Redfalcon, page 6
As I drew closer, I saw an empty window frame that would gain me entrance so long as the two resourceful young Scots could keep up their diversionary charade and no alarm was raised. I could hear their drunken voices loud and clear as they insisted on directions to the nearest cow. They were taking a considerable risk, for I had no doubt that Ravenstein’s henchmen were armed and quite prepared to kill at the first indication of trickery.
As soon as I reached the windmill, I pressed my back hard against the mossy stonework to one side of the empty window. I waited long enough to be confident that I had so far not been spotted, but that wasn’t to say that this rear entrance was not in plain view for anybody inside.
Crouching down low, I peered over the sill into the dimly lit interior. The only light came from a few holes in the ceiling and the faint glow of an oil lantern somewhere out of my line of sight. Carefully I stood up and climbed inside, dropping to one knee with Barralty’s pistol in my hand. The rough stone floor was scattered with dust and crumbled fragments of plaster that had fallen from above.
In the centre of the room was the great millstone, jammed into position apparently and blocking most of my view. A faint nimbus of yellow light was filtering round the edge of this obstacle from a lantern somewhere beyond. Keeping low, I began to work my way sideways, seeking a glimpse of what lay on the other side. The first thing I caught sight of was a small round table upon which were laid out various medical instruments, including a syringe and several small vials. I recognised them as some of the standard items of forced questioning.
‘You may as well come out, Hannay,’ came a voice. ‘I know you’re there.’
Keeping to the shadows as best I could, I worked my way around until I could see Ravenstein and his prisoner. Professor Owen was slumped unconscious on a bare wooden chair. Only the rope that was tied around his chest and under his arms kept him from sliding off. Standing directly behind him was Ravenstein, with a wide-brimmed hat, tinted glasses and a black scarf obscuring his features. His gun was in his hand, the barrel pressed pointedly against the prisoner’s temple.
Ravenstein spoke again in a voice that was almost eerie in its lack of emphasis. ‘Now keep your distance and throw your gun away, or I’ll blast the professor’s brains out.’
9
A DEVIL’S BARGAIN
In reply, I raised my gun, pointing it directly at the German, who slouched behind the prisoner to provide himself with a shield. I drew myself into the cover of a barrel while keeping my aim steady. I had already learned that Ravenstein was far too dangerous for me to let my guard down even for an instant.
‘I’m afraid the professor is all you have to bargain with,’ I told him. ‘You’d be a fool to shoot him.’
‘You too would be a fool to shoot,’ Ravenstein stated coolly. ‘No matter how accurately you aim, you can have no guarantee that I will not pull this trigger with my dying breath and put an end to the professor’s life.’
At that moment Jaikie and Dougal entered, armed with the guns they had lifted from the unconscious gangsters outside. As soon as they took in the scene, they dodged into cover behind a pair of wooden beams.
‘Are you all right, sir?’ Jaikie called out to me.
‘I’m fine, Jaikie,’ I answered. ‘I think we’ve caught up with our rat, thanks to your ingenuity.’
‘Ah, you think because you have reinforcements, that gives you the advantage,’ said Ravenstein.
‘I can’t say your position looks any too strong,’ I observed. ‘You’d be well advised to lay down your gun and surrender. You can be assured that you’ll be treated fairly.’
‘An enemy spy treated fairly?’ Ravenstein responded sceptically. ‘No, I don’t think your British justice will extend to the likes of me.’
‘In that case, we’re at an impasse, and I believe we are better placed to wait it out.’
Ravenstein shifted the position of his pistol so that I could clearly see his finger tensed on the trigger.
‘Hannay, I know that what you want above all is the professor here safe and unharmed,’ he said. ‘I assure you that he will make a swift and full recovery, but not if I put a bullet in his scholarly brain.’
‘If you do that, then you will die immediately after him,’ I promised.
‘I do not think so,’ Ravenstein suggested pensively. ‘You see, as soon as I have fired the fatal shot, I will instantly drop my gun and raise my hands in surrender. I do not believe for a moment that you will shoot an unarmed man, especially not one who is rendering himself your prisoner.’
‘I thought you were wary of our justice.’
‘Oh, I am quite the resourceful fellow. No prison has ever held me for very long.’
‘Assuming neither of us wants that fatal shot to be fired, then, how are we to resolve this situation? Or are we going to stand here all day pointing guns at each other?’
‘It is actually very simple. If you give me your word that you will let me go free, I will lay down my gun, make my way to my car and drive off with no further bother to you.’
‘And what about those two men outside?’
Ravenstein gave an unconcerned shrug. ‘Do with them what you will. They are merely hired hoodlums and their lives are of no value to me.’
‘I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him,’ Dougal growled, taking an aggressive step forward.
In response Ravenstein pressed his gun directly against Professor Owen’s temple. ‘Another inch will cost his life,’ he promised.
I held up my hand, warning my young friends to stay back and leave this to me.
‘I am losing patience, Hannay,’ said the German. ‘Take your choice now – accept my terms and let me go, or have a dead professor on your hands and me as your prisoner. A prisoner, I assure you, who is expert at every form of escape.’
It was one of the hardest choices I have ever had to make, but I knew if I waited too long, Ravenstein would make the decision for me and pull the trigger. He appeared quite confident that an immediate surrender on his part would prevent me from shooting him, and he was equally confident that if I gave my word, I would be honour bound to keep it.
Ravenstein’s eyes bored at me as intensely as the fateful ticking of a clock.
‘Very well,’ I conceded at last. ‘If you lay down your gun, you have my word that you will leave here unharmed.’
The German indicated my two friends with a tilt of his head. ‘Make your clansmen swear to it too.’
Jaikie and Dougal’s reluctance was only too obvious. ‘You need to swear,’ I told them. ‘It’s the only way to ensure the professor’s safety.’
Jaikie nodded brusquely towards the German. ‘You have our word as well.’
‘Aye, we’ll let you go, you skulking rat,’ Dougal agreed sourly.
Gingerly Ravenstein laid his pistol on the ground and backed away with both hands upraised. ‘I am so glad we are all gentlemen here. Until the next time.’
With a nod of farewell, he walked briskly out of the door. I rushed directly to the professor and Jaikie joined me to examine the unconscious scholar. As we raised his eyelids to inspect his pupils, he groaned and began to stir, pulling groggily against the rope that bound his waist.
Dougal stood at the open doorway, watching Ravenstein depart and chafing at the restraint he had been placed under. ‘Do we really need to keep our word to a man like that?’ he asked me.
‘Yes, we do,’ I affirmed. ‘If we cast aside our honour, we’re no better than the men we’re fighting.’
At the sound of a car starting up, he rubbed his jaw ruefully. ‘I suppose you’re right at that. But next time we’ll not let him off so easy,’ he added in a grim undertone.
10
THE KNIGHTS’ SECRET
Within the hour we had the professor safe in his bed at home with a local doctor tending him. He had drifted in and out of consciousness on the way back from the windmill, but when he spoke it was only to mutter a few incoherent phrases. Thanks to the doctor’s careful attentions, he slowly began to emerge from the influence of the drugs Ravenstein had injected into him. Here and there his body bore the marks of more brutal methods of interrogation, but the doctor assured me he had suffered no permanent harm.
Owen’s white hair was sparse in comparison to the wig Ravenstein had worn and his beard more closely trimmed. He was a slight figure and the recent ordeal had clearly taken its toll on him. It was a further hour or two before he began to recover full consciousness, at which point the doctor took his leave with our sincere thanks.
As soon as she was granted permission, Mrs Withers entered the bedroom with a laden tray and set it down by the bed. She fussed over the professor for a few minutes, pressing a cup of tea and a jam tart on him before consenting to leave. Her bogus counterpart was already in a police cell along with Ravenstein’s two hired gangsters. So far they were all remaining tight-lipped, though I doubted that Ravenstein would have made his hirelings privy to any important information regarding his plans.
Finding myself alone at last with the aged scholar, I sat down at his bedside as he laid down his empty cup with a weary sigh.
‘Professor, I know you’ve been through a rough time,’ I began, ‘but I would appreciate it if you could answer a few questions.’
‘I’ll try my best,’ he said, ‘but to be honest, it’s all a bit of a blur. Shock, I suppose.’
‘That and the drugs.’ I leaned forward in my chair with my hands clasped before me. ‘The man who abducted you was a German agent and he was after important information.’
The professor shook his head with a wince of pain. ‘Well, I never thought of myself as the sort of fellow who was likely to get tangled up with a nest of spies.’
Before we could continue, Dougal and Jaikie entered.
‘You’re looking a lot better, professor,’ Jaikie commented encouragingly.
Owen forced a fleeting smile and waved a dismissive hand.
‘Speaking of recovery,’ said Dougal, turning to me, ‘I nipped down to the infirmary to check on your friend Barralty. He’s coming along fine, but they’re keeping him in for a couple of days. To be honest, sir,’ he added, ‘he strikes me as a bit of a shady character.’
‘Sometimes in wartime that’s the sort of man we need,’ I said. ‘I would certainly have been in a tight fix if he hadn’t shown up when he did. And Jaikie, did you make that call to Stannix?’
‘I did, sir. From her description, his people have identified the fake housekeeper as a woman named Ilsa Quinn. She’s a Nazi sympathiser who went to ground as soon as her friends started being rounded up. It seems Ravenstein knew how to contact her and put her to use.’
‘Even if she knows anything of value,’ I reflected, ‘it will take a long time to prise it out of her. The two men are just hired muscle, of course. Which brings us to you, professor. Can you remember anything that could put us on Ravenstein’s trail?’
Professor Owen rubbed his broad brow, as though to soothe an ache. ‘All I can remember is being asked lots of questions, though I can only recall it through a haze, as if it were simply a horrible dream.’
I realised that I needed to give him some sort of lead. ‘Did he ask you about Dr Lasalle?’
Owen closed his eyes and his brow furrowed. ‘Yes, yes . . . Armand. He was most interested in his whereabouts.’
‘And what did you tell him?’
‘That I can’t remember for the life of me. Only that Armand Lasalle’s name came up again and again until it was ringing in my ears like the tolling of a bell.’
‘Perhaps it would be easier if you just told us what you know about Lasalle,’ Jaikie suggested.
‘Well, I haven’t seen him for years,’ said Owen with a shrug. ‘Not since we were colleagues at Oxford. We have continued to correspond, as well as one can in the current conditions.’
‘What was his area of interest?’ I asked, hoping for something specific that might move our mission forward.
‘Oh, I would say he is a leading expert in the history of the Mediterranean, from the expansion of the ancient Greeks right up to modern times. However, he has always been especially fascinated by the Knights of St John.’
‘And who might they be?’ Dougal wondered.
‘Their full title was the Knights of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, often known as the Hospitallers,’ Professor Owen explained. His eyes brightened and his voice grew more animated now that he was discussing a familiar subject area. ‘They were among the most stalwart guardians of the Christian strongholds in the Holy Land following the early success of the Crusades. With the fall of the Crusader kingdoms they retreated first to Cyprus then to the island of Rhodes and finally to Malta.’
‘Malta!’ The exclamation burst from my lips in a sudden surge of excitement, as though a blaze of sunlight had suddenly broken through the clouds of obscurity. Here at last was some clue to the Germans’ interest in tracking down a French academic as part of their war plans.
‘Yes, they made the island into a fortress,’ said Owen, ‘and in 1565 they held it in a long and bloody siege, defeating the massively superior forces of the Ottoman Empire. In fact they are often referred to as the Knights of Malta.’
‘The island is under siege again now,’ Jaikie reflected. ‘Could there possibly be some connection?’
His thoughts were working along the same track as mine, though I was still baffled as to how the history of an ancient order of knights could have any impact on a modern war of tanks, artillery and aircraft.
Professor Owen was slowly succumbing to fatigue, his eyes drooping and his head sinking into his pillows. I placed a hand on his arm to summon him back from his slumber.
‘Professor, I feel sure that this business of the knights is somehow the reason the Germans are searching for Lasalle. Is there any more you can tell us?’
Owen’s eyes flickered open and he pursed his lips in thought. ‘Well, Armand did have a notion, not that I gave it any credit, that among the records of the great siege there were veiled references to a weapon of some sort.’
‘A weapon!’ Dougal growled.
I exchanged astonished glances with my Scots friends before pressing the professor further.
‘What sort of weapon?’
‘Oh, it’s probably nonsense,’ said Owen with a shake of his head, ‘a mistranslation, but Armand was convinced that some means had been devised to overcome the strategic superiority of the sultan’s forces and that somewhere this weapon still existed. He even entertained the rather absurd notion that he might be able to find it.’
‘Does that mean then that he is actually on Malta right now?’ I asked.
‘No, as I recall it was his intention to travel to North Africa and pursue his researches there.’
‘Africa?’ I murmured. ‘That seems rather odd.’
‘It appeared that way to me also,’ Owen agreed. ‘In fact, he needed some more information from the Hospitaller archives in Oxford.’
‘What information was that?’
‘He wanted someone to track down any possible mention of something called the red falcon.’
My pulse quickened. ‘The red falcon, you say?’ I had to believe that this referred to the same object as the ‘red hawk’, which had turned up in Stannix’s intercepted German communications. ‘Have you any idea what that might be?’
‘None at all. As you can tell, my mobility is limited and my health not the best, so I passed Armand’s enquiries on to Dr Adriatis.’
‘And who might this Dr Adriatis be?’ Jaikie asked.
‘A pupil of mine at first and then my assistant while I was teaching at Oxford.’ Owen smiled at the memory. ‘We both worked with Armand Lasalle on some of his researches.’
‘It sounds as if we need to catch up with this chap Adriatis,’ said Dougal. ‘Where can we find him, professor?’
‘I’m afraid I must correct you there,’ said Owen. ‘Dr Adriatis is a Greek lady, Dr Karissa Adriatis.’
‘A woman mixed up in this?’ Dougal commented grimly. ‘I can’t say I like the sound of that.’
‘Professor, where can we contact Dr Adriatis?’ I asked, returning to Dougal’s original question.
‘She teaches at Clement College, Oxford,’ Owen replied. ‘But you won’t find her there.’
‘Nothing’s happened to her, I hope,’ Jaikie interjected anxiously.
‘No, nothing like that,’ said the professor. ‘It’s just that a couple of days ago she told me she was planning to join Armand in Africa. In fact, she had just arranged a passage to Gibraltar.’
My two young friends and I stared at each other.
‘Gentlemen,’ I said, ‘it seems we’re going on a journey.’
PART TWO
THE ROCK
11
HMS GIBRALTAR
‘Better hang on tight, chaps,’ Archie advised, calling to us from the cockpit. ‘When the Levanter is blowing in from the Med, which seems to be most of the time, things tend to get a bit choppy up here.’
Even as he spoke the plane gave a lurch. Dougal stifled a curse, while at his side Jaikie fastened his fingers tightly around the edge of the fold-out bench, his Virginia cigarette clenched between his teeth. On a motorbike racing at high speed through heavy traffic or over rough terrain, Jaikie was a fearless daredevil, but in a plane flown by my old friend Sir Archibald Roylance he turned so pale he must have been willing himself not to be sick.
Seated opposite the two young Scots on my own bench, I felt none of their anxiety. I wouldn’t say I was made of sterner stuff, but I had flown with Archie often enough to have lost all sense of fear. Even driving with him in his beloved Hispana was enough to turn the average passenger into a devout pedestrian, but I knew that his apparent recklessness both on the ground and in the air was merely an indication of his expertise. I had heard him liken a safe, uneventful flight to riding a sleepy old horse with no spirit.
