Prime Target (17 page)

‘But you must release me!'

‘I don't
must
do anything. Just you lie still and try to feel lucky I didn't kill you.' She stood up. ‘One piece of advice before I go, Sayed. Next time you eat a skunk, try peeling it first.'

As she hurried out through the outer room a man coming in from outside nearly collided with her. He stared, leaped back and pulled a curved knife from his belt.

‘Don't do this,' Sabrina said, crouching, spreading her arms, getting the car key positioned in her fist like a spike. ‘Just back off.'

The man lunged with the knife. Sabrina jumped aside then leaped forward as the knife swung past her face. She jerked out her fist and felt the key penetrate his cheek. He screamed. She drew her fist back. As he swung the knife again she jabbed the key into the space between his collarbones, splitting the cartilage between his larynx and his windpipe. He dropped the knife and fell back,
clutching his neck. Sabrina kicked open the door and ran for the car.

She was back at the National by nine o'clock. The drive across dusty roads filmed her skin with fine sand the colour of terracotta. At reception the old Indian told her a visitor was waiting. He did not look as if he approved.

She went to the tiny bar and found Nat Takahashi sitting in the corner reading a copy of the local evening paper. When he saw her he looked shocked.

‘What happened? Did a bus hit you, or what?'

‘Just everyday UNACO business. We don't mind getting our hands and all our other bits dirty. What brings you here, Nat?'

‘I thought I'd buy you dinner before you went back.'

‘You're an angel,' she said. ‘I can't think of anything nicer.'

‘But promise me you'll clean yourself up first. I have a reputation to look after.'

‘Twenty minutes,' she promised, going to the stairs. ‘You won't believe the change.'

Nat sat down to finish reading a late news item, printed in red on the back page, about two Peruvians being fished dead from a well in the Medina quarter that afternoon.

Upstairs Sabrina entered her room, thinking how good it would be to talk to Nat about what had happened since the last time she saw him.
But that was out of the question. Rules were rules, her lips were sealed.

‘He wouldn't believe a word of it, anyway,' she said, heading for the bathroom.

By 7.00 a.m., one hour after Sabrina had boarded her early flight out of Tangier, Mike Graham was in the bushes on the fringe of a public park in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin. He was positioned directly opposite a squat, black-walled block of high-security apartments at Scharweber Strasse. The front door of number 17a was angled fractionally towards his vantage point, and the view was unobstructed.

The official start of spring was only a few days off, but it was a cold morning nevertheless, and since dawn it had been raining. Mike wore the latest in lightweight, one-piece, low-reflectance thermal suits, and he had brought a flask of coffee, but by 8.30 he felt distinctly chilled.

Beside him in the bushes, mounted on top of a garden cane stuck in the ground, was a high-frequency sound assimilator with its viewfinder fixed on the lock panel at number 17a. He had prepared for this morning's work with a drive-by
the previous day; a quick look had told him the door lock was sonic, with a deadlock back-up. In addition to the assimilator, he had brought a selection of deadlock skeletons plus a keyform profiler, with two blanks and a selection of carbon steel files, in case the deadlock was cleverer than it looked.

At 9.10 a woman wearing a fashionable variation of a duffel coat came out of the apartment, pulling up her hood before Mike got his monocular to his eye. She closed the door, turned and pointed her sonic key at the panel. Mike pressed the button on top of the assimilator and heard it peep softly to confirm it had collected the signal.

The woman pocketed the key, turned and went down the steps. All Mike saw of her face was a firm mouth with bright lipstick, before she turned at the foot of the steps and walked away from him. He pulled the assimilator off the cane and put it in his pocket.

He waited and watched. On a basis of averages, it was safe to assume the flat was now empty, but waiting did no harm, except to his hands and feet, which appeared to have been isolated from his circulation.

At ten o'clock he crossed the road and went up the steps to number 17a. It was raining heavily now and no one was about. He looked right and left, keeping his chin tucked in and leading with the top of his head so the camera above the door wouldn't identify him. He brought out the assimilator, pointed it at the lock panel on the door and
pushed the
TRANSMIT
button. The machine emitted a crisp beep, a duplicate of the sound the woman had used to lock the door. He was pleased she hadn't troubled to use the deadlock key. A light push and the door opened.

He slipped inside and shut the door behind him. For a minute he stood still, eyes shut, conditioning them to the dark. In secure premises without windows the lights were often wired to alarm systems. If an intruder switched them on, a signal was sent to the local police station. It was best to move around in the dark, using a torch any time a strong light was needed.

When he opened his eyes he saw a dim red night light above the front door. He could see across the hall and part of the way into the room opposite, which looked like the sitting room. He went in there and switched on his little MagLite torch.

The place was furnished with heavy modern pieces, mostly finished in black lacquer, the up-holstery covered in black and dark-blue canvas. Above the fake fireplace was a painting in a frame with a dim picture light above it. He stepped forward and looked. The painting was not good, but it was a true enough likeness for him to identify the subject as Erika Stramm.

A sideboard along the wall opposite the door had a cupboard at one end and drawers at the other. He put the torch between his teeth and slid open the bottom drawer. It was crammed with books, perhaps a hundred of them, all paperbacks,
all new, all in English, and only two titles:
Armageddon in the East
and
The Abuses of Power,
both by Erika Stramm. The drawer above held a drawing board, professional-looking drawing instruments and several dozen sheets of self-adhesive lettering.

The top drawer looked more interesting. The torch beam picked out a stack of notebooks at the back, all well thumbed, held together with a rubber band. He put them on top of the sideboard for further examination. He also took out a ledger and a ring-binder full of invoices.

As he probed the back of the drawer, carefully sliding a sheaf of papers past a stapler and a bottle of ink, he failed to hear a man come out of a bedroom adjoining the sitting room. He approached Mike slowly from behind, raising a walking stick in the air above his head.

The stick came down and Mike dropped to his knees and rolled sideways. The move was instinctive, triggered every time he heard the
whoosh
of a blunt object moving fast. The walking stick crashed on the top of the sideboard. Simultaneously Mike kicked the feet from his assailant, knocking him on his back.

‘Kak eto nazy -'

There was a scrambling, a thud as a heavy chair went over, and suddenly a terrible weight landed on Mike's chest. Hands gripped his neck, trying to strangle him. He smelled good cologne and a trace of stale brandy.

‘Take it easy…'

They wrestled in the dark, rolling across the floor until the open door stopped them. Mike's head cracked on the other man's cheek, making him howl and let go. Mike jumped to his feet, feeling his leg grabbed. He kicked out with the other foot. While it was still travelling his static foot was jerked forward and he landed on his back. His head struck something hard and for a moment his senses swam.

He was aware the other man was up on his knees now and punching. Mike forced himself up, taking the blows, feeling the impact on his face and ribs. With an effort he drove himself to his feet, grabbed the man's hair and with the other hand jabbed him in the gut. The man folded, groaning.

Mike turned, looking for the door. He saw it but never took the first step towards it. A bunched fist hit the back of his skull and put him on his knees. He was hoisted, punched again, dumped into a chair and felt himself being tied there. There was no longer any strength in his arms to resist.

The light came on. Mike raised his head slowly and saw the man he had fought. He was big, very big, with a shaved head and a nose that must have been broken at least three times. He wore a blue athletic singlet and tracksuit bottoms. He was standing by the settee, looking at Mike as if he would like to hit him again.

‘Hi,' Mike said.

The man turned and walked out of the room. A moment later, Mike heard a telephone being lifted and a number tapped in.

The dove-grey Lear jet taxied off the apron and waited to line up with the runway take-off lights. Malcolm Philpott and C.W. Whitlock were the only passengers on board.

‘I find executive flights soothing,' Philpott said. He squirmed his shoulders against the sculpted padding of the seat. ‘Lots of leg-room, every convenience within reach…' He pointed at the panel beside them. ‘Video, reading light - a really
good
reading light - window shades, music, even a direct line to the pilot. When you eat it's individual attention, as enriching an experience as you'll have in any restaurant.'

‘You like being pampered,' Whitlock said.

‘Of course I do.'

‘It's good of you to let me share your just desserts.'

They were flying to Dallas-Fort Worth International airport, one of the busiest in the world, where Philpott was sure their arrival would pass unnoticed.

‘It would have been nice if we'd been able to stay at the same hotel,' Philpott said. ‘But the scenario hardly permits that.'

Whitlock took a slip of paper from his pocket and read it. ‘I'm boarded somewhere off the LBJ Freeway. How far does that put me from you?'

‘Not far. I'm at the Fairmont on North Ackard Street - the number's at the bottom of your bit of paper.'

‘And you're Mr Beamish.'

‘That's correct, Mr Tait.'

There was a sudden roar, blanking out every other sound. The plane surged forward and bumped across the runway seams, each one shaking the cabin, and then the speed increased and they were sailing down the runway. After only a few seconds they were airborne and the noise in the cabin settled to a hum.

‘I'm still nervous about doing this ahead of any word from Sabrina or Mike,' Whitlock said. ‘It's like going on stage without any lines.'

‘Improvisation is supposed to be one of our talents.'

‘Sure. But we don't know the score with these people, do we? An improvisation has to fit or it's not worth doing.'

‘We'll soon know the score. Whatever Mike and Sabrina uncover, whether it's connected or un-connected with Harold Gibson's cohorts, we can adjust our approach accordingly. Meanwhile, we will be wasting no time getting the first-hand low-down on the Texas connection.'

‘Assuming there is one.'

‘I'm sure there's one,' Philpott said. ‘And if there isn't, I have to tell you it won't matter. Last night I thought over the whole nasty, sprawling picture you painted from the notes in the bigot book.
It's time something positive was done about the Patriots, wouldn't you say?'

‘If you mean do I think passive surveillance is no way to curtail the activities of thugs, well yes, I think a new tack would be in order.'

‘And there's just enough of the agitator left in me to fight them with their own weapon.'

‘Which is?'

‘Bullying. Dressed to look like something else, of course.
But.'
Philpott slapped the armrest. ‘I don't want to muddle our thinking at this stage. My gut feeling is, there's a connection between Gibson's crowd, Emily Selby's murder and Emily's German hit-list. If the connection is there, we need to discover its nature and its dimensions.
And,
as I already pointed out, there may well be some advantage in getting to Texas in time for Gibson's funeral.'

Whitlock smiled. ‘You're really set on doing serious harm to these people, aren't you?'

‘What makes you think that?'

‘The speed. The way you got up and running. You hardly stopped to plan this trip.'

‘I'll admit to a certain grim enthusiasm for the project.' Philpott looked out of the window, seeing the matrix of New York City below them. ‘I have the conviction, too, that this is a job for men who are not entirely conditioned to a politically structured way of doing things.'

Seven years as a detective chief superintendent, and another six as joint chief of Scotland Yard's Special Branch, had given Philpott a firm point
of view on the operational limitations of government security services. The G-men were better at gathering and analysing intelligence, and better at presenting their results. But they lacked a policeman's understanding of criminals and a soldier's iron discipline in putting his duty above every other consideration. Cops and soldiers were better at keeping in mind the rigorous requirements of the law, especially in the way evidence had to be gathered. They were unequalled, also, at handing out punishment of their own devising when the authorities' hands were tied.

‘The idea of Nazism is a particular pain for me,' Philpott said. ‘I lost members of my family in the Blitz, and later I grew up through a period when my country had to recover from the most appalling setbacks - industrial, social, domestic. People had to rebuild their lives against a backdrop of unrelieved dreariness and hardship. That was all down to the Nazis. Then when I was older I visited Belsen and Auschwitz-Birkenau and I learned about the true scale and scope of what they did.' He looked at Whitlock. ‘Any day I do something to damage a Nazi-sympathizer has got to be a day well spent.'