The League of Dark Men

John Creasey

1

The Hall of Babel

The police-sergeant beat his arms about his chest until he drew level with the big, ungainly man whose bare head was being brushed by a pennant fluttering in the icy wind. The sergeant looked at the big man’s face, which was as bleak as the weather itself on that January morning. He began to walk on.

To his surprise and gratification, the ungainly man glanced at him and smiled. Bleakness faded.

‘A bit chilly, sergeant, isn’t it?’

‘Perishing, sir! I wouldn’t be surprised if it snows.’

‘Nor would I.’ The big man glanced up at the leaden sky. There was no rift visible, just a heavy greyness threatening snow. The wind was piercing. Even the colourful flags and pennants hanging from poles and windows, posts and doorways along the narrow street of tall, Georgian houses, seemed joyless.

‘Will it upset things if it does snow, sir?’

‘We certainly don’t want any until our visitors have arrived.’

‘I don’t know. The Russians ought to be used to snow, oughtn’t they? I’d better get along, sir,’ added the sergeant, and went on his way.

William Loftus watched him until he reached the end of the narrow street, where he stopped to talk to three policemen who were standing by a hastily-erected barricade. Three large oil drums, one by each kerb and one in the middle, and two large poles provided an obstacle to any car coming into the street. There was a gap at each pavement, guarded by a policeman.

There was a similar barricade at the far end of the street, also guarded.

Loftus’s heavy overcoat kept out the wind, but his cheeks were tinged with blue and the tip of his nose was red. That made him look not only plain but slightly comical.

A man appeared at the top end of the street, showed a card and was allowed to pass. He came walking briskly towards Loftus, shoulders squared, body erect, a man whom the police instinctively saluted.

He stopped by Loftus’s side.

‘How are things, Bill?’

‘Slow,’ said Loftus. ‘How’s the Hall of Babel?’

‘Noisy,’ said Bruce Hammond. The whole of his upper lip was covered with a close-clipped, thick brown moustache. His eyes were brown and he was dressed in brown. ‘They all listened intently enough to the opening speeches, but they’re on pins for Virnov.’

Loftus said thoughtfully: ‘They’re good, these Russians.’

‘Yes,’ said Hammond, drily. ‘They’ve certainly worked up suspense this session. Practically every nation of the world represented, practically everyone uttering the highest sentiments ever heard from man. Yet some of them are set for a quarrel. Half a dozen are waiting for Virnov as if they would like to tear him to bits. And there’s another odd thing.’

‘Go on,’ said Loftus.

‘Russia can either do no wrong or else can do no right,’ Hammond laughed. ‘You see what kind of a mood the Hall of Babel’s induced in me!’

‘I get that way myself,’ murmured Loftus. ‘Question: Who really knows Uno?’

‘Shocking pun!’ rebuked Hammond, and looked about him. ‘I see we’re all set.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Loftus. ‘If anything is tried this afternoon, I don’t think anyone will get away with it. Like old times, isn’t it? But for Gordon Craigie, there wouldn’t be a Department Z, we’d be merged in Central Intelligence.’

They looked up and down the street.

Casual observers would have noticed little, but there were men at the windows of the houses opposite, who appeared for a moment, then backed away. Others were standing in the porches, half-frozen but with strict orders not to move.

They were members of Department Z, the counterespionage branch of Intelligence which, during the last few months, had found very little to do in England. The trouble centres had shifted around the world, far from London. Loftus, second-in-command of the Department, was thinking of the efforts which his Chief had made to retain a minimum staff at least until after this London meeting of Uno.

‘They’re late,’ Hammond said. ‘Better move about, or you’ll catch cold.’

‘I suppose so.’ Loftus walked to the end of the street, limping a little, and Hammond slowed his pace, to allow Loftus to keep up. Loftus had lost a leg in the Department’s service, and could not take a fully active part in its operations, so worked in the office with Craigie. Hammond was in charge of the outside branch.

A clock struck.

‘Quarter past two,’ Loftus remarked. ‘I hope nothing’s happened on the way.’

‘I don’t think we need worry about that, we would have heard by now,’ Hammond said.

They turned and walked towards the other end of the street.

Loftus felt something brush his cheek, and wiped it away. He saw a few flakes of snow, driven by the wind. They settled on the frosted street and houses, like a peppering of cotton wool. Loftus looked up at the leaden sky.

‘The wind’s too high for it to be much,’ Hammond said.

‘I hope so,’ grunted Loftus.

Hammond was quickly proved wrong. Snow began to fall heavily, and soon the footsteps of the passers-by and the sounds of traffic in Piccadilly were muffled. The white blanket fell with silent finality, covering roofs and roadway, coating the windows of the houses. The air was thick with the driving flakes.

‘Pity,’ said Hammond. ‘I—ah, here they come!’

Two cars had stopped outside the barricade. The police-sergeant, at the end, hurried towards the driver of the first car. He saluted the men sitting at the back, inspected the driver’s credentials, and let the car through. Two men clad in heavy coats with huge fur collars sat at the back. Two more sat in the second car, and again the sergeant saluted, examined cards, and waved the driver on.

The cars pulled up outside the house of flags.

The watching men grew tense.

The occupants of the first car got out, helped by men who hurried from the house, and went inside. Nothing happened. Loftus and Hammond, standing five yards away from them, exchanged glances. Then the fur-coated men from the second car began to get out. They looked cold, in spite of the fur, and one of them spoke in a clear, high-pitched voice, and in Russian. A man from the house answered in the same language as he helped him down. The man slipped on the snow, then regained his balance. Loftus and Hammond stood quite still. If anything were to happen, this was the moment for it.

Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat.

Sharp, clear, menacing, the stutter of a machine-gun broke the flurrying quiet. Another burst: Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat. Bullets sprayed the cars, smashed through the toughened glass of the windows, struck the pavement and sent the snow spurting upwards. Some hit the walls of the house and also the man who had just left the car.

He staggered, but did not fall, then rushed towards the house with his companion.

Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat.

The men at the windows and the porches had sprung to life. Dark shapes appeared against the snow, some of them vanishing again in wild snow flurries as the wind became gusty. Loftus and Hammond were staring upwards. The police-sergeant came rushing along the street.

‘Was that M. Virnov? Was it?’

‘The roof!’ Loftus cried, and his voice rose high above all other sounds. ‘The roof!’ He was still staring upwards, thinking bitterly that there was nothing he could do against a man on the roof; he could not climb up.

One after the other men climbed up, slipping sometimes on a snowy ledge. One man reached a second floor window, then slipped and fell. For a few moments he lay in the snow where he had fallen, then got up, rubbing his leg ruefully. He began to limp away. Loftus reached him.

‘That’s enough, Mike.’

‘I would be the muggins,’ said the man named Mike, peering upwards. It was just possible to see the roof. ‘The family escutcheon’s un-blotted, anyhow. There’s Mark, up and over. How many men did we have on the roof?’

‘Two.’

‘They’re probably frozen so stiff they can’t tell a trigger from a chimney pot,’ remarked Mike Errol.

‘He could,’ said Loftus, grimly.

On the roof, Mark Errol, cousin of the injured Mike, was standing against a chimney stack and peering across the ridge. It was a good roof for a grim game of hide-and-seek. The slope from the top was gentle, chimney stacks were dotted everywhere, rooflights protected by little stone cornices seemed on every hand. Over them piled the driving snow. He kept his right hand in his pocket, about the handle of an automatic.

Mark went forward, slithering on the snow. He reached another chimney stack and held on to it for support. He knew that there were two Department Z men up here; Loftus and Hammond had overlooked nothing. But for the snow, catching the man who had used the machine-gun would have been easy.

A dark figure loomed out of the whirling snow. Mark snatched his gun from his pocket. The snow cleared in a gust of wind, and he recognised the red-faced, blue-nosed, rather ugly little man lost in a great overcoat.

‘Seen him, George?’ Mark called.

George beckoned.

They slithered along, wary, watchful, fully aware that at any moment a burst of machine-gun fire might mow them down.

Another dark figure appeared and was joined by a second, ten yards or so to their left.

‘That’s Tim,’ George said.

‘Yes.’

‘We’ll keep near the edge,’ said George. ‘The swine might jump for it and break his neck.’

‘That wouldn’t do,’ said Mark.

‘Catch ‘em all alive-o,’ George gurgled.

‘Tim’ and his companion were keeping pace with them. They had passed from the roof-tops from which the shooting had come; in fact they had traversed the roofs of three houses. Only two more were between them and the end of the street. Somewhere ahead, still silent and hidden by the snow, was the man with the machine-gun.

‘If he jumps...’ began George.

Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat.

They flung themselves flat, but the bullets did not come their way. As he went down, Mark glanced towards the left. He saw one of the other two men stagger and fall. Bullets smashed slates and sent snow spouting upwards. The man who had been hit began to roll, over and over towards the edge of the roof. His companion, flat on his face, stretched out a hand to try to save him, but failed. The man kept rolling.

He disappeared over the edge, and they heard a dull thud.

Mark and George got up again and moved forward cautiously. The assassin was still on the roof, probably hiding behind a chimney stack. They pressed on, watching the stack for a glimpse of the ugly snout of a sub-machine gun before it spat at them.

It appeared!

Mark and George fired, two shots barked like one. Chippings flew from the chimney stack, the snout of the gun disappeared, only to reappear lower down. Mark flung himself forward, George darted to the left.

Tat-tat-tat...

The burst broke off abruptly. A bullet tugged at Mark’s shoe, slates smashed about him, one piece flew up to his face, but he hardly felt it. He reached the chimney stack, knowing that the wanted man was on the other side, he was not a yard away from him, hugging that machine-gun. At point blank range he could not miss, and it would be point blank range. It...

George, out of sight, gave a tremendous bellow.

‘Got him!’

There was a clatter as George and their quarry appeared from behind the chimney stack. The machine-gun fell from the assassin’s grasp, and slithered noisily to the edge of the roof, then toppled over.

George had a grip on the man’s right arm, another on the back of his neck. George was small, but the gunman was powerless. The captive had a thin, gaunt face, his eyes glittered as he tried to struggle but was beaten by that remorseless pressure.

Mark drew level. In his mind’s eye was a picture of the man who had rolled over the edge of the roof, and he felt only hatred for this man with the glittering eyes.

George was shouting in a loud voice:

‘Bill, we’ve got him. Send up a ladder!’

Mark, gripping the prisoner tightly, watched his face and read defiance, read also the hatred which the man felt towards him. Here was a fanatic, dangerous and unrepentant. The prisoner was gasping for breath, but as the last note of George’s cry faded, he said venomously:

‘I killed Virnov! Now you will see how united are the nations!’

‘Sonny,’ said Mark, ‘I don’t want to hurt you—much.’ He raised his hand threateningly, and the man kept silent, but his wild eyes seemed to gloat.

•      •      •      •      •

An hour later, Loftus and Hammond stood in the visitor’s gallery of the great Conference Hall, looking down on the assembly delegates, the rostrum, the screen with its simple emblem of world unity and world peace, behind the chairman. The chairman was speaking. Loftus and Hammond listened, but hardly heard what he said; but the last word, the name of a man, came clearly enough.

‘... Virnov!’

There was a burst of applause. A tall, thin man left the benches where the Russian delegation were sitting, and approached the rostrum. Babel broke out in the great hall. From many delegations the clapping reached a new high level, there was even cheering. Through it all M. Virnov, Deputy Commissar for Foreign Affairs of Moscow, maintained a remarkable composure. He mounted the rostrum and waited. Slowly, the noise subsided. People who had jumped to their feet were sitting down. It was easier for Loftus and Hammond to see into the body of the hall. They noticed that the delegations from several small countries had kept their seats, taking no part in the demonstrative welcome.

Loftus was making notes.

‘Run over them for me, will you?’ he asked.

Hammond called out the names of the dissenting countries, Loftus checked them on his pencilled list. There were seven.

Someone, perhaps from one of these countries, had hoped to kill Virnov on his arrival in London.

Loftus felt that Department Z had done a fair job in finding a substitute for Virnov, who had been in the building all the time. The stand-in was not dead, and at least they had a prisoner.