“Just that it’s some sort of highly drilled private army. Everything run like a military operation — and they specialise in uniformed strikes. The bank jobs were all on the same pattern — four men dressed in the bank security company’s uniforms and driving their vans, if you please. It was neat, slick, and thoroughly professional,” said the Saint, who gave credit where it was due. “And they got away with oodles of boodle.”
Pelton sighed heavily, and inclined his head at an even more avian angle.
“If only Rockham’s enterprise stopped there,” he said ruefully. “We’d be more than happy to let the usual authorities deal with him and his cohorts. In fact we — I mean SIS — would never have needed to become involved at all. But Rockham’s more than just a very enterprising criminal leader. There have been — other jobs.”
“What sort of jobs?”
“Jobs your grapevine won’t have attributed to The Squad. For the simple reason that they never got into the papers.”
“I’m interested,” said the Saint flatly. “Give me a for instance.”
A ripple of discomfort ruffled the surface of Pelton’s business-like self-possession.
“For a start,” he said, “army stores. Five raids in all, in various parts of the country. One was an ordnance depot. They’ve all been hushed up, with considerable difficulty.”
It took the Saint several incredulous moments to find his voice.
“You’re not seriously telling me they’ve raided the army?”
“I’m not in the habit of making jokes of that sort,” Pelton replied dryly.
“Naturally not,” Simon said with a completely straight face. “What did they get away with?”
Pelton counted the items off on the fingers of one hand.
“An assortment of uniforms — various regiments. Enough of the latest weaponry to equip The Squad twice over — and we reckon there are about fifty of them all told. Plenty of ammunition to go with the firearms. Three three-ton lorries. And two jeeps.”
The Saint expressed himself in a long soundless whistle.
“There was also the little matter of a high-speed naval launch taken at gun-point from Portsmouth Harbour,” Pelton went on. “Apart from which there have been two raids on police stations in the home counties. The Squad emerged with a couple of brand-new Police Wolseleys and a dozen and a half assorted uniforms. All ranks below Assistant Commissioner.”
“How embarrassing for our boys in blue,” murmured the Saint with the ghost of a smile. “Ye gods, but the man has nerve!” There was a note of something almost like respect in Simon Templar’s voice. “The very citadels of Law and Order in its most capital-letter solemnity! Even I, in my most youthful exuberance, never went so far as to actually hold up a citadel of Law and Order. They did hold them up, I suppose?”
Pelton nodded, shrugging as he did so.
“And do you mean to say,” continued the Saint, “that all these raided parties surrendered their uniforms and whatnot without a murmur? I’d love to have seen those bobbies, waving goodbye in their underwear—”
“It’s true that most of the people concerned as victims of these raids were completely taken by surprise.” Pelton said with total earnestness. “It isn’t every day, for example, that the police manning a fairly small station are suddenly faced with a dozen or more men armed with tommy-guns. There was very little they could have done, in the circumstances. There was, as you say, no fight. Except at the ordnance depot. ”
“And what happened there?”
“Rockham lost two men — out of perhaps twenty-five. The army lost twelve,” Pelton said quietly; and the Saint grew suddenly very sober.
“I’m sorry if I seemed flippant just now,” he said with a grim quietness that matched Pelton’s own.
For a long moment the fighting lines of Simon Templar’s jaw tightened and there was a frozen sapphire glint in his eyes that went a long way to explain his well-attested capacity for arousing an unholy fear among even the most hard-bitten specimens of humanity.
“The Squad’s a tough outfit, all right,” Pelton said. “But even that isn’t the half of it, Simon. Rockham’s nobody’s fool, and as far as we can tell, all these jobs — as well as some less spectacular ones — in fact virtually everything he’s done in the year or so since he started — has been of a preparatory nature. Recruiting, training, equipping — consolidation of military resources, you might call it.”
Simon wouldn’t have called it any such thing; but he conquered the urge to say so, and instead asked the obvious question.
“What are The Squad preparing for?”
“Contract work,” said Pelton. “You see, Rockham regards himself as the leader not just of a criminal gang, but of a troop of mercenary commandos. A trained group of ruthless fighting men for hire. And he’s not fussy about who’d hire them.”
Simon Templar had been in the business long enough to know that the fount of criminal enterprise would never dry up. There always would be brand new rackets, and new variants of old ones, for as long as there were villains left in the world to dream them up; and for this fact of life he had been known to offer fervent thanks to whatever gods might be appointed to watch over the interests of freelance buccaneers. Without the mercifully inexhaustible springs of villainy, life for Simon Templar might have soon got boring. As things were, there was always the pulse-quickening moment when, as now, he realised that another glorious new vista of ungodliness was beginning to open up before his eyes. True, the present vista was little more than a promising monochrome preview, but there was a part of the Saint’s consciousness that responded directly to the emanations of adventure, like a finely tuned radio receiver. It was a pity, Simon mused, that he’d made up his mind in advance to turn down whatever assignment it was that Pelton was planning to offer...
He pondered a while, trying to put together some background out of what he knew about the mercenary game.
“What’s your definition of a mercenary?” he asked; and Pelton inclined his head and replied with his usual precision.
“In the normal sense, a mercenary soldier is one who fights under a foreign flag for payment, in the form of wages or of spoils, or both.”
Simon nodded thoughtfully.
“That’s more or less what I’d have said. Though I’ve a kind of feeling it leaves something out.”
“It certainly does in the case of The Squad. Although we’ve reason to believe that some of Rockham’s men have fought abroad, the modus operandi he seems to prefer is rather different. He prefers to take his orders, or commissions, not from a foreign military commander, but from the foreign power’s intelligence agents — in this country.”
Simon Templar sat up slowly in his chair.
“You mean from — what I believe you people call the other side?”
“Hostile or potentially hostile powers, yes.” Pelton was bland and matter-of-fact. “As I said, The Squad are not fussy.”
“And these commissions — what sort of commissions?”
Pelton spread his well-tended hands.
“Whatever dirty work they want done. Theft of UK Government property and information. Political abduction. Jailbreaks. Assassination — you’ll remember the shooting of the American Trade Attaché last month...”
“That was The Squad again?”
“We’re ninety-nine percent certain.”
Simon Templar’s reckless fighting features settled into an even more thoughtful expression. Colour was trickling into the picture by the second — and the particular chromatic mixture was one that didn’t at all please his highly individual taste.
“Where’s The Squad based?” he asked.