'He honors nobody and nothing,' Craig said. 'He uses me because I can do what he wants. No other reason.'
Jaunty in fresh tweeds and bang on cue, Loomis waddled massively in. Under his arm was a great roll of blueprints. He looked at Selina, looked at the door, then raised his eyebrows inquiringly. She walked out slowly, head up, with a superb and arrogant sexuality.
'Don't you know any ugly girls?' Loomis asked.
'I haven't time,' said Craig.
'Been doing me homework,' Loomis said. 'Found these plans. Fifty years old, but they should give us some idea. Fifty years ago the Zaarb Embassy was a gendeman's town house. Ah, well. That's progress for you.' He opened out the blue linen paper, and it crackled dryly. As they pored over it, Grierson came in, the guns under his arm.
'Christ,' said Loomis, 'what you going to do—depopulate China?'
'We can get in easily enough,' Craig said. 'We'd like to get out as well.'
'So long as you bring Mrs. Naxos with you, you can have a squadron of tanks,' Loomis said.
'No,' Craig said. 'People might talk. All we need now is a fire engine.'
« « «
The crowd outside the Zaarb Embassy had an average age of nineteen, a standard uniform of black leather and a high-rating skill in the handling of motorbikes. From the topmost window of the office building across the road, Grierson looked down on them, riding round and round the block in an unending stream, like Indians round a covered wagon. Up the main road round the corner, across the mews, back to the side street and along the main road again. It was impossible to get a vehicle in or out of any building in that block—and there wasn't a policeman in sight. Grierson thought of how they had got into the office. He'd worn a dapper pinstripe suit and carried a briefcase, and Craig had shuffled behind him, all dungarees and an enormous tool bag. Grierson had been very sorry, but a suspected gas leak was a very dangerous affair, and in their own interests he must insist that all the staff go home. A tall, bony, harassed sort of man had locked up the safe and been far more worried about what Mr. Benson would say when he got back from Birmingham than about the threat of coal-gas poisoning. And the typists had made an occasion of it, and gone out to tea before they caught their buses home. One of them had been pretty. Very pretty. They had giggled when the Thames Gas Board van had arrived with a tool chest, and two sweating workmen had humped it in. Grierson had nearly forgotten his role then, and lit a cigarette.
They'd waited until the typists had gone, the pnetty one, the very pretty one, last, and looking so hopefully at Grierson, then they'd opened the chest and tool bag, taken out the walkie-talkie, the firemen's helmets and uniforms, and the weapons they'd brought. Grierson assembled the Armalite, while opposite him Craig sat absorbed, patiently checking his Smith and Wessons, aware of nothing now but the task he had to do, and the tools he must use to do it.
There were two Craigs, Grierson thought. There was the genial extrovert, strong, secure in his own strength, witty, gentle with women, cautious not to hurt—that was Jekyll Craig. Then there was the killer. Hyde Craig. The massive physical power, the fury of nervous energy, all concentrated into a terrible patience, ready for the moment to destroy. Good with guns, good with a knife, terrifyingly good with hands and feet. Grierson remembered what Craig had said about karate. 'You've got to believe it'll do what you want it to do. You have to
That was the way Craig felt now. Loomis had given them an edge, and Craig believed he must win, with the same terrifying certainty as when they'd gone to France and killed a renegade colonel. The killer Craig never doubted, and if he ever did, he'd lose. Grierson thought how clever Loomis was to harness all that lethal certainty, and use it so sparingly, and to such effect, then he took off the pinstripe suit, folded it carefully, and put on the fireman's uniform, rammed his feet into the boots, slid the riot gun down one of them. Craig put a Smith and Wesson into each of his side pockets, picked up a smoke mask, then grinned at Grierson.
'Make sure the safety catch is on. You might do yourself a mischief,' he said.
He had an ax in a sling at his side, a knife in the top of one boot. On him, Grierson thought, a fireman's helmet looked like a gladiator's. He wished he wasn't so fond of Craig.
'Time for phase two,' he said.
A group of policemen came up. None of them appeared to rank higher than sergeant, but they were Special Branch men, led by Detective Inspector Linton. Loomis had briefed them personally. They tried, without much enthusiasm, to regulate the stream of traffic. The rockers used them as an extra hazard, and zigzagged happily round them. Craig watched with the same terrible patience as the motorbikes stopped at last in a circle round the block of houses, and Lonesome, Jigger, and 'O Level Edward' lined up behind Harry, and marched up to the door, each carrying a petition. Jigger leaned on the bell, Lonesome swung the door knocker like a hammer, and no one answered. Grierson murmured into the walkie-talkie, then slowly, reluctantly, a scuffle evolved as the police moved in closer.
'I'd better get down there,' said Craig. Grierson
nodded. The two men looked at each other for a moment, then Craig was gone. Grierson watched Harry yell through the letterbox, then, as he pushed his petition through, Grierson opened the window, lowered the Venetian blind, and waited for action.
Inside the petition were incendiary leaves of a kind first used in World War II, but these had a triggering device Loomis's scientific staff had had fun with. Grierson hoped Harry had remembered to press on the sealing wax before he posted it. The police were moving in more closely now, and one of them had drawn a truncheon. He wore a constable's uniform, but it was Linton. He aimed a clumsy blow at Jigger, missed, and with the follow-through he smashed a window. Jigger dropped another petition through the hole he'd made, and almost at once a steel grille slammed down. Farther up the road, Lonesome threw a brick, and another window smashed, broken glass splashed out. But there the steel shutters were already in place. 'O Level Edward' laid his petition on the window ledge. There was movement at the top of the house. Grierson picked up the Armalite and waited. He noticed, appalled, that his hands were shaking, and that he had to struggle to control them. A puff of smoke appeared from the letterbox, then from Jigger's window. Then Edward's window ledge glowed, crackled, roared into fire. Grierson turned to the walkie-talkie again.
'Now,' he said.
Almost at once he heard the clatter of a fire-engine bell, and a fleet of apphances roared up, manned by Special Branch men. Two vast tenders blocked off both ends of the street, a fire escape swung into position near Grierson's office, another appliance swung round by the AZ offices, reversed, and crashed into the blazing window, smashing the grille, scattering flame, then pulled forward again as a masked fireman dashed from the office block to the shelter of the fire engine. Grierson saw a flutter of curtains from a window opposite, then picked up the Armalite, aimed, and waited. The fireman, now with a gun in his hand, darted for the gaping hole the engine had made, and the curtains parted. Grierson fired three quick shots, and the dark bulk at the window pitched forward and was still. Then he raised the Venetian blinds as the ladder extended slowly toward his window. His hands were shaking once more, but at least Craig was inside. The next part was up to him.
Craig went in in a smacking dive, feeling the heat sigh like wind as he moved, and even in the spht second of contact, singeing his eyebrows, pulling his skin tight. He was in a conference room with a long, heavy table and leather chairs. The carpet and one of the chairs were burning. Craig went to the door and opened it from the wrong side, hugging the shelter of the wall. At once someone fired a shot into the empty space he should have filled. Craig took a smoke bomb from one pocket and lobbed it into the corridor. It dissolved on impact into a greasy cloud of lung-choking, gaseous ooze. Craig counted three, swerved into the corridor, and dropped flat. From the shelter of the stairs, an Arab with a machine pistol tried to stop coughing and aim at him. Craig fired, hit him in the arm and the Arab pulled the trigger, squirting bullets in a flailing circle as the smoke made him cough and weep. Craig fired again and killed him.
He raced up the corridor then, but the other rooms facing the street were empty. He went past the staircase
