The Secret Pilgrim Read Online Free PDF

display of garters next to him and peered into it while I again furtively examined him for tell-tale bulges round the waist and armpits. His black overcoat was of the classic gunman’s cape: voluminous and without a belt, the kind of coat that covers effortlessly a long-barrelled pistol fitted with a suppressor, or a semi-automatic slung beneath the arm.
    I studied his hands, my own nervously prickling. His left hung loosely at his side, but his right, which looked the stronger, kept travelling towards his chest and withholding, as if he were preparing himself to pluck up courage for the final act.
    A right-handed cross draw, I thought; most likely to the armpit. Our weapons trainers had taught us all the combinations.
    And his eyes—those dark, slow-burning, soulful zealot’s eyes— even in profile they seemed fixed upon the afterlife. Had he sworn vengeance on her? On her household? Had fanatical mullahs promised him a place in Heaven if he did the deed? My knowledge of Islam was scant, and what there was of it was drawn from a couple of background lectures and the novels of P. C. Wren. Yet it was enough to warn me that I was in the presence of a desperate fanatic who counted his own life cheap.
    As to myself, alas, I was unarmed. It was a sore point with me. Watchers would never dream of carrying weapons on normal duty, but covert protection work is a different type of watching, and Paul Skordeno had been allocated a sidearm from Monty’s safe.
    â€œOne’s enough, College,” Monty had told me, with his old man’s smile. “We don’t want you starting World War Three, now do we?”
    All that was left to me, therefore, as I rose and softly followed him again, was to select in advance one of the blows we had beentaught to master in our silent-killing classes. Should I count on attacking him from behind—with a rabbit punch?—with a double simultaneous blow over the ears? Either method could kill him instantly, whereas a live one can still be questioned. Then would I do better breaking his right arm first, hoping to take him with his own weapon? Yet if I let him draw, might I myself not go down in a hail of bullets from the several bodyguards around the room?
    She had seen him!
    The Panda had looked straight into the eyes of the monkey, and the monkey had returned her stare!
    Had she recognised him? I was certain she had. But had she recognised his purpose? And was she, perhaps, in some strange turn of Oriental fatalism, preparing herself for death? The lurid possibilities went racing through my mind as I continued to observe their mysterious exchange. Their eyes met, the Panda froze in mid-gesture. Her jewelled, crabby little hands, plundering the clothing on the counter, kept still—and then, as if to his command, slipped passively to her sides. After which she stood motionless, without will, without even the strength to detach herself from his penetrating stare.
    At last, with a forlorn and strangely humble air, she turned away from him, murmured something to her lady companions and, holding out her hand to the counter, released whatever frilly thing she was still clutching in it. She was wearing brown that day—if she had been a man, I would be tempted to say a Franciscan habit—with wide sleeves longer than her arms, and a brown headband bound tightly across her brow.
    I saw her sigh, then slowly and, I was sure, resignedly, she led her entourage towards the archway. After her went her personal body-guard; after him the Scotland Yard policeman. Then came the ladies of her train, followed by the floor-walkers. And finally came Paul and Nancy, who, with a show of indecision, had torn themselves away from their study of the negligés and were sauntering like any shoppers in the party’s wake. Paul, who had surely overheard myconversations with Monty, vouchsafed me not the smallest glance. Nancy, who prided herself on her amateur dramatics, was pretending to