Алистер Маклин: Red Alert

Zocchi lay on the top step, the cigarette still smouldering inches away from his outstretched hand. The top of his head had been shot away.

Malcolm Philpott used the miniature transmitter on his desk to close the door after the Secretary-General had left the office, then opened his tobacco pouch and tamped a wad into the mouth of his briar pipe. He lit it carefully then sat back in his chair and stared thoughtfully at the ceiling.

He was a 56-year-old Scot with a gaunt face and red hair who had spent seven years as the head of Scotland Yard’s Special Branch before taking up his present post as UNACO Director in 1980. The man with the doleful features and thinning black hair sitting opposite him had been his deputy for the past three years. Sergei Kolchinsky, who was four years younger than Philpott, had been a KGB operative for twenty-five years, sixteen of those as a military attaché in the West, before he joined UNACO replacing a fellow Russian who had been sent back home for spying.

UNACO employed 209 personnel, thirty of those being field operatives who had been siphoned off from law enforcement agencies around the world. They worked in teams of three, each team being denoted by the prefix ‘Strike Force’, and their intensive training included all forms of unarmed combat and the use of all known firearms (although operatives could choose their own weapons for any assignment). The training took place regularly at UNACO Test Centre off the Interborough Highway in Queens. The entire complex was housed underground to ensure maximum security.

Philpott reached for his cane and crossed to the window. He limped heavily on his left leg; the result of an injury he had sustained in the last days of the Korean War. His office, situated on the twenty-second floor of the United Nations Secretariat, looked out across the East River.

‘In view of the report we received this morning we’re going to have to bring in Strike Force Three for this assignment,’ Philpott said.

‘I agree.’ Kolchinsky stubbed out his cigarette and immediately took another one from the packet on the desk and lit it. ‘But then I’d have used them anyway.’

‘Do I detect a hint of favouritism there, Sergei?’ Philpott asked as he returned to his chair and sat down.

‘Call it respect. Their track record proves they are the best team we’ve got.’

Philpott entered a code into his computer, read the information from the screen, then banged his fist angrily on the desk. ‘They went on leave last week. As if we didn’t have enough problems.’ He flicked a switch on his desk. ‘Sarah?’

‘Yes, sir?’ came the immediate reply.

‘Get hold of Mike, Sabrina and C.W. Top priority.’

‘I’ll get on to it right away.’

‘And Sarah, they’re on a Code Red standby. Cancel their leave, effective immediately until further notice.’

Sabrina Carver was UNACO only female field operative. It had initially caused some resentment amongst some of her more chauvinistic male colleagues when she had been recruited from the FBI, but she had quickly proved that she was more than capable of looking after herself and now, two years on, Mike Graham and C. W. Whitlock were the envy of those same colleagues who had made the mistake of doubting her abilities.

Although she lived in New York she still tried to get down to Miami at least twice a year to visit her parents at their Spanish-style mansion in the affluent Coral Gables suburb overlooking Biscayne Bay. When her leave came through it was already the middle of March and she hadn’t seen her mother and father since their annual Christmas pilgrimage to New York. She had decided to spend the first ten days of her leave in Miami before flying out to Switzerland to join some of her friends for a week of skiing. The Miami weather was in the high eighties and she had spent most of her time either lazing by the swimming pool listening to jazz on her portable compact disc player, or else out on Biscayne Bay in her father’s 42-foot Maxum speedboat, the Port of Call .

She parked her father’s BMW 7301 opposite the Marina Park Hotel, close to the entrance of the Miamarina, and smiled to herself as she remembered how she had managed to persuade him to call the speedboat the Port of Call after one of her favourite songs by her jazz idol, saxophonist David Sanborn. Heads turned to look at her when she got out of the car. She was a strikingly beautiful 28-year-old with a near perfect figure which she kept in shape by attending aerobics classes three times a week when she wasn’t on assignment. Her shoulder-length blonde hair, which she had tinted with auburn highlights, was tucked underneath a New York Yankees baseball cap. Mike Graham, a lifelong Yankees fan, had given it to her after she had turned up at the Test Centre wearing an LA Dodgers cap. She had never worn the Dodgers cap since. She was wearing an emerald bikini underneath a baggy white T-shirt and knew she was attracting the attention of the men she passed on her way to where the Port of Call was berthed at the end of the pier. She had come to ignore the salacious looks and wolf-whistles, for she believed to acknowledge them would only be a sign of vanity. And she despised vanity in any form.

She stopped beside the Dream Merchant , a 109-foot yacht which belonged to John Bernstein, one of Miami’s leading financiers and a close family friend for more years than she could remember. Her father had told her the day before that Bernstein was attending an international monetary conference in Washington and wasn’t due back until the following week. So what were the two men in black wet suits doing in the saloon? She was sure there was a perfectly simple explanation but decided to check it out anyway. The gangway had been pulled in so she jumped on to the deck, landing nimbly on her toes. One of the men saw her and swung round, a Walther P5 in his hand. She flung herself to the deck as he fired. The bullet smashed through the glass door and hit the pier. His colleague shouted at him and they disappeared through a side door.

Seconds later she heard the sound of engines and got to her feet in time to see the two men fleeing the yacht on red and white jet skis. She clambered back on to the pier, shouted at a startled couple on a nearby yacht to call the police, then ran to where the metallic-gold Port of Call was moored. She untied it, started the engine, then turned it sharply in the water and headed after the jet skis.

The two men saw her and split up, one heading for the busy harbour complex, the other continuing towards Lummus Island. She spun the wheel violently and went after the one making for the harbour. She knew she would lose him if he reached the harbour first. There were too many hiding places for a craft of that size. She accelerated sharply and the speedboat skimmed across the water but although she was closing on the jet ski she knew she couldn’t catch it. He glanced over his shoulder and made the mistake of thinking she would cut him off before he reached the safety of the docks. He panicked and reached for the Walther in his wet suit pocket. He lost control of the jet ski. It somersaulted, catapulting him into the water. She throttled back the engine and pulled up alongside the man who offered no resistance as she helped him into the speedboat. He slumped dejectedly on to one of the padded seats, his hands over his face. Blood ran down the side of his head from a gash above his eye.

Then she noticed the approaching patrol boat. It drew alongside the speedboat and a painter rope was thrown to her.

‘There’s another–’

‘Just tie the rope to your boat,’ a ginger-haired man commanded. He was in his early fifties and wore the insignia of a lieutenant.

She switched off the engine then scrambled on to the bow and threaded the rope through the ring, securing it firmly with an overhand knot. The man was hauled over the patrol boat’s low railing and sent below to have his wound treated. Sabrina ignored the extended hands and climbed aboard the patrol boat by herself. She asked about the other jet skier.