Derek Lambert: The Judas Code

THE JUDAS CODE

Derek Lambert

COPYRIGHT

Collins Crime Club

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Hamish Hamilton Ltd 1983

Copyright © Derek Lambert 1983

Design and illustration by Micaela Alcaino © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018

Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com

Derek Lambert asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780008268442

Ebook Edition © January 2018 ISBN: 9780008268435

Version: 2017-12-20

DEDICATION

For Len and Dorothy Wellfare

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Author’s Note

Encoding

Part One

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Part Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Part Three

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Part Four

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Part Five

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Part Six

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Decoding

Keep Reading

Acknowledgements

About the Author

By the Same Author

About the Publisher

AUTHOR’S NOTE

It should not be forgotten that this is a novel. But nor should it be forgotten that it concerns an established and bewildering fact: that, despite all the evidence, Joseph Stalin refused to believe that Hitler intended to invade the Soviet Union in June 1941. If he had heeded the warnings – and there were many – two tyrannies might have remained relatively unscathed and the world today might have been a very different place. With such a momentous fact as the pivot of a novel it soon becomes easy to believe that the accompanying material is also true. Who knows, perhaps it is.

And what of Stalin? How was he reacting to the fact that almost the entire German army was on his doorstep? Incredibly, he appeared to ignore it. Was he the victim of some kind of hysteria that deprived him of the ability to act? Or were there other powerful reasons for not acting – reasons known only to him? – Russia Besieged by Nicholas Bethell and the editors of Time-Life Books

Despite all the indications that war with Germany was approaching neither the Soviet people nor the Red Army were expecting the German attack when it came … History of World War II, editor-in-chief A.J.P. Taylor

Never had a state been better informed than Russia about the aggressive intent of another … But never had an army been so ill-prepared to meet the initial onslaught of its enemy than the Red Army on June 22, 1941. The History of World War II, by Lt. Col. E. Bauer

It is almost inconceivable but nevertheless true that the men in the Kremlin, for all the reputation they had of being suspicious, crafty and hard-headed, and despite all the evidence and all the warnings that stared them in the face, did not realise right up to the last moment that they were to be hit, and with a force which would almost destroy their nation. – The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William L. Shirer

ENCODING

My advertisement in the personal columns of The Times read: ‘Would anyone with the key to the Judas Code please contact me.’ The response was prompt: at nine a.m. on the day of publication a man called at my London home and threatened to kill me.

The threat wasn’t immediate but as soon as I saw him on the doorstep smiling and tapping a copy of the newspaper with one finger I sensed menace.

He was in his sixties with wings of silver hair just touching his ears and what looked like the scar from a bullet wound on his right cheek; he wore a light navy blue topcoat with a velvet collar and carried a furled umbrella; the elegance and the legacy of violence combined to give the impression of a commando who had retired to the City.

‘Your request interested me’, he said. ‘May I come in?’

Wishing that I hadn’t unlocked the ground-floor door by remote control and allowed him to reach my apartment on the top floor of the old block near Broadcasting House, I said: ‘It is rather early. Perhaps—’

‘Nine o’clock? You look pretty wide awake, Mr. Lamont, and I won’t take up much of your time.’ He took a step forward.

‘Before we go any further, Mr. …’

‘Chambers.’

‘Do you mind telling me how you found out where I live? I only gave a telephone number …’

‘It’s not so difficult to obtain an address from a telephone number. If you know how to go about it, that is.’

‘And my name?’

‘The same source. Now if you would be good enough …’

‘To step aside? I don’t think I would, Mr. Chambers. Perhaps you would be good enough to telephone me to make an appointment.’

‘Aren’t you being a little formal for someone as obviously enterprising as yourself?’ He tucked The Times beneath his arm on his umbrella side.

‘I’ve always been a stickler for protocol.’

‘Really? You surprise me. I had heard quite the opposite.’ His voice frosted. ‘Let me in, Mr. Lamont.’

‘Get stuffed,’ I said, terminating my brief relationship with protocol.

He, too, abandoned niceties. He levelled a Browning 9mm automatic at my chest and said: ‘Don’t try slamming the door. It’s only in Hollywood that wood panels stop bullets. Now turn round and go inside.’ The door clicked snugly behind me. ‘That’s better,’ he said as we entered the living-room. ‘Now sit down in that easy chair beside the fireplace.’

I sat down, feeling slightly absurd in my red silk dressing gown, rumpled blue pyjamas and leather slippers savaged by a friend’s dog, and waited. Chambers sat opposite me and appraised the room – the books scattered across the worn carpet, bottle of Black Label and its partner, an empty glass, punished leather sofa, windows looking across the rooftops to the pale green trees of Regent’s Park. In short, fading elegance; in fact, the workshop of an author who commuted to a house in Surrey where his wife and children lived.

Having completed his inventory, Chambers waved the gun and said: ‘Do I really have to go on pointing this at you? I know I’m much older than you. Forty-five aren’t you?’ – I was forty-four – ‘But I think I’d get the better of you in physical combat, and I’m not just being conceited.’