Psychomech Read Free Page B

remove them.’
    ‘ Do you understand?’ Koenig hissed, shoving his square face close and baring his own perfect teeth.
    ‘Yes! Oh, yes, I surely do!’ the IRA man cringed.
    Koenig nodded. He seemed to shrink down into himself, making himself smaller. The effort forced sweat to his brow. His face began to work again, an insistent tic jerking the corner of his mouth. Schroeder also altered himself, _ becoming weary in a few moments. He allowed his hands to dangle by his sides as he shuffled to the door. The Irishman followed with Koenig close behind. Schroeder turned the key, stepped into the corridor with the two following on his heels. Koenig took the key, closed the door and locked it, gave the key to the Irishman who automatically pocketed it. If anyone should look into that room before those two Krauts were away, then he, Kevin Connery, was a dead man. And he knew it.
    The two men in the corridor tipped their caps respectfully as the three passed them and went out of the second door into the street. It was evening now and an autumn sun was sinking over the hills. It turned the empty street a rich wine colour.
    Another man, small as a monkey, sat at the wheel of a big Mercedes where it was parked. He toyed with the controls, making the windows hum up and down, up and down…
    ‘Tell him to get out,’ Schroeder said as he reached to open a rear door. ‘You get in here, with me.’
    Connery jerked his head, indicating that the monkey man should get out of the car. As the little man made to do so, Schroeder pushed Connery into the back seat and got in after him. He produced Connery’s gun.
    Koenig waited until the little man was half out of the car, then grabbed him in one hand and dragged him free. He spun him round, his feet off the ground, once, twice… and released him at the two men from the corridor where they now stood in the open door, their curiosity turning to astonishment. The monkey man smashed into them and all three were thrown back into the shadows. Then Koenig was in the driver’s seat, gunning the motor, turning a corner on screaming tyres, accelerating down a deserted street. He spun the wheel, turned another corner. And so they were away.
    ‘Well,’ said the Colonel to the Irishman. ‘We made it, you see? Now you will kindly give directions back to our hotel.’ After a moment he added: ‘Tell me, Irish, what’s your name?’
    ‘Connery, sir—er, Colonel!’ said the other.
    ‘Oh?’ the Colonel smiled his thin smile. ‘Like Sean? And is that how you see yourself? Wie null null sieben? ’
    ‘Pardon, sir?’ the IRA man gulped as he felt the pressure of his own gun under his heart He knew the damage it could do.
    ‘As 007?’ the Colonel repeated. ‘As Mr James Bond?’
    ‘Oh, no, sir. Not me. I just do as I’m told, so I do.’
    ‘But it can be bloody work, eh, James?’
    ‘It’s Kevin, sir—I mean, Colonel. And actually—’
    ‘Actually, Kevin, you’re a damned Irish idiot for telling me your name. What if I pass it on to the police?’
    ‘Oh, they know it well enough already, sir. And anyway, I’ll be glad enough just to step down from this car alive.’
    ‘Asensible attitude. But you were saying?’
    ‘Eh? Oh, yes—actually, I’m really a sort of messenger boy. Of the two of us, young Michael is—er, was—the heavy…’
    ‘Well, I have my own “heavies”, as you see.’
    ‘I do indeed, sir, Colonel. I do that. But I was only doing what I was told to—’
    ‘Shut your fat Paddy face and be glad you are alive, Kevin Connery,’ said the Colonel, all banter gone now from his voice. His face had been growing angry, was now white and quite deadly.
    Connery could no longer control his trembling. ‘I—’ he started. And again: ‘I—’ He gulped, his eyes rolling wildly.
    ‘Oh, I’ll let you live,’ said the Colonel, ‘though I admit I’m not such a man of my word—a man of honour—as you.’ His voice was full of scorn. ‘So you’re a messenger, are