Flight From Honour

by Gavin Lyall

  The man in the hood and cape had kept them on and was stifling, but he went doggedly on. “His name is Senator Giancarlo Falcone, He used a different name here – Vascotti – perhaps you’d remember that, he may always use it again. But we’re quite sure of who he is. His father was Triestine. Now comes the difficult part – which is why we need men of your great experience.” He paused for either man to show he’d taken in the flattery, but got nothing. Silvio’s tetchiness seemed assuaged by the sight of gold and he sat calmly waiting; Bozan was still playing with the coins like pretty beach pebbles.

  “He has a villa near Venice and another in Turin. We believe he’s there now. But we don’t want him killed in Italy if possible. The Italian police will invent their own motives and play politics with it. So I want you to go to Turin – do you know it?”

  “Like my mother’s purse.” Silvio had relaxed enough to smile, showing uneven teeth, probably broken in the early days when he was making a reputation on victims who fought back.

  “Good. Find lodgings and send the address to Jankovic, care of the Poste Restante there. He will make arrangements for you, he knows languages, other countries, you can rely on him. But we rely on you for the real work.” This was delicate ground; honour was involved. “And that will come when Falcone leaves Italy.”

  “Is he suspicious?”

  The hooded man paused, trying to think as well as stifle. “In Trieste he was jumping at his own footsteps. But he isn’t used to being suspicious, so it probably comes and goes. He’s important, so he thinks he’s clever, which should make it easier for you.”

  Silvio might have agreed, but wasn’t going to show it. He just grunted.

  “If you have no questions . . . ? The Committee has one other request, but it’s no more than that.” He groped under his cape and laid an automatic pistol on the table, politely keeping the muzzle pointed towards himself. “We’d be grateful for your opinion on this if you care to use it in the execution. You may already know it: the new English Webley .455-inch.”

  Bozan had stopped playing with the coins and was staring at the gun with glistening eyes. Then his pudgy little hands stabbed like biting snakes, seized the pistol and flickered over it like snakes’ tongues, finding the magazine catch, snapping the empty magazine out and in again, cocking the action, sighting it . . . in a moment he seemed to have a lifetime’s experience of it. The Treasurer stared with horrified fascination.

  The hooded man laid two handfuls of short, heavy cartridges on the table and watched them snatched up and slipped expertly into the magazine. He glanced at Silvio, ignoring the theory that you watched the eyes of the man with the gun. He was relieved to see that the other, more normal, eyes seemed quite calm.

  So he continued: “You note that it fires an exceptionally heavy bullet for an automatic pistol. This may or may not be to your taste. There might also – for us – be the advantage that, if the bullet is recovered and identified, the English Secret Service could get the blame. But that’s a small matter.”

  Silvio smiled and stood up. “We’ll think about it. Now put it away and come along, Bozan.”

  Bozan unbuttoned the bottom of his jacket and swiftly tucked the pistol out of sight. Silvio then made the mistake of reaching for the gold; Bozan’s hands slapped down on the pile and he made a whining sound like a disappointed dog. Silvio sighed. “All right. You can play with them later, but bring them along now.” His look challenged the other two to comment, but they said nothing. In fact, the Treasurer was holding his breath, and went on holding it until they heard the front door crash shut. Then he let out an enormous gasp.

  The man in the hood ripped it off and gulped for air, red-faced and streaming sweat. “Sweet Jesus forgive me for ever having eaten lobster.” He took a half-smoked cigar from a saucer and relit it, breathing the smoke as if it were all the scents of Paradise. “And where in God’s name did you find that hood? It smelled as if a dog had died in it. Also I must have swallowed a kilo of fluff.” He spat to prove it.

  The Treasurer was staring at his own hands on the table-top. “I’m still shaking. Just look. Where do you find people like that?”

  “It’s my job to find people like that. And their job depends on being found.” He stood up and began unbuttoning the cloak. “And what do you expect mercenary assassins to be like? – it isn’t a job you drift into because the baker doesn’t need an apprentice.”

  The Treasurer nodded gloomily. “That Bozan . . . is he the one who does the killing?”

  “I’d imagine so.”

  “I don’t want to imagine any more than I’ve seen.” Then, immediately contradicting himself: “Imagine having him after you . . .”

  “It’s all they exist for – but Jankovic will keep them in order. Without him, they’d be lost north of the Alps.” He had stripped off the cloak and the shabby old trousers that might have showed beneath it. He bundled them into an old travelling bag. “And don’t forget all the junk upstairs.”

  “Was all that business with the oath really necessary? And did you have to give them a gun? Seeing the way that Bozan . . .” He shivered.

  “Men like that want to know who they’re working for. They don’t care, they just like to know. So now they think they’re working for Colonel Apis and his regicides in Belgrade. And that’s all they can tell anybody if they get caught. Nothing to do with Austria or us, just the Serbs. Nobody looks for motives from them.”

  “Are they likely to get caught? And all that money going to waste?”

  The other paused in his dressing to give the Treasurer a twisted smile. “Now I hear the ring of true concern. No, of course not, not before they kill Falcone. They won’t have done anything to be caught for. But afterwards . . .” he shrugged and smiled; “there’s always the chance of Jankovic dropping a hint that they had a gun like that. It’s still quite rare.”

  “So if they use that gun, it betrays them?”

  “Betrayal? You talk of betraying that trash? Do you really want them wandering free?”

  “No, of course not,” the Treasurer said hastily. “Just . . .” Then he changed the subject. “So all that about the English Secret Service was nonsense, too? Thank God. We certainly don’t want them involved. Aren’t they supposed to be the best in the world?”

  “One hears things.” He had buttoned up his working clothes and picked most of the fluff out of his scalp. “But they’re only men.” He put on his cap and looked around, but there wasn’t a mirror in the room. Quite likely not in the whole building. “How do I look?”

  The Treasurer hardly glanced at him. “Like what our masters pay you to be: an upright and honourable Captain of Police.”

  3

  Brussel’s civilian aerodrome lay in the south-eastern suburb of Etterbeek, only a few minutes by train from the Quartier-Leopold station. It didn’t look impressive, but aerodromes never did: just a few stark wooden sheds floating on the last of the early morning mist. But to O’Gilroy it could have been the new Jerusalem.

  He headed for a group of men standing back from a single monoplane which was being fussed over by a couple of mechanics. Most of them were clearly Belgian; that is, wearing gloomy dark suits or sombre, sturdy overcoats. One man stood out in his light fawn suit, light hat and a bronze-coloured overcoat draped dashingly around his shoulders. O’Gilroy decided this must be his man, and shook his head disapprovingly at his prominence.

  “Excuse me, sir, but would ye be Senator Fal-con-e?” He pronounced the name as if reading it, badly.

  “Yes?” Falcone looked at him critically. The new man was tall and loose-limbed inside a rather stiff tweed suit of the sort Continental cartoonists used, accurately, to denote Britons travelling abroad. He had a lean, bony face, dark hair under a tweed cap, and a wry, almost sneering expression.

  Now he nodded. “The Embassy said ye wanted someone to watch yer back. I’m it. Conall O’Gilroy.”

  They shook hands. O’Gilroy went on: “I asked for ye at the hotel and they s
aid I’d be finding ye out here. No trouble at all, they jest told me.”

  He sighed when Falcone didn’t see the import of that, just saying: “Very good. Are you armed?”

  “I am.” O’Gilroy made no move to prove it.

  “Very good,” Falcone said again. “So now . . . ah, you will guard me, no?”

  “Ye think someone’s trying to kill ye?”

  The blunt question disconcerted Falcone. “Ah, I am not . . . How can I be sure?”

  “Ye’d best make up yer mind. I like to know if I’m saving yer life or jest standing around looking pretty.”

  Falcone glared; this was not the way a bravo should act. As a senior senator, his demand for help from the British embassy had been instinctive. But the shadowy figures glimpsed in the streets of a strange city seemed mere fancies on this bright morning in the familiar – to him – atmosphere of an aerodrome. He felt annoyed at himself and transferred it easily to O’Gilroy.

  “I am a senator in Italy and I am to meet with your Foreign Office in London,” he announced firmly. “I have been followed, I am sure of it. There are two men – one is tall, the other is short. And yesterday a man with a Slav accent asked at the hotel if I stayed there. He did not want to meet me, just to know if I am there.”

  “Is there a good reason they’d want to kill ye?” O’Gilroy asked calmly. That didn’t help, because Falcone wasn’t going to answer truthfully. He looked around, and saw that the little group around the aeroplane was dispersing and the pilot climbing in . . .

  “I must go for a flight now. It is arranged a long time, but it will be quick. We will talk when I am back.”

  “Arranged a long time? – so plenty of people know about it?”

  “What you think is not possible. I am worried about guns, knives—”

  “They’re not the only way to kill ye. Anything else happen?”

  “No, no—” Then he seemed to remember something, and quietened into a puzzled frown.

  A stout man with a moustache you could have hunted tigers in came up beside them, tipped his homburg hat to Falcone and spoke swiftly in French.

  Glad of the distraction, Falcone explained: “The aeroplane is waiting. Now I must—”

  “Now hold on,” O’Gilroy persisted. “I’m not being buggered about like this. What yer life counts to yerself, I’d not be knowing. What it counts to me is a job done proper.”

  Falcone renewed his glare. “Your embassy told me—”

  “Sod the embassy, yer dealing with me. What else happened?”

  The stout man was looking at O’Gilroy with a good deal of distaste. Falcone smiled weakly and resumed the conversation in French. The stout man shrugged and walked away.

  “The pilot will do a . . . a flying test first,” Falcone said. “But then, most certainly I will go . . .”

  “So what happ—”

  “Today, as I leave the hotel, there is a box sent to me. I leave late, it should have come after I am gone . . . perhaps that is the plan. It says on it – in Italian – ‘Good luck in the flight. Please give to Senator Falcone when he returns’.”

  “What was in it?”

  “I was late, hurrying, I did not open it.”

  The engine of the aeroplane sputtered into life, briefly clouding the pilot in smoke, then settled to a steady buzz. A couple of mechanics took hold of the wingtips and swung the machine round, then guided it out across the worn and oil-stained grass.

  To Falcone’s relief, this fascinated O’Gilroy; at least it stopped his cross-examination.

  “Do you know aeroplanes?”

  O’Gilroy’s sneer turned to a wry smile. “I’ve read all I can about them, but never been up in one.”

  “Ah. It is magnificent.” Falcone grabbed the chance to reassert himself. “A new world. I am an aeronaut, in Italy I am one of the first ever to fly. But two years ago, I am in a crash and my back . . .” He patted himself around his kidneys.

  O’Gilroy nodded, forced himself to look suspiciously around the little scatter of spectators, then concentrated on the aeroplane.

  Having positioned it about fifty yards away, the mechanics stood aside. The engine buzzed more fiercely, the aeroplane rolled forward and its tail lifted. It did two long bounces and rose just above the ground. Standing a pace behind Falcone, O’Gilroy saw the Senator’s shoulders lift, unconsciously urging the machine upwards. He smiled briefly.

  The aeroplane climbed steadily, swaying a little, then tipped into a turn to the left. It kept climbing.

  “Would it be a Blériot, then?” O’Gilroy asked.

  “The design is of a Blériot but is made here with changes by a Belgian company.”

  “And what engine does it have?”

  “A Gnome rotary. You know the rotary engine?”

  “Read about it.”

  “It is imbecile, but it works. The whole engine turning round with the propeller, and the . . . the crankshaft staying still, fixed to the aeroplane. And oil – poosh!” He jerked his hands explosively. “Oil everywhere. But it is light of weight and has very little vibration.”

  The aeroplane levelled out, having circled until it was back over the aerodrome, then its nose dipped and a few seconds later, the puttering engine noise died.

  “Ah, he cuts the . . . the ignition,” Falcone said, enjoying being in charge again. “With the rotary engine, you do not use so much the air and petrol controls, it is more simple to stop the ignition.”

  The aeroplane was drifting down – vol-planing, they called it – to come in to land.

  “I think he will need just a little more of the engine,” Falcone predicted. “He does not want to—”

  Then the aeroplane writhed and something big twisted off: the whole engine and propeller. Unbalanced, the aeroplane reared on its tail. “Madre di Dio!” Falcone whispered.

  Then, delayed by distance, they heard the engine backfire, buzz for a moment, and cut out. The aeroplane flopped forward and immediately reared again, twisted, and the pilot fell out. The tiny figure fell, arms and legs flailing, with a horrible purposefulness that the fluttering, prancing aeroplane lacked. Then they heard his scream.

  It went on long after he had hit the ground in a puff of dust. It ended as the aeroplane struck, turning from a shape into a heap in a bigger cloud of dust. They heard that crash, and then it was over. No fire, just the drifting dust and running men.

  “I don’t think me pistol’d have saved ye from that,” O’Gilroy observed.

  Back at the Grand Hotel, O’Gilroy watched as Falcone undid the wrapped box. Inside, resting on crumpled newspaper, lay a single white lily. And a crudely drawn picture of a gun, a dagger and a bottle marked veleno.

  Falcone had gone stiff and pale, but also perplexed.

  “What’s it mean?” O’Gilroy asked.

  “The Ujedinjenje ili Smrt . . . It is a secret society of Serbia . . . But I not understand Serbia . . . Why do they want to kill me?”

  O’Gilroy didn’t know, either, but was content that Falcone now believed somebody really did. It made it easier to keep him alive. “So what’s yer plans now?”

  Falcone came co a firm decision. “I want to go to England. Will you come also?”

  “Sure, I’m due back. I’ll—”

  “The hotel will get us tickets on the boat for tonight.”

  “No. Give me some money and I’ll get the tickets. Ye stick here and pack. Have ye got a gun of yer own?”

  Falcone found it in his overcoat pocket: it was identical to O’Gilroy’s own, a Belgian-made Browning automatic.

  “Fine. Shoot anyone who comes in. Except me.”

  4

  Perhaps quite unintentionally, the September sun stared brightly in through the southern windows of the Secret Service Bureau. However, it was only half past ten in the morning and the Bureau was, after all, a Government office, so as yet there was hardly anyone there to notice the indiscretion. Captain Matthew Ranklin, Royal Artillery, was one of the few, but he was shuffling pape
rs in an office on the far side of their set of attic-shaped rooms and his window faced west to the roof of the new War Office building.

  Major Dagner came in. It was only his second day in the office and he still wore uniform, which Ranklin had hinted wasn’t strictly necessary in the Secret Service. Dagner had thanked him politely but pointed out that, living so near the War Office, it virtually counted as a disguise. The uniform was Indian Army, a Gurkha regiment, and had the DSO heading a row of campaign ribbons. He put his cap and stick on a table and tossed his gloves into the cap. “Is the Chief in?”

  Ranklin nodded towards the sound-proofed inner door. “He’s still saying his goodbyes to the stenographers.”

  The Commander (Ranklin flatly refused to call him ‘Chief’, that was a stoker’s rank) was going on holiday, much delayed whilst he waited for Dagner’s arrival. At least, he called it a ‘holiday’ but what it involved was letting his moustache grow, kitting himself out with a high-buttoned green hunting jacket, Tyrolean hat, a swordstick, and booking a ticket for Bavaria. Most of the Bureau seemed to think this was absolutely wonderful, particularly since the old boy spoke so little German. Ranklin thought it was monumentally childish.

  But there was a lot of the child left in the Commander. And Ranklin had begun to see the value of his stubbornness and wilfulness when it came to protecting the young Bureau from more carnivorous Government departments.

  Anyway, once the Commander had gone, there might be a chance to get the place organised. Right now, he was browsing through the annual Confidential Reports of the four young officers who had just joined them. He opened a new one and lit his pipe.

  “Nice day again,” Dagner said, staring down into the street. “I still can’t grasp how much London’s changed. All these new buildings; Whitehall’s being completely taken over by Government offices – and motor-cars. London used to smell like a stable-yard; now it stinks like an engine-room. All in ten years.”