1966 - You Have Yourself a Deal (7 page)

When Dorey was uneasy about the success of an operation, his mind turned automatically to Kerman. He had alerted him to come to the Embassy before Girland had arrived. Kerman had been waiting with his usual placid patience until he was sent for.

“Sit down, Jack,” Dorey said amiably. “Want a sandwich?”

Kerman came over to the big desk and lowered his slight frame into the lounging chair. He was wearing an old, well-worn sports coat that he had bought from Simpsons of Piccadilly when last he had been in London, and a pair of shabby, grey slacks. There was nothing showy about Kerman, but when you looked into the alert, rather ugly face and into the steady, dark eyes, you would reverse your opinion that he was just another rather unsuccessful man.

“Not for me, sir, thank you. I’ve had dinner,” he said and waited.

“We have Girland again,” Dorey said. “I didn’t want to use him but the situation is such I had no option.”

Kerman smiled.

“That means trouble, sir.”

“I know. I’ll put you in the picture.” Briefly, Dorey explained about Erica Olsen and the part he wanted Girland to play.

Kerman nodded his approval.

“It could work, sir. Yes . . . of course, Girland would be your only choice.”

“He’s downstairs in the car pool right now and he should be at the American hospital in half an hour. I want you to tail him, Jack. Don’t let him spot you. I wouldn’t want him to think I don’t trust him. It’s your job to help him if he runs into trouble.”

Dorey slid a slip of paper across the desk. “This is a chit for a car. Get something fast. I’ll leave that to you. Girland has a radio pill to give to the woman. I hope he does give it to her. If he does, your job will be easy. Pick a car with a radar scanner. Keep in touch with me. We must not lose this woman. I have already warned Girland that the Soviet and Chinese will be after her. It is possible I have moved fast enough to beat them, but I could be kidding myself. You can call on as much help as you may need. Right now I am leaving this to you to handle on your own. O’Halloran’s men are too heavy-handed for this kind of job, but you may have to call them in. Don’t hesitate if you feel you have to. Girland has a 202 Mercedes, black, No. 888. Get over to the hospital as fast as you can.” Dorey slid a packet of one hundred francs across the desk. “This should hold you, Jack, but if you want more, let me know. You’ll follow him to Eze. Once there, providing you are certain he hasn’t been followed, you can safely leave him.” Dorey regarded Kerman. “You know what I like about you? You never ask for money. Girland never stops asking for it.”

Kerman grinned. He slid the money into his hip pocket.

“I make a living. Girland doesn’t and don’t make the mistake, sir, of thinking Girland isn’t a good man. In my reckoning, he’s the best you’ve got.”

Dorey pulled a wry face.

“I wouldn’t go that far, but he’s good. The trouble with him is he always thinks of himself first.”

“As far as he is concerned, it’s a good philosophy.”

Dorey laughed.

“Get going, Jack. Let’s have some action.”

Ten minutes later, as Dorey was locking up his files, preparing to go home the door jerked open and O’Halloran came in. His red, fleshy face was dark with suppressed rage.

“Hello, Tim,” Dorey said mildly, recognising the danger signals. “What brings you here?”

“This punk Girland has put one of my best men in hospital!”

O’Halloran grated, coming to rest before the big executive desk.

“Now, look, sir . . .”

“All right, all right, calm down. What is all this?”

O’Halloran drew in a deep breath, took off his peak cap and sat down.

“One of my best men . . . he’s now in hospital with a broken collar bone and four fractured ribs.”

“Who’s that?”

“Mike O’Brien.”

Dorey looked startled.

“O’Brien? You surprise me. I thought he was your toughest boy. What do you mean? In hospital?”

“Girland threw him down a flight of stairs,” O’Halloran said, his face darkening.

“What in God’s name made him do that?”

“Well, I guess O’Brien and Bruckman acted a little rough. After all, Girland isn’t much, is he? My boys didn’t have to treat him like a V.I.P.”

Dorey smiled.

“Doesn’t sound as if Girland treated O’Brien as a V.I.P. either.”

“But O’Brien will be out of action for a couple of months!” O’Halloran exploded. “I want you to do something about this, sir! I’m not having one of my men treated this way!”

“I know O’Brien,” Dorey said quietly. “He is a fighting Mick. I must admit, Tim, this is good news to me. I was worrying that with Girland’s layoff, he had turned soft, but if he can take a toughie like O’Brien and put him in hospital, I think it is more than obvious I have picked the right man.”

O’Halloran cleared his throat, then suddenly grinned.

“Well, he certainly took the starch out of that Irish bastard,” he said, “but I must put it on record, sir, that I am objecting.”

“I’ll make a note of it,” Dorey said gravely: “Girland is quite a character. Of course he needs watching, and I think he is thoroughly untrustworthy, but in certain circumstances, he is the best man we have. I have put Kerman on his tail. Kerman may need help. I have told him to call on you if he does. Was there anything else?”

O’Halloran rubbed his jaw, then shrugged. He had made his complaint. There was no point in taking it further. He said, “We have been checking on this woman. We have a report from Pekin that Kung’s mistress has been missing since June 23rd. A lone woman, matching Erica Olsen’s description, travelled by train from Pekin to the Hong Kong border. Two days later, she took a plane to Istanbul and stayed two days at the Hilton Hotel. She travelled under the name of Naomi Hill. She arrived in Paris eight days ago. One of the clerks at Orly has seen her photograph and confirms it is the woman. We lost her at Orly and picked her up two days later when she was found unconscious. I’m trying to find out where she stayed in Paris during these two days, but so far I’ve had no luck. When she was found she had no luggage nor a handbag. Hong Kong says when she arrived from Pekin, she had two heavy suitcases with her. So they must be somewhere. I can’t get a lead from Orly about her luggage. I’m having all the left luggage lockers checked. We could still come up with her suitcases, and this could be important.”

Dorey nodded. His thin face was puzzled.

“She might have stayed with a friend. Seems odd no hotel has reported her missing or finding her luggage.”

“Yeah. Well, I’ll keep at it.” O’Halloran got to his feet. “You are moving her from the hospital?”

“She’s being moved right at this moment. I am expecting a call from Kerman to tell me she is safely on her way.”

When Dorey finally got the call from Kerman, the call came as a considerable shock.

* * *

As Jo-Jo reached the bend in the stairway leading to the fourth floor, he heard voices. He paused abruptly and peered around the bend. He saw a soldier, his back turned to him, an automatic rifle in his hand. The sight of the armed man made Jo-Jo stiffen, and then his lips moved off his uneven yellow teeth in a grin.

Well, at least he had found the right floor, he thought, but he wasn’t going to tangle with a man with an automatic rifle. He would have to go back to the fifth floor, get out onto the ledge and climb down to the fourth floor. By edging along the lower ledge and by looking into the various windows, he must, sooner or later, find this woman.

Then he heard a man say, “Get the elevator open!”

Again he leaned forward cautiously, and was in time to see a wheeled stretcher on which lay a blonde woman. The stretcher was being pushed by a tall, lean man wearing a shabby suit. He was followed by a man wearing the uniform of an American Colonel, a .45 automatic in his hand. Behind him came a white-faced nurse. The scared expression on her young face alerted Jo-Jo too late that something was wrong.

While he was hesitating, the elevator doors swished open and the stretcher was pushed into the cage. In a few seconds, the other members of the party had entered and the door swished shut.

As the elevator sank between the floors, Smernoff said to Girland, “Don’t start anything when we get to the lobby. If we have to, we’ll start shooting. There could be a massacre down there if you fool around. Just remember that.”

Girland shrugged.

“I’m not starting anything . . . why should I? You have got her: okay, you keep her.”

Smernoff sneered at him.

“Dorey must be a fool to use a weakling like you.”

“Why, sure,” Girland said. “Who said Dorey was anything but a fool? Just don’t get rough. Take her away and leave me alone. Why should I care what happens to her? Dorey isn’t paying me that much.”

Ginny gasped and stared at Girland who made a face at her.

“And you, baby, you behave too,” he said. “This woman isn’t your responsibility. Don’t risk getting hurt. No one is worth getting hurt for.”

The elevator doors opened and the party with the stretcher moved out into the lobby.

The fat reception clerk blinked at them. Kordak had moved close to Ginny who remained by the stretcher. Smernoff said quietly to Girland, “Sign her out. You’ll be the first to get it in the back if you start something.”

Girland walked across to the reception desk.

“I’m taking my wife home. Do you want me to sign anything?” he said to the clerk.

“Certainly.” The clerk gaped at Smernoff and then at Kordak and his automatic rifle. “What is all this?”

“She’s a V.I.P.,” Girland said smoothly. “The American Army is interested in her.”

Puzzled, the clerk gave him a form which Girland completed.

Smernoff had moved to his side, his .45 now back in its holster, but Girland was aware of the automatic rifle.

In a few moments the party moved out of the lobby and down the ramp to the waiting Citroen ambulance.

Jack Kerman parked outside the hospital in a 3.8 Jaguar watched the sleeping woman being loaded into the ambulance. He saw Girland and a young nurse get into the ambulance, followed by a man in a Colonel’s uniform. Aha! trouble, he thought and switched on the radar scanner.

As the ambulance began to move down the drive, the scanner warmed up. Then as Kerman started the car’s engine, a steady bleep-bleep came from the screen and he relaxed. At least Girland had given the woman the radio pill, he thought. He waited until the ambulance had turned the corner and began racing towards the Pont de Neuilly, then he engaged gear and manoeuvred the car from its parking place.

* * *

Sadu had seen the ambulance drive away and thought nothing of it. He was sitting, tense, waiting for Jo-Jo to appear to tell him the woman was dead. He was very uneasy. Nothing he would have liked better than to have driven away and to have left Jo-Jo to find his own way back, but suppose Jo-Jo had been seen?

Suppose . . .? He grimaced. Lighting yet another cigarette, he looked out into the rain at the lighted entrance of the hospital.

Jo-Jo had returned to the fifth floor. He knew he had failed and he was nervous. Yet-Sen had no patience with failures. This could be dangerous, Jo-Jo thought. His cunning mind was busy as he pressed the call button of the elevator. As he went down to the ground floor, he unscrewed the silencer from the gun and dropped it into his pocket. He shoved the gun down the waistband of his trousers. The cage of the elevator grounded and he darted out of it, moving like a swift black shadow, past the reception clerk and out into the rain. His movements were so fast the reception clerk, dozing at his desk, had only a blurred image of a man passing him and by the time he was sufficiently alert, Jo-Jo was scrambling into Sadu’s car.

“Get moving!”

Sadu started the engine and pulled out into the deserted boulevard. He began driving fast towards Place des Ternes.

“What happened?” he asked, his eyes watching the rain soaked road.

“The nurse lied,” Jo-Jo said. “I couldn’t find her. She wasn’t on the fifth floor.” He thought of the stretcher on which the sleeping woman had been wheeled into the elevator. This was something he would keep to himself. “The operation was badly planned. We must begin again tomorrow.”

Sadu cursed. He slammed on the brakes and pulled up by the kerb.

“Tomorrow? They told me she was to be dead by tomorrow! We’ll go back! You have got to find her!”

Jo-Jo scratched the back of his dirty neck.

“How? I can’t look in every room in the hospital. This is your funeral. Tell me where she is and I’ll do the job.”

Sadu became desperate. This was his first important assignment and unless he succeeded, his status with Yet-Sen and more important with Pearl would be worthless. Besides, remembering what Pearl had said, his own life could be in danger.

“We’ll go back,” he said, trying to steady his voice. “Somehow we will find her.”

Jo-Jo hesitated, then decided he had better tell the truth.

There was now no point in going back.

“All right, don’t get so worked up. I messed it. They have taken her away. I saw them take her out on a stretcher.”

Sadu twisted around in his seat.

“Who took her away?” His voice was shrill.

“The Americans,” Jo-Jo said sullenly.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Don’t shout! I didn’t want trouble.”

Cursing, Sadu slapped the thin, dirty face with the back of his hand.

“You stinking little rat! We could have followed the ambulance. I saw it go, but didn’t know she was inside!”

There was a moment of pause, than as Jo-Jo said nothing, Sadu started the car. He began driving at a reckless speed down the dark, rain swept road.

Jo-Jo wiped his bleeding nose on his sleeve. He resisted the urge to slam his knife into Sadu’s body. He said, “Where do you think you are going?”

“Shut up!” Sadu snarled.

Shrugging, Jo-Jo squirmed down in the bucket seat. This was his first failure. He was a little unnerved. His face smarted from the slap Sadu had given him. Well, that was something to be stored away. No one ever hit him without regretting it.

Driving so fast that even Jo-Jo’s teeth were set on edge, Sadu arrived at his shop on the Rue de Rivoli in ten minutes.