Алистер Маклин - Prime Target

The depository was on the eighth floor of the Okasaki Bank building at Mount Vernon in Washington, DC. Mike noted the address, spent five minutes on the internal phone explaining to C.W. Whitlock what he planned to do, then shut down the computer and went straight to Kitting and Outfitting.

‘I need to be smoothed and enriched,’ he told Theresa, the stony-faced woman in charge of wardrobe.

‘Which means?’

‘Dark silk floral Dior tie?’ he suggested. ‘Mid-blue Turnbull and Asser cotton shirt – and how about the petrol-blue Armani suit?’

‘The one you got gazpacho on.’ Theresa’s voice was tight.

He blinked at her innocently. ‘I did? Are you sure about that?’

‘There were witnesses.’

‘Well, there you go, how soon we forget things. Is there a problem?’

‘For a dry-cleaner, gazpacho is always a problem. Remove the stain completely, you leave a cleaning mark behind. Take out the stain so you don’t leave a mark, the smell of garlic stays. What’s a person to do?’

‘Theresa, I’m in a hurry here. Is the suit available or what?’

‘In Armani you’ve a choice of navy or light grey. Petrol blue is still on the critical list.’

He chose the navy. While it was being freshened with the steamer he took off his jeans and sweatshirt and put on a robe. Coming out of the changing cubicle he collided with a haggard-looking repair man in overalls and a wool cap. He smiled at Mike and nodded.

‘Hi,’ Mike said, turning away.

‘You don’t know me,’ the man said flatly. ‘These people are good, aren’t they?’

Mike turned and looked at him again. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘Less than a month ago, when I overdid the jollity at Nancy Blair’s farewell party, you helped me home and put me to bed. You were a real pal. Today I’m someone you walk past with a hi. What’s the truth here, Mike? Do you really not recognize me, or did I do something that makes you want to be a stranger?’

Mike looked really closely. ‘You’re Jackie Lloyd?’

‘None other.’

‘They did a great job on you. The false nose works, but I don’t think it’s too realistic.’

‘Oh, funny, funny.’ Lloyd put his fingers under the artificial sagging on his cheeks. ‘I thought I’d keep the jowls and the red-rimmed eyes for a while, use them to play the pity card with my ex-wife. I could show her the alimony is killing me.’

‘I truly didn’t know you,’ Mike said. ‘We do strange things for a living, Jackie.’

‘Aw, come on, it’s no worse than living off immoral earnings.’ Lloyd pointed towards the sound of the steamer. ‘I’ve got to explain the oil on the boots and overalls. Theresa is going to do terrible things to me. I’ll see you around, Mike.’

‘Take care, Jackie.’

Mike went through an adjoining door to the domain of Imogen Kelly.

‘Why, Mr Graham.’ Imogen was the hairdresser and make-up person. She grinned at him. ‘You got here just in time, by the look of things. At first glance I thought a sheepdog had come to see me.’

Imogen had entered the UN as a mail clerk, but had been enticed away by UNACO when word of her natural talent for hair and cosmetics got around. As far as her friends and her former colleagues downstairs were concerned, Imogen worked in a tiny department handling specialized semi-classified mail. In fact she had the run of a superbly equipped salon where she passed her days repairing, improving or altering the appearance of UNACO agents.

‘I need to look like a front-edge businessman,’ Mike told her. ‘East Coast rather than West. I need it to happen in as short a time as you can manage.’

Imogen told him to sit down in the barber’s chair, which looked more like an airline pilot’s seat. She switched on a number of overhead lamps, creating shadowless illumination around his head and face.

‘Here.’ She threw a copy of GQ into his lap. ‘Pick an Adonis. I’ll tell you if it can be done, or if you’re just being silly.’

He leafed through the glossy pages and settled on a young man with longish hair waved smoothly on either side of a soft centre parting.

‘Is it possible to get that look without it blowing all over my face at the first puff of wind?’

‘Sure.’ Imogen threw a white sheet over him and tucked it into the collar of his robe. ‘I’ll adjust the shape and the length a little, then I’ll wash it. Then, before I blow it dry, I’ll douse you with this new stuff.’ She held up a black plastic bottle. ‘It gives your hair thermal protection, so I can work fast and really blast it with the dryer to give you the kind of burned-on shape a bomb won’t shift.’

The makeover took fifteen minutes, and at the end of it Mike’s hair looked very much like the man’s in the picture.

‘Marvellous.’ He turned his head from side to side in front of the mirror. ‘I didn’t know you could get results like this so fast.’

‘There’s a downside I didn’t mention,’ Imogen said. She took away the sheet and brushed the back of his neck, ‘After three days it all falls out. But you can’t have everything, right? Make the most of it.’

At five minutes past three, looking every inch a Wall Street high-roller, with a black Gucci briefcase jammed between his ankles, Mike belted himself in beside the pilot of a UN heli-courier. It was raining as they took off, but the pilot promised Mike they would be flying into better weather.

‘That’s a blessing,’ Mike shouted above the noise of the rotor. ‘If I get a mark on this jacket, I don’t think I can go back to the UN ever again.’

It was breezy and dry as Mike stood in front of the Okasaki Bank in Mount Vernon, Washington, one hour before closing time. He patted his wallet, feeling the potent bulk of his new identity, then marched in through the smoked-glass door. The elevator took him to the eighth floor.

The first barrier he encountered was a wall of armoured glass panels mounted into a shiny steel framework. He stood before it, looking for a door. A voice spoke somewhere above eye-level. ‘Good afternoon, sir. How can we help you?’

‘I want to talk to somebody about renting a safe-deposit box.’

‘Certainly. Please come in and take a seat.’ A panel slid aside and he stepped into a room with walls covered in a dark green, heavily textured cloth. There was a narrow vertical strip of window at one end with two low leather chairs nearby, fronted by a small table. As he sat down the panel slid back into place and another one opened. A middle-aged man with a suit nearly as good as Mike’s came in. He had the clipped, grey-templed grooming of a federal judge. He smiled carefully as he approached.

‘I’m Dan Conway.’ He held out his hand as Mike stood. ‘I hope we can be of service, Mr ah…’

‘Lewis. Brett Lewis.’

Conway put a leather folder on the table and sat down. He opened it and Mike saw an application blank. The kind of thing he wanted to bypass. Written applications meant delay.

‘Could you give me some idea of the kind of facility you require, Mr Lewis? It saves time at the start if we discover you should be at one of our other branches.’

That was another tiny hazard. Mike had to be the right customer for the facilities on offer at this branch.

‘Document storage,’ he said. ‘That and some small valuables.’

‘Nothing bigger than fourteen by eleven inches, by seven deep?’

‘Oh no. In fact that sounds an ideal size. I have to tell you, there’s some urgency about this. I have documents relating to a sensitive and eventually high-profile buyout that has to stay absolutely secret for the time being. The papers have been prepared by hand, there are no copies and they need to be held in a place I know is perfectly safe.’