It was at this point that Jones began to feel things were going wrong. By this time Dingle, still up in the flat, should have contacted him over the radio. But the tiny loudspeaker plugged into his ear remained silent.
He watched the car anxiously, uncertain what to do. He should warn Williams in the van — but if he spoke on the radio, he would betray himself to the other, unknown watcher.
The man who had come out of the building was standing on the pavement, holding open the rear door of the car.
Two more figures appeared, hurrying down the steps. They were dragging a limp form between them which they bundled into the car before climbing in themselves. The door slammed shut.
The first man was getting in the front of the car when Jones moved.
“Get ready, Willie. Something’s wrong!” he shouted into the radio, no longer caring who heard him. Then he was running hard towards the car.
He never reached it.
Flame spurted from the man’s hand, and Jones crashed face-down in the gutter as the sound of the shot cracked out. Then the man was in the car, which was already moving forward.
Headlights flicked on, reflecting back uselessly from the wall of fog. The front nearside wheel missed the Welshman’s head by inches as the driver swung round in a U-turn, steering blindly.
The car lurched on to the opposite pavement, the lights momentarily picking out the terrified face of Croome-Pugglesley as he dodged clear of its path.
Bouncing back on to the road, the driver dowsed the headlights and switched on the yellow foglamp, which gave him a view of the kerb for a distance of about twenty feet.
The rear lights vanished into the blackness — in the opposite direction from the van in which Williams and his crew were waiting.
With the sound of the engine still screaming in his ears, C.P. ran across the road to Jones. He turned the Welshman over and tore off his glove to feel for a pulse. He lifted Jones’s head — and withdrew his hand quickly with a sharp cry of horror.
He could not see what it was that felt so wet and sticky; but he knew it must be blood.
Dimly he was aware of somebody crouching beside him.
“Who is he?”
C.P. started at the sound of the voice.
“His name is Jones. A British agent,” he answered dully. “What are you doing here, Sue? I told you to…”
“I had to come back to see if you were all right,” the girl said quickly. “What are you going to do about…?” she broke off at the sound of running footsteps and the slamming of a vehicle door. “There’s someone coming!”
C.P. stiffened. “They mustn’t find me with…with him.” He was unable to keep the tremor out of his voice.
“Quickly! Come to my place,” said Susan. “I’ll hide you.”
As they hurried away into the fog, a silent witness slipped out of the cover of a nearby doorway.
He walked quickly away in the same direction as C.P. and the girl.
Chapter Eight
James Dingle couldn’t pinpoint the pain, couldn’t separate one hurt from another. His twisted body was being jolted against something hard, increasing the agony.
He felt sick; and above the buzzing noise in his throbbing head was another sound…a car engine. He must be on the floor of a car…
Cautiously, he tried to turn in the cramped space to ease his aching limbs. His outstretched hand touched something which quickly moved away.
His hair was grabbed roughly from above and his head jerked back. Something cold, hard and round was pressed against his mouth. He couldn’t see it, but Dingle knew it was the barrel of a revolver.
“Take it easy and don’t move Jimmy, or I’ll riddle yer,” said a harsh voice. The man began to laugh coarsely. “Get it Alf? Jimmy Riddle.”
Alf didn’t join in the laughter.
“That’s how I’d like to see the bastard…riddled,” he said viciously. His words were slurred, as though he had difficulty in speaking.
“Cut it out you two.”
This voice was authoritative, educated. It sounded vaguely familiar and came from the front of the car; but Dingle couldn’t see its owner.
“You’re even tougher than we’d been led to believe, Mr. Dingle,” the smooth voice continued conversationally. “I thought you’d be out for hours. We still have some way to go — and it’ll take even longer in this fog — so I’m afraid we’ll have to put you to sleep again.”
“I’ll do it, boss,” said Alf.
“All right…no, not that way! Give him a shot with this.”
“It’ll be easier if I just…
“I said give him a shot. The Colonel will want him in one piece.”
Dingle heard the voices, but the words held no meaning. The pain, the threats were irrelevant, swamped in a new sensation.
Fear.
He could feel the fear rising from his stomach, climbing up his throat, with the bile, into a soundless scream.
He raised trembling hands to his face, but his wrists were grasped strongly.
“Hold him Dave,” said Alf.
The revolver was removed from his mouth. Fresh hands held his wrists in a vice-like grip. He felt his left sleeve being pushed up roughly, stiffened instinctively as the needle was driven home.
But it wasn’t that which made him cry out. The injection was as irrelevant as the rest. Fear had been overtaken by something else.
Panic.
He began to struggle violently. Strong hands and, sometimes, feet held him down, pinning him to the floor. Soon the strength born of panic left him, drained from his body by the greater, insidious strength of the drug.
“Help me!” His voice was a tortured sob. “For God’s sake, help me. I’m blind!”
And then, mercifully, James Dingle slept.
*
Julian Croome-Pugglesley didn’t like Susan’s friends. It was an instinctive feeling. They had left the room now, to make coffee.
“Why couldn’t we have just stayed in your flat?” His voice was petulant.
“I told you. The people who are after you might know that I’m your…your fiancée. They might go looking for you at my place.”
“Well, who are these people? And why did you have to leave me alone with them for so long.”
“Harry and Marjorie Brett and friends of mine. I had to go out to phone another…” Harry Brett opened the door for his wife who was carrying a tray of coffee and biscuits.
They were an oddly matched couple. The man, about forty, had long, soft brown hair, delicate pink flesh and a plump little body. His wife was taller, flat chested, with a long hard face. Her hair was shorter than her husband’s, and going grey. She wore no make-up. She was wearing trousers.
“Well this is nice,” said Harry Brett. C.P. noticed that he spoke with a slight lisp. “I’m glad you thought of us, Sue dear. Fancy getting stranded in the fog.”
“We were so close to your place, I thought…”
“Of course you did quite right to come to us,” said Mrs. Brett. “We’ll be only too pleased to put you up until the morning. You can’t go out again on a night like this.”
She didn’t sound too pleased, C.P. thought. Her voice was deep, husky.
“It’s extremely kind of you,” he said.
“Where did you say you abandoned the car?” asked Mr. Brett.
“About a mile away,” said Sue quickly.
C.P. flinched again at the lie. Suppose their hosts found out in the morning that they didn’t have a car. After leaving Sue’s flat they’d taken a train from Liverpool Street to Edmonton, and then jumped aboard a 649 bus that had crawled the rest of the way to Ponders End.
All the time the Bretts were talking, he had the feeling that they were listening for something; waiting for something. They didn’t seem surprised when the front doorbell rang.
Mrs. Brett jumped up to answer it. She came back into the room with a tall, big-boned man who she int
roduced as Mr. Finn.
C.P. stood up to shake hands, but Mr. Finn kept his own hands in his pockets.
“Please sit down Mr. Pugglesley.”
“Croome-Pugglesley.”
“Yes, but I shall call you Pugglesley. I do so hate these snobbish British double-barrelled names. No, not there,” as C.P. was about to sink back, flabbergasted, into his armchair. “Over there.” Finn indicated, with a nod of his massive head, a hard, straight-backed dining chair.
“I don’t understand,” said C.P. stiffly. He looked at his hosts and at Sue.
The three stared back at him without expression. It was then that he felt a sudden lurch of fear in his belly.
“You don’t understand?” Finn chuckled. “You will Mr. Pugglesley, you will. I won’t bother to beat about the bush. I want some information from you, and I want it quickly.”
“Who are you?”
“I am…we all are…officers of the KGB. I won’t bother to give you our real names.” Finn’s voice was suddenly charged with menace, his grey, soft-steel eyes hardened into tungsten. “Now sit down.”
Somehow, C.P.’s shaking legs carried him to the chair.
“I shan’t tell you anything.” He looked in mute appeal at Sue, who gazed coldly back at him.
Harry Brett tittered.
“Shall I fetch the whip dear?”
C.P. saw the sudden gleam in Mrs. Brett’s eyes, but it was Finn who answered.
“I don’t think that will be necessary. I think Mr. Pugglesley will see the reason of a much more subtle argument.”
*
Jason Ritchie poked his head through the driver’s window.
“About time you got here.”
“I’ve been as quick as I could in this goddamned Limey fog,” answered Gruber. “Which is the house?”
The FBI man pointed across the road.
“That one.”
“They still in there, Son?”
“Yep.”
“So what now?” the man from NSA asked.
“So now you can watch. I’ll take the car round the corner and have a nap. We’ll take it in turns. I’ll relieve you in two hours…unless anything happens before then.”
Nick Gruber climbed out of the car.
“It’s going to be a long, cold night,” he grumbled.
Chapter Nine
Williams shuffled uncomfortably from one foot to the other. He hadn’t been invited to sit down.
“So between you, you’ve balled the whole thing up,” the Director growled.
“It was the fog, sir. We couldn’t see a thing. I heard Glyn Jones telling us something had gone wrong…then the sound of a shot, followed by a car moving off. But it took us some time to realise the car wasn’t coming our way.”
“And Jones? What did the nursing home say?”
“He’ll live sir. A flesh wound in the neck; and apparently he cracked his head on the kerb when he fell. He was still unconscious when I left.”
“Did you have any trouble getting him away?”
“Not really. A few people turned up — with a policeman somebody had called. I got him to ring Special Branch. They cleared us, and I got the boys to take Glyn to the nursing home in the van.”
The Director nodded. “And Dingle?”
“No sign of him sir. I searched the flat before I went to the nursing home.”
“Hmmm. Let’s hope that at least he’s doing something to save the situation.” The Director had a lot of faith in Dingle. He added: “And what about Croome-Pugglesley?”
“No sign of him either sir.”
“All right, get back to the nursing home and hold Jones’s hand. I want a full report from him the minute he can speak. Understand?”
“Yes sir.”
Williams escaped thankfully.
*
“He’s regained consciousness then?” said Williams, relieved.
“Yes,” said the doctor. “But he’s sleeping now. You can’t talk to him.”
“I’ve got to. You’ll have to wake him up doctor.”
“I’ll do nothing of the kind. He’s under sedation. He’ll have to sleep it off.”
“Did he say anything when he came round?”
“Nothing that made any sense.”
“I’ll sit with him until he wakes up, then,” said Williams.
*
It was six o’clock when Williams jerked awake at the sound of Jones’s voice.
“Hello, Willie bach. What are you doing here?”
The Welshman tried to sit up, and sank back with a groan.
“Bloody ’ell, where were we last night, Willie? My head feels like a…” he broke off and awareness flooded into his eyes. “Hey! They shot me!” A note of panic crept in. “Is it bad, Willie? Am I dying?”
“A graze on the neck and a bump on the nut, that’s all.”
“Oh.” Jones sounded vaguely disappointed.
“Thank God you can remember what happened, anyway. The Director…”
He was interrupted by the doctor entering the room.
“Ah! You’re awake. I’ve just had your boss on the phone. Wanted to know how you are. He sounded most concerned about you. I told him you’d be all right after a few days’ rest.”
Jones was sitting up again, with more success this time.
“What did he say to that?”
“He said you could have a few days’ rest.”
Jones looked at the doctor in wonder.
“Dew! Did he say that? Did he actually say that?”
“Yes. He said, ‘I’ll give him a few days rest’.”
Jones pushed the bedclothes back, swung his legs to the floor, stood up — and sat down again abruptly.
“I’d better get back to HQ and make my report.”
He tried again, and this time succeeded in remaining upright.
“You’re not going anywhere,” said the doctor. “Get back to bed.”
“Make your report to me,” said Williams. “I’ll relay it to the Director. That’s why I’m here.”
The Welshman’s head was throbbing; his neck was stiff, and each movement made him dizzy with pain.
“Have you got a car with you Willie? You can give me a lift.”
“You’ll get a lift in a hearse if you don’t do as you’re told,” said the doctor angrily. “I can’t allow you to leave.”
“I’m discharging myself. Get the car round to the front door, Willie. You can give me some pills for this headache, can’t you doc?”
The doctor shrugged, accepting defeat.
“All right; but you’ll have those wounds dressed again before you go.”
*
“He’s on the phone…but I’d better break in and tell him you’re here,” said Miss Peach, reaching for the intercom switch.
She paused, looking again at the bulky dressing on the Welshman’s neck.
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Sure. It was only a bullet.” Jones the wounded hero. He lifted his shoulders in a nonchalant shrug. The movement sent a searing stab of pain through him, transforming what was intended to be a brave smile into an agonised grimace.
Miss Peach’s finger travelled on and flicked the switch.
“What is it? You know I’m busy.” The Director’s voice was even more tetchy than usual.
“Mr. Jones is here sir.”
“Here? Send him straight in.”
The Director waved Jones to a chair, an angry flush on his face as he listened to the voice at the other end of the telephone.
“I’m asking you again, officially, to take no action yet,” said the big man. “Leave it to us. Yes…yes… I’ll take full responsibility.”
He slammed the phone down and glared at Jones. “You’ve cocked this one up, haven’t you?”
The Welshman wriggled uncomfortably, sending another wave of pain through his body from his injured neck.
; “That was C on the line. He says Croome-Pugglesley didn’t turn up at the F.O. today…so he had the man’s office searched. They found the regular bulb from his desk lamp inside a drawer, and a powerful one in the lamp. Now C’s convinced that C.P. photographed the DNA File yesterday. I can’t think why the idiot didn’t take the bulb away with the camera last night.”
“Perhaps he didn’t have time sir.”
“And why hasn’t he gone to work this morning? You and Dingle were supposed to be taking care of all this — and Dingle still hasn’t reported in…”
One of the telephones buzzed urgently and the Director snatched it up.
“Yes? She hasn’t…not there either? You’ve been inside…? Nothing. All right, come back in.”
The Director replaced the phone and pressed the intercom.
“Is Mr. Williams in the building?”
“Yes sir.”
“Tell him I want him in here immediately.”
The SS(O)S chief leaned back in his chair.
“That girl friend of C.P.’s hasn’t gone to work this morning either,” he said. “There’s no one in her flat, and her bed hasn’t been slept in.
“Now there are three questions I want the answers to: Where is C.P.? Where is the girl? And where the hell is Dingle?
“I’ve had Williams’s report, for what it’s worth, on last night’s fiasco. Now I’ll have yours.”
The tablets the doctor had given Jones were beginning to take effect. The pounding in his head had almost stopped; the pain from the bullet wound was blunted. Until now, his recollection of the previous night’s events had been hazy; but memory was flooding back. The Director’s last question tore away the remaining shreds of the curtain that had shadowed his mind.
He closed his eyes and conjured up a foggy picture. Two dim figures running down steps…a third, limp shape between them…a car…a blinding pain…and then…nothing.
“I think they’ve got Jim Dingle sir,” he said quietly.
The Director sat bolt upright.
“What!”
Jones told him everything he could remember.
“Did you recognise any of these men?”
Death's No Antidote Page 5
