The telephone broke in, shrill and insistent, bursting over the quietened room. Helen on the line, chill and matter of fact. Jimmy in her car… hot pursuit… a get-away vehicle disappearing from the scene… God only knows where he's gone… shots in the street.. she was coming back to the office. Just the staccato statements, without emotion or involvement, and then she'd rung off. Jones put the receiver down. Funny the way she'd used Jimmy's name, usually a laugh when she mentioned him, but not this time. Jones, long sensitive to intonation and emphasis, noted it, and wondered what the hell she was doing there anyway. Then he put it from his mind. Unimportant, silly girl — should have stayed at home. His thoughts were surging with Jimmy. Just what he would have wanted, he thought, the big challenge and the chance to prove himself where all else had failed. And he'd have to kill them, wouldn't he? Have to kill the Arab. Only way now.
Under pressure Jones would normally have resorted to the palliative of work, buried himself in the paperwork of the operation, twisted his mind away from the generalities with the specifics of detail. But he had no function now; it was all out of his hands. There was nothing he could usefully do. That's how far down those bastards have brought us, he thought, right down to the base area, where the Jimmys are waiting.
He screwed up the teletype message, crumpled the paper in his fist and tossed it unsuccessfully in the direction of his waste-bin.
None of the photographers and television crews who had been covering the arrivals and who were scheduled to film the departures had any worthwhile pictures of the event.
Now they crowded against the side door from which they believed the Israeli scientist would emerge. A fierce argument broke out when a police inspector called them to silence and informed the gathering that under no circumstances would flash bulbs or arc lights be permitted. Thirty voices were raised in protest, but when they died the inspector's message was even more explicit.
'Gentlemen,' he said. 'I am not prepared to have the person of Mr Sokarev either impeded or in any way illuminated on this step. If you think about it there's no way I can say anything else. If you don't play ball you're down the station, charged and in court tomorrow, and I wouldn't vouch your cameras will survive.'
The Prime Minister, called from the dinner table, suffered three agonizing minutes of uncertainty. The first message relayed to him by the Commissioner, telephoning from Scotland Yard, merely stated that there was heavy shooting and an explosion inside the room where Professor Sokarev was speaking. More details would follow.
He had waited for them alone in his personal office, unwilling to face his guests again before he knew the worst. When the telephone rang again he expected catas-trophe, but was told that whereas there were casualties the professor was not among them. There was no more reliable and confirmed information.
He had barely resumed his meal when his Parliamentary Private Secretary brought in a folded slip of paper. The Israeli Ambassador was demanding a meeting, and that night.
'Put the bloody man off till the morning,' he said, and motioned for the butler to replenish his glass. 'Right to the top,' he urged.
SIXTEEN
It satisfied Jimmy that the car he tailed should be unaware of his presence. Like a marriage, tied together, but neither showing any indication of the bond that linked them. It was as it should be, professional but not easy, not one for the kids in the department — they'd have been up close, blowing the contact, but Jimmy kept back from the other car, leaving it room to manoeuvre, far from the bumper and the rear red lights that shone at him, that gripped his attention. No question of an attempt to ram or force it off the road. Idiocy if he tried it. Would leave him with two men to handle, both armed and with all the dangers of losing them both in a foot chase. It was better this way.
Eventually the bastards would stop and that would be time enough for him to make his presence known. They went slowly, and so were not hard to follow, yet he was surprised that there was not more speed and more effort to put greater distance between themselves and the university. Jimmy sought to interpret his opponents, fancied he could understand them, all part of his training, but this lack of urgency confused him.
There was a road block outside Richmond. Uniformed police, torches, arms waving, but all in the lane that ran toward the city and with no interest shown in the cars that travelled the other way, from the direction of London.
Typical, thought Jimmy, no bloody liaison. The wireless nets must be jammed with traffic on what's been happening, and nobody's told these poor sods that the birds have upped and flown, and that the only purpose of the law being there is because they might come back to the nest to roost. It was a wide and open road, well laid down by a fully endowed local authority with a grass space with bushes and small trees separating the two routes. Slow as it was the car he followed went through, carried by the flow, too fast for him to shout and attract the attention of the policemen on the other carriageway. No chance of stopping, couldn't risk severing the thread that bound him to the Cortina.
The PPK was loaded now, empty magazine discarded on the floor by the foot-brake. It had not been difficult to rearm the pistol, and he now weighed in his mind when would be the moment to open fire. Perhaps when they stopped the car, when they were out on the pavement and unaware, when he was in the darkness of the saloon and they were in the open, free for him and naked, illuminated by the street lights. A possibility, a good one. Attractive because then there was the chance that they would be close together, and the burst of shots might cover the two of them. When the traffic closed and he was but two or three car-lengths away from the Cortina he could see the two heads. That of the driver bent low, in supplication over the wheel, the other more upright and turning every two minutes or so to look behind him. How did they rate themselves? Jimmy wondered. He knew where he'd have put it. Fifty-fifty, at best. Escaped but hadn't taken the professor. Perhaps not as good as fifty-fifty. Chap needed a score to measure his performance against, important that, competitive world. Not as good as evens, Jimmy reckoned. Perhaps only the professor counted. Buggered it up, hadn't they? And for all the security they'd won their surprise — must have wanted the surprise factor above all else, and they'd achieved that. Good ground work, but the rest screwed. Not like McCoy, that, Jimmy thought, not if you read his file. Couldn't have been him on the gun, must have been the other bastard. Taken too long, hadn't he, not the way you'd have done it, Jimmy, you wouldn't have left the rifle hanging through the window half the night. Silly bastards. Should have been on champagne now, and instead they're running, and don't even know what's right up their backsides and waiting to belt them.
Jimmy could see they had slowed in front of him. Nearly there, he told himself, but they must be unsure of the right turning. Lost their way, but they wouldn't be in the side streets unless that's where they're heading for.
The pistol was in his right hand, flat against the wheel.
His window was down. Not long now, my little darling.
He muttered casually and without emotion, but would not have denied the excitement.