Sixth Column

Начало книги

Sweat was starting to run down the inside of Johnny’s neck from his soaked hair. The balaclava he’d brought with him was intended for the Arctic, not a Mayfair mews house with the central heating up full blast. He looked at Clicker, bent over the safe, then rolled the wool up over his forehead and opened another drawer. There was a short crackle from the radio and his heart jumped. Clicker turned his head sharply, eyes and mouth rimmed clownlike in white against his black mask, listening, but nothing else came.

He couldn’t see anything interesting in the last drawer. He cast around for something else and saw the end of the briefcase sticking out from behind an armchair. He moved towards it, opened it. Inside was a passport and a fat envelope. Pulling out the envelope, he flicked up the flap and saw inside a wad of currency, large denominations wrapped up in some sort of list.

‘Yeah!’ he said softly. Clicker turned, and he put a thumb up, tossed him the envelope which he pushed into his bag. At that moment there was a noise outside. Somewhere below and downstairs – and with a rattle of sliding locks that was the overture to disaster, the front door opened.

Читать дальше →