Werewolf (Commander Shaw Book 16) Page 10

  “No chef,” he said. “My wife.”

  “Ah.” I was surprised he had one.

  I was left alone again; I had already been shown my bedroom but I knew I wasn’t going to sleep that night. I got up when the meal was finished and prowled around restlessly. To get out seemed impossible, quite hopeless. I couldn’t even attract attention from anyone driving or walking along the main road running past the end of the drive. As the day had darkened, the view had gone: at the flick of some distant switch, metal shutters had slid across the drawing-room windows. They were totally obscured now, and it could be taken for granted that all the other windows had been similarly treated and that the shutters were electrified. The organisation was efficient and it stood to reason that Klaus Kunze was making use of a ready-made set-up. He wouldn’t have had the time to rig his own nest as it were; which meant that this house must belong to some big-time villain who had Nazi sympathies. Josef would know, but he was definitely non-pumpable.

  I hadn’t a hope, but hope is said to spring eternal, and I went on hoping and thinking. In the end I fell asleep, not in my bedroom, but in an arm-chair in the drawing-room. I woke to hear someone moving about. I opened my eyes and saw a woman. She was petite and quite pretty; some sort of housemaid, I supposed. I rubbed sleep from my eyes and looked at my watch: it was a little after 11 p.m. Making conversation I said, “You work late.”

  “I come to clear up for my husband,” she said, dimpling. “Josef?”

  She nodded. So this was the wife, the cook. I complimented her once again on the splendid dinner and she seemed pleased. I asked, “Doesn’t Josef do all the upstairs work, then?”

  “Oh, no, I help. The staff is only Josef and me.”

  “Uh-huh. What’s Josef doing now?”

  She said, “Josef will be clearing up for the night in the pantry.”

  An unguarded moment? Salvation might have come. I was very securely imprisoned in the house and I doubted if Josef was worrying very much. Casually I asked, just to make sure of my facts, “The metal covers across the windows … are they electrified too?”

  “Yes,” she said. After those shutters had been sent across, the curtains had been drawn, also by remote control. The shutters couldn’t be seen, but they were there all right.

  I got to my feet and lit a cigarette — a silver box of them had been provided for me, very generous. To get to the box, I’d had to move closer to Josef s wife. I gave her a smile and asked her name. She was really quite sexy.

  “Maria,” she said. Josef and Maria — well, well. I reached for her suddenly and held her fast. I shoved her into one of the chairs and sat on her; then I lifted my voice and called out for the benefit of the hidden TV pick-up, which I hadn’t managed to locate. I said, “Come on in, Josef, or your wife’s going to get hurt.”

  Maria began screaming. There was an instant reaction from her husband. From somewhere his voice came at me, hoarse, furious — and dead worried. “Let her go, Commander Shaw. If you do not, you will be shot.”

  As the voice came, there was a commotion at the door of the drawing-room and the two thugs from La Opazo came in and stood in the doorway. This, I had expected; I was gambling on it that Josef would do as I’d told him and come as well to take charge. A moment later, he did, his face more sickly pallid than ever. He started across towards me, flexing those great arms, and as he came I grabbed Maria out from the chair and dashed for the curtains across one of the windows. I jerked it aside to reveal the metal. I said, “Stop right where you are, all of you. If you don’t, the lady goes smack into the bare metal behind us. The same happens if anyone looks like squeezing a trigger. I’m pretty fast in my reactions. Even if you manage to fire first, the bullet will send us both backwards.”

  Josef said, “You also will die.”

  “I know,” I said.

  I had sounded determined. There was a pause, and much uncertainty. Then Josef said, addressing the gunmen, “Do not fire. Leave this to me.” He turned to leave the room and I stopped him in his tracks by pushing Maria a shade closer to the electrics. She screamed loudly.

  I said, “Stay right where you are till your thugs have dropped their guns.” I couldn’t risk Josef going to his control box and switching off the power, thus depriving me of Maria’s hostage-value, until I was in all respects ready. “If you move, your wife gets it, right?”

  With murder in his eyes Josef stood rooted to the carpet, staring at me. I had him and he knew it. And he knew what I meant to do. There was nothing he could do to stop my escape bid without losing his wife in a crackling flash of blue lightning and a stench of burning flesh. Scared of the big boss he no doubt was; but Maria was his wife. And she was not bad at all to look at, which is something more than a good many men who looked like Josef would manage to acquire. He had to be fond of her; he wouldn’t find another in a hurry. All the same, he put up a good show of being determined not to let me go. He kept on stressing my own death, inevitable he said, either by gunfire or burn-up, and I retaliated by pushing Maria a fraction closer to the potential heat and she screamed again. She was a useful propagandist.

  Josef shouted, “No, no! Do not do it!”

  “Maybe I won’t,” I said, “but you’ve got to play along with me and — ” I broke off. One of the thugs had opened up; a bullet smacked into the steel behind me, just missing my head. I moved Maria closer to death and Josef seemed to go mad. He took the gunman in his massive arms and nearly throttled him, shaking the body as though it were a rat.

  I called to him. I said, “You have the right idea, Josef. It’ll earn you marks. Get both their guns, and bring them over.”

  “Yes,” he said, and I knew I’d won. He dropped his victim on the carpet, grabbed his revolver, and turned to the other man, who shrugged and handed his gun over. Josef when roused was a very ugly customer. He moved across towards me.

  “Near enough,” I said, and he stopped, breathing hard. “Now kick them across the carpet. Don’t come any closer yourself.”

  He obeyed orders. I bent and retrieved the guns; I shoved one in my waistband and kept the other handy, with the hammer drawn back. “Now,” I said, approaching the final act. “Switch off the power. And open the shutters. And make sure you really do it, because I shall use Maria for test purposes. All right?”

  Josef’s body was shaking and the pallor of his face had increased but he did his best. He really tried. He said, “I cannot.”

  “Why?”

  “The control box. It has developed a fault.”

  I gave a hard laugh. “Sure it has. You! Put yourself back in working order, fast. I’ll give you one minute exactly. Then Maria goes slap into the metal. I mean it, Josef. So be bloody sure you switch off properly.”

  He went away then, losing none of those sixty seconds. The man he had almost strangled was still on the carpet, rubbing his neck. The other thug was giving me narrow looks as though judging his best moment for attack. I was ready for him. The instant he moved I fired, and shattered his right shoulder. He yelled out in agony and sank to the carpet. With just one second in hand, Josef came back in. “The power is off,” he said woodenly.

  I nodded and set my teeth. I didn’t believe he spoke anything other than the truth, but there was still a touch of anxiety. Anyway, with Maria held fast I pushed back into the window glass, now free of the metal shutters — I’d heard them go back during Josef s absence. We survived, and went on surviving after I’d reached for the metal catch, the window lock. I pushed the window open. It was a long window and the drop to the ground was little more than a foot. Propelling Maria ahead of me, I climbed through and made the free air outside. Moving as fast as possible, I backed away with Maria in front of me as a shield. I saw Josef appear in the lighted window. I saw something go badly wrong, too: there was a bright blue-white flash and for an instant I saw Josef s electrocuted body outlined in brilliance, legs and arms outstretched as though he were independently suspended, his whole form appearing to be zig-zagged around
the edges like a cartoon cat that had inadvertently stepped on a live wire. Maria screamed once, turned in my arms and tore and scratched at my face and freed herself. She ran for her dead husband and I let her go. Maybe I shouldn’t have done; she just might have had something to tell. I was getting too soft to be an agent.

  *

  I was back in Santiago within the hour. Once on the main road I had bummed a lift. No cars stopped; on the contrary, they seemed to do their best to run me down. But a lorry picked me up. It was carrying vegetables into the capital, and I arrived smelling of onions. I went straight to HQ. Paul Younger wasn’t there but a call was put through to his home and he insisted on coming in to see me. I made a full report of events from La Opazo onwards. From my description of Josef s locality and house Younger was able to make an identification. He told me the name of the owner and said that he was believed to be the boss of a drug ring but so far there was no proof. My experiences might help and the set-up would be checked over. My guess had been spot on: Klaus Kunze had made use of a prepared position. Younger would be in touch if and when anything germane to my assignment emerged, but he wasn’t hopeful; the lower echelons wouldn’t be found to be in possession of anything vital.

  I agreed, and agreed again when Younger said that it would all be kept within 6D2 for as long as possible: no police. It was still vital that Chile’s dictators didn’t get their hooks on the brain. I said, “I have to get back to London.” I’d already put a call through to Max whilst waiting for Younger to come in, and Max had told me, regretfully, that there was nothing as yet on Felicity Mandrake. I’d also checked that the next flight into Gatwick was the British Caledonian leaving Padahuel at 1355, not today but tomorrow, and that seemed to check with something else, which Paul Younger confirmed: it was the flight the Bolzes had been switched to.

  Younger lifted an eyebrow. “How about that, Commander?”

  I nodded. “Book me on it. It just might be very interesting, even though Hitler’s bloody organ is booked for coffin delivery.”

  *

  Younger insisted that I remain closeted in HQ until it was time to check in at Padahuel; he would send a man to collect my gear from my hotel room. I didn’t argue; I was much in need of sleep and in HQ I would be on the spot for any developments. I went to bed right away and slept in comfort: the quarters for visiting 6D2 agents were luxury. I was woken just before noon with a report on that electrified house. It was empty but the two thugs and Maria had been taken on the run already; that was smart work on the part of Younger’s team. Interrogation had so far yielded nothing of any interest in connexion with the Fuehrer’s brain or Klaus Kunze although in due course the villains were likely to face drugs charges. I got up and had lunch in Younger’s private dining-room. During the afternoon, better late than never, a list of shipping movements came through from the port authority in Valparaiso; that list indicated that fourteen vessels had cleared for foreign during the day before, and twenty-three for coastal destinations. Of the fourteen foreign, three were bound for Australia and New Zealand, one for Japan, and the rest for West European ports including Britain, France, Holland and West Germany.

  I put the list in my brief-case; it might be useful later on.

  Next day I was driven to Padahuel and the Gatwick flight. It was not quite a full one: something like a dozen short. There was no sign of Klaus Kunze. I watched my fellow passengers assembling and going through the checks for embarkation; I picked out the Bolzes easily enough from those photographs. Little Lotte’s rapid footsteps had a job to keep up with tall Lothar. Both of them were looking excited, as was only natural: a long incarceration had come to an end and they were anticipatory of home. Lothar’s face beamed with smiles as he talked to a fairly obvious official from the East German Embassy who had come along to make sure they had no difficulties with the Chilean authorities. This man was flat-faced and grim, full of suspicions. I was half wondering if Ublick’s coffin would turn up for an air passage rather than a long sea voyage, but it didn’t.

  However, I was due for an almighty surprise after we had all embarked: so far as I could see neither of the Bolzes had been carrying anything except magazines and newspapers, but in the rack for the hand baggage was the black box in all its doubtful glory. I’d seen the glass-enclosed brain go into the coffin back at that farm. Not, admittedly, the black outer box. This could be a red herring.

  *

  I’d got myself a seat across the aisle from Lothar and Lotte. Just before take-off, the black box was brought down from the rack and set safely on the hinged leaf that acted as a table. Soon after we were airborne it was joined by cups of coffee and on top of it was placed an airmail edition of an East Berlin newspaper plus a girlie magazine. The Bolzes didn’t talk much. Opposite them sat two men whose aspect shouted security loud and clear. They were tough physically and their raincoats, which they hadn’t taken off, would hide holsters; their faces were like blank brick walls and about as intelligent. Like the Bolzes they said scarcely a word but just sat and stared straight ahead apart from an occasional sideways flicker. They looked all ready for a hijack, though in fact it could be presumed that like all the rest of the East Germans including the Bolzes they wouldn’t know what the black box was supposed to contain — Klaus Kunze would have spun a nicely convincing yarn to Lothar and Lotte, obviously. The guards would be there simply to keep watch on the Bolzes and the exchange in Britain. Now and again one or other of them would rise to his feet and march solemnly along the aisle, darting glances at all the passengers before vanishing through the after door to the lavatory. No doubt the less discerning thought they had weak bladders or had taken laxatives. They were a confounded nuisance, brushing past with no apologies and pushing the stewardess out of the way when they met.

  I was thinking about that box. In point of fact, it could contain the brain. Klaus Kunze could have come unstuck on the coffin job, the East Germans could have had their ears to the ground and picked something up. They could have moved in on Kunze. As the skies darkened dinner was brought and Lotte, in the window seat, spilled a little soup on the Fuehrer, if he was in the box — by now I’d come to think of that dreadful brain as a whole person — and wiped it off with a tartan-patterned paper napkin provided by British Caledonian. The security men drank up their soup with loud sucking noises before tucking into mixed grills followed by fruit salad and coffee.

  After a refuelling stop I settled myself down to sleep, as did a fat woman next to me. I was woken at dawn by what I took at first to be her snores; I was wrong. The East German security men had both leapt to their feet and one had shouted. They were struggling with two Europeans in the aisle, a little way forward of my seat. Women began screaming, and the hostess came bravely up the aisle.

  She asked, “What’s going on? What happened?” She sounded dead scared; I kept a low profile. I might need to go into action later, and I didn’t want to show7 my colours just yet.

  By this time the security men had won; there were heavy handcuffs on the wrists of the two men. “It is nothing,” one of the guards said in English, answering the hostess’ question. “We do not wish to alarm the passengers.”

  The girl said indignantly, “Well, I like that! What do you think you’ve done already?”

  “A matter for regret. Now there will be no more questions. These men will sit here.” The East German pointed to where I was sitting with the fat woman. “These people are to move, please.” He produced his gun and the hostess shrugged helplessly. I gave her what assistance I could by doing what the East Germans had asked. They took my seat and the fat woman’s, and thrust the two suspects into the seats opposite, keeping their guns in evidence. I sat by possible Hitler, taking the security men’s former seats. I listened to impassioned pleas from the two victims, who were West Germans but, I believed, wholly innocent of any hijack intentions. We were as yet much too far off Gatwick for a hijack, but the security men reckoned they had done wonders.

  *

  There was no
further trouble and we touched down at Gatwick just two hours late on schedule — 1720 hours GMT, with the clocks advanced four hours in flight. I had looked down with interest as we lost height and came over the M23 London-Brighton road. There was no overt evidence of extraordinary security precautions though I knew that there would be plenty of plain-clothes men circulating. There was a fair number of uniformed police about and after we had touched down and then taxied to the disembarkation bay a lot of them closed in and with them I saw the Assistant Commissioner Crime from Scotland Yard. Some plain-clothes men surrounded him, and they all looked tautly anxious and expectant. I believe the brass were a little thrown when the East German security men marched down the steps with their captives. They went up to a uniformed chief inspector and demanded to be allowed to take the men on to East Berlin with the Bolzes. There was quite an altercation, and while this was going on I made contact with the ACC. I said, “It’s in the cabin. With the Bolzes.”

  The ACC looked blank. “What is?”

  I told him about the box and its now hypothetical contents. “Christ!” he said. “I was informed you’d reported a coffin and a sea — ”

  “Right, I did. I just don’t know the score now. It may or may not have the brain in it. As things are, I suggest the box be allowed to take the course intended by the Bolzes — right into East Germany. I’ve come to think that’s the only way.”

  “But we’re virtually certain it’ll be intercepted, don’t you see!”

  I nodded. “I know. I know all the angles. I know we don’t want it to reach West Germany, but if no-one’ll authorise the bloody thing’s destruction right here at Gatwick … well, we’re stymied, aren’t we?”

  The police chief made a hissing noise. “It’s a damn delicate situation, you know.”

  I nodded. “I know, all right! There’s just one thing: do as Max suggested earlier, and provide an RAF escort.”

  “That’s no good against a hijack.”