"We have to get to Brutus," I said, as we turned out of the drive onto the main road.
"Let's hope we're not too late," Heather said.
Brutus strode up and down in front of his desk. He didn't have the pipe in his teeth for a change and that seemed to make him more excitable.
"What does the bloody devil want from us?" he said loudly. "He sent instructions which were very ambiguous about delivering the money in Switzerland. We needed clarification and couldn't get it. And then your disappearance made us wonder what the chap was really up to. Jupiter's office and home are under surveillance but he hasn't been to either place since you were kidnapped."
"He probably won't go back to that country place now either," I said. "And I think he's set on another assassination no matter what we do about the money."
Brutus had called the Prime Minister when we explained why we thought he might be Jupiter's next target, Brutus and the P.M. had agreed that the most likely occasion for the attempt would be at a foreign ministers' conference at the Ministry, the day after tomorrow.
"Will Sir Leslie call off the conference, do you think?" I asked.
Brutus sighed. "I'm afraid that Sir Leslie does not have the same regard for his own life that he has for other people's safety. He keeps talking about the importance of the conference and pointing out how tight security is now. He's to call me back after he confers with his other advisors. I told him, of course, to scrap the bloody conference until this thing blows over."
"Is Scotland Yard trying to locate Jupiter?" I asked.
"They're everywhere," Brutus said. "They've questioned everybody at Jupiter's plant and people he has been seen with socially. Our agents and MI5 and 6 are on it too, of course. But Mr. Jupiter has disappeared. We've sent men to the house you were taken to, but I'm sure it's too late."
"I imagine he'll turn up day after tomorrow," I said.
Brutus looked over at me glumly. "Yes, I daresay. Let's hope Sir Leslie decides to play it safe." He sat down at his desk. "Incidentally, I had to inform David Hawk when you two disappeared. He was very concerned about you. I'm to contact him now that you're back."
A buzzer sounded on Brutus' desk. "Oh, yes," he said, answering it. He flipped a switch and stood up. "It's Sir Leslie. I'll take it in the next room."
Heather got up from the corner of the desk, crushed a cigarette into an ashtray and moved over to me.
She was just about to kiss me when Brutus walked back in again.
"Well, that's it," he said, tensely, his big British Army chin jutting out grimly. "Sir Leslie will have the bloody conference, on schedule." He shook his head. "It appears we have our work cut out."
Eleven
It was the afternoon of the ministers' conference. The morning had passed uneventfully and already the Yard and MI5 were saying that SOE had guessed wrong — there would be no assassination attempt, not today, not here.
I was positive there would be. The foreign ministers' conference was the perfect setup. If some of the ministers got killed along with Sir Leslie, Britain would not only lose her head of state but would suffer great international embarrassment. Jupiter would enjoy that.
I had not seen Heather since before the noon recess when we met at a cafeteria and had a sandwich together. Brutus had given us free reign on this security assignment, letting us move around as we liked and do what we thought was most important at the moment. Heather had spent much of the morning in the conference room while I patrolled the corridors of the building. I had resumed that activity now and she had accompanied the conference members to a luncheon served in another part of the building.
If Jupiter had been telling the truth about catching "other fish" in his fourth assassination attempt, all kinds of possibilities opened up regarding the method he might use. A tommy gun, for instance, or a small bomb or a grenade or poison gas.
The air conditioning system had been checked out by experts several times but I'd checked it myself again during the morning session. Teams of bomb and demolition experts had gone over the conference room before the morning session and during a mid-morning break and found nothing. The security men were beginning to relax and joke about the whole business.
I wasn't laughing; they didn't know Jupiter. Our failure to find anything so far probably only meant we hadn't looked in the right place — and Jupiter was likely to have the last laugh.
I came to the big doors of the conference room and was stopped by two MI5 men and a policeman.
"SOE," I said, showing them my I.D.
They checked the card with extreme care and finally let me pass. I moved into the room and looked around. Everything appeared normal. There was a spotter over at a window, watching nearby rooftops, a policeman with a pair of powerful binoculars. I went over to him and leaned on the sill of the open window as a security helicopter fluttered by overhead.
"May I have a look?" I asked the bobby.
"Don't mind if you do," he said, handing the glasses to me.
I studied the nearest rooftops. They were crawling with security people so there seemed little point in watching them. I refocused the glasses for infinity and scanned the further horizon. I focused on a broad roof with several rises of superstructure and saw movement there. A dark-haired man was walking about, probably a policeman. Yes, I could make out the uniform now.
I sighed and handed the glasses back. "Thanks," I said.
I moved back out into the corridor. The ministers were returning from the luncheon, straggling down the hall. The afternoon session, which was getting a late start, would soon be in progress.
I left the area and moved up to the roof, stopping to show my I.D. several times. Security certainly seemed tight, but remembering how easily Jupiter had gained access to the Foreign Minister's office, I wasn't reassured.
I met Heather on the roof. She was carrying a walkie-talkie with which she could communicate with the temporary SOE command post.
"Hello, Nick." She smiled at me. "Is everything quiet downstairs?"
"So far." I put my arm around her shoulders. "I wish I could figure him out, Heather. He's giving me an inferiority complex. If he's around today, he's…"
I stopped and stared at a man who was moving past us. He wore a white serving jacket and was carrying a plate of sandwiches. He was tall with dark hair and built like Jupiter. I grabbed his arm and reached for Wilhelmina.
The man turned, fear in his face when he saw the gun. The hair was real, he had a hooked nose and he was obviously genuine.
"Eh, what's this, gov'nor?" he said.
"Nothing," I said, embarrassed. "Sorry. Go ahead — it was a mistake."
He muttered something and hurried on. A couple of agents nearby who'd witnessed the scene grinned.
"I must be getting jumpy," I told Heather, wryly. "Although you've got to admit a waiter would be a good disguise and, after all, Jupiter did crash the Foreign Secretary's offices as a janitor. Still, this poor guy doesn't look like him at all. Except for the dark hair and the serving jacket…"
I stopped: the jacket… a uniform… dark hair… I turned and looked out over the city toward the buildings to the west. I moved quickly to a spotter busy watching other policemen on the next roof through his binoculars.
"Let me borrow those a moment," I said, raising my voice to be heard above the flutter of another passing helicopter.
"All right. But you could ask a bit nicer," he said.
I didn't answer him. I took the binoculars and refocused them on the distant building with all the superstructures I had noticed from the conference room. I had more of a vantage point here; I could see the rooftop quite clearly. There was no movement there now. I was looking slightly down on the roof and now I noticed something set up there. As I readjusted the glasses, my mouth went dry. I was looking at what appeared to be a weapon of some kind, perhaps a mortar, and it was aimed at me.