Nothing To Lose, page 2
Larren slowly became aware that a small crowd had gathered, consisting mostly of the patrons of the bar he had only just left. They kept a cautious distance and nobody spoke. Hurrying footsteps heralded the approach of a gendarme.
Larren looked up and saw the uniformed policeman halt momentarily by the man he had killed. He straightened up and unbuttoned the flap of his holster before coming on. His face was grim and his eyes wary beneath his cap.
Larren realised that he was still holding the knife and let his arm fall down by his side. As the gendarme came up to him he said flatly, “I killed the man up the road. He and another man ambushed my party with a sten gun. They killed my friend and my wife.”
The gendarme stopped and looked around him. Then he looked back at Larren, his face pale. He said slowly. “I see, m’sieur. I am sorry.” He held out his hand, not, Larren noticed, the hand that still wavered near his white holster. “The knife, m’sieur, please.”
Larren handed it over, explaining briefly but in more detail what had happened.
When he finished the gendarme’s face was grim again. “These Algerian swine,” he said shortly. “Every day there is more killing in the heart of Paris. I regret, m’sieur, that these murdering terrorists have done this to you. They kill senselessly. They are no more than animals.”
Larren remained silent. If the gendarme chose to believe that this was just another incident in the bloody war of independence being waged by Algerian Nationalists, then that was all right with him. He had no intentions of getting caught up in an involved inquiry by the Sûreté.
He doubted whether such an inquiry would show any results anyway. Whoever had planned the murder of Tim Carter, had planned it shrewdly by hiring Algerian killers. With terrorist outrages taking place every day the mere fact that the killers were Algerian would satisfy the French police. They would look no farther for a motive.
Larren, however, knew different. He knew Tim Carter, and the dying man’s final words had at least been enough to convince him that Carter was still playing the old game. The game had finally caught up with him.
He turned away from the gendarme and knelt by his wife’s body again, staring down the dark street with unseeing eyes. His hand smoothed the long auburn hair and caressed her still warm cheek. His mind drifted back over the past three years. Three years of Andrea; of seeing her warm smile, of feeling her heartbeat as he held her against his chest. Three years of pure happiness, happiness he had never known in the long lonely years before. Now she was gone, dead and broken at his feet. Dead too was the child she carried with her. He was alone again.
The suppressed violence began to build up within him as he knelt in the roadway, building into a seething hatred for the man, or men, who had ordered this senseless slaughter. The game might be over for Tim Carter, but it was only just beginning for him. The killer urge that wartime training had brought began to gleam dully in his grey-green eyes.
A sharp rain began to fall as he ran his fingers through the softness of Andrea’s hair. It began to soak through his now soiled grey suit and run down his back. It splattered on the tarmac and swilled the redness of the blood away down the gutter.
Larren never even felt it.
Five days later Larren was back in London. It was again raining as he stepped off the sleek Air France Caravelle jet at the airport, and he hurried swiftly to the coach that was waiting to take the plane’s passengers to the terminal. The rain was smashing itself into a thousand dancing water demons as it hit the broad runways and the sky was as dark and ugly as Larren’s mood.
He had buried Andrea the day before in a small cemetery just outside Paris. Apart from the priest who conducted the service, and a few members of his congregation, Larren had been the only mourner. Andrea, like himself, had had no family and no close friends, at least, none close enough to travel to Paris for her funeral.
Afterwards he had listened to the final consolations and regrets of the gendarmerie; they were still hunting, without much hope, for the man who had got away. Larren knew they would never find him, and didn’t even care.
The coach raced through the driving rain towards the long, glass-fronted passenger terminal, scattering the water demons as it went. Once inside Larren passed swiftly through the formalities and then made for the nearest phone booth. He checked that the door was properly closed behind him before ringing the exchange.
After a few seconds an operator answered. Larren gave his own number, then said: “Get me Whitehall 0 — 1 — 0.”
He dropped the required number of coins in the slot and then waited until a prim curt male voice answered. He said quietly. “Extension double 0.”
There was a muffled cough from the other end, and then another short silence before a new voice answered.
“Will you identify yourself please?”
Larren ignored the request. He said flatly. “I have a message from Tim Carter. He was a friend of yours. He died in Paris five days ago.”
There was a pause. “I see, what is the message?”
The corners of Larren’s mouth twisted slightly. “If you really want to find out you’ll have to meet me somewhere. You see, I want to meet you.”
There was an even longer pause, and then suddenly a third voice answered. “Listen carefully, caller. If you care to take an after-luncheon stroll around Hyde Park at about two o’clock this afternoon, I think a meeting can be arranged. Go to the Serpentine Bridge, and then start walking down towards the Peter Pan statue. Sit on the first seat you come to on your left. We’ll contact you.”
There was a slight click as the speaker finished and Larren realised that the man had hung up. He replaced his own receiver slowly, feeling a grim sense of satisfaction settling in his stomach. He left the booth and strode briskly away.
In Hyde Park, a few hours later, the sky had cleared and the sun was shining. The grass was still fresh and glistening from the recent rain. Simon Larren walked along the bank of the Serpentine, watching the ducks as they bobbed down and waved their tails above the water. He was wearing a dark suit that fitted well on his tall, slim frame. He carried a raincoat over one arm. His jet-black hair was still damp from the morning storm, for he rarely wore a hat. He was unsmiling.
He reached the bridge and looked about him. An elderly woman was walking towards him, a fat puppy gambolling at her heels. A teenage couple were embracing on the bridge, completely unconcerned with the world around them. There was no one else in the immediate vicinity.
Larren walked on, past the bridge in the direction of the statue. He found the first seat on the left as directed and sat down. The time was exactly two o’clock.
Five minutes passed. A few more couples strolled by but none stopped. Then a short, black-dressed figure appeared on the far side of the bridge. Larren watched him approach; a typical civil servant, right down to his bowler, brolly and briefcase. Larren decided that he was probably hen-pecked by his wife and tormented by his children. The man was developing a paunch but there was something agile about his stride. Larren was startled when the newcomer sat down beside him.
He glanced at the face beneath the solemn bowler hat and saw a pair of alert grey eyes watching him with just the slightest trace of humour. The man said calmly, “Well, Mr. Larren, what was Tim Carter’s message?”
Larren said flatly. “There wasn’t any message. He told me the number to ring, started to say something about someone named Vargo, then died before he could get it out.”
“Then why this meeting, Mr. Larren?” There was no humour in the grey eyes now, just an expression of wariness.
Larren said. “I wanted to talk — with you. Who are you anyway?”
“The name is Smith, you’ll find me in any phone book. I don’t doubt you already know what I am.”
“Counter-espionage?”
“Something like that.” Smith was watching him carefully. He went on slowly. “I’ve been doing some checking up on you, Larren. Of course we know all the facts about Carter’s death, so it was obvious that it was you who made that phone call this morning. Your record is a very interesting one.”
Larren said nothing.
Smith continued. “For a start we have your wartime record with S.O.E. The men who trained you described you as a lone-wolf operator with no compunction whatsoever for killing. You were an expert with a knife. Twice you accomplished missions in occupied Holland, and each time you worked alone, refusing the help of the underground. On the last trip alone you had to account for four different sentries with a knife. Nobody knows for sure how many you killed on the previous trip.”
Smith paused. “After the war you left the services. Your family had all died in one building when Hitler’s bombers blitzed London. So you went abroad. You had been trained before the war in civil engineering so you took up your old job. You never once worked on a contract in the U.K., always it was somewhere in the wilds: Africa, Sudan, British Columbia, and finally Turkey. That was where you met your wife, wasn’t it?”
Again Larren was silent.
Smith looked away. “You met your wife,” he repeated. “She came up from Ankara with a photographer to write an article around your contract camp in the mountains. Within six months you were back in England, and she was your bride.”
Smith looked back and his eyes held Larren’s face. “A nice story isn’t it? A lonely man who shuts himself away from civilisation on contract sites in the mountains finally finding love and happiness in a woman’s arms. A wartime hero with no compunction for killing finally tamed by a woman’s kiss.
“But what happens when that brief spell of happiness is taken away from him, Larren? What happens when that woman is cold-bloodedly murdered before his very eyes? What sort of a man does our lone wolf with the killer urge become then?”
There was a brief silence, each man watching the other’s eyes. Neither tried to answer the questions that still hung in the air.
At last Smith said, “What do you want, Larren?”
Larren said flatly, “I want to take Tim Carter’s place. I want the man who paid those thugs to slaughter Carter with a sten gun. I want whoever’s responsible for the murder of my wife.”
Smith nodded. “That’s exactly what I thought.” He scowled. “And you think I should help you. Only a fool would employ a man like you on this sort of job. Your only interest is in following up a personal vendetta. You won’t work in a team and you’re liable to kill any man who gets in your way. You ought to be locked up, Larren, and so do I for even thinking of trusting you. But I’m over a barrel. I’ve got no bloody choice. I’ve got to use somebody outside my own department. Somebody who can operate alone without having to call on me for help. And you, blast you, are the only man that fits.”
Larren could read the anger in the other man’s eyes now, and he knew that Smith was struggling to come to some decision in his mind. At last the smaller man said:
“All right, Larren, I’ll give you what you want. But if you cross me in order to satisfy your own personal ideas of vengeance then God help you. This is big, Larren, a damn sight bigger than the life, or death, of any individual.” He glared angrily. “Do you really want to get back into this business, it’s still not too late to back out.” He uttered the last words as though it would be a relief if Larren did back down.
Larren met the glare evenly. “You know the answer to that without asking.”
Smith drew a deep breath. “All right, I’ll tell you what Carter was doing. But first I’d better warn you that things have changed somewhat since you worked with S.O.E. The game is much more subtle, and you can get crossed out of it in London just as easily as you could in occupied Holland. You saw what happened to Carter in Paris. I could tell you other stories from other cities; a man’s corpse fished out of the Danube with a bullet in its back; a woman in an Egyptian brothel with her throat slit; and more! The point I’m trying to get over is that nobody takes half measures, and you’ll be sixteen years in methods and experience behind the rest. You’ll quite likely lose your life in the first round.”
Larren felt the tension tightening the muscles and tendons of his body. His answer was harsh and violent. “The only life I ever wanted was with Andrea. I’ve got nothing to lose.”
CHAPTER 3: ENTER THE BLONDE
Once Smith had decided to take the plunge he wasted no more time, and after checking that there were still no casual strollers within hearing he leaned forward intently and began to talk. His face was serious and his grey eyes never once left Larren’s face. For the first time Larren was able to sense something of the keen brain that worked beneath the brim of that ordinary bowler hat; something of the true character concealed behind that everyday office-clerk exterior.
“The man this whole case revolves around is the man Tim Carter was keeping under observation when the other side found him out. The man he mentioned in that message he tried to pass on to you before he died. Vargo.
“Anton Vargo is a very clever and dangerous man. He was born in Hungary and spent what should have been the best years of his life in a Nazi concentration camp. Afterwards he came to England. He did some valuable work with the war crimes commission and through them came into contact with my department. He’s been working with us for the last fifteen years. For exactly how many of those years he has been betraying us to the reds I don’t know. What I do know now is that he is the most skilful double agent alive.
“I became suspicious of his activities over two years ago, and it took me another eighteen months to prove to my own satisfaction that he was a traitor. How much information about my organisation he has relayed to the enemy I have no way of knowing. Nor do I know how many of my men who have vanished in the last few years have been direct victims of his betrayal.
“I’ve no doubt you’re wondering why he is still alive and free now. The answer is simple; dead, Vargo is of no use to anyone, alive he can still, unwittingly, be of use to me. I should like nothing better than the personal pleasure of eliminating Anton Vargo, but unfortunately a man in my position cannot indulge in sordid vengeance.
“So Vargo is still operating, except that for the last eight months I have been using him to feed the other side with a whole mass of false facts and figures. Being able to divert enemy interest with fake information has been a tremendous asset. Of course it was one that couldn’t last. As I have said Vargo is an exceptionally clever man, and being well trained in counter-espionage, it was inevitable that he should realise he was being duped. After a certain percentage of misleading reports have been allowed to slip through it becomes obvious to the enemy that their agent is being used. That, of course, was the time to eliminate Vargo, when his usefulness was over.
“Unfortunately, at that point events took a new twist. We have our own methods of checking up on the movements of our opposite numbers, and in the last month or two it has become obvious that they are still receiving top-secret information from within my department. And that information has been reaching them through Vargo.
“Therefore, the only conclusion that I can draw from those two facts is that there must be a second traitor in my organisation. The information that Vargo passed on was something I had made sure he had no access to. Somebody else must have given it to him. Someone who has realised that I am allowing Vargo to continue contacting the reds for my own purposes, and has taken advantage of the fact by getting Vargo to pass on his own reports at the same time. In fact my scheme has boomeranged on me pretty savagely.”
Larren said slowly. “Why not still eliminate Vargo? Drive the second man into the open.”
“Because to kill Vargo might not necessarily drive the man I really want into the open. Just the reverse, it will probably make him lie low. Then someday he’ll get his hands on something really vital, something big enough to make him cut and run for the iron curtain. Then it will be too late.
“I want to make sure of that man, or woman, before authorising the death of Anton Vargo. I must be sure that when I finally start a purge it will be a thorough one. I don’t want any dirt left in the corners.”
Larren frowned. “Where do I come in?”
Smith closed his hands over the briefcase on his lap and moistened his lips slightly. “You come in exactly where Carter left off. You can see why I have to trust you, can’t you? If I give this assignment to any of my own men then I just might be giving it to the one who is selling me out. And even if I pick on a reliable man, then Vargo could easily spot him on his trail and recognise him. That was probably what happened to Carter. I don’t want it happening again. That’s why I must recruit outside help. Even though I can’t trust your motives, Larren, I can at least be sure that we both hate the guts of the same kind of people.”
He tapped the briefcase. “I have a complete file on Vargo here; his photograph, habits, friends, etc. Your job is to follow him, make friends with him if you can. But get close enough to find out who he is working with inside my department. Also find out the people behind him. We know the stuff he is selling eventually reaches the far side of the iron curtain, but those people must have agents over here in close contact with Vargo. There must be other links in the chain. I’ve got to find them, and stamp them out.”
Larren said softly, “I’ll do my best.”
Smith was silent for a moment, then he unsnapped the case on his lap and drew out several typed sheets clipped together. He folded them and handed them over. “Study them well, Larren, and then destroy them. Stay as close to Vargo as you can, and remember — if you double-cross me it’ll be the last mistake you’ll ever make.”
Larren took the folded papers and slipped them into the inside pocket of his jacket. “I’ll remember — I’ll remember everything.”
Smith hesitated, then held out his hand. “Good luck, Larren, you know how to contact me if you must, but don’t unless you have something definite to tell me. I daren’t even trust my own shadow now, and I don’t want you becoming another sacrifice like Tim Carter.”
