The Saint and the People Importers (12 page)

“And even into Paradise, via the old-world crucifixion route.”

“That was only to make an example of an ungrateful traitor, even if it was rather crude.”

“And to encourage the faithful to pay up promptly.”

“From all I’ve heard,” Fowler said irritably, “you’ve never been averse yourself to making a profit out of your so-called good deeds. Why do you suddenly have to be so righteous? Why do we have to be on opposite sides?”

“Because I never believed in blackmailing my so-called beneficiaries, just for one thing.” The Saint shook his head. “No sale, Captain. If this is your idea of a proposition, I can only suggest that you try it as a suppository.”

Fowler’s thin lips compressed, and his florid complexion blanched momentarily; and then he shrugged.

“Too bad, old boy,” he said, with a strained display of jauntiness. He turned to Kalki. “Well, that settles it. This is your mess. You get rid of it.”

Tammy jumped to her feet, straining her wrists against the ropes that held them.

“You can’t do that!” she cried. “You must be joking. We haven’t done enough …”

Mahmud trotted forward anxious to assert himself, and pushed her back down into her chair.

“You have done enough,” Fowler said coldly. “It’s do-gooders like you, poking into things that are none of their business, that cause half the trouble in the world today. I must say I won’t be sorry to see one less of you around after tonight.”

“I can’t believe they’d be stupid enough to really do it!” she exclaimed to the Saint, as if expecting him to arbitrate the dispute.

Fowler literally snorted, disdainfully, before Simon could answer. He spoke again to Kalki.

“Kill them-quietly-and put them in those two empty tar drums behind the house. Fill the drums up with wet cement. I’ll have to pick them up and dump them offshore later.”

“That’s what I like,” Simon said admiringly to Tammy. “The efficient executive type: quick decisions, no nonsense.”

“Sorry to be so abrupt about it,” Fowler said unsorrowfully. “I’ve got to make a pick-up tomorrow night and I’ve got no time to dilly-dally here.”

“Still got the old sea-salt in the veins, hm?” Simon taunted. “What kind of scow are you using on the cross-Channel run?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Doing your bit to sink England, though, aren’t you?”

Fowler glared.

“That lot in the Admiralty didn’t need me, and now as far as I’m concerned it’s every man for himself.”

“It’s interesting,” Simon philosophised. “I’ve almost never met a crook who couldn’t make out a case that his particular racket wasn’t only justified but society practically brought it on itself. The Sea Wolf here probably figures that if he can smuggle in enough illegal immigrants it’ll help the Government to see the error of its ways and make them tighten up the immigration laws.”

“I don’t give a damn about the immigration laws,” Tammy said irrationally. “I just think you’d better let us out of here.”

Fowler glanced at his watch.

“That’s wishful thinking, Miss Rowan, and I’m afraid I have to be a realist. I must go now. Goodnight.”

Just before he reached the door, sweeping Shortwave and Mahmud out ahead of him, Kalki caught him deferentially by the arm and engaged him in a whispered conversation.

“No!” Fowler said impatiently. “The girl too! And just to be sure you don’t get any fancy ideas, you drive the van ahead of my car so I can be sure we don’t have any more slip-ups.”

He made Kalki precede him through the door, and then followed him out without a backward look at the two people he had condemned to death.

“I think you’ve got an admirer,” Simon said to Tammy. “I wonder if Kalki might take it into his head to rescue the princess from the dark tower.”

Tammy’s nerve had finally reached its limit. Her lips began to tremble even though she tried to control them.

“I’d rather be dead.” She burst abruptly into a full flood of tears. “No, I wouldn’t! I’m afraid! This is too horrible! I’m afraid to die!”

“Nature intended it that way,” Simon said, with no flippancy in his tone.

“To die?” she sobbed.

“No, to dislike the idea of dying. And since I share your attitude, I suggest that we go to work at getting out of here.”

“Out?” she moaned despairingly. “There isn’t the slightest hope unless they change their minds.”

She raised her bound wrists to dramatise her helplessness.

“Well,” said the Saint, “at least your hands are tied in front of you. So you can see what you’re doing if you want to come over and have a shot at untying me.”

2

He rolled over away from the wall towards her, and she got up from the chair chattering half hysterically in the relief of realising that she was not utterly immobilised and that there might still be something that they could attempt, however desperate.

“I’ll do my best-I will, honestly. Whatever you think, I didn’t get my job on the Evening Record by being a completely scatterbrained female.” She was on her knees beside him then, fumbling frantically. “I am trying, you know, but I can only use one hand at a time …”

“Take your time,” Simon said coolly, trying to steady her. “And don’t forget our secret weapon: that Girl Guide ring of yours. Even if you haven’t got me untied, we might get Shortwave or Mahmud in here alone with us as some point. If the chance comes, use the ring and I’ll use my feet.”

“You make it sound so easy.” She was almost giggling in the reaction of terror. “But what if the chance doesn’t come?”

“Then we can try singing Swing Low, Sweet Chariot in close harmony. Meanwhile, be sure your miniature Flit-gun is in firing order.”

“There’s nothing I can do to be sure without firing it,” she told him. “All we can do is hope.”

Simon did not have much confidence in the efficacy of wishful thinking, but for the moment there did not seem to be much else to count on.

The sounds of muttered words drifted in a meaningless jumble through the wall. Then the outside door opened and closed. After a minute the van rattled to life. Then the engine of Fowler’s car caught smoothly. Gears were shifted, and both vehicles pulled away from the house and their mechanical voices quickly faded into the distance.

“The knots are so tight, and I can only use one hand at a time,” Tammy whimpered. “I don’t think I’m getting anywhere … Now I know what a sheep in a slaughterhouse feels like waiting to get his throat cut.”

“Funny you should say that,” said a voice like the scraping of a razor’s edge on glass. “Real funny you should say that!”

Shortwave stood in the doorway, with the Saint’s throwing knife in his hand, and Tammy started and gasped as his words answered hers.

To Simon, the little man’s entrance was like a sudden chill wind in the room. He looked smaller than ever for some reason, a malevolent dwarf in workingman’s clothes, his eyes red-rimmed and thirsty for blood. In his small hand the slender knife seemed the size of a Roman sword, but much more sinister. There was no guard to protect the hand of its wielder from an opponent’s blows: the bare double edges were for attack only, the point for sudden and silent piercing.

As Shortwave stepped into the room, Mahmud appeared reluctantly behind him, but hung back at the door as Shortwave gloated over his captives.

“Who wants to be first?” the little man asked, with a taunting lilt in his voice. “Volunteers step forward.” He chuckled. “Sorry, I forgot you can’t step forward. How about crawling … like a worm?”

“I guess that’s a thrill you don’t get very often,” Simon said.

But he said it quietly and steadily, without too much goading mockery that might trigger a sudden attack he could not hope to fend off. In fact, all the mockery that ordinarily danced like summer-light in his eyes had frozen into an ice-blue glint that brought the scrawny American up short when he saw it. The Saint’s eyes were so coldly contemptuous that it would have been difficult for an observer to believe that he was the one with his hands and feet tied, while the other man held the knife.

Shortwave came forward and grabbed Tammy by one upper arm, yanking her to her feet with a show of brute strength that he could only have made with such a slight victim, and wrenched her back into the chair. He circled around to confirm that the ropes were still on Simon’s wrists. Then, avoiding the Saint’s uncanny eyes, which followed every move he made, turned to Mahmud.

“You waitin’ to help?” he asked.

Mahmud showed distinct signs of being anything but ready to assist in surgery. He looked sick, and he moved his hands behind him to hide their agitated fluttering.

“I will mix the cement,” he said. “Fowler told me-“

“I know,” Shortwave said curtly. “So do it!”

Mahmud withdrew gratefully and a moment later opened and slammed the outer door. He had seemed in command when he and Shortwave had captured Simon and Tammy. Now it was as if some subtle transfer of power had wordlessly taken place from the leader who balked at anything more disagreeable than long-range killing and the subordinate who could enjoy the running of live blood.

Shortwave regarded his sacrificial lambs with satisfaction, and stepped towards Tammy. The girl involuntarily shrank back in her chair, twisting to one side in a futile attempt to get away from the point of the knife, which he took sadistic pleasure in bringing very slowly closer and closer to her face.

Simon’s eyes were on the heavily wrought golden metal of her ring. Her hands, crossed in front of her and tied at the wrists, looked white and rigid. If she was really lapsing into a freeze of terror it could easily be too late before she used the tear-gas cartridge, if she ever used it at all.

“Wait!” he shouted.

Shortwave kept the knife a few inches from Tammy’s face as he looked at the Saint.

“Anything wrong?” he asked. “Ladies first, right? We gotta be gentlemen, don’t we?”

“Maybe we could make a deal,” Simon said.

“You’re a real wheeler and dealer, ain’t you?” the little man said. “But not with me. You belted me one, remember? Seeing you squirm is the only deal I want.”

Out of the corners of his eyes Simon caught a slight movement of Tammy’s hands. His interruption had started the thaw in her terror that he had hoped it would. Her face was no longer a plaster mask of fear. She was looking past the freshly honed knife blade at Shortwave’s face. He was still not quite within range, but she raised her wrists slightly, calculating the angle of the ring, holding it steady until Shortwave should lean closer to her.

Then he flicked the knife point teasingly at her nose without quite touching her, and stepped back three paces.

Tammy closed her eyes; her hands drooped like wilted leaves. Simon himself felt as if the blood pounding along his veins had suddenly coagulated and grown lead-heavy.

“So,” said Shortwave, not seeing the significant disappointment that a more alert eye might have noted in his prisoners, “who’s in a hurry?”

He turned the knife and took its point in his right hand, dandled it for a moment as he sized up the distance between him and Tammy, then raised it handle-up for throwing. The Saint tensed his muscles for a desperate roll across the floor towards Shortwave’s legs that might at least make the knife miss its living target.

But Shortwave abruptly let the knife topple straight down from his fingers in a lazy somersault through the air and stick into the floor at his feet. Laughter whistled up through his uneven teeth. Tammy opened her eyes and glared at him with pure hatred.

“Why not let’s have a little fun first?” he said.

He stepped up to her again, emptyhanded-and cupped the empty hands on her breasts.

Tammy brought her own hands up, as if in the instinctive attempt to fend him off, but in a motion which at the same time brought them close to his face, directly under his nose. And in exactly that perfect moment and position, as if she had mastered it from a textbook, with a twist of a thumb and the clenching of a fist, she detonated the tear-gas cartridge straight into his face.

This time it worked. The sound of the discharge was negligible, but the effect was stupendous. As the gas puff blossomed into Shortwave’s eyes he gave a startled screech and staggered back, bent almost double, rubbing his distorted countenance furiously.

The Saint, in the instant of the miniature explosion, also went into action, rolling across the floor like a log down a mountainside. It was an unorthodox means of locomotion, but it was the only way to get to Shortwave before he started to recover. The little man was still blind and choking, hunched over with his head almost level with his waist, when Simon arrived beside him. The trip had taken only two or three seconds, and the Saint decided that he had time for a more devastating attack than the rotary crash into Shortwave’s shaky shins that he had first thought might be necessary. Without any pause, he stopped on his back, drew his knees almost to his chin-cocking his lithe body on to his shoulders-and unleashed a double-footed kick straight up into Shortwave’s face.

It was an instantaneous uncoiling of supremely conditioned muscle that drew power from the whole magnificent length of the Saint’s body, from shoulder blades to thighs, and concentrated its entire force in the heels of his shoes as they came into crunching contact with the forepart of Shortwave’s steel-plated head. The would-be Jack the Ripper was rocketed straight up; then, with neither conscious will nor strength of limb to guide or support him, he crashed down like a dropped doll beside the Saint in a totally limp condition which the Saint only regretted might not prove permanent. But there was no doubt that he would be out of the game for a long time.

“Good girl!” Simon said softly. “I take back all my rude remarks about your little toy.”

She was already out of her chair and on her knees by the knife Shortwave had teasingly let fall to the floor.

“You can send me a bouquet later,” she said. “Here, I’ll cut you loose.”

She pulled the blade out of the wood while Simon scooted around into a sitting position with his back towards her.

“I’m glad we’re good friends,” he said as he felt the sharp edge of Anna bite into the cords an inch or so from his pulse.