Алистер Маклин - Circus

Bruno looked at him briefly. ‘You forget the note you passed me?’

‘Ah!’

‘Yes, ah. “4.30. West entrance. No question. My life on it.” They keep the prison records here.’

Bruno offered no further explanation to anyone. Suddenly he appeared to find what he wanted, a highly detailed schematic diagram with rows of names printed on one side. He glanced briefly at it, nodded in what appeared to be some satisfaction, dropped it to the floor and turned away.

Roebuck said: ‘We are doing our mentalist bit again?’

‘Something like that.’

They eschewed the elevator, walked down to the fifth floor, and crossed to the detention block by way of the glass-enclosed passageway. There was an admitted element of risk in this, but slight: the only people who might reasonably have been expected to have a watchful eye on that goldfish bowl corridor were the watch-tower guards and they were in no condition to have their eyes on anything.

Bruno halted the others as they reached the closed door at the far end of the passageway. ‘Wait. I know where the guardroom is – just round the corner to the left. What I don’t know is whether the guards will be patrolling.’

Roebuck said: ‘So?’

‘There’s only one way to find out.’

‘I’ll come with you.’

‘No. Nobody’s recognized you yet. I don’t intend that anyone shall. Don’t forget that true trouper Roebuck is performing tonight. And Kan Dahn. And Manuelo. And not forgetting, of course, Vladimir and Yoffe.’

Manuelo looked at him in something approaching stupefaction.

‘Your brothers?’

‘Of course. They’re here. Where else do you think they would have been taken?’

‘But – but the ransom demands?’

‘Courtesy of the secret police. So my brothers can perform with impunity. Nobody’s got anything against them. How can they? They were just pawns, hostages for my good conduct. And do you think the police are going to admit they abducted them and sent ransom demands? Now that would cause an international uproar.’

Manuelo said complainingly: ‘You do play cards pretty close to the chest.’

‘It’s one of the better ways of surviving.’

‘And how are you going to survive any longer?’

‘I’m getting out of here.’

‘Sure. No problem. You just flap your arms and fly away.’

‘More or less. Roebuck has a little gadget in that bag of his. I just operate it and a whirlygig should be here in about twenty minutes.’

‘Whirlygig? Helicopter? From where, for God’s sake?’

‘American naval vessel lying offshore.’

There was no ready answer to this. Then Roebuck said: ‘Very, very close to the chest. That means that you’re the only one of us who’s leaving?’

‘I’m taking Maria. The police have recorded evidence that she’s up to her ears in this.’

They stared at him in complete incomprehension. ‘I think I forgot to mention. She’s a CIA agent.’

Roebuck said heavily: ‘Very, very, very close. And how do you propose to get her?’

‘Go up to the circus for her.’

Kan Dahn shook his head sadly. ‘Quite, quite mad.’

‘Would I be here if I weren’t?’ He depressed the top knob of the black pen, slipped off the safety catch on his machine-pistol and cautiously eased open the door.

It was a prison just like any other prison, rows of cells on four sides of the block, passageways with four-feet-high railings bordering the deep well that ran the full vertical height of the building. As far as Bruno could see there was no one on patrol, certainly not on that fifth floor. He moved out to the railing, glanced up and then down the fifty-foot drop to the concrete below. It was impossible to be certain, but there appeared to be no one on patrol, nor could he hear anything. And prison guards, especially military guards, are not noted for the lightness of their steps.

Light came from a glass-fronted door about twenty feet to his left. Bruno pussy-footed his way towards it and peered in. There were two guards and two only, seated one on either side of a small table. Quite clearly they weren’t expecting any senior officers or NCOs around on a tour of inspection, for they had a bottle on the table and a glass apiece. They were playing the inevitable cards.

Bruno pushed the door open. Both men turned their heads and looked down the uninviting muzzle of the Schmeisser.

‘On your feet.’

They complied with alacrity.

‘Hands behind your necks. Close your eyes. Tight.’

They wasted no time over this either. Bruno pulled out the gas pen, squirted it twice, then whistled softly for the others to join him. While they were immobilizing the two guards, Bruno inspected the rows of numbered keys hanging on the guard-room wall.

On the seventh floor, Bruno selected the key numbered 713 and opened the cell door. The two brothers, Vladimir and Yoffe, stared at him in open disbelief, then rushed out and hugged him wordlessly. Bruno pushed them smilingly aside, selected more keys, opened up 714 then 715 and 716 in succession. Bruno, standing outside 715, smiled without mirth at his two brothers, companions and Van Diemen, who had moved up to join him.

He said: ‘A rather nice touch, don’t you think, to lock all the Wildermanns up together?’

The three doors opened almost simultaneously and three people made their way, two with very faltering footsteps, out into the passageway. The two who could not walk too well were old and stooped and grey, one who had been a man, the other who had been a woman, their prison pallor faces lined with suffering and pain and privation. The third figure had been a young man but was no longer young, except in years.

The old woman stared at Bruno with dull lack-lustre eyes. She said: ‘Bruno.’

‘Yes, Mother.’

‘I knew you would come some day.’

He put his arm round the frail shoulders. ‘I’m sorry I took so long.’

‘Touching,’ Dr Harper said. ‘How very, very touching.’

Bruno removed his arm and turned round unhurriedly. Dr Harper, using Maria Hopkins as a shield, had a silenced pistol in one hand. Beside him, smiling wolfishly, Colonel Sergius was similarly armed. Behind them stood the giant Angelo, whose preferred form of weapon was a giant lethal club the size of a baseball bat.

Harper went on: ‘We’re not interrupting, are we? I mean, you weren’t thinking of going some place?’

‘We had that in mind.’

‘Drop that machine-pistol,’ Sergius ordered.

Bruno stooped, placed it on the ground, then, as he came upright, moved with lightning speed, grabbed Van Diemen and held him before him as a shield. With his other hand he got the red dart pen from his breast pocket, depressed the knob, and pointed it over Van Diemen’s shoulder at Harper’s face. At the sight of the pen Harper’s face widened in fear and the finger tightened on the trigger of the silenced gun.

Sergius, no longer smiling, said viciously: ‘Drop that. I can get you from the side.’ Which was an accurate observation, but, unfortunately for Sergius, he had transferred his attention to Bruno while he was speaking, a period of about two seconds, and for a man possessed of the cobra speed and accuracy of Manuelo two seconds was a laughably long time. Sergius died unawares, the knife buried to the haft in his throat.

Two seconds after that both Van Diemen and Harper were on the floor, Van Diemen with the bullet intended for Bruno buried in his chest, Harper with the dart buried in his cheek. Angelo, his face contorted in fury, made an animal noise deep in the throat and leapt forward, his huge club swinging. Kan Dahn, moving forward even more quickly, and with astonishing agility for a man of his immense bulk, avoided the downward blow, wrenched the club from Angelo and tossed it contemptuously to one side. The struggle that followed was as titanic as it was brief, and the sound of Angelo’s neck breaking was that of a rotten bough shearing under the woodman’s axe.