The Saint in Trouble (8 page)

The traffic ahead stopped or swung to the side as soon as the drivers caught sight of the flashing lights or heard the blaring sirens, and the Saint zigzagged through them.

He threw the car around another corner of the maze, heading roughly towards the sea. His siren claiming priority over any law of the road, he threatened coronaries to oncoming drivers and forced those on his own side into the kerb.

A lorry attempted to dispute his right of way at a crossing and he skimmed the Citroen under its nose with inches to spare. The driver swung frantically away from the maniac who seemed to be doomed to extinction under his wheels and crashed into another van parked on the corner. As he made the next turn, Simon saw that the log jam he had left behind would effectively halt the police posse for several minutes, except perhaps for the motorcycle cop.

Now to make his passage less conspicuous, he switched off the siren as he came to the food market. A man pushed a barrow out from between two parked trucks and there was neither time nor room to avoid him.

The car ploughed into the side of the cart, tossing it into the air. Simon saw the bonnet buckle on impact and heard the crash of glass and rending metal. He swerved the car steeply to one side, just grazing a lamppost, and for twenty yards actually drove along the sidewalk before regaining the road. The front wheels should have been ripped from the axle, the twisted metal should have pushed the radiator and fan back into the engine block, the steering should have been shot to hell, but somehow the car kept on going.

The Saint looked in the mirror again and thought he saw the motorcycle far behind, momentarily blocked by the new obstacle, but unlike a car, it would not be detained for long.

As he came to a wider road nearer the Boulevard Jean Hibert, his eyes were searching for a possible hiding place. The entrance to the underground garage of a new apartment building caught them, and he wrenched the wheel to catapult the car into the opening. The move was so fast that he could dare to hope that he had finally eluded his pursuers, as he threw the car down the ramp into the dimly lit basement below.

He berthed the battered car in the handiest vacant space, and carefully started back towards the entrance on foot, edging his way between the rows of parked vehicles.

He had almost reached the ramp when the roar of a motorbike told him that his optimism had been premature and sent him ducking behind the nearest car.

he rider zoomed around the crypt and braked as soon as he saw the prowl car. He jerked the heavy bike onto its stand, and undipped the holster at his side. Holding the pistol in front of him, he cautiously approached the car, his eyes sweeping from side to side as he walked. But the Saint was already behind him.

Simon closed in with two long strides that took him to within six inches of the man’s back. He leaned forward and spoke softly in his ear.

“A vez-vous la plume de ma tante?”

The cop started to turn, but the Saint’s fingers closed around his neck, digging into the somniferic pressure points on each side. The other’s elbow rammed at Simon’s stomach, but the Saint held his grip and the struggle was over in seconds. Simon dragged him behind the prowl car and removed his uniform jacket with the dexterity of a professional quick-change artist. He bundled the unconscious man into the back of the car and pulled on the coat. Fortunately the motard was built on the lines of a healthy barrel, and what the jacket lacked in length, for the Saint’s long, lean frame, it could make up from excess circumference. The eventual compromise was not too grotesque.

He did not bother with the boots and uniform breeches, which would almost certainly have been less adaptable anyhow. He had to trust that the light blue slacks he was already wearing would blend in well enough to get past any but the most hypercritical eye. The standard crash helmet and its visor covered enough of his face, and with that in place he mounted the motorcycle and rode up the ramp out of the garage.

He headed directly for the Croisette and back towards the Hotel Bellevue, confident that that was the last place where the frantic search parties would be looking for him. The situation offered endless opportunities for sport, and lie had to fight back the temptation to indulge them, contenting himself with snapping a smart salute to a senior officer addressing a squad of men opposite the Palais des Festivals as he rode past.

At the hotel, an assistant manager hurried over as he approached the concierge’s desk.

“What are you doing here? The inspector said he would give strict instructions to his men to use the staff entrance.”

Simon raised the visor of his crash helmet slightly, which allowed his hand to partly cover his face.

I was sent to collect some things from Templar’s room. I need the key.”

“The inspector took it.”

“Well, he never gave it to me. You’d better let me have a master key.”

The man dithered, seemed about to quote the rules, and then noticed the looks his guests were giving the Saint. He gave a sign to the concierge, who produced a key with a massive brass tag and put it on the counter.

“And remember to leave by the staff entrance. We do not want the police in the public rooms.”

The Saint shrugged.

“If you don’t want us here, you shouldn’t have people like Templar here either.”

He turned away towards the elevators, aware that the eyes of everyone in the lobby followed him and breathed a long sigh of relief when the doors closed behind him.

There was no guard on the door to his room, and no one in the corridor to see him enter it. He peeled off the uniform jacket while he turned on the shower in the bathroom. All things considered it had not been the most satisfactory twenty-four hours of his life, he reflected as he impudently indulged in the luxury of the water.

His mind roamed back over the events of the previous night: the startled look on Samantha’s face when Emma had announced her father’s disappearance, the slickness of the decoy operation and the fact that the police were waiting for him when he returned empty-handed, the look in Curdon’s eyes during their talk at the police station. The wild theory that had nagged him the night before no longer seemed insane; but there was still one angle that had to be tried, and the Saint realised just how little time he had in which to test it.

The shower washed away the aches of his body as well as the staleness of the police station cell, and the crispness of a complete change to fresh clothes seemed to pump fresh vitality into his body.

The room showed signs of having been subjected to a thorough search, but only his passport and personal papers had been removed. The Saint slid his hand along the back of the drawer in the bedside table and carefully freed the knife that he had left taped there.

He smiled as he strapped the supple leather sheath to his left forearm. Simon Templar disliked guns in principle, considering them crude and noisy. It is relatively easy to kill a man when you cannot see his eyes, almost as simple as sitting behind a desk and ordering the murder of thousands. It is more difficult to throw a knife with the speed and sureness of a bullet, or to use it when so close that you can hear the beat of the other man’s heart. The Saint could perform tricks with that slender blade that would make a circus knife thrower blanch. They had been together for a long time, and in times of peril the Saint felt naked without the reassuring pressure of the leather nestling against his skin.

He took the assistant manager’s advice and went down to the ground floor in the service elevator, slipping out of the hotel through a side door and cautiously making his way around to the car park.

Gaby’s taxi stood at the end of the rank, and Simon opened the rear door to slip in, crouching low between the seats.

Gaby glanced up from his paper but did not look around, simply adjusting the mirror until the Saint came into focus.

He held the paper so that Simon could see it.

“I thought you were a guest of our celebrated Inspector Lebeau.”

The Saint smiled and shook his head.

“I didn’t like the accommodation, so I decided to leave.”

Gaby laughed and switched on the engine.

“Whereto?”

“The Port Canto. Quick as you can.”

Already Gaby was heading his Buick towards the Boulevard.

“You are always in a hurry, n’est-ce pas?”

“Life is short, and I always have so much to do,” Simon apologised.

He risked a quick look out of the side windows. There seemed to be police on every corner and he hurriedly sank down again out of sight, pulling a travelling rug over himself.

The taxi driver intrigued him. The man always seemed to be available, it was almost as if he lived in his cab.

“Tell me-don’t you ever go home?”

“I have to make my living.”

“I hope it will not be endangered because of me.”

Gaby laughed again.

“For certain clients,” he said, “it is a pleasure to bend the rules.”

Gaby drove through the private parking entrance with a familiar wave to the guard, and followed the Saint’s directions to the place where Samantha’s cabin cruiser had been.

Simon studied the scene with dismay. The quay where Protege had been berthed before was empty. If it was Protege that the launch carrying Maclett had rendezvoused with between the islands, as the Saint had now concluded, the fast cruiser had not returned to port. Was it still out there? Or, much more likely, where was it speeding now?

The Saint swore, and Gaby turned his head.

“You want another boat?”

Simon grinned ruefully.

“Not unless it has wings.”

Gaby thought for a moment.

“I don’t know of any boats with wings, but I have a friend who has them. You would like to meet him?”

Mystified, the Saint could only say: “I’d be delighted.”

Gaby explained as he turned the car and drove back along the Croisette.

“My friend is a helicopter pilot for the sea rescue service.”

“Will he help us?” The Saint did not try to keep the excitement out of his voice.

“I do not know, but he owes me a favour, several of them.”

Gaby followed the coast road from the old port towards La Napoule but turned off at La Bocca, taking the inland route towards Mandelieu, where the Saint remembered that there was a small airfield.

The Buick finally stopped at the edge of a concrete landing pad. Two bright red helicopters stood beside a couple of ramshackle huts. A man in flying gear approached, and threw his arms around the taxi driver as if he were greeting a long-lost brother.

Simon stayed in the car while Gaby explained their problem. After a conversation that appeared to consist more of arm-waving gestures than words, Gaby called him over.

“He will help you, but only if you promise to say that you forced him at the point of a gun to take you, if anything goes wrong.”

The Saint promised, and was led to the nearest helicopter. Gaby climbed in after him, saying: “I have come so far, and I have always wanted to ride in one of these.”

The blades whirred into life and they lifted clear of the pad. The Saint navigated, searching the sea below.

On the face of it, it might have seemed like a real wild-goose chase, but he was gambling on a hunch that after all those elaborate preparations the Protegi would not just be moving along to the next nearest marina. Much more likely was yet another rendezvous southward, beyond sight of land, and out there in the open sea there were not so many cabin cruisers travelling that it would be hard to spot one from the air.

After what seemed an eternity he recognized a white hull racing southeast, towards Corsica, and under his direction the pilot banked his craft on a course that would bring them over her stern.

Despite the cruiser’s power, there was no chance of her outrunning the copter, and the pilot easily countered her turns to stay a steady fifty feet above her.

Samantha was at the wheel, with Demmell beside her. Simon told the pilot to go lower, and quickly broke out the rescue harness.

“I’m going down,” he said. “Tell Gaby how to work this gear.”

They were still fifteen feet above the pitching cruiser when the Saint slid out of the cabin and began to be winched down. As he did so, Demmell ran down into the cabin under the bridge. As Simon prepared for the final descent, Demmell re-emerged with an automatic in his hand. He braced himself against a stanchion and took two-handed aim.

Without sparing the time to calculate the odds, the Saint let everything go and plummeted down towards him.

10

Demmell’s finger jerked at the trigger. The bullet passed so close that Simon felt the wind of its passage fan his cheek. Frantically Demmell leapt aside, but the Saint twisted his body as he fell and cannoned into him. They crashed to the deck together.

Simon’s breath was momentarily forced from his lungs as he landed on top of Demmell. Every bone jarred with the impact, pain shooting like lightning along his legs and back. Demmell lay still beneath him, spread-eagled against the planking, his eyes staring sightlessly at the sky. A thin trickle of blood was slowly creeping from the crown of his head, and only the slight heaving of his chest showed that he was still alive.

The Saint staggered to his feet. His legs felt like putty, and he held onto the side rail while he regained bis wind and the mastery of his limbs.

Samantha still stood at the wheel, desperately trying to shake off the helicopter, but the pilot matched her move for move. Simon looked up into two eyes as cold and hard as his own.

“Stop the engines.”

The girl ignored him, spinning the wheel and heeling the boat hard to starboard. The Saint felt the deck tilt and grabbed at the rail again to stop himself falling. He groped his way towards the sheer ladder that led from the deck where he was to the flying bridge and pulled himself up it.

Samantha looked around as he arrived beside her.

“You pig!”

He had hardly expected an effusive welcome, but the depth of hatred in her voice surprised him.

Nevertheless, he smiled tolerantly.

“I hope you’ll excuse me dropping in like this.”