Red Crystal (56 page)

The thought lifted her, and she felt a new optimism.

It was only five past eleven.
Think
. Should she go yet? She didn’t want to hang around the airport. They’d be looking for her there.

Wait then? She didn’t like that either.

She decided to call
The Times
number again, to make sure everything was going to plan. She would drive to a phone box some distance away and make it from there. That would use up the time nicely.

She checked the flat to make sure she hadn’t left anything behind, then went to the window to take a last look out.

The Ford was parked in its usual place. Another car was manoeuvring into a space just in front of it. She watched it park. A girl in a very brief mini-skirt got out and, locking the door, walked jauntily off along the pavement. A youth coming towards her gazed openly at her legs and, passing by, stopped to watch the rear view wiggling ridiculously away.

A delivery van roared along the road and turned into an adjacent street.

Nothing. Nothing to worry about at all.

She was about to turn away when another vehicle caught her eye. It was stopping some way up the street to the left, almost on a corner. She watched it park and waited for the driver to emerge. A minute later the door still hadn’t opened.

She glanced impatiently at her watch. It really
was
time to go now. She looked back at the car. She was worrying too much. It was just someone waiting.

She went to the door, put on her jacket and lifted the holdall. It was heavy. Perhaps she should have abandoned one of the weapons. But it was too late now.

Checking that she had the car keys handy in her pocket, she went out into the communal hall. Everything was quiet. She slipped down the stairs to the street and paused in the doorway. She eased her head out and looked up the road. That car was still there. It was hard to see if there was anyone in it. Maybe the driver had got out while she was on her way down.

She looked the other way, to the right. A Harrod’s van was growling up the street towards her. She waited for it to pass. Some distance behind, a car was approaching normally.

She glanced back to the left. Nothing to worry about. She walked across the pavement and paused between two parked cars to look for traffic. The approaching car was fifty yards away and braking suddenly. She kept perfectly still, watching. It swerved violently into the opposite kerb and stopped.

Unusual. Swerving suddenly into the kerb. Not many people drove like that.

She pulled back a step. No one was getting out of the car.

That made two cars that no one had got out of.

It meant nothing.
Surely
.

She waited motionless, staring at the second car, dark blue and ominous, gleaming darkly. She caught a glimpse of movement inside. The driver. And someone else. Perhaps even a
third
.

Her stomach turned. She looked across the road to the Ford. So near. The width of the street. All she had to do was walk over. Yet a warning bell screamed in the back of her mind. If she moved it would invite disaster …

Better to stay still and uncommitted …

The faint chug of a diesel engine sounded in the distance. Beyond the second car, a taxi was approaching. The cab came parallel with the car. It was moving between her and the mysterious watching figures.

She had only a split second.

She reached into the holdall and, pulling the Skor-pion out, thrust it under her jacket.

Not enough free hands
.

The cab roared past. She followed it with her eyes as if checking that the absence of a For Hire light had told the truth and that it was indeed occupied. Then, as if searching for another cab, she looked back.

Behind the windscreen of the dark car something caught the light and gleamed.

Binoculars?

She looked again at the Ford. It would seem odd if she suddenly walked across to it and got in. Or would it? She could easily have given up the idea of taking a cab and decided on a car instead …

But a
car
. A car was something which could be followed and stopped. A car was a trap.

Before she could change her mind, she turned and stepped back on to the pavement. She made herself walk casually along the pavement, away from the second car and towards the street that ran down the side of the block of flats. Diagonally ahead of her was the first car. She could see two people in it.

Keeping her elbow tight against the Skorpion, she reached the corner and turned left down the side street. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the door of the first car start to open.

This was it then
.

She quickened her pace and examined the street ahead. On the right, there was an estate of council flats whose blocks were connected by a honeycomb of courtyards and archways.

She crossed the street and risked a quick glance behind. A man wearing a raincoat had appeared at the corner, hovering, eyeing her uncertainly, as if he wasn’t absolutely sure.

Ignoring the archway leading into the estate, she hurried on, walking fast. Ahead was another street. If she turned right, it would take her along a second side of the council estate. She came to a decision. Making a supreme effort not to look behind, she walked on. She reached the corner, rounded it—

Now
.

She burst into a sprint.

It was difficult to run with both hands encumbered. The holdall bumped maddeningly against her leg. She held it up, clear of her leg, and felt her arm complain. The other arm she kept firmly jammed against the Skorpion under her jacket. She pushed on, running wildly, her eyes on another archway ahead. She could almost feel the man behind her, rounding the corner, his eyes burning into her back.

She came to the archway and, diving in, stopped. She put her head out and took a quick look back.

He was just appearing at the corner, looking round in alarm, beginning to run with no clear idea of where he was going.

He hadn’t seen her
.

Immediately she darted off into the courtyard. Ahead was another archway, leading to a second courtyard. She sped towards it, trying to work out how long it would take the raincoat man to reach the archway and see her.

Once through, she wheeled to the left. Ahead was an archway which would bring her out on the third side of the estate. She approached it cautiously. She put her eye to the corner and looked both ways.

Nothing.

Rapidly, she pulled off her jacket, draped it over the Skorpion and walked out into the street. Her jacket was black, her sweater green. If she was seen, the difference might just be enough to confuse them.

She turned left, heading back towards the street where she had last seen raincoat man.

This was the tricky bit. The fear rose in her throat.

If she’d got it right he would be chasing through the network of yards and passages inside the estate. If she’d got it wrong, he would even now be loping along the street and they would meet face to face on the corner …

She grasped the butt of the pistol.
God, but she felt so much better with a gun in her hand
…

The corner came up. She slowed and inched forward.

Nothing! Exultant, she hurried away, heading for the King’s Road. She could see it ahead, busy with traffic and shoppers. Once there she could lose herself in the crowds and find a cab to take her out to the airport …

No more than a hundred yards now. She looked behind. Clear. She hurried on, almost sick with apprehension.

Coming to a junction, she glanced automatically down the side street. And froze.

God
.

The dark car. Right at the far end,
coming
.

She forced herself to continue her journey across the street to the next corner. She heard the car accelerate suddenly.
They had seen her
.

Time to stop running.

Dropping the holdall on the pavement and throwing the jacket aside, she grasped the Skorpion in both hands and, flicking the change lever on to automatic, crouched behind a parked car.

The engine roared up noisily, then slowed as it braked for the corner. The car shot into view. She stood up. The surprised faces stared out of the car windows at her. She gave it a short burst. The driver’s hands fought the wheel, the car shot on across the junction. There was a loud crash of colliding tearing metal, and the dark car was at a halt against a parked car.

Gabriele reached for the holdall, ready to run, but hesitated. A man, completely unhurt, was getting out of the back of the police car, poising himself to run at her. Bracing herself again, she aimed slightly to the right and squeezed the trigger, intending to fire the burst across his body.

The pistol vibrated in her hands, spitting its muted cough.

Then silence.

She squeezed the trigger harder.

Nothing
.

A jam!

She looked wildly from the gun to the man. The man was staggering and falling, grasping his side. She’d got him then, after all.

She paused, scenting the wind. Sirens sounded in the distance, coming closer. Far down the street she saw a running figure coming rapidly towards her, raincoat man. She felt a flutter of panic. Impossible to shoot it out, even with the Kalashnikov. Take a hostage? Run?

She threw the Skorpion down and, picking up the holdall, started to run. Crossing the road she darted into a small side street. She kept running, glancing over her shoulder. She rounded another corner into another street of small Chelsea houses, zigzagging her way gradually towards the King’s Road. The wail of the sirens grew steadily closer. She began to tire.

She glanced over her shoulder. Nothing.
Yet
. But a siren was coming closer all the time. From behind.

Ahead, the King’s Road, tantalizingly close. Yet too
far
.

Gabriele thought: I can’t bear it.

Two yards ahead, a woman was standing outside the front doorway of her home, looking out into the street, irritated at all the noise in her quiet expensive neighbourhood.

Without slowing her pace, Gabriele swerved in through the metal gate, up the steps to the door and, before the surprised woman could utter a word, had yanked her inside the house and slammed the door.

The siren wailed to a crescendo, hovering in a high-pitched scream which filled the air, then slowly faded.

Gabriele leant against the door for a moment, panting hard, letting the relief flow through her, before turning her attention to the woman. The woman was making a lot of noise. She was sixty-ish, with tightly curled hair rinsed a pale shade of blue, and several rows of pearls over a massive bosom. She was squawking indignantly, her bosom swelling like a set of massive bellows. She reminded Gabriele of a ludicrous turkey, gobbling and parading.

Gabriele said, ‘Shut up.’

The woman gaped and said, ‘Well
really
! I’m going to phone the police!’

Gabriele saved her breath. The wobbling gobbling mouth would clam shut once it saw the Makarov.

She reached down to her pocket.

The jacket
.

In the holdall.
It must be
.

But even as she bent down and thrust a hand into the bag she
remembered
.

Throwing the jacket on to the pavement.

Leaving
it.

She cried out, ‘Oh
no
! Oh G-o-d!’

The Makarov.

Then she froze in disbelief as the realization dawned that it was much, much worse.

The money. The passport
.

She had nothing but fifty pounds. And the Kalashnikov.

They’d said it was urgent. Nick sat in the car, waiting impatiently to be connected through the radio link-up. He might as well be calling Mongolia as Paris for the time it was taking. And he only had a few minutes before the last car left for the airport; minutes which he needed to make a brief explanation to the girl.

He was just about to give the call up when the number finally rang and he was through to Desport.

Nick listened to the DST man with growing incredulity.

‘What do you mean the camper van was
seen
outside this organization?’

‘It was logged by our man.’

‘Then this Aid and Solidarity place is well known to you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why weren’t we
told
– about the van, I mean.’

‘You were,’ replied Desport. ‘The information was passed on in the normal way, to our liaison man who would have passed it on to your Security Service.’

Bloody Box 500. Bloody Reece-Jones. Doubtless the information was filed away in some dust-coated archive and no one had thought it worth disseminating to Special Branch. Secretive and incompetent to the bloody end. Nick thought: Sod them all.

‘So tell me, Claude,’ Nick asked bitterly. ‘Who are these people, Aide et Solidarité?’

‘They help political refugees, particularly Third World people. With accommodation, contacts, that sort of thing.’

‘So what would our Italian be doing there?’

‘Well, there’s a possibility they provide other services.’

‘Like?’

‘Papers, false passports …’

‘And?’

‘And maybe even more.’ He was sounding a little defensive. ‘But – that is not certain.’

Nick ventured, ‘Arms and training?’

There was a pause. ‘It’s possible.’

Nick thought: Marvellous. A subversive organization operating under the noses of the French. ‘And did these people realize they were helping terrorists to operate in Britain?’ he asked.

‘Ah, yes. I was getting round to that. We have already notified your headquarters that there was a telephone call made from Aide et Solidarité just a short time ago which could be of interest. It was to England. A veiled conversation. But there was a mention of Damascus. It is possible this is the destination that has been arranged for your terrorists.’

Nick absorbed the information. So they’d been tapping the organization’s phone for some time. Pity nothing of ‘interest’ had come up before. Nick said coldly, ‘Thanks. You’ll keep us informed?’

‘Of course. We don’t like these people any more than you do, you know.’