Hostage Tower u-1 Read online

  The young man handed the pad to Sonya, who said, ‘Thank you, Basil,’ and began to study the neatly typed summary of the mid-morning traffic …

  Traffic in crime, which was the business of UNACO and its staff. Like Mister Smith, Philpott was fascinated by crime. He was, indeed, fascinated by Mister Smith; and there he had a decided advantage over Smith. For whereas Malcolm Philpott knew a great deal about Smith, and his many aliases and driving obsessions, Smith never even suspected the existence of Philpott or his Department.

  Philpott had himself suggested the formation of the top-secret group when he was a research professor in a New England University, heading a section sponsored partly by industry — it was highly technical and advanced research — and partly by the CIA, through the US Government. The Government had fallen for the idea, and had even accepted Philpott’s primary and absolute condition that the organization should come under the aegis of the United Nations, where its services would be placed at the disposal of all member states, and where its sources would not feel inhibited by the taint of American self-interest and militarism.

  Philpott had not imagined for a second that the Nixon administration would not merely enthusiastically endorse the project, but also fund the donkey work of setting up the Department. He was allowed to select all his staff, and recruit agents, and had never for an instant regretted his first (and only) choice of Assistant Director.

  Sonya Kolchinsky and Philpott shared the conviction that international crime, if properly organized, could threaten subversion and chaos on a scale to rival that of even the most belligerent Eastern Bloc state. They devoted (and sometimes risked) their lives and admittedly well-paid careers to fighting serious crime, and they had earned the respect and admiration of the vast majority of UN member nations, including some in the Eastern Bloc.

  For UNACO would tackle crime anywhere, and for any reason, provided the threat to stability was critical, and that Philpott was sure the Depart ment was not being used as a pawn in a power-game. He had known from the start that the Nixon administration would try to subvert UNACO, by planting key personnel in the group. He had annulled that threat years ago and now, under a more malleable and far-sighted President, the Department enjoyed the trust and support of the United States Government and the un-stinting co-operation of the CIA, INTERPOL and the FBI.

  In fact, Philpott’s personal relationship with the new President of the United States had opened doors to UNACO in America, and throughout the world, which had previously been closed to Philpott, whatever his credentials or reputation. It was a good time for UNACO. Malcolm G. Philpott was determined to keep it that way.

  Easily the most persuasive explanation for his current high standing was his astonishing success. And the most important influence on the UNACO hit rate was, without doubt, Philpott’s ability to recruit international criminals to unmask international crime.

  He logically put criminals into two principal categories: those who operated on their own account for their own benefit; and those others — such as terrorists of all kinds — whose activities were directed at Governments, nations and social systems.

  There was a third kind — a rare breed of criminal dedicated to anarchy, wedded to the abstract concept of crime as a cleansing force; totally amoral and wanting in any respect for human life.

  The second and third categories were Philpott’s targets. He occasionally brought in Governments to help his constant war against international terrorism. But the Napoleons of crime, the monsters, he reserved for himself, asking for help only when he needed it.

  And he was winning his battles. For the criminals Philpott chose as his weapons were often the match for those he sought to destroy.

  Which was why long since, he had recruited the master-criminals Sabrina Carver and C. W. Whitlock to help him rid the world of Mister Smith.

  * * *

  Sonya scanned the message-pad again, and said, ‘Right — here goes.

  ‘The diamond trail’s moving again, it seems.

  Reports indicate that an estimated two million in smuggled uncuts leaked out to Capetown yesterday. Courier unknown. Action?’

  ‘Is someone tracking the haul?’ Philpott asked.

  ‘We are.’

  ‘OK. Code Blue. Give it to INTERPOL, Amsterdam.’

  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 — y
es. 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.

  Sabrina gunned the motor, and with a roar of triumph the little car sailed off the bridge and launched itself into the air. It settled on the road again just in time to get into a power drift along another sharp bend. Sabrina was laughing with sheer delight, when a different sound intruded above the squeal of the tyres and the gruff whine of the engine.

  It was an insistent and penetrating electronic bleep. As she pulled out of a turn, Sabrina took her foot off the gas and let the car ease down to a modest twenty mph. Guiding the wheel expertly with one hand, she reached under the dashboard and pulled out a radiotelephone mike.

  Sabrina spoke into the microphone, ‘Pronto.’

  Sonya’s voice came over the line: ‘Is the pasta al dente?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Sabrina said. Then, ‘Hang on a sec, will you?’

  She steered the Alfa Romeo to a halt on the grassy shoulder of the road. Giulio slumped forward on the crash-bar, sobbing piteous thanks to as many saints as he could remember. Sabrina opened the dashboard locker and pushed a code key into the scrambler box fitted there. ‘Scrambled on 8-2-Baker,’ she said into the mike. ‘Do you read me?’

  ‘I do indeed, my dear,’ Philpott replied. ‘Are you alone?’

  ‘Why hello, Mr Philpott,’ Sabrina said, ‘what a pleasure to hear from you. No, I’m not exactly alone, but he doesn’t understand a word of English. In fact, at the moment he doesn’t seem to understand much of anything.’ Giulio turned his dazed eyes on her, and leaned back in the seat with his mouth drooping open.

  Philpott brought her up to date with the news that C.W. would be joining her on the Smith caper. ‘Oh, great,’ she crowed. ‘Give him a hug for me, and tell him I’ll keep him out of trouble.’

  ‘And you look after yourself too, young lady,’ Philpott ordered with mock severity. ‘I want you looking your best on Friday, because Sonya and I will be there as well.’

  ‘Why you sure enough bet I will, Mistah Philpott, Suh,’ Sabrina replied. ‘So for now — ciao, baby.’

  ‘Sabrina!’ Philpott commanded, ‘don’t go, I haven’t finished. Those diamonds. You’ll have to give them back, you know. I can’t permit members of my organization to commit real crimes while you’re in my service. You see my position, don’t you?’

  ‘What?’ Sabrina yelled. ‘Hello! Hello, New York, hello? Are you still there, Mr Philpott? Something just terrible seems to be happening to my equipment, you know? Ah well, whatever it was you said, I’m sure it wasn’t all that important. ’Bye now,’ she chirped and broke the link.

  ‘Wouldn’t you say so, Giulio?’ she enquired of her cataleptic passenger.

  ‘Glug,’ said Giulio. In Italian.

  * * *

  Philpott chuckled, and flipped a key up on his communications console. ‘That girl,’ he said, ‘will —’

  ‘— keep you young,’ Sonya supplied.

  Philpott winked. ‘No, you do that,’ he whispered. Basil re-entered the room.

  ‘And call the Secretary General, Mrs Kolchinsky,’ Philpott ordered, brusquely, ‘and see if he can get us a Red priority from the French Government.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Sonya said, head buried in message-pad.

  ‘And get us two seats on the fast one to Paris Friday morning.’

  ‘Right away, Mr Philpott.’

  Basil placed a folder on the desk, and made to leave the room. Philpott lowered his voice conspiratorially and said to Sonya, ‘And make sure we have our usual room at the Ritz.’

  ‘Of course,’ Sony
a whispered, and turned to go.

  At the doorway, where they met, Basil winked at her.

  FIVE

  Steam rose from the softly swirling waters of the Jacuzzi. Smith rode the tingling currents, and thoughtfully patted a whirlpool of bubbles which erupted to the surface, spoiling the sculptured undulations. The vortex subsided, and eddied away.

  Smith measured the length of his body on the buoyant waters, and lazily paddled afloat. He heard the clickety-clack of footsteps on the tiles, and smiled a foxy smile. He sniffed and smelled Calèche or Cabochard. It didn’t matter which. The body that wore it was well enough known to him.

  A robed arm stretched out, the long, slim fingers curled around the stem of a Venetian air-drop glass. He let the amber liquid stay, admiring the delicate curve of the meniscus. Seconds, a minute, two minutes, passed. Life, and time, were trapped in a cryogenic matrix, the surface of the liqueur still in contrast to the restless pond of the Jacuzzi.

  Smith was stoned out of his head.

  His eyes drifted together, swivelled apart; then he lay back and breathed a tiny, muted sigh. He focussed on a blob of condensation trickling down the tiled wall, a dribble that transmuted into a cataract, tumbling and foaming until its maddened breakers overwhelmed the room, the gardens, the grounds, the château, all of Orléans, all of France, all that lay beyond.

  He hiccupped, and nodded. The glass tipped obediently towards his mouth, and the sparkling fluid slipped down his throat.

  Smith was still stoned out of his mind.

  He spluttered, and the hand bearing the amazingly proportioned glass withdrew. Leah sat back on her heels, and regarded him with affectionate amusement.

  Smith said, ‘I have been thinking, Leah.’

  ‘Yes, you have, haven’t you.’ She spoke English with him, but in tones overlaid with her native Vienna.

  ‘Why is it, Leah,’ he murmured scarcely audibly, ‘that with all this money I have … this adorable château, and the other places … the yachts, the ranch, the island … the pictures, the sculpture, the jewellery collection, the books and autograph scores … not to mention you and my other — little friends … everything … everything … I have every thing, Leah … more than any man has a right to dream of owning … well, almost … I don’t have the Great Wall of China — but I could get it.’