by Colin Forbes
'Your name?' Stoller demanded.
'This is outrageous!' Dietrich had hurried after Stoller and was standing behind a huge desk. 'I shall complain to the Minister-President…'
'There is the phone.' Stoller turned to the woman again and his manner became polite. 'We have full powers of search. Could you please give me your name…'
'Don't answer,' Dietrich told her, reaching for a cigar.
'Klara Beck,' the woman replied and smiled. 'I am Mr Dietrich's secretary and personal assistant. Is there any other way in which I can help you?'
'You can let -me know the present whereabouts of an Englishman who called here within the past hour. His name is Philip Johnson…'
Klara Beck. One of the names Stoller had checked out when Martel had reported the conversation he had eavesdropped on in the phone booth at Lindau Hauptbahnhof. The Stuttgart number had been traced to, a penthouse apartment owned by Dietrich GmbH. There was also an interesting file on Beck which went back to her early days in Berlin.
'I have been working in my office upstairs and just came down to the library before you arrived,' Beck replied. 'I have never heard of anyone by that name…'
`You live here at the schloss?'
'What bloody impertinence…!' Dietrich exploded from behind his desk.
Stoller ignored the industrialist, concentrating his whole attention on examining the room and questioning Beck. His men were at this moment searching the rest of the schloss. Dietrich knew this, yet he had left Erwin Vinz to keep an eye on them. He seemed most reluctant to leave the library, which convinced Stoller he was in the right room.
'I have an apartment in Stuttgart,' Beck replied as she took out a pack of cigarettes and inserted one between her lips. Stoller leant close to her with his lighter and ignited the cigarette. As he did so she watched him with her large eyes and there was a hint of invitation. A dangerous woman.
`It is a company apartment,' she went on. 'One of the advantages of working for the owner.' Her eyes again met Stoller's directly. 'And I'm very good at all aspects of my job.'
`I'm sure you are.'
Stoller bowed courteously, then resumed his slow stroll round the room. The ash-tray on the desk had recently been hastily cleaned. There were smear-marks of ash round its interior. He looked up as one of his men entered the room followed by a colleague.
`Anything so far, Peter?' Stoller enquired.
The man shook his head and Stoller told both of them to wait with him in the library. lie noticed Dietrich was beginning to enjoy his cigar, to relax in his chair.
`Who has told you this fantastic story about this mythical person being anywhere near my home?'
`The aerial camera – plus the co-pilot's field-glasses. The film taken will, when developed, provide the evidence. We used special film which shows the exact date and time pictures are taken – one of the products of your company, I believe?'
`Camera? Pilot? Have you gone mad?'
`A helicopter tracked Johnson up to the schloss – with a cine-camera recording the incident as I have just explained. What cigarettes do you smoke, Mr Dietrich? The brand, I mean.'
`I only smoke cigars – Havanas.' Dietrich was mystified by the turn events were taking and shifted restlessly in his chair.
`And Miss Beck smokes Blend- as I noticed when she took out her pack…'
Stoller was walking along the line of bookcases. He stopped and stooped to pick up a cigarette stub half-hidden in the shag carpet at the foot of a bookcase. He showed everyone the stub which he had spotted a few minutes earlier.
`Interesting. Dietrich on his own admission – smokes cigars. Miss Beck smokes Blend. This stub is Silk Cut – a British cigarette. It was lying at the base of this bookcase. I find it hard to surmise how it comes to be there – unless it was dropped when someone walked through a solid wall. Or is the wall so solid…' He began taking out volumes from the shelves and dropping them on the floor. To speed up the process he swept whole sections of the calf-bound volumes on to the carpet as he nodded to his two men. They produced
Walther automatics and held them ready for use. Enraged, Dietrich strode round his desk.
'Those volumes are priceless…'
'Then show me where the catch is which releases the concealed door.'
'You are mad…!'
Dietrich stopped speaking as another half-dozen books went on the floor and Stoller gazed at a red button set in a plastic frame which had just been exposed. He pressed the button and a section of bookcase slid back revealing the spiral staircase beyond.
'Peter,' he ordered, 'go and see what is down there. Should you meet any resistance use your gun.' He glanced round the room. I doubt if I have to remind anyone terrorist kidnapping is punishable by long terms of imprisonment…'
'I was upstairs helping Klara,' Dietrich began.
'Was he, Miss Beck?' Stoller enquired. 'Be careful how you reply since criminal proceedings may be involved.'
'I'm confused…' Beck started choking on her cigarette but was saved from saying more by the appearance of Martel brushing dirt from his sleeve. There was dried blood on his knuckles where his hands had hit the cellar flagstones. Peter came into the room behind him and spoke to Stoller.
'He was imprisoned in a cellar like a pig-pen but they left the key on the Outside of the door – it saved shooting off the lock.'
'Well, Dietrich?' Stoller asked.
'He is an imposter… I was sure he was an assassin sent to kill me… After he made an appointment I phoned The Times in London… They told me Johnson is in Paris… I have many enemies…'
The Delta leader was talking like a machine-gun, gesturing to indicate his alarm, the words tumbling out as he struggled forcefully to make his story sound plausible enough to make Stoller doubt the wisdom of preferring charges. It was Martel who guided Stoller to a decision.
'I suggest we get to hell out of this den of nauseating clowns. The atmosphere here smells even fouler than it did in that filthy cellar…'
The three BND cars reached the exit, turned past the heap of dog corpses lying in the road and headed back towards Munich.
'In a minute,' Stoller said to Martel, 'we come to where I left Claire Hofer parked in your Audi – where you left her. She recognised me and blasted hell out of her horn to stop us. Then she blasted more hell out of me to hurry to the schloss. That girl likes you,' Stoller commented with a sideways glance.
'I'll bear it in mind – and thanks for keeping tabs on me with the chopper – and for battering your way into the fortress…'
'Why did you visit Dietrich?' the German asked.
'To set the enemy at each other's throats. To convince him he is being betrayed, which I believe is the truth. It may throw a last-minute spanner in the works of Operation Crocodile. And God knows we're close to the last minute…'
Claire made her remark as Martel drove them in the Audi back to Munich. Stoller's motorcade had long since vanished as he hurried to reach the airport to catch his flight to Bonn.
`I assume we cancel out Erich Stoller now as a possible assassin?'
'Why?'
Tor God's sake because he rescued you from the clutches of that swine, Dietrich…'
'And what will be the prime objective of the security chief who is the secret assassin?' Martel enquired.
'I don't follow you,' she said with a note of irritation.
'To act in a way that will convince Tweed and I that he is not the man we're looking for.'
'You can't mean Erich Stoller is still on the list.'
'Yes. He is no more cleared than the others. Let's hope those records we're collecting from Munich Airport do tell us who we're looking for.'
CHAPTER 25
Tuesday June 2: 1400-2200 hours
Name: Erich Heinz Stoller. Nationality: German. Date of birth: June 17 1950. Place of birth: Haar, Munich.
Career record: Served with Kriminalpolizei, Wiesbaden, 1970-1974
… Transferred to BND, 1974… served as unde
rcover agent inside East Germany, 1975-1977… Appointed. chief, BND, 1978…
Tweed again skip-read the file McNeil had handed him. Examining dossiers produced this reaction: the more you tackled the faster you absorbed them. Tweed pushed the file back across the desk to McNeil. He rubbed his eyes and yawned before asking the question.
'What do you think of Stoller? You never met him – which can be an advantage. His personality doesn't intrude, you concentrate on the facts.'
'He's by far the youngest of the four – in his early thirties. Isn't that unusual – to become chief of the BND at his age?' 'Chancellor Langer personally promoted him over the heads of God knows how many more senior candidates. He has a reputation for being brilliant…'
'I detect a "but" in your inflection,' McNeil observed. `Well, he did spend two years behind the Iron Curtain.. 'But you said he was brilliant…'
'So we start going round in circles again.' Tweed frowned and leaned forward to tap the neat pile of folders McNeil had arranged. 'I'm convinced that in one of those folders is the answer – a fact pointing straight at the guilty man. It's at the back of my mind but I'm damned if I can bring it to the surface.'
`Maybe Martel will spot it when he reads the copies I'm taking with me to Miinich this evening…'
'It worries me, McNeil,' Tweed said quietly, 'you're breaking all the regulations by taking even copies of those dossiers out of the country…'
`I'll be covered by my diplomatic immunity pass. Martel will meet me as soon as I get off the plane. Nothing can happen while I'm in the first-class section of the plane. I'm quite looking forward to the trip…'
`I'm having you escorted to Munich with an armed guard,' Tweed decided. He reached for the phone, dialled a number, gave brief instructions and listened. 'He'll be here in half an hour,' he told McNeil as he replaced the phone. 'It will be
Mason – he says he's the only one available.'
'At least he will be company on the flight.'
Tweed looked at her and marvelled. Some of these middle-aged English women were extraordinary. They undertook the most dangerous missions as though they were taking a trip to Penzance. He watched as she packed the copy files in a special security briefcase. Her own small bag had been packed hours ago.
'You're not to chain that thing to your wrist,' he told her.
`Why not? I'm doing this job.' She spoke sharply as she locked the case, extended the chain from the handle and clamped the cuff of steel round her wrist, snapping shut the automatic lock. Both knew why he had said that.
Tweed would sooner lose the case rather than subject McNeil to a frightful ordeal – and instances had been kriown where attackers used the simple method of obtaining such a case. They chopped the hand off at the wrist.
1800 hours, the American Embassy, Grosvenor Square. In a second-floor office Tim O'Meara stood holding his executive case while his deputy, James Landis, listened on the phone, said yes and no, and then replaced the receiver.
`Well?' O'Meara demanded impatiently.
`Air Force One is on schedule over the Atlantic. It will touch down at Orly in good time for the President to be driven direct to the Gare de l'Est and the Summit Express…'
`Then let's get to hell out of here so we're at Orly ourselves in good time…'
'A curious report came in about a half-hour back, sir – concerning the investigation into the murder of Clint Loomis on the Potomac. Apparently a nosey international operator in Washington listened in on a call which came through from…'
'I said come on!' O'Meara blazed, cutting off his deputy in mid-sentence.
1800 hours, Elysle Palace, Paris. In the courtyard outside the main entrance and behind the grille gates leading to the street Alain Flandres watched the anti-bomb squad going over a gleaming black Citroen. In a few hours this car would transport the French President to the Gare de l'Est.
As always, Flandres could not keep still – nor trust anyone except himself. As two men directed a mirror at the end of a long handle underneath the car he stood to one side and watched the mirror image.
'Hold it there a moment!'
He stared at the reflection and then called out to a leather-clad man nearby. 'Get underneath this car and check every square centimetre. The mirror could miss something..
He ran up the steps inside the Elysee and went to the operations room where an armed guard opened the door. Two men were hunched over powerful transceivers while the third, a cryptographer, checked decoded signals. He looked up as Flandres came into the room and tried to hand his chief a sheaf of messages.
Just tell me what they say, my friend! Why should I ruin my eyes when you are paid to ruin your own?'
There were grins at the sally and the tense atmosphere lightened with Flandres' arrival. It was part of his technique to defuse any heightening of tension. Calm men took calm decisions.
'The American President lands at Orly at 2300 hours
'Which leaves exactly one half-hour to drive him from airport to train. We had better close off the route – they will drive like hell. It is the Americans' idea of security. A demonstration by Mr Tim O'Meara of his efficiency! Long live the Yanks!'
`The British Prime Minister will land in her special flight at Charles De Gaulle at 2200 hours…'
`Characteristic of the lady – to allow sufficient time but not so much that she wastes any. A model passenger!'
`The German Chancellor is scheduled to board the express at Munich Hauptbahnhof at 0933 tomorrow morning
`That I know – it has long been planned…'
'But there is an odd signal from Bonn I do not understand,' the cryptographer told him. `We are particularly requested to stand by in the communications room aboard the Summit Express for an urgent message from Bonn during the night.'
'That is all?'
`Yes.'
Flandres left the room, walking slowly along the corridor. The Bonn signal was a new, last-minute development which he could not understand – and because he did not comprehend its significance it worried him.
1800 hours, The Chancellery, Bonn. Erich Stoller left the study of Chancellor Langer in the modern building on the southern outskirts of the small town which overlooks the Rhine. The tall, thin German wore an expression of satisfaction: his dash by private jet from Munich had been worthwhile.
During the flight Stoller had wondered whether he could manage it: Langer was notoriously unpredictable, a highly intelligent leader with a will of his own. And it had taken only ten minutes' conversation to persuade the Chancellor.
Stoller had sent off the coded signal – prepared in advance – while he was still in Langer's study, the signal to control H.Q. at the Elysee in Paris. Alan Flandres would by now, he hoped, have received- this first signal. It was the second signal, timed to be sent later when the train was on its way, that was vital.
'I have pulled it off,' Stoller said to himself. The plan is working…'
1800 hours, Heathrow Airport. Flight LH 037 took off for Munich on schedule, climbing steeply into the clear blue evening sky, leaving behind a vapour trail which dispersed very slowly. Two passengers had come aboard and settled themselves in the first-class section at the last moment. Special arrangements had been made in advance to receive the couple.
Neither McNeil, carrying her brief-case locked to her wrist with a metal hand-cuff and chain, nor her companion, Mason – who carried a Smith amp; Wesson. 38 in a shoulder holster – passed through normal channels. Once identified, they were hustled to an office with a sign outside. Positively No Admittance.
They remained inside the locked office until a phone call to the uniformed police officer sharing the room informed them all other passengers were aboard. They ran down the covered way leading into the aircraft where stewardesses waited to escort them to reserved seats.
'Isn't it nice to be VIP's?' McNeil whispered as she sipped her champagne and the plane continued its non-stop ascent.
'All in a day's work,' Mason replied, his expression
blank.
1930 hours, Heathrow Airport. Flight BE 026 departed for Paris on schedule. Tweed – who was deliberately travelling economy class – had a difficult job timing his boarding of the flight. As he knew from McNeil's private intelligence service, Howard was travelling on the same flight, but first-class.
Tweed, therefore, entered the final departure lounge just as the last-but-one passenger disappeared down the ramp. The steward on duty beckoned frantically.
'The flight is just departing!'
`So I'm just in time,' Tweed responded as he rushed down the ramp. Damnit, he had paid for his ticket.
As the stewardess ushered him aboard he glanced into the first-class section on his left. The back of Howard's head was just visible. Fortunately when disembarkation took place the custom was to let off first-class passengers ahead of the plebs. Tweed chose a seat he hated, a seat at the rear of the plane. He detested flying.
He sank into his seat and after take-off forced himself to gaze out of the porthole window. In the evening sunlight the full glory of Windsor Castle revolved below. For Queen and Country. A bit old-fashioned these days, but Tweed never bothered about what impression he might create on the rest of the world.
Flight LH on had crossed the German border when Mason excused himself to McNeil. 'I want to send a message to Martel confirming we are aboard this flight – the pilot can radio it for me…'
'But he's expecting us,' McNeil reminded him.
'Expecting is not the same thing as knowing we caught the plane. With what you're carrying we can't take any chances…'
He made his way towards the pilot's cabin and was stopped by a stewardess. He took out his identity card and gave it to her.
'Show this to the pilot. I have to send an urgent radio signal. The pilot knows we are aboard…'
After a short delay he was shown into the cabin and the door was locked behind him. Mason introduced himself and then turned to the wireless operator. The pilot nodded that it was all right and the agent asked for a pad to write the message. It was addressed to a Mtinich telephone number.
