Labyrinth

by Jon Land

  Neither man had an answer. Tension passed across the table between them.

  “It might help if I knew who this client was,” Locke ventured tentatively.

  Felderberg chuckled, but there was no trace of amusement in the sound. “You think in a situation such as this they would reveal their true identity? No. Everything has been concluded through middlemen, mostly lawyers, and mailings. The arrangements have never failed to be in order and because my commission is always paid promptly, the need has not arisen for questions.”

  “But you must still pose them, Mr. Felderberg. You went through great pains this afternoon to have me checked out. I have to believe that is the rule for how you operate regularly.”

  “Within certain limits. The force behind the South American land deals and the massacre at San Sebastian has gone through great pains to keep its identity secret.” He paused. “But there are clues, hints. They add up to little but still …”

  “I’m listening.”

  “All my commissions were paid out through the Bank of Vienna.”

  “Interesting.”

  “But not terribly conclusive. The Bank of Vienna is known for its willingness and ability to handle exceptionally large financial arrangements.”

  “Going through Swiss institutions is more the norm, isn’t it?”

  “Not so much anymore. Political pressure from abroad has forced the famed Swiss banks to become less accessible and secretive. Accordingly, persons seeking large transactions have had to look elsewhere.” Felderberg cleared his throat, fingered the stem of his wineglass. “The problem then became determining how long my client’s account had been active at the Bank of Vienna. I had the account number and knew there had to be a means to gain the information I sought.”

  “But most banks take steps to make that impossible.”

  “To a point, yet they must at some stage bow to procedures made necessary by the computer. There had to be a code in the account number, something in sequence the computer could use as a key. It took much time and money, but careful analysis of this account number and comparison with others whose origin I knew led to the discovery that the account in question had been active for some seventeen years.”

  “Any chance of the account number leading back to its bearers?”

  “Not through any means I’m aware of.”

  “So all we’re left with is the probability that your client is based in Vienna, at least Austria, and has been for some time.”

  “And something else. One memorandum I was issued held the traces of a stamp on its bottom. Only the top half and quite light, as if someone had stamped another page with the memorandum protruding from beneath it. I had the stamp blown up and hired detectives in Zurich to trace it down. Their report led back to my own doorstep: the Sanii Corporation in Schaan, not more than eleven miles from where we sit now.”

  “What is Sanii?”

  “High-tech experiments and development.”

  “Weapons?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Then we’re back to San Sebastian again, what the people saw down there before they were killed.”

  “That had nothing to do with a weapon, Mr. Locke. The key remains food. Sanii is part of an American conglomerate, but ownerships can be shielded just as funds can be.”

  “Then whoever’s behind the corporation is behind the land deals, San Sebastian, everything. That’s an awful lot of power.”

  “Indeed,” Felderberg agreed. “And at first I thought it was being wielded by an emerging nation with a plot somehow related to food. But everything was done too covertly. Organization and single-mindedness of the extent no country could possess. And then there was the account in the Bank of Vienna to consider. No, my client is someone from the private sector.”

  “But the plot still exists.”

  “And the best means for determining precisely what that plot is would be to uncover who’s behind it.” Felderberg hesitated. “I sent your friend Lubeck to the Dwarf.”

  “Who?”

  “I broker large financial transactions, Mr. Locke. The Dwarf brokers large transactions of information. He maintains a chain of spies and informants across the world any intelligence service would be jealous of. His fees are often even higher than mine. Nothing of the magnitude we are discussing could escape his attention.”

  “You could have contacted him already yourself.”

  Felderberg smiled. “Such things aren’t done. Our interests often conflict. We maintain respect for each other but we are hardly allies. No, it is you who must seek him out, just as Lubeck did. He resides in Florence. You can find him by—”

  Felderberg was interrupted by a knock on the door. “Come in.”

  The waiter entered holding a bottle of wine. Peale followed him in and watched with arms crossed as the waiter rested the bottle on the table and pulled the cork out, handing it to Felderberg for approval.

  “Excellent,” said the financier after sniffing it.

  He poured a small amount into a glass and Peale stepped over, taking the glass from his employer. He held the contents in his mouth for a few seconds, then swallowed, nodding deliberately after a brief pause.

  Peale and the waiter took their leave.

  Felderberg poured out two glasses of rich red wine.

  “So Peale also serves as a wine taster,” Locke quipped.

  The humor was lost on the man across from him. “He was checking for poison.”

  “My God!”

  “I demand loyalty from my men, Mr. Locke. There are risks involved but they are paid exceptionally well for taking them.”

  Felderberg sipped his wine. “Now, as I was saying about the Dwarf, you can reach him by—”

  Felderberg’s face puckered. His mouth dropped and he gasped for air like a man choking on a piece of food. Locke was already out of his chair moving toward the financier when a violent convulsion shook the fat man backward, then forward to the table. His wine spilled across the tablecloth. The cork went flying.

  The cork! Locke realized. There had to be some sort of poison he had inhaled from the cork!

  Locke lifted Felderberg’s head up. His flesh was purple. His eyes bulged, veins and arteries rippling across his forehead. His whole body shook, spasmed, stilled. His breathing stopped. His eyes froze open.

  Locke shook the financier in disbelief and was about to start administering CPR when one last spasm shook through the man’s legs, activating the emergency button beneath his right foot. Chris was tilting Felderberg’s head back for mouth to mouth when the door burst open and Peale rushed in with the other bodyguards behind him.

  Chris hadn’t even had time to start an explanation when the blond man grabbed him with the strongest hands Locke had ever felt and flung him against the wall. His head hit first. The light in the room flickered, faded. Seconds passed, how many Chris didn’t know. Men were standing over him.

  “He’s dead,” a voice said near Felderberg.

  “Shit,” Peale muttered, drawing closer to Locke.

  Then Chris felt himself being hoisted to his feet. The room was still spinning.

  “Who sent you?” Peale demanded. “Who hired you?”

  Locke opened his mouth but no words emerged. Peale hit him hard in the stomach and pain exploded everywhere. His wind was gone and he felt bile struggling to rise. He wanted to vomit, and had started to double over when Peale lifted his head up and smashed him in the gut again.

  “I want to know who you’re working for!”

  “Not … me.” Locke gasped. His eyes searched frantically for the cork to offer as proof. “The cork, the wai—”

  Peale hit him again, under the chin this time, and Chris slipped toward oblivion.

  “We’ll take him down to the office. We’ll get the information out of him there no matter what it takes,” Peale ranted as two men hoisted Locke up again.

  He tried to stand on his feet but balance eluded him. “It wasn’t me,” he muttered, fighting for words and wo
ndering if any of them could hear him. “Find the waiter. It was the waiter… .”

  “What is he saying?” Peale asked.

  “Can’t make it out,” the man on Locke’s right replied.

  “We’ll have plenty of time to hear him once we get him out of here,” said Peale. “An eternity. You two take him to the office. The rest of us will take care of the boss.” The final words were spoken with true regret, spoken bitterly by a man not used to failure.

  Someone was going to pay for this, Chris knew, and it was probably going to be him. Peale was the kind of man who took things personally.

  Locke found his feet finally but didn’t show it, just let himself be dragged along, hoping he might surprise the men holding him when he chose his moment of escape. Pressed close against them, he could feel their pistols beneath their jackets, reminding him that breaking free of his captors was not enough; he also had to disable them.

  The two men continued to drag him along when they reached the main floor of the restaurant, oblivious to the stares of the Hauser’s few customers. Chris met the eyes of the thick-haired man seated at the bar again and could have sworn there was more in them than just surprise and shock. Then he was outside, yanked down the path back toward the tram. He had to act fast. Once on the way down the mountain in the enclosed compartment, his slim advantage would be gone.

  Think!

  No, he reminded himself, thinking slows you down. The training, remember the training… .

  React! Respond! Seize the moment and make it work for you!

  They reached the wooden loading platform and started to move for the next available car. A single man was at the controls.

  Then Locke was in motion. He wasn’t sure what triggered the action, probably the sight of the tram car swaying toward him. He shoved the man on his right forward into its path so that the steel frame struck him square in the back of the head and drove him into the wall. In the same instant Chris pushed hard against the man on his left, jamming his hand against the holster beneath his jacket to make drawing the gun impossible.

  The man shook off his shock and went for a countermove. Locke felt a fist blast his stomach. Then the man went for his pistol, tying up both his hands and giving Chris time to recoup. He grabbed for the man’s face and shoved him viciously backward until his head smashed against the platform’s frame. The man tried futilely to pull away, but Locke slammed him backward again and blood smudged up on the dark wood. Chris slammed him one last time and let his body slide to the floor. Then he leaned over and yanked the man’s pistol from its holster. Holding it tight, he swung quickly around.

  The other man was still slumped against the far wall, his head partially supported and eyes closed. The tram controller had grabbed a red telephone and was pushing a series of buttons. Locke rushed across the floor and tore it from his hands, holding the revolver up to his head.

  “Is this the only way you can communicate with the base of the mountain?”

  The man, face smeared with grease, hesitated, then nodded.

  “Is there any way you can stop the mechanism from up here?”

  The man nodded. “Emergency switch. O-o-over there,” he said, pointing to a steel fuse box on the wall over the first of the downed men.

  Locke ripped the receiver right out of the phone box. Then he hurried to the emergency switch and found three wires running to it. Two yanks and they had come free. His eyes darted back to the path leading from the restaurant. Peale and the others could appear at any time. He had to get out of there.

  After stealing one last glance at the engineer, Locke pulled himself into the next tram car as it swung by, then settled himself in and closed the door behind him. As the car began to descend the mountain, Chris watched out the rear window. The engineer rushed up the path toward the restaurant. Peale and his men had not yet appeared on the platform, which passed out of sight as the car dipped sharply and continued its descent.

  Locke started to breathe easier, trying to collect his thoughts. He had escaped, but was no less vulnerable, for all of Felderberg’s allies would be after him. His meeting with the financier had been fruitful, yet would he live to share his information with Burgess or anyone else?

  Someone in Austria was behind everything and somehow they were connected with the Sanii Corporation in Schaan. Then there was the Dwarf, an information broker in Florence—the man who might be able to add the final pieces to this puzzle. Chris would have to find him somehow, but first there was Schaan to investigate as soon as he was off this mountain and out of Vaduz.

  He was halfway down the mountain. Squinting his eyes, he thought he could make out figures on the platform above moving about, perhaps climbing into another car. No matter. At least fifteen yards separated one car from the next and Locke had a headstart of fifteen cars, maybe twenty. And with no way to stop the tram from there or call down to the mountain’s base, he should be home free. He fingered the pistol wedged in his belt, happy he wouldn’t have to use it.

  He would call the contact number in Falmouth and, in order not to stay in one place for any extended period, he would tell the girl to have Burgess standing by for a second call in thirty minutes. That would be the professional way to handle matters. The burly Englishman would approve.

  The tram car squeaked past a connecting station and ground to a halt.

  Locke felt a flash of fear. He could only hope this was some standard procedure, and that it would be only a brief pause.

  But the tram did not start up again. All the cars remained at a dead stop swaying in the wind. Locke glanced back up the mountain.

  Three figures were descending on foot, following the grass directly beneath the tram line. Obviously there had been another mechanism to stop the trams from the platform above or a means to contact workmen at the base platform. Chris was trapped! A sitting duck waiting for three armed men to come and finish him. He gazed beneath him; a fifty-foot drop at the very least. It was hopeless.

  Then it came into his mind—his means of escape. It was a drill he had practiced dozens of times on a wire suspended between trees or over water at the Academy. He didn’t have the proper equipment, but he had a … belt. Yes, that was it!

  Chris unfastened his leather belt and yanked it from the loops. He stuck it between his teeth. Wasting no time, he opened the door to the stalled car and pushed himself forward, swinging the car toward the connecting station pole. Once, twice, three times … Finally he grabbed hold of the wood and pulled himself onto the pole from the car. His feet dangled in midair, then came to rest on a pair of spikes driven into the pole. He looked behind him.

  The men had drawn to within a hundred yards. One stopped to raise and aim his gun. Chris wasn’t sure which came next, the sharp crack or the explosion of wood chips not a foot from his head. There was no more time to waste.

  He pulled the belt from his mouth and strung it across the heavy cable just above him, grabbing each end with a tight hand around the leather. He bent his knees to provide a cannonball effect, then pushed off.

  The results were dizzying. Wind rushed past him as he slid down the cable, helped along by the grease that eliminated any friction from leather scraping against steel.

  Another car came up fast and Chris knew there was no way he could steer past it. He slammed into it feet first and absorbed the rest of the shock on his thighs and stomach. His breath exploded out and his left hand started to let go but he recovered in time to grab the belt at the buckle, steadying himself on top of the car.

  More bullets, a whole series of them, rang out, clanging against steel, whizzing past his ear.

  Locke lowered himself down and placed the belt over the wire again, pushing off. He kept his speed lower this time and learned quickly how to manipulate body and belt to slow his pace before reaching each of the cars. He negotiated the next one easily and required barely any time to climb over it and continue on. The next one came even easier. That left eight more to go. Peale and his men were still racing down
the slope beneath the tramway but Locke was holding his lead now.

  With three cars left and a thirty-foot drop beneath him, Chris’s hands became his greatest enemy. The flesh had turned raw and sweat made a sufficiently tight grip impossible. Each pass between cars became a maddening exercise in nerves as his fingers started to slip down the leather, flirting with the tips as the next car came near. He couldn’t afford to slow down, couldn’t afford the time to even wipe his hands dry. Peale’s men were too close, their bullets even closer.

  After the last car came a long forty-yard segment during which the line leveled off before reaching the base platform. He tried to gather up enough momentum to make it all the way but felt himself slowing still quite a way from his target. His hands could take no more. They finally slipped off the belt with fifteen yards left to go, when the drop was twenty feet. Chris tried to tuck into a roll as he landed but one of his legs twisted and he tumbled out of control down the hill toward the loading platform. The sky had clouded up, so there were few tourists at the base.

  Locke’s roll finally came to an end and he struggled to his feet, coming up lame on a right ankle full of knifing pain. He limped forward, tripped and fell, then rose with a glance to his rear to find his pursuers just fifty yards back and closing.

  Chris dragged himself forward, doing the best he could to run with his bad leg like a ball and chain behind him. Bullets rang out. The pursuers were almost on top of him. He dove to the ground, turning as he tore the pistol from his pants. From his prone position, he fired a pair of shots.

  Three figures sprawled for cover twenty yards away. He knew where they were now. That was something. The deserted platform was just ahead but too difficult to climb onto. Chris made it back to his feet, ducked low to use the wooden rise and steel supports as cover, and hustled around the outside of the tram complex.

  Please God, let there be a cab!

  Locke swung around the front corner of the building. Cement chips exploded just over his head.