Cloak of Darkness

by Helen Macinnes

  “I think you’ve got something there.” The car wouldn’t be left standing outside an apparently deserted house. And if it tried to turn to go down to Chamonix—that would be tricky. Even in daylight, a U-turn had almost ended stuck on the opposite bank. “A roadblock,” Renwick said reflectively. He reached into his breast pocket, took out Marchand’s transceiver. “Ten past eleven. He’s just got time.”

  The connection was immediate. “Victor here,” Renwick said as he identified Marchand’s voice. “I have a suggestion. Could you borrow a couple of bicycles? Without delay? I saw several propped against a house wall near where I parked our car.”

  “Bicycles?”

  “Yes. Two are needed. Three would be better. For a roadblock—just above where we are waiting. But not visible from the path. Got my meaning?”

  “Yes. But you expect two men to pedal uphill?”

  “No. Push. Mountaineers have pushed heavier loads than that up a steep slope. They could drop the bicycles across the road, make it look as if there had been an accident. That could let them stop the car’s driver to ask for help to get back to town. But they’d have to work fast. Be here by eleven thirty at latest.”

  There was silence from Marchand.

  “Only a suggestion.”

  “Of course.”

  “By the way, where are the two men you left behind? We’re moving our position—don’t want to mess up things with them.”

  “Wait until I see you. Fifteen minutes. Details then.”

  “All is well?”

  “So far.” Marchand switched off.

  “That is that,” Renwick told Claudel and pocketed the transceiver.

  “Will he take your suggestion?” Claudel had his doubts.

  “We don’t move from here anyway.”

  “He’s got us pinpointed.”

  “Yes. I saw one of his men watching us from the back door when we came up the hill.”

  “So we wait, dammit.” Claudel, like Renwick, kept an eye on his watch.

  Five minutes passed. Suddenly, through the night silence, came the distant hum of an engine.

  “Merde!” Claudel said, sat up straight. Then, listening, he relaxed. The motor had stopped half-way up the hill road. Renwick, too, relaxed.

  “Did he actually bring bicycles in that van of his?” Claudel asked as the engine started once more and retreated downhill. “And now they’re being pushed the rest of the way,” he said, amusement growing. “God, for a moment there I thought our visitor was arriving early.” He reached for his binoculars and trained them on the road.

  “Give them ten minutes more,” Renwick said. “It’s a steep push!”

  Actually, it was eight minutes when two dark figures shoving bicycles uphill came around the road’s lower curve and passed the path.

  “Beautiful!” said Renwick. “Just hope these two can get the driver out of his car before he sends any warning to Klaus.”

  “They will,” said Marchand, and he sat down beside them.

  “You’re good,” Renwick told him, recovering from his surprise. His hands, ready to reach out and strike, relaxed again. Claudel closed his knife, slipped it back into his pocket. And where, wondered Renwick, did a country-town cop learn that covert trick?

  “Now,” Marchand said, a touch of acid once more in his voice, “what else do you have to suggest?”

  Claudel, still angry, said, “I’m moving nearer the road—to the patch of bushes beside the path.”

  Marchand remembered his glimpse of Claudel’s knife. “Then I’ll alert my man who is stationed there to expect some friendly company.” He pulled out his transceiver, and as he made contact and spoke he watched Claudel already on his way, choosing every shred of cover he could find. “He moves well,” Marchand conceded when his instructions were over. He didn’t stow away his little miracle machine, kept it ready. “I have two men posted at the foot of the road. We’ll have good warning if a car drives uphill.”

  “And you’ve still got one man in the chalet?”

  “He was there. Now he is under cover, near the front door. Quite a search he had for the fuses you hid in the garbage pail. Not a bad idea. I doubt if much garbage will be collected from that house in the next week or so.”

  “Claudel’s idea. So the lights are working again.”

  “Not upstairs. We must keep the house looking blacked out. That blind you slashed would show light and might alarm the midnight visitor.” Marchand paused and added, “You were in a very unpleasant mood when you went out onto that balcony. Because of the woman?”

  “We had just found her.” And now the questions about Lorna, Renwick thought. Marchand’s lead-in had been clever, but expected.

  “Do you know her?”

  “Met her once. Lorna Upwood. Worked with Exports Consolidated. She tried to quit.”

  “Ah, yes—the firm that Klingfeld & Sons took over. Did she say anything?”

  “She thought we were her captors. A few words, a lot of pain and terror. Then she passed out. Has she been able to talk—tell you where she was kidnapped?”

  Marchand shook his head. “Now under heavy sedation. Fortunately, we have good medical facilities here.”

  “You’d need them—skiing and climbing accidents, I suppose.” Thank God that the conversation had turned amiable, friendly.

  Perhaps the mention of Exports Consolidated had reassured Marchand, had given him the reason why a woman had been abducted and tortured. He dropped the subject of Lorna. “Of course those other three have said nothing at all. I have a feeling they will remain silent. They’re afraid they could incriminate themselves still further.”

  “They’ve plenty to hide.”

  Marchand nodded his agreement. “But what is unbelievable is any connection between those people and Sudak. If you hadn’t seen him arriving this afternoon along with the Mercedes that brought the woman here— Are you positive it was Klaus Sudak who drove the Ferrari?”

  Briefly, Renwick described him. “We also heard his name called by one of his house guests who came running down the road to meet him.”

  “Did they speak?”

  “He pulled her into the Ferrari and drove uphill.”

  “He was angry that she had seen him there,” Marchand judged. Then he brightened. “She might talk to us.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “That’s the problem, isn’t it? No matter what we discover about that little house below us, we have nothing to connect any of its happenings with Monsieur Klaus Sudak up there on his hill.”

  “So far.”

  “Yet, he must keep in contact with the house. Especially when the Mercedes leaves here, after depositing this mysterious visitor, and never reaches the Chalet Ruskin. That, my friend, is one weakness of your roadblock.”

  “It’s worth the risk. You’ll have a car whose route you can trace and a driver who was seen bringing a visitor to a chalet, ostensibly empty, shuttered tight. If you can identify the driver, link him with Sudak, then you’ve got something to go on.”

  “That depends on who the visitor is,” Marchand said dryly.

  “He sure isn’t Sudak’s long-lost uncle.”

  “No. But unless he has some criminal connection, we haven’t—” Marchand broke off as his transceiver gave its signal. He listened intently. “A car has just come through the town, started up this road,” he told Renwick, and began checking with his outposts to make sure they had heard the warning, too.

  “What kind of car?” Renwick asked.

  “A black Mercedes. Zurich plate. Hear it now?”

  There was a distant hum, strengthening, drawing nearer.

  “There was another car with it,” Marchand said, “it drove to a house on the outskirts of—”

  “I’m going down,” Renwick said, and was gone, running toward the back of the chalet, skirting its far side to reach its front.

  Marchand had just time to warn the policeman stationed there to expect the American before he saw the Mercedes came arou
nd the curve, its lights dimmed to parking level.

  ***

  The bush was lopsided and stunted, but it was the nearest cover that Renwick could reach. His run ended in a slide onto the ground, green leaves above his head. He rolled over to lie on his stomach and study the path. At this end it stopped at the front door—about twenty feet away, he calculated. At the other end was the road. And a car that was now drawing up.

  A soft bird call came from a larger bush over to his left, farther away from the corner of the house where he lay. Marchand’s man, he thought, but didn’t risk an answering whistle, his eyes fastened on the black shapes and shadows that formed and unformed as the moon’s shrouded light played over them. The car, a hard, dark mass, was definite. He heard its door close, saw a black figure separate from its bulk and start slowly toward him. Slowly, carefully, although the path was even; stopping once, to listen and look. The moonlight strengthened briefly, was clouded over again. Enough to let Renwick see that this was an elderly man in a long black coat, white-haired, stooping slightly, walking with difficulty. So you guessed wrong, Renwick told himself; all right, you win the booby prize. Too eager, too quick to play your hunches.

  The Mercedes had waited, perhaps to make certain its passenger reached the house safely. He halted near its steps, faced the road, let one small beam flicker from his flashlight, and the car moved away. So he’s satisfied everything is safe, Renwick thought, as the flashlight disappeared into the man’s pocket and his hand came out empty. No key? Is he supposed to knock? If so, we’ve had it. He will get no answer, and he’ll take off—he’s been studying the lie of the land ever since he started up the path.

  Then a change came over the man. With the car gone—and no one to see him as frail and old—he straightened his back, took the steps nimbly, tried the door handle.

  Renwick’s body tensed; he lifted himself into a crouch, his legs braced to move. God, he was thinking as the door was rattled again, was it supposed to be unlocked? Unlocked as soon as Stefan heard the Mercedes arrive, locked once more as the visitor slipped into the bedroom? Renwick drew a long breath.

  The door opened.

  Renwick’s spine stiffened. Marchand—it could only be Marchand. Bloody fool, what does he think he’s dealing with? An unarmed jewel thief? Now we’ll have a goddamned shooting match, blast it to hell; and Klaus alerted—the last thing we wanted.

  Marchand must have stepped aside to let the stranger enter. “Your room is over there,” he was saying.

  That does it. Stefan can’t speak French. Just bad German and halting English as well as his native language. Renwick half rose, moved quietly to the side of the bush, freeing his legs from a grasping branch, and drew out his Biretta. Had the midnight visitor been briefed about Stefan? Surely, with all these exact preparations, he knew what to expect—must have been told. Well, thought Renwick as he straightened up, you just can’t win them all. And to corroborate his words, at that very moment the moon chose to come out of the clouds.

  Yes, the man had been told. His hand went into his pocket, came out with his gun, and crashed it down like a bludgeon. He turned to run.

  Renwick called out, “Don’t try it. You’re completely surrounded.” Marchand’s man—police uniform on this one— had risen from cover. From the other end of the path, two men loomed into view: Claudel with his automatic drawn, and a solid type with a rifle.

  Renwick watched the man’s right hand as it let the revolver droop—a powerful weapon made all the uglier by its silencer. Of course he’d use a silencer. This man was a planner, left nothing to chance. Tonight he had made no mistake; he had just stepped into the mistakes made by others.

  For that long moment, he stood still. He seemed to have listened to Renwick’s words. His eyes counted the odds against him, then his head bowed in acceptance. In a split second, his head raised and he fired, his body swerving around in a half circle as he aimed at each man. Four bullets in rapid succession: at Renwick, the policeman, the rifleman, Claudel.

  Renwick had seen the man’s right hand tighten and swing up, dodged sideways. The bullet aimed at his chest grazed the inside of his arm. The policeman, stepping forward to disarm the man, was not so lucky: he was knocked backward, lay motionless. The rifleman had dropped prone, taken a sight as the bullet intended for him whistled above his head. Claudel, too, had fallen flat on his face, raised his pistol. But before either he or Renwick could fire back, the rifle bullet had bored a hole through the man’s heart.

  In silence, Renwick and Claudel walked over to his body. It had been slammed backward against the steps, jolted so hard that the white wig had slipped. Renwick pulled it aside, shone his flashlight on the startled face that stared blankly at the sky above.

  “Erik,” said Claudel.

  Renwick switched off the flashlight and entered the hall. Marchand was alive but unsteady on his feet. He had sensed the blow coming, tried to avoid it, and had almost succeeded. There was a savage weal across one cheek, a jaw beginning to swell, perhaps a collarbone smashed. Renwick helped him down the steps, past Erik’s body, left him by the dead policeman to hear the rifleman’s explanations.

  Claudel closed the chalet’s door and came over to join him. “I thought you had packed it in,” he told Renwick. “You weren’t hit, were you?”

  Renwick raised his left arm, looked at the singed streak across its inner sleeve.

  Too close for comfort,” Claudel said. “Where did he learn to shoot like that?”

  “In a South Yemen training camp,” Renwick said grimly.

  “What now?” Claudel looked in the direction of the Chalet Ruskin. “He heard that shot.”

  “A rifle. It could be explained, perhaps.” Renwick tried to think. “Accidental discharge by a—hunter or poacher— someone out on this hillside.” Renwick made an effort. “Tell Marchand to phone Sudak and the neighbouring chalets. Explain—reassure them all.”

  “Reassure Sudak?” Claudel was disbelieving.

  “Try it, anyway. What else?” Renwick’s voice was sharp. “If Marchand has a better idea, let him use it.” Then he sat down, legs crossed, and stared out over the patchwork of faint light and dark shadow that covered the hillside. Behind him, Erik lay staring up at the stars.

  19

  Marchand was angry, obdurate, and in pain. He had lost a man, and nothing compensated for that. Not the Mercedes driven back downhill with bicycles and prisoner intact, an easy capture. Its chauffeur—perhaps exhausted by a day of hard travelling, perhaps surprised by a totally unexpected danger almost at the entrance to the Chalet Ruskin—had been slow to resist. Not the death of a murderer, the leader of a vicious gang of West German terrorists. Not even the fact that he, himself, had escaped that savage blow and remained alive. He had lost a man.

  “Enough,” Marchand said. He had rejected the idea of explaining the rifle shot to any chalet on this hillside. Instead, he had ordered his van partway up the road, and, with it, two stretchers. “Enough,” he repeated. “Tonight we rest. I have a report to make. Tomorrow, early, we shall visit Sudak.”

  “We will lose him,” Renwick said quietly.

  “How? The road ends above the Chalet Ruskin. If he tries to leave, he must drive downhill to the town. I have cars blocking the exit. He will be stopped. And what evidence do we have against him if the Mercedes’ driver won’t talk? A dead terrorist? He can’t talk.”

  “He never would have.”

  “Sudak will claim total ignorance that the man was ever here. As for that guest—the hysterical female you saw today— what excuse could we offer to drag her out of bed at this time of night? No, tomorrow morning, early, we can prepare a reason, visit the chalet—”

  “And why should we expect to find Sudak there?”

  “I told you—”

  “There’s no way out by car except by this road.” Renwick held down his impatience, kept his voice even. “But are there foot-paths—through the trees—like the one we took today from Ruskin’s Chair? A path that
doesn’t end in a cliff or a steep drop to the valley?”

  Obviously, there was one. Marchand fell silent.

  “What part of town does such a path reach?”

  Marchand’s eyes widened, then narrowed.

  “You had a report about a second car—one that followed the Mercedes into Chamonix. It stopped at a house on the outskirts—isn’t that what you said?”

  “A wild guess, if you mean Sudak will try to reach that house.”

  So it did lie somewhere near the end of a path from the Chalet Ruskin. “Have you a map you could show us?”

  “Haven’t you one of your own?”

  “Forgot to buy one today.” The only map they had been able to find was one of the town with surrounding hills and mountains named, but with no details such as paths or trails. “We all make mistakes,” Renwick added with considerable tact.

  That admission was accepted with a nod. And a small confession followed, making a nice diversion from the subject of maps. “I thought we could trap that man—Erik?—inside the house. But”—Marchand shrugged—“there may have been an identification signal necessary. Yet, he gave no time for that. I invited him to enter, and he attacked.”

  Renwick refused to be diverted. “Have you a map you could show us?” he repeated. “One with ski trails and climbing paths clearly marked?”

  “Not enough light to look at it here. You can study it in the van. Unless, of course—” Marchand’s sardonic mood was back—“you insist on visiting the Chalet Ruskin now.”

  “No interest.” The visit should have been made forty-five minutes ago, just after the rifle had been fired. “By this time, Sudak—”

  “Sudak will have sent someone to investigate this small chalet. But I have already ordered two men to keep watch around it. And two more near the Chalet Ruskin. Sudak will wait for a report, and when none reaches him—my men will take care of that—he will then assess the situation, and perhaps move. Or stay, to face us and play the complete innocent.” Marchand nursed his jaw, now so swollen that even talking was difficult. But he persisted. “And we still have our problem. What connection between all this—” he tried to gesture to the house, flinched as his collarbone’s pain sharpened—“and Sudak? He will send no one here whom we can identify. His men never were known in the town. If they appeared there, it was as tourists, day visitors.”