Graham broke cover and sprinted to the lift. Sabrina followed and took up a position on the other side. He pressed the call button and the lift arrived seconds later. He pivoted round, Beretta extended, when the doors opened. It was empty. They stepped inside and he pushed the button for the first floor. They had agreed to cover the house, floor by floor, rather than risk any more time in the lift than was absolutely necessary. The doors closed and the lift rose slowly up the side of the house. They braced themselves to dive low out of the lift when it stopped on the first floor. It didn’t stop. He hit the button for the second floor. It didn’t stop there either. It slowed on nearing the third, the top, floor. Each was aware of the other’s tension, and the sweat shone on both their faces.
The lift stopped and the doors opened. They dived low through the doorway, fanning the corridor with their Berettas. It was deserted. A closed-circuit television camera, mounted above the metal door at the end of the corridor, was monitoring their every move. The lift doors closed behind them. Graham got to his feet cautiously and was about to shoot out the camera lens when the metal doors suddenly slid open. They both trained their Berettas on the doorway. The room looked deserted.
It had to be a trap. Sabrina stood up and covered Graham’s back as he moved towards the open door.
They were both knocked off their feet as if hit by an invisible punch.
Sabrina landed by the lift. Graham was slammed against the wall, winded. He fell, face forward, on to the carpet. The towering figure of Boudien appeared in the doorway, holding a CZ75 pistol in his hand.
He disarmed them, then returned to the doorway and waited for them to recover.
Graham was the first to move. He rubbed his eyes, then pulled himself up on to one knee. He felt groggy. His whole body was tingling. He looked across at Sabrina. She lay motionless in front of the lift. For a horrifying moment he thought she was dead. Then she groaned and slowly eased herself up into a sitting position. She let Graham help her to her feet. Boudien gestured for them to enter the room.
It was a lounge. And Karos’s obsession with snakes was evident everywhere. Prints and wood engravings lined the walls, bronze sculptures littered the sideboards, and even the carpet had snakes incorporated into its design.
Karos sat in one of the armchairs.
‘Please, come in. Sit down,’ he said, indicating the sofa opposite him.
Boudien waited until they were seated, then handed one of the Berettas to Karos and tucked the other into the back of his belt. He took up a position behind the sofa, his arms folded across his chest.
Karos placed the Beretta in his lap.
‘I’m relieved that you both survived the shock. Gadgets have never been my strong point, I’m afraid. I was worried that I might have overdone it. My plans would have been thrown into complete disarray if the shock had proved fatal.’
‘An electric shock? I thought as much,’ Graham said, eyeing Karos contemptuously. ‘What is it, some sort of metallic sensor?’
Karos picked up a remote control device from the coffee table next to the armchair.
‘I find metallic sensors very unreliable. It’s so difficult to set a level for it. It’s either too high or too low. There really isn’t a happy medium. This one works off a heat-seeking sensor built into the ceiling in the corridor. The sensor picks up the heat from a body and counters it with a charge of static electricity. It’s part of my security system. Not that I’ve had to use it before. That’s why I was worried about the strength of the charge.’
‘I presume the remote also controls the lift and the door?’ Sabrina said.
‘And the closed-circuit television cameras,’ Karos replied. ‘That’s how I was able to track you both from the moment you left the helicopter. My whole security system on one remote control. The wonders of science.’
‘You knew we were coming?’ Sabrina said.
‘I realized something had gone wrong when Bellini didn’t resign at five o’clock. I knew that if Calvieri had been taken alive he’d be sure to finger me. He wouldn’t take the rap by himself. So I expected some sort of deputation, Miss Carver, either from your organization or from the NOCS.’ Karos got to his feet and secured the Beretta under his belt. He gestured towards the drinks cabinet.
‘Can I get you something? Brandy? Whisky? A bourbon, perhaps?’
‘How did you manage to pull off your own death like that?’ Graham asked, staring coldly at Karos.
‘I wondered when you’d get round to that.’ Karos poured himself a whisky.
‘I’ve made a lot of enemies over the years and several of them have put out contracts on my life. Two attempts have been made to kill me in the last three months alone. Fortunately Boudien was on hand to thwart them. But I can’t go on relying on Boudien to bail me out every time. I realized the only way to get the contracts lifted would be for me to “die”. That would mean starting a new life away from Corfu. But I couldn’t risk withdrawing large sums of money just prior to my “death”. It would be too suspicious. So I went into league with Calvieri. I would cover the cost of the operation in return for a fifth of the ransom money. Well, that’s how it should have worked.’
‘You’ve told us why, not how,’ Graham said.
‘How? It’s really very simple. Carlo and Tommaso Francia used to be stunt men. They know the ins and outs of the film industry. They came up with the plan. The first hundred bullets in each of the helicopter’s two machine-guns were actually blanks. I was rigged up with a series of small explosive charges hidden underneath my jacket. The charges were attached to sachets of blood. My own blood. It made it look more realistic. Boudien was in the control room with the detonator switch so all he had to do was activate the charges when Tommaso Francia opened fire. I fell off the terrace and landed on a safety net which was manned by four of my most trusted employees. He then sprayed the terrace with live rounds to keep you pinned down until the safety net had been rolled up and taken back into the house. So by the time you and Paluzzi reached the railing it looked as though I had landed on the rocks. You both thought I was dead. What better witnesses could I have had?’
‘Ingenious,’ Graham said at length. ‘But how did you know we would be there?’
‘The bank statements in Dragotti’s safe were the bait. I knew you would come sooner or later. So when Paluzzi called to say you were on your way we put the plan into action. As I said, it was really very simple.’
Karos drank the whisky in one gulp and placed the glass on top of the drinks cabinet.
‘Well, now that your curiosity’s been satisfied, we can get down to business. Contact your pilot on the radio and tell him that Boudien and I have surrendered. Tell him to put down on the terrace to pick us up. It would be too risky trying to get us to the runway.’