by Colin Forbes
He knew how the tram worked. He stepped down on to the outside foot-board just when it began to elevate in conjunction with the closing of the automatic doors. As a safety device, when there is weight on the foot-board, the doors remain open – or open again if they are closing. Reaching the sidewalk he paused to light a cigarette, to see if anyone rushed out after him. The doors shut, the tram moved off.
Centralhof is a square enclosed by buildings. One side overlooks Bahnhofstrasse. There are four entrances under archways at the centre of each side of the square – one leading off Bahnhofstrasse – to the interior garden beyond.
Martel crossed the street, walked down Poststrasse, turned right and continued along the third side of the block. Walking under the archway he saw the trees and the fountain he remembered. Nothing had changed. He sat down on a seat.
He had never visited this apartment in Centralhof before – but on an earlier visit he had used exactly the same tactic to entice a shadow to show himself. On that occasion it had worked.
The only sounds in the semi-dark were the chirruping of invisible sparrows in the foliage of the trees, the gentle splash of fountain water. It was impossible to imagine a more peaceful scene. He looked up at the windows masked by net curtains and the silence was almost a sound.
No one had followed him into this oasis of peace. He began to think he had evaded detection. He got up and headed for the archway Tweed had shown him on a street plan which contained the entrance to the apartment.
There was only one name-plate, a bell-push by its side. C. Hofer. He pressed the bell and a woman's voice responded through the metal grille of the speak-phone almost immediately. In. German – not Swiss-German, which he would not have understood.
'Who is that?'
'Martel.'
He kept his voice low, his mouth close to the grille. The other voice sounded disembodied, filtered through the louvres.
'I have released the catch. I am on the first floor…'
He went into a bare hall and the spring-loaded hinge closed the door behind him. An old-fashioned lift with open grille- work enclosing a cage faced him. He ignored it and ran lightly up the staircase to arrive a few seconds before she would expect him.
Height: five feet six inches. Weight: nine. stone two pounds. Age: twenty-five. Colour of hair: black. Colour of eyes: deep blue.
This was the description of Hofer Tweed had supplied to Martel in London. It was typical of Ferdy Arnold's consideration and efficiency that he should supply the girl's vital statistics in this terminology: he knew Tweed's detestation of the Common Market and the metric system.
Martel was not armed with any weapon when he reached the first floor. He expected Hofer to supply a hand-gun. A closed door faced him on the deserted landing and he noticed that – blended in with the grain of the highly-varnished woodwork – was a spy-hole. At least she took some precautions when strangers arrived.
'Welcome to Zurich, Mr Martel. Please come in quickly…'
The door had been opened swiftly and the girl examined him as she ushered him inside, closed the door and double-locked it. Martel had stubbed out his cigarette as he waited inside the archway below. He held the black holder between his fingers and studied her without any show of enthusiasm.
She was wearing dark-tinted glasses with the outsize exoticshaped lenses so many girls affected these days. Her hair was very black, her height was about five foot six and he calculated she would turn the scales at around nine stone. She was also very attractive and wore a flowered blouse and a pastel-coloured skirt which revealed shapely legs.
'Satisfied?' she demanded in a waspish tone.
'You can't be too careful,' he told her and walked out of the tiny hall into a living-room whose windows overlooked the garden inside Centralhof. His manner was off-hand and he inserted a cigarette and lit it without asking her permission.
'Yes, you may smoke,' she told him.
'Good. It helps my concentration…'
He looked round the room which was filled with heavy leather arm-chairs and sofas and the usual weighty sideboard. The German Swiss went in for solid furniture which was probably a reflection of their sturdy character. He thought he knew what Hofer was thinking. Hell, do I have to work with this bastard?
'I'm just making some coffee,' she said in a more friendly voice.
'That would be nice…'
He went towards the window and changed direction as she vanished through a swing-door into a kitchen. From a quick glimpse it looked expensively equipped. Quietly he turned the handle of a closed door and eased it open, peering inside.
The bedroom. Large double bed. Large dressing-table with a few cosmetic articles neatly arranged. A pair of large double doors which presumably led to a large built-in wardrobe or dressing room. Everything spotless. He left the door half-open.
She had the percolator bubbling away when he walked uninvited into the kitchen. On a wing counter there were plates of half-eaten food, an unwashed glass, unwashed cutlery and a pair of scissors with a piece of sticking-plaster attached to one of the blades. She swung round, her mouth tight.
'Make yourself at home, Martel…'
'I always do…' He smiled briefly, the cigarette-holder still clenched between his teeth. 'Did Warner sleep here often?'
It threw her. She almost caught the percolator with her hand and knocked the whole thing over. He waited, watching her, smoking his cigarette. She unplugged the percolator, which had stopped bubbling, went to a wall-cupboard and opened it.
'Spring-cleaning – that's when I change things around to stop life getting boring…'
She took coffee-cups from another cupboard next to the one she had first opened and Martel was relieved to see they also were large. He drank coffee by the gallon. He said no cream and she poured two cups of black coffee, put them on saucers and looked at him.
'You're in my way…'
'Allow me…'
He picked up both cups and carried them into the living- room where he placed them on mats on a low table. She followed him, talking as she came through the swing-door.
'You're agile – I can't get through that swing-door with two cups. I have to take them one at a…'
He looked up as she stopped in mid-sentence. She was staring through her dark glasses at the half-opened bedroom door. It was impossible to see the expression in her eyes but her mouth compressed into a bleak gash.
'You've been in the bedroom…
'I like to be sure I really am alone with someone…' 'You've got a bloody nerve…'
She started towards the bedroom but he reached forward, caught her arm and sat her down on the sofa beside him. Still gripping her arm with one hand he reached up towards the outsized tinted glasses. She clawed her other hand and struck at his face with talon-like nails. He had to move fast to grab her wrist to protect himself: she had moved like a whip-lash.
'Martel, I've had you in a big way,' she hissed through perfectly formed teeth. 'If we are going to work together we have a few things to get straightened out…'
'You never answered my question about you and Warner…'
He had released her and picked up his cup of coffee, sipping at it while he watched her. She got herself under control very quickly, picking up her own cup before she replied.
'That's one of the things. First, it's none of your damned business. Second, the answer is no – he didn't even make a pass at me in all the time I knew him. It was strictly a business relationshiplike ours is going to be…
'Oh, that you can count on, Claire. When did you last see Warner before he was murdered? And I may call you Claire?'
'I suppose so. I last saw Charlie three days before he went off on a trip to Lindau. He was frustrated – said he felt he wasn't getting anywhere…'
'With Delta?'
She paused. Martel sat thinking and guessed if she could have read his thoughts they would have surprised her. He was recalling Tweed's comment that the dossiers never lied.
'If the
facts conflict with your expectations, always believe the facts,' was a maxim Tweed had hammered into Martel. Hofer had worked out her reply.
'You're referring to their neo-Nazi background?'
'I'm referring to Delta's underground organisation he was tracking.'
Martel's attitude now was one of complete relaxation but inside his nerves were tingling as he forced himself to lean back and cross his legs. Hofer drank more coffee and then stood up. When she had followed him in the kitchen she had brought with her a shoulder bag which she left on a chair behind the sofa close to the window. She went round the back of the sofa, talking while she moved.
'He did leave a notebook with me. There's a lot in it but I'd have remembered any reference to Delta…'
Martel was like a coiled spring. There was a faint thumping sound which came from beyond the half-open bedroom door. Hofer continued talking as she undid the clasp of her bag.
'The workmen next door are a nuisance – they're making alterations to the apartment before redecorating. The people cleared out to Tangier until it's all finished…'
Martel had chosen the sofa to sit on because it faced a large mirror over the fireplace. There were vases of flowers on the ledge but between them he could watch Hofer behind him. He had made a bloody awful mistake when he was so careful to check that he was not followed to Centralhof. He had got it the wrong way round. The danger had been in front of him, not behind. The enemy was waiting for his arrival at the apartment…
'I'm sorry if I was uptight when you arrived,' Hofer continued, 'but the news of Charlie's death shook me…'
He heard the click, watched her coming up behind him through a gap in the flowers in front of the mirror. He swung round suddenly, grasped Hofer's right hand by the wrist. The hand held an object like a felt-tip pen.
The click had occurred when she pressed something and a blade shot out from inside the handle, a blade unlike any he had ever seen, a blade like a skewer with a needle-thin tip. She had been pushing the needle-point towards the centre of the back of his neck.
He twisted the wrist brutally and she yelped as she dropped the weapon and he hauled her bodily over the back of the sofa and sprawled her along its length. Her skirt was dragged up to her thighs exposing a superb pair of legs. She arched her supple body in a sexual movement, using her free hand to try and pull him down on top of her.
'Bloody cow…'
He hit her a hard blow on the side of the jaw and she went limp. Standing up, he undid his leather belt and tightened the adjustable fasteners on either hip. When he bent down to turn her over on her face she suddenly came awake and jabbed two stiffened fingers towards his eyes. He became rougher, gave her a tremendous slap.
'Start struggling and I'll break your Goddamn neck
For the first time he saw her mouth go slack with fear and she remained passive as he turned her over, pulled the upper part of her body towards him, then used the belt to strap her ankles to her wrists.
It was the most uncomfortable position anyone can be forced into: if she struggled she would suffer excruciating pain. He tightened the belt to the limit of his strength. Soon the circulation would start to go. He left her on the sofa after using his handkerchief as a gag.
'It's not too clean,' he assured her.
Then he walked into the bedroom where the faint thumping was repeating itself. He opened both doors of the built-in wardrobe cupboard and looked down. The dark-haired girl on the floor had been trussed up like a chicken and her mouth was sealed with a band of sticking plaster.
`Hello, Claire Hofer,' he said. 'Thanks for the warning. Now let's make you comfortable. You have got guts…'
CHAPTER 4
Wednesday May 27
Hofer was emerging from the state of shock brought on by her ordeal inside the cupboard. She had cleared up the mess in the kitchen and was making coffee for herself and Martel.
'How did you know that girl was impersonating me?' she asked.
Their prisoner was lying on the living-room floor. Martel had released her from his belt and replaced it with the ropes used to bind up Hofer. Her mouth was sealed with a fresh strip of sticking-plaster Hofer had provided from the kitchen.
'She made a lot of mistakes,' Martel explained. 'Although her physical description fitted the one I had been given she wore dark-tinted glasses – in a room where the light was dim anyway. Now we know why – her eyes are brown…'
'There must have been more…'
'When I peered into the bedroom your cosmetics were neat and tidy on the dressing-table – one hell of a contrast with the food remains and dirt in here. The bit of sticking-plaster stuck to the scissors intrigued me. She had no visible injury. The normal one is when a woman cuts her hands in the kitchen. There were other things, too…'
'Such as?'
'More damning was the fact she didn't know which cupboard held the coffee cups. She denied Warner had ever made a pass at her – he always made one try for an attractive woman. And she called him Charlie. He always insisted on Charles.'
'You really are observant. Coffee in here?'
'No, in the living-room. I have questions to ask our imposter. She also over-reacted to my leaving the bedroom door half-open. Plus her elaborate explanation to cover your thumping the inside of the cupboard. You took a chance there…'
'I heard a man's voice and guessed you had arrived. I felt such a fool that I'd let her overpower me I had to warn you. Was she going to kill you?'
They had moved back into the living-room where their prisoner was rolled on her side in front of the fireplace. Martel lowered his voice so she couldn't hear him.
'Was she going to kill me?' He picked up the needle weapon he had earlier rescued from the floor and placed on a table. 'I think so. This ingenious little toy is very like a hypodermic. When I grabbed her she was about to ram it into the back of my neck. Press this button a second time and I'd say it injects the fluid. Let's test her reaction to her own medicine…'
Holding the weapon out of sight he knelt on the floor and rolled the girl on her back. With the other hand he took a grip on the plaster and ripped it off her mouth. She screamed. He placed a hand over her lips.
'No more noise. I'm going to ask questions. You're going to answer. Your real name?'
'Go stuff yourself…'
'What would happen if I jab this into you and press the button?'
He showed her the needle weapon. He moved the point close to the side of her neck. Her brown eyes glared up at him with a mixture of hatred and apprehension. -
Tor God's sake, no! Please..
'She says please,' Martel observed sarcastically. 'And yet she was about to give me the same treatment. Oh, well, here we go…'
`Gisela Zobel
`Where is your home base?'
'Bavaria… Munich. For pity's sake…'
`Pity?' Martel glanced up at Hofer who was staring intently, wondering how far he was prepared to go. 'She wouldn't know the meaning of the word, would she?'
'Not from the way she treated me…' Hofer responded with deliberate callousness. `You decide…'
She lit a cigarette and the girl on the floor watched her with bulging eyes. Sweat beads were forming on her forehead.
Martel moved the needle closer as he asked the question. 'Who do you work for?'
'He will kill me…'
'How could he? If you don't give the reply – the right reply – and we have certain information Warner sent by a secret route, you will be dead anyway. That is, unless I'm mistaken about what this instrument you were going to use on me contains. So, once again, here goes…'
`Reinhard Dietrich.
Then she fainted from terror – whether from uttering the name or because of Martel's threat to use the weapon he was not sure. He looked into Hofer's deep blue eyes, shrugged and withdrew the needle tip from the proximity of Zobel's neck.
`Get me a cork to protect this damned thing,' he suggested and while she fetched one from the kitchen he gazed at the
weapon. He was convinced that the contents injected into the victim would be lethal, that Gisela Zobel had planned to kill him. He would hand it to the counter-espionage people: Forensic could then check it.
At ten o'clock night had descended and Martel decided they could safely leave the apartment. Hofer packed a bag and Martel arranged with the police to send a plain-clothes man to the Baur au Lac to pay his bill and collect his suitcase. The bag was now standing in the small hall outside the apartment.
'We take a train to St. Gallen,' Martel told the Swiss girl in the living-room. 'We have to pick up Warner's trail there…'
`We have very little to go on,' the girl reminded him. 'Only that he stopped off there on his way here from Bavaria…' `So we make use of what little we have got…'
The evening had been packed with activity. Hofer had looked up the number in her pocket diary and Martel had phoned Berne. While he was talking to her boss, Ferdy Arnold, he had studied her in the mirror.
Her description fitted the one provided by Tweed perfectly but he was puzzled by her passive personality. She was a nice girl with long dark hair, a soft voice and graceful movements. Already he liked her. But he had expected someone more dynamic.
The Swiss counter-espionage chief had flown by private plane to Zurich. The atmosphere changed the moment he entered the place. A small, serious-faced man with rimless glasses, Ferdy Arnold resembled a banker. He took immediate decisions.
'We smuggle her out in an ambulance,' he announced, indicating Gisela Zobel who was now propped up in one of the deep arm-chairs. 'She will be taken to a special hospital. She will be kept under heavy guard. She will be intensively interrogated.'
He looked at Martel, ignoring Hofer. 'Phone me at this number at ten in the morning…' He scribbled a number, on a small pad, tore off the sheet and handed it to the Englishman. 'I've left off the Zurich code in case you lose the paper…'
Arnold, smartly dressed in a dark blue suit, looked at Martel with a wry smile. 'It isn't that I don't trust you…'
`But one English agent, Warner, was spotted – even posing as a German – so you're playing it to cover all angles. And why do I phone at ten in the morning? Surely you'll only just have started Zobel's daily interrogation…'
