Quiller Barracuda

Chapter 19: MAZDA

Picked up the phone and dialled.

'Yes?'

Voice I didn't know.

'DIF.'

'He's not here.'

'Then give me the number.'

Rage, great rage.

'Parole?'

'Barracuda. Give me that number.'

'He's mobile. Here it is.'

Wrote it down on the pad. 'Christ,' I told the driver, 'is this the best you can do?'

'We're jammed solid,' he said. Treader.

Ringing tone.

Smoked windows, I couldn't see much more than highlights outside, glass, chromium, police cars with their roofs lit up. Sirens fading in, a fire truck, an ambulance, rage, great rage.

'Yes?' Ferris.

'Listen,' I said, 'they've hit Cambridge.' Get in control, accommodate it, but Jesus Christ we should have seen it coming. We -'

'Where are you?' Ferris asked.

'In the limo, outside the Yacht Club.'

Good evening. Brilliant smile. This is Erica Cambridge, and these are my views.

The bloody thing pumping out rapid fire and her white silk dress turning crimson and the bodyguard trying to reach her but going down too, his body humped and jerking as the shots went in, then the chopper lifting suddenly and very fast, leaving the balloons blowing across the car park, blue and green and red and yellow, whirling in the wind above the people's heads as some of the women screamed and went on screaming until a kind of silence came, the sound of the chopper fading across the sea.

'Get in!"

Treader, dragging me to the car and hustling me into the back, slamming the door and getting behind the wheel and starting up and moving off, someone hysterical in the crowd just here where the woman was lying, the woman and the man, their blood pooling in the moonlight.

Rage, fierce rage.

And these are my views.

Let them stand.

'You saw it happen?' I heard Ferris asking.

'Yes. I saw it happen.'

Get in control. It was nasty but the executive in the field is reporting to his director and there is the need for control, for decorum, you understand, there is no room here for personal feelings.

'How did it happen?'

You're perfectly right, how indeed did it happen, they'll want it for the signals board in London. 'A chopper took off from the pad here and came across the car park and someone opened the door and used a submachine gun at a range of fifty feet.'

In a moment, 'Where were you?'

'Not that close. They weren't making any mistake. It was a straight, accurate hit.'

We moved forward, slowed again. The cars were jamming at the stop sign where the Yacht Club drive met the main road. Police whistles blowing – they were trying to clear the exit roads but it was difficult because a lot of people had obviously stopped their cars to see what had happened, some of them standing on the roof.

'They didn't know you were there,' Ferris said. 'The chopper didn't shift its -'

'No. This was just for her.'

We'll go to my apartment and I'll show you what I'm talking about. It's actually on paper, duplicated. You know what I'm saying? A whole brief, do you understand?

The product. Mission completed.

Not now.

'All right.' Ferris sounded a touch over-controlled, very cool, his articulation precise. We had come, after all, so very close to wrapping this one up and going home. 'Your instructions are to -'

'Listen,' I said, 'her phone must have been tapped. They picked up her call to Nassau tonight.'

'You think so?'

'She'd been on the yacht and she asked me along to the club to meet Stylus von Brinkerhoff and said it was very important for me to meet him. She also named Proctor. We were bugged. We must have been.'

'It didn't cross your mind,' Ferris asked carefully, 'at the time?'

'All that crossed my mind was that she could be trying to trap me.'

Scared for my own skin, it doesn't do, you know, it doesn't get you anywhere except on the bloody slab, but the problem was that I was still scared because I was still in a red sector and we were jammed solid in a pack of cars and if one of Toufexis's hit men had seen me leaving the club and going down to the car park they'd come for me and it wouldn't do any good keeping the doors locked because they'd just smash a window with the muzzle and start pumping.

Control, yes. There must be a modicum of clear thinking. 'Listen,' I told Ferris, 'this won't wait for debriefing. There's an international syndicate called the Trust, and von Brinkerhoff is a member. Their objective is to "buy America and sell it to the Soviets" – I quote.' I gave him the other names she'd told me, and filled in the details. 'She said she'd got it all on paper, a whole brief, she called it, at her apartment. So if you can get permission to go and look around -'

'Someone broke in there, half an hour ago.'

Merde.

'How do you know?'

'I had some people stationed there in case it was in fact some kind of trap. Two patrol cars arrived and they followed the police inside the building and said they were reporters. The doorman told them he'd been attacked and tied up, fifteen minutes before. They found Cambridge's door open, with the lock smashed.'

The place ransacked, every drawer pulled out, the pictures dragged off the wall to find the safe, the bedding all over the floor, the mattress ripped, and in the end they'd found it, the brief, they must have, because she hadn't even thought about checking for bugs on the phones in her flat or the phone in her car, she wasn't intelligence, she was political, didn't understand things like cover, had probably just dropped the brief onto the coffee table or somewhere and they'd looked right past it at first and then they'd seen it and there was nothing we could do about it now.

We were moving suddenly, free of the jam, going north-east along Bayshore Drive.

'It could have been Proctor,' I said.

'That is our thinking.' His and Croder's. 'He was seen landing from the yacht's cutter.'

'When?'

'Earlier tonight, just before eleven.'

Slight jolt to the nerves.

'They lost him?' They must have, or Ferris would be telling me where Proctor was now.

'Within minutes.'

Support people are exactly that: they are troops in the field and they lack the refined, exhaustive training of the shadow executives. Even if I'd tagged Proctor myself he would have made it difficult for me because he was on my own level, competent and seasoned.

So Proctor was off the Contessa and back in the streets of the city and he'd probably conducted the break-in himself because he was very good at it and he'd been looking for a vital piece of product. He had also cut right across the potential end-phase of Barracuda and put us back onto square one.

'If he landed at 10:45,' I said, 'that was about an hour after Cambridge phoned me in Nassau. It would've taken him about an hour to reach land from the Contessa. That call must have been bugged and Proctor himself could have been listening in.'

The thought of it gave me another jolt. 'Hold on,' I told Ferris. 'Treader, how far are we to the safe-house?'

He half-turned his head. 'Ten minutes, bit more.'

'Don't go any closer. Keep on the move but don't circle that area.'

'Got it.' I saw him checking the outside mirrors.

'Is Hood with us?'

'Two cars behind.'

12:41 on the digital clock.

I said to Ferris, 'She must have taken that brief without their knowing – they wouldn't have given it to her. There would have been several copies, and they didn't know that copy was missing until she phoned me in Nassau over a bugged line. Then Proctor knew.'

'We considered that.' His tone still had its cutting edge. I'd heard it before, in Mandarin, in Northlight, when the mission had gone dangerously off track. He wasn't of course furious with Proctor tonight; he was furious with himself for letting it happen, furious with his own incompetence, as competent people often are when a wheel comes off. 'We also considered that it might have been Stylus von Brinkerhoff who'd shown her a copy of the brief. He was at the party tonight.'

That's possible. She said he was attracted to her.'

'I would think most men were.'

'Where's von Brinkerhoff now?' I asked him. Perhaps we could turn him.

'We're watching for him to take the cutter back to the yacht. Monck suggests that if Cambridge wanted you to meet von Brinkerhoff, he might be ready to back out of the project, or even blow the Trust. We've sent someone to Quay 19 to wait for him and offer your apologies for not being in time to meet him at the Yacht Club, and see what he says, see if he's ready to take it further.'

Treader went through some lights on the yellow and checked the nearside mirror. 'There's a Corvette moving up on us,' he said. 'I've been trying to lose it.'

'It he right behind?'

'No, there's a Buick right behind but the Corvette's buzzing it.'

There is the moment when you are sitting comfortably in a sumptuously-appointed limousine with a telephone in your hand and a cocktail cabinet in front of you and pile carpet under your evening shoes and there is the moment when you are suddenly aware that you have become prey to a hunter not far behind you who seeks your death, and aware also that you cannot hope to run fast enough to escape him, and the contrast between these two moments is so violent as to numb the mind, because in this instant the trappings of civilised life are stripped away to leave you in a different world, a different creature, crouched barefoot on rough ground with the hackles raised and the teeth bared as the terror courses like cold fire through the blood.

Proctor was in this city again and he'd come here to retrieve that brief and he'd asked Toufexis to make the Cambridge hit for him and he knew how close the executive in the field for Barracuda had come to infiltrating his operation and he knew I'd be at the Yacht Club party because he'd bugged Erica's phones and he had not asked Toufexis to hit me too because he wanted to do it himself.

It had become personal. My meeting with him on the day I'd arrived in this town had forced him out of his apartment and sent him straight to ground and he'd used his connections with the Mafia and got Toufexis to put out a contract on me and they'd tried twice and I was still alive and was still a threat to him, and it had hurt his pride and he'd told Toufexis's hoods to hold off tonight because he wanted this kill for himself.

Lights swung in the mirrors but I couldn't see from this angle what Treader could see. 'I want instant replay,' I told him.

'We've lost the Buick. I think he got scared.'

'The Corvette's right behind us?'

'Yes. Close.'

'Ferris,' I said on the phone, 'are you still there?'

'Yes.'

'We're heading north on 22nd Avenue and crossing Coral Way. I think Proctor is right behind us.' I let him absorb that while I spoke to Treader; then I came back on the line. 'He's in a black Corvette with a Florida number plate. You've got that?'

'Yes. I'll do what I can.'

'Thank you. Have you got a second line there?'

'Yes.'

'Then leave this one open.'

He said he would.

Flashes on the roof-lining, quick and regular. Proctor was signalling for us to pull up.

'Treader. Where's Hood?'

'Behind the Corvette. And there's a red Mazda behind the Honda.'

Whole bloody parade, Proctor right behind us and a Toufexis hit man following Hood in the Mazda, light traffic coming the other way, the night clubs still open, this town never sleeps. Proctor was still flashing us and it was the sensible thing to do because he didn't want to make any noise, attract any attention: none of us wanted the police in our way. It would be very nice to tell Treader to put his fist on the horn and leave it there till a patrol car picked us up, officer, this nasty man behind us wants to kill me so you'd better do your duty, so forth, nothing so cosy because it would lead to a lot of awkward questions and making charges and that would stop Barracuda right in its tracks, and in any case there's a strict injunction in the rule book against a shadow executive's calling upon any police officer – it's quaintly written, don't you think – for his assistance, and yes, I take your point, Barracuda is going to get stopped right in its tracks in any case just as soon as Proctor gets into the back of this sumptuously-appointed limousine with his Heckler and Koch P7 9mm and its Wilson sound suppressor and starts tickling the tit, which he is very likely to do for the simple reason that he can outpace this ornate tart trap by a factor of three to one and if you think this looks like a car chase you're dead wrong, it's a funeral procession.

First shot and I slid down against the soft leather upholstery to bring my head below the rear window and saw Treader doing the same thing, settling back against the head-rest, wouldn't help him much because Proctor would be using heavy armament against a car like this or he wouldn't have started firing at all, though Treader could get away with it if the slugs had to plough through the rear panel of the boot and then the back of the rear seat before they hit the head-rest with most of their momentum gone, he was just making things as easy for himself as he could, never say die, so forth, take what cover you can get.

'What do you want me to do?' he asked me, and I liked that, we were having a conference, and if we needed advice from headquarters we had a line still open for signals, you can't say, you can't say, my good friend, that the situation was not under control.

Slug hitting the boot and bursting its way through the seat-back very close to my left arm the bastard, oh the bastard he's going to put the next one straight into the spine and that means a slow death with unbearable pain or six months' rehabilitation and a wheelchair, put it into the head you bastard don't forget your bloody manners, chipping away at the cocktail cabinet with splinters flying up from the woodwork, rattling against the windscreen with not enough momentum left to smash a hole in it.

'Situation?'

Ferris.

'He's firing on us.'

'I've ordered three cars in. Where are you now?'

'Still going north, past Shenandoah Park.'

'You're still on 22nd Avenue?'

'Yes.'

'Then don't divert. I'll route them to intercept.'

I told Treader.

The flashing through the rear window had stopped. Treader wasn't going to pull up because if he did that it would finish me off and it was his job to keep me alive for as long as he could or God help him when it came to debriefing. There was a bit of noise from behind us and I asked him about it and he said he thought Hood was using the Honda to worry the Corvette, ramming it obliquely to burst a tyre. It looked as if Proctor was alone in his car because I didn't hear any shots going off that weren't putting slugs into the limousine.

Proctor had decided how to handle the police thing: the gun was making a noise and it wouldn't be long before we brought a patrol car zeroing in but he was now relying on a quick kill with enough time to get him clear. He -

Pock-pock in quick succession as the next one hit the boot and then the three-ply bulkhead and began nosing through the upholstery and I shifted to the right and felt the bloody thing ripping into the sleeve and saw the starburst on the windscreen as the glass frosted over.

Very close and I crawled across the seat to the other side because he'd shifted his aim six inches to the right every time, feeling for me with his gun. Sweat on the skin and the scalp creeping because the situation was not in fact in control and there was nothing we could do and he was going to get fed up in a minute and pull out and gun up alongside and aim for Treader and send this barouche into a shop window and get out of his car and walk across and kick the glass in and empty the whole chamber into the side of the head, unless of course Ferris could bring in his interceptors somewhere north of here and do something useful.

By the look of things we were doing approximately sixty mph and Treader was using the traffic lights as best he could, slowing enough to bring him to the next intersection still fast enough to gun up and go through on the green without losing too much speed. We could -

Pock-pock and the thing glanced off the door pillar and buried the last of its momentum into the sun visor on the forward passenger's side and I moved again, crawling across the seat to the right, little tufts of nylon padding lying around like puffs of smoke, torn away from the leather.

Treader saying, 'OK?'

'Yes.'

Quite a lot of noise suddenly from behind us and I saw headlight beams sweeping across the face of the buildings on the other side of the street and the flush of light under the roof didn't change so it must be Hood in the Honda, some kind of trouble.

'He's lost it,' Treader said.

'Hood?'

'Yes.'

Crumpling noise, a roll-over, the headlights flickering across the shop windows and then going out.

'Ferris?'

'No, sir. he's on the other line. This is Tench.'

'Tell him we've lost Hood. He's crashed.'

'Will do.'

Pock-pock and the door of the cocktail cabinet buckled and glass smashed inside it. I got onto the floor and asked Treader, 'What made him crash, did you see?'

'It could've been the Mazda behind him, sideswipe or something.'

Treader couldn't see all that much because he was hunched down against the seat squab and could only use the outside mirrors and from his angle they wouldn't be showing him a lot more than the top half of Proctor's Corvette, but it was logical to assume that the Mafia hit man in the Mazda had got the Honda out of the running because it had been a threat to Proctor.

We were leaving the park on our right and crossing 16th Street as the yellow turned to red but the Corvette and the Mazda came through without stopping and I gave it a minute, another two minutes at most unless Ferris could get his interceptors into the action because we were a sitting target and it was simply a matter of time.

'Listening?'

Ferris.

I said yes.

'Change of plan.' He sounded quietly impersonal. 'My instructions are to call off my people.'

'To call -'

They won't be intercepting. You're expected to deal with the situation by whatever means. Stay in contact.'

Finis.

I told him I understood. It did not in point of fact take a lot of understanding: Ferris was speaking from his base and Croder must be there too and either he'd only just found out that Ferris had ordered mobile support into the area or he'd given the order himself and then changed his mind. The Bureau gives a great deal of licence to the executives and their directors in the field but there are some rather strict guidelines and one of them is that we don't fight a running battle through the streets of any given city and place the citizenry at risk, and – sirens – and that was precisely what we would have started doing if the interceptors had been sent in.

Shot and then a secondary bang that sounded right underneath us and the limo gave a lurch and Treader said, 'Got a tyre,' and we began weaving and then straightened. There was a lot of noise now as the rubber wrapped itself around the rim and started heating up. The sirens were fading in from behind us, I suppose because of the Honda thing – someone had seen it roll and they'd got on the phone.

I said, 'Treader, we're not going to get any help. They changed their minds.'

'I see.' Trying to sound cool. He knew the score now, too.

Stink of burning rubber coming into the car, I hate that smell, gets on your guts, shot and the rear window frosted over as the slug came through and drilled a hole in the roof, he wasn't firing wild, I think, it was just that the limo was lurching about quite a bit, difficult target at sixty mph with the steering affected. Siren again and this time ahead of us, a patrol car picking up the Honda call from the despatcher and turning south, its lights starting to colour the polished surfaces inside the limo and the siren growing louder. I didn't think it would ignore a limo doing this speed with a burst tyre so I spoke to Treader again.

'Listen, I want you to ditch me. Look for an alley between the buildings or the gates of a yard or a car park -' bright lights now as the police car saw us and started a U-turn with the siren howling – 'anywhere with enough cover to let me run, all right?'

He said he'd do what he could and I found the little chrome lever and got the right-hand door unlocked and waited, pulling out my handkerchief and wrapping it round my right hand, waited, watching the coloured lights reflecting from the inside of the windows, waited, holding my breath against the sickening reek of rubber, sweat on the left hand, the phone slippery with it, waited until Treader told me to get ready and I signalled Ferris that I was making a run and pitched sideways against the division as the brakes came on and the tyres whimpered and we lurched once, twice as he lost the front end and dragged it straight again as the burst tyre came off the rim and the metal screamed on the tarmac and I heard Treader's voice in the background.

'Ditching.'

Pulled the door-lever and hit the door and went through as it swung wide and I rolled into the ukemi with the edge of my right hand making contact with the pavement and the arm and shoulder following and then the whole body curving into the roll and coming out of it with my feet to the ground and enough balance to get me running.

He'd found an alley for me and I checked the environment as I ran because I didn't want to present a silhouette against the lights of the street at the far end: it was a mess back there and I didn't know if Proctor or the man in the Mazda had seen me leave the car but if they'd seen me they'd follow me on foot and I wouldn't have more than a fifty-yard lead and there were high walls here and no cover that could shield me if he came close enough to use his gun.

The alley looked endless ahead, the length of a city block, with the lights of the next street making a bright niche in the shadows. I didn't turn my head to look behind me because it would slow me and if I saw Proctor coming there was nothing I could do – he'd have ample time to break his run and go into the aiming stance and make sure of the shot, shadow down, the slug ripping into the back of the dinner jacket and shattering the spine and leaving the nerves in catastrophic disarray, the muscles of the legs cut off from the brain and the body tilting forward, shadow down.

I was nearing the street ahead but the scene in the mind's eye had brought fear with it and I had to look behind me and I saw nothing, no movement anywhere in the whole length of the alley, so I slowed a little as the brightness of the street came flooding against me and a car slid to a stop with its tyres squealing and a door coming open.

Mazda.