DEAD SECRET
Charles Pol Espionage Thrillers
Book Five
Alan Williams
Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as though nothing had happened.
Sir Winston Churchill
What is truth?
Pontius Pilate
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
ALSO BY ALAN WILLIAMS
PROLOGUE
There were four men in the room. At least two of them looked out of place, though they were quite at ease. Big square-shouldered men with square-cut black hair, black moustaches, each wearing a chocolate-brown suit with a broad chalk stripe, wide lapels, and a silk handkerchief sprouting from the breast pocket like a fresh orchid. The third man was slighter, with grey cropped hair and a narrow face: he had a military bearing, with a suggestion of the scholar. The three of them were drinking Scotch, sitting in a semicircle facing their host, who was elderly, distinguished.
It was an exquisite room, part of a bachelor flat in Albemarle Street, behind Piccadilly.
One of the big men said, ‘We’d better have some music.’
‘Nothing too loud, too obvious,’ the grey man said.
The other got up and strolled over to a complicated hi-fi system, selected a cassette and slotted it into the machine. A Mozart piano sonata flowed through the room. ‘Quiet enough?’ he said, and returned to his chair.
The grey man addressed his host, who sat stiff and upright in a Sheraton chair. ‘You know why we are here. Further explanations are unnecessary. We are carrying out orders.’ His English was pedantic and correct.
The first big man turned to him and said, in their own language: ‘I thought the fat man was joining us?’ He spoke a heavy dialect, which the elderly man opposite obviously did not understand.
The grey man said, ‘He’s at the hotel. We’re to call him when it’s finished.’
‘Typical. Always keeps out of the firing line.’
‘He was in the line with poor Serge, remember.’
‘I’d like to know how the hell he got out of East Germany. Those people keep you locked up for a long time.’
‘You know the fat man. He’s very clever. He has excellent contacts. It is a serious mistake to underestimate him. But come on — this talk is wasting time.’
The big man looked up at the stout chandelier suspended from a ring in the moulded ceiling. ‘Right, let’s get going.’ He and the second man put down their drinks and stood up.
Their host remained where he was, staring at them, wide-eyed. He did not speak because a strip of masking tape had been stretched across his mouth, from ear to ear; he was now beginning to have difficulty breathing.
One of them had produced a length of wire from under his jacket: pulled his chair up under the chandelier and climbed on to the silk seat. He could not quite reach the top of the chandelier, so the first man lifted him by the hips and held him still, while the second swiftly knotted the wire around the ring in the ceiling. He climbed down again, and the two of them took up their positions on either side of the elderly man on the chair. The grey man lit a cigarette and watched.
The man in the chair had turned the colour of clay; his nose had begun to run, and his eyes were watering.
‘Take his shoes off,’ the grey man said. ‘We don’t want him kicking.’
‘Has he emptied his bowels, do you think? We don’t want that smell around either.’
‘How should I know? Anyway, we shan’t be around to smell it. Now get on it — it’s late, but somebody might come up. We want this to be tidy.’
The two big men went about their task silently, methodically, like doctors performing a routine operation. One of them removed the elderly man’s black hand-made shoes, then they hauled him up and stood him in his stockinged feet directly under the chandelier. He had begun to make a muffled, whimpering noise. One of them slapped his cheek, gently, like smacking a newborn baby. The tape had begun to come loose, and there was spittle on his chin. His wet eyes rolled round, trying to focus on the slipknot which the second man had arranged just behind his head. He let out a gurgling sound and the first man pulled the wire tight, then slipped the loop over the man’s head. The second man kicked the chair away and the body dropped sharply and went rigid for a moment, then began to jig about like a puppet, swinging slowly in the middle of the room. The throat was squeezed to the size of a man’s wrist and the face became unrecognizable. From the taped mouth came a series of clicking sounds, barely audible above the music.
The grey man stood up and led the way to the door. They let themselves out, quietly, leaving the music playing, the locks undamaged. They met no one on the stairs or in the hallway. The caretaker’s glass cubicle was still empty. He would probably not return until the pub closed.
The street was quiet. Here they separated — the two big men getting into a Volvo saloon, the grey man walking towards Bond Street where he caught a taxi to the Ritz. He would telephone Brown’s Hotel from there.
It was too late for the morning papers, but the evening editions carried the story on the front page.
STRANGE ‘SUICIDE’ OF ABCO CHIEF
Sir James Milward-Smith, aged 64, Chairman
