Chapter Xxi
Detective-Inspector Raimond moved into the little street with his two companions. They walked casually, chatting, but with alert, trained eyes which took in every detail, every nuance of movement.
At each end of the street, just out of sight round each corner, van-loads of police began to pull up. Another small part of plain-clothes men followed in the inspector's wake some thirty yards behind, also chatting casually and laughing.
"I think we can go in now," Raimond said quietly to his companions. "The boys will move up as soon as we're inside."
"O.K."
"And don't use a gun until we have to. We don't want to have them all hopping out the back door."
"O.K."
They crossed the road, still talking casually, towards the striptease club. There was nobody outside, but Raimond knew there would be plenty of people just inside, waiting for just such an emergency. He hoped they'd manage to get to whatever inner sanctuary was reserved for the "trials" before anything happened to Ahmed. He felt sorry for the boy. But it would be touch and go. He also felt a little responsible for him. He'd misled him about the lack of risk.
He reached the club door and pushed in, followed closely by his two men. The door of the club swung open. It had been left that way to look more casual.
As Raimond disappeared, so the group of plain-clothes men behind quickened their pace and began to cross the road. Down at each end of the street police began to block off the road and move along from each direction in a body. Crowds began to gather in horror and astonishment beyond the barriers way out on the boulevard.
Just inside the door of the club an Algerian was sitting on a stool. He wasn't expecting visitors. Nothing had ever happened before. Raimond's knife ran through him before he could utter a sound. Raimond lowered the body. He felt nothing. This sort of thing had become common to him during the Resistance. It was the only way to ensure that warning was not passed on. There could be no half measures.
By the time Raimond and the other two had fanned out through the rooms which led off from the vestibule, the second batch of police had entered the building and fanned out as a second line of attack.
One by one, expertly, with a minimum of noise, the Algerian guards were dealt with and quietly left behind. Sometimes there was a struggle, but nobody had a chance to utter a cry. With rapid efficiency, the police began to take over the building. It was at the foot of the stairs that there was the first real resistance. They were seen from the top of the stairs and, crying out a warning in
Arabic, the guard from the top came springing down to help his crony on the ground floor.
Both were overpowered without too much difficulty, but by that time the alarm was raised. There were sounds and voices from a corridor which could be seen leading off from the stairs.
Running up, three at a time, Raimond and his men saw a door open and a number of Arabs dressed in expensive-looking suits come racing out.
As they saw the police vanguard, they turned to run back into the room they'd just vacated, but the door slammed shut, keeping them out and, after a preliminary push, they made off along the corridor, firing revolvers back at the police as they went.
Behind the detectives, throughout the whole building now that firing had started, was the heavy sound of armed and uniformed police swarming through the room in a body.
All around the building itself, out in the street and in the houses opposite, police with Sten guns and rifles had taken up positions of waiting, their arms trained on any exist they could see. Down along the boulevard the crowd of sightseers had grown in spite of the obvious danger. Nobody knew what was going on. But everybody wanted to be in on it. As long as "in" didn't mean being involved.