“Yes,” she said urgently. “Why? Don’t you?”
A long exhalation of breath came through his teeth. He said, “By God I do!” He twisted, turned away and looked un-seeingly through the windscreen. “I’ve only seen him once, years ago and very briefly. We didn’t meet and he didn’t see me at all… but I know of Karstad all right!” Shaw felt a cold tremor, felt that nagging stomach pain increasing to a sudden agonizing thrust, acidulous and gripping in his entrails. Karstad. What could that man want? Karstad, who really had been a traitor — a Norwegian, a double agent who had worked for the Germans in the war, who had caused the deaths of so many innocent people, a man who was known to be one of the coldest-blooded, slipperiest killers in the game — on any side. Shaw sat there for a moment in silence, frowning anxiously, plagued with doubts. Why should Karstad contact Donovan — why? Where Karstad turned up, there had always been trouble. Real trouble. It was his plain duty to follow this up.
He made his decision quickly after that. He said, “Hold tight and tell me where to go.”
He slipped in his gears and he drove fast to the girl’s directions. He drove out of Paris on the Autoroute du Sud through a light rain, drove south-eastward for some seventy kilometres.
Some way beyond Fontainebleau the girl told him to turn off on to a secondary road. Along this road, just beyond a sharp bend, they came to the drive of a biggish house set well back from the roadside, in the heart of wooded country; and there the girl told Shaw to stop.
And there they found John Donovan.
John Donovan met them on the roadway at the foot of the wide drive, and the first sight of him made Shaw’s heart turn over with pity. Donovan had gone to nothing; his big frame had shrunk, his shoulders drooped so that his worn clothing looked like a sack. His face was thin and white, blood-drained. His neck sagged with folds of flesh. There was a dreadful nervous urgency in his manner, a pathetic eager anxiety which caught at Shaw’s heart. He hardly knew what to say, but Donovan didn’t waste any time in greetings. The two friends just gripped hands through the car’s window without speaking, for a brief moment. There was a distant car sound from back along the way they had come and then Donovan, who seemed to be looking from side to side all the while, spoke quickly.
“Don’t get out, Esmonde. Now — first, there’s Judith. I want you to take her back with you to England — she knows that. See she’s safe. Will you do that? There’s no relatives left now, but I want her to be there, Esmonde.”
Shaw nodded. There was clearly no time for a discussion. He said, “You don’t have to explain. Of course I will.”
There was a sound of muffled weeping from the back of the car. Donovan appeared to take no notice, but Shaw could almost feel the man’s terrible restraint. Donovan went on, “Get back as fast as you can, tell Latymer — tell him personally — tell him Lubin’s left Russia—”
“Lubin!” Shaw broke in. “Lubin… you mean the Russians’ top electronics expert, the chap who was working on their end of the MAPIACCIND agreement?”
“Damn it all, Esmonde — there’s only one Lubin.” Donovan was shaking uncontrollably now. His hand came through the window, gripped Shaw’s arm. “There’s damn little time left, so just listen, Esmonde. You see, Lubin’s been gone quite a while, though that’s only just been found out. It’s a threat — a damn serious one — directly to Redcap—”
“REDCAP!”
“—and in general to the whole MAPIACCIND organization.” There was an odd staring quality about his eyes now, and the hand that was gripping Shaw’s shoulder tightened. Donovan said tensely, “You know the feeling between Russia and China today. Well, Lubin’s gone—”
He didn’t get any farther than that.
There was a jab of flame, and the harsh stutter of automatic fire came from the bushes. Donovan froze, seemed temporarily panic-stricken like a rabbit caught in a headlight’s glare. Bullets whistled past his head. Shaw yelled at him to get into the Renault. Debonnair leaned back, shoved the rear door open as Shaw pressed the starter. Donovan took no notice, but moved stumblingly away from the car. Shaw’s Service revolver was out from its shoulder-holster now, and he fired into the blackness towards the stabs of flame; and as he did so, Donovan took a stream of bullets in his body, a vertically raking stream of lashing lead which bisected him neatly. He spun round, gasped as though in surprise, his emaciated frame shuddering and jerking and disintegrating before their horrified eyes. In the back, the girl screamed, high and shrill, was trying to fight her way out of the car when the second burst drove into Donovan’s twitching body and then spattered in a deadly arc towards the Renault. Debonnair had leaned right across the seat-back and had got hold of the girl’s shoulders, was using all her strength to force her backwards. Now she reached out and slammed the door shut. By this time Shaw had the car moving, and it was only just in time. Bullets pumped across, hammered into the bodywork, the sharp tang of gunsmoke billowed across on the slight night breeze which had blown the rain away. Shaw’s foot slammed down on the accelerator. His duty was to get to Latymer as fast as he could, and to do that he had to stay alive. It would be useless to try to shoot it out in this spot where the close-growing bushes gave cover to the men with the guns, while he was vulnerable in the open — and he had the women to consider. In any case there would be a pursuit — that car, the one he’d heard behind, had probably been the gunmen’s — and he might be able to fight under more favourable conditions.
As he got the Renault moving Shaw felt that shudder of metalwork as the lead drove in. There was a sharp pain as a bullet snicked through the side window and grazed across his back; he felt the warm trickle of blood, and then he was clear and away and belting along towards the distant intersection with the main Fontainebleau-Paris road, his headlights beaming into blank darkness along the wetly gleaming surface between shadowy lines of trees. All he must think about now was the overriding urgency of getting to London. If the MAPIACCIND organization was under threat — and Donovan had never said things lightly in the past — then half the world might reasonably be considered as under threat as welclass="underline" MAPIACCIND — Major (Atom) Powers International Authority for Centralized Control and Inspection of Nuclear Devices — was one of the greatest and most hopeful bids for world security that had ever been attempted, that had yet come out of the mad talk and counter-talk of the early nineteen-sixties with all their frustrated, still-born efforts to find the answer by the banning of A-tests. If that was in danger, then everything that had been built up might crumble away to leave the nations once again at loggerheads, disorganized and suspicious, re-arming, thrown back into the past and at the mercy of any uncontrolled lunatic with a nuclear bomb.
And of the MAPIACCIND organization the thing known as REDCAP was the very core.
But — why had Karstad of all people come forward with this information?
A little later Debonnair asked breathlessly, “Esmonde, wasn’t there anything we could do?”
Shaw, sick inside, answered her savagely. “God damn it, Deb, couldn’t you see? He was sawn in half.” As soon as he’d said that, he regretted it. With the man’s daughter in the back, it had been a terrible thing to say; and silently he cursed his tongue. Then, controlling his feelings, he asked:
“How’s the nerve, Deb?”
“Badly shaken but otherwise intact.” She spoke lightly, but he was aware of a terrible tenseness behind the tone. “Why?”
“Because I want you to drive. Fast. I’ve got something to do. All right?”
“Whatever you say.”
“Good girl!” Shaw knew she would be reliable — she’d done some dangerous jobs for him before, such as the time they had chased over half of southern Spain looking for the one man who could prevent tragedy in Gibraltar. He stopped the car, scrambled over the seat into the back. Debonnair slid across behind the wheel. Shaw called, “Right, she’s all yours. Let’s go.”