Colin Forbes - Year of the Golden Ape

^ No one, however clever, was perfect – because you couldn't be sure of what would happen next, however much you planned things. At some unguarded moment LeCat would make a slip, a slip which might last for no longer than a minute, but he would make that slip, she felt sure of it. So she would have to wait and watch and use any feminine skill she had to deceive them, to make them forget her, to think that, being a woman, she was of no account at all. She would live for that moment, then she would kill as many of them as she could.

^ At nine o'clock on Wednesday morning January 22, Winter picked up the ^ San Francisco Chronicle ^ which had been delivered to his bedroom with his breakfast and started reading. The ^ Challenger ^ was headline news. ^ TERRORISTS SEIZE BRITISH TANKER OFF SAN FRANCISCO. ^ The detailed story which followed was garbled, mostly inaccurate, but that was to be expected at this early stage. Winter read with interest that Governor Alex MacGowan had arrived dramatically in the city at midnight, that he had countermanded the mayor's permission to let the tanker into the Bay, that he had now established a headquarters in his offices in the Transamerica Pyramid building. The fact that the ship was still outside the Bay didn't worry him; he was prepared for setbacks and it might soon be necessary to radio LeCat fresh instructions.

^ Half an hour earlier Winter had received a phone call from the Hotel St Francis, from a Mr Seebohm. He was expecting the call because two months earlier it had been agreed that Ahmed Riad would come to San Francisco at this stage of the operation – to receive an on-the-spot report of progress which he would then fly back with to Beirut. Winter suspected that Riad might try to linger, to jog his elbow, and had already decided that if this happened he would have to persuade Mr Seebohm to catch an early plane back home. He went on drinking his coffee, turning to the inside pages.

^ The news item which made him freeze with his cup half-way to his mouth was tucked away at the bottom of an inside page. His reflection in the dressing table mirror showed a man whose features might have turned to stone, the bones sharp in the morning light coming through the window, the jaw rigid. He sat perfectly still, re-reading the news item, then he put the coffee cup down carefully on the table without drinking.

^ He sat there for some time, staring into space, then he got up and looked out of the window. The window carried a security device allowing it to be opened only a few inches – to discourage suicide cases – but Winter, who liked a lot of fresh air, had used a certain tool he always carried to neutralise the device, so now it was wide open. Geary Street yawned ten storeys below. Winter went on staring at the strange, mosaic-like panorama of San Francisco stepped up in a series of terraces towards Nob Hill, an intricate collection of buildings of varying heights so close together they resembled some bizarre jigsaw. Then he went back for the ^ Chronicle ^ and read the news item for the third time.

^ Charles Swan, British radio operator, and his wife Julie were found murdered late today in a remote barn on the outskirts of the city. Both victims were discovered by the police with their throats cut. – Anchorage, Alaska.

^ He sat down again, lit a cigarette, checked his watch. Ahmed Riad, travelling under the name Seebohm, would be arriving in a few minutes. Winter waited, sat in the chair for a quarter of an hour, smoking, his eyes cold, showing nothing of the terrible fury inside him. Then the phone rang. A Mr Seebohm was waiting in the lobby. Winter asked them to send up Mr Seebohm.

^ The Englishman closed the door, locked it as Riad, a careful man, walked into the bathroom, checked behind the door, then came out again and walked over to the window. Glancing down at the sheer, ten-storey drop into Geary, he shuddered and turned away. These American buildings are too tall. They have a megalomania for height. Perhaps it is something sexual…' Winter stared at the Arab. 'Are you feeling all right?' Riad assumed an air of command. He had arrived to give the Englishman his final instructions. 'We have no time to waste. Is everything correct on board the ship? Is LeCat reacting correctly ? I would have expected the ship to be in the Bay by now.' The Arab, always nervous in Winter's presence, was wearing sharp-pointed, highly polished shoes and they squeaked when he moved.

^ 'Everything is the way you want it, the way you planned It,' Winter said slowly.

^ Riad thrust both hands inside his raincoat pockets, hands which had been fluttering as though unsure who they belonged to. Standing stiffly, he spoke in what he imagined was a voice of authority. The feet also, Winter observed, seemed unsure where to put themselves.

^ 'There has been a change of plan, Winter. You are no longer needed in San Francisco. You are to take the first available flight to Los Angeles. There you will board a plane for Paris.'

^ Winter sat down, sprawling out his legs and looking up at Riad with a cigarette in his mouth. 'Why?'

^ 'I'll break those shiny teeth of yours and poke them down your throat – if I feel like it. Actually, I feel just like that.'

^ Winter spoke so mildly that for a moment Riad could not believe he had understood. He moved forward and Winter lifted his foot. The movement was so quick Riad had no time to dodge. The heel of Winter's right foot smashed down on the shiny shoe and Riad squealed. 'I like people who keep still,' Winter remarked. 'Seen today's newspaper?' He folded the paper to the Anchorage news item and shoved it at the Arab. 'Read it! That bit at the bottom.'

^ Riad read it and the newspaper rustled as he tried to hold it steady. Then he dropped the paper on the table, took out an airline folder and handed it towards Winter. 'These are your tickets – in the name of Stanley Grant…'

^ 'You haven't commented on the news item.' Winter stayed flopped in his chair, making no attempt to take the folder Riad was holding.

^ 'They must have tried to escape,' Riad muttered. 'I do not wish to discuss this thing…'

^ 'What you wish doesn't matter any more…' Winter stood up, walking towards Riad who backed away and then realised he was moving towards the open window. 'No one in Anchorage tried to escape,' Winter told him. 'Swan wouldn't have risked it – not with his wife being there. So, what happened?'

^ 'I was not there…' Riad was trembling, trying not to catch Winter's blank gaze as he backed into an alcove which contained a writing desk. 'I have to leave at once…'

^ 'And you didn't say you knew this filthy thing in Anchorage was going to happen – but you did know. You weren't surprised or appalled when you read that paper – you were just worried that I had found out about it.'

^ 'I know nothing about Anchorage…' Riad's arrogance had dissolved. Backed into the alcove by the cold-eyed Englishman, his nerve was going rapidly. He pulled at his collar which felt like a noose round his neck, his legs were trembling, there was a sharp pain of tension in his chest. Behind him he felt the wall; there was nowhere else to go and Winter kept coming towards him. 'I know nothing about Anchorage,' the Arab repeated. 'Nothing…'

^ 'They will make the demand, the Americans will accept…' He choked on his own words as Winter grasped him by the throat, dragged him towards the open window. Riad, quick-witted, immediately understood. 'No! No! Please! I beg you…' Winter had both hands round his throat now, ignoring the frantic beat of Riad's fists, dragging him closer and closer to the wide-open window. The Arab obviously had a horror of heights. Winter stood Riad with his back to the window and bent him at the waist over and outwards, his own legs pressed hard against Riad's which were supported by the lower wail. Riad's upper half went further and further outwards over the ten-storey drop until his head was upside down and above the thump of blood pounding in his ears he heard the blare of traffic horns over a hundred feet below. He saw the sky, the drunken slant of buildings and felt Winter's hand on his throat pushing him down and down. Bile came into his mouth, the pain in his chest was appalling, the pounding in his ear-drums was like a drum-beat, then he felt Winter's other hand grasping his belt, lifting his feet off the bedroom floor and he knew he was going down into the chasm – hurtling through space – until his skull met the sidewalk and was crushed and he was dead for ever and ever.