Prelude to Terror

by Helen Macinnes

  They reached the trees at the back of the house. The door there was boarded over, but the shutters were open; so were two windows. In the breathless air, sound carried clearly. Voices... Renwick and Grant halted, stood motionless behind a spread of low branches. Two men’s voices: one pitched high and complaining; the other harsh and domineering. The complainer sounded familiar. Even his phrases seemed to be an echo of that earlier conversation which Frank’s men had taped on the Schotten Allee: how long had they to wait, when would the others arrive? That, thought Grant, is the one with ulcers. The other? No, not the big fellow... His memory flashed back to the Two Crowns, a man mounting a staircase, a harsh voice raised in contempt for the nervous woman at the reception desk.

  Renwick’s expression showed he had identified the complainer, but he shook his head when the second voice cut the other down with “Acht, shut up! You’ve been yapping for ten minutes by my watch. Our replacements will be coming. Jacques is arranging it. Do you question him?”

  Grant moved closer to Renwick. “Rupprecht,” he whispered.

  Renwick nodded, kept listening, but the compulsive talker had been silenced. Where’s the third man? he wondered. He raised two fingers, and shrugged a silent query as he held up one finger alone. Grant got the message. He pointed to the second floor above them. Except, he was thinking, it had no windows in the rear, and only three at the front, all of them closed. If the big man was up there, guarding Avril, he would be finding it suffocatingly hot. They might see him out here, any moment, taking a quick breather.

  Renwick had just the same idea. He pulled out the automatic and silencer, fitted them quickly together. Frank’s pop-pistol: only good for close range, but almost soundless. Then he beckoned towards the other side of the house where the barn stood, and they edged carefully through the trees. Grant fitted the brass knuckle-duster over his right hand, tried to force the binoculars into the empty pocket, found them too big, and held them out to Renwick. Renwick half smiled, dropped them under the nearest maple.

  There was no one at the side of the barn, but Renwick’s caution continued. It was doubly necessary: the cool damp woods encircling the clearing had retreated far back at this point, leaving a wide naked space that was frankly disconcerting. From here, however, they could see the rough trail sweeping up towards them from the meadow. We’ll have to get across this open ground, Grant thought, to reach the corner of the barn.

  Once we’re round it, we should find its entrance. And the Fiat? It must be there. It was nowhere else in sight.

  Grant eyed the distance in front of him. So did Renwick. They nodded. Lightly, they sprinted over that open space, soft grass deadening their footsteps. They reached the front corner of the barn, began to edge around it. Suddenly, they were face to face with the third man.

  For a breathless second, they stood staring at him. He was equally frozen. Then, as he reached for his gun, Grant drove his right fist into the heavy jaw. The man’s head jerked back. As he staggered, his eyes wide with astonishment, Renwick crashed the automatic down on the back of his head. His legs buckled, his eyes closed as he fell and lay motionless. Renwick picked up the man’s revolver. “Out for the duration,” he said as he stepped over the inert body, and headed for the barn’s entrance. It was open, perhaps for a speedy exit if necessary. The Fiat was there.

  “All yours,” murmured Renwick and moved quietly towards the front door of the house. Grant slipped off the knuckleduster, exchanged it for the grenade. Do I remember, and will it work? I can only try, he thought, made sure that Renwick had reached the side of the house door, pulled the pin and released the spoon. He began to count, gave up. He tossed the grenade lightly in front of the car’s radiator, watched it begin to roll underneath. Then he ran.

  The explosion was shattering. Bigger than I remember, thought Grant. Distantly, he heard a rifle-shot, the bark of a dog—a far-away background to the leap of flames snatching at the barn roof.

  Pressed close to the house wall, Renwick nodded his welcome to Grant. “That should fetch them.”

  As he spoke, two men burst out of the doorway obviously unsure of what had happened. Rupprecht, revolver in hand, was cursing wildly; the other, silent for once, was struggling to pull out his gun. Renwick shot them both: Rupprecht in the knee and shoulder; the other in the right shoulder alone. Grant, shoving them aside, was into the house.

  He raged through three small rooms. No one there. Up the narrow wooden stairs, treads shaking as he ran, and into a small corridor. Two rooms. The first one, wide open; the second with its door closed. He crashed against it, splintering the lock. Inside an airless room, lying on a bare mattress with hands and feet tied, was Avril.

  There was no time to free her. The fire was spreading from the barn; the sound of furious crackling intensified. He snatched the grey cape from the floor, wrapped it around her, and carried her into the corridor. A mass of smoke at the far end was pierced by a yellow-red tongue of fire. Grant’s frantic pace increased as he started down the stairs. Half-way, he heard a surge of searching flame roar along the corridor above him. By the time he reached ground level, the entire upper floor was ablaze.

  * * *

  Grant carried Avril through the trees to the edge of the meadow, laid her down on the grass. Renwick was beside him, helping him unknot the ropes that bound her. Her eyes were wide open, staring up at the sky. She said, “Now I don’t have to pretend...” Her voice died away, and she sighed. “Pretend that I am still drugged.” She laughed weakly, and as the ropes were untied she tried to sit up.

  “Lie still!” Renwick told her. “Keep her covered with that cape, Colin. She’ll get chilled in this air.” He took out his transceiver and made contact with his two agents, who had been waiting beside the Porsche for the last ten minutes. “Yes, yes,” he said impatiently. “Hadn’t time to switch on. Sorry about that. We were pretty busy. We need you right now. Fast! Take the side road below where you are parked. Keep on going beyond the house. Move!” He stuck the transceiver into his pocket, watching Grant rub the circulation back into Avril’s wrists and ankles, and picked up the two pieces of rope. From across the meadow came the roar of a car leaving Waldheim.

  Grant jerked round to see Gruber’s jeep being driven rapidly towards them.

  “Frank. And Walter,” Renwick identified its two occupants. “Colin, can I borrow your tie? I have three men to hand-truss, and—” He held up two pieces of rope.

  Grant drew the tie out of his pocket—his favourite, at that—and passed it over. Renwick began running towards the flaming house. As yet, the trees, green and moist, were resisting the intense heat. No wind, thank God, not even a touch of breeze. The pillar of fire, reaching for the sky, hadn’t spread: the luckiest thing that has happened to us this day, thought Renwick. Except Avril’s rescue, he added.

  “How’s that?” Grant was asking Avril. “Too rough?”

  She shook her head. Her wrists had lost their numbness. “They begin to feel part of me again.” Indeed they did: the cigarette burn began to sear her right hand once more. She tried to smile and stop her sudden tears. “Oh, Colin—”

  “It’s all right.” he said gently.

  “I was so scared, so horribly—”

  “I know.” He smoothed the damp hair away from her brow, touched her cheek.

  She closed her eyes. The tight cramp that twisted her leg muscles began to ease its grip. I’m safe, she kept thinking. I’m safe. And They learned nothing, they hadn’t time to learn what we knew about Jacques and a Geneva bank account. “Another hour, perhaps less,” she was saying. “If you hadn’t come—”

  “But we did.”

  “I just couldn’t lie there for ever, pretending—”

  “It’s over, Avril, all over.”

  “Yes,” she said softly. “It’s over.” Even the spasms of sickness she had fought back, as she lay seemingly unconscious on that mattress, had gone. “I’m thirsty,” she said.

  “Soon,” Grant said. “As soon as Fran
k is here, we’ll find some water.” These woods trickled with streams: the mud on his wet shoes testified to that. He sat down close beside her and faced the meadow as the jeep braked violently in front of him.

  Frank was in a raging temper. “Well,” he said, “a nice fire you set. We’ll have all the neighbourhood here in another five minutes.”

  Grant, who had thought until now that he hadn’t done such a bad job with the Fiat, stared back. “You’ll find Renwick tying up the three men.”

  “You have them?” Frank’s anger lessened visibly.

  “Two wounded, one unconscious. How do we get them out?”

  “I’ve sent for my camper.” Frank pointed back to Waldheim, around which a minibus had just skirted to head across the meadow. Behind it, a car zoomed in from the road in fast pursuit. “Renwick’s men,” Frank reassured Grant. “We’ll all get out—fast.”

  “The faster, the better. Rupprecht was expecting replacements.”

  “A tougher bunch, too,” Frank predicted. “You were lucky.” His last shred of annoyance was dissipating rapidly. “Rupprecht—Mandel’s pet. Now that’s something.” He looked down at Avril, who was trying again to sit up, and managed it this time with Grant’s arm around her waist. “How much did they find out?”

  “They hadn’t started to question—”

  “Good.” Frank’s smile was suddenly warm. “Don’t worry, Sweetheart. We’ll treat Rupprecht and his men better than they treated you. But we’ll question, and we’ll get answers.”

  The camper arrived, and two young men piled out. One Grant recognised: Joe from the garage; the other was a stranger. He raised Avril to her feet, drew the cape around the thin dress that clung to her just as the damp curls were pressed against her brow. “Keep warm,” he told her. “Can you walk?” He slipped an arm around her waist, and steadied her.

  Frank said, “You go with Renwick. That’s his car pulling up. This—” he jerked a thumb at the camper, whose back was covered with travel-stickers—“is the paddy wagon.”

  Joe reported, “We left the caretaker and his dog out in the woods.”

  “Okay, okay. Now give Renwick a hand. Start carrying three men to the camper.” Frank noticed Avril’s tense face. “The caretaker shot first—too bad for him that he missed. A pity about the dog, but it was trained to attack. There’s only one way to make sure it doesn’t.” Then Frank’s voice sharpened. “Or would you prefer one of us dead and the other two savaged?” He signed to Renwick’s two men to follow Joe and his friend.

  Avril’s eyes widened.

  Grant said quickly, “Without Frank we’d have been nowhere.” He remembered the car keys and tossed them over. “Not a scratch on your Porsche—good as new. Almost,” he added with a grin. “And thanks. I—”

  “One hell of a fine job, Grant,” Frank said as he turned to leave. “You owe me for one grenade,” he called over his shoulder, and broke into a run.

  21

  The dispersal was efficient, and so rapid that it seemed to Grant he had barely got Avril settled in Renwick’s car when the cortège of men carrying and lifting other men, came out of the woods. The camper was already backed to the edge of trees. In a matter of seconds Rupprecht—jacket roughly tied round his wounded knee to prevent a trail of blood—was heaved inside. His two friends followed him; the big man was still groggy and stumbling but that didn’t prevent his fast removal; the other’s complaints had dribbled into an occasional moan of protest.

  The camper left, with Joe at the wheel and Frank beside him, its chintz curtains swinging over tightly closed windows. Inside, Frank’s third agent kept guard with a shotgun. Walter was in charge of the jeep, and he too didn’t waste one moment. He was already streaking across the meadow, by-passing Waldheim and heading for the line of trees on its south boundary.

  “Let’s go, let’s go!” Renwick was yelling, pushing Grant into the back seat where Avril rested against one corner. “Braun, you drive. Slevak—get in, get in!” The car started forward as Renwick’s door was banging shut. He glanced back at the wood. Flames were no longer leaping high, only a spiralling cloud of smoke was visible. Thank God, he thought, this isn’t California with its drought; these trees would have gone up like tinder. A patch of grass had caught fire, but Joe had yelled a warning in time and they beat it out. The little house had fallen in on itself, burned within the lower floor’s solid foundation of stone walls. “Even remembered to pick up Frank’s binoculars,” he said, and laughed softly as he recalled the frantic movements, the terse commands, the incredible haste. In retrospect, it was exhilarating. He pulled on his jacket, tried to brush away the streaks of dust and smoke. “How’s Avril?” He leaned across Grant to touch her gently.

  “I’ll live,” she told him and tried to smile. She felt miserable. Nerves mostly, she thought, and this feeling of nausea which the drugs had caused, and the throbbing ache at her wrist which now seemed to be increasing.

  “That’s the girl.” Renwick pressed her hand, noticed its sudden flinch. His eyebrows rose.

  “A cigarette burn,” Grant explained grimly. The big fellow was testing to see if she was feigning.” If I had known. I’d have broken his jaw when I landed that punch. “Hey—I forgot to give Frank his knuckle-duster. And where’s he going?” Like the jeep, the camper was bouncing at high speed across the grass to the side of Waldheim. Braun, on the other hand, as soon as he had skirted the house, had taken the road to the highway. At the rate he is driving, thought Grant, we’ll reach Neustrasse in five seconds. “Leaving Frank behind?” It didn’t make sense.

  “He’ll catch up. He’s picking up Walter once he dumps the jeep beside Gruber and his dog. They are over there, behind the—” Renwick was silenced by a wild jolt as Braun applied the brakes to make a screeching left turn into Neustrasse and start up its hill. Grant caught Avril around her shoulders, held her firmly as he looked back for a last glimpse of Waldheim territory. In that split second, he saw Walter sprint out from a clump of bushes under a steep bank—no sign now of the jeep—to leap on to the camper as it swerved round to head for the road. From the lower reaches of Neustrasse came the distant blare of a horn. The volunteer fire department had begun its climb up the twisting highway. Grant said, “Frank’s cutting it pretty fine.”

  “He’ll make it. He thrives on emergencies.” Renwick sounded more confident than he felt. Like Grant, he was keeping his head turned to watch the highway behind them. There he is!” The camper was safely out, swerving precariously in its haste to follow Renwick’s route. “Ease up,” Renwick told Braun. They stopped just above the side road where Renwick and Grant had parked Frank’s Porsche, watched the camper slow down to let Walter jump off. In another minute, the Porsche would be driven safely out to follow the camper uphill. Renwick gave a deep sigh of relief, then saying, “Drive on!” slumped back into his corner.

  “Just what was Frank staging back there?” Grant asked, still thinking of the jeep that had been abandoned.

  “An accident, seemingly. Gruber with neck broken after a heavy slip down a high bank, one shot fired as he fell, dog hit.”

  “Who will believe that?”

  “What else is there to believe? Gruber did drive out to that bank to see what was disturbing the dog. Okay, I agree. Not much of a scenario, but what d’you expect in the few minutes Frank had?”

  Grant said nothing more. No doubt, Walter had used a silencer when he shot a dead dog to add a final touch to the “explanation” of the accident. How had the dog been killed? A knife, a dart, hands at his neck? Suddenly, Grant felt sick; he could throw a grenade under a car to stop kidnappers from making an escape, but arranging a scenario—he concentrated on listening to the crescendo of klaxon, swelling into a hideous roar that seemed as if it were coming right up this hill, almost upon them, ready to devour everything before it. The blare dropped to a wail. The engine must have slowed for its turn into Mandel’s property. He could hear cars behind it, too, horns wild with mounting excitement. Abruptly, all nois
e ceased. Waldheim must have come into their view, and there was nothing to see. Nothing but a placid house, empty and innocent. Nothing but a column of smoke hanging low in the still air over the trees behind a small meadow.

  Grant glanced at his watch. “Five thirty-two,” he said softly. And that, he told himself, is the last time I’m going to check on the passing minutes. I’ve had enough of it today to last me for ever. God, I’m exhausted... They were reaching Höhenstrasse, the road that climbed and twisted along the heights in this section of the Vienna woods. Here, there was a choice of routes; they took the right fork; behind them, followed closely by the Porsche, Frank’s camper turned left. One short subdued bleep on its horn bade them goodbye and good luck.

  * * *

  The Höhenstrasse wove its wave along the roll of wooded hills. Densely packed trees, thin trunks elbowing each other for growing space, would empty out, here and there, to show a down-stretching view towards the grey curves of the Danube. Below the road lay patches of deep green forests, sloping fields golden in the evening light, far-off clusters of red-roofed houses, and then—to the east, visible on its flat plain—Vienna. Take the first cut-off to the west,” Renwick instructed Braun, breaking his long silence. To Slevak, who had a map out and ready, “We are aiming for Purkersdorf—two kilometres this side of the town. You’ll see a sign: Rasthaus Winkelman.”

  Braun nodded, squared his shoulders, tightened his grip on the wheel, and increased speed. A stolid capable type, thought Grant, not given to comment or suggestions. Slevak was even more impassive and imperturbable. Yet, Grant remembered, both had moved with unexpected speed and efficiency back on the meadow, even if they had come in totally unprepared for what they had found there. One moment of surprise from Braun, quickly mastered, and the two of them had piled in to help: not men to be underestimated, he reminded himself.