“Whatever we decide, Simon,” Garvi hedged, “I promise you won’t be implicated.”
The Saint snorted derisively with a scornful laugh.
“The hell with being implicated, I am implicated! I was implicated the moment Yakovitz and his buddy hijacked me at the airport. You’ve got what you wanted. As far as you’re concerned, the operation has been one hundred per cent successful and it’s all because of me. Now you can settle the account. I want the last act left in my hands.”
Their stares crossed like rapiers — the Saint’s intense and unyielding; Garvi’s suspicious, uncertain.
“What do you have in mind?” Garvi asked.
“You’ve got what you wanted from Hakim, but that doesn’t mean you’ve forgiven his former comrades. And neither have I. I have this odd prejudice against people who try to blow me up and destroy my property,” the Saint explained.
“But your plan?”
Simon smiled.
“You know what they say, Colonel. If you want to shoot a tiger, tether a goat.”
When he had finished outlining his scheme, Garvi shook his head doubtfully.
“It’s a risk, Simon.”
“So is crossing the road,” the Saint retorted, and before Garvi could begin to put forward objections he turned on his heel and walked towards the door. “Let’s have a look at the goat.”
They went back to the room where the interrogation had been completed. Hakim sat in a chair with his chin on his chest, completely oblivious to his surroundings. Leila and Yakovitz were sitting at a table sipping black coffee. The Saint pulled Hakim’s head up so that he could look into his face.
“Do you have something in that medicine kit of yours that will bring him back to the land of the living quickly?” he asked Garvi.
The Israeli looked puzzled.
“Yes. But it would mean a large dose, and that could be dangerous, even fatal.”
“Your sudden concern for the patient is very touching,” Simon commented sarcastically. “Give it to him. I want him back in working order as soon as possible.”
Yakovitz looked questioningly at his superior, but Garvi only nodded.
“Do as he says,” he instructed; and with ill-concealed reluctance the agent opened a doctor’s-type black satchel and began to fill a syringe.
The Saint rummaged through the small pile of Hakim’s effects that were spread out on the table, and finally found what he sought written on the back of a snapshot of Yasmina.
As he did so the phone rang, and Garvi answered it. The colonel listened intently for a few minutes, and smiled thinly at the Saint and Leila as he replaced the receiver.
“We have a report from Tel Aviv,” he informed them. “Everything he has told us checks out.”
“Good,” said the Saint, and took over the telephone. He began to dial the number on the back of the snapshot. “Then you agree to let me take over, Colonel?”
Garvi compressed his lips.
“I agree. At your own risk.”
“It seems to me I’ve been at my own risk most of the time,” said the Saint amicably.
Then the number was ringing, and in a minute or so a feminine voice answered.
“Yasmina?” he said, and on receiving the hesitant confirmation, he went on in a studiously impersonal tone: “I am calling for your friend Abdul Hakim. He is being released by the people who detained him. He wishes you to join him in going to a safe place. Do you know the Highgate Cemetery — did he ever show you the tomb of Karl Marx there?”
“Yes.” The response was scarcely audible, and he felt a twinge of pity for her as he pictured her in the shabby flat where she lived.
“Good. Go there. At four o’clock this morning. Exactly. Hakim will be waiting for you. After that, everything will be as Allah wills. Understand?”
“Yes... but...”
The Saint hung up and looked across at Hakim. Whatever stimulant Yakovitz had pumped into him appeared to be having a miraculous effect. He was sitting upright now and looking at his surroundings in the hazy way of someone roughly aroused from a deep sleep, but it was unlikely that he had heard or understood much of the conversation.
“Officially, I have heard nothing, and I know nothing,” Garvi said expressionlessly. “Captain Zabin and Yakovitz may volunteer to stay with you, on the same understanding. Unfortunately I cannot do the same. It would be most embarrassing politically if anything went wrong and I was seen to be involved. But whenever you want, you can contact me at the embassy.”
Simon Templar regarded him with a touch of quizzical challenge.
“Is that all you can say, Leon?” he taunted.
Colonel Garvi hesitated for one second, and then held out his hand.
“Mazel tov,” he said.
12
London’s Highgate Cemetery is a horror-film producer’s dream. Victorian Gothic memorials to mortality cracked open by the weather vainly strive to rise above a wilderness of tall grass and tangled shrubs. Even in daytime it is a lonely and desolate spot, but in the pre-dawn moonlight it becomes charged with a sinister atmosphere of its own that can be felt by even the most cynical and unsuperstitious realist.
Leila shivered involuntarily as she surveyed the scene, but the Saint only grinned as he brought his lips close to her ear and breathed: “Not afraid of ghosties and ghoulies and long-legged beasties, are we?”
She walked disdainfully away from the teasing voice and was the first to go through the gates. Simon reached her side in a couple of long strides and led the way along the maze of overgrown paths between tombs and headstones. Yakovitz brought up the rear, prodding Hakim forward with the business end of his automatic.
The Arab was completely recovered by now, and the scent of possible freedom had made him excited and nervous, although they had told him nothing except that he was to meet Yasmina as a reward for his co-operation.
The tomb of Karl Marx consists of a pillar on which is mounted a massive stone head which, with its flowing beard and wild hair makes him look more like an Old Testament patriarch than an instigator of revolution. He lies snugly at rest, surrounded in death by the Victorian capitalists and imperialists whom he loathed so much in life. The area immediately around the pillar is always carefully maintained, and attracts more pilgrims than the average saint’s shrine. With floral tributes strewn at its feet, the monument to the man who regarded religion as the opium of the people takes on an incongruous air of holiness.
Simon Templar stopped and gave it an irreverent salute. “Good morning, Karl,” he murmured. “I’ve brought along one of your disciples to pay his respects.”
Yakovitz pushed Hakim forward so violently that he lost his footing and sprawled at the base of the pillar. The Saint looked down at him with a cynical smile playing at the comers of his mouth.
“No need to overdo the kowtowing,” he drawled. “Just a polite bow would have done.”
Hakim picked himself up and brushed the dirt from his clothes as he glanced anxiously around.
“Where is Yasmina?” he demanded accusingly. “You said she would be here.”
“Don’t worry, she will be,” Simon replied, and glanced at the luminous dial of his watch. “In less than ten minutes, if she’s punctual. I’m sure it will be a very moving reunion, so we’ll withdraw to a discreet distance.”