CHAPTER TWENTY
On the narrow Athens side street ne Pegasus Club
was closed and dark at the late night hour. I left the
Maserati around the corner out of sight, walked
back to the club and slipped up the narrow alley at
the side. I used my picklock on the side basement
door.
Inside, I stood for a time in the dark corridor near
the rest rooms and looked ahead through the
gloom at where the stairs curved upward from both
sides. I heard nothing and studied the small key. It
was for a locker, I was pretty sure, but where would
they be in the club? Without a pool or gym, it was
probably a locker for valuables. I went up the stairs
to the lobby.
The doors behind the entry desk were all locked.
One was the manager's office. I skipped that and
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picked the lock on the other two. ne second door
opened into a small room lined with lockers! I found
number 27 near the door.
Inside the small space there was another Blood
Eagle signet ring and an envelope. I took them out
and opened the envelope. It was a single-page memo
addressed to Dinna and Mike Rush, and written in
English:
EDear Comrades!
You have now completed your assignment fn
Albania, congratulations. We how that only
faith in the future of this world could bring you
to perform such tragic duty, but it is for the fu-
ture of all, and it is our duty.
Your next task is of even greater importance;
the subjects will be our own countrymen. No
nation is proof against evil. You will proceed at
once to London on whatever pretext you deem
best and there contact Comrade Sybil Reading,
101 Gunterstone Road.
She will supply your weapons, and give you
full instrucdons. Good luck."
It was signed with the Blood Eagle signet. I
shoved the letter into my pocket and went to the
door.
"III take that, Nick*
She in the doorway, tall and blonde and
slim in a dark dress, with a gun aimed at me. Irina!
"So you made it out okay," I said.
eyes," she said. 'The letter, Nick"
"Back to normal, Irina? Enemies again?
watched the gun in her hand and calculated the
distance.
"Well never go back to normal, Nick Not you
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and I," Sbe said softly. EBut we have our jobs and
don't fry to attack me. I don't want to shoot you, but
I will. The letter."
The silence of the empty club seemed to surround
us, isolate us. I could feel her down to my toes and
saw that her hand trembled a bair on the gun.
Maybe she'd shoot and maybe she wouldn't. Either
way she'd have to hate herself. I handed her the let-
ter.
"Turn around," she said. Tm sorry, Nick. I bave
to be sure you don't follow me."
"Irina, read the letter," I said. "11.1 turn, but read
the letter."
I turned my back to her in the small, dark room.
There was a long, hanging pause as I sensed her
eyes on my back as if suspecting a trick. Then a
light went on behind me. I waited. I spoke to her
without turning.
There's going to be an assassination," I said. -In
London. It hasn't happened yet, or we would have
heard. But it's going to happen soon. And not one
assassination, but more. Two, or maybe three, ot
maybe more! Our countrymen."
Her voice was flat. "The Rushes were your coun•
trymen."
'Yes, but who are the writer's countrymenfi
wrhoever that memo said sour own country
men!' His as well as theirs. Who wrote that memol
From what country? Are there any high Soviet off
cials in London, or going to be?"
"I am not certain—perhaps," she said.
'Tou'd want to be sure. We both have to protec
our leaders, •right? Our jobs. Both of us should get tl
London at once."
She was silent behind me. I turned and faced he
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across the small, dark room. I saw her teeth catching
faint light. Was she smiling?
"Come with me," I said. 'To London together."
I saw her eyes glint. "It would be my duty to pre-
vent an mssassination of one of our leaders if I sus-
pected such a thing. Vortov would understand that."
"He'd understand you had to move fast. No time
to get in touch with him until later," I said, and
grinned at her.
"If I didn't go, when you suspect danger to one of
our omcials, it might look suspicious. Even that we
are behind Blood Eagle."
"Vortov would understand that too," I agreed.
enere's a night BOAC flight in an hour."
hour?" she said in mock dejection. "So soon?"
"But probably a lot of spare time in London," I
smiled. "Come on."
An hour later we sat on the giant jet and looked
down at the lights of Athens fading away below. She
sat close beside me, the drinks would come soon,
and for a few hours we could forget our jobs, our
work, our differences, and our suspicions. We could
forget Blood Eagle, remember only that long night
in the dirt cellar. Except that we couldn't.
"Nick," Irina whispered, nodding toward the front.
I saw him—Stig Sudermanl The Swedish arms
salesman and international gunrunner sat alone in a
front seat. But be wasn't the only familiar face on
the plane.
Across the aisle, and two seats back, Jonathan
Cuming sat nervously drumming his manicured
hands on the chair arm. It looked like the man from
the Athens Embassy was staring at the back of Stig
Suderman's head, watching the devious Swede.
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"You know him, that man in the gray suit?" Irina
asked.
"From our Embassy," I said. How much should I
tell her? I decided on the buth; it might get a re-
vealing response. "The number three man. He's been
doing a lot of nosing around on his mvn, showing up
all along the trail of Mike and Diana Rush. I'm not
sure how offcial all his snooping is."
OA private cell of some kind in your State Depart-
ment?"
"I've thought about it," I admitted. "How about
you? Any evidence of some anti-government dis-
sidents high up?"
"Not that I know," she said, then added, "but I've
thought about it, too. Our assassin was an NKVD
man.
I checked around the rest of the first class section.
%ere were two more unexpected fellow passengers.
They sat together far in the rear—Jeb Hood, the big
Texan oil man, and Alfredo Stroesser! Hood was
talking long and low to Stroesser, but the German-
Argentinian didn't seem to be listening too hard. I
had a strong impression that Stroesser was watching
me instead.
Somewhere over Italy, Irina went to sleep on my
shoulder. I stayed awake. We stopped in Rome and
Paris. None of them got off and we landed in Lon-
don just after dawn.
If any of them were interested in Irina or me,
they didn't show it. Suderman was the second man
through customs and took a taxi out of the airport.
Jonathan Cuming, using his diplomatic status, was
right behind Suderman in another taxi. Jeb Hood
and Stroesser were met by a big gray Rolls-Royce
that whisked them away through the pale dawn.
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Irina and I rented a car and headed into London
and Gunterstone Road.
Sybil Reading's address turned out to be in Baron's
Court, on a street of three-story row houses. Number
101 was now a rooming house with two bed-sitters
on each floor. Sybil Reading had the front room on
the top floor.
Inside, the house was stirring behind all its doors
as the sun came up over London. There was
nowhere to hide and watch the Reading woman's
door without being seen, and any direct approach
might alarm her—if she was what I thought she was.
EKeep watching," Irina said and got out of the
I lit a cigarette and tried to look casual, as if I
were waiting for someone. Irina was back in two
minutes. She carried a mailed circular. She had
crossed out the address and had written Sybil Read-
ing, 101 Gunterstone Rd.
gJu.nk mail," she said. "Shell just be annoyed."
We sat in the rented car where we could see in-
side the entry hall of the house. Two men came
down first, glanced at the mail table in the hall, and
came out. A tall, mannish woman was next. She
didn't pick up the circular and walked briskly away
toward North End Road. After another man, and a
couple, a small, dark, large-eyed girl no more than
twenty-five came down and stopped at the mail
table. She picked up the circular.
Sybil Reading wore a neat, dark pants suit, had
no hips, and a soft, intelligent face. She looked like
some shy young trainee in a junior executive pro-
gram. She came out looking at the circular with a
puzzled expression, then shook her head and tossed
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it into the first litter basket. She walked up toward
Hammersmith Road.
I eased along after her. Sbe waited at a bus stop
and boarded a bus for the city. We tailed the bus
through Kensington and Chelsea, where the Read-
ing girl changed to a bus for Whitehall. I looked at
Irina.
"Whitehall," I said. "The government offces.-
"She's not carrying anything. Not even a purse."
"You can carry a bomb in your pocket now," I
said. "Not to mention a pistol or a gas aerosol."
We watched her leave the bus in Whitehall and
go along a narrow side street into a narrow gray
stone building. I knew that building. I found a park-
ing place and we followed.
The lobby listed a long series of minor
domestic bureaus such as The Riparian Rights
Board, the Wildlife Conservation Board, and The
Bureau Of Inland Fisheries. Irina shook her head as
we followed Sybil Reading up the old iron-railed
stairs.
EHardly anything vital in here, Nick," she said.
EYou wouldn't think so, would you?" I said
grimly. I had more than a small hunch where Sybil
Reading was going. I hoped I was wrong. I wasn't.
She entered an Offce marked Antiquities Board,
Bureau Of Norman Place Names. We went in after
her. It was a tiny offce with a small counter, a gate
into the open area of desks, and unmarked in
the far wall. Sybil Reading went through the gate
and on through one of the inner doors. I stopped at
the counter. A buxom elderly lady bustled up.
Td like to locate the original area of a family
named De La Lynd," I asked, beaming at the
woman.
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The woman bustled away and I
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The woman bustled away and I spoke quietly to
Irina.
"The door Reading went through. On that desk in
front of it. That mall black box. What do you make
of it?"
Irina studied the distant box. "A scanner, nuclear.
ne kind that reads an identifying mark and alerts
for metal."
1 said.
The elderly lady returned. Oorset, young man.
The name was well known in the twelfth century in
the Vale of Blackrnoor."
"Just as I thought!" I enthused. "Hurry, dear."
Outside in the empty corridor, Irina stopped me.
"What is that offce, Nick? Not what it seems."
"No," I said. "I've been here before. It's a cover
for MI-5, one of their offces. And you don't walk
into MI-5 unless you belong there."
I glanced around, then looked back at Irina. "Sy-
bil Reading works for Mi-5th











CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Tou think MI-5 is behind Blood Eagle?" Irina said.
"Or maybe Blood Eagle is part of MI-5," I said.
"Intelligence agencies have been infiltrated by fa-
natics before."
Ült would explain all the information about the
victims Blood Eagle seemed to have."
"It would,- I agreed. Tm supposed to contact
MI-5 and I think nov/s the time. You watch from
the car. If she leaves before I'm back, tail her and
leave a trail for me."
She nodded. We both went down and out of the
building. I left her in the rented car. I didn't know if
I could trust her, but that was okay, because I
wasn't going to trust her. The public booth I'd seen
was just up the street. I couldn't see the building
from it, but I could see the car.
I dialed the secret number of our London tie-line
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center. It's illegal as hell, but AXE bas tie-lines all
over the world and even I didn't iust pick up a
phone and ask for General Wyndham. I waited
through a long series of clicks, gurgles and silences.
I'd given my top-secret code identification, but it
was having to go through two computers this time.
"Hold on, N3. Contact being made to the special
party."
I'd cleared through the AXE computer, now I had
to get the okay from the MI-5 computer.
• How are you, Carter?" It was General Wynd-
ham's voice.
"In London," I said. "It's going to happen here, all
of it."
A silence. "I see. You have information for me?"
"No," I said. If Sybil Reading was MI-5*, and she
was. T had nothing to tell him. Not yet.
•every well. We ran all the victims through our
computer. No clear pattern, sorry to say. All I can
say firmly is that all were militant nationalists, every
one. Many opposed at least some aspect of their gov-
ernments' present policies, but not all did. We're still
trying every parameter we can dream up to get a
one-hundred-percent readout, but so far no single
aspect of all of them coincides all the way."
"Except that Blood Eagle killed them," I said.
"General, do you have any internal problems? A dis-
sident faction?"
Another silence. have no comment, N3. Our
NATO meeting of security chiefs is tomorrow, per-
haps I II have more for Hawk."
The line went dead. I looked at the receiver for a
time. Nothing definite from his computer. Could I
trust him? Would he tell me if the computer had re-
vealed anything? Or had he even used the com-
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puter? Did it have anything to tell him that he
didn't already know?
Irina was still in the car.
"She hasn't come out," she said.
I sat beside her. We waited. The morning wore on
and people were streaming along Whitehall and in
and out of all the buildings. I was more than just
aware of Irina beside me. Damn, if only we could
find a room, any room. I wanted her so badly my
legs began to ache. Her hand found me where I
wanted her. She was thinking the same thing.
Maybe....
"Nick!"
Sybil Reading came out. Sbe walked back to the
bus stop and boarded a bus marked for Victoria Sta-
tion. It was harder to keep up through the noontime
tramc, but the traffc slowed the bus, too, and when
she got off at Victoria, we were close enough to spot
her.
I managed to park again, and inside the greal
vault of the station we picked her up. She went to 8
row of large lockers. s,Vhen she came away she wæ
carrying a brown paper package about the size of t
clarinet case and a small canvas bag. The
package had a carrying handle protruding from tbc
top. I didn't think she had a clarinet in the package.
Outside the station she hailed a taxi. We ran fol
our car. If she got a taxi quickly, we were in trouble
She didn't. When she finally flagged one, I was wait.
ing.
"ITe taxi drove straight back to but
didn't stop. Instead, it led us a long, twisting chasc
west through the city and out toward the wester
suburbs. It drove slowly, hesitating at corners beforc
deciding on which street to take. I'd never seen
London taxi driver go like that.
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Irina had a guess. She's tracing a route, Nick."
A route to where? Or from where? Before I could
think more about it, the taxi stopped in front of a
rambling pub. Sybil Reading got out with her bag-
gage and the taxi drove away. We watched the
woman. She looked around carefully, then began to
walk on west. Soon she came to a wider road and
turned into a large, square, five-story brick building
grimy with soot and age. Set directly on the wider
street, it looked like an old warehouse. It was old
and abandoned, its lower windows bricked in, and
the upper ones boarded over.
I saw the movement high up at a fourth floor win-
dow. One of the boards had been moved to make a
small opening.' A few minutes later, Sybil Reading
came Out again. She wasn't carrying anything now.
"A special route, a window, a case that had to
have a take-down rifle in it," I said. only ques-
tion is who's coming along this route and under that
window? Who—and when
"Someone protected by MI-5?" Irina said.
Td bet on it," I said.
Sybil Reading waited at a bus stop and caught a
bus marked for the West End. We followed again,
and I began to feel a little uneasy. For an assassin,
Sybil Reading wasn't being very alert. Vd been very
careful and I was pretty sure she couldn't have
spotted me if she'd looked back the whole way, but
she hadn't looked back at all.
At Trafalgar Square she changed to a bus for
and went back to her office. It was mid-af-
ternoon now and I was tired, hungry, and wished to
hell I had Irina alone. Could we chance it? We
hew now where the high window and the rifle
were. Unless it was somo kind of ruse, and then....
Irina decided for me.
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"Your turn to keep watch," she said. "If she corrB
out, don't lose her and leave a trail for me."
I nodded, settled down to keep watch, and no-
ticed Irina go up the side street into the same tele-
phone booth I'd used! She wasn't frusting me very
far, either. I smiled. No matter what else, we'd been
trained too damned well to forget what we were.
Irina was gone longer than I'd been and it was
getting late and close to closing time for government
offces. Not that MI-5 worked regular hours. It was
nearly five when Irina came back, sat dot*tn beside
me in the car and looked at me.
"Our Defense Minister, General Kulakov, arrives
in London tomorrow morning. A secret meeting with
the British high command, off-the-record, to discuss
one of our destroyers that went aground a month
ago off Scapa Flow. No one outside the NKVD and
MI-5 knows about this.
Tortov's in London. says the General will be
in civilian clothes and arrive on a commercial flight
with only two bodyguards. No motorcade. MI-5 will
meet him and bring him in taking a back route.
That warehouse is in the direct line to Heathrow."
I nodded. «lt sounds like one target, which means
that the Blood Eagle who wrote that memo was a
Russian!"
"Not necessarily," Irina said, looHng away out the
car window. •nere could be more than two targets:
one American and a countryman of the Rushes, one
Russian, and one other nationality and a country-
man of the memo writer's."
"Did Vortov say that?"
I was silent. "If there is a Russian with Blood
Eagle, he's probably a big Russian, someone in a
high position."
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eyes," she said again, still not looking at me. Tor-
tov didn't know I .tas in London. He was angry at
first.-
nen we had no more time to think about Vortov
or anyone else. Not for now. Sybil Reading appeared
again. This time she wasn't alone. I saw the big, sun-
burned man in the broad white Stetson—Jeb Hood!
MI-5 didn't have much to do with Peace Insti-
tutes, or with Diana Rush! For an oilman, Jeb Hood
got around, and in some odd company. He was a
tycoon, and one of the first victims of Blood Eagle
we'd found out about had been an American tycoon.
I drove slowly along the narrow street after them.
They walked the opposite way this time and when
we came out into a wider road they stopped and
stood talking for some time. We waited. At last Jeb
Hood nodded, then turned to walk away toward
Westminster. Sybil Reading waved for a taxi-. I
made up my mind fast and jumped out of the car.
Tou take the car and tail her," I said to Irina.
take the man. If I can, I'll contact you at the So-
Viet Embassy. If you don't hear from me, you know
what to do about the Reading woman before morn-
ing.¯
She nodded and I started Off after Jeb Hood. Irina
could handle an assassin as well as anyone. Sbe
knew where the rifle and window were. I wanted to
find the people behind it all and maybe stop any as-
sassinations.
Hood strode out along Victoria Street, passed the
station, and went on through the back streets of
Pimlico to Sloane Square. He went out of the square
along Kings Road and then turned into a small ho-
tel on a side street. I saw him talk to the desk man
inside. The deskman took a set of keys from him,
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then waved to a bellboy as Hood went up in the
rickety old elevator.
I found a telephone booth, dialed the nearest
AXE contact point, gave my emergency priority
code, and ordered a car. AXE moves mountains. The
car arrived in five minutes—an elegant and powerful
Bentley. I was in it and waiting when Jeb Hood
came out and got into the small Triumph the bell-
boy had parked.
Hood wasn't wearing his Stetson now—not even his
cowboy boots. In a dark business suit, and a normal
tie, he looked like a different man—and maybe a dan-
gerous one. He drove off through the evening streets
and ten minutes later we were on the main trunk
road northeast toward East Anglia and the sea.
For a long time I stayed as far back as possible,
letting other cars cut in between us from time to
time, then passing again and pulling up close
enough to be sure of Hood and the Triumph.
where between Colchester and Ipswich I passed
*him, remained ahead through Ipswich, and then let
him pass me again.
Every mile took me farther from London and Sy-
bil Readin