Redcap (3 page)

He said quietly, “All right, my dear. You’d better explain.”

She said, “He’s not dead. His friends spread that story of his death. It was the only way, you see. After that he changed his identity. He meant to stay underground—he was used to that sort of life anyway—and then, one day, he was going to show up the people who framed him. He never managed to do that, but. . . .” She hesitated, then went on earnestly, passionately: “He wasn’t a traitor, Commander Shaw. He wasn’t ever that.”

“I know,” Shaw told her. “I never believed he was. And I’m delighted to hear he’s still alive. It’s the best news I’ve heard for a long time.”

She asked eagerly, “You do believe me, then?”

Slowly he nodded, rubbed his nose with his forefinger. “Yes, I do. I don’t think John Donovan’s daughter would tell that kind of a lie. . . .” He added, “I remember he’d had a girl born, the only child, back in England—two or three years before he was arrested. The name was . . . ?”

“Judith.”

“Judith it was. And your mother?”

She said softly, “She died when I was born.”

“All right, Judith, I knew that too—”

“I lived with an aunt—she’s dead now—and Daddy sent for me to join him in Norway when I was older. Now I’m partly in England and partly with him.”

“Uh-huh. . . . Now, why does Donovan want to see me?”

“He’s got some information he wants to give you. It’s terribly important. It’s got to go very urgently to London.” The girl leaned forward, and Shaw felt her breath fanning his cheek, caught her fresh scent in his nostrils. A tendril of hair fell across her face; she pushed it back, gave her head an impatient little shake. “You’re the only man in the business left alive that he can talk to safely, the only one he can be sure won’t give him away to the authorities. He trusts you absolutely, you see.” She hesitated. “He did say I could tell you that he’s been approached by a man called Karstad. He says you’ll know that name.”

Shaw gave a harsh, involuntary laugh, a laugh which had no hint of humour in it. He said, “Your father says I’ll know the name, does he!”

“Yes,” she said urgently. “Why? Don’t you?”

A long exhalation of breath came through his teeth. He said, “By God I do!” He twisted, turned away and looked un-seeingly through the windscreen. “I’ve only seen him once, years ago and very briefly. We didn’t meet and he didn’t see me at all . . . but I know of Karstad all right!” Shaw felt a cold tremor, felt that nagging stomach pain increasing to a sudden agonizing thrust, acidulous and gripping in his entrails. Karstad. What could that man want? Karstad, who really had been a traitor—a Norwegian, a double agent who had worked for the Germans in the war, who had caused the deaths of so many innocent people, a man who was known to be one of the coldest-blooded, slipperiest killers in the game —on any side. Shaw sat there for a moment in silence, frowning anxiously, plagued with doubts. Why should Karstad contact Donovan—why? Where Karstad turned up, there had always been trouble. Real trouble. It was his plain duty to follow this up.

He made his decision quickly after that. He said, “Hold tight and tell me where to go.”

He slipped in his gears and he drove fast to the girl’s directions. He drove out of Paris on the Autoroute du Sud through a light rain, drove south-eastward for some seventy kilometres.

Some way beyond Fontainebleau the girl told him to turn off on to a secondary road. Along this road, just beyond a sharp bend, they came to the drive of a biggish house set well back from the roadside, in the heart of wooded country; and there the girl told Shaw to stop.

And there they found John Donovan.

John Donovan met them on the roadway at the foot of the wide drive, and the first sight of him made Shaw’s heart turn over with pity. Donovan had gone to nothing; his big frame had shrunk, his shoulders drooped so that his worn clothing looked like a sack. His face was thin and white, blood-drained. His neck sagged with folds of flesh. There was a dreadful nervous urgency in his manner, a pathetic eager anxiety which caught at Shaw’s heart. He hardly knew what to say, but Donovan didn’t waste any time in greetings. The two friends just gripped hands through the car’s window without speaking, for a brief moment. There was a distant car sound from back along the way they had come and then Donovan, who seemed to be looking from side to side all the while, spoke quickly.

“Don’t get out, Esmonde. Now—first, there’s Judith. I want you to take her back with you to England—she knows that. See she’s safe. Will you do that? There’s no relatives left now, but I want her to be there, Esmonde.”

Shaw nodded. There was clearly no time for a discussion. He said, “You don’t have to explain. Of course I will.”

There was a sound of muffled weeping from the back of the car. Donovan appeared to take no notice, but Shaw could almost feel the man’s terrible restraint. Donovan went on, “Get back as fast as you can, tell Latymer—tell him personally—tell him Lubin’s left Russia—”

“Lubin!” Shaw broke in. “Lubin . . . you mean the Russians’ top electronics expert, the chap who was working on their end of the MAPIACCIND agreement?”

“Damn it all, Esmonde—there’s only one Lubin.” Donovan was shaking uncontrollably now. His hand came through the window, gripped Shaw’s arm. “There’s damn little time left, so just listen, Esmonde. You see, Lubin’s been gone quite a while, though that’s only just been found out. It’s a threat—a damn serious one—directly to Redcap—”

“REDCAP!”

“—and in general to the whole MAPIACCIND organization.” There was an odd staring quality about his eyes now, and the hand that was gripping Shaw’s shoulder tightened. Donovan said tensely, “You know the feeling between Russia and China today. Well, Lubin’s gone—”

He didn’t get any farther than that.

There was a jab of flame, and the harsh stutter of automatic fire came from the bushes. Donovan froze, seemed temporarily panic-stricken like a rabbit caught in a headlight’s glare. Bullets whistled past his head. Shaw yelled at him to get into the Renault. Debonnair leaned back, shoved the rear door open as Shaw pressed the starter. Donovan took no notice, but moved stumblingly away from the car. Shaw’s Service revolver was out from its shoulder-holster now, and he fired into the blackness towards the stabs of flame; and as he did so, Donovan took a stream of bullets in his body, a vertically raking stream of lashing lead which bisected him neatly. He spun round, gasped as though in surprise, his emaciated frame shuddering and jerking and disintegrating before their horrified eyes. In the back, the girl screamed, high and shrill, was trying to fight her way out of the car when the second burst drove into Donovan’s twitching body and then spattered in a deadly arc towards the Renault. Debonnair had leaned right across the seat-back and had got hold of the girl’s shoulders, was using all her strength to force her backwards. Now she reached out and slammed the door shut. By this time Shaw had the car moving, and it was only just in time. Bullets pumped across, hammered into the bodywork, the sharp tang of gunsmoke billowed across on the slight night breeze which had blown the rain away. Shaw’s foot slammed down on the accelerator. His duty was to get to Latymer as fast as he could, and to do that he had to stay alive. It would be useless to try to shoot it out in this spot where the close-growing bushes gave cover to the men with the guns, while he was vulnerable in the open—and he had the women to consider. In any case there would be a pursuit—that car, the one he’d heard behind, had probably been the gunmen’s—and he might be able to fight under more favourable conditions.

As he got the Renault moving Shaw felt that shudder of metalwork as the lead drove in. There was a sharp pain as a bullet snicked through the side window and grazed across his back; he felt the warm trickle of blood, and then he was clear and away and belting along towards the distant intersection with the main Fontainebleau-Paris road, his headlights beaming into blank darkness along the wetly gleaming surface between shadowy lines of trees. All he must think about now was the overriding urgency of getting to London. If the MAPIACCIND organization was under threat—and Donovan had never said things lightly in the past—then half the world might reasonably be considered as under threat as well: MAPIACCIND—Major (Atom) Powers International Authority for Centralized Control and Inspection of Nuclear Devices—was one of the greatest and most hopeful bids for world security that had ever been attempted, that had yet come out of the mad talk and counter-talk of the early nineteen-sixties with all their frustrated, still-born efforts to find the answer by the banning of A-tests. If that was in danger, then everything that had been built up might crumble away to leave the nations once again at loggerheads, disorganized and suspicious, re-arming, thrown back into the past and at the mercy of any uncontrolled lunatic with a nuclear bomb.

And of the MAPIACCIND organization the thing known as REDCAP was the very core.

But—why had Karstad of all people come forward with this information?

A little later Debonnair asked breathlessly, “Esmonde, wasn’t there
anything
we could do?”

Shaw, sick inside, answered her savagely. “God damn it, Deb, couldn’t you see? He was sawn in half.” As soon as he’d said that, he regretted it. With the man’s daughter in the back, it had been a terrible thing to say; and silently he cursed his tongue. Then, controlling his feelings, he asked:

“How’s the nerve, Deb?”

“Badly shaken but otherwise intact.” She spoke lightly, but he was aware of a terrible tenseness behind the tone. “Why?”

“Because I want you to drive. Fast. I’ve got something to do. All right?”

“Whatever you say.”

“Good girl!” Shaw knew she would be reliable—she’d done some dangerous jobs for him before, such as the time they had chased over half of southern Spain looking for the one man who could prevent tragedy in Gibraltar. He stopped the car, scrambled over the seat into the back. Debonnair slid across behind the wheel. Shaw called, “Right, she’s all yours. Let’s go.”

As she engaged the gears, Shaw bent down towards Judith. She was crumpled in a corner, seemingly in a dead faint. Or worse. Quickly Shaw examined her, felt for her heart. It was all right; and he could find no wound, no blood. He felt relief; but there was no more time to think about the girl just now. The Renault was streaking along the slippery surface again, touching ninety. Debonnair, staring ahead along the probing beams through an insect-dotted windscreen, watched the road rush to meet her and ribbon away beneath the spinning wheels. The car swung horribly, protestingly, as she took it fast round a bend, and Shaw could hear the scream of rubber.

Debonnair called out, “Think the boys’ll be behind, do you?”

“Yes.”

“Think they’ll catch up?”

“Don’t know. If they do, I’m going to get them before they get us.” Shaw had the heavy Service revolver in his hand again, and now he smashed it through the rear window. The glass cobwebbed away from the hole. He smashed again and again until he had cleared the glass away. Soon after there was a flicker of headlights behind, dancing up and down the trees, giving the thick green a look of silver. Somebody was in a hurry, was eating up the kilometres. They had had very little start, and it looked as though the pursuit was gaining fast now. Shaw called,

“Can you get any more out of her, Deb?”

“She’s going all she can.” Her voice was tense, nervy.

He said, “All right. Well—they’re coming. It must be them. And they’ve got the legs of us. Just keep going and forget about me unless I give you an order. You know what to do if I get hurt. Straight to the Embassy, get them to put you aboard the first plane for London. Ring Latymer first on the closed line. Don’t take any chances.”

There was a small choking sound from Debonnair, and then Shaw put everything out of his mind except the job immediately in hand. He turned back to the window. Twin beams were coming up very fast now, dancing up a slight rise, round a bend, flickering again on the trees and the verge-stones, gleaming on the wet surface. He heard the roar of a powerful engine, the scream of tyres as the car came round that bend, cutting it very close to the verge. Then he saw the stab of flame, heard the smack of the bullets, the buzz of them singing past like vicious bees along the sides of the racing, rocking car.

He snapped, “Slow a little, Deb. Just enough to put ’em off their stroke . . .
now!
”

He hooked an arm over the empty rear window’s rim, steadying himself; even so he lurched backwards as the Renault jerked suddenly under slight footbrake pressure. He recovered himself, held steady again. Debonnair had got his intentions beautifully. Shaw levelled his gun through the window. He was utterly cool, icy, almost detached . . . as though he was in a rifle-range. Just as he had intended, the pursuing driver had been shaken up by the sudden drop in speed. He swerved a little, ran up close, and then as he rammed on his brakes the firing stopped. Shaw could imagine the men inside tumbling about as the vehicle checked so abruptly; and in that moment he squeezed the trigger of his heavy revolver, and it kicked back in his fist, once, twice . . . and then the firing began again. There was a tearing jag of pain in the flesh of his left upper arm and he felt the thick surge of blood; and then he fired a third time, as his sights came dead on to the pallid face of the man behind the wheel. His hand was perfectly steady and his aim was beautiful. The driver’s face simply seemed to erase itself and the vehicle pulled right over to its offside, turned around, reared on to two wheels, climbed the white-painted stones marking the verge, leapt into the air and fell back with a splintering crash on to its canvas roof.

Shaw called, “Stop her, Deb!”

She screamed the Renault to a halt and pulled into the side. She asked breathlessly, “You’re not going back there?”

He licked his lips, which had gone very dry. “I’ll have to. May be some one alive. And I might find out more of what Donovan was trying to say, if there’s anyone fit to talk.”

He pushed the door open and jumped out, looked back quickly at Debonnair’s white face. He told her gruffly, “Stay inside. Look after Judith. Don’t follow me—that’s an order.” Then he turned away, went back along the road, keeping in the shelter of the trees, his gun ready in his hand, moved swiftly and silently through the darkness, only his white evening shirt-front faintly visible as a smudge in the night. Insects flew into his face; an owl, disturbed in its nightly occupations, hooted loudly, eerily, went past with a whirr of outraged wings. No traffic came along the road. Already there was a flicker of light from the wreck and then, just a moment after, a lick of flame curled up. Shaw put on speed; as he came near the shattered car there was a loud
whoompf
and flames shot roaring into the air, pinnacled from a surround of liquid fire which had the whole car in its grasp now, pinnacled almost to the treetops. The heat reached out to Shaw, singed his skin, his hair, his clothing. He pulled his dinner-jacket collar up around his neck and face and edged as near as he could. The car’s roof had crushed so that the chassis lay flush with the earth. An arm stuck out, pinned between metal and ground; there was a pool of blood where broken glass had ripped an artery. The arm was still, was not feeling the red flame. Shaw’s mind penetrated into the car, visualized the heap of tumbled bodies, broken bodies thrown about in the grotesque attitudes of sudden and violent death . . . and then he was forced back as the breeze fanned the flames into a roaring inferno with a white-hot metal core, a funeral pyre from which came the sharp crack of exploding cartridges, the
zing
of aimlessly driven bullets.