Code 17.5: Code 17, #5

By Francis Booth

Praise for Code 17

 

'A wild and witty thriller'

Set in London in the swinging sixties with a brief whizz over to New York and back, this is a thrilling, action-packed page-turner. Lady Laura (not her long name) is a glamorous international art dealer who can handle a gun, a sword and, in fact, any kind of weapon. She cons and is conned, shoots and is shot at as she fearlessly seeks the one who is targeting her. Ruthlessly, she pursues her enemy, wiping out anyone who gets in her way with a nod to Twiggy, Warhol and all the other icons of the time who hover in the background of her life among the rich and famous. There are many twists and turns as the reader gasps breathless unable to put the book down. At times you laugh out loud shouting yes, yes, yes as, once more Lady Laura extricates herself from a seemingly impossible situation. She's unputdownable - like the book.

 

'Compelling, assured and darkly satisfying'

Now here's a novel that churns with contradictions. Compelling, assured and darkly satisfying, Code 17 thrills and chills. Its deeply dislikeable characters have exquisitely addictive redeeming factors that keep us coming back for more. The plot shocks and amazes on every page. Its unexpected format and terrifying subject matter force the reader to ask questions of himself: wouldn't we behave similarly, in such situations, if only we could get away with it? Code 17 is set primarily in Swinging-Sixties London, plunders the intriguing worlds of fine art and forgery, aristocracy and auction houses, and drops names. Twiggy, John and Yoko, Warhol and the Velvet Underground are all here. The sex is zipless, the crime ruthless, and it's every man, woman and murderer for himself. Kill or be killed. Read this novel, but notez bien: it will turn your stomach even as it curdles your heart. It's the size of it.

 

'Smashing!!!'

I'm a child of the 60s and fondly remember all the great TV series of the time: The Man from Uncle, The Girl from Uncle (perhaps a little more fondly. . . swoon), Department S, The Persuaders and of course The Avengers. Beautiful girls running around in catsuits shooting people and karate chopping people is all okay by me. This book has it all . . . Go-Go boots, Twiggy, Venus in Furs, Jensen FFs . . . smashing!!!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wu Wei Press
• Release date: Jul 3, 2024
• ISBN: 9798227624376

Francis Booth

As well as Comrades in Art: Revolutionary Art in America 1926-1938 Francis Booth is the author of several books on twentieth century culture: Amongst Those Left: The British Experimental Novel 1940-1960 (published by Dalkey Archive) No Direction Home: The Uncanny In Literature Text Acts: Twentieth Century Literary Eroticism Everybody I Can Think of Ever: Meetings That Made the Avant Garde A Girl Named Vera Can Never Tell A Lie: The Fiction of Vera Caspary Girls in Bloom: Coming of Age in the Mid-20th Century Woman's Novel Francis is also the author of two novel series: The Code 17 series, set in the Swinging London of the 1960s and featuring aristocratic spy Lady Laura Summers Young adult fantasy series The Watchers

Book preview

Praise for Code 17

‘A wild and witty thriller’

Set in London in the swinging sixties with a brief whizz over to New York and back, this is a thrilling, action-packed page-turner. Lady Laura (not her long name) is a glamorous international art dealer who can handle a gun, a sword and, in fact, any kind of weapon. She cons and is conned, shoots and is shot at as she fearlessly seeks the one who is targeting her. Ruthlessly, she pursues her enemy, wiping out anyone who gets in her way with a nod to Twiggy, Warhol and all the other icons of the time who hover in the background of her life among the rich and famous. There are many twists and turns as the reader gasps breathless unable to put the book down. At times you laugh out loud shouting yes, yes, yes as, once more Lady Laura extricates herself from a seemingly impossible situation. She’s unputdownable - like the book.

––––––––

‘Compelling, assured and darkly satisfying’

Now here’s a novel that churns with contradictions. Compelling, assured and darkly satisfying, Code 17 thrills and chills. Its deeply dislikeable characters have exquisitely addictive redeeming factors that keep us coming back for more. The plot shocks and amazes on every page. Its unexpected format and terrifying subject matter force the reader to ask questions of himself: wouldn’t we behave similarly, in such situations, if only we could get away with it? Code 17 is set primarily in Swinging-Sixties London, plunders the intriguing worlds of fine art and forgery, aristocracy and auction houses, and drops names. Twiggy, John and Yoko, Warhol and the Velvet Underground are all here. The sex is zipless, the crime ruthless, and it’s every man, woman and murderer for himself. Kill or be killed. Read this novel, but notez bien: it will turn your stomach even as it curdles your heart. It’s the size of it.

––––––––

‘Smashing!!!’

I’m a child of the 60s and fondly remember all the great TV series of the time: The Man from Uncle, The Girl from Uncle (perhaps a little more fondly. . . swoon), Department S, The Persuaders and of course The Avengers. Beautiful girls running around in catsuits shooting people and karate chopping people is all okay by me. This book has it all . . . Go-Go boots, Twiggy, Venus in Furs, Jensen FFs . . . smashing!!!

––––––––

‘Had me gripped’

This book had me gripped. The characters transported me back to the swinging sixties. It had me reading ‘just one more chapter’ before I could put it down and I didn't want it to end! Can't wait for the sequel.

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‘Vitesse .... Inspired choice .... Soundtrack please!’

Fast moving 60s thrill ... our heroine drives a Triumph Vitesse (oh so cool, well-chosen Mr Booth) ... I believe there's a soundtrack that goes with this. Great fun, brilliant touch points throughout, one almost wants to be transported back for a few days.

Author’s Note

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Code 17 was originally a musical idea. Ten years ago I made an album that paid homage to the theme music of 1960s British TV spy series like The Man from UNCLE, The Baron and Department S, and to films like Modesty Blaise and The Ipcress File. The music on the album was from an imaginary TV series called Code 17, featuring the glamorous art dealer/spy Lady Laura Summers. She was imagined as a cross between Sharron Macready of The Champions, Emma Peel of The Avengers and Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward of Thunderbirds, though none of these women was the lead character.

Ten years later I thought I could make a novel out of Code 17 and Lady Laura, set in the Swinging London of 1967. I kept to the format of a twelve-episode TV series and tried to imagine each chapter as a fast-moving thirty minute episode, split into short scenes. For Series Two, Three, Four and Five of Code 17 the episodes have been expanded to an hour but I hope they are just as fast-paced and thrilling.

The music is at mixcloud.com/planckmusic/code-17

Francis Booth

July 3rd, 1969

one

The man slowly unzips the valise with his left hand.

He doesn’t take his eye off me for a second.

Or his gun.

SPLAAATT!!

He does now.

AAAHHH!!

The man screams as blood and brains burst out of the case, splattering his hand, his arm, his face. It’s in his eyes. Blinded, he drops the gun as he frantically tries to wipe the sticky mess off. He only makes things worse. This man may be a seasoned professional, he may think he’s seen it all, but he has never seen a head explode out of a leather bag that he thought contained only some very valuable antique share certificates.

Now, if you have been following my exploits you will know that not long ago Mickey and I designed a sting where Mickey would apparently shoot me in the tummy and then apparently shoot himself through the mouth – the blood and brains would have appeared to explode from the back of his neck. The trick involved a cackle bladder, a favourite with con artists: it’s a small bag filled with chicken’s blood and finely-chopped giblets mixed with explosives. This device didn’t get used at the time because Mickey got shot with a real bullet – he’s fine now, thanks for asking.

That unused cackle bladder is what was in the valise just now.

The hardened pro they sent to collect the certificates has gone instantly soft. He’s screaming in terror while frantically clawing at his face as I shoot him in the leg with his own gun; I know a thing or two about both shooting and being shot in the leg – as you, loyal reader, will no doubt recall.

The valise which has just exploded so spectacularly is the one I have always used when carrying large amounts of cash to an exchange. Previously I have always brought actual cash. This time I was supposed to bring actual share certificates; I didn’t – partly because I couldn’t bear the thought of cleaning all that sticky stuff off them but also because, when you are being blackmailed, the first rule is: don’t pay the blackmailer – he will take the money and disappear without giving you what you want; which in this case is the safe return of my friend Griselda Greenslade.

Alternatively the kidnapper will take your money and ask for more. And then he will disappear without giving you what you want. So, although there was no actual head in the bag, there were no actual certificates in there either. If I had given the professional thug the certificates I would now have no certificates and no Griselda. This way I also have no Griselda but at least I still have the certificates.

I am hoping in all of this that whoever is behind Griselda’s abduction – probably her father, Professor Greenslade – knows the first rule of being a kidnapper: don’t shoot the hostage. I know that this does not preclude the kidnapper cutting off a finger or an ear to motivate me. But if Griselda’s own father is indeed behind the kidnapping, I am counting on him not being able to bring himself to maim her.

Perhaps the ‘pro’ he sent could have done it, but he is currently on the floor in front of me trying simultaneously to get the bits of brains – as he thinks they are – out of his eyes and stop himself bleeding to death through the hole in his leg. When I was shot in the leg not long ago I really would not have wanted someone kneeling on that leg and pushing their finger into the wound.

AARRGGHH!!

It turns out that the hardened, no doubt violent criminal underneath me doesn’t like it either.

‘Where is she?’

Nothing.

AARRGGHH!!

I press again with my left thumb while holding the gun on him with my right hand. While we are all waiting for him to realise that it’s not going to stop hurting until he tells me, we may just have time for me to remind you of the background to this situation.

The Code 17 house contained seventeen stunning Dutch Golden Age paintings that had been there since 1694. The code to finding the house was cracked by current kidnappee Griselda Greenslade, Sotheby’s leading expert on ancient documents and a world-class forger to boot.

Griselda subsequently came up with a con intended to fool her father and get money out of him. The cunning minx pretended that she had found another code in the Code 17 document that led her to a secret panel in the house. Behind this panel – she said – were seventeen original Bank of England share certificates, dated the year of the Bank’s and Code 17’s founding: 1694.

It gets a bit complicated at this point, but the upshot is that we conned Griselda’s father out of £6,000 for sixteen fake certificates. Her father does not suspect Griselda’s involvement, but he does suspect me. He thinks I have the sixteen genuine ones. But I haven’t, because there are no genuine ones. The ones I have are also fakes, brilliantly fabricated by Griselda herself. They would be accepted as genuine by even the top expert in the world. Especially since the top expert in the world, who is also Sotheby’s top expert, is Griselda Greenslade.

So Griselda’s father – a history professor – is miffed with me because I am selling what he believes to be the ‘genuine’ certificates, which he thinks should rightly be his. To rub salt in his wounds, I am selling them through Sotheby’s, having had them authenticated by his own daughter. The Professor’s fellow Freemasons are upset with me too: they suspect I have conned them out of over £50,000 in several different scams recently.

They’re right.

I have.

To concentrate my mind, the Professor, with some other Masons perhaps, appears to have commissioned some hardened criminals to kidnap his own daughter. The Professor presumably thinks that I have a ‘special relationship’ with his daughter – which is more than he has, apparently. He thinks I will sacrifice the certificates to save her.

He’s right.

I have and I will.

But it’s not that simple. As I said earlier, if you pay the blackmailer he will simply disappear with your money – having got the money, he has no reason to give you back whatever it is he took from you; professional kidnapers are not men of honour. The Professor probably decided to employ professionals because up to now his Masonic friends – mostly policemen – have behaved like bungling amateurs. They have tried unsuccessfully to imprison me, shoot me and steal the Code 17 paintings, all to no avail.

So, if I had handed over the sixteen ‘genuine’ share certificates to this thug, worth up to £10,000 even on the black market, the thug, or his gangland boss, would certainly have shot me, would probably have killed Griselda for good measure and even then Professor Greenslade would absolutely, positively never have seen the certificates. He would have been very lucky to come out of the affair alive.

Now back to the matter in hand.

The ‘pressing’ matter.

‘AARRGGHH!!’

‘Where is she?’

‘I don’t . . .’

‘AAARRGGHH!!’

‘I . . .’

‘AAAARRGGHH!!’

‘. . . don’t know.’

I don’t think he does.

This so-called professional may be on his own or he may be part of a team, but either way he has completely underestimated the competition. His male ego combined with his stupidity has led him to think that the Lady Laura Summers, society art dealer on the fashionable Kings Road in Chelsea, would be an easy target. I have to admit that, at first, I let him think that. As the thug walked into my gallery I wasn’t holding a gun; I was looking terrified, I was almost in tears as, with trembling hands I handed over the bag. As Lady Macbeth said, Look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under it. Seconds later, I pushed the remote control and it exploded in his face.

And now look at him, poor pathetic wreck that he is.

‘Have you got a phone number for your client?’

He nods.

‘Give it to me.’

He hands me a piece of paper. I hit him on the side of the head with the butt of the pistol. It was Griselda herself who pointed out to me that the saying don’t hit a man when he’s down makes no sense at all; that’s the best possible time to hit a man.

two

‘Hello?’

‘Professor Greenslade. This is Lady Laura Summers.’

‘Er . . .’

‘Your man is dead.’

‘My . . ?’

‘How many more are there?’

‘Look . . .’

‘I hope the next one is better. I hope he at least puts up a bit of a fight.’

‘Lady . . .’

‘Or of course, you could just come yourself. With Griselda, safe and sound. I will gladly hand over the certificates.’

‘I . . .’

‘But only to you, in person. If you send anyone else, or if anyone else comes with you, he will be dead in seconds.’

‘Well . . .’

‘And if a single hair on Griselda’s head has been harmed, Professor, you are a dead man also.’

‘Now . . .’

‘Though yours will be a slow, lingering, painful death, unlike theirs.’

‘If . . .’

‘I am in my gallery. I shall expect you shortly. Come to the back door.’

I go into the storage cupboard, take out one of the blankets I use to wrap paintings in. I roll the unconscious thug onto it – I don’t want a trail of blood on the floor. I then drag the blanket, with the man on it, through the back door, out into the alleyway that runs behind the shops on this part of the Kings Road. Then I roll the man off the blanket, still unconscious. I go back into the gallery with the blanket, ring 999.

‘Emergency. What service do you require?’

‘Ambulance, please.’

‘Please hold while I connect you’ . . . ‘Ambulance service. What is your emergency?’

‘I’m ringing from Summers Fine Art on the Kings Road in Chelsea. A man has been shot in the road near to the back of the gallery. He seems to be alive but unconscious and bleeding.’

‘I am dispatching an ambulance right away, Madam.’

‘Thank you.’

I put the phone down, pick it up again, dial 999 again.

‘Emergency. What service do you require?’

‘Police, please.’

‘Please hold while I connect you’ . . . ‘Hello. Police.’

‘My name is Lady Laura Summers. A man was just shot outside the rear of Summers Fine Art on the Kings Road in Chelsea.’

‘Shot, you say, madam?’

‘Yes. Shot. But not killed. I have already phoned for an ambulance. I wanted to tell you what I heard and saw while it is still fresh in my mind.’

‘Go ahead, madam. I will try to write it down.’

‘Well, I heard a shot. I ran out of the back of the gallery, saw the man on the ground. It looked as though he had been shot in the leg. He seemed to be unconscious. I went over to him. He was still breathing.’

‘Did you see anyone else, madam?’

‘There was another man, running away. I didn’t get a very good look at him but from what I could see he was quite short, about five foot six perhaps. Stocky build, black hair, black trousers, brown and white striped shirt. He turned briefly to look behind him – I could see that he had a swarthy complexion. Maltese I would guess. And that’s all I can tell you I’m afraid.’

‘Well, Madam, thank you for that information. No doubt an officer will come round to take a formal statement at some point.’

‘Or perhaps I could call into the Chelsea police station later on?’

‘That would be most helpful. Thank you, madam.’

The Maltese mobsters, ‘Maltesers,’ as they are disparagingly known, control most of the sex scene in London’s Soho and are widely said to be involved in drugs, money laundering and gambling. Internecine wars are common. I’m not sure that the man whose leg I shot was Maltese, but he was certainly part of some kind of gang. The police will probably spend all of five minutes investigating the shooting of one gang member by another – as far as the police are concerned the more gang members shoot each other the better.

Nevertheless I will go into the Chelsea police station later anyway, if only for old time’s sake. And also because I do not want the police coming round here to the gallery while the game is still afoot.

three

My gallery, Summers Fine Art is about fifteen feet wide and extends about sixty feet from the facade on Chelsea’s fashionable Kings Road – which is floor-to-ceiling, side to side glass – to the full height back door, tall enough to bring in the biggest paintings. The space narrows to a corridor at the rear, where my office is. I am sitting on a chair with my back against the glass front – the blinds are down so no one can see in from the Kings Road. From here I have a view down the length of the gallery to the back door, which is slightly ajar.

The crossbow is on my lap, loaded. I could have gone for a pistol, but it’s quite a long shot. My rifle is under my bed upstairs as always but I don’t feel that a gun is appropriate for this occasion. Guns are loud and messy. Bullets can be traced. A gun has no finesse. My beautiful Japanese kaiken sword has bags of finesse but is only of any use close-up. So the crossbow it was. I have a blue from Cambridge in rifle shooting but I had never picked up a crossbow until I got this one not long ago to – almost literally – scare the pants off the man who killed Mickey’s brother. I also used it to shoot in the leg a policeman who had come to shoot me in my bed. In the former case, shooting at quite close range, the shafts buried themselves deep in the tree and fence of the murderer’s garden and in the latter, the shaft went right through the policeman’s thigh and out the other side.

This is a much longer shot but the crossbow’s immense power will easily make it; I had a quick practice session just now. I brought downstairs the easel from the first floor gallery that is used for special viewings. Then I got a cushion from the sofa in my living room on the top floor. I attached it to the top of the easel with bulldog clips at about head height. Even at this distance the arrow ripped straight through the cushion, though it took me