by Hilary Green
Operation Omega
Hilary Green
© Hilary Green
Hilary Green has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in 1984.
This edition published in 2019 by Sharpe Books.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 1
Carlo, the head waiter at La Columbina, was having a quiet evening—that is, until Guy Farnaby punched a reporter on the nose. After that events became what you might call explosive.
Carlo always regarded the appearance of Peter Weatherhead, the gossip columnist, with mixed feelings. On the one hand, Weatherhead tipped lavishly in return for useful information; on the other, he did have a way of occasionally upsetting the restaurant’s more sensitive clients. That night he lounged through the main door with the smell of Scotch on his breath and an expression of gloom on his face.
‘Who’ve you got in tonight, Carlo?’ he inquired. There’s always someone interesting at the Columbina. Don’t let me down—it’s been a God-awful night so far.’
Carlo scanned the restaurant, playing for time. Of course, there was the party of Arabs dining discreetly in a partly screened off section of the room with some extremely high-powered government officials but Carlo did not think, somehow, that they would appreciate Weatherhead’s attentions. He sought for some way of distracting him. Then his eyes lighted on the back of an elegant blonde head and he smiled.
‘Leonora Carr is over there, dining with Guy Farnaby.’
‘Carr?’ Weatherhead looked dubious. ‘She’s hardly hot news any longer.’
‘She is probably still the most beautiful woman in London,’ Carlo commented.
‘Maybe.’ Weatherhead remained unimpressed. ‘But it must be getting on for three years since she did that disappearing act from Hollywood, and nearly two since she turned up again in London. People have forgotten the whole story.’
‘Forgotten? Forgotten the actress who broke box-office records with one film, the new Garbo, the greatest sex-symbol since Brigitte Bardot?’ Carlo was incredulous. ‘Not me. I don’t forget. Don’t you wonder, even now, what made her give the whole thing up and disappear? Don’t you wonder why, even now, she refuses all offers to return to films, or to the stage?’
Weatherhead was beginning to look more interested. ‘It’s a funny business all right,’ he agreed. ‘Did you say she was with Guy Farnaby? Now there’s another odd character for you. I wonder what she sees in him. “Mystery Star dines with London Playboy”— yes, it might be worth a pic at that. Thanks, Carlo.’
A small wad of notes changed hands and Weatherhead began to make his way casually towards the table which Carlo had indicated. Carlo followed. He wanted to keep an eye on Weatherhead.
The reporter walked almost past the table and then turned quickly back, as if he had just realized who was sitting there.
‘Miss Carr? It is Leonora Carr, isn’t it?’
Hovering a few feet away Carlo watched her look up and experienced that electric shock to the pit of his stomach which he always felt at the sight of a really beautiful woman. It was the eyes that struck you first, of course, the eyes that had melted the stony hearts of critics all over Europe and America; enormous eyes, of a deep, almost violet blue. Then there was the hair, the colour of pale honey, its long tresses wound and coiled in a style that must have taken some hairdresser hours of work; the purity of the straight nose and the delicate cheekbones; the poise of the pointed chin above the long neck; and perhaps most appealing of all, the sweet curve of the mouth, just a fraction too wide for perfection, which always appeared to be quivering with just-suppressed laughter. The figure, of course, left something to be desired—in Carlo’s opinion at least. He did not really care for these slender, northern women. He preferred something more voluptuous; and this girl, really, had breasts that would have seemed small on a child just entering puberty. But still, with those eyes—one could forgive much; anything, indeed.
Weatherhead was saying, ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve always been one of your greatest fans…’ and the delightful mouth was curving in the beginnings of a courteous smile; not the toothy grin of the star overjoyed at being recognized. But already Farnaby was half-way to his feet…
‘Will you please leave us alone! It is really quite intolerable that Miss Carr’s privacy should be intruded upon in this way…’
Weatherhead had already produced a tiny camera from his jacket pocket and was in the process of focusing it. Farnaby went on—
‘Put that thing away. We do not wish to be photographed. I insist that you put that thing away at once!’
Carlo saw Leonora’s mouth open and her hand raised in a gesture of reason and pacification, but Weatherhead had the camera to his eye and in the same second Farnaby straightened up and let fly with a right hook which seemed out of keeping in its accuracy and power with the suave and fastidious image which he normally liked to present. The camera smashed into Weatherhead’s nose and then flew out of his hand as he whirled half round and crumpled onto the floor. Patrons at nearby tables leapt to their feet with cries of anger and alarm and one or two women screamed but Carlo noticed, as he dragged Weatherhead upright, that Leonora was regarding both men with detached, almost clinical curiosity.
In the midst of all the confusion, with Weatherhead swearing and demanding compensation for his camera and Farnaby, in a voice a little too high-pitched to carry authority, insisting that he be removed immediately, Carlo was dimly aware of the party of Arabs making their way towards the door, casting glances of distaste and amazement at the scene. Half his mind registered the fact that he should be there to see them out, to hand coats and umbrellas to the ministers and civil servants who were their hosts. With the other half he was apologizing to Farnaby and hissing in the reporter’s ear, ‘You go now, yes? Yes, at once! Quick!’ as he hustled him towards the door. He reached it just in time to see the Arab party entering the fleet of limousines which had arrived for them. He ejected Weatherhead onto the pavement, ignoring his threats and protests, and hurried back into the restaurant to try and smooth things over with Farnaby.
He was about half-way to the table when something hit him between the shoulder-blades like a battering-ram and sent him sprawling across the dessert trolley. The sound of the explosion, followed by the crash of glass as the windows gave under its force, reached him as he lay there.
It was several seconds before he lifted his head and looked about him. At first it seemed as though the disaster had struck him alone, because looking as he was towards the back of the restaurant he could see no damage, only the shocked faces of the diners as they stared towards him. Then he became aware of a woman screaming, perhaps more than one, a man shouting incoherently, and the crack and tinkle of metal and glass subsiding after being violently wrenched out of place. Slowly he levered himself up off the trolley and turned round. Where the door and the plate-glass windows on either side had been there was now only a jagged-edged space. Between it and himself were overturned tables, twisted steel girders, sharp-edged sherds of glass; and among them men and women, their clothes torn and powdered with grey dust, some of them dragging themselves to their feet, others lying where they had fallen. But it was the sight of what was beyond the windows that drew Carlo’s attention. He staggered forward and peered through the smoke and the settling dust. At the edge of the road stood the smouldering remains of the leadin
g limousine. Caught on a sharp edge of metal was a tattered piece of cloth, the remnant of an Arab head-dress. Inside there were shapes, human and yet less than human, from which Carlo’s eyes flinched. On the pavement between the car and what had been the door lay a dark bundle. ‘How strange,’ Carlo thought, ‘to leave a dress suit lying in the road—even a tatty old suit like that.’ Then he realized that the suit had contained, still contained, the body of Peter Weatherhead.
Police sirens were approaching. Inside the restaurant the uninjured clients were attempting to help the wounded, or struggling across them towards the exit, according to their characters. A movement against the general flow caught Carlo’s eye. A slender figure in a blue evening dress moved calmly towards the door at the rear which led to the toilets and the telephones. Thinking that she had mistaken it for a way out of the building and confusedly convinced that he should get everyone out before some new disaster occurred, he followed. In the corridor he found her, speaking calmly into a telephone which some chance had left undamaged. In his dazed condition the words seemed to make very little sense.
‘I’m at the Columbina. Tell Pascoe he’d better get down here at once. Sheik Mahoud has just had a rather shattering experience.’
Chapter 2
Ahmed Khalil shook hands with the police inspector who had accompanied him to the door of his local police station. I’m sorry to have dragged you over here for nothing,’ the inspector was saying courteously. ‘But I’m sure you appreciate that with this latest outbreak of car bombings we have to be seen to be leaving no stone unturned. Purely routine enquiries, you understand.’
‘Of course, inspector,’ Khalil returned with equal affability. ‘The whole business is most regrettable. For those of us who wish to go about our lawful occasions in your country, you will appreciate, it is a grave embarrassment. No-one will be more delighted than we shall when you manage to apprehend these terrorists.’
‘Quite so, Mr Khalil,’ agreed the inspector. ‘Well, thank you again for your co-operation.’ ‘Not at all,’ responded Khalil, ‘Anything I can do to help...’ and he ran lightly down the steps to the taxi which was waiting for him.
When the taxi drew up outside the block of flats in St. John’s Wood where Khalil had been living for the last six months it had to manoeuvre past a post office van which was parked at the kerb with a little protective tent erected behind it over the section of road where the men were working—not that anyone was working, at the time. Khalil paid the taxi and went inside, without noticing the van.
Inside the van a fair-haired man stooped to peer out through the tinted glass of the window.
‘There he goes,’ he said dispassionately.
His companion, who was seated before a console displaying an array of dials and switches, took up a pair of earphones and turned a knob. He winced and pulled the earphones away from his ears.
‘I wish she’d turn that damned tranny off,’ he commented.
* * *
Entering his flat, Ahmed Khalil was also surprised for a moment by the loud pop music issuing from his living-room. Then he remembered that it was Mrs Burkiss’s morning. Mrs Burkiss had been hired from a domestic staff agency to clean for him once a week. Normally she came on Thursday, but today she had telephoned with some story about a sister coming to visit and asked if she could come a day early. Khalil swore softly to himself and wished he had not agreed.
He went into the living-room. Mrs Burkiss was dusting energetically at the far end with her back to him. He had to call her name three times before she heard him over the sound of the radio. Then she jumped round looking startled.
‘Oh, Mr Khalil, it’s you! I thought you’d gone to work.’
‘Yes, I had to return unexpectedly—some important papers which I left behind.’
‘Oh, what a nuisance for you! Is there anything I can get you? A cup of coffee?’
The voice was a nasal London whine, cockney trying to be genteel. Khalil looked at her with disfavour. He had never cared much for her appearance, but she was efficient and reliable so he had tolerated her. She was a thin, stringy woman, still quite young—a widow with a young son, apparently. In her own misguided way she did her best to make herself attractive, or he supposed that was her idea. Her hair was bleached but always in need of touching up at the roots and she wore glasses with slightly tinted lenses, telling him proudly that the oculist said she was ‘photophoberic’. She always used too much make-up and her hands were invariably encased in rubber gloves. In her shapeless overall and down-at-heel shoes she was far from the kind of woman Khalil liked to have about him; and right now he wanted her presence even less than usual.
‘Mrs Burkiss,’ he said, still having to raise his voice over the radio, ‘I have some phone calls to make. I wonder, could you finish this room later?’
‘Oh yes, ’course I could,’ she exclaimed, with the air of one bestowing a favour. ‘I’ll go and get on in the kitchen. Just let me know when you’ve finished, right?’
When she had gathered up her dusters and her radio Khalil stood by the door until he saw her disappear safely into the kitchen. From here, the sound of the music was reassuring. No chance of her accidentally overhearing anything with that row going on, he thought. He went to his desk, picked up the phone and dialled a number.
Down in the van the curly-haired young man with the earphones leaned forward and adjusted a knob.
‘Here we go! Thank God she can’t drown this with her radio!’
His partner leaned over him and he held one earphone away from his head so that they could both hear the conversation. In front of them a tape-recorder began to turn as the ringing-tone was answered.
‘Farnaby,’ said the voice at the end of the line.
‘Mr Farnaby.’ Khalil’s voice was suave and unruffled. ‘It is Ahmed Khalil here. I am sorry to bother you but I am afraid I shall have to cancel our appointment. I have to go away for a few days, on business, you understand.’
‘Away?’ queried Farnaby sharply.
‘For a few days only,’ Khalil said soothingly. ‘I will telephone you when I return. But let me assure you that the delivery of the goods you have ordered will not be affected in any way.’
‘You’re sure about that?’
‘Quite sure. The goods will be delivered exactly according to schedule. You may rely on that.’
‘Oh well, that’s all right then.’ Farnaby sounded reassured. ‘I’ll wait for you to get in touch with me then…’
‘Yes, yes. In a few days. Until then...’
‘Yes, right. Until then. Goodbye.’
Khalil put the phone down and unlocked a drawer in his desk. His movements were not in keeping with the calm tone which he had used to Farnaby. Swiftly he sorted the papers in the drawer into two piles. One he put into his brief-case. The other, after a moment’s thought, he placed in a plastic carrier-bag which he found in the hallway. Nobody would notice a plastic carrier dumped somewhere, whereas a fire in a modern, centrally heated flat... He stooped to check that nothing had been left at the back of the drawer and as he did so his eye was caught by something under the edge of the desk. He reached out and withdrew a small metal object about the size of a button. For a few moments he sat absolutely still, gazing at it, absorbing the implications, his mind racing as he tried to work out how it had come there. Then his lips tightened and he gave a small jerk of his head. He opened a small drawer, searched in it for a moment and took out a business card on which was printed THE CAVENDISH DOMESTIC AGENCY and an address in Knightsbridge.
After a further moment’s thought Khalil took out a note pad and an envelope. He wrote briefly, in Arabic script, and then put the letter and the card into the envelope and inscribed on it an address in Clapham. Then he got up and went to the window which looked out onto the street. This time he did see the post office van.
Soft-footed, he crossed the room and looked out into the hall. The radio was still playing loudly in the kitchen. He slipped silently out of t
he front door, leaving it ajar behind him, and ran down one flight of stairs to the flat below. For a moment he was afraid that there would be no answer to his ring on the doorbell, but then he heard feet approaching. The door was opened by a heavily built woman with blue-rinsed hair and several diamond rings on her fat fingers. Khalil smiled his most charming smile.
‘Mrs Pemberton, I am so sorry to disturb you, but I wonder if I could ask you a great favour.’
The woman smiled at him expansively. ‘Mr Khalil! There’s no need to apologize! We don’t see nearly enough of you. Do come in, won’t you?’
‘Thank you, no,’ Khalil murmured. ‘You see, I am not feeling very well. I think it may be the flu, and I don’t want to pass it on to you or your family. That is why I want to ask you a favour.’
‘Well, of course,’ the woman exclaimed. ‘If you’re poorly we’ll be only too glad to help. What can I do for you?’
‘This letter—’ Khalil held up the envelope,—‘it’s absolutely vital that it should reach its destination today. I was going to deliver it myself but I really don’t feel up to it. I was wondering—your son is at home?’
‘Frank? Yes, he’s here. College doesn’t start again for a week yet.’
‘And he still has his motor bike?’
‘Motor bike? Oh, yes, of course! Now I’m with you. He’s done little messages for you before, hasn’t he. He’ll deliver your letter, no trouble at all. Just give it to me. I’ll see he goes off with it straight away.’
Khalil handed over the letter and with it a five-pound note.
‘A little something to pay for the petrol, you understand,’ he murmured.
Then, waving aside Mrs Pemberton’s offers to call a doctor or fetch him aspirins et cetera, he made his way swiftly back up to his flat. The radio still played in the kitchen. Ahmed Khalil went into the living-room and picked up the small metal object. Then he went into the kitchen. Mrs Burkiss was scouring the sink and did not see him come in. Still moving quietly he crossed the room and turned the radio up to full volume.
