Алистер Маклин - Red Alert

‘Wiseman?’ Dragotti replied in surprise. ‘I had nothing to do with Wiseman.’

‘Don’t lie!’ Paluzzi snapped.

‘I’m not lying. Have you ever heard of phosgene?’

‘Of course,’ Paluzzi replied. ‘It’s a nerve gas made up from a mixture of chlorine and phosphorus.’

Dragotti nodded. ‘Karos was put in touch with me because he needed large quantities of chlorine for one of his clients so that they could make phosgene themselves.’

‘Who?’ Graham demanded.

‘He never told me. All I knew was that he had a source for phosphorus and he needed the chlorine to complete the deal. I have a reliable contact who could supply him with as much chlorine as he needed, at a knockdown price. That’s what he paid me for.’

There was a tap on the door and Marco entered. He spoke softly to Paluzzi, then took up a position by the door. Paluzzi crossed to the desk, picked up the bank statements and pocketed them.

‘It’s over, Dragotti. Karos has confessed.’

‘To what?’ Dragotti asked apprehensively.

‘To paying you to act as the middleman between Wiseman and himself.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ Dragotti retorted.

‘We had him picked up earlier this morning. He held out for the first hour but he finally agreed to talk in exchange for a reduced sentence. And from what he’s said about you, I doubt you’ll get out of jail before you’re sixty.’

‘You’re lying,’ Dragotti said, a desperation already beginning to creep into his voice.

‘We’re prepared to offer you the same deal.’ Paluzzi glanced at Marco. ‘Read him his rights.’

Dragotti yanked open the middle drawer of his desk and pulled out an RF83 revolver, but when he looked up he found Paluzzi and Marco aiming their Berettas at him.

‘Drop the gun,’ Paluzzi ordered, his finger tightening on the trigger. ‘Drop it!’

Dragotti’s plan had backfired. He hadn’t known that they would be armed. There was no escape, not now.

‘Drop it,’ Paluzzi repeated.

‘Then what?’ Dragotti said in a hollow voice. ‘Thirty years inside?’

‘Karos hasn’t confessed to anything. We haven’t even arrested him. It was a trick to try and make you confess,’ Paluzzi told him.

‘I don’t believe you,’ Dragotti said, shaking his head slowly.

‘Put down the gun, Vittore, and we’ll talk,’ Paluzzi said.

Dragotti gave Paluzzi a half-smile, then pushed the barrel of the revolver against the roof of his mouth and pulled the trigger. Blood splattered across the window behind the desk and Dragotti slumped to the floor. Paluzzi hurried across to where he lay and felt for a pulse.

There wasn’t one. He looked up at Graham and Marco and shook his head, then, taking off his jacket, he placed it over Dragotti’s mutilated face.

Chidenko and several of his managers burst into the office.

‘What happened?’ Chidenko demanded, staring at Dragotti’s body.

‘He shot himself,’ Graham replied.

‘This isn’t some sort of sideshow!’ Paluzzi shouted angrily. ‘Go back to your offices.’

Chidenko persuaded his colleagues to leave, then crossed to where Dragotti lay and reached down to lift the jacket.

‘You don’t want to look,’ Graham said, grabbing his wrist.

Chidenko jerked his hand free and lifted the cloth. Stumbling backwards a few feet, he clasped his hand over his mouth in a struggle to keep himself from vomiting. When he finally turned back to Graham his face was pale.

‘I never realized a handgun could cause so much damage.’

‘It can if it’s loaded with .38 slugs.’

Marco returned to the office. ‘The ambulance is on its way.’

‘What now?’ Graham asked Paluzzi.

‘I’ll get hold of the local carabinieri. If we can hand over the suicide to them without too many hitches we should be in Corfu by mid-afternoon.’

‘What’s in Corfu?’

‘Not what. Who. Nikki Karos.’

Mary Robson had always dreamed of becoming a professional dancer ever since she was eight years old. She took up ballet at school but her real love was disco dancing and when, at the age of seventeen, she won a national competition in her home town of Newcastle a theatrical agent offered her a small part in a leading West End musical. Her parents refused to give their consent, arguing that they wanted her to finish her education first. Six months later she ran away to London, certain she would land a part in another West End show, but when she got there she found that she was just one of hundreds, many of whom were better dancers. She took a job in a Soho strip club to make ends meet and it was there that she met Wendell Johnson, a West Indian with a long criminal record. Three months after moving in with him she discovered she was pregnant. She was only nineteen when their son, Bernard, was born. The dream was over.

She was now twenty-two years old, overweight and unemployed. Wendell was in prison, where he had already served ten months of a seven-year sentence for burglary. She would wait for him. Her parents couldn’t understand how she could love a man like him. Neither could they understand that she wanted her son to have a father, even if he was a criminal. Not that she saw much of them anyway. She would bring up her son in her own way and to hell with what anyone else thought. And that included her parents.

She finished drying the dishes then stood looking out of the window over the sink at the row of bleak terraced houses on the opposite side of the street. It was a mirror image of all the streets in the neighbourhood.

She hated Brixton: it was so depressing. Wendell liked it, because all his friends were there. She had tried to persuade him to put his name down for a council house in Streatham but he had always refused to budge on the issue. They would stay in Brixton.

A police car pulled up in front of the house. Inside were two policemen. The driver got out of the car and approached the front door.

Mary discarded her apron and hurried into the hallway. The doorbell rang. Her mind raced as she fumbled to unlock the door. It had to be about Wendell. She pulled open the door, her eyes wide with anxiety.

‘Are you Miss Mary Robson?’ the policeman asked.

‘Yes,’ she stammered. ‘Something’s happened to Wendell, hasn’t it?’

The policeman nodded. ‘He was stabbed in a fight at the prison. Don’t worry though, he’ll be all right.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘He’s been taken to the Greenwich District Hospital.’

‘Can I see him?’

‘That’s why we’re here,’ the policeman replied with a reassuring smile.

‘I won’t be a minute, I just have to get my son.’

He waited until she was out of sight then looked back at the police car and nodded to his colleague.

The man in the passenger seat removed his peaked cap and raked his fingers through his thick black hair. The black moustache gave a sinister edge to his youthful features. Even so he looked nearer twenty-five than his real age of thirty-seven. His name was Victor Young.

He smiled to himself as Dave Humphries led Mary Robson and her son towards the police car. It was all going according to plan.

Whitlock and Lonsdale arrived at Brixton police station at eleven o’clock and were immediately ushered into the station commander’s office. Chief Inspector Roger Pugh was a tall man in his late forties with silver-grey hair and an easy manner which helped to put them at their ease. He shook hands with them and indicated the two chairs in front of his desk.

‘What time are we due out?’ Whitlock asked, sitting down. ‘Major Lonsdale wasn’t sure whether it would be eleven-thirty or twelve.’

‘Eleven-thirty,’ Pugh replied.