Free Red Alert by Alistair MacLean Page B

now twenty-two years old, overweight and unemployed. Wendell was in prison, where he had already served ten months of a seven-year sentence for burglary. She would wait for him. Her parents couldn't understand how she could love a man like him. Neither could they understand that she wanted her son to have a father, even if he was a criminal. Not that she saw much of them anyway. She would bring up her son in her own way and to hell with what anyone else thought. And that included her parents.
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    She finished drying the dishes then stood looking out ; of the window over the sink at the row of bleak terraced houses on the opposite side of the street. It was a mirror image of all the streets in the neighbourhood. She hated {Brixton: it was so depressing. Wendell liked it, because Jail his friends were there. She had tried to persuade him to put his name down for a council house in Streatham >but he had always refused to budge on the issue. They would stay in Brixton.
    A police car pulled up in front of the house. Inside twere two policemen. The driver got out of the car and !approached the front door. Mary discarded her apron and I hurried into the hallway. The doorbell rang. Her mind graced as she fumbled to unlock the door. It had to be |about Wendell. She pulled open the door, her eyes wide Iwith anxiety.
    'Are you Miss Mary Robson?' the policeman asked. 'Yes,' she stammered. 'Something's happened to fWendeli, hasn't it?'
    The policeman nodded. 'He was stabbed in a fight at lithe prison. Don't worry though, he'll be all right.' 'Where is he now?'
    'He's been taken to the Greenwich District Hospital.' 'Can I see him?'
    'That's why we're here,' the policeman replied with a eassuring smile. :;, 'I won't be a minute, I just have to get my son.'
    He waited until she was out of sight then looked back pt the police car and nodded to his colleague.
    The man in the passenger seat removed his peaked cap and raked his fingers through his thick black hair. The ack moustache gave a sinister edge to his youthful feaares. Even so he looked nearer twenty-five than his real jlge of thirty-seven. His name was Victor Young.
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    He smiled to himself as Dave Humphries led Mary Robson and her son towards the police car. It was all going according to plan.
    Whitlock and Lonsdale arrived at Brixton police station at eleven o'clock and were immediately ushered into the station commander's office. Chief Inspector Roger Pugh was a tall man in his late forties with silver-grey hair and an easy manner which helped to put them at their ease. He shook hands with them and indicated the two chairs in front of his desk.
    'What time are we due out?' Whitlock asked, sitting down. 'Major Lonsdale wasn't sure whether it would be eleven-thirty or twelve.'
    'Eleven-thirty,' Pugh replied.
    There was a knock at the door.
    'Come in,' Pugh called.
    The man who entered was in his late twenties with short black hair and a stocky physique. He was wearing the uniform of a warder. Lonsdale introduced him to Whitlock as Sergeant Don Harrison who would be driving the police van. Harrison handed Lonsdale a uniform identical to the one he was wearing.
    'There's a changing room down the hall,' Pugh said. 'The desk sergeant will show you the way.'
    'I might as well change in here,' Lonsdale replied, giving Pugh a mock suspicious look. 'You're not expecting any { WPCs, are you?'
    'Not today, I'm afraid,' Pugh said with a smile.
    'How did things go with Alexander?' Lonsdale askedj Harrison as he started to undress.
    'He kicked up a bit of a fuss so we had to drug him.| No trouble after that. He's sleeping it off at the safe house.'|

72.
    Harrison took a pair of sunglasses from his pocket and handed them to Whitlock. 'Alexander was wearing these.' 'Thanks,' Whitlock said, slipping them on. 'Are the men ready?' Lonsdale asked. 'Yes sir,' Harrison replied. 'They're waiting at the van.' 'Put them into the cages, we'll be along in a minute. Harrison left the room.
    Lonsdale finished