Believed Violent Read Online Free PDF Page A

paralysing wave of fear ran through him. He was vaguely aware of a second man who came in and closed the front door.
    “What — what do you want?” he asked hoarsely as Silk continued to ride him back across the small lobby and into the sitting-room.
    “Plenty of time,” Silk said. “Just behave.”
    They were in the sitting-room now. Keegan pulled an upright chair from the dining table and set it in the middle of the room.
    “Sit down,” Silk said.
    Craig sat on the chair. Terror made his muscles twitch. He tried frantically to control the twitching but without success.
    Silk asked, “Where are the photos?”
    Craig stared at him in horror.
    “But you can’t . . . Lindsey said . . .” He stopped as Silk’s single eye gleamed red with contained, savage fury. Hopelessly, he pointed to the chair. Keegan lifted the cushion, found the envelope, glanced inside, then nodded to Silk.
    Silk moved a few steps back. He looked at Keegan, his scarred face expressionless. Keegan moved quickly. He flicked out a length of nylon cord from his pocket, stepped behind Craig, dropped a noose over Craig’s head and around his neck. Then he dropped flat on his back in a Judo fall, hauling on the cord. The movement was done in a split second.
    Craig felt the cord bite into his flesh. He went over backwards with a crash. Keegan slammed his feet on Craig’s shoulders, hauling on the cord.
    Silk unscrewed the silencer on his gun, dropped the silencer into his pocket, then returned the gun to its holster. By the time he had done this, Craig was dead.
    Keegan got to his feet while Silk took the photographs from the envelope. He selected one which he put on an occasional table. The rest he returned to the envelope which he forced into his overcoat pocket. In the meantime, Keegan had gone into the bathroom. Now, he returned.
    “There’s a hook on the door strong enough to take him,” he said.
    The two men caught hold of Craig’s lifeless body and dragged it into the bathroom. They hung it by the cord from the hook. Craig’s polished shoes just touched the tiled floor.
    They regarded him, then Silk nodded.
    “A nice clean job,” he said. “Let’s go.”
    Keegan opened the front door, looked along the corridor, listened, then jerked his head.
    The two men rode down in the elevator.
    No one saw them leave. No one noticed the Thunderbird as it drifted through the heavy traffic back to the Washington Hilton Hotel.
     
    Jean Rodin, Radnitz’s Paris agent, was short, middle-aged, fat and balding. He had a perpetual smile which never reached his glassy, expressionless eyes. He handled Radnitz’s affairs in France intelligently and efficiently. Many of the things Radnitz required him to do were criminal. Rodin was a careful man. He never made a mistake. The money Radnitz paid him was impressive. He was one of Radnitz’s most reliable agents.
    He received a cable from Washington on the afternoon of Craig’s death. The cable was brief and to the point:
    Rodin
    Hotel Maurice. Paris 6.
    Smith. Complete operation.
    Lindsey.
     
    He lit a Gauloise cigarette, put on his hat and overcoat and went down to where he had parked his Simca car. He drove with the heavy traffic until he reached Quai des Grands Augustins where after some difficulty he found a parking place. He walked down Rue Seguier, turned into a dirty courtyard and entered a shabby apartment block. He climbed to the sixth floor, pausing every now and then to regain his breath.
    Rodin adored food and smoked forty cigarettes a day. Any form of exercise distressed him, and stair climbing was his least happy experience. Finally, he reached the sixth floor and knocked on a door.
    Jerry Smith, wearing a dirty singlet and skin-tight jeans, opened the door, a scowl on his face, but seeing Rodin, he brightened.
    “Hello, Mr. Rodin, I didn’t expect you. Got some more work for me?”
    Rodin regarded him with disgust. Such creatures had to be used, he told himself, but to have contact with