admiral — old Carleton — will see for himself that we weren’t up to anything nasty!”
Shaw had very nearly squeezed the trigger of the Luger; the only reason he hadn’t done so was because he thought it too easy a way out for Lawrence Carew. Better, perhaps, to leave him to his Russian masters. They would cut him down to size one day, as they did all their leading lights sooner or later, and that way Carew would taste more bitterness, more gall when he came to think, in the years ahead, about what he had done for Russia. Even a man like Carew might one day discover a conscience. As to England, Shaw could frankly find no hope whatever now. Even if Whitehall should decide, on the strength of his own earlier reports, to blow up the tower with either a bomber force or missiles they might achieve nothing except to save the Russians the trouble of firing the fissure.
England could be in danger of eruption just the same.
Suddenly Carew asked, “What are you going to do with me, Alison?”
“That remains to be seen. Can you think of any reason why I shouldn’t kill you here and now, Carew?” His feelings were getting the better of him. He lifted the Luger, feeling again the urgent desire to kill this man. “Can you?”
Carew huddled himself back in the corner of the car and gave a faint hiss of breath, but he said evenly, “Frankly, I suppose not. But you won’t shoot me, Alison — not now, not for no real reason. You’re… too damn British for that. You’ll have to let me go — after tomorrow. There’ll be the biggest manhunt you ever saw. But if you treat me decently until then, I’ll put in a word. After all, you’ve only been doing your duty, haven’t you? They’re bound to see that, and if you haven’t harmed me, well… you see what I mean?”
Shaw was about to give some short answer when he saw the sudden movement of the bodyguard in the front seat. The man had probably regained consciousness some time earlier and had been listening… his shoulder was moving, the arm coming up stealthily, and then, as Shaw was about to dive forward and yell a warning to Triska, the man’s hand grabbed for the wheel. In the same split second Shaw fired. The car gave a leap as Triska’s hands jerked on the wheel, and then resumed its course. The bodyguard slumped without a cry, blood gushing from his neck.
Shaw asked, “Dead?”
Without slackening speed, Triska glanced sideways, looked at the body in the light from the dash. She said, “I don’t think there’s any doubt, Peter.”
Shaw swivelled savagely round on Carew. “Too damn British, am I?” he said. “If I were you, I wouldn’t try my luck too far!”
After that they drove on in silence, each busy with his own private thoughts. They flashed by the little village of Emets and turned up for Godov’s house, saw lights in the distance. Then as they approached the metalled driveway through the swamp, Triska gasped and said, “Peter, every light in the house is on!”
“So I see. I don’t like the look of that.”
She accelerated up the drive and then pulled up with a scrape of tyres and jumped out. Shaw yelled at the girl to be careful but she took no notice and ran ahead for the front door. With Carew ahead of him and the Luger ready for action, Shaw followed Triska into the house and he was half-way down the passage to the old man’s study when Triska came out, white and shaken.
She said, her eyes wide and frightened, “Peter, he’s dead! He’s been shot through the heart.”
“Godov?”
She was crying now. “Yes.”
He went up to her quickly and put a hand under her arm. He said, “Easy, Triska dear. You’re sure he’s dead?”
“Quite sure…”
He went forward with her, pushing Carew ahead of him.
In the study he found the old man lying face downward on the floor, half across a smashed chair. Bending, he felt for the heart, looked at the white head dappled with blood from the pool in which he was lying. He got to his feet again and said, “Bronsky. I’d bet my last cent it was Bronsky.”
She said, “Yes, I think it could have been. But, Peter — the house… it is so silent. Where are the others — Anna and Josef?”
“I don’t know, Triska, but I’m going to find out.” He took the Russian bodyguard’s gun from his pocket and handed it to her. He said, “It’s loaded. Keep an eye on Carew and use this if you have to. I’m going for a look around.”
Twenty
“Bronsky… are you there, Bronsky?”
There was no reply and Shaw ran along the passage, stopping for a moment at the end to look carefully round the angle of the wall. It was all quiet; he turned to his left through the hall and went down another passage which seemed to lead to the kitchen. He jerked the kitchen door open and stood back with his gun ready, but nothing happened. Gingerly he edged forward. The cupboards, big deep cupboards where a man could have hidden very easily, had their doors hanging open and their contents scattered wholesale by someone in a hurry to find something or somebody. Then he saw the bodies, in the horrible attitudes of sudden and shocking death. Anna, the old housekeeper, slumped across a big basketwork chair; Josef — he assumed it was Josef anyway — face down on the floor in a pool of blood with one arm outstretched as though he had been mown down while trying to reach towards the door-handle. A bloody line of blackened holes ran right round the old fellow’s back, and this, together with the fact that the big window behind him was shattered, seemed to indicate that the killer had fired a raking burst from outside and then, most likely, come in through the window to find Godov once the servants were out of the way.
This bore all the marks of a man of Bronsky’s type.
Sick at heart Shaw turned away. If only old Josef had had his Luger… but even with it, he would never have stopped Major Igor Bronsky. Bronsky had probably been to the flat in Moltsk and found it empty, and had come here looking for Triska. Shaw left the kitchen and made for the hall and the staircase, intending to take a look round the bedrooms. Then, just as he put a foot on the bottom stair, he heard the faint sound behind him, turned in a flash and saw the Russian uniform. Bronsky had an air-cooled automatic in his arms and his eyes were slits in the white face. There was a roar and a spurt of flame and Shaw flung himself sideways, came down heavily on his right side, firing as he did so. Bullets zipped into the woodwork of the staircase, there was a stink of gun smoke, and Shaw fired a second burst from the Luger. There was a scream and then Major Igor Bronsky was tearing at his throat and blood was gushing. A moment later the Russian crashed heavily, choking in his own blood and gurgling, and then he lay with legs and arms twitching slightly as his life drained out of him.
Shaw got to his feet and crossed the hall.
As he did so he felt a sharp pain in his side and a warm, sticky patch. Cursing, he put his hand in his pocket and it came away patched with blood; but he wasn’t much worried about that. What was really serious was the fact that his heavy fall had smashed up his transceiver — he’d taken it back from Triska earlier — and now there was absolutely no way of sending any warning through to the Embassy. Possibly they couldn’t have got his message passed to London, possibly they could; what was certain was that now he couldn’t receive any signals at all.
He swore savagely.
As he looked up he saw Triska’s white, scared face at the end of the passage. He gestured her back and then walked along and followed her through to Godov’s study. He saw that her eyes were red with crying, but she seemed to be in control of the situation and she had Carew, who was sitting hunched in the chair in which Shaw had sat when he had first seen the old professor, covered with the gun which he had given her. Godov’s body was still on the ground but Triska had now covered it with a rug.