Free Red Alert by Alistair MacLean Page A

needed, at a knockdown price. That's what he paid me for.'
    6?
    There was a tap on the door and Marco entered. He spoke softly to Paluzzi, then took up a position by the door.
    Paluzzi crossed to the desk, picked up the bank statements and pocketed them. 'It's over, Dragotti. Karos has confessed.'
    'To what?' Dragotti asked apprehensively.
    'To paying you to act as the middleman between Wiseman and himself.'
    'That's ridiculous,' Dragotti retorted.
    'We had him picked up earlier this morning. He held out for the first hour but he finally agreed to talk in exchange for a reduced sentence. And from what he's said about you, I doubt you'll get out of jail before you're sixty.'
    'You're lying,' Dragotti said, a desperation already beginning to creep into his voice.
    'We're prepared to offer you the same deal.' Paluzzi glanced at Marco. 'Read him his rights.'
    Dragotti yanked open the middle drawer of his desk and pulled out an RF83 revolver, but when he looked up he found Paluzzi and Marco aiming their Berettas at him.
    'Drop the gun,' Paluzzi ordered, his finger tightening on the trigger. 'Drop it!'
    Dragotti's plan had backfired. He hadn't known that they would be armed. There was no escape, not now.
    'Drop it,' Paluzzi repeated.
    Then what?' Dragotti said in a hollow voice. 'Thirty years inside?'
    'Karos hasn't confessed to anything. We haven't even arrested him. It was a trick to try and make you confess,' < Paluzzi told him.
    'I don't believe you,' Dragotti said, shaking his headl slowly.
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    'Put down the gun, Vittore, and we'll talk,' Paluzzi said.
    Dragotti gave Paluzzi a half-smile, then pushed the barrel of the revolver against the roof of his mouth and pulled the trigger. Blood splattered across the window behind the desk and Dragotti slumped to the floor. Paluzzi hurried across to where he lay and felt for a pulse. There wasn't one. He looked up at Graham and Marco and shook his head, then, taking off his jacket, he placed it over Dragotti's mutilated face.
    Chidenko and several of his managers burst into the office.
    'What happened?' Chidenko demanded, staring at Dragotti's body.
    'He shot himself,' Graham replied.
    'This isn't some sort of sideshow!' Paluzzi shouted angrily. 'Go back to your offices.'
    Chidenko persuaded his colleagues to leave, then crossed to where Dragotti lay and reached down to lift the jacket.
    'You don't want to look,' Graham said, grabbing his wrist.
    Chidenko jerked his hand free and lifted the cloth.
    Stumbling backwards a few feet, he clasped his hand over
    his mouth in a struggle to keep himself from vomiting.
    I When he finally turned back to Graham his face was pale.
    'I never realized a handgun could cause so much damage.'
    'It can if it's loaded with .38 slugs.'
    Marco returned to the office. 'The ambulance is on its sway.'
    'What now?' Graham asked Paluzzi.
    Til get hold of the local carabinieri. If we can hand aver the suicide to them without too many hitches we bould be in Corfu by mid-afternoon.'
    'What's in Corfu?'
    'Not what. Who. Nikki Karos.'
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    FOUR
    Mary Robson had always dreamed of becoming a professional dancer ever since she was eight years old. She took up ballet at school but her real love was disco dancing and when, at the age of seventeen, she won a national competition in her home town of Newcastle a theatrical agent offered her a small part in a leading West End musical. Her parents refused to give their consent, arguing that they wanted her to finish her education first. Six months later she ran away to London, certain she would land a part in another West End show, but when she got there she found that she was just one of hundreds, many of whom were better dancers. She took a job in a Soho strip club to make ends meet and it was there that she met Wendell Johnson, a West Indian with a long criminal record. Three months after moving in with him she discovered she was pregnant. She was only nineteen when their son, Bernard, was born. The dream was over.
    She was