Hostage Tower

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Sonya wrote in a neat hand in the margin opposite the coded entry. Then she resumed, ‘Czechoslovakia forensic has identified the poison in the Branski assassination.’

Philpott grinned. ‘With a little help from you, I imagine. Yes, good. Make it a Yellow, and send the thing to our own lab, for a fast report.’

Sonya made the notation. ‘Gold?’ she said. Philpott nodded. ‘Heavy unloading by the Bombay Irregulars.’

Philpott winced and sighed. ‘That’s a Green.’

‘Sure?’

‘Sure.’

‘And now,’ Sonya announced portentously, having kept the best news for last, ‘we have a Smith affirmative out of Rome.’

Philpott sat back in his chair and slapped the gleaming desk with the palm of his hand. ‘Great!’ he enthused. ‘Sabrina hooked him. Great!’

‘With a little help from us and van Beck,’ Sonya protested.

‘We didn’t help with that Diamond Exchange robbery,’ Philpott said. ‘We can’t do that sort of thing, after all. The Dutch would never forgive us. Neither would INTERPOL.’

‘We can keep our fingers crossed that nothing goes wrong, though, can’t we?’ Sonya asked.

‘And we do,’ Philpott agreed. ‘Mind you, it’s not really necessary with Sabrina. I reckon she could have done it on her head, let alone on roller skates.’

Sonya half rose from her chair. ‘Would you like to speak to her?’

‘Yes,’ Philpott replied, ‘I’d love to – but not just yet.’ Sonya seated herself again and looked at him enquiringly.

‘Well,’ Philpott explained, ‘if Smith’s bitten with Sabrina, then he ought to be doing the same for C.W. Has he called?’

Sonya was about to say ‘No,’ when the chime pealed, and the map on Smith’s desk glowed with a fresh pinpoint of light. ‘Ha,’ he said. ‘New York. Now, I wonder who this could be.’ He directed that the call should be put straight through to him.

C.W. reported briefly and succinctly. ‘Excellent,’ beamed Philpott. ‘Three days, eh? Not much time. We’ll be there with you, though, and then we’ll find out what it is. At the moment, it’s enough to know that Smith’s behind it, so it’ll be pretty damned serious and spectacular.’

Philpott cut the line and regarded Sonya steadily. ‘Now,’ he mused, slowly. ‘I wonder what, and precisely where …’

‘Paris, I suppose,’ Sonya put in. ‘Why send them tickets to Paris if the action’s somewhere else.’

‘Ye-e-s,’ Philpott conceded. ‘And it’s true that van Beck’s come up with some absolutely crazy idea that just doesn’t seem to make sense. All the same …’

‘What idea?’ she demanded sharply. Philpott did not normally keep secrets from her, and she had right of access to most UNACO information – unless Philpott considered it might be dangerous for her to know.

He grinned, sheepishly. ‘D’you mind if I don’t tell you at the moment?’ he said. ‘I want to consider it a little further. It’s – way out. And it may mean nothing. Or everything.’

Sonya relaxed. ‘Sure,’ she agreed. She furrowed her brow in thought, bit her lower lip, and ventured. ‘So it’s just the laser-guns we’re not fully up to date with yet?’

Philpott nodded. He stroked the left-hand edge of the bridge of his nose – a favourite trick when he was thinking too hard. His face was lined, but still handsome. He was perhaps ten years older than Sonya, and his hair, though plentiful, was grey and slightly tousled. He had a strong, pointed jaw and skin stretched tautly over high cheek bones. He was lean and fit and, for an ex-academic, scrupulously well dressed. Sonya Kolchinsky was in love with him, and he knew it.

‘The lasers,’ he said. ‘The lasers – yes. Who took them? And why? And for whom?’ He was silent for a while, and Sonya did not disturb his train of thought. Philpott tapped his fingers unevenly on the desk. ‘For Smith, I imagine,’ he argued with himself, ‘and more than likely for this job. As to who took them – it could be anyone.’ He shrugged, and nodded at the file in front of him. ‘We both believe it’s a weapons man, and they’re all in here – all the top suspects. Ex-army, ex-CIA, grudge-holders, suspected agents … It’s just a question of picking the right one. It’s a pity,’ he reflected, ‘that van Beck couldn’t help Smith find a weapons man. Then we’d have all three in our pocket.’

Mike Graham sauntered out of the Munich bierkeller and crossed to the busy square fronting the magnificent cathedral. Anywhere in central Munich was not too far from The Four Seasons Hotel, which was one of the great hotels of Europe, and which at present numbered Graham among its guests.

He walked through the square, and took a short cut to the fruit and vegetable market. Between a pair of enticing vegetable stalls sat an old woman next to a small, trestle-mounted cart. The cart held packeted wienerschitzel, and chestnuts popped on a free-standing brazier.

Graham was wearing jeans, and a leather flying-jacket which had seen better days. A white ’kerchief fluttered at his throat, and he sported an American Legion badge over the top left-hand pocket of the jacket.

‘Guten morgen,’ he said to the woman. Her sharp eyes took in the ’kerchief, the badge, and the face above it.

‘Good morning,’ she replied, in heavily accented English. ‘Would you like some chestnuts for a not too warm day?’

Mike nodded, and said, ‘Ja, bitte.’ The elderly woman took a paper bag from the cart, and picked freshly roasted nuts from the coals with a pair of tongs. ‘They are hot,’ she warned, ‘very hot. Mind your fingers.’

Graham assured her he would. He gingerly extracted one, cracked and peeled it, and popped it into his mouth. It was delicious. ‘Auf wiedersehen,’ he said. ‘Goodbye,’ she replied.

He strolled back down the street, and took a seat at a pavement café for coffee and schnapps. He emptied the chestnuts out on the table to cool. The packet was at the bottom of the bag.

He opened it and, shielding the contents with his other hand, unrolled five one thousand US dollar bills, and a first-class airline ticket to Paris. The flight was in three days’ time. There was no explanatory note.

Graham opened the folded airline ticket. In the top left-hand corner was a poorly executed sketch of a Lap-Laser, accompanied by a terse message: ‘Now I want you to use them’. The message was unsigned. Mike drained his schnapps and ordered a refill.

Giulio was sitting as though bolted into the seat of the Alfa Romeo. They were well south of Rome now, and he had not even bothered to ask Sabrina where they were going. He just fervently wished he was somewhere else.

He had brought it on himself, Giulio freely acknowledged, when he unbuckled his seat belt. Sabrina had been driving with great restraint – for her – when Giulio had sensed that the time was right for one arm to slip around her shoulders, while the other hand skated over, then settled on, her knee. He could not have been more wrong.

She stepped fiercely on the gas pedal, and Giulio’s head shot forward and rapped smartly on the fascia. The Alfa’s engine shrieked, and Giulio dimly saw a road sign saying ‘Roma 170’ – pointing in the opposite direction. He resigned himself to an early grave, and hoped his mother and numerous sisters would cry at his funeral.

Sabrina reached a corner, made a racing change, and screamed round the bend kicking dirt, on what seemed to Giulio to be only one wheel. It was a short road, and another bend was coming up, for they had long since abandoned the autostrada for more taxing sport. Sabrina double-clutched down through the gears, and drifted into a toe-to-heel braking power turn before gearing back up for the straight. The motor protested, but obeyed her feet and her tensed arms.

Giulio’s handsome face shaded to chalk-white, his eyes glazed over, and his bowels turned suddenly to water. He could see a narrow, humpbacked bridge looming up, and he quickly recited what he was certain would be his terminal prayer.

Sabrina turned to bestow a ravishing smile on him, taking her eyes completely off the road while, at the same time, pressing the accelerator pedal down into the floor. Giulio gripped the Alfa’s crash-bar so hard that his knuckles matched the white of his face. He closed his eyes and let out a scream of undiluted horror.