The Last Frontier. Alistair MacLean

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      Reynolds was powerless. He couldn’t have resisted even had he been of a mind to, and his utter astonishment that any man could not only survive such a blow but virtually ignore it left no room for any thought of resistance. Sandor leaned against him with all his great weight, crushing him against the car, reached down with both hands, caught Reynolds by the forearms and squeezed. There was no animosity, no expression at all in the giant’s eyes as they stared unblinkingly into Reynolds’ from a distance of three or four inches. He just stood there and squeezed.

      Reynolds clenched teeth and lips together till his jaws ached, forcing back the scream of agony. It seemed as if his forearms had been caught in two giant, inexorably tightening vices. He could feel the blood draining from his face, the cold sweat starting on his forehead, and the bones and sinews of his arms felt as if they were being mangled and crushed beyond recovery. The blood was pounding in his head, the garage walls were becoming dim and swimming before his eyes, when Sandor released his grip and stepped back, gently massaging the left-hand side of his neck.

      ‘Next time I squeeze it will be a little higher up,’ he said mildly. ‘Just where you hit me. Please stop this foolishness. Both of us have been hurt and for nothing.’

      Five minutes passed, five minutes during which the sharp agony in Reynolds’ arms faded to a dull, pounding ache, five minutes in which Sandor’s unblinking eyes never strayed from him. Then the door opened wide, and a young man – he was hardly more than a boy – stood there, looking at Reynolds. He was thin and sallow, with an unruly mop of black hair and quick, nervous darting eyes, almost as dark as his hair. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

      ‘The Chief wants to see him, Sandor. Bring him along, will you?’

      Sandor escorted Reynolds along the narrow corridor, down a shallow flight of stairs at the end into another corridor, then pushed him through the first of several doors that lined both sides of the second passageway. Reynolds stumbled, recovered, then looked around him.

      It was a large room, wood panelled, the worn linoleum on the floor relieved only by a stretch of threadbare carpet in front of the desk at the far end of the room. The room was brightly lit, with a lamp of moderate power in the ceiling and a powerful wall-light on a flexible extension arm behind the desk: at the moment the latter was pointing downward on to the surface of the desk, harshly highlighting his gun, the jumble of clothes and the other articles that had recently been so neatly folded in Reynolds’ bag: beside the clothes were the torn remnants of the bag itself: the lining was in tatters, the zip had been torn off, the leather handle had been slit open and even the four studs of the base of the bag had been torn out by the pair of pliers lying beside them. Reynolds silently acknowledged the handiwork of an expert.

      Colonel Szendrô was standing beside the table, leaning over towards the man seated behind it. The face of the latter was hidden in deep shadow, but both hands, holding some of Reynolds’ papers, were exposed to the pitiless glare of the lamp. They were terrible hands, Reynolds had never seen anything remotely like them, had never imagined that any human being’s hands could be so scarred, crushed and savagely mutilated and still serve as hands. Both thumbs were crushed and flattened and twisted, fingertips and nails were blurred into a shapeless mass, the little finger and half of the fourth finger of the left hand were missing, and the backs of both hands were covered with ugly scars surrounding bluish-purple weals in the middle, between the tendons of the middle and fourth fingers. Reynolds stared at these weals, fascinated, and shivered involuntarily, he had seen these marks once before, on a dead man: the marks of crucifixion. Had these been his hands, Reynolds thought in revulsion, he would have had them amputated. He wondered what manner of man could bear to live with these hands, not only live with them but have them uncovered. He was suddenly possessed of an almost obsessive desire to see the face of the man behind these hands, but Sandor had halted several paces from the desk and the blackness of the shadow by the lamp defeated him.

      The hands moved, gesturing with Reynolds’ papers, and the man at the desk spoke. The voice was quiet, controlled, almost friendly. ‘These papers are interesting enough in their own way – masterpiece of the forger’s art. You will be good enough to tell us your real name.’ He broke off and looked at Sandor who was still tenderly massaging his neck. ‘What is wrong, Sandor?’

      ‘He hit me,’ Sandor explained apologetically. ‘He knows how to hit and where to hit – and he hits hard.’

      ‘A dangerous man,’ Szendrô said. ‘I warned you, you know.’

      ‘Yes, but he’s a cunning devil,’ Sandor complained. ‘He pretended to faint.’

      ‘A major achievement to hurt you, an act of desperation to hit you at all,’ the man behind the desk said dryly. ‘But you mustn’t complain, Sandor. He who expects that death comes with the next breath but one is not given to counting the cost … Well, Mr Buhl, your name, please.’

      ‘I’ve already told Colonel Szendrô,’ Reynolds replied. ‘Rakosi, Lajos Rakosi. I could invent a dozen names, all different, in the hope of saving myself unnecessary suffering, but I couldn’t prove my right to any of them. I can prove my right to my own name, Rakosi.’

      ‘You are a brave man, Mr Buhl.’ The seated man shook his head. ‘But in this house you will find courage a useless prop: lean on it and it will only crumble to dust under your weight. The truth alone will serve. Your name, please?’

      Reynolds paused before replying. He was fascinated and puzzled and hardly afraid any more. The hands fascinated him, he could scarcely take his eyes off them, and he could see now some tattooing on the inside of the man’s wrist – at that distance it looked like a figure 2, but he couldn’t be certain. He was puzzled because there were too many off-beat angles to all that was happening to him, too much that didn’t fit in with his conception of the AVO and all that he had been told about them: there was a curious restraint, almost a cold courtesy in their attitude to him, but he was aware that the cat could just be playing with the mouse, perhaps they were just subtly sapping his determination to resist, conditioning him to be least prepared for the impact of the blow when it came. And why his fear was lessening he would have found it impossible to say, it must have arisen from some subtle promptings of his subconscious mind for he was at a conscious loss to account for it.

      ‘We are waiting, Mr Buhl.’ Reynolds couldn’t detect the slightest trace of an edge through the studied patience of the voice.

      ‘I can only tell you the truth. I’ve already done that.’

      ‘Very well. Take your clothes off – all of them.’

      ‘No!’ Reynolds glanced swiftly round, but Sandor stood between him and the door. He looked back, and Colonel Szendrô had his pistol out. ‘I’ll be damned if I do it!’

      ‘Don’t be silly.’ Szendrô’s voice was weary. ‘I have a gun in my hand and Sandor will do it by force, if necessary. Sandor has a spectacular if untidy method of undressing people – he rips coats and shirts in half down the back. You’ll find it far easier to do the job yourself.’

      Reynolds did it himself. The handcuffs were unlocked and inside a minute all his clothes were crumpled heaps about his feet, and he was standing there shivering, his forearms angry masses of red and blue weals where Sandor’s vice-like fingers had dug into his flesh.

      ‘Bring the clothes over here, Sandor,’ the man at the desk ordered. He looked at Reynolds. ‘There’s a blanket on the bench behind you.’

      Reynolds looked at him in sudden wonder. That it was his clothes they wanted – looking for giveaway tags, probably – instead of himself was surprising enough, СКАЧАТЬ