Gentleman Traitor Read online

  GENTLEMAN TRAITOR

  Charles Pol Espionage Thrillers

  Book Three

  Alan Williams

  For Audrey, with Love

  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  ALSO BY ALAN WILLIAMS

  PROLOGUE

  It was a quiet evening at Hillcrest. Mrs Ross-Needham finished spraying the roses and walked up the gravel path through the African dusk, past two boys who were folding up deckchairs on the front lawn. Ground mist was rising from the valley, curling like smoke round the stout tree trunks. In a few minutes it would be dark. On the edge of the swimming pool a third boy sat on his heels and skimmed insects off the surface of the water with a net.

  Mrs Ross-Needham stepped through the porch into the hotel and smiled at one of the guests, a bald chubby man who was starting up the stairs to change for dinner. ‘Good evening, Mr Prentice. It has been a lovely day, hasn’t it?’

  ‘It certainly has, Mrs Ross-Needham.’

  In the lounge half a dozen men sat reading back-numbers of the Illustrated London News or fidgeting with crosswords. They raised their heads to acknowledge Mrs Ross-Needham’s smile, as she passed through to the bar where her husband was unlocking the till and arranging the tape recorder — forty minutes of unbroken melodies from popular post-war musicals.

  ‘Everything all right, Jack?’

  He nodded. ‘Campbell hooked a real whopper up at Leopard Ridge this afternoon. Wouldn’t mind betting it’s a four-pounder. I’ve given it to the cook, and we’re promised some for lunch tomorrow.’

  ‘That’s nice of him. Seen anything of Mr Fielding?’

  ‘Not a thing since lunch. Three double gins and a bottle of Mateus. Probably sleeping it off. Trouble with a chap like that, doesn’t take any exercise. Like a drink, dear?’

  ‘I think I’ll wait.’ She sat on a stool across the bar from him and watched while he poured himself a gin and tonic. ‘I feel rather sorry for him,’ she said. ‘He told Mr Prentice that he’s recently a widower. Though I notice he doesn’t wear a ring.’

  ‘All I can say,’ replied her husband, ‘is that for a drinking man he’s damned unsociable. Don’t think I’ve had more than a dozen words with him since he got here. Must be over a week now.’

  ‘Six days,’ she smiled. ‘He arrived on Tuesday the tenth and took the Hamiltons’ old room, remember?’

  ‘How long’s he plan staying?’

  ‘He wasn’t sure. He said it might be three weeks to a month.’ Mrs Ross-Needham gave a small frown. ‘You’ve nothing against him, have you, Jack?’

  ‘Only that I like to see people enjoying themselves. In Fielding’s case I wouldn’t be surprised if the chap was an alcoholic — and we’ve both seen a few of them around, haven’t we? His bar bill would do justice to old Nick Robson! Still, mustn’t complain — all in a day’s work.’ He grinned over his glass. ‘Sure you wouldn’t like that drink, dear?’

  ‘I think I’ll get changed,’ she said, slipping off the stool and smoothing her dress. ‘Dinner in half an hour. And I must have a word with cook about that dessert — last night’s was quite awful!’ As she turned, two men in crested blazers came in talking loudly. They paused to greet her, then called to her husband: ‘The usual, Jack. And don’t be too generous with the lime!’

  ‘You know me, Tommy,’ Ross-Needham growled, and they all laughed.

  Jack and Ingrid Ross-Needham were a popular couple. They had married at the end of the war in Copenhagen — she was a local girl of nineteen, he a young subaltern with the liberating British Army. Jack Ross-Needham had had a good war, but the drab peace of Socialist Britain was not to his liking; he had emigrated to Rhodesia and sunk his entire capital into Hillcrest, which he and his wife had soon built up into a fashionable holiday retreat.

  At fifty-six Jack Ross-Needham was still a strong healthy man, only slightly overweight, with a head of thick grey hair parted in the middle, and two prongs of moustache that looked from behind like a pair of buffalo horns; while his wife had conserved her trim figure and a neat, parched prettiness, animated by her smile. They were a happy pair, with a young married daughter and a son in the Security Forces, and with no apparent cares beyond the usual economic problems that had nagged everyone in the country for nearly ten years.

  The bar over which Ross-Needham presided would have been the envy of any English country pub or club: cosy without being cramped, with dark-stained panelling, plenty of horse-brasses and hunting prints, and an impressive collection of beermats from all over the world, arranged in a mosaic behind the bar. Ross-Needham’s favourite was one he had taken himself from an SS officers’ mess near Bremen, with the inscription Blut mit Ehre. Like many of his guests, the proprietor of Hillcrest was proud of having helped defeat the Teutonic master race.

  The two men who had come into the bar were both middle-aged and deeply sunburnt. They were regular visitors to the hotel who came up for three weeks every year for the golf and fishing. One of them was John Campbell who had caught the four-pound trout that morning. A former RAF fighter-pilot, and now an insurance broker, he was one of the few guests who brought his family to Hillcrest. He had married late in life, with a strikingly beautiful girl who was now upstairs putting their two equally lovely daughters, aged nine and seven, to bed. Campbell was very proud of them and could never resist the chance to show them off, although he was disappointed that so far his wife had not given him a son.

  Mrs Ross-Needham left them to celebrate Campbell’s catch, and went through to the kitchen to supervise the supper: tomato soup, braised beef with new potatoes and peas, and a choice of custard pie or fresh fruit.

  At exactly 7.30 one of the boys rang the gong at the foot of the stairs. A moment later the guests — men in sports jackets and ties, the women in printed frocks and sensible shoes — gathered in the dining-room where the waiters stood in pressed white uniforms round the walls. One of the last to enter was an elderly man with dilapidated good looks and tired eyes behind horn-rimmed spectacles, who took his place alone at a table in the corner. This was the reticent Mr Fielding, distinguished by the fact that he was the one guest who drank wine with his meals.

  Only John Campbell did not go in with the gong. He finished his second drink with Ross-Needham and his friend, then stood at the foot of the stairs and waited for his wife. She came down a couple of minutes later: a honey-skinned beige-blonde who looked no more than twenty, in a white miniskirt and high-heeled sandals. Campbell watched her long legs moving down towards him and felt a luxurious contentment as he took her round the waist and kissed her mouth. It was the last time he ever did so.

  The sound of the gong, carrying clearly through the dusk, was the signal for the boy by the pool to put down his net and return to the hotel. As he did so, a second sound reached him. It came from the valley, muffled by the trees but still recognizable: the grating of gears on a steep turn in the road below. As he started up the lawn, he expected the car to appear a moment later from behind the trees that grew
up to the hotel forecourt.

  But no car appeared. This was odd, because the nearest habitation was eight miles away — a sprawling house called ‘Nirvana Heights’, belonging to an industrialist who lived alone but for four servants and a couple of wolfhounds. The boy wondered if the car had broken down and whether he should report the fact to Mrs Ross-Needham. But he did not think long. It was none of his business. He quickened his walk round the back of the hotel, through the shifting pools of mist and darkness and the shrilling of grasshoppers.

  The Ross-Needhams always made a point of being the last to enter the dining-room. They did so with an air of calculated informality, smiles all round, a word to this table and that, accompanied by a second synchronized bow from the waiters. Even the isolated Mr Fielding merited a nod.

  This evening Jack Ross-Needham was about to close the bar when he heard the crunch of footsteps on the gravel outside. His face showed mild impatience; it was annoying to have guests arrive just after the gong had sounded, especially if they only wanted a drink. At the same moment his wife appeared, frowning. ‘Jack, the phone’s dead.’

  ‘What, dear? Dead?’

  ‘I can’t get through. I’ve been trying the Carters for the last five minutes — about Saturday night — and I can’t even get a dialling tone.’ As she spoke the door of the porch slammed shut.

  Ross-Needham lifted the hatch in the bar and came through. ‘That’s odd,’ he said, ‘there hasn’t been a storm. And the lights are all working.’ He broke off with a forced grin, as two men entered. ‘Evening, gentlemen! The bar’s officially closed. Dinner, y’know. But if you could make it a quick one…’ He did not finish. At the same moment each man pulled an automatic pistol from inside his hunting-jacket and shot Mr and Mrs Ross-Needham in the stomach. The explosions were simultaneous, and in the enclosed space of the bar they sounded like a small bomb.

  The silence that followed only emphasized what happened next. Mrs Ross-Needham collapsed first. Her husband stepped back, struck the open bar hatch, slid under it and sat down with a thump. Then his wife began to scream. It was an animal sound — not of fear or outrage or even a cry for help, but of pure pain. Her husband lay next to her, and together they rolled about on the floor, hunched, gripping, dragging at their bellies — two respectable middle-aged people who had hardly raised their voices in anger since adolescence — now howling and writhing obscenely, impossible to distinguish the man’s voice from his wife’s.

  It continued for five seconds; then both men stepped forward, took aim, and carefully shot the Ross-Needhams through the head. No word was exchanged. They turned and, still holding their guns, walked out of the bar.

  When the shots were fired, there were sixteen people in the dining-room, including four women, two boys aged twelve and nine, and three waiters who were removing the soup course.

  The first reaction was silence, as every head turned to the door; and when the screaming started most of them sat rigid, gaping. The two children looked puzzled. Then a couple of men nearest the door — John Campbell and his trout-fishing friend — sprang to their feet. As they did so, the door swung open and three men entered. They spread out along the wall and each lifted a skeleton-handled machine pistol. The trout-fishers hesitated a fraction of a second; and in that moment the two final shots rang out from the bar and the screaming stopped. Both men flung themselves forward, diving low in a concerted rugby tackle, as two bursts of bullets hit each of them in the shoulder, swinging them round and slamming them sideways in opposite directions. Then all three weapons opened up from the wall. The gunmen held them low from the hip, their left hands resting along the air-cooled muzzles as though to soothe the jumping motion as the barrels scythed from left to right, firing on semi-automatic, aimed a few inches above each table — nine tables in all, three tables a burst.

  They fired for six seconds, then broke off the spent magazines and snapped in three fresh ones from the side-pockets of their jackets. One of them fired a final, deliberate burst at the corner where Mr Fielding’s head was lolling back against the curtains, his spectacles perched crookedly on the tip of his nose. The bullets hit him in the mouth and throat: his face split open and his head bounced forward on to the table with a clonk like a hollow coconut, upsetting his glass of vin rosé.

  Then everything was quiet. From the hi-fi above the door came murmurings from Funny Girl. There was a short choking sound; something slithered sideways and a chair scraped back; a glass rolled off a table and shattered on the floor.

  One of the two men had appeared from the bar, still carrying his pistol at his side. He nodded at the other three, and began to walk between the tables, noting that the fire had been accurate and economical. Only three windowpanes had been broken, together with a few glasses, a jug of water, and a bottle of HP sauce which had splashed messily over Mr Prentice’s bald head. Most of the victims had been shot in the chest or head; and at least three, including the twelve-year-old boy, had taken a bullet between the eyes.

  The man with the pistol found it necessary to give only two coups de grâce — to John Campbell’s friend who was still stirring by the wall, and to Janice Campbell who suddenly moaned through a spew of vomit under the table where her husband had pushed her down when the shooting started. The man dispatched each of them with a single shot through the base of the skull.

  Meanwhile, more firing had broken out at the back of the hotel, where the cook, the rest of the waiters and the boys had run out on to the lawn, screaming with terror as they were gunned down rhythmically by three more men who were waiting under the trees.

  The original five, from the bar and dining-room, now separated — one taking the kitchen, another two the servants’ quarters, and the first two from the bar making for the stairs. They moved quickly, but without haste, each taking one wall of bedroom doors. Hillcrest was not the sort of hotel where guests kept their rooms locked. All were empty except one. Here the door had been left ajar. One of the gunmen pushed it open with his foot and a child’s voice murmured, ‘Mummy! Daddy, Mummy!’ In the spear of light the man could distinguish two small blond heads staring from above the counterpanes of the twin beds. He paused, then stepped quickly back and closed the door. As he did so, his companion appeared beside him.

  ‘All clear?’

  The first man nodded and started back down the corridor, when there came a muffled cry from behind them: ‘Mummy! Daddy!’

  Both men stopped. The first one glanced back at the door and shrugged. ‘Just a couple o’ kids,’ he said.

  ‘Kids be damned,’ said the other. He walked back and threw open the door.

  ‘Daddy!’ both voices cried together, and the man held the door open with one hand and with the other fired two rapid shots, then drew back and closed the door.

  The shooting outside the hotel had stopped. Both men walked back without speaking, down the stairs and out on to the forecourt, where they re-joined their companions who were moving among the rows of cars parked under the wall of the hotel. Two gunmen were distributing wallets, driving licences, identity cards and car keys from the pockets of the dead guests, while the others were systematically testing to find which key fitted which car. Five minutes later the first car in a convoy of five — an old Ford Cortina with city-plates backed out into the drive, swung round, and with dipped lights, headed slowly down towards the valley. The others followed at intervals of one minute.

  Behind them, Hillcrest Hotel lay lit up and silent.

  The day broke hot and heavy, with storm clouds collecting over Inyanga where the mountains rolled back across the border into Mozambique.

  Down in Umtali, on the broad bed of the valley, the dust was being patted down by the first gobs of rain. At every intersection stood a pair of mixed police — the African with solar topee and truncheon, the European with peaked cap and holstered automatic. Outside Police Headquarters a continuous relay of white Land Rovers had been coming and going since dawn. Smart young officers in khaki shorts and knee-socks hur
ried up and down the porch steps, saluting the African constables with their canes. Later, auxiliary police and special frontier troops began arriving with rifles and light machine-guns; helicopters rattled above the hills; and shortly before noon two armoured cars drove through the town.

  The news of this latest atrocity had broken just before midnight, when two late arrivals at Hillcrest — a tobacco planter and his wife from Gwelo, whose car had broken down in the Bush — had turned up at the hotel to find not a single person, European or African, alive. The husband had driven down to Umtali and reported to the police, while his wife was treated at the hospital for shock.

  In less than an hour a full state of emergency had been declared on both sides of the border. Road-blocks had been set up as far away as the outskirts of Salisbury, Bulawayo, Fort Victoria and along the Mozambique frontier. Tracker-dogs, native scouts and several thousand Security troops had been brought in to cover every track and path over an area extending for more than 500 miles.

  Meanwhile, people crowded into Umtali. All morning they had been coming, in a steady stream of cars, double-parking at meter-bays without paying or caring, while the African traffic-wardens watched nervously from under the arcades, sheltering from the rain.

  The first to arrive were local residents — retired farmers and tourists from the other outlying hotels who had heard the news from the first radio bulletins or from friends on the telephone and had hurried into town for further news, for reassurance, and, above all, for security. Later they began arriving from further afield, across the border and from the cities to the west: businessmen, tobacco planters, sightseers, relatives of the victims and reporters. And for once, in this suspicious suburban backwater, the international Press was not unwelcome. For these were the boys who could splash the full horror of Hillcrest on to the breakfast tables and TV screens of the world, and teach those complacent liberal critics outside what the struggle down here was all about.