by Colin Forbes
'I'm sure Brazil, when he lands, will drive up to that villa of his. It sounds like his control point. I'm amazed you traced that.'
'Well.' Philip pointed out, 'it is really all down to that waitress in the station restaurant where I called in for a cup of coffee.'
'Yes.' said Newman, 'but you talked to her and – even more important – you let her talk to you. Now, when Butler and Nield arrive, I will outline the master plan for tomorrow. At least.' he grinned ruefully, 'I hope it will turn out to be a master plan.'
'Why don't we attack the ground station today?' suggested Paula.
'Because.' Newman explained, 'having intruded today the enemy will be on the alert. Tomorrow morning they will be more relaxed. Then we hit them with all we've got.'
'What is Marler doing?' Philip asked.
'He's going to follow Brazil's limo – when they get it going – up to his villa. Marler is a man who can do a lot of damage.'
'Shouldn't he have back-up?' Paula objected.
'No. He functions much more effectively on his own. By the by, Bill Franklin was on the express which brought me here. Called in on me in my compartment.'
'He's good company.' Paula remarked.
'Also.' Newman continued, 'Keith Kent is in town. I bumped into him just before you arrived. Interesting, isn't it?'
'If we're going to be in Sion this evening.' Philip said in a determined voice, 'Paula and I can visit the elusive Anton Marchat. After dark.'
'Good idea.' Newman agreed.
'What did you mean when you said interesting?' Paula enquired. 'After you'd mentioned that Kent and Bill Franklin are here?'
'Well, it just occurred to me that when poor Ben, the barman at the Black Bear in Wareham, was murdered, both Franklin and Kent were in the area. And from the way Ben died we know it was the work of The Motorman.'
Eve, feeling at a loose end in her room at the Baur-en-Ville, decided she would go along to see Gustav. It was time she got sorted out whether or not she was in charge of the whole staff who had remained behind.
Reaching a corner, she heard a door close. Peering round she saw Gustav, dressed far more smartly than was normal for him, walking furtively away from her until he disappeared round the corner leading to the stairs.
'I wonder?' she said to herself. She knew Gustav had a liking for the strange ladies you could encounter on the streets in certain parts of Zurich. She tried the door handle. He'd left it unlocked. In a hurry to get on with it, she thought contemptuously.
Opening the door she was met with a strong stench of cheap hair oil. That confirmed her suspicions. So he wouldn't be back for some time. She looked round the untidy room, was about to leave when she saw a bunch of keys almost merging with a cushion on a couch.
'He's forgotten his keys!'
This was too good an opportunity to miss. She picked up the keys, checked to make sure his car key wasn't among them. No car key. Nothing to bring him back unexpectedly.
She walked over to the steel filing cabinet which, she had noticed earlier, he always kept locked. In no time she found the master key which unlocked every drawer. Thetop drawer was full of files which held papers concerning accounts, bills.
She opened the second drawer. This drawer held files with their contents marked on tabs attached to each file. She riffled through them, stopped at one file labelled Scientists.
Something echoed in her memory. An article in the Herald Tribune. Just a short piece tucked away on an inside page. Headlined Missing Scientists Mystery. She began to study the sheets inside the fat file. Each was devoted to one scientist. Gave a lot of personal data, the kind of data she had mugged up before getting to know one of the bankers Brazil had told her to go after.
ED REYNOLDS
Age: 45.
Nationality: American.
Marital status: Wife, named Samantha.
Salary: $400,000.
Children: None
Address (home)…
Weakness: Samantha an alcoholic
Expertise: sabotage, communications.
Sabotage?
The word stopped Eve. And earning that kind of money he had to be tops. She got out the notebook she always carried in her shoulder bag, scribbled down the wording about Reynolds.
She then checked other sheets. Irina Krivitsky. Her speciality was laser control of satellites, whatever that might mean. She scribbled down more details. As she examined more sheets she noted down several other names, none of which meant anything to her.
'You'd better get the hell out of here,' she told herself. 'You've got enough and Gustav might come back early.'
She was careful to leave the files as she found them. Then she locked the cabinet, put the bunch of keys where she had found them. As she opened the door she heard footsteps approaching. She froze with terror. If she closed the door the sound might be heard. A waiter, carrying a tray of food, walked past, never glanced at the partly open door. She went back to her room.
Locking the door, she opened a secret compartment in her shoulder bag, took out a folded newspaper cutting going brown. Pouring herself a vodka, she lit a cigarette, sprawled on the couch, read again the newspaper cutting she had rescued from Brazil's wastepaper basket in his Berne office. She had overheard what he had said and had slipped into the office after he had left it. The cutting had been screwed up before being tossed into the basket. The text under the small headline was brief.
Strange rumours are circulating that top scientists are abandoning their jobs with private outfits. For bigger pay they are joining some international organization located abroad. Among those mentioned are the brilliant Ed Reynolds, Irina Krivitsky (from Russia)…
Several other names were listed, all of them with sheets in the file Eve had examined. She carefully folded the cutting, put it back in the secret pocket.
'Come back to Zurich, Mr Bob Newman,' she said aloud.
After they had repaired the limousine at the airfield Brazil surprised Jose.
'I'll drive. I just feel like some action after being cooped up in that plane.'
'Are you sure, sir?'
Tut Igor in the back, then get into the front passenger seat.'
'I feel I'm not doing my job, sir.'
'Just do as I tell you. Get on with it.' Brazil checked his watch again. 'We'll arrive at the villa in good time in spite of the delay, so I won't be hurtling up that mountain road, if that's what's making you nervous.'
'I'm not nervous, sir.'
Jose was telling the truth. Brazil was a superb driver. Once, while in America, he had competed in a racing car on the West Coast. He had won, being proclaimed Champion of the Year.
'Igor will be quite happy on his own in the back.' Brazil continued as he drove away from the airfield. 'He likes looking out of the window. Incidentally, I think it is time we considered giving you more money. We will discuss it after we have got to the villa…'
Brazil was driving up a steep road which reproduced many of the features Philip and Paula had encountered during their journey to the Kellerhorn. On Brazil's side a rock wall sheered up vertically hundreds of feet above them. On Jose's side an ever-deepening abyss fell away and the drop was not guarded by a barrier.
The road turned and twisted as it climbed ever higher and its surface was covered with hard-packed snow. Brazil observed this with a sense of some relief – he knew that under the snow there would be a sheet of ice.
'There's a helicopter.' Jose remarked. 'It's not one of the Swiss weather planes.'
'No, it isn't, Jose. You probably saw it with another one waiting on the airfield. That machine has Marco aboard. He will arrive to make sure everything is ready for me at the villa before we get there.'
'You didn't tell me.' Jose replied.
'I don't tell you everything.' said Brazil and chuckled.
'Now it's hovering. I wonder why?'
'Obviously he is checking our progress up the mountain.'
***
Aboard the helicopter Marco,
sitting next to the pilot, was not interested in Brazil's progress. What had caught his attention was a four-wheel-drive proceeding up the mountain some distance behind Brazil. In the vehicle Marler also saw the chopper hovering and knew the reason why.
'Well.' he said aloud, 'I've been spotted. That means a reception committee will be waiting for me. I think I can handle that.'
As soon as the helicopter disappeared he slowed down, braked beyond a bend. He unzipped the canvas hold-all nestling on the seat beside him, took out several objects, slipped them into each of the pockets of his fur-lined, thigh-length coat. Then he continued his arduous drive up the mountain, constantly turning the wheel to take another bend.
'Jose,' Brazil said as they reached a great height, 'I think we are being followed.'
It was a lie. Brazil had no idea that Marler was coming up behind him. Jose peered back, shook his head.
'I think you are wrong. I have been keeping a close eye on my wing mirror and I have seen nothing.'
'Call it instinct.' Brazil said cheerfully. 'You know the turn-off we shall soon come to – the one taking us up on to a plateau?'
'I remember it well. It is a good viewing point.'
'For a certain distance, anyway. I think we will drive off up the turn-off. We have the time. Then you can check to see if I am wrong. Am I usually wrong?' he enquired breezily.
'No, you are nearly always right.'
'Not sure I like the phrase "nearly always", but I will overlook it.'
Jose glanced sideways at his chief. Brazil seemed to be in an exceptionally good humour. He decided it must be because soon they would be at the villa where something – he had no idea what it might be – was going to happen.
They reached the turn-off, little more than a wide gash in the rock wall, and Brazil swung off the mountain road, easing the large car up a steep track with inches to spare on either side. At the top they emerged on to a flat, arid, rock-strewn plateau, layered with snow. Brazil drove across the plateau, did a U-turn about fifty yards from where the ravine he had driven up ended. He looked at Jose.
'Now, go and stand on the overhang and look back as far as you can down the road. Watch it for a few minutes until I call you back. If you see another vehicle you raise your right hand and run to the beginning of the ravine. I will pick you up there. Then we drive down almost to the mountain road and wait. A perfect ambush point. There is a machine-pistol on the floor at the back under the travelling rug.'
'I take the weapon with me,' Jose suggested. 'Then I can kill the people in the car.'
'No, you can't. If they reach the overhang they will be hidden from you. Just do as I say, Jose.'
Brazil waited until Jose was away from the car before he gave Igor a one-word command. The wolfhound jumped over into the passenger seat previously occupied by Jose. It began to get excited as Brazil opened a compartment, took out a black glove, pulled it over his right hand.
He had had Igor trained, when younger, at a special school for dogs in Germany. He had told the master of the school that it was a game he wanted to play – then had given him details. He had stayed, putting on the black glove to activate Igor – papier-mache dummies the size of men had been used.
Jose had reached the brink of the outcrop or overhang which shielded the portion of the road below him. He stared for a moment down into the endless precipice falling well over a thousand feet, then switched his attention to the section of the road he could see.
Inside the car Brazil pointed at Jose with one finger of his gloved hand, leaned over to open the passenger door. In his mind he recalled the recording Gustav had played back to him of Jose's treacherous phone call. An informant, a traitor…
Igor left the car. It bounded forward at increasing speed, its paws making no sound on the snow. As it came close to Jose, still standing with his back to the car, Igor leapt high into the air, thudded into the exposed back, then dropped flat onto the plateau, as trained to do when it hit a target.
Jose, perched on the brink, lost his balance, raising his arms as he fell forward, plunging down into space, missing the mountain road by feet, his body cartwheeling as his yell of terror echoed into eternity. Then the silence of the Valais returned; an ominous silence.
38
Igor sat beside his master in the front passenger seat for the remainder of the journey up to the villa. He knew he had performed his 'trick' well.
Brazil drove up the final steep section, came out onto a large plateau. In the near distance, beyond a large concrete blockhouse which guarded the approaches, the white villa sat near the edge of the plateau. Immediately below it lay the chilling glacier, partially melting due to the sun shining on it with even feeble warmth.
'Why wasn't there anyone in the guardhouse?' Brazil wondered aloud. 'They need shaking up here.'
The chopper which had brought Marco rested on its helipad inside the twelve-foot-high perimeter fence of wire mesh. The protective fence was quite close to the villa. On the flat roof of the building was a tangle of aerial masts.
Pulling up, after passing through the gate which Marco had opened, Brazil left the limo, followed by Igor. He ran up the steps to the long terrace which fronted the villa. In the clear fresh mountain air he felt in the peak of fitness. Marco opened the heavy front door backed by steel.
'Marco, where the hell is everyone? There was no one in the guardhouse.'
'I found there was only the cook-housekeeper Elvira here when I arrived. The guards misunderstood the message you sent them while we were airborne.'
'Misunderstood! I said they were to send a section of the guards over to the laboratory to reinforce it.'
'I know, sir,' Marco agreed in a placatory tone, 'but the message must have been garbled. They thought you ordered all the guards to go to the Kellerhorn.'
'Their bloody commonsense should have told them I would never send such a message. Does that mean you are the only one here – except for Elvira?'
'Yes, sir, I'm afraid it does.'
'You know.' Brazil commented, looking back, 'we should have had that fence erected further away from the villa. It can't be helped.'
'There is a small problem,' Marco informed him as he followed his chief into a vast hall with a marble floor. 'You had better know about it now.'
'Well, get on with it. I have to go to the transmitter to send the first signal in the next thirty minutes. No, in less time,' he said, checking his watch. 'The satellite will be in orbit over Germany.'
'You were followed up the mountain,' Marco said quickly, expecting an outburst.
'You are sure?' Brazil asked quietly.
'Yes. A four-wheel-drive with one man inside it.'
'One man? Heavens, Marco, that should be no problem for you.'
'Oh, it won't be.' Marco said confidently. 'But I thought it best you should know. You may hear noise from outside.'
'Just get rid of him. Make sure he never drives back down the mountain again. There are plenty of places to hide a body easily. The glacier, for example.'
'I had already thought of that.'
'I must go to the transmitter…'
He paused as a short stocky woman, very fat, with a swarthy face, came into the entrance hall. She bowed.
'Good to see you back, sir. What would you like for your meal?'
'I must go to the transmitter!'
He had walked briskly to one of several doors leading off the hall, was taking out his keys, selecting the two which opened the double-locked heavy door, again backed by steel, when Marco followed him.
'What is it now?' snapped Brazil.
'Do you mind if Elvira gives the helicopter pilot his meal before you eat?'
'She can stuff him to the gills.'
Unlocking the door, he walked into a huge room with a large picture window of armoured glass. From the window he saw the distant Kellerhorn summit – below it, the buildings from which Luigi would send the first signal to the satellite. He could also see the huddle of old houses which accommo
dated the scientists and their wives or girl friends.
'The first signal will throw the world into panic.' he said to himself. 'But that will be nothing compared to what happens when the second signal is sent, probably tomorrow or the day after.'
Brazil had never felt more confident in his life as he sat in the padded secretarial chair in front of the transmitter, put on his headphones, took off his watch so he could time it perfectly, his hands hovering over the keys.
Leaving the airfield with Jose, he had seen in his rear-view mirror fat Luigi climbing aboard the other helicopter, on his way to the Kellerhorn. With Luigi in charge the system would operate perfectly. Once Luigi had received his signal he would operate the mobile conning tower to track the satellite, would lock on to it with the flexible directional mast, then press the button.
As the second hand on his watch reached the correct position he began tapping out the signal. All hell was about to break loose.
'What did Professor Grogarty tell you when you phoned him?' asked Monica.
Tweed smiled grimly. He had woken up earlier, had gone to the bathroom, taken a shower, and changed into clean clothes. When he had come back he had asked Monica to see if she could contact Grogarty.
'He's been studying those photographs again – the ones you sent by courier a second time. The photos taken secretly in French Guiana just before the satellite was launched, when its innards were exposed.'
'He's been brooding about them, worrying over them when he's thought some more about them?'
'You hit the nail on the head,' said Tweed. 'He's totally convinced that it's a highly sophisticated system designed to sabotage global communications. He hasn't worked out yet completely how it could be done. But he insists that somewhere there is a ground station controlling the whole system.'
'If only Newman would phone us,' Monica said wistfully.
'He will at the right time. What's that…?'
Returning from the bathroom, he had left the office door open because the room was stuffy. Suddenly a terrible screeching sound filled the office. Worse than that, brilliant lights, almost blinding, were flashing. The phenomenon, Tweed realized, was coming from the upper floor and down the stairs. Monica had her hands over her ears, an agonized expression on her face.
