No Mercy

by Forbes, Colin

  He looked up as Marler reappeared. Butler was alongside him. Marler drifted into the middle of the coach, took a seat facing them. Butler was carrying a violin case.

  'What happened to the assassin?' Tweed asked quietly. 'Did you kill him?'

  'Of course not. He's in the loo next to the exit door. Nield used a tool to turn the slide to occupe. I checked his pulse. Ticking over nicely. He's soused with cognac.'

  'Really?'

  'When we get to the next stop,' Marler explained, 'two of us will be standing by the doors, holding up the drunk. Just before the automatic doors close we'll heave him down on to the platform. A cognac-soaked drunk will be found after the train's gone.'

  'Neat.'

  'The bad news is they know we're on this train.'

  'So?'

  'We can expect a reception committee soon after leaving the gare at Marseilles.'

  'And Harry is going to make them swoon by playing on his violin?' suggested Paula, who had completely recovered.

  Harry lifted the case, held it past Tweed so Paula could see inside. He lifted the lid. She stared in disbelief at the violin resting on a velvet cloth, then looked at him.

  'I'm not at my best this morning, but I can't see that's going to help if we have hostiles meeting us outside the station.'

  'Lift the velvet cloth.'

  She peeled it back slowly. Underneath rested a Sten gun and a number of spare magazines. She glanced at Marler, who was standing holding a golf bag. She wondered what that contained. At the two-hour switch in Paris from Gare du Nord, after leaving Eurostar, Tweed had taken her in a cab to the Gare de Lyon. They had spent their time waiting for the rest of the team drinking cafe creme in the station buffet. Plenty of time, she now realized, for Marler to have visited his contact. Which was why he'd handed her a .32 Browning now tucked inside the shoulder bag, and a Beretta, concealed inside the holster strapped to her lower right leg.

  'That false ticket inspector,' Tweed enquired. 'Any ideas?'

  'My guess,' said Marler, 'is he caught the real collector back at the gare. Knifed him probably - for silence. Stripped him of his clothes, gear, including the satchel and ticket machine. Got rid of his identity papers. Having seen you board the TGV, gets on board himself at the last moment. I was waiting for something like that.'

  'Why?' asked Paula.

  'Because someone on a motorbike followed us from Park Crescent to Waterloo.' His expression became serious. 'Marin warned me how to handle our arrival in Marseilles. There's a second-class coach a little way behind us. Arriving at Marseilles, we hurry back into that.'

  'Why?' asked Paula, again.

  'So we mingle with other passengers when we get off. Tweed, with Paula you get into the back seat of a yellow Citroen waiting outside. The first one. There'll be a second vehicle, same make, same colour, a little way back. I'll get into that one with Pete and Harry. Marin will be driving your cab. Both vehicles have been fitted with very tough rams.'

  'What are they for?' Paula persisted.

  'If there's trouble driving us to the hotel, you'll see why.'

  Marler left them, followed by Harry. Nield moved back to his earlier position beyond the entrance to the coach. All this tension, she was thinking, on such a glorious day. Gazing out of the window, she saw endless grids of vineyards spreading up the sloping fields. She thought they were already beginning to sprout under the blinding rays of the glowing sun.

  Her mind wandered. Why had Tweed had that dream of the clanging bells they'd heard in the Dartmoor tower near the church? Then the vicar, Stenhouse Darkfield, advancing on him with a knife. She'd thought the vicar a sinister man from the moment she'd clapped eyes on him. She glanced at Tweed, who appeared to be enjoying a doze. The TGV began slowing down.

  White-walled houses and factory plants appeared, hemming in the rail track on both sides. Poor properties with grubby walls. The usual approach to any major terminus. Tweed was awake as Marler appeared, and waved to Pete.

  'Time to get moving.'

  He hauled their luggage down from the rack, including a large flat case of his own. Paula wondered what was inside that. She decided she'd asked too many questions already.

  'I'll lead the way,' Marler instructed. 'Shuffle along - no hurrying.'

  They were approaching the coach with quite a few passengers when the platform began to slide past. Tweed grunted.

  'Here we are,' he said. 'Marseilles. Cesspit of Europe.'

  The express stopped smoothly. Paula stretched her legs, stiff from sitting so long. The automatic doors opened. Passengers began alighting. A mix of businessmen, poorly dressed women with scarves over their heads. It was a different atmosphere from bustling Paris, a hint of brutality.

  She forgot the steep step down and nearly fell. Marler steadied her. He smiled. 'On the Continent they built the train steps for giants.'

  He kept hold of her, guiding her away from the passenger exit as Tweed followed with Harry and Pete bringing up the rear. Paula glanced along the platform in both directions. It seemed to go on for ever. Marler had reached a pair of double doors. They were closed. He lifted the handle on one of them, pushed it open.

  'You can't go out that way,' a small portly uniformed official screamed at them in French. 'That's for luggage.'

  'Police,' Marler snarled back at him in French. 'Keep your voice down. This is a police operation. Shut your stupid trap or I'll have you demoted.'

  Paula's French was good enough to understand every word. The rail official opened his mouth, then closed it like a fish. He had been thoroughly intimidated by Marler's outburst. Paula walked quickly out on to a pavement and saw a yellow Citroen parked opposite. The driver, an Arab, waved to her to hurry. Carrying her small suitcase - she had foreseen they were unlikely to be dining in a top restaurant -she crossed the street into the blinding sun.

  'Is this right?' she whispered to Marler, carrying the strange flat case in one hand, another case in the other, golf bag slung over his shoulder.

  'Yes, get in the back.'

  She caught a glimpse of massive rams attached to the front and rear of the car. The heat beat down on her. Settling herself inside, she rested her case on her lap and looked through the rear window as Tweed joined her. Marler had jumped into the second Citroen behind the wheel of the car with Harry beside him and Pete clambered into the back.

  'Get ready for a rough ride, Paula,' the driver told her with a smile and in perfect English.

  'I thought you were an Arab,' Paula said, astonished.

  'That's the idea.' The driver smiled again as he started the engine. 'I've been out here long enough to get brown as the genuine article. That, plus the clothes, helps me to merge into the scenery. I also speak fluent Arabic.'

  'This,' Tweed said, 'is Philip Cardon. I knew all along that he and Marin were one and the same. Used to work for me. And he was good at his work. Second to none. Then he experienced a grim tragedy.'

  'My dear wife died,' Cardon explained as he watched through his rear-view mirror to check that the second Citroen crew were ready. 'Long time ago,' he said casually. 'I still have bad days. Her birthday, our wedding anniversary, the day she died.' His voice changed, became urgent. 'Got your seat belts fastened? I may be going at speed and then stop very abruptly.'

  He drove off at a moderate pace. Paula peered out of the window. So far she wasn't impressed with Marseilles: a lot of shops on ground floors of shabby two-storey white buildings. Kids ripping off tyres from parked cars, already little more than battered wrecks.

  'Main street coming up,' Cardon informed them. 'Hardly the Champs-Elysees.'

  It wasn't, Paula thought. Litter was scattered everywhere. The shops were cluttered with junk. Cardon nodded his head to both sides.

  'See that travel agent on the left, the currency-exchange outfit opposite? An American tourist wanted to change a load of dollars for euros and went to the travel agent. Owner said he never kept cash on the premises - too dangerous. Pointed out the exchange just yards
opposite. Warned him to be damn careful. The American starts to walk to the exchange, is knifed in the back, wallet taken, rushed to hospital. DOA. Marseilles.'

  'Charming,' Paula commented.

  'We're near your hotel. A quarter of a mile. To hell with kilometres. Hold tight! Here we go.'

  Paula looked back. A black Renault with tinted windows was on their tail. No sign of the other Citroen. Cardon rammed his foot down. They shot forward like a racing car at Le Mans. Paula braced herself, gripping the door handle, but couldn't resist looking back. The Renault was also moving at high speed. She caught a glimpse of the second Citroen coming up behind it.

  'Now!' Cardon shouted.

  He braked suddenly. The Renault rushed into the ram at the rear of Garden's car. Behind it the second Citroen slammed its ram into the rear of the now stationary Renault, which concertinaed between the two Citroens. Hurled forward, Paula was saved by the seat belt, as was Tweed. She looked back again. Compressed by the two rams at top speed, the Renault was hardly recognizable, looked much smaller. Its windscreen was shattered. No sign of movement. Marler reversed a few feet, jumped out, peered inside the squashed vehicle, ran to Tweed, who had lowered his window. Marler talked across him to Philip Cardon.

  'They're all dead. Automatic weapons scattered over the inside. We move on?'

  'We do.'

  Cardon revved up. Paula heard the crunch of the Citroen's ram, tearing itself from the Renault's radiator, then they turned a corner and Tweed saw the Vieux Port for the second time in his life.

  The ancient oyster-shaped port was crammed with pleasure craft - small powerboats, big jobs, yachts and smaller craft. Tweed stared in disbelief.

  'Where are the fishing vessels? From my hotel window I used to watch them sailing out at all hours to catch the fish.'

  'Not here any more,' Cardon explained. 'They have to use another harbour these days. Vieux Port is strictly for rich men's pleasure craft. Some expensive stuff down there.'

  A short distance further on he swung the car up a curving drive, stopped at the entrance to the hotel above the harbour.

  'Won't that smashed-up Renault cause the police to come looking for us?' Tweed wondered.

  'No way.' Cardon grinned. 'They find four Arabs inside the wreck, assume it was the result of gang warfare. They'll just want to haul it but of the once famous Canebiere.'

  'Once famous?' Paula asked.

  'Years ago the Canebiere was a street of expensive shops. Parisian women with money went there to buy the best. Like Marseilles, it's deteriorated into a filthy slum.'

  Tweed managed to get the same room he had once occupied on his earlier visit years before. He was staring down out of the window when Paula tapped on his door and he called out. for her to come in. She joined him.

  'This place isn't the Ritz but I guess it will do. You look nostalgic,' she remarked.

  'I should have foreseen this. Everything changes, not always for the better. When I was last here I used to love watching the fishing craft coming in, moving out - often in the late evening. It was beautiful. Now they've ruined it. Look at those boring horrors. They weren't here then.'

  He pointed across the harbour to the mainland, where large ugly office and apartment blocks stood shoulder to shoulder. It could have been anywhere. 'Progress' had advanced with leaps and bounds.

  'I wonder why Cardon chose this place,' Paula mused.

  'Marler said he was insistent we should stay here.'

  He paused as someone knocked on the door, which Paula had locked when she came in. Holding his Walther automatic by his side, Tweed went to the door, asked who it was, then unlocked the door and Philip Cardon walked in. Paula stared in surprise. Cardon was now clad in a smart cream suit with open-necked shirt.

  'What happened to your Arab outfit?' Paula asked. 'You really look something.'

  'After I'd dropped you here I drove to a quiet nearby alley, stripped off the clothes I was wearing, put on this gear. Not the thing to walk into this place like an Arab. Asked the nosy girl on reception for your room numbers. She was stubborn until I showed her my fake DST card - French counterespionage - then told her France hoped to conclude profitable commercial deals with you. I hauled the register round, found where you all are. I noticed Marler is in the adjoining room on that side, with Nield adjoining you on the other side. Good strategy.'

  'Why do we need to be in this hotel?' Paula asked.

  'I remember you always asked the key question.' He grinned at her. 'See that second landing stage from here? Now count three boats from the shore.'

  'Got it.'

  'That's a pretty powerful motor launch,' Tweed observed.

  'The suspect freighter calls at the He des Oiseaux tomorrow. We'll be there to see what it's up to.'

  'Why suspect?' Tweed asked.

  'Sailed from Algiers named the Bougie. Somewhere at sea the name changed to Oran. Plus it's carrying too large a crew for a fifteen-thousand-ton freighter. A very rough crew -some without sailing experience.'

  'So in the morning we sail in that boat down there to the island?' Tweed asked.

  'In a word, yes. Now, if it's OK, I can drive you to somewhere from which you get a clear view of the island.'

  They drove in a different Citroen from the version with the rams. As Cardon moved carefully out of the entrance a young Arab jumped in front of the car, waving a dirty squeegee on the end of a stick. Cardon leaned out of the window.

  'Yattah!' he shouted, throwing a crumpled piece of paper a long distance.

  'What does that mean?' Paula wanted to know.

  'Shove off- not so politely. I threw a crumpled euro note. That got him away from us - so he couldn't smear our rear window with that filthy squeegee.'

  'Well, I suppose the poor little devil got something,' Paula replied.

  'Listen,' Cardon told her, 'these days never go east or south of Suez. To Asia or Africa. Unless it's South Africa.'

  'I agree,' Marler called out. 'Cut your throat for tuppence - and steal your clothes.'

  'Terrorists?' asked Paula.

  'Not necessarily,' called out Butler, seated with Marler. 'A white face means loot.'

  They were driving away from Marseilles along a wide promenade, calm glittering blue sea on their right, a white rocky wall on their left. Cardon pointed upwards above the rock wall.

  'That's where we're going. See that church? Notre-Dame de la Garde. Tremendous view from a platform in front of it.'

  Peering up, Paula saw, perched very high, an ancient edifice which looked large enough to be a cathedral. Cardon swung the wheel, began driving up a steep winding road, which caused the vehicle to bump about as he kept his foot down.

  Suddenly they were at the summit. Paula changed her mind about Marseilles as she climbed out. Inland, a bare few miles away, an immense limestone ridge curved round for ever. Awe-inspiring, it was like the world's greatest amphitheatre. She let out her breath. Cardon waited while she gazed at it, then led the way past the ancient Notre-Dame on to the vast flat platform stretching out in the direction of the sea.

  Arriving at the thigh-high wall, she gazed down the drop to the promenade road far below. Then she stared at the vast sweep of the Mediterranean - a turquoise blue sheet with, at intervals, a white streak of surf. The colour, the immensity of the sea, fascinated her. She stood still, taking in its vastness so she'd be able to recall it later. Cardon, next to Tweed, was pointing as he held binoculars.

  'There are the islands. See that one with the sun reflecting off something? That's the well-known Chateau d'lf, the core of Alexandra Dumas's famous novel The Count of Monte Cristo.' He had given the binoculars to Tweed, who was focusing on the island, a great chunk of limestone rock rising out of the sea.

  'Got it? Good,' Cardon said. 'Hold the lenses on it. Now move slowly to the right, a bit further out. You're looking for a triangular-shaped island with steep limestone cliffs.'

  'I'm there.'

  'Well, that's where we're going today when I get a
signal to tell me the Oran has docked.'

  'Docked?'

  'There's a small harbour on the far side of the island you can't see from here. But we land on this side. At one point only there's a narrow gulch leading up to the summit.'

  'Think I've got it. Doesn't look more than a crevice in the rock.'

  'That's where we climb up to the top, get a good view of the harbour - the top of the island slopes down to it. I should warn you we may walk into a firefight. They have tough Arab guards and automatic weapons. Let's hope the arrival of the Oran attracts them all to the west side.'