchman hadn’t. Police would surely have minions combing the hillside for traces of visitors. Snow may be good at footprints, but it’s not so good at tartan blankets hanging from a branch. I didn’t go back for it.