The Saint in Trouble (11 page)

Cartwright wriggled aside, his gun hand swinging around. But the Saint was already on his feet, and he jumped forward and brought his heel down on the agent’s wrist, pinning it to the floor. Almost casually he bent down and wrenched the gun from Cartwright’s grasp, flicking on the safety catch and sliding it into his hip pocket.

He stepped back to allow Cartwright the freedom to move.

“Stand up.”

The man remained lying on the floor, rubbing his wrist. Simon grabbed his collar and yanked him to his feet. Cartwright was beaten, a whimpering shell of his former self, but the Saint felt no pity. He remembered the face of the sailor and a promise he had made to himself and now intended to keep.

The fight was one-sided and brutal. Cartwright had gone through the standard unarmed combat training, but the instructors had never prepared him to face Simon Templar’s anger. The Saint’s attack was scientific, calculated to inflict the maximum pain without permitting the welcome relief of unconsciousness. Cartwright tried to fight back but his spirit was broken, and finally the Saint’s desire for retribution was appeased. He had found little pleasure in the exercise, only a growing contempt for his victim. His fist travelled at last in a savage up-percut that threatened to separate head and shoulders, and Cartwright collapsed and lay motionless at his feet.

Simon ran a hand through his hair to restore it to some order, and he turned to Emma.

“You throw a mean statue,” he remarked appreciatively. “Only next time don’t leave it quite so late.”

“I’m not as used to this sort of thing as you are,” she said shakily. “Do you really think he would have shot you?”

“I have a feeling he was giving it serious consideration,” said the Saint. “Now we don’t have much time. Phone Inspector Lebeau at the Prefecture and tell him what’s happened.”

He was already at the door before he finished speaking.

“But where are you going?”

“To the aero club. There’s still a chance I can stop them.”

12

Simon ran back through the dining room, the way he had come, and out onto the lawn. He was halfway through the belt of trees when he almost stumbled over the body of Cartwright’s chauffeur. The man lay on his side, one arm across his face where he had tried to defend himself. A red stain was spreading from an ugly gash above his ear.

A movement behind the tree next to him sent the Saint leaping aside, spinning around as he did so, his arms at half stretch in front of his body to meet an attack. He stared in disbelief as Gaby emerged from his hiding place with a heavy spanner still clutched in his hand.

Simon relaxed and came down off his toes. He looked from the sleeping man to the taxi driver.

“You did that?” It was more a complimentary statement than a question.

Gaby nodded.

“I was coming to the villa to see what had happened to you, and I found him spying on the helicopter.”

Simon knelt down and quickly checked that the man still lived.

“You’re lucky he has a thick skull, mon ami, or you might have committed your first homicide.”

“Then he will be all right?” There was genuine relief in the other’s voice.

The Saint grinned reassuringly.

“Yes, I should think so, but I wouldn’t care to have his headache when he wakes up. The police will be here soon. I want you to go to the villa-you’ll find a young lady there. Tell her about this one, and look after her till the flicks arrive.”

Without waiting to see his order obeyed, the Saint sprinted the last twenty yards to the clearing. The pilot started his rotors as soon as he saw the Saint emerge from the trees, and had the craft in the air before asking their destination.

In clipped sentences Simon gave him a rundown on the situation as the pilot headed back towards Mandelieu.

The Saint took the observer’s binoculars from their case and scanned the long columns of cars beneath them as they flew low over Cannes. The streets were choked with traffic, and his hopes began to rise as he calculated the delays the car he was looking for would have encountered.

They were turning inland from La Napoule before he spotted their quarry. The Mercedes was a silver flake in the distance swinging through the gates of the aerodrome.

By the time the helicopter crossed the perimeter fence the car had passed the row of hangars and stopped beside a twin-engine Beechcraft. Curdon and Maclett were already hurrying to board it. Simon pointed the pilot towards the plane, shouting above the clatter of the rotor blades.

“Can you block their take-off?”

The pilot nodded, his face grim with concentration as he put the helicopter into a steep dive aimed directly towards the plane as it turned to taxi along the runway.

The Saint could clearly see Curdon in the copilot’s seat. Maclett’s face was pressed against a cabin porthole, looking up curiously at the swiftly descending helicopter.

The chopper skimmed over the length of the plane, its runners missing it by inches. As they shot past, the pilot banked his machine and brought it lower as he did so, and headed back, flying directly towards the taxiing Beechcraft on a set collision course.

The two machines raced towards each other. The ground flashed beneath the helicopter at fantastic speed only a few feet below, and the Saint paid silent tribute to the pilot’s skill and nerve. He was already bracing himself for the crash when the pilot pushed the stick forward and sent them zooming upwards so close to the plane that Simon could see the terror in the pilot’s eyes.

The Beechcraft slewed to the left a split second before the helicopter started its climb as the pilot desperately tried to avoid a crash, but he was clearly competent for he soon corrected the maneuver and had the plane back on course and halfway towards take-off point before the helicopter could turn and come down again.

The helicopter quickly made up the distance, swooping down on the plane like a falcon onto its prey, hovering directly above it and making lift-off impossible. The plane slowed as the end of the runway drew nearer, weaving left and right across the tarmac strip in a frantic attempt to shake off the pursuit, but the helicopter countered each move with ease.

The plane swung around in a lurching turn and began to head back towards the hangars. The helicopter skimmed over it and came even lower, flying directly in front of it. The plane slowed and the helicopter pilot reduced his speed accordingly, so that the distance between them remained the same.

Simon’s attention was focussed on Curdon, who had released his seat belt and was fumbling with the door catch. Suddenly the door flew open and he almost fell out of the plane, a wild grab saving him at the last moment. The pilot cut back the engines to steady the craft, and Curdon held on with one hand as he tried to aim an automatic with the other.

The scream of the engines drowned the sound of the shots, and the Saint had no way of knowing whether they had Mt the helicopter or gone wide. The helicopter skimmed from side to side as the pilot did everything he could to make himself harder to Mt while still managing to maintain the same speed and height.

Simon looked along the runway and saw the flashing lights of a convoy of police cars racing through the aerodrome gates. The single column became two as they fanned out on either side of the runway. Two cars overtook the rest, sweeping to a screeching halt behind the Beechcraft and making a further double-back impossible.

Without warning, the helicopter’s engine coughed and spluttered and it veered to the right. The pilot fought to bring the machine back on course, but its controls seemed to only half respond. He looked at the Saint and shook his head.

“Something hit us… . We must go down.”

“Just put me as close as you can.”

The pilot wrenched the helicopter to the left so that they were sinking squarely ahead of the approaching plane. The Beechcraft skidded to a sideways stop as its pilot jammed on the brakes.

As the helicopter came to ground, the Saint jumped the last few feet, landing on his toes and sprinting across the tarmac towards the plane, bent almost double against the buffeting air from the flailing rotor blades and zigzagging like a rugby winger as bullets ricocheted off the runway and flew past Mm.

The plane and helicopter were now in the center of a ring of cars behind which the police were quickly taking up their positions but holding fire for fear of hitting the Saint.

The Saint ducked under the plane’s nose, coming around to the pilot’s side out of Curdon’s line of fire. He reached up and yanked open the door with one hand as his other grasped the pilot’s coat and pulled him bodily out of the plane. Curdon turned and fired as the pilot toppled onto the runway and no longer obstructed his aim, but the Saint had been expecting a shot and ducked below the fuselage.

He had noticed Emma and Gaby in the back of the leading police car as the helicopter had landed. As he flattened himself against the Beechcraft, he saw Emma duck under the taxi driver’s restraining arm and start to run across the no man’s land between the police cordon and the plane.

Maclett, who had been watching from the safety of the cabin, moved with surprising speed as soon as he saw his daughter and recognised the danger she was in. He threw himself forward directly between Curdon and the Saint, shouting to his daughter as he did so.

“Emma, stop!”

But the girl did not hear and was already at the edge of the runway.

Maclett was trying to climb out of the plane, but Curdon grabbed his shoulder and dragged him back into the pilot’s seat with his gun aimed straight at the professor’s chest. He gestured towards the pilot, who was now getting gingerly to his feet on the ground.

“Get him back on board, Templar!”

Simon looked from Maclett to Curdon and shook his head.

“You wouldn’t kill the golden goose, old boy.”

For a moment the three men stared at each other as each sought his own way to break the deadlock.

Emma reached Simon’s side before he could stop her. She came to a halt in front of the open door, suddenly rigid with fear as she realised the danger.

Curdon took a direct aim at her.

“I’ll kill her right enough. Stay right where you are, Miss Maclett.”

The professor stepped forward, but Curdon moved to one side so that he could keep both father and daughter covered. Maclett’s voice shook with despair and surprise.

“What kind of man are you?”

Curdon ignored him.

“Listen to me, Templar. The pilot gets back in and we take off unmolested, or-“

“No!” Maclett sprang forward, clawing at the gun and knocking Curdon off balance.

The automatic fired into the air, the detonation ear-shattering in the confined space.

The two men wrestled in the doorway, half in, half out of the plane, and the Saint took advantage of the diversion to reach the other side of the cabin. He vaulted into the plane, one arm locking around Cordon’s throat, the other pinning his gun hand to his side.

Maclett released his hold and jumped down beside his daughter as the Saint gathered all his strength into one titanic heave that threw Curdon clear out of the plane. The gun flew from his grip as he crashed onto the runway with barely enough wind left to crawl to his knees.

Curdon’s hate-filled eyes blazed up at the Saint, the voice a rasping sob.

“Ten years ago I’d have taken you…you…”

Slowly, almost comically, Curdon pitched forward and lay still, face down on the warm tarmac.

The Saint raised a sardonic eyebrow.

“I always like a gallant loser,” he remarked, to no attentive audience.

He watched as two policemen dragged Curdon to their car, and then turned and walked over to the plane where Maclett, Emma, and Lebeau were waiting.

Simon gave Lebeau a mocking bow, and held out his wrists as if inviting the handcuffs.

“A pleasure to meet you again, Inspector. Am I under arrest?”

Lebeau shook his head.

“Not exactly, but it would not be to your advantage to prolong this stay in Cannes.”

“Forty-eight hours?”

“That is exactly the time it will take me to decide what charges are to be answered. Now if you will excuse me I have some pressing matters to attend to. The British Government has already been making some extraordinary representations to Paris about this affair.”

“Then there’ll surely be a lot of lovely forms to fill out,” Simon prophesied.

When the detective had left them the Saint studied the professor. Maclett’s shoulders drooped and he looked as if he had aged ten years in a few hours. Emma was holding his arm, but he refused to meet her eyes.

“You wouldn’t have been free, Daddy. They were just going to use you and keep your work for themselves.”

“Aye.”

“I think there may be a way to sort things out, Professor,” Simon ventured. “Depending on how you feel.”

Maclett looked up with some of the old fire returning to his eyes.

“I feel like a damn fool.”

“Which is the beginning of wisdom,” said the Saint.

13

The Palais des Festivals was packed to overflowing, with scientists making up only a part of the audience. News of Maclett’s adventure had made headlines around the world, and photographers and reporters vied with ordinary sensation-seekers for the best seats.

Maclett stood alone in the center of the dais, a lectern before him and a huge blackboard covered with the hieroglyphics of chemical equations behind. He closed his folder of notes and moved aside from the lectern.

“That is the basic premise as it will be published by Her Majesty’s Government. The rest you are free to work out for yourselves-if you can.”

The hall rang with the applause, and in the wings Simon smiled at Emma and nodded towards the exit.

“Let’s leave your father to enjoy his moment of glory alone.”

As they walked away from the Palais, Emma asked: “Why did you rush off from the airfield yesterday?”

“Being a loyal taxpayer and realising that our friend Willie was likely to have a good deal of government expense money in the villa, not to mention whatever the Russians had paid him in advance, I felt it my duty to ensure its safety.”