Artillery of Lies (27 page)

“Not Hammer and Tongs,” Hammer growled. “That's a mistake.”

“Oh dear,” Luis said sadly. “I'm not doing very well, am I?”

“Hush, now,” Anvil said. They stood in silence until the three generals had walked past. Then Laszlo trailed in, dragging his suitcase by its broken handle. He let it drop and gave it a good hard kick. “You fat little bitch,” he said. “You cross-eyed little tart.” He was too tired and too bitter to swear any harder or any better. Only violence could satisfy him now.

“This is Lampstand,” Docherty told everyone.

“Please,” Hammer said to Luis, “you must get the signal right. It's Hammer and
Anvil,
not Hammer and Tongs.” He no longer looked like an RAF chaplain; he looked like a desperado in disguise. Julie, seeing him in profile, noticed the sweat in his hairline and the heavy throb of a pulse in his throat, and for the first time she began to fear that this couple might really be dangerous; might be more than fancy-dress saboteurs who could easily be turned over to the police. And what the hell was keeping Freddy? Hammer picked up
his zip-top bag. “Operation Tombstone is of crucial importance,” he said, “but our success will be meaningless unless you signal Tomcat at once. Don't waste a minute.”

“That could be difficult,” Luis said.

“Why?”

“Hard to explain.” Luis was thoroughly miserable.

Julie said, “I think I have a solution. Excuse us for a moment.”

“You must be quick,” Anvil said. “We have a job to do.”

“What sort of job?” Stephanie asked.

Julie took Luis aside. “What the blue blazes is the matter with you?” she whispered. “They want you to send a signal, tell them you'll send a signal! Send a dozen goddam signals. Just let's get out of here.”

“They don't understand how the Eldorado set-up works,” Luis mumbled.

“Who gives a shit? Lie to them.”

“Lie?” He was startled. “I'm not much good at that.”

“Oh, Jesus …” Julie took a pace back and looked him straight in the eyes. “Luis, you're the best. You do it all day, every day, remember?”

“That's different.” He really meant it. “I believe in Eldorado. It's a matter of integrity.”

For a second, Julie was baffled. Then she said: “So cheat yourself too. Betray Eldorado. Cross your fingers and it's not a real lie, OK? Just tell them you'll send their precious signal today, now, toot sweet. Yes?”

They went back to the others. “We can do it,” Julie said confidently. “No problem.”

“It's just that I usually operate from London,” Luis said. “That's the trouble, you see.” Julie groaned and tried to turn it into a cough, and failed. Hammer looked alarmed. He said, “Our orders are—”

“You want to send a signal, is that it?” Docherty said. He nudged his suitcase with his foot. “Use this radio, why don't you?”

“There is a radio in your suitcase?” Luis was tremendously impressed.

“Don't go any further along this platform,” Hammer warned. “There will be danger from flying glass.” Anvil took his arm.

“You came all the way here just to give me a radio?” Luis asked.

“Three radios,” Stephanie said proudly. “Nearly
four.”

“Awfully nice to have met you,” Anvil said. They walked away.

“Four radios!” Luis said. “I could send four signals.” That didn't sound right. “Or one signal four times.” That was even worse. “It's the honest truth,” he said to Julie, and then remembered that he should be lying. “Anyway, it's not my fault,” he mumbled.

“Praise be!” Freddy Garcia said. “Action at last. Now for the fireworks.” He lowered his binoculars and rubbed his eyes.

“Eldorado and his gang are on the move too, sir,” Gardener said. “Off to look for you, I expect.”

In fact Luis was walking backward, relying on others to get out of his way, while he watched Hammer and Anvil approach a first-class carriage and open the door.

“You are expecting something important to happen?” Laszlo inquired softly.

“Don't tell him, he has no need-to-know,” Docherty said.

“Oh, rubbish. We all know,” Stephanie scoffed. “I know because Anvil just told me. They've gone to assassinate three British generals. With a bomb.” It gave her an unexpected thrill to announce such rich violence. She hadn't realized she could be so callous, and it made her feel strong. “They'll be blown to bits any moment now. All of them. It's a suicide mission. I think they're splendid, don't you?”

“It's quite routine,” Luis said. “This sort of thing goes on all the time.”
That's better,
he thought, and glanced at Julie, who rolled her eyes.

“No need for suicide,” Laszlo said. “I could have shot them and walked away, if you had only asked me.”

“Next time …” Luis began, and jumped at the crack-boom of an explosion that blew out the window of a compartment and sent red and yellow flames chasing into the gray of the day. The bang echoed three times around the station until it seemed to have flattened all other noise. Then the normal noises came slowly to life again. The Tannoy shouted. Whistles were blown. The clang of an ambulance bell began to hammer out. Men in uniform came surging down the platform. Most were military police. Laszlo saw the red caps and the white belts and did not stop to think. He flung open a door and leaped into the train and ran.

“Smashing!” Freddy said. “Did you see Luis's face? And Julie too … That'll give them something to think about.”

“I think they're thinking about making a party of it, sir,” Gardener said. “Our pair is going off with their pair.”

“Crikey. So they are.” Freddy's satisfaction suddenly faded. “I hadn't planned on that.”

“They won't get far, sir. Our security people will scoop them up. It's all part of Bamboozle.”

“Forget Bamboozle. I want those
Abwehr
agents to send their report to Madrid. And I'd like to know where they're living, too. Go and tell security to scoop them up and let them all go. Then we'll follow them.”

As he left, Gardener said, “Don't forget one got on the train, sir.”

“That won't do him any good. The bally train isn't going anywhere, is it?”

Laszlo had had very little sleep in the past two days and his nervous system had taken a beating from the strain of the landing in Ireland, the frustrations of the journey to Dublin, the high excitement of Ferenc's murder, the anticlimax of hanging about in a rainy Liverpool. So his brain was not working well. If he wanted to hide in the train he should have gone
toward
the oncoming redcaps, in the hope of jumping out when they had passed. But he ran the other way, through the first open door he saw, ran away from the redcaps, and knew they were behind him, and so had to keep on running. This made no sense: he wasn't going anywhere, he was just going; he pounded along the corridors and wrenched open doors that led to more corridors. Once he collided with a soldier who had been asleep when the train reached Lime Street and had been woken up by the blast. “Is it an air raid?” the soldier asked. Laszlo cursed him and kicked him and hammered his ribs with his elbow until the man staggered aside, and Laszlo ran on. But the shock had jolted him into realizing that he was running into danger: he was heading for the carriage where the bomb had gone off. So he dragged the pistol from its holster. Impossible to stop and fit the silencer; anyway, who needed silence after a bang like that?

He smelled the bombed carriage before he reached it: a harsh stink, sucked into his throat and nostrils as he gasped for air. The last door was half-open. He kicked it wide. Three generals turned and stared at him. Behind them stood the RAF chaplain and his lady. From their various attitudes, Laszlo knew they had been examining the bombed-out compartment. The air was steel-gray with hanging smoke. Laszlo saw the compartment and it was not bombed-out at all; except for the shattered window it was scarcely damaged. In the instant that this took to explain itself to him he felt sick with betrayal
and then frenzied with a lust for revenge. He shot the nearest general in the chest. The crash was stupendous, deafening. By a fluke the bullet hit a tunic button and punched it deep into the man's body, smashing open a hole which bled so fast that his khaki tunic was a drenched and spreading red. The impact flung him against the other two officers. One stumbled and fell to his knees. The chaplain shouted and threw his zip-top bag: it struck Laszlo full in the face. The dying general slid to the floor. Now the corridor was blocked. Laszlo could not shoot them all and even if he did they would still be in his way. He heard the pounding clash of boots on the platform: no escape there. For a fraction of a second he wondered about suicide and rejected it. If he had to die it wasn't going to be in a squalid railway carriage. He dodged back and ran until he found a door that gave on to the empty tracks. He swung it open.

At once someone began shouting at him. Laszlo saw a railway official standing on the next platform, waving violently, and he jumped. It was only six feet but Laszlo had not fallen six feet since he was a boy and he landed badly, sprawling on his hands and knees on the oily stones and cinders. He was shaken, and shaking. He had dropped the pistol but it could not be far away so he stayed down, searching for it, and the shaking got worse. He could not keep his body still: the very ground seemed to be trembling. Laszlo looked up and saw a train bearing down on him, black and huge, with monstrous white sidewhiskers of steam jetting from the churning wheels. It was in no hurry and this grinding deliberation frightened him more than any speed: the monster was taking its time about killing him because it knew he could not escape. He dropped flat and pressed his face into the greasy rubble and shut his eyes. The trembling developed into a vibrant, shuddering rumble that became a lusty, clanking roar. It passed and faded, and Laszlo dared to look up. He was lying between the two trains. There was ample room. He saw his pistol, crawled toward it and stuffed it in a pocket. Brakes squealed. While the train was drifting to a halt he got up and ran. As he went past the carriage that contained the dead general a door opened and the RAF chaplain aimed a kick at his head, but Laszlo was too short and he ducked under it. Ahead, only thirty or forty yards away, the trains ended. Then he could cut across the tracks, get away, lose himself in the wet anonymous crowds of Liverpool.

It nearly worked. He could see broad, rain-soaked daylight ahead, widening with every stride, when angry shouts broke out behind
him.
Why are they shouting?
he wondered.
Why aren't they shooting?
It made little difference: they would catch him, they must be younger and taller and stronger. He ran on, determined to make them work for their grubby little triumph, and out of the slanting drifts of rain came salvation.

It was a locomotive—isolated and solitary—reversing cautiously toward the train standing at platform one, ready to hook up and haul it away. Laszlo sprinted hard and then checked as he got a grip of the grab-rails and went up the steps to the cab like a monkey in a double-breasted suit. The fireman was hanging out of the other side, guiding the driver. “Stop!” Laszlo shouted. He was black with the filth of the track.

“Stop what?” the driver asked, disgruntled.

Laszlo fired a shot wide of the driver. The bullet ricocheted three times and nicked the fireman's arm. He yelped and fell out of the cab. The driver slammed the controls. Laszlo stumbled and nearly fell as the brakes bit and the wheels locked solid. “Go!” he bawled, pointing with the gun. “Go, go, go!” The brakes got thrown off, the wheels spun and gripped and the locomotive began to lumber forward. Laszlo glimpsed a face below and brandished his pistol at a military policeman who was trying to climb on board. The man gave up and vanished. “Faster, faster, faster!” Laszlo screamed. The driver did things. They accelerated. There was shouting alongside but they soon left it behind. The driver dragged down a chain and the steam whistle whooped with gusty joy. Laszlo grinned. He seized the chain and blew and blew until he remembered that he was on the run, and he stopped. By then they were well away from Lime Street and traveling at a fine clip. Everything was perfect.

“You've got your wheels on the curb again, honey,” Julie said.

“Have I? Sorry.” Stephanie Schmidt steered to the right. The taxi suffered a couple of bad jolts and then ran smoothly.

“Couldn't you tell the difference?” Julie asked.

“I thought the tires were flat. Put my hand on the gear-lever, please.” Stephanie hated taking her eyes off the road in order to look for anything. She was always using the wrong hand, on the wrong side. Everything in this country was on the wrong side. She had a noisy fight with the gear-box, and won. “Which gear is that, please?” she asked.

“It sounds like two but it feels like three,” Julie said. “Have you thought of using the wipers?” The windscreen was pebbled with rain.

“I lost the switch. I turned it off when I used the horn and now I can't find it.” Stephanie sat on the edge of the seat and squeezed the wheel until her fingers hurt. There was too much traffic and the road was narrow and full of bends, that was the trouble. It had been the trouble ever since they recovered the taxi from the railway porter (another fiver from Docherty) and left Lime Street station. She was very brave to drive the taxi. They all said so. None of them had ever driven on the left, not even Docherty, so Stephanie had volunteered to drive to London. It was a time for courage: look at what Hammer and Anvil had done. Even Laszlo, in his way, was daring. “Where are we?” she asked.

“Hard to tell, but I think this place is called Ormskirk,” Julie said. There were no signposts. All the signposts in England had been taken down to help frustrate German invaders in 1940. “There's a pub called the Ormskirk Arms, anyway.”