Nothing To Lose, page 1
NOTHING TO LOSE
Simon Larren Espionage Series
Book One
Robert Charles
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1: DEATH IN THE EVENING
CHAPTER 2: THE MAN CALLED SMITH
CHAPTER 3: ENTER THE BLONDE
CHAPTER 4: MEET THE REDHEAD
CHAPTER 5: FORCING THE PACE
CHAPTER 6: TRAIL OF A KILLER
CHAPTER 7: AN HOUR BEFORE DYING
CHAPTER 8: AGAIN THE REDHEAD
CHAPTER 9: ABOARD THE OSTRAVIA
CHAPTER 10: THE DOUBLE ACE CLUB
CHAPTER 11: AGAIN THE BLONDE
CHAPTER 12: LUST WITHOUT LOVE
CHAPTER 13: NO TEARS FOR VARGO
CHAPTER 14: A TRAP IS SET
CHAPTER 15: THE BAIT IS SNATCHED
CHAPTER 16: THE OSTRAVIA SAILS
CHAPTER 17: NIGHT EXPRESS
CHAPTER 18: THE FORBIDDEN FRONTIER
CHAPTER 19: THE DARK CHTEAU
CHAPTER 20: THE BITTER TASTE OF VENGEANCE
NOTE TO THE READER
ALSO BY ROBERT CHARLES
CHAPTER 1: DEATH IN THE EVENING
Fear lay like a clawing fist in the pit of Tim Carter’s stomach. His heartbeat was a painful, jabbing finger behind his chest. His mouth was oven-dry. Every second he expected the soft, distant footsteps behind him to erupt into a sudden rush of violence and death; his own death.
Up to three hours ago he had been the hunter, tailing his quarry from London to Madrid, and then doubling back across Europe to Paris. Three hours ago he had been the watcher in the shadows, keeping close but never in sight. Now there were others watching him. Now he was the hunted.
Instinct had first told him that the positions were reversed. An instinct trained in wartime espionage with S.O.E., and later honed razor-sharp by the years with British Intelligence. Once his senses had been alerted his suspicions had soon been confirmed. He knew now that there were at least two men behind him, and not for the first time in his career he was afraid.
He had relaxed his watch on his own man almost immediately, for as he had obviously been spotted it was clear that the trail would lead nowhere now. Instead he had concentrated on throwing off his own shadows. It was late, and the main boulevards and avenues of Paris were beginning to empty. There were no crowds into which he could melt away. In desperation he had turned into the darker back streets, hoping to lose his pursuers in the narrow, twisting turns.
That had been a mistake. The men behind him were moving closer, and he was now certain that their job was not a mere matter of keeping him in sight. If that was so they would be farther back, taking no chances on being spotted. Their job was to kill.
Carter badly wanted to run but his training prevented that. Flight would only precipitate the action, and bring him a swift bullet in the back. As long as the men behind believed him to be unsuspecting they would wait, and choose their own time. And delay meant an extension of life. An extra period of time in which circumstances might swing in his favour; in which a miracle might happen.
For the thousandth time he cursed himself for not bringing a gun on this mission. The Webley 38 he usually carried would be all the miracle he needed.
He walked on, outwardly calm and fighting down the urge to glance back over his shoulder. The dryness of his mouth was almost enough to make him choke, and that fist was grasping and twisting at his guts. It had never been this bad before, and somehow he knew that he was not destined to get out of this one alive.
He turned a corner and saw a light up ahead, not another dingy yellow glow from the ill-spaced street lights, but bright light spilling from the open doorway of a bar. He tried to keep his pace even as he moved towards it. If they let him reach that door there was a chance that he could dive through and out the back, a slim chance, but a chance.
The last fifty yards along the street were the longest walk he had ever taken. There was no sound from behind him and he dared not look back. His shoulders were braced to take the savage tearing impact of a bullet, but nothing happened.
He reached the lighted doorway, still looking ahead as though he intended to go right past it. Not until he was dead level did he turn aside and dive into his chosen sanctuary.
The interior of the place barely registered itself in his racing mind. There were a few working-class Frenchmen sitting around the small circular tables. A tall man in a well cut grey suit leaned against the bar with his back to the door, his arm around a woman who was smiling up at him. The barmaid was a large woman who watched them sardonically. In one corner an obvious prostitute was playing with a near-empty glass, she eyed Carter hopefully.
The Englishman’s swift glance settled on a door just behind and to the left of the bar. He plunged towards it; no pretence at calmness now. A man cursed as Carter bumped into his table and sent his wine spilling over the cheap cotton cloth. Carter ignored him but the disturbance caused the tall man at the bar to glance round.
“Tim!” His voice jerked the Intelligence man to a stop. “Tim Carter. Well I’ll be damned.”
Carter turned slowly. For a moment memory deserted him and then he recognised the deceptively slim build and the strange, brooding grey-green eyes. The men who had trained with this man in S.O.E. had called them killer’s eyes. And they had been right.
Carter swallowed a deep breath. “Simon Larren, still alive and kicking. Well you can damn me too.” As he spoke Larren was extending his hand, Carter took it and wondered whether he had found his miracle.
Carter had last seen Simon Larren when they shared an escape route out of occupied Holland in the August of 1944. For seven days they were continually on the edge of capture and death. The allied armies were advancing from the South and the Nazis were in no mood to tolerate the saboteurs from S.O.E. who were paving the way. Many times during that week only sheer luck and the courage of the Dutch resistance movement had saved their lives. In that time Carter had got closer to the strange, lonely character of Simon Larren than any other man alive.
Larren was a man with a killer urge; an urge sharpened by wartime training and somewhat satisfied on subsequent missions. A man who had parachuted twice into occupied territory and completed his missions alone, despite orders to work in co-operation with the local underground. In those days he rarely smiled, and would spend hours testing and sharpening the razor edge of the large sheath knife that was his favourite weapon.
As Carter grasped Larren’s hand he was already thinking on new lines. The idea of flight was forgotten now. He was already working out the possibilities of an ambush now that he had help, for he knew enough about Simon Larren to be confident of his assistance. Instead of running as he had intended he would carry on through the back of the bar and wait in the yard or alley, or whatever was out there. When the men behind him followed, Larren could follow them in turn and surprise them from behind. Between the two of them they could take the trailing killers easily. It would be almost like old times again.
Before he could speak, however, Larren had looked away, towards the woman who had been with him. She was coming towards them, moving with supple grace between the tables. Her hair was long and wavy, reaching to her shoulders in a smooth auburn flow. Her features were fair and slightly refined, but her smile was bright and easily formed. Her eyes were a very light hazel beneath fine brows.
Larren reached out and drew her towards him before turning back to face Carter. He said simply. “Tim, I’d like you to meet my wife, Andrea.”
Carter felt as though his feet had been kicked from under him. Somehow he had never visualized Larren as a married man, he had always been too much of a loner for that, too independent, and too reserved to share his life with anyone else.
He acknowledged Andrea with a slow nod, and felt her hand grip his momentarily in a gesture of greeting. For a moment he was off balance and lost for a reply. He felt a sudden surge of resentment against this woman he’d never even seen before in his life, for her presence ruined everything. He knew he couldn’t enlist Larren’s aid now, not while he had his wife along.
Larren was smiling. “We were just about to leave, Tim, but now you’re here we’ve got plenty of time for another one. Come and have a drink for old time’s sake.”
Carter’s mind was racing fast but getting nowhere. All he could grasp was that the man he had been so sure he could rely on had changed, and that he was back on his own and still in a spot.
Andrea cut into his thoughts by saying hopefully, “Why don’t you come up to our hotel, Tim? I can mix you a better drink than you’ll ever get here, and you boys can talk all night if you like.”
Larren grinned. “Perhaps I should explain that Andrea is a journalist, Tim, she insists on seeing how the other half lives from time to time. That’s why we’re slumming tonight. We really can afford a decent hotel.”
Carter hesitated, he had already lost valuable seconds and the fact that his pursuers had not followed him into the bar seemed to indicate that they would not try killing him before witnesses. He was weighing up the possibilities of simply walking out of the bar again with Larren and his wife. Would their presence hold his followers back?
He couldn’t answer that question, but it seemed a fair gamble. So far they couldn’t realise that he had spotted them, and the chances were high that they would wait until he was again alone before making their attempt.
Andrea was smiling, trying to charm him. “Come on, I promise I won’t intrude. I know what men are like when they get together.”
He tried to imagine himself on the other side. What was their most probable course of action? There were two of them so obviously one would stay to watch the front while the other circled round to cover the back.
He was suddenly sure that that was the way it would be. Whichever way he tried to leave now he would be too late. His only chance was to accept Larren’s offer.
Larren was already gripping his arm. “Come on, Tim. You can’t just walk away again now that I’ve finally caught up with you. We never did have that drink together after the war, remember. It’s time we made up for it.”
Andrea moved away from her husband’s side and took hold of Carter’s other arm. “I’m not letting you get away either,” she said firmly. “You can tell me what he was really like before I married him.”
Carter was hopelessly entangled. He knew he couldn’t get away without involving the Larrens now, even if he still wanted to. He prayed that their presence would in fact cause his enemies to wait and capitulated weakly.
Larren grinned. “That’s settled then. We’ll find a taxi, get back to our hotel and drink till dawn.”
Carter mumbled something immaterial as they marched him towards the door. He was thinking that Larren’s grin looked somehow out of place on the unsmiling mouth he remembered. His wife Andrea was obviously responsible and had made a vast change in his wartime comrade. Even the old brooding look had faded a little from those grey-green eyes.
He said vaguely. “Somehow, I never pictured you as a married man, Simon. What happened?”
“Andrea happened,” Larren was cheerful. “I met her three years ago. I only wish I’d met her earlier. Within six months she talked me into marrying her and I’ve never regretted it. In fact, we’re pretty soon going to plague the world with some little Larrens. Aren’t we, honey?” He smiled across at his wife as he finished.
Andrea blushed slightly and for the first time Carter noticed the slight roundness of the stomach that spoiled her otherwise perfect figure. The Intelligence man felt cold, and suddenly he knew that he was not justified in taking even the slightest chance with this woman’s life. But it was too late. They were already in the doorway of the bar, already moving out into the darkened street.
Larren kept on talking and Carter answered him with only half a mind as they moved away from the splash of light that came from the bar, the other half was concentrated on searching the shadows for the men who must be waiting.
There was a patch of pitch blackness to go through before they reached the vaguely lit area beneath the next street light and Carter had a sudden sense of foreboding as they entered it. On the far side of the road ran a high brick wall that offered no chance of concealment, on their near side, the left, were the black doorways of several shuttered shops. Carter felt his heart hammering again.
Too late Carter realised that one of the openings he took for a doorway was in fact the mouth of an alley. He saw two dark shadows moving outwards; saw the blurred shape of a sten gun in the first man’s hands.
He realised instantly that they must have known he had spotted them. His sudden dive into the bar had given him away and now they were taking no chances. Desperately he thrust out his arms, sending Larren and his wife flying in different directions as the sten burst into a savage chatter of fire.
Carter tried to spin round and run in the same moment. The deadly burst shattered the right side of his chest and hurled him down. Scarlet flashes of flame illuminated the man behind the sten, a swarthy, shabbily-dressed man whose face was a mask of sadistic joy. The sound of gunfire screamed and reverberated through the quiet back street.
Andrea Larren uttered a piercing shriek as she scrambled to her knees and tried to run. The sten swung round and a second chattering burst ripped up the length of her spine, smashing her bloodied form down on to the pavement.
The sten swung round again, searching for Simon Larren. Larren had hit the hard tarmac when Carter pushed him and instinctively started rolling. The sten spat flame again and a shower of tarmac chippings sprayed up from the road, chewing up a ragged trail behind Larren as he kept on moving.
Larren hit the far wall with a thud and scrambled cat-like to his knees. A shower of flying dust and broken brick burst in his face as the sten ploughed a hole in the wall beside his head. Then abruptly the firing stopped and he realised that the man’s magazine was empty.
For long seconds Larren was incapable of movement. He stared dumbly across the darkened street, seeing nothing but the still and bleeding form of his wife. Then his gaze suddenly riveted on the man with the empty sten. The man was alone, grinning broadly at the havoc he had caused, his companion had already vanished down the black mouth of the alley.
The man realised abruptly that Larren was still alive, and for a split second they stared at each other across the width of the silent street. The assassin turned sharply and raced away. His movement brought Larren hurtling to his feet in full pursuit.
The man with the sten threw away his empty magazine as he ran, fumbling in his pocket for a fresh one. He made a hundred yards before he suddenly stopped and swung round. With one swift movement he clipped the full magazine into place but he was too late.
Larren crashed into him in blind rage, carrying him down to the ground and sending the sten flying out of harm’s way. The killer urge was back in Larren’s heart as his clutching fingers found the other’s throat. He dug his thumbs into the dirty flesh around the windpipe and crushed them together. The swarthy, unshaven face was close to his own, grotesquely twisted now with the mouth gaping open and the eyes bulging. The man’s breath was a choking escape of foul-smelling air. His body writhed convulsively.
Larren sensed rather than felt the frantic movement beneath him as the man struggled to draw something from his pocket. He heard a sharp click and saw the sudden gleam of the knife as it was drawn back for a desperate lunge into his ribs. Instantly he released his throat hold and grabbed for the knife wrist. He stopped it in time as his opponent gulped in some much-needed air, and then a viciously brought up knee in the groin sent him sprawling to one side.
Both men scrambled weakly to their feet, Larren almost doubled up in agony, the other still choking for air. The swarthy man won by a matter of seconds and lunged in again with the knife.
Larren swayed aside as the keen blade ripped open the pocket of his jacket. Seizing the knife wrist again he twisted and brought a howl of pain from the snarling face. The knife clattered to the ground as Larren unleashed a savage right that brought blood streaming from the man’s mouth.
As he staggered back Larren scooped up the knife. He closed in again and saw that terrible mental picture of Andrea’s shattered body in its pool of blood. The knife in his hand flashed once and her killer screamed. He screamed again with the second thrust and then toppled over in the road.
Larren stared down with the knife in his hand and waited for the blood-lust within him to subside.
At last he turned and made his way slowly back to where Andrea lay. He stood over her, his mind numbed with fresh shock. Then slowly he knelt and turned her face towards him. Her eyes were closed but there was no peace in her face. There was still an impression of terror around her dead mouth. For the first time since childhood Simon Larren cried, the tears burning silent trails of fire down his hard, lean face.
It was then that a sudden, half animal whimper told him that Tim Carter was still alive. He got up slowly and stared down at the dying man. Carter’s chest was soaked with blood and his eyes were dull. He said slowly. “Simon. Phone — phone Whitehall 0 — 1 — 0. Ask for extension double 0. Tell them Vargo — Vargo —”
A rush of blood drowned the last words as his eyes glazed over.
Larren stood there silently, the tears still wet on his face, his fist knotted white around the hilt of the knife in his hand.
CHAPTER 2: THE MAN CALLED SMITH
