Wilbur Smith's Smashing Thrillers

  At the end of the lane there was a pair of rotten and warping double doors, but the lock was a bright new brass Yale and the cracks in the wood and the gaping seams had been covered with fresh white strips of pine so that it was impossible to see into the interior of the garage.

  Barry unlocked the brass Yale lock and slipped through, pulling the latch closed behind him.

  There was a dark blue Austin saloon car parked facing the doors for immediate departure. It had been stolen in Ulster two weeks before, re sprayed and fitted with a roof rack to alter its appearance, and with new licence plates.

  The engine had been tuned and checked and Barry had paid nearly twice its market value.

  Now he slipped behind the wheel and turned the key in the ignition. The engine fired and caught immediately. He grunted with satisfaction; seconds could mean the difference between success and failure, and in his life failure and death were synonymous. He listened to the engine beat for half a minute, checking the oil pressure and fuel gauges before switching off the engine again and going out through the rear door of the garage into the overgrown kitchen yard.

  The old house had the sad unloved air of approaching dereliction.

  The fruit trees in the tiny orchard were sick with fungus diseases and surrounded by weed banks.

  The thatch roof was rotten-green with moss, and the windows were blindman's eyes, unseeing and uncaring.

  Barry let himself in through the kitchen door and dropped his cape and cap on the scullery floor and set the carrier on the draining board of the sink. Then he reached into the cutlery drawer and brought out a pistol. It was a British officer's service pistol, had in fact been taken during a raid on a British Army arsenal in Ulster three years previously.

  Barry checked the handgun with the expertise of a long.

  familiarity and then thrust it into his belt. He had felt naked and vulnerable for the short time that he was without the weapon but he had reluctantly decided not to risk carrying it in the village.

  Now he tapped water into the kettle, and at the sound a voice called through from the dim interior.

  "Is that you?"

  "None other," Barry answered drily, and the other man came through and stood in the doorway to the kitchen.

  He was a thin, stooped man in his fifties with the swollen inflamed face of the very heavy drinker.

  "Did you get it?" His voice was husky and rough with whiskey, and he had a seedy run-down air, a day's stubble of grey hairs that grew at angles on the blotchy skin.

  Barry indicated the package on the sink.

  "It's all there, doctor."

  "Don't call me that, I'm not a doctor any more," the man snapped irritably.

  "Oh, but you are a damned fine one. Ask the girls who dropped their bundles-"

  "Leave me alone, damn you." Yes, he had been a damn fine doctor. Long ago, before the whiskey, now however it was the abortions and the gunshot wounds of fugitives, and jobs like this one.

  He did not like to think about this one. He crossed to the sink and sorted through the packages.

  "I asked you for adhesive tape, "he said.

  "They had none. I brought the bandage."

  "I cannot-" the man began, but Barry whirled on him savagely, his face darkening with angry blood.

  "I've had a gutsful of your whining. You should have brought what you needed, not sent me to get it for you."

  "I did not expect the wound-"

  "You didn't expect anything but another dram of Jamesons, man.

  There is no adhesive tape. Now get on with it and tie the bitch's hand up with the bandage." The older man backed away swiftly, picked up the packages and shuffled through into the other room.

  Barry made the tea and poured it into the thick china mug, spooned in four spoons of sugar and stirred noisily, staring out of the smeared panes. It was raining again. He thought that the rain and the waiting would drive him mad.

  The doctor came back into the kitchen, carrying a bundle of linen soiled with blood and the yellow ooze of sepsis.

  "She is sick he said. "She needs drugs, antibiotics. The finger-"

  "Forget it, "said Barry.

  From the other room there was a long-drawn-out whimper, followed by the incoherent gabble of a young girl deep in the delirium induced by fever and hypnotic drugs.

  "If she is not taken to proper care, I won't be responsible."

  "You'll be responsible," Barry told him heavily. "I'll see to that."

  The doctor dropped the bundle of linen into the sink and let the water run over it.

  "Can I have a drink now?" he asked.

  Barry made a sadistic display of consulting his watch.

  "No. Not yet, "he decided.

  The doctor poured soap flakes into the sink.

  "I don't think I can do the hand," he whispered, shaking his head.

  "The finger was bad enough but I can't do the hand."

  "You'll do the hand" said Barry. "Do you hear me, you whiskey-guzzling old wreck?

  You'll do the hand, and anything else I tell you to do." Sir Steven

  Stride offered a reward of fifty thousand pounds to anyone giving information that led to the recovery of his niece, and the offer was widely reported on television and in the press with reprints of the identikit portrait. It led to a revival of the flagging public interest in the case.

  Inspector Richards had been able to reduce his telephone answering staff to one the last few days, but with the renewed spate of informers and speculators, he had to ask for the other policewoman to return to the third floor, and he had two sergeants processing the material that flowed in.

  "I feel like Littlewoods," he growled to Peter. "Everybody taking a ticket on the pools, or getting his three-pence worth of advertising." He picked up another message slip.

  "Here is another claim for responsibility the Democratic People's Party for the Liberation of Hong Kong Have we ever heard of them before?"

  "No, sir." The senior sergeant looked up from his lists.

  "But that makes one hundred and forty-eight confessions or claims for responsibility so far."

  "And "Enry the Eighth was on again half an hour ago." One of the girls at the switchboard turned and smiled around her mouthpiece. "Hasn't missed a day."

  "Enry the Eighth was a sixty-eight-year-old pensioner who lived in a council estate in South London. His hobby was confessing to the latest spectacular crime from rape to bank robbery, and he had called regularly every morning.

  "Come and get me," he challenged each time. "But I warn you I won't come peaceful like. -" When the local constable had made a courtesy call, while on his regular beat, "Enry the Eighth had his suitcase packed and ready to go. His disappointment was heart-rending when the bobby tactfully explained that they weren't going to arrest him, but when the bobby assured him that they would be keeping him under close surveillance as the Commissioner considered him a very dangerous man, he brightened up considerably and offered the constable a cup of tea.

  "The trouble is we dare not dismiss any of it, even the real loonies, it all has to be checked out," Richards sighed, and motioned Peter to go through to the inner office.

  "Still nothing?" Richards asked. It was an unnecessary question.

  They had a tap on his telephone, at the hotel and at Thor Headquarters, to record any contact from the kidnappers.

  "No, nothing," Peter lied, but the lie had become easy now just as he had learned to accept whatever else was necessary for Melissa-Jane's release.

  "I don't like it, General. I really don't like the fact that there has been no attempt to contact you. I don't want to be despondent, but every day of silence makes it look more like an act of vengeance, " Richards broke off and covered his embarrassment by lighting a cigarette. "Yesterday the Deputy-Commissioner telephoned me. He wanted my opinion as to how much longer I thought it necessary to maintain this special unit."

  "What did you tell him?" Peter asked.

  "I told him that if we did not have s
ome firm evidence within ten days, at least some sort of demand from the kidnappers then I would have to believe that your daughter was no longer alive."

  "I see." Peter felt a fatalistic calm. He knew. He was the only one who knew. There were four days to Caliph's deadline, he had worked out his timetable.

  Tomorrow morning he would request his urgent meeting with Kingston Parker. He expected it would take less than twelve hours to arrange it, he would make it too attractive for Parker to refuse.

  Parker would have to come, but against the remote possibility that he did not, Peter had left himself three clear days before the deadline in which to put into action his alternative plan. This would mean going to Kingston Parker.

  The first plan was the better, the more certain but if it failed, Peter would accept any risk.

  Now he realized that he had been standing in the centre of Richards's office, staring vacantly at the wall above the little inspector's head. He started as he realized that Richards was staring at him with a mingling of pity and concern.

  "I am sorry, General. I understand how you feel but I cannot keep this unit functioning indefinitely. We just do not have enough people-"

  "I understand." Peter nodded jerkily, and wiped his face with an open hand. It was a weary, defeated gesture.

  "General, I think you should see your doctor. I really do."

  Richards's voice was surprisingly gentle.

  "That won't be necessary I'm just a little tired."

  "A man can take just so much."

  "I think that's what these bastards are relying on," Peter agreed. "But I'll be all right." From the next door office there was the almost constant tinkle of telephone bells, and the murmur of female voices as the two policewomen answered the incoming stream of calls. It had become a steady background effect, so that when the call for which they had prayed and pleaded and waited finally came, neither of the two men was aware of it, and there was no excitement on the switchboard. in front of The two girls sat side by side on swivel stools the temporary switchboard. The blonde girl was in her middle twenties, she was pretty and pert, with big round breasts buttoned primly under her blue uniform jacket. The blonde hair was twisted into a bun at the back of her neck to free her ears, but the headset made her appear older and businesslike.

  The bell pinged and a panel lit in front of her; she plugged in the switch and spoke into the headset, "Good morning. This is the Police Special Information Unit-" She had a pleasant middle-class accent, but was unable to keep the trace of boredom out of it. She had been on this job for twelve days now. There was the warning tone of a public telephone and then the click of small change fed into the slot.

  "Can you hear me?" The accent was foreign.

  "Yes, sir."

  "Listen carefully. Gilly O'Shaughnessy has hen" No, it was an imitation, the foreign accept slipped a little with the pronunciation of the name.

  "Gilly O'Shaughnessy,"the police girl repeated.

  "That's right. He's holding her at Laragh."

  "Spell that, please."

  Again the accent slipped as the man spelled the name.

  "And where is that, sir?"

  "County Wicklow, Ireland."

  "Thank you, sir. What is your name, please?" There was the clack of a broken connection and the hum of the dialling tone. The girl shrugged, and scribbled the message on the pad before her, glancing at her wristwatch simultaneously.

  "Seven minutes to tea time," she said. "Roll on death, battle with the angels." She tore the sheet off the pad and passed it over her shoulder to the burly, curly-headed sergeant who sat behind her.

  "I'll buy you a sticky bun, "he promised.

  "I'm on a diet, "she sighed.

  "That's daft, you look a treat-" The sergeant broke off.

  Gil ly O'Shaughnessy. Why do I know that name?" The older sergeant looked up sharply.

  "Gilly O'Shaughnessy?" he demanded. "Let me see that." And he snatched the sheet, scanning it swiftly, his lips moving as he read the message. Then he looked up again.

  "You know the name because you've seen it on the wanted posters, and heard it on the telly. Gilly O'Shaughnessy, strew the man, he's the one who bombed the Red Lion at Leicester, and shot the Chief Constable in Belfast." The curly-headed policeman whistled softly. "This looks like a hot one. A real hot one-" But his colleague was already barging into the inner office without the formality of knocking.

  Richards had the connection to the Dublin police within seven minutes.

  "Impress upon them that there must be no attempt-" Peter fretted, while they waited, and Richards cut him short.

  "All right, General. Leave this to me. I understand what has to be done-- At that moment the Dublin connection was made, and Richards was transferred quickly to a Deputy, Commissioner. He spoke quietly and earnestly for nearly ten minutes before he replaced the receiver.

  "They will use the local constabulary, not to waste time in sending a man down from Dublin. I have their promise that no approach will be made if a suspect is located." Peter nodded his thanks.

  "Laragh," he said. "I have never heard of it. It cannot have a population of more than a few hundred."

  "I've sent for a map," Richards told him, and when it came they studied it together.

  "It's on the slopes of the Wicklow hills ten miles from the coast-" And that was about all there was to learn from the large-scale map.

  "We'll just have to wait for the Dublin police to call back-"

  "No," Peter shook his head. "I want you to call them again, and ask them to contact the surveyor-general. He must have trig maps of the village, aerial photographs, street layouts. Ask them to get them down with a driver to Enniskerry Airfield-"

  "Should we do that now? What if this turns out to be another false alarm."

  "We'll have wasted a gallon of petrol and the driver's time-" Peter was no longer able to sit still, he jumped out of the chair and began to pace restlessly about the office; it was too small for him suddenly, he felt as though he were on the point of suffocation. "I don't think it is, however. I have the smell of it. The smell of the beast."

  Richards looked startled and Peter deprecated the exaggerated phrase with a dismissive gesture. "A manner of speech" he explained,and then stopped as a thought struck him. "The helicopters will have to refuel, they haven't got the range to make it in one hop, and they are so bloody slow!" He paused and reached a decision, then leaned across Richards's desk to pick up the telephone and dialled Colin Noble's private number at Thor.

  "(2bun." He spoke curtly with the tension that gripped him like a mailed fist. "We've just had a contact. It's still unconfirmed, but it looks the best yet."

  "Where?" Colin broke in eagerly.

  "Ireland."

  "That's to hell and gone."

  "Right, what's the flight time for the whirlybirds to reach Enniskerry?"

  "Stand by." Peter heard him talking to somebody else probably one of the RAF. pilots. He came back within the minute.

  "They will have to refuel en route--2 eyes?" Peter demanded impatiently "Four and a half hours,"Colin told him.

  "It's twenty past ten now almost three o'clock before they reach Enniskerry. With this weather it will be dark before five." Peter thought furiously; if they sent the Thor team all the way to Ireland on a false trail and while they were there the correct contact was made in Scotland, or Holland, or'It's got the smell. It's got to be right," he told himself, and took a deep breath. He could not order Colin Noble to go to Bravo. Peter was no longer commander of Thor.

  "Colin," he said. "I think this is it. I have the deep-down gut feel for it. Will you trust me and go to Bravo now? If we wait even another half hour we'll not get Melissa-Jane out before nightfall if she is there." its There was a long silence, broken only by Colin Noble's light quick breath.

  "Hell, it can only cost me my job," he said easily at last. okay, Pete baby, it's Bravo, we'll be airborne in five minutes.

  We'll pick you up from the helipad in fiftee
n minutes; be ready." The cloud was breaking up, but the wind was still bitter and spiteful, and up on the exposed helipad it cut cruelly through Peter's trench coat, blazer and roll-neck jersey. They looked out across the churned surface of the River Thames, eyes watering in the wind, for the first glimpse of the helicopters.

  "What if we have a confirmation before you reach Enniskerry?"

  "You can reach us on the RAF frequencies, through Biggin Hill," Peter told him.

  "I hope I don't have bad news for you." Richards was holding his bowler hat in place with one hand, the skirts of his jacket slapping around his skinny rump and his face blotchy with the cold.

  The two ungainly craft came clattering in, low over the rooftops, hanging on the whirling silver coins of their rotors.

  At a hundred feet Peter could plainly recognize the broad shape of Colin Noble in the open doorway of the fuselage, just forward of the brilliant RAF. rounders, and the down draught of the rotors boiled the air about them. "Good hunting." Richards raised his voice to a shout. "I wish I was coming with you." Peter ran forward lightly, and jumped before the helicopter gear touched the concrete pad. Colin caught him by the upper arm and helped to swing him aboard without removing the cheroot from his wide mouth.

  "Welcome aboard, buddy. Now let's get this circus on the road. "And he hitched the big .45 pistol on his hip.

  "She's not eating." The doctor came through from the inner room and scraped the plate into the rubbish bin below the sink. "I'm worried about her. Very worried." Gilly O'Shaughnessy grunted but did not look up from his own plate. He broke a crust off the slice of bread and very carefully wiped up the last of the tomato ketchup. He popped the bread into his mouth and followed it with a gulp of steaming tea, and while he chewed it all together, he leaned back on the kitchen chair and watched the other man.

  The doctor was on the verge of cracking up. He would probably not last out the week before his nerve went completely; Gilly O'Shaughnessy had seen better men go to pieces under less strain.

  He realized then that his own nerves were wearing away.

  It was more than just the rain and the waiting that was working on him. He had been the fox for all of his life, and he had developed the instincts of the hunted animal. He could sense danger, the presence of the pursuers, even when there was no real evidence. It made him restless to stay longer in one place than was necessary, especially when he was on a job. He had been here twelve days, and it was far too long. The more he thought about it the more uneasy he became. Why had they insisted he bring the brat to this isolated, and therefore conspicuous, little dead-end? There was only one road in and out of the village, a single avenue of escape. Why had they insisted that he sit and wait it out in this one place? He would have liked to keep moving. If he had had the running of it, he would have bought a second-hand caravan, and kept rolling from one park to another his attention wandered for a few moments as he thought how he would have done it if he had been given the planning of it.