High Jinx (28 page)

‘Look in there.'

They rushed into the darkroom. And then into the bathroom. They searched the closets and the kitchenette. The leader shone his light into the face of Editta, seated on the floor, his hands handcuffed behind him. ‘Where is he?'

‘I wouldn't know, guv'nor. Mr.—Harrison, he left here this morning.' The squad leader was on the phone to Larwill's office. Less than a minute had gone by.

Blackford Oakes, left below with the technicians, posted himself restlessly by the adjacent door of the lift at the basement-garage level. Blackford wanted to stare into the face of ‘Henry' when, secured by four commandos he had neglected to execute, he came down. He gripped his right hand with his left. He would need to restrain himself.

At that moment the door around the corner burst open and a large hurtling figure ran out toward the street.

At the same time the door of Brian Larwill's office opened—they had got the radio signal from apartment 516. One man apprehended, one man missing. Superintendent Roberts's staccato report to Blackford caused a moment's hesitation. But an instant later Blackford had bounded from his post, tearing through the garage toward the entrance through which Heath—Blackford assumed it was he—had just gone. He spotted the figure running on the other side of the street toward a line of taxis. He was fifty yards ahead of Blackford when the cab he had got into pulled out into Upper Grosvenor Street. Blackford jumped into the back of the second taxi and said fiercely: ‘
Don't lose that cab!
' The driver, a heavy, younger man of dour countenance, turned his head slightly and said through the crack in the glass, ‘Easy come, easy go. I ain't chysin ahfter no one, guv'nor.' Blackford opened the right-hand door, then the driver's door, reached in and grabbed the driver by the neck of his coat. With all his strength he sprawled the driver onto the street, and with a single motion seated himself in his place. The motor was already running and Blackford slipped into first gear and careered into the dark street, racing to catch sight of the first car.

He did. Two blocks along Upper Grosvenor Street. It was travelling at abnormal speed—clearly Heath had bribed the driver to go beyond the conventional speed limit. Blackford slowed, leaving fifty yards between himself and his prey: he would tackle Heath when he left the cab.

But the fast speed of the first vehicle, after it turned right on Park Lane, made conspicuous the speed of the second, and by the time the lead car had passed Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park it was travelling at over fifty miles per hour. The lead car turned through Cumberland Gate to Bayswater Road and began to race alongside Kensington Gardens. Still Blackford kept his distance, electing, instead of running into the car, to keep it in sight. At Kensington Palace Gardens, it took a left turn.

Suddenly it was clear where Heath was headed. To sanctuary.

There it was, the Soviet Embassy, within view. With the armed guard posted outside. An English policeman, to be sure, but not one likely to permit Blackford to apprehend a gentleman authorised to proceed into the embassy. Blackford made the decision quickly. He jammed the accelerator to the floor. As the first cab slowed to approach the embassy gate, Blackford swung left, tearing into the broad right side of his quarry, bringing it to a dead halt with a screech of rubber, and turning it over on its side.

The crowd formed instantly, with the usual confusion and excitement. There were shouts of ‘Ambulance! Ambulance!' Police hedged in. A half dozen of them and a few volunteers concerted to pull the two bodies from the car. The driver presented special problems because of the bent steering wheel. The passenger appeared comatose, and the door, facing skyward, was inoperable.

Blackford had shielded himself by crossing his arms over his wheel at the moment of collision. Stepping out of the cab, he mingled quickly with the crowd. Both driver and passenger were dazed, though the passenger showed signs of recovery, and by the time the window had been broken, its edges scraped and insulated so that he might be pulled through without being cut up, he was talking. It was then that the ambulance arrived, and two men carrying stretchers laid first the driver on a stretcher and into the ambulance, and then Heath, who now was beginning to protest, insisting that he was well enough; he would be on his way. But the police doctor motioned to the assistants to get him into the ambulance. ‘We'll need to check you over, sir. Won't take long.' With no further attention paid to his expostulations, his arms were strapped to his sides with the stretcher's harness and he was lifted into the ambulance and deposited alongside the cab driver. Then the door was made fast with the outside latch.

It was now or not at all, Blackford decided; and so, as the orderlies began to walk up to the front seat, Blackford shouted out, ‘You forgot him! The third man! He's over there! Bleeding!' He pointed excitedly toward the densest part of the crowd. Both orderlies instinctively turned to search for the third victim. As they did so Blackford sprang into the driver's seat and brought the ambulance to life.

He was grateful for being shielded from the back of the ambulance by a steel grille: through his mirror he could see Heath struggling. In a few minutes he had made his way free of the leather straps. He tried to open the ambulance door from the end, wrestling for access to the front seat, and attempting with an aluminium first-aid box to bang open the rear window. Blackford spotted the ambulance's siren toggle switch on the dashboard and quickly activated it, giving him licence to drive quickly through the traffic. He saw also the radio and flicked it on. He was connected to the ambulance dispatch centre and spoke into the microphone. ‘
This is an emergency. Emergency. Emergency. Telephone instantly to TRA 5858, ask for the line for Superintendent Roberts. Tell Superintendent Roberts the prisoner who escaped is being brought back by ambulance to Grosvenor Square. Do you hear me, Emergency?
' An efficient woman's voice came in. ‘I hear you, whoever you are. I shall make the call instantly. After I have made it, identify yourself.'

‘
Roger,
' Blackford answered. ‘
I'll stay on the line. Advise when contact is made.
'

He had reached Park Lane before the woman's voice came in. ‘The number is radioing information to Superintendent Roberts. Now, sir, what vehicle are you calling from?' Blackford saw no reason to dissimulate, and gave the number of the ambulance, written large on the registration paper on the dashboard. But when the dispatcher asked for further details he did not answer. He was close now to Grosvenor Square.

Reaching the building, he swung into the garage through the same door through which both Heath and he had just fifteen minutes before run out. He tore into Brian Larwill's office. To his relief he saw, still there, Colonel Mac, Joe Louis, and the commandos.

Breathing heavily Blackford said, ‘I've got him outside. Locked in an ambulance. There's another fellow in there too, cab driver. I had to run into them. They're shaken up, but not badly. Roberts here, or heard from?'

Colonel Mac exchanged a glance with Joe Louis, who said, ‘Yes, he telephoned ten minutes ago. We were heading back to Cromwell and he told us to take Heath with us. Said to lock him up; he'd be around tomorrow with the interrogators. Wants privacy, I bet.'

‘Let's get going,' Mac said.

Blackford went to the back of the ambulance and turned the latch. The door flew open, knocking Blackford over onto the ground. A human cannonball shot out of the ambulance. Into the clenched fist of Joe Louis. Two commandos dragged Heath into the back of the army lorry. Joe Louis stepped into the driver's seat. Colonel Mac sat down next to him. Blackford climbed in next to the colonel.

‘Hey there, wait one minute, Yank. This is our operation.'

Blackford liked Colonel Mac, and had got on well with him during their days at Cromwell. But he did not wish to be misunderstood. ‘Mac,' he said, his jaw set, ‘I caught this man. And he killed thirty-two American commandos, you will remember. Where he goes, I go, and that's the way it's going to be, period.' Colonel Mac looked over for a moment at Joe Louis, who nodded silently.

The lorry fired up. Three men in front, the prisoner and four commandos in the back, it pulled out of the garage and began to head southwards toward the road leading to Salisbury.

At first there was no conversation. But soon Colonel Mac made an effort to ease the tension. ‘That was nice work you did, Ernie'—Blackford, at Camp Cromwell, had been ‘Ernie.'

‘Thanks, Mac.'

And then the grizzled commando went on. ‘There's something you ought to know. You might want to get out of the way, Ernie. Something I promised Joe Louis. You want to tell him, Joe?'

‘Yuh. I don't mind telling you Ernie. You're a good man. When I found out—it was only today. This afternoon. When I found out what happened. What happened to my brother Isaac Abraham, and to the other fellahs—the rest of the lads at Cromwell—I said to Mac, I said, Mac, if I find that man Henry, that man is
dead.
That's it, dead. Then they showed us … Then they showed us the pictures …' Joe Louis stopped talking. Colonel Mac took over.

Both officers, Blackford learned, had been called into MI5 that afternoon and briefed on the entire operation. It was done in the office of General Islington, with Sir Gene there. The briefing had included showing them The Album. Neither of the briefers had known that one of the victims was the younger brother of Major Louis. When the page in The Album turn on Joe Louis's younger brother, his inert head twisted in the noose, his tongue protruding, Joe Louis had had to leave the room. Through the wooden door they could hear his sobbing.

‘There isn't going to be maybe twenty years or a life sentence and then a trade-off with a spy they've got over there in Moscow, not with this chappy. I promised,' Colonel Mac said.

Blackford's silence was taken by Colonel Mac as indecision. Blackford sense this. He said, ambiguously:

‘Mac. I'll stay with you. But do me a favour. This is very important. I must telephone my—chief. I must let him know we have the prisoner. It means a lot for him to know.'

‘Why wouldn't he learn that from Superintendent Roberts?'

‘You don't understand the communications system in this business, Mac'—Blackford's tone of voice implied he was telling them deeply kept secrets. ‘My superior hears only from me,' Blackford lied. ‘If he doesn't hear soon from me he will conclude the worst. And for very important reasons—a lot depends on this—we can't let that happen. If I give you my word I will say nothing of your—plans, can I telephone him?'

Colonel Mac turned his head inquiringly to Joe Louis at the wheel. He had sat ramrod-straight throughout the exchange.

Joe Louis grunted his assent. The lorry slowed a mile down the road, next to the entrance to the year-round funfair at Basingstoke, with its half-dozen acres of booths and amusements—not heavily patronised at this time of year, though it was warm tonight. Blackford bounded out of the lorry, told the ticket lady he merely wanted to use the public telephone, and was searching his pocket for change as he walked into the booth. He found the shilling—they were already thirty miles outside London—and gave the number to the operator, his fingers tapping the telephone impatiently. He suddenly reflected that he was not absolutely certain, though he expected to be hearing the voice of Rufus in seconds, whether he would keep his word to Colonel Mac or not.

‘
That number is engaged, sir. Try again later.
'

Blackford raised his head, waiting for a minute to pass before dialling again. He reflected on what Joe Louis had gone through that afternoon. And on what his brother had gone through a few months before. He reflected on the end of the mystery, with the discovery of the Zirca.

It was then that the tent in the amusement park caught his attention. It was directly across from the telephone booth, a few feet away. He read the blazing sign across the top of the stand:

MAKE OWN HEADLINES! SURPRISE THE FOLKS BACK HOME! SURPRISE THE KIDDIES! SURPRISE YOUR LUV! ONLY THREE SHILLINGS!!

He looked under the big sign where half a dozen specimens, home-oriented headlines framed in glass, were posted. The logo was that of the
Daily Express.
The first headline read, ‘
SALLY SAMPLE MADE DUCHESS/QUEEN GIVES HER PALACE
' Another read, ‘
JOHNNY BURT SENTENCED TO HANG/ADMITS TO SLAUGHTER OF 500
' Another, ‘
DICK BETROTHED TO SHIRLEY/“NEVER LIKED LIZ TAYLOR” HE SAYS
.'

Blackford closed his eyes for a moment. He opened the door to the telephone booth and stepped across the way to the tent. Five minutes later he left it, a newspaper rolled in his right hand. He walked past the telephone booth, through the arcade's entrance, around the lorry to the left door, opened it, got in and slammed the door shut.

‘Did you get through?' Colonel Mac asked as Joe Louis started the motor and began to move.

‘No. But I got the morning paper.' He handed it to Colonel Mac, who unrolled and read it. He tapped the shoulder of Joe Louis, indicating that he should read it now, and reached over to handle the wheel of the lorry while he did so.

It was nearly an hour and a half before they reached the gates of Camp Cromwell.

The guard shone his inquiring torch on the colonel's face, grunted, and waved him on.

They pulled up in front of the radio shed, opened the back of the lorry, and told the commandos to bring out the prisoner.

Bertram Oliver Heath spat when he saw Blackford Oakes. They brought him into the main room and sat him down on a chair. His torso, at Colonel Mac's direction, was strapped to the back of the chair, leaving his arms free. The commandos were dismissed.

Heath spoke. He had said nothing that surprised Blackford. Not after his six weeks' reconstruction of the life and character of Bertram Oliver Heath. ‘You should know you will never get anything out of me. And I know the rules that govern the use of torture. But if you want to ignore those rules, go ahead.'