The Saint in Trouble (13 page)

The Saint was hesitant.

“Right.”

“Well, Tel Aviv has drafted in one of our top counterter-rorist officers, Captain Zabin, to track him down. But the cap tain doesn’t know London. Now do you see? We want you as a guide, Simon.”

The Saint was still unconvinced.

“This man’s a killer. So if we catch up with him he’s going to shoot it out, isn’t he?”

Garvi shook his head slowly, as if the action alone would dispel the Saint’s doubts.

“I know what you’re thinking, but you must believe me. I respect this city as much as you do. If there is shooting, it will not be from us. I have given strict orders. My solemn word. Will you help us?”

His eyes searched the Saint’s face as if trying to read the answer before it was spoken.

Simon recalled the pictures he had seen of twisted bodies in shattered buildings, of young lives sacrificed to a hate they did not understand.

Slowly he nodded.

Garvi visibly relaxed, and the Saint realised what an effort it had cost him to ask the aid of an outsider.

“Thank you.”

He looked beyond the Saint to Yakovitz.

“Ask Captain Zabin to come in.”

Simon heard the door open, and rose to greet the officer. And a look of total astonishment replaced the bland expression of polite cordiality into which he had conventionally composed his features.

2

Captain Zabin stopped a yard away, and seemed almost as startled as the Saint.

She wore a military-style blouse and knee-length pleated skirt, but even the severely functional line of her clothes could not completely mask a figure that undulated in all the right places. Her smooth skin was tinged with a light tan, her features delicate but conveying a subtle strength. Like Garvi’s, her eyes shone with a strange, disquieting intenseness. Her black hair was brushed back and fastened by a tortoise-shell clip at the nape of her neck.

She eyed the Saint with undisguised disapproval, and looked questioningly at her superior.

“Is this the man?”

The colonel grinned.

“Captain Leila Zabin, allow me to introduce Simon Templar.”

She made no attempt to conceal her disappointment.

“From what you told me, I was expecting someone much more…”

As she faltered, the Saint stepped forward, smiling as his eyes flickered over her body in candid approval.

“Me too, Captain. But who’s grumbling?” he murmured. “Simon Templar, at your service.”

The ringing of the telephone split a stillness that threatened to become uncomfortable.

Garvi lifted the transreceiver, listened for a few moments, and then replaced it. He turned back to the Saint and shrugged an apology.

“Simon, I’m sorry, but I have to go. In any case there is little more I can tell you. Captain Zabin will give you any additional information you may require. Here is the file on Hakim. The first thing you must do is set up a base away from the embassy. Let me know as soon as you have chosen a convenient place.”

They shook hands, and Simon waited until Garvi had left before turning to Leila.

“Well,” he said, “let’s get started”

Leila hesitated.

“Where are we going?”

“To set up our base as the good colonel told us.”

She made to bar his way but he sidestepped past her. Yako-vitz still leant against the door and showed no indication of moving. For a moment their eyes met, and almost as if a telepathic message passed between them the blond man stepped aside and allowed them through into the reception lobby.

“Come along. I’ll give you directions as we drive.”

Leila and Yakovitz had no alternative but to follow, but as he descended the stairs he felt their eyes scorching the back of his head and smiled.

The Volvo was still outside, but there was no sign of the dark-haired chauffeur. As Yakovitz walked towards the driver’s door the Saint laid a restraining hand on his arm.

“I’ll drive.”

Yakovitz looked questioningly at Leila, who replied with a shrug of indifference. Reluctantly he handed over the keys.

The Saint guided the car through the Kensington traffic towards Knightsbridge.

“Is this the first time you’ve been to London, Captain?”

“Yes.”

“You must allow me to give you a guided tour.”

“Thank you, Mr. Templar, but I think not. We are here on business, not on holiday.”

“Your loss, Leila. Still, I have a feeling you’ll be seeing quite a bit of it even if it is on business.”

He shot the car between a bus and a taxi with an inch to spare on either wing, smiling at the Anglo-Saxon epithets that flowed from both sides.

“You said that Hakim’s own men are hunting him. Do we know anything about them?”

He sensed Leila’s relief that the conversation had returned to business, and wondered at the brittle quality of her screen of toughness.

“All we are certain of is that three of them arrived as seamen yesterday on a freighter at the West India Dock. We’re not sure, but we believe one of them is a man named Masrouf. He and Hakim were in on the start of the R.S.”

Simon nosed the Volvo into the stream of traffic negotiating Hyde Park Corner.

“So he’d know where to go looking while we run around in circles?”

“You are here to make sure that we don’t,” she said coldly.

“Let’s get this straight. An Arab terrorist is somewhere in London. A handful of gunmen are looking for Mm so that they can help him on his way to Allah. We are also turning over the paving stones hoping something will crawl out. All good fun-but where does British Intelligence come into all this?”

“They don’t. This is a private affair.”

He laughed as he pictured the scene that would be enacted in offices in Scotland Yard and Whitehall once their activities became known.

“I don’t think the Special Branch would agree with you.”

“My concern is Abdul Hakim-not your Special Branch, your D16, or your government.”

Simon spun the wheel and turned into Upper Brook Street, screeching under the radiator of a Rolls and almost giving the ducal personage in the back apoplexy.

In a few moments he slowed and turned into a small courtyard behind the buildings that fronted the thoroughfare, braking outside a mews terrace converted to whitewashed two-storey houses. Before he had switched off the engine, Yakovitz was out of the car, his eyes darting from window to window.

Leila considered the house with the same disapproving frown with which she had greeted the Saint. Simon unlocked the front door and led the way inside.

They entered directly into a long, open-plan lounge, with an iron spiral staircase rising from the centre of the room to connect with the bedrooms above. It was furnished with the miscellaneous mementoes collected in years of wandering to every part of the world, and might have given an interior designer palpitations had not each individual piece carried the unmis-takeable stamp of its owner’s good taste.

Leila shook her head.

“Very nice. You live well. But hardly the place for an operational headquarters.”

“Exactly, which makes it ideal. Of course, if you prefer, we could always advertise by hanging out the Israeli flag.”

“I do not find your humour appropriate, Mr. Templar. I would not have chosen such a place, but for the present I must accept your argument.”

She turned to Yakovitz, who had stayed in the doorway watching the street

“Do what you have to.”

The agent unlocked the car trunk and brought out a small metal detector and began to systematically scan the walls.

“Most professional, but really quite unnecessary,” Simon remarked. “The house isn’t bugged.”

Leila ignored him, and wandered over to the collection of weapons displayed above the fireplace. They were a strange assortment of deadly instruments that ranged from a Zulu assegai to a harpoon gun, taking in a staggering variety of firearms on the way. She removed a kukri and carefully tested its sharpness with her thumb.

“You keep an impressive arsenal, Mr. Templar.”

He took the knife from her and replaced it with a chuckle.

“I hope you’re not superstitious, Captain. They say that a kukri should never be drawn unless blood is shed.” He waved his hand to encompass the collection. “Weapons I have not been killed with. Some day I’ll tell you the stories behind them. Now, shall we christen the new headquarters?”

Leila turned to face him.

“Mr. Templar, let us get one tMng quite straight. I am in command here. You are the guide. Is that clear?”

He walked over to a side table and considered the bottles that covered it.

“Now let me guess-vodka?”

She could not quite master the anger in her voice.

“I don’t drink. Did you hear me, Mr. Templar?”

“I heard you, Captain. Now why don’t you check in with Garvi while your friend brings in the cases. There are only two bedrooms, so Yakowatsit here will have to kip on the couch. Unless of course we can think of an alternative idea.”

Again his gaze travelled the length of her body and he was pleased at the flush of embarrassment it brought. It was the first strictly female emotion she had shown.

“That arrangement will be perfectly suitable.”

While she telephoned and Yakovitz carried the cases upstairs, Simon relaxed on the soft leather couch and flicked through the folder Garvi had given him. Most of the information simply documented Hakim’s terrorist activities, his personal appearance and habits, and was of little use as far as their current job was concerned. More important were the two photographs. They showed a man of about thirty with crinkly black hair and a Zapata moustache, who even on film managed to convey a feeling of tension and danger. One was a straight head and shoulders picture, the other a snap of him taken on a rooftop with an attractive girl about ten years his junior.

Simon was still studying it when Leila finished her call and joined him.

“Colonel Garvi approves of your choice,” she said with visible reluctance. “He appears to place great trust in you, Mr. Templar. But I must ask you to take this operation more seriously. I do not know if it is a defence mechanism because I am a woman, but I find your attitude to this important mission”-she searched her vocabulary for a correct word-“slap-happy? You have scarcely looked at that file. Instead of being concerned with drinks and … er … sleeping accommodation, you should be deciding where our search should begin.”

The Saint removed the picture and tossed the rest of the contents of the folder on the table as he rose. He affected surprise at her comments.

“Oh, that? I thought that was obvious.”

“Obvious?”

“The snapshot of him in London.”

She took the photograph from him and considered it carefully.

“That is London? How can you tell?”

He pointed to a small rectangle on the far left of the frame.

“The tower at Kings Cross station.”

“Oh! We thought it was a chimney pot.”

The Saint clicked his tongue in mock reproof.

“How very… er… slap-happy of you, Captain.”

He took a large-scale map of inner London from the bureau and spread it out on the table.

“Now the Kings Cross tower is on the far left, so if we draw a line along the Euston Road we have one boundary.”

His finger stubbed at the map.

“There’s a church there, but no sign of the steeple in the photograph. Therefore we can rule out the area east of Fartingdon Street. There’s no natural third boundary, so we’ll have to join up the two extremes.”

He drew a line from Holborn Viaduct diagonally across the map to link up with the station.

“The sun is high, therefore the picture was taken from the west. And judging by the smallness of it in the picture, the tower is a fair way in the distance, which means we can eliminate these.”

He shaded in the roads immediately before Kings Cross. A small triangle of about a dozen major roads and twice as many side streets remained.

“The picture was taken somewhere within that area,” he said, “so I suggest we start looking there. The photograph is three years old, so it’s a long shot, but it’s the best lead we have at the moment.”

Leila smiled for the first time since they had met.

“Very efficient, Mr. Templar. I am impressed.”

The Saint half bowed.

“All part of the service, Captain. Now I too must make a telephone call.”

He dialled, and drummed his fingers on the desk top until his ring was answered.

“Hullo, Harry. This is the Saint. I’ve got a job for you. The mark’s a bloke called Hakim, and somebody’s doing him a ticket. I want to know who. Also he may be trying to buy a persuader. Three other sheikhs who want to talk to him might be asking questions as well. I want everything you can get, but particularly the I.D. of the inkman. A couple of ponies for starters, and I’ll raise you if it’s official. Yes, I know it’s a tall one. No, I’m not expecting miracles. Just do your best. I’ll see you in the usual at ten.”

He had been watching Leila while he talked, and had seen her expression change from admiration to suspicion.

“Who was that?”

“An acquaintance of mine, one Harry-the-Nose. Not the sort of chap one takes home to mummy, but has a lot of friends and may be able to save us some time.”

“And do you usually talk to your acquaintances in code?”

For a moment her meaning escaped him; and then, as the light dawned, he laughed.

“Code! Yes I suppose that’s really what it is when you stop to think about it. The trouble with you is that the English you’ve been taught is too perfect. Only BBC announcers ac-tu-ally speak like that,” he mimicked. “That wasn’t code I was speaking in-it was jargon. In his own field Harry is a professional, and just like any other professional-lawyers, stockbrokers, doctors, or whatever-he uses a different language. All I told him was that Hakim was looking for someone to forge Mm a passport. I asked him to find out who, and I also mentioned that he might be trying to obtain a firearm and that three other Arabs were enquiring as to his whereabouts.”

“And the horse?”

“The horse? Oh, you mean the ponies, that’s his fee. Fifty pounds.”

“I’m sorry I doubted you,” Leila said, almost sheepishly.