Stones of Treason

by Peter Watson

  The plane was fifty yards away. Edward judged he should move a yard to his left. The plane was twenty-five yards away. He could see the pilot staring at him. He could see mouths moving as those inside discussed him. They had obviously decided he was not the taxi driver and were leaving the ground as quickly as possible. Would the plane lift?

  The Cessna was ten yards away and the roaring of the propellors was upon him. Edward raised the chain. He held it as a mass, a bundle of iron links. He had to get the timing right or …

  He crouched, his ankle throbbing. He knew the pilot had no choice; he had to keep a straight course. The plane screamed abreast of him, or nearly so. Just before it did so; Edward leaned into the plane and, almost gently, threw the chain up into the air in front of the aircraft’s starboard propellor. No sooner had he done this than he himself hit the ground and rolled over and over, till he reached the edge of the dusty strip.

  The Cessna had roared past him … except that it was no longer simply a roar. Edward looked up from his position in the dust on the ground. The air around him appeared to have been slapped hard as, first, two propellors from the plane’s starboard engine snapped off. Edward watched, silently, as the chain was wrapped around the engine. The aircraft was just off the ground by now. But then the starboard engine seized up, black fuel appeared on the casing and burst into flames. The Cessna reached perhaps ten feet, fifteen – but then started to wheel to the right; the starboard wing dipped and the plane lost altitude. Moments later the tip of the starboard wing clipped the ground and the Cessna cartwheeled once, twice, three times, diving into its own flames.

  Still on the ground, Edward watched the plane flop on to its back. In no time a silence settled over the field. All was still, save for the black smoke rising into the sky and the crackle of flames that engulfed the fuselage.

  Riley had to hand it to O’Day. The Irishman had got it bang on the button. The Greek had arrived at the Gerbergasse at a few minutes before noon. Almost immediately a taxi drove up and stopped outside the bank: Nancy Tucker was right on time. The taxi drove off, she and Zakros embraced, exchanged a few words, and then the two of them disappeared into the bank.

  O’Day fingered his weapon. He was required to ‘keep warm’, as they put it in the Service, every six months on a course at Didcot. But it had been years since he had fired in anger. It didn’t feel natural.

  The rain had started again. Christ, but it rained in Switzerland! He had never expected that. None the less, today he liked the feel of Basle, what he had seen of it. It wasn’t an exciting city, far from it. But the city fathers had made the most of the river; the place had some unexpected vistas, and that counted for a lot in his book. He pressed his eye to the drill-hole in the back of the van and looked up the Gerbergasse to –

  ‘Ssshhhit!’ he hissed under his breath. ‘Look at that.’

  Riley applied his eye to the other drill-hole. About two hundred yards away, almost opposite the entrance to the bank, and walking towards the van, were two policemen.

  Edward held his shirt to his face to shield it from the flames. With his free hand he gripped a fist-sized rock and aimed it at the glass of the cockpit. The impact cracked the glass but didn’t shatter it.

  ‘Edward! It’s hopeless. They’re dead. Let’s leave before anyone arrives.’

  But Edward couldn’t leave. The flames and the thick black smoke of the burning Cessna held him there. Even if the people inside were dead, he had to rescue their bodies. But the heat … He moved around the wing, pointing pathetically into the sky. He was still limping, from the pain in his ankle. The nose of the plane was the only section unaffected by the flames. He noticed a catch and remembered from their own flight, from Crete to Kithira, that these Cessnas had luggage compartments in the nose. Maybe that was a way in.

  He approached the nose. The heat was certainly more bearable here. Less unbearable.

  ‘Edward! Come away! What if it explodes?’

  But he had the catch undone. Inside there were two or three canvas bags and a leather briefcase, all unscathed. He took them out and threw them towards Victoria. He peered inside the luggage compartment. He felt the partition that divided the compartment from the footwell of the cockpit. It was fairly flimsy and he might be able to –

  ‘Edward!’

  But he had heard it: a sound, somewhere between a whoosh and a growl, which indicated that the Cessna’s fuel reserve in its port wing had caught fire. He could feel the heat down the side of his body and he pulled himself back.

  ‘Jeeesus!’

  ‘We can’t do anything, Edward. Really.’

  ‘You never know Victoria, one of them might be –’

  ‘Look at this!’ She had the briefcase open, the one Edward had taken from the nose of the plane.

  ‘What is it?’

  She waved some papers at him. ‘Airline tickets. Now we know where they planned to go.’

  Riley was sweating and cursing, cursing and sweating. The Greek and Nancy Tucker had now been inside the bank for more than an hour. They must emerge soon – but he didn’t want them to: the policemen were still on the street. They had strolled along Gerbergasse in one direction, disappeared into the market place and then, after only a few minutes, reappeared. Now they had found someone to talk to, a young blonde woman, and seemed in no hurry. They were both dressed in similar long grey raincoats, with white peaked caps, so they were well insulated against the weather. O’Day was going through the same agonies as Riley. They had even considered getting out of the van, approaching the policemen and asking for a light, in the hope that that would dislodge them from their talk and they would move on. But they didn’t want the police to get too good a look at their faces.

  The rain had worsened. Smells of cooking reached them from a nearby café and that didn’t improve matters. Riley had developed a raging hunger, in contrast to the night before. Until now he had felt no real anger against the Greek, but now, now that he was being kept waiting, Riley was starting to get very raw indeed. It was the frying he could smell, of course. Fried steak, maybe, fried potatoes. Smells were very evocative and he suddenly had an image of a fried halibut steak he’d once eaten on holiday in Vancouver. Funny, he even remembered the waitress, a tiny blonde not unlike the woman now talking to the –

  He saw Nancy Tucker first. He tapped O’Day’s shoulder.

  ‘Yes!’ the other man replied, meaning he had seen her, too.

  Her white raincoat was buttoned against the rain and Riley immediately registered that she was carrying two long holdalls. She descended the steps of the bank and set them down on the pavement. She stood up and rubbed her hands: the holdalls were clearly very heavy. She looked back up the stairs as Zakros appeared. Under one arm he carried a large black portfolio case; under the other there were four or five cardboard tubes. Did those tubes contain rolled canvases? Were there more in the holdalls? Zakros set the portfolio down on the pavement. Riley looked across to O’Day but as he did so he was conscious of a large Mercedes taxi turning into Gerbergasse. Riley pressed his eye to the drill-hole. Nancy Tucker was handing one of the holdalls to the taxi driver. The cardboard tubes were put on the front seat next to the driver and Zakros got into the back with yet another holdall. Nancy Tucker joined him and the taxi accelerated away.

  Immediately it was level with the van, Riley opened the doors. He didn’t dare hurry. The police were not far away and two men getting down from inside a parked van would look odd enough without adding to it. They moved round from the back of the van and got into the driving cab but then had to wait, agonizingly, as a tram clanged past. Finally, Riley let in the clutch and they moved off. They sped down Gerbergasse, sending sprays of dirty water everywhere. The two policemen stared after them.

  The van reached the market place, where Riley braked so that they could decide which way to turn. They both searched the square for the white Mercedes. No such car.

  ‘There!’ commanded O’Day, pointing to the street which led to the a
irport.

  Riley again let in the clutch and accelerated, causing the van to skid once or twice as it crossed over the wet tramlines. They reached Mittlerestrasse and zoomed along it until they came to the roundabout at the far end. There they had to turn left for the railway station, or go straight on for the airport. Riley stopped the car at the roundabout. They stared down both roads.

  ‘Which way?’ O’Day asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ replied Riley. ‘We’ve lost them.’

  ‘How far is Athens?’ Edward pulled the Mercedes’ wheel and the car moved to overtake a very old motorcycle and sidecar.

  Victoria inspected the map on her knees. ‘About seventy miles.’

  ‘So the airport will be a bit more.’ Without slowing down, he pulled the Mercedes out again, this time to pass a truck loaded with fruit. ‘If it’s two o’clock now, we should be there by fourish, just in time, maybe.’

  Edward had eventually given up trying to rescue the occupants of the Cessna. The flames and the smoke were still several feet high when they had left the airfield and it was still too hot to get anywhere near the cockpit. And when Victoria had shown Edward the air tickets in the briefcase that had made a dash to Athens the main priority. There had been ten airline tickets, four for Athens–Geneva and six for Geneva–New York. And there were six American passports. The names on the passports had been strange – Hassam, Lassiter, Kimball, Stanfield, Quincy and Dearing. But the photographs had been very familiar. The Apollo Brigade. The Athens–Geneva tickets were for a flight that afternoon, at four-thirty.

  Edward had been sick twice on the airfield but, eventually, Victoria had dragged him away.

  ‘Obviously they are rendezvousing in Geneva, then on to New York, where they will go public. It makes sense. But, if we can make the plane they would have been on, we still stand a chance.’

  ‘Surely not –’

  ‘We don’t know, do we? If Kolettis and the others were supposed to check in with Basle, or Geneva, from Athens, then the whole thing is blown. But timing was tight and they may simply have arranged a rendezvous. If Zakros is expecting the rest of the Brigade and we show up – he may be so shocked it could just do the trick. They might be so surprised … But we must make that plane. Can you do it?’

  ‘Seventy miles in a hundred and twenty minutes. It all depends on whether we see any police.’

  Sir Francis Mordaunt was sweating and that didn’t often happen. His left hand, which gripped the phone, was especially sticky. He was standing by his desk, staring down at the seated figure in front of him. Outside in the palace grounds a light wind rippled the surface of the pond.

  ‘No, Mr Page,’ said Mordaunt. His voice was quiet, controlled but as cold and as sharp as a stalactite. ‘I made it clear, crystal clear, that I wished to speak to you. Alone.’

  ‘I can’t get away from the House. You must see that. Today of all days.’

  ‘It is the debate I wish to talk about.’

  ‘Then why can’t you tell Swale? That’s why I sent him – he has my full confidence.’

  ‘Well, he doesn’t have mine!’ Mordaunt’s tone grew, if anything, more glacial. ‘It is a delicate matter. I must speak with you.’

  ‘Then come to the House –’

  ‘No! How many more times must I say it? It is too delicate, much too delicate, for me to risk being seen in your company.’

  ‘What’s wrong with my company?’

  For a moment, Mordaunt was wrong-footed. ‘No, no – I didn’t mean it like that.’ His hand on the phone grew even more sticky. ‘It needn’t take long – twenty minutes, but I must –’

  ‘Sir Francis! It is half past one. In less that two hours one of the most important debates the House of Commons has seen is due to begin. The most important debate in the Prime Minister’s career and the most important debate in my career. I have arrangements to make, people to see. I have to polish my own speech and reassure my own side. I am party leader and I have to lead … Part of me is dismayed and worried that the Palace would even hint at getting involved in this issue. And I am not sure I want to be seen entering Buckingham Palace on today of all days. People might draw the wrong conclusions, and government backbenchers could make a lot of it in the debate. In other circumstances, then of course I would respect your wishes and come to you. In these circumstances, today, the rules are different. Now, I am very busy and must go. If you decide to change your mind and come to the House, I will see you. Otherwise …’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Very well.’ And Page put down the phone.

  ‘I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit,’ growled Riley. They had opted for the airport, after they had lost Zakros and Nancy Tucker outside the bank. But although they had lost them they were only two or three minutes behind them, which was why, in the end, they had decided to make for the airport. Zakros and Tucker could not have checked in for any flight, even a domestic one, in that time. And Basle was not a large airport: if the Greek and the American woman were there, they would have been very obvious. But they weren’t there.

  ‘Okay, so you don’t like it.’ O’Day slapped the dashboard with the palm of his hand. ‘Now what? The border with France? The border with Germany? Or the train station?’

  ‘It has to be the station. No one would take a taxi into France or Germany.’

  ‘Good enough for me,’ said O’Day. ‘Make for the Bahnhof.’

  It took them twenty-five minutes to get to the railway station. They ran into the forecourt, not caring now if Nancy Tucker or Zakros should recognize them. The forecourt was crowded but it should have been possible to see immediately a couple with such prominent luggage. No couple and no luggage. Riley saw O’Day turn on his heel and march back to the forecourt. He followed. He found the other man studying the timetable. ‘What are you doing?’

  O’Day looked at his watch. ‘They came out of the bank at about one-forty. It would have taken them … oh, four to six minutes to get here. Another three or four minutes to pay the taxi, buy their tickets and get on to the platform. So they couldn’t have got to a platform before one-fifty at the absolute earliest. It’s now two-thirty-nine. Between one-fifty and now only two trains have left this station: one to Lucerne and Como, one to Berne and Brig. There’s a third, to Geneva, in two minutes. It has to be Geneva.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘These people are intending to go public. For that they need a major newspaper. That means a major city. The only major cities in Switzerland are Basle itself, Zurich, Berne and Geneva. Also, Geneva has a bigger airport than Basle. From there they could fly anywhere – Athens, Rome, Melbourne –’

  ‘Melbourne!’

  ‘No, probably not. But you see my point. Platform eight!’ He was already running.

  A passage led under the railway lines and the platforms, with staircases leading off every so often. The third staircase was the one they wanted and O’Day bounded up the steps two or three at a time. Riley wheezed along behind.

  At the top, platform eight was to their left. Blue and cream coaches were waiting in place.

  O’Day halted and examined his watch. ‘It must be about to leave,’ he gasped and pointed to the rear of the train. ‘I’ll get on and work my way forward. You stay on the platform and keep abreast of me. That way we can’t miss them and they can’t escape.’

  He ran to the last coach and, without pausing or looking back, climbed the steps.

  Riley kept pace as O’Day moved through the train, looking hard into each compartment. They covered the first coach, the second, the third. There were about seven more. The train seemed fairly empty.

  Suddenly, Riley noticed that the train was moving – these electric Swiss trains started so silently. He grabbed at a door and pulled. Someone shouted at him. He heard footsteps behind him, running. The train was picking up speed.

  He pulled on the door handle. It was a big door. Whoever was behind him shouted again. The train was going faster. But now he had the door open and he ju
mped on to the lowest step. Others were shouting now as the door swung wide. The train was already travelling at about fifteen miles per hour. But Riley was inside now, wheezing hard. He pulled the door shut and then stood for a moment, to regain his breath. He moved across the carriage so that he could look down the corridor.

  O’Day was at the far end, with his back to Riley. Riley started to move towards him, the train swaying as it picked up speed and rattled over some points. O’Day had disappeared by now, through the doors which connected the carriages. Riley followed. He opened the first connecting door, steadying himself as he crossed the divide. The doors were heavy and stiff but he had the second one open.

  At that moment he heard a cracking sound, loud but very brief. At first Riley thought the train had cracked a wheel, or slipped a rail. But he didn’t think that for long. The train was still bucking along at twenty or more miles an hour. He rushed through the second door, reaching into his pocket as he did so. The train went into a tunnel and for a moment everything went dark. But then they were in daylight again and he moved across the carriage so that he could again look along the corridor. His heart seemed to expand in his chest and the blood rushed up his neck.

  At the far end of the corridor, a figure was slumped on its back, blocking the corridor. It was moving, but not of its own accord. It was being dragged into the lavatory.

  Riley took in the scene immediately. The Greek must be inside the lavatory, pulling O’Day, because Tucker was standing over the body.

  She saw Riley and raised her arm. He fumbled again in his jacket pocket and brought out his own gun. As he did so, he felt a massive force bounce him on the right shoulder and a hot pain zipped down his right side. He dropped his gun as his body was spun by the force of the bullet that had passed through his shoulder, splintering the blade. He cried out as he fell – and he cried again as his shattered shoulder hit the floor of the carriage.