sweep, they'd surely have seized the valuable equipment at the same time.
But where was the staff? Why was the machinery unattended?
Metcalfe saw a figure seated at one of the consoles. Metcalfe recognized, from behind, Johnny Betts, the American radiotelegraph operator. He called out: "Johnny! Didn't you hear ?"
Then Metcalfe saw that Johnny still had his headphones on, which explained why he hadn't heard the buzzer. He approached, tapped him on the shoulder.
Suddenly Johnny slumped to one side. His eyes bulged. His face was crimson, his tongue lolling grotesquely.
Blood rushed to Metcalfe's head. He let out a horrified cry as he stumbled. "My God, no!" Johnny Betts's throat looked at first as if it had been slashed, but then Metcalfe realized that what appeared to be a deep gash was in fact a ligature mark with accompanying bruising.
Betts had been strangled, garroted, with some sort of thin cord or wire.
Johnny Betts had been murdered!
Metcalfe whirled around, looked for the others for Cyril Langhorne, for Derek Compton-Jones. He saw no one else. Rushing to the adjoining room, he opened the door, looked in, but it was empty. Where were the others?
He raced to the antechamber that led to the emergency access into the next building, and there, beside the steel door, which was slightly ajar, he found the crumpled body of Cyril Langhorne, a single bullet hole in his forehead.
The station had been entered through the emergency entrance, Metcalfe knew now. Langhorne had gone to the steel door and had been shot, swiftly and probably with a silenced pistol. Betts, wearing his headphones and engaged in his transmission, had heard nothing. For some reason to ensure silence? he hadn't been shot but had instead been garroted. Someone had stolen up behind him there were several invaders, no doubt and slipped the cord or wire over his neck, strangling the life out of the American.
Dear Jesus, how had this happened?
And where was Derek? He was the only regular staffer not here. Had he been off, at home, asleep? Perhaps please, God Derek's schedule may have saved his life.
A noise. The loud squeal of tires, then brakes, from outside. From the street. Ordinarily traffic noise would not be heard in this soundproofed chamber. But the steel door was ajar, letting in noise from the street above.
It could only be the Nazis who would arrive so noisily. Backup of some sort? A follow-on team?
They were here for him.
Metcalfe leaped over Langhorne's corpse, slipped out through the open fire door, and raced up the basement stairs of the apartment building next door. As he ran he caught a glimpse, out of a basement window, of three or four black Citroens converging on the street. The Gestapo, there was no doubt about it.
This time he knew his exit.
He escaped via the roof of the building, along the rooftops for a short distance, and then climbed down to the narrow alleys behind the avenue.
He was short of breath, but his bloodstream coursed with adrenaline, and he barely stopped to think. He just kept on running. He had to get to Derek Compton-Jones's apartment, to warn him not to go to the base station but also to find out what might have happened, if Derek had any inkling.
Assuming Derek had escaped, that is.
He hadn't been there; at least, his body hadn't been anywhere to be found. Compton-Jones worked at night and slept during the day; the others had the misfortune to have drawn earlier shifts. Maybe Derek was alive after all.
And did Corky know about this nightmare yet?
He slowed only when he approached Derek's apartment building. Despite Corky's strict rules of compart mentation Metcalfe knew where Derek lived; the Paris station was small, and they were friends, after all. Now he stood in front of a stationer's across the street, feigning interest in the window display, actually tilting his head to catch the reflection in the glass. After a few minutes he was satisfied that there was no suspicious activity in front of the building: no idling cars, no loitering pedestrians. He crossed the street quickly, entered the building, and took the stairs to Derek's flat.
At the apartment door he listened for a moment, then knocked.
No answer.
He knocked again, said, "Derek?" If Derek was inside, afraid to open the door, he might recognize Metcalfe's voice. But a few minutes went by, and nothing.
He looked to either side, saw no one. From his wallet he removed a long, slender metal pick that curved up at one end. It was a