Believed Violent (3 page)

Craig had laughed, pleased, but had waved a deprecating hand.

“Oh, I get by,” he said. “The truth is the job really doesn’t extend me. I’m looking for something I can really get my teeth into.” It was a hint . . . a seed dropped. Now, it looked as if the seed was germinating.

At exactly one o’clock, Craig got out of the taxi outside the George V Hotel. He paid off the driver, then walked into the vestibule. Not seeing Lindsey, he walked over to the concierge.

“Is Mr. Lindsey around?” he asked.

“Is it Mr. Craig?” The concierge regarded him, his head slightly on one side.

“That’s right.”

“Mr. Lindsey is expecting you. Would you please go up to Suite 457 on the fourth floor, monsieur.”

A little surprised, Craig nodded and walked over to the elevator. At the fourth floor, he walked along the side corridor until he came to a door numbered 457. He pressed the buzzer and waited.

The door was opened by a slightly built Japanese servant, wearing a white coat and black silk trousers. He bowed to Craig and stood aside.

Impressed, Craig moved into the small lobby, taking off his camel hair coat which the Japanese put on a hanger with respectful care.

“This way, monsieur,” he said and opened a door, bowing Craig into a large saloon, tastefully furnished. Over the fireplace hung a 1959 Picasso. On the overmantel stood exquisitely carved figures in green and yellow jade. On the occasional tables were gold cigarette boxes, gold lighters and onyx ashtrays. On the opposite wall, facing Craig was a Matisse. Nearby was a glass cabinet containing a collection of Ming ware, and Craig who in his spare time was a museum addict immediately recognized their enormous value. He was moving toward the cabinet when another door opened and Herman Radnitz came in, closing the door behind him.

Craig looked at the squat, fat man, startled and surprised. He felt a tremor of uneasiness as Radnitz regarded him, the slate grey eyes under their hooded lids surveying him with a bleak, searching stare.

“You are Alan Craig?” Radnitz asked in his hard guttural voice.

“Yes.”

“You may want to look at these disgusting things,” Radnitz said and handed Craig a large envelope.

Craig took the envelope, but continued to stare at Radnitz.

“I don’t understand,” he said uneasily. “I was expecting Mr. Lindsey.”

“Look at them!” Radnitz snapped. “I have no time to waste!” He walked over to one of the occasional tables, selected a cigar, cut it carefully, then lit it. He walked over to the window and looked down at the passing traffic.

Craig looked at the envelope, lifted the flap and drew out six glossy photographic prints. One glance stopped his heartbeat for a split second, then his heart began to race and he felt icy sweat break out on his face. He shuffled through the prints, then returned them to the envelope and put the envelope down on one of the tables. His first thought was that his life had ended. He would leave the hotel, return to his apartment and kill himself. Just how he would do it, he had no idea, but he would do it.

Radnitz turned and regarded him.

“On the back of the envelope is a list of people who will be sent these photographs,” he said. “Read it.”

Craig remained motionless, not looking at Radnitz, his face ashen, sick to his soul.

“Read it!” Radnitz said again.

Slowly, Craig picked up the envelope. Neatly typed were the names of those people who loved and respected him. His mother . . . his sister . . . his grandmother . . . Harry Matthews who had partnered him in winning the Rackets Championship at Eton . . . Father Brian Selby who had given him his first Communion John Brassey, his Oxford coach who had predicted a brilliant career for him . . . and, of course, Mervin Warren.

“I want a photograph of Formula ZCX,” Radnitz said.

That should not be difficult. I have made your task fairly simple.” He crossed the room, opened a drawer and took from It a small camera in a soft leather zip case. “This camera is entirely automatic, Lay the formula on a flat surface, stand immediately above it and take ten photographs. You will bring the camera containing the film to the Hilton Hotel, Washington and give it to Mr. Lindsey. When he is satisfied the photographs are in order, he will give you the negatives of these disgusting things and all the copies. Is that understood? If you fail, copies of this filth will be mailed to the people listed on the envelope.”

“How―how did you get these―photos?” Craig asked in a husky whisper.

Radnitz shrugged.

“Your friend, Jerry Smith is one of the many creatures I have to employ. Take the camera and leave me.”

“The formula is useless,” Craig said desperately. “Everyone knows that. You are forcing me to . . .”

“You will be at the Hilton Hotel a week from today . . . the 26th,” Radnitz said. “If you don’t have the photographs of the formula . . .” He shrugged and left the room.

Craig stood still, clutching the camera. He remained like that until Ko-Yu came into the room with his coat. Then he picked up the envelope, snatched his coat from the Japanese servant and hurriedly left the hotel.

Jonathan Lindsey had been Radnitz’s Chief of Operations for the past ten years. He drew a salary of $ 100,000 a year, and earned every dollar of it. Although he was sixty years of age he kept himself in first class trim. He was tall and lean, a nondrinker and a non-smoker, and he had a nimble, shrewd brain and a soulless mind. Suave, smooth, with perfect manners, he frequented the Embassies of the world, and was on friendly and even familiar terms with several of the crowned heads of Europe. As a front man, he was invaluable to Radnitz who preferred to keep in the background. Whenever there was an important operation, Radnitz gave his instructions, and Lindsey carried them out with unfailing success.

It was fortunate for Lindsey that he liked luxury hotels for he spent his entire life moving from one hotel to another, crossing the Atlantic sometimes as often as three times a week, visiting European cities to fix up a deal here and a merger there, staying at the best hotels where he was known to be a big spender and always received immediate and excellent service.

On the afternoon of October 26th, Lindsey was sitting in the foyer of the Washington Hilton Hotel, watching the busy scene, relaxed, his well shaped hands folded in his lap, his pale blue eyes regarding the men and women who came and went, speculating on who they were and what they did for a living. Lindsey was always interested in people, no matter how rich or poor they might be.

A few minutes to three o’clock, he saw Alan Craig enter the hotel and look around, hesitating. He got slowly to his feet and crossed the foyer, his charming smile lighting up his face, thinking how bad Craig looked. The stupid fellow couldn’t have been sleeping well, Lindsey thought. Well, that was not surprising. If you led the life Craig led, sooner or later, there had to be a blow-back.

“Hello, Alan,” he said in his soft cultured voice. He made no offer to shake hands. “Punctual as always. Let us go upstairs.”

Craig looked at him, his face drawn and set. Wordlessly, he followed Lindsey to the elevator, rode up with him to the third floor and followed him along the corridor to Lindsey’s suite.

“I hope you were successful,” Lindsey said as he closed the door.

Still saying nothing, Craig took the camera in its leather case from his pocket and handed it to Lindsey.

“Sit down. I won’t be long. Do you want a drink?”

Craig shook his head and sat down.

“Excuse me. I will be as quick as I can,” and Lindsey left the room. He entered the bathroom. Here, he had a developing tank, the chemicals mixed and a red safe light installed. Working with quick efficiency, he developed the film, fixed it, washed it, then turning on the overhead light, he examined the negatives with a powerful magnifying glass.

These Japanese cameras are really remarkable, he thought as he studied the needle sharp negatives. Satisfied, he hung the strip of film up to dry and returned to the sitting-room.

Craig looked at him, his face white and haggard.

“Perfectly satisfactory,” Lindsey said, then unlocking a drawer in his desk, he took out a thick envelope and handed it to Craig. “The bargain is completed, I think.”

Craig peered into the envelope. He saw the negatives and the prints.

“How do I know you haven’t copies?” he demanded, his eyes desperately searching Lindsey’s calm face.

“My dear boy, you should know me better than that,” Lindsey said quietly. “A bargain is a bargain. I don’t cheat.”

Craig hesitated, then nodded wretchedly.

“Yes . . . I’m sorry.” He paused, then went on, “The formula is useless. I — I wouldn’t have given it to you if I thought the code could be broken. It can’t! Do you hear? It is useless! It can’t be broken!”

“So I understand,” Lindsey said mildly. “Well, never mind. My principal wants it. What he does with it is no concern of ours. We now have it. You have what you want, and the matter is concluded. Thank you.”

Craig stared at him, then snatching up the envelope, he went quickly from the room.

Lindsey walked over to the telephone.

“Is Mr. Silk there, please?” he asked the operator.

“Yes, sir. One moment, sir.”

There was a moment’s delay, then a voice said, “Silk”.

“He’s on his way down now,” Lindsey said.

“Okay.”

Craig had to wait a few minutes before a taxi pulled up outside the hotel. He waited until the fare had paid off the driver, then climbed into the taxi, giving his apartment address. His mind was in too much of a turmoil for him to notice two well dressed men slide into a Ford Thunderbird and follow his taxi.

The driver of the Thunderbird was around twenty-six years of age. His name was Chet Keegan. He had a baby faced handsomeness, blond, longish hair, a small thin mouth and close set green eyes. His companion was some fifteen years older, a hatchet faced man with a glass eye and a white scar running down the side of his left cheek. His name was Lu Silk. These two men were vicious and dangerous thugs: professional killers who would tackle any job, any kind of danger, any kind of killing if the money was right. They were soulless robots who obeyed Lindsey’s commands, not thinking, not questioning, knowing from long experience that Lindsey’s scale of pay easily topped any other offer they might receive.

Unaware that he was being followed, Craig relaxed back in the taxi and looked at the photographs he had taken from the envelope. He shuddered. Even if he had had the guts to kill himself, he knew that the hurt and the horror these photographs would have caused the people they could have been sent to were too appalling to contemplate. Well, he now had them back. He trusted Lindsey. A bargain was a bargain, Lindsey had said. Never again! Craig avowed to himself. Never again would he pick up a stranger. He had no need to. He had plenty of friends whom he could trust. That had been a moment of utter madness, and how he had paid for it!

The actual photographing of the formula had presented no difficulties nor incurred any risk. By now, Mervin Warren had complete trust in Craig, and left him to lock the Top Security safe and to clear up, often leaving him alone in the building. It was a mere matter of a few minutes to take the ten photographs and return the formula to the safe. But Craig’s conscience nagged at him. He kept assuring himself that the code was unbreakable. Yet why had this man blackmailed him to get these photographs? Was it possible that there was a means of breaking the code? Craig felt cold sweat on his face. He knew the vital importance of the formula. He knew every American code expert had tried in vain during the past two years to break it. He knew if the code could be broken and the metal produced, it would mean the biggest and quickest breakthrough in rocket development that could be imagined. But if the Russians broke the code . . . !

He wiped his face with his handkerchief. Such thinking was ridiculous, he told himself. No one could break the code . . . that was for sure!

The taxi pulled up outside his apartment block and he paid off the driver. He didn’t notice the black Thunderbird as it drew up some distance away, nor did he notice the two well dressed men as they got out of the car.

He rode up in the elevator to the fifth floor, unlocked his front door, entered and shut the door. He took off his coat, then moving through his well furnished sitting-cum-dining-room, he went into the kitchen where he found an empty biscuit tin. His one thought now was to burn the photographs and the negatives. As he carried the tin into the sitting-room he told himself he would have to be careful . . . one photograph at a time. He mustn’t make too much smoke.

As he put the tin down on the table, the front door-bell rang.

He stiffened, his eyes alarmed. For a moment he hesitated, then rushed the tin back into the kitchen. Returning to the sitting-room, he pushed the bulky envelope of photographs under a chair cushion.

The bell rang again. He went reluctantly to the door and opened it.

Lu Silk put the barrel of his Mauser with its cone shaped silencer against Craig’s chest and rode him back into the lobby.

“No fuss,” Silk said softly. “This rod makes no noise. It could blow your chest apart.”

Craig stared into the bleak, scarred face and into the black single eye. The glass eye looked more human than the live one. He felt sudden terror; a paralysing wave of fear ran through him. He was vaguely aware of a second man who came in and closed the front door.

“What — what do you want?” he asked hoarsely as Silk continued to ride him back across the small lobby and into the sitting-room.

“Plenty of time,” Silk said. “Just behave.”

They were in the sitting-room now. Keegan pulled an upright chair from the dining table and set it in the middle of the room.

“Sit down,” Silk said.

Craig sat on the chair. Terror made his muscles twitch. He tried frantically to control the twitching but without success.

Silk asked, “Where are the photos?”

Craig stared at him in horror.

“But you can’t . . . Lindsey said . . .” He stopped as Silk’s single eye gleamed red with contained, savage fury. Hopelessly, he pointed to the chair. Keegan lifted the cushion, found the envelope, glanced inside, then nodded to Silk.