by Colin Forbes
He checked the time by his watch. Noon. As the glider continued to lose height he raised his binoculars, pressed them to his eyes. He frowned as he detected a Land-Rover half-hidden inside a copse of evergreens. Only one man – behind the wheel – but the vehicle probably was positioned to give the driver a clear view down inside the chateau wall. Not one of ours, he thought.
Marler continued to swivel his binoculars, focusing them now on the chateau which was coming closer every second. He stiffened as he saw Butler crouched, as though hiding, inside the entrance to a building. Then he saw Newman at the base of the keep, saw a burly figure in a sheepskin on the flat roof of the tower, peering over as he aimed a machine-pistol. Newman jumped back out of sight as the heavy silence of the Vosges was fractured by the rattle of a hail of bullets.
'You really shouldn't have done that, old man,' Marler said to himself, addressing the man on the roof of the keep. He pressed the foot pedals gently. Time for a really smooth glide. This will only take seconds…'
He heard a muffled explosion. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the wrought-iron gates guarding the entrance collapse. He did not allow his attention to be diverted from the task in hand as he reached for the Armalite.
On the roof of the keep the burly man in a sheepskin was peering over the edge, his machine-pistol reloaded, ready for a fresh burst, when his target reappeared. Confined inside the garage, Butler had fired three shots from his Luger but the range from where he crouched to the summit o, f the tower was too great.
Praying that the glider would continue on its level course for a few more seconds, Marler took careful aim. With his eye glued to the sniperscope attached to his rifle, he saw the cross-hairs covering the upper back of the burly thug on top of the keep. Holding his breath, Marler pressed the trigger.
His target jerked upright in a convulsive movement. The machine-pistol left his hands, dropped to the cobbles far below. He staggered, then fell forward, following his lost weapon, screaming in terror as he plunged down the side of the keep. His body hit the cobbles with a bone-breaking thud close to the alcove where Newman sheltered. The corpse lay inert.
Up to this dramatic incident the odds had been heavily in favour of Mencken's assault force. From this moment they swung decisively the other way.
Newman noticed that the heavy studded wooden door leading inside the keep was not completely closed. It was simply stuck. He hammered his shoulder against the obstacle. It seemed to give a little. He took a deep breath and thrust against it with all his strength. It burst open, flying inwards so suddenly he nearly lost his balance.
Diving inside, gripping the Uzi in both hands, he saw a flight of stone steps, worn down in their centres, leading upwards, curving out of sight round a corner. He began to run up them non-stop, unaware of what was happening at the front of the chateau.
At the first rattle of machine-pistol fire Tweed had reacted instantly. Grabbing Amberg by the arm, he forced him to the cinema exit, up the flight of stairs leading into the main hall. Gaunt, hauling a. 455 Colt automatic from the shoulder holster under his thick sports jacket, took giant strides, close on their heels.
Entering the hall, Tweed saw Paula, Jennie and Eve -now wearing winter clothes – appear from the direction of the swimming pool. With his free arm he waved them back, a commanding gesture.
'Return to the pool at once. Don't argue. Do as I tell you. There is great danger.'
Eve and Jennie rushed back into the labyrinth of passages but Paula stayed her ground. From the special pocket inside her shoulder bag she had whipped out her. 32 Browning.
'I'm staying here with you,' she snapped at Tweed. 'You are not armed.'
'I am,' Gaunt assured her aggressively.
'We may need someone who can shoot straight,' she told him.
'What the hell-'Gaunt began.
He never completed his sentence. Tweed, still dragging a reluctant Amberg, had headed for the main door. Outside he could hear the sound of some large machine approaching. Reaching the door he peered through the tall Norman window with leaded lights at one side of the door. The view was not reassuring. Norton – or his henchman -who had organized the attack knew what he was doing.
The clanking grinding machine proceeding across the cobbled courtyard towards the door was a huge orange bulldozer, its massive grab elevated several feet – ready to batter down the heavy door and open the way for the final assault. Tweed compelled Amberg to glance through the window. The Swiss shuddered, tried to get away, but Tweed had a firm grip on his arm.
'I must go to the swimming pool as well,' Amberg protested. 'There is a rear exit. I am a banker…'
'Surely you want to witness the defence of your own home,' Tweed said grimly, determined to break his nerve. 'You will stay with us in any case.'
'I might be able to shoot the driver,' suggested Gaunt who had also peered through the window.
'Not a chance, not yet,' Tweed snapped. 'And behind his cab the driver has several armed men clinging on aboard the bulldozer. We must wait until it appears in the gap after it has smashed down the double doors. Then shoot. We might jam the machine in the doorway, although I don't issue any guarantees. So, we stand back and wait…'
The one thing which irked Tweed was that he had no idea what his team outside the chateau were doing -assuming they were still alive.
Having disposed of the gunman who had pinned down all Tweed's men, Marler immediately turned his attention to what was going on at the entrance. His glider was still airborne but he knew he must soon land or crash – maybe both. What was happening was taking place in seconds.
He had fired the Armalite from a distance, but now the glider was cruising very close to the chateau, would be above the courtyard at any moment. Afterwards, if he survived, Marler hoped to land on the summit of the ridge close to where the Land-Rover had been parked.
Then he saw the orange bulldozer advancing, the clutch of armed men hanging on behind the driver's cabin. The machine was a deadly menace. Marler took a dangerous chance, lost more height, and was now gripping the tear-gas pistol with a spare shell in his other hand. The wings seemed to almost skim the roof of the keep, although the machine was higher. Marler looked down.
The bulldozer had covered two-thirds of the distance between the ruined gates and the porch entrance to the chateau. His arm rested firmly on the edge of the fuselage of the glider as he pressed the trigger. The tear-gas shell was aimed for the glass window in front of the driver's cabin, smashed it to pieces, exploded inside the cabin. Marler had reloaded, fired again at the rear of the machine where the armed men were hanging on.
The outcome was devastating. Overcome with the fumes the driver lost all control. The bulldozer swung through an arc of a hundred and eighty degrees. In his panic the driver pressed his foot on the wrong pedal. The machine rocketed over the cobbles at speed, spilling its passengers, who were disabled by the second tear-gas shell. The bulldozer thundered towards the outer wall, hurtled into it with tremendous impact, crushing the cabin and the driver inside it.
At that moment a Citroen drove in through the gateway, crammed with armed men. Cardon, Nield and Butler had emerged from under cover. The Citroen driver, startled by the disaster to the bulldozer, skidded to a fatal halt. Cardon carefully lobbed a grenade. It landed under the petrol tank of the Citroen. Before any of its passengers could get out the petrol tank exploded. There was a fountain of flame and Newman saw its occupants incinerated in the ferocious heat.
He had reached the top of the keep and was crouched behind the low wall. As several of the men who had dropped off the bulldozer produced weapons, rubbing their eyes, he fired a long burst from the Uzi. A 9-mm. weapon, it fired at the rate of six hundred rounds a minute. He rammed in a fresh magazine, continued firing.
Butler saw a man perched on the top of the wall, guessed he had cut the electrified wire. He aimed his Luger, fired twice. His target shot out both arms as though about to swim, dived head first down on to the cobbled court
yard.
Marler's glider continued on course, away from the chateau, heading for the ridge as he struggled to maintain a few more feet of height. He braced himself for a crash landing. The ridge rushed towards him, the nose of the glider lifted briefly of its own accord. It was this accident of luck which saved Marler from the machine upending. It scraped along the rocky ground, came to a stop.
No more than thirty feet away Marler saw that the Land-Rover was still stationed at the edge of the copse with its driver behind the wheel. He snatched up the Armalite as the vehicle began to move, fired at random. Mencken, who had witnessed the debacle, shuddered as his windscreen was shattered, all the glass blown away from the frame, but the bullet had missed him. He drove off at speed, heading for the vital ambush area on route D417.
Half a mile away, well clear of the action, Norton sat in his Renault at a road intersection. He lowered his field-glasses. This time he was not feeling too philosophical about the next stage of the struggle. What could he tell President Bradford March? At that moment he had no idea – and he had lost a lot of trained men.
44
'That is what we have saved you from…'
Tweed almost thundered the words as he stood in the snow, still gripping Amberg's arm. They had walked out of the front door and beyond the porch to survey a scene of carnage.
Blood disfigured the white of the snow, the bodies of Mencken's assault group lay in grotesque attitudes. Paula stood on his other side, the Browning still in her hand, ready for use. Gaunt had brought up the rear.
As they stood in the bitter cold Butler, who had medical training, completed checking each body to see if anyone was still alive. He stood up from the last corpse and shook his head. A station wagon full of Mencken's troops had followed the Citroen into the yard. The occupants, all armed, had been despatched by Newman with his Uzi as they had emerged.
Butler, Cardon and Nield, with Newman's help, were now carrying the bodies and laying them inside the station wagon. Amberg was shivering with fear. Tweed gripped his arm more tightly.
'All this havoc has been caused by the accursed film and the tape. I've lost track of how many have died – many of them innocent of any crime. My patience is exhausted, Amberg. You will produce the real film and tape or I will contact Beck, Chief of the Federal Police at the Taubenhalde in Berne. You will be charged as an accessory to mass murder, so make up your mind now. I repeat,' he continued in the same grim tone, 'I've run out of patience with you.'
'As a banker I felt I should keep my word to Joel Dyson who deposited…'
'Forget Dyson. Your own life is in great danger. Can you at long last grasp that? Look at those corpses – those men came to kill you. For the last time, where have you hidden the film, the tape?'
'At my bank in Ouchy on the shores of Lake Geneva,' Amberg gulped, using his free hand to wipe beads of sweat off his high forehead. 'It belonged to Julius but it was registered in a different name. It was the only place no one could connect with us.'
'So they are still in Switzerland,' Tweed commented more quietly.
'Yes. After this terrible experience perhaps we should return at once to my country. To Ouchy, I mean,' he added quickly.
'You will travel with us.' Tweed made no attempt to reassure the Swiss. 'I must warn you we shall face other attacks on our way back to Colmar. Whether we arrive there alive is in the lap of the gods.'
He looked at Paula. 'Where are Jennie and Eve? They are safe, I assume?'
'Safe as houses – safer than this castle was,' Paula replied. 'When you first came out here I nipped back to the swimming pool. They were both sitting down at the table, drinking hot coffee from a percolator.'
To steady their nerves?'
'In the case of Jennie, yes. Eve is made of sterner stuff. She had an automatic rifle across her lap – she'd brought it from somewhere. She made the remark that if any thugs arrived at the pool she'd take some of them with her. Tough as old hickory,' Paula ended in an admiring tone.
'She is a very strong-minded woman,' Amberg agreed in a regretful tone. 'I expect she will want to come with us. A little business matter which can only be settled in Ouchy.'
'Why?' Tweed demanded. 'Have you transferred all the assets to the shores of Lake Geneva?'
He was suspicious. Ouchy faced the shore of France and there was a regular boat service from there to Evian.
'Merely a matter of banking policy,' Amberg replied. 'Is there a safe way down to Colmar?'
'No,' Tweed informed him. 'It will be a journey of pure terror…'
Norton had recovered swiftly from the shock of the fiasco of the assault on the chateau. Sitting in his Renault, he used his mobile phone to contact Mencken. It took him several minutes to establish a link free of atmospherics.
'I'm on route D417,' Mencken said, talking quickly before he could be questioned. 'I'm sure they will come this way heading back to Colmar. After what they faced on their journey up by the other route. All the roads west are blocked by snow.'
'You'd goddamn better be right,' Norton rasped. 'What happened at the chateau? You only sent in two cars and you had five.'
'I kept Yellow, Orange and Brown in reserve. They'll be needed to finish the job on route D417…'
'You could have overwhelmed them if you'd kept to your original instructions.'
'I don't think so,' Mencken rapped back in a burst of fury. 'It was that friggin' glider which took us by surprise…'
'Crap!' Norton shouted down the phone. 'It should have been shot down…'
'That's what I like,' Mencken snapped. 'Armchair strategists who stay a safe distance from the action. I'm closing this conversation. The new ambushes have to be checked…'
'Mencken! You talk to me like that just once more…'
Norton swore foully when he realized no one was listening at the other end. He sucked in a deep breath of cold air to calm down. There was an important job waiting for him – at six in the evening he was due to meet Growly Voice at the Lac Noir rendezvous. It could be that inside a few hours he'd have both the film and the tape. He'd then drive to Strasbourg, catch an Air Inter flight to Paris where he would board Concorde for Washington.
'Here is Marler, the man who saved the day,' announced Newman.'I sent Nield out to find him.'
Tweed was waiting impatiently inside a huge living-room which led to Amberg's bedroom. Newman had earlier briefed Tweed on the arrival of the glider. Paula ran forward and hugged the new arrival.
'Thank you,' Tweed said simply. 'You saved our bacon -and our skins.'
'Really, it was dead easy,' Marler drawled. He lit a king-size. 'Pure luck I floated in when I did. What's next on the agenda? I see they've tidied up the courtyard.'
The station wagon with the bodies is parked inside the garage building at the back as you suggested,' Newman confirmed. 'What about the French authorities?'
'We'll wait until we get to Basle,' Tweed decided. 'I'll call my old friend Chief Inspector Rene Lasalle in Paris.
Otherwise we could be delayed in France for ages with red tape, statements, all that hogwash-'
He broke off as he heard Eve's voice calling out to Amberg in the bedroom. She was helping him to pack.
'Two clean shirts here, Walter. They'll see you through until we reach Ouchy.'
'Shouldn't I have more?' Amberg's voice asked querulously.
'Two are enough,' Eve responded firmly. 'We have to get a move on. Now, these documents…'
Tut them in the zip-up folder.' Amberg's tone was decisive. 'Don't alter the sequence. They're important.'
Paula had winked at Tweed when she heard Eve again running the show as she had done a few minutes earlier. Tweed, who had glanced at his watch a moment before, frowned and stared at Paula without seeing her.
Marler had amused himself by asking Jennie to show him the indoor swimming pool. He returned with her, stubbed out his cigarette in a crystal glass ashtray. Jennie was gazing at him with more than normal interest as she played with the string of
pearls round her neck. Marler reached out to touch them.
'Those are quite beautiful…'
'Don't touch!' She coloured as Marler withdrew his hand, raised an eyebrow. 'Sorry I snapped at you. It's just that I'm superstitious about anyone else handling them.'
Paula noticed that Tweed, despite his impatience to be on their way, wasn't missing even the most trivial incident. He frowned again briefly, glancing at the pearls and then at her expression. Eve strode out of the bedroom at that moment, carrying a large Louis Vuitton case. Behind her ambled the banker, looking unhappy.
'I'm not sure I've packed enough.'
'You haven't packed anything. I have,' Eve reminded him. She slapped her hand against the case she'd perched on a table. 'Enough in there to get you to Cape Town. We are only going to Ouchy. And I can see Tweed is in a hurry. In case you've forgotten it, Walter, from now on Tweed is your protector. He may even get us to Colmar and points south alive.'
'Don't joke about things like that,' Amberg protested. 'It's bad luck.'
'Someone else is superstitious,' Jennie remarked. 'I'm not the only crackpot round here. Am I riding in the same chariot I was transported up here aboard? Hope so, Bob and Tweed got me here in one piece. Oh dear. You are shaking your head, Tweed.'
'One thing I forgot to tell you, Tweed,' Marler broke in. 'The glider is a complete write-off. I warned you. Cost you a bomb.'
'Don't worry about that. Jennie has raised the question of transport. I've discussed that with Newman and we've made some changes in the sequence of the convoy. Object, to confuse the opposition.'
'I insist I'm driving back down those mountains in the BMW,' Gaunt barked out. 'Feel comfortable behind the wheel of that car. Eve, are you joining me? If not…' He turned to Jennie. 'You'll be most welcome as a passenger. And I'm a good chap as escort – with my trusty Colt.'
