Алистер Маклин - Prime Target

The light came on. Mike raised his head slowly and saw the man he had fought. He was big, very big, with a shaved head and a nose that must have been broken at least three times. He wore a blue athletic singlet and tracksuit bottoms. He was standing by the settee, looking at Mike as if he would like to hit him again.

‘Hi,’ Mike said.

The man turned and walked out of the room. A moment later, Mike heard a telephone being lifted and a number tapped in.

The dove-grey Lear jet taxied off the apron and waited to line up with the runway take-off lights. Malcolm Philpott and C.W. Whitlock were the only passengers on board.

‘I find executive flights soothing,’ Philpott said. He squirmed his shoulders against the sculpted padding of the seat. ‘Lots of leg-room, every convenience within reach…’ He pointed at the panel beside them. ‘Video, reading light – a really good reading light – window shades, music, even a direct line to the pilot. When you eat it’s individual attention, as enriching an experience as you’ll have in any restaurant.’

‘You like being pampered,’ Whitlock said.

‘Of course I do.’

‘It’s good of you to let me share your just desserts.’

They were flying to Dallas-Fort Worth International airport, one of the busiest in the world, where Philpott was sure their arrival would pass unnoticed.

‘It would have been nice if we’d been able to stay at the same hotel,’ Philpott said. ‘But the scenario hardly permits that.’

Whitlock took a slip of paper from his pocket and read it. ‘I’m boarded somewhere off the LBJ Freeway. How far does that put me from you?’

‘Not far. I’m at the Fairmont on North Ackard Street – the number’s at the bottom of your bit of paper.’

‘And you’re Mr Beamish.’

‘That’s correct, Mr Tait.’

There was a sudden roar, blanking out every other sound. The plane surged forward and bumped across the runway seams, each one shaking the cabin, and then the speed increased and they were sailing down the runway. After only a few seconds they were airborne and the noise in the cabin settled to a hum.

‘I’m still nervous about doing this ahead of any word from Sabrina or Mike,’ Whitlock said. ‘It’s like going on stage without any lines.’

‘Improvisation is supposed to be one of our talents.’

‘Sure. But we don’t know the score with these people, do we? An improvisation has to fit or it’s not worth doing.’

‘We’ll soon know the score. Whatever Mike and Sabrina uncover, whether it’s connected or un-connected with Harold Gibson’s cohorts, we can adjust our approach accordingly. Meanwhile, we will be wasting no time getting the first-hand low-down on the Texas connection.’

‘Assuming there is one.’

‘I’m sure there’s one,’ Philpott said. ‘And if there isn’t, I have to tell you it won’t matter. Last night I thought over the whole nasty, sprawling picture you painted from the notes in the bigot book. It’s time something positive was done about the Patriots, wouldn’t you say?’

‘If you mean do I think passive surveillance is no way to curtail the activities of thugs, well yes, I think a new tack would be in order.’

‘And there’s just enough of the agitator left in me to fight them with their own weapon.’

‘Which is?’

‘Bullying. Dressed to look like something else, of course. But.’ Philpott slapped the armrest. ‘I don’t want to muddle our thinking at this stage. My gut feeling is, there’s a connection between Gibson’s crowd, Emily Selby’s murder and Emily’s German hit-list. If the connection is there, we need to discover its nature and its dimensions. And, as I already pointed out, there may well be some advantage in getting to Texas in time for Gibson’s funeral.’

Whitlock smiled. ‘You’re really set on doing serious harm to these people, aren’t you?’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘The speed. The way you got up and running. You hardly stopped to plan this trip.’

‘I’ll admit to a certain grim enthusiasm for the project.’ Philpott looked out of the window, seeing the matrix of New York City below them. ‘I have the conviction, too, that this is a job for men who are not entirely conditioned to a politically structured way of doing things.’

Seven years as a detective chief superintendent, and another six as joint chief of Scotland Yard’s Special Branch, had given Philpott a firm point of view on the operational limitations of government security services. The G-men were better at gathering and analysing intelligence, and better at presenting their results. But they lacked a policeman’s understanding of criminals and a soldier’s iron discipline in putting his duty above every other consideration. Cops and soldiers were better at keeping in mind the rigorous requirements of the law, especially in the way evidence had to be gathered. They were unequalled, also, at handing out punishment of their own devising when the authorities’ hands were tied.

‘The idea of Nazism is a particular pain for me,’ Philpott said. ‘I lost members of my family in the Blitz, and later I grew up through a period when my country had to recover from the most appalling setbacks – industrial, social, domestic. People had to rebuild their lives against a backdrop of unrelieved dreariness and hardship. That was all down to the Nazis. Then when I was older I visited Belsen and Auschwitz-Birkenau and I learned about the true scale and scope of what they did.’ He looked at Whitlock. ‘Any day I do something to damage a Nazi-sympathizer has got to be a day well spent.’

They landed at Dallas-Fort Worth at noon. Philpott took a cab straight to his hotel. Whitlock rented a Ford sedan at the Hertz desk and drove out to the Comfort Inn on West Kingsley.

When he had checked in he changed into a sports shirt and lightweight slacks and took a drink out to the balcony. There was a heated pool and for a while he sat in the hazy sunlight watching people swim. The drink and the warm air relaxed him. He had another drink, and by the time it was gone he was ready to call Carmen.

He tapped button 4 on his mobile, her office number. After two rings the answering machine told him she would not be in the office until tomorrow. He tried calling home, but she wasn’t there either. He was still trying to decide what to do next when the telephone in his room warbled. He went in and picked it up.

‘Tait speaking,’ he said.

‘You liar.’

Whitlock waited, then once again he identified himself as Tait.

‘And I said that’s a lie.’ The man at the other end laughed. ‘How’re you doing, C.W.?’

Suddenly Whitlock recognized the voice. ‘Grundy? Is that Russ Grundy?’

‘Yep.’

Grundy was a senior UNACO multi-tasker, an agent with a range of skills and hardware at his disposal that enabled him to provide short-notice auxiliary services for Task Force personnel in the field. Grundy’s services included night-time surveillance photography, ad hoc telecommunications, wire-tapping, hi-tech burglary and sabotage. Like UNACO’s four other multi-taskers, Russ Grundy was permanently in the field. Over the years he and Whitlock had collaborated on dozens of assignments.

‘How did you know I was here?’ Whitlock said.

‘The eyes of Texas are upon you. I saw you and Mr Philpott at the airport.’

‘And we thought nobody would notice.’

‘There’s always somebody, C.W. What are you doing in Dallas?’

‘I was going to ask you that.’

‘I’m shadowing a money-laundering outfit on behalf of the Fraud Commission at the Security Council. It’s international stuff – yen turning into dollars, dollars being transformed to pounds and marks…’