The dark glowing eyes stared into mine. The breath whistled thinly between his teeth. His face was like a wolf’s.
“The F.B.I. regard you as the best planner and organiser they’ve been up against since the war, Scarlatti. It’s quite a compliment, isn’t it? But deserved. You had us all fooled. This insistence on knocking down Mordon, this demonstration of the botulinus drug in East Anglia, this pretence that you were unaware that three of the vials you had stolen were of the Satan Bug strain, this apparent ignorance of the effects of the Satan Bug — you had us all convinced that we were dealing with a madman. We were sure that this threat against the square mile of London was to achieve the destruction of Mordon to satisfy the whims of a lunatic. Then we thought it was part of a Communist plot to destroy our last but most powerful line of defence. It was only a few hours ago that we realised that this threat against the heart of London, had one purpose and one purpose only — to empty the heart of London, to evacuate it so that not one person remained.
“In this small area of London are a score of the greatest banks in the world, banks bulging with the negotiable currencies of fifty nations, banks with fortunes in bullion, banks with safe-deposits containing jewels that would ransom a dozen millionaires. And you were going to take the lot, weren’t you, Scarlatti? Your men and equipment have been hidden in empty buildings or innocent-seeming vans since last evening. All they had to do was to walk into the banks during the hours of darkness after the last man had vanished. There would be no trouble. Every one of those banks has a double security system — guards and automatic alarms that ring in any of the local police stations. But the guards had to leave, hadn’t they — they didn’t want to die from botulinus toxin? As for the burglar alarms, some of your men with access to the electricity board’s wiring diagrams — that would cause no trouble — pulled the switches, blew the fuses, tripped the overload coils or cut the cables supplying electric power to this area. Which is why the city is in darkness. Which is why no alarm bells would ring in the police stations. You’re with me, Scarlatti?”
He was with me all right. His face was masked in hatred.
“After that it was easy,” I went on. “I suppose you kidnapped that poor devil of a pilot earlier in the day. You bring the stuff here, load it aboard the helicopter and make a fast take-off for the continent: it was the only way, you knew the entire area would be cordoned off and that there would be no other way to get the stuff out. Your men would just stay put until the scare was over, mingle with the returning crowds and disappear. As for the banks, no one would find out anything till at least three o’clock this coming afternoon, which will be the earliest that people would be allowed to return to the area. And as this is now Sunday it would probably have been Monday morning before the discovery of the looted banks was made. By which time you would have been a couple of continents away. But not now. It’s as I told you, Scarlatti: this is the end of the road.”
“You mean — you mean it’s all over?” Mary whispered behind me.
“It’s all over. By ten o’clock to-night, long before the troops had finished clearing the area, there were two hundred detectives scattered at strategic points all over the city — in banks or close to banks. Hidden. With instructions not to move before 3.45 this morning. It’s after four now. It’s all over. Every single one of those men was armed, with the latest Merlin sub-machine gun loaned from-the Army, with specific instructions to shoot to kill if anyone batted an eyelid. That noise we heard a couple of minutes ago — someone must have batted an eyelid.”
“You’re lying.” Scarlatti’s face was twisted and vicious and his lips were working even when he wasn’t speaking. He went on in a hoarse whisper, “You’re making all this up.”
“You know better than that, Scarlatti. You know that I know too much that is true for the rest not to b© true.**
He looked at me with murder in his eyes, then said softly and savagely, “Close the cabin door. Close it I say, or by God, I’ll end it all now.” He took two steps down the aisle, the vial of the Satan Bug virus lifted high above his head.
I watched him for a moment, then nodded. He’d nothing to lose now and I wasn’t going to throw away Mary’s life and my own — not to mention the pilot’s — over a thing like that. I moved back and closed the sliding passenger door. My eyes, my gun never left him.
He took another two steps forward, his left hand still high above his head. “And now your gun, Cavell. Now your gun.”
“Not my gun, Scarlatti.” I shook my head and wondered whether he wasn’t after all mad, or whether he was just a magnificent actor. “Not my gun. You know that. Then you’d kill us all, while you escaped. As long as I have this gun you won’t escape. You may smash that vial but 111 get you before the Satan Bug gets me. Not my gun.”
He advanced again, his eyes wide and gleaming, the left hand moving back as if ready to throw. Maybe I was wrong, maybe he was crazy. “Your gun,” he screamed. “Now!”
I shook my head again, he said something in a high, wild voice and his left hand came arching over his shoulder, the back of his hand facing me instead of the front as I would have expected. Darkness flooded the cabin as his bunched fist smashed the single overhead light, a darkness momentarily illuminated by two stabs of orange flames as I squeezed the trigger twice, an illumination and reverberating roar followed by darkness again and sudden silence, and in the sudden silence a gasp of pain from Mary and Scarlatti saying, “My gun is in your wife’s throat, Cavell. She is about to die.”
He hadn’t been crazy after all.
I dropped my gun on the composition floor. It clattered loudly. I said, “You win, Scarlatti.”
“The main cabin switch,” he said. “By the left hand side of the door.”
I groped, found it and pulled it down. The entire cabin flooded with light ‘from a dozen lamps. Scarlatti pulled himself up from the seat beside Mary where he’d flung himself as soon as he’d smashed the light, lifted the gun from her neck and pointed it at me. I lifted my bent arms and looked at his left hand. The vial was still intact, he’d taken a hellish risk, but it had been the only risk left to him. I noticed where the upper sleeve of his left arm was torn, I’d come pretty close to getting him. And pretty close to ending it all for us, too. If I’d have hit him, the vial would have been smashed. But then, I had thought it was going to be smashed anyway.
“Move back,” Scarlatti said quietly. His voice was controlled, conversational, he’d won his Oscar for the night and packed in the acting. “Right to the back of the cabin.”
I moved. He came forward, picked up my gun, stuck the vial in his pocket and gestured with both guns. “The pilot’s cabin. Into it.”
I went forward. As I passed Mary’s seat she looked up at me and smiled through the tangle of blonde hair that had fallen forward over her face. Her green eyes were masked in tears. I smiled back. As actors, not even Scarlatti could show us anything.
The pilot was slumped forward over the controls. That explained the sound I’d heard just after Mary had exclaimed at the sight of me. Before coming to investigate, Scarlatti had made sure that the pilot wouldn’t be giving him any trouble. The pilot was a big man, with black hair, and the part of his face I could see was tanned and sun-lined. At the back of his head a little blood oozed through the dark hair.
“Into the co-pilot’s seat,” Scarlatti ordered. “Wake that man up.”
“How the hell can I?” Under the unwavering eyes of the two pistol barrels I eased myself into the seat. “You coshed the poor devil.”
“Not hard,” he said. “Hurry up.”
I did what I could. I’d no option. I shook the pilot, slapped his face gently and spoke to him, but Scarlatti must have hit him harder than he thought. In the circumstances, I thought grimly, he hadn’t had much time for finesse. Scarlatti was becoming impatient and as nervous as a cat, staring out through the windscreens towards the hangar doors. For all he knew there was a regiment of soldiers or police out there in the darkness, he wasn’t to know that I’d begged and pleaded with the General and Hardanger to be allowed to go alone, secrecy and stealth not only offering the only chance of-saving Mary’s life but also being far less liable to panic Scarlatti into indiscriminate use of the Satan Bug. I’d certainly done a great job.