Pike's Pyramid. Michael Tatlow
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Название: Pike's Pyramid
Автор: Michael Tatlow
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Триллеры
isbn: 9780992590116
isbn:
So Jerry had told him about the book stealing but not Jack’s murder? ‘As Jerry’s instructions are needed for you to come to Prague, I’ll ring him myself. Right now.’
‘Don’t you dare. Information for Jerry has to go through me.’
Pike enjoyed that. Bypassing upline De Groote to get to Bell would be a gross, a grossly gross, breach of Argo protocol. Fine. ‘Regardless, Alex and I are going to fly out, heading for home, in a day or two,’ he announced.
“Look, you cannot—’
‘We’re leaving this mess,’ Pike interrupted. ‘When we get to Melbourne, I’ll ring you and arrange a meeting in Hobart while Alex flies on to meet her parents at the airport at Wynyard. They’ll be in our car, and will take her to Stanley.’
‘Blarney, do not, do not tell anyone—’
‘The phone here’s run out of coins,’ Pike shouted. He hung up.
Alex erupted, angrier than he had ever seen her, at Pike’s candid report of what De Groote had said. She shared Pike’s astonishment that De Groote had not been told of Jack Sussoms’ death; that their mentor probably would not be in Prague for weeks.
‘If he doesn’t come to Prague right away,’ she declared, ‘I’ll chuck in the whole business. And I’m not going to keep quiet about Jack’s murder or lie to our people at home about the whole damned shambles in Prague.’
‘Yeah, me too,’ Pike said. Did she really mean that? Throw away our achievements in Tassie? Kiss goodbye to a life of profitable leverage? Our secure future? Mark up another failure? Back to the freelance writing grind? ‘I’ll be arguing with Richard in Hobart while you fly on to Wynyard.’
‘You’re Richard’s best agent in Tassie,’ Alex added. ‘Raise hell with him.’
After making passionate love, they left their bed at nine in the morning. Pike walked through more snow to a nearby travel agency and booked seats on a British Air flight leaving for Melbourne at three that afternoon. He booked connecting flights to Wynyard for Alex and to Hobart for himself.
He phoned his close friend and colleague Dick Street. He was the Pikes’ immediate Argo upline, based in the city of Burnie, on the coast an hour’s drive east of Stanley. Street was appalled to learn of Sussoms’ murder, the dead man’s evidence of corruption in Argo, the probably related theft of the leather book and the shambles of the Argo launch in the republic.
‘You two are in fucken danger there, Blarns,’ he said, anxiety fuming from the phone. ‘Bloody murderers with guns could beat even you. Come on home, mate. Bloody soon.’
‘We’re flying out today, Dick. I’ll see you soon. Meantime I’d like you to arrange for that pitch presentation at Sean and Mary O’Halloran’s farm in Irishtown to go ahead soon. The ideal time would be… Hang on, I’ll check for a date.’
Pike consulted the year’s calendar that was on the wall. ‘See if they can host it on the evening of Friday, January 27, a couple of weeks after we get home.’
‘I’ll ring ’em now. If I don’t call back in the next hour, Blarns, it’ll go ahead then.’
Pike phoned Harbek’s secretary and told him they would fly out in three hours.
After checking in their luggage, Blarney left Alex standing in the busy airport lounge and went to the toilet. He was washing his hands when the mirror showed him knives in the hands of two men who had followed him in. They silently came close behind him. They were in blue suits, aged about forty. Tough looking and solidly built. They could be British or American, he figured.
One raised his knife, ready to stab the hands washer. Pike quickly ducked and swung around. His wet right fist crashed into the attacker’s belly. As the man’s head jolted down, the bridge of his nose was met by a powerful thrust from the palm of Pike’s left hand. The man collapsed on the floor.
‘You stupid brutes!’ the Tasmanian roared. ‘What’s this about?’
The second man leaped forward. A long-blade swung up from his hip as he yelled, ‘You’re dead, Pike’.
The edge of karate master Pike’s right hand smashed into the attacker’s wrist. Blarney heard a bone crack as the knife clattered to the floor. The same hand edge smashed into the man’s throat. More bones were fractured as Blarney stamped on the knees of the men at his feet.
‘What’s going on?’ he yelled again. Both men, he now saw, were unconscious. He bent down to get their wallets; find out their identities.
Suddenly they looked familiar. They had been standing out there near him and Alex. With them were a third man and a dark-haired woman with a blue scarf over her chin. Those two, he feared, were after Alex.
He ran from the toilet as British Air called from loudspeakers for passengers to board the flight to Melbourne. The woman in the scarf was standing closely behind Alex. Pike saw the glint from perhaps a hypodermic needle in the brunette’s hand. He wordlessly shoved the woman away and took his wife by the arm.
‘Let’s get on board,’ he said calmly. He was pleased Alex had not known she was about to be assaulted, maybe murdered. Nor had she seen him shove off the needle-toting bitch, whose male companion was glaring.
‘I think I’ve dropped my pen,’ Pike said to Alex as he swung around. ‘Keep going, love. I’ll catch up with you.’
Fists clenched, big Blarney strode to the pair. ‘The other two in the toilet are dead,’ he lied. ‘You want to join them in the cemetery?’ The pair looked askance as Blarney enjoyed the lie.
‘Tell me. Tell me now. Who ordered you four to attack us?’ They looked sombrely at one another, then at the floor.
‘If I report the toilet attack to the police,’ he warned, ‘I’ll get you two charged with attempted murder.’ He wanted to smash them.
The two turned away and hurried towards the men’s toilet. Blarney did not want police involvement. If he reported to them there would be no flight home today from this now-perilous city. He and Alex would have to stay in Prague for dangerous weeks to testify in court. He trotted after Alex. They boarded the 747 jet in chilly and fading sunshine.
CHAPTER 4
Alex settled in her window seat beside him. Blarney suddenly and reluctantly decided that he had to add to her angst. He leaned closer to her and said, ‘Darling, I didn’t stay back there to pick up my pen. I’d better let you know that a gang of thugs—hired killers, I reckon—tried to terminate the two of us at the airport.’
Alex stared with her mouth agape as he told her about the dramas in the toilet and behind her in the lounge. As a few tears dropped from her watery eyes, Alex stretched to the right and hugged him. ‘My life,’ she said, ‘you saved it. Thank you. That hypo needle would have poisoned me, all right.’
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