by Colin Forbes
'Blondel always was clever at persuading people round to his way of thinking,' Milo observed, still gazing at the blank wall opposite him.
'Rondel, not Blondel,' the tall figure said in a controlled tone of voice.
'It is his blond hair,' Milo explained, as though discussing a minor detail.
'I am puzzled,' Tweed said in a calm voice.
'By what?' asked Rondel.
'How missiles could be fired from such a device as we have here. There was no sign of such a system when it was elevated.'
'Elevated?' Now Rondel sounded puzzled. 'You don't mean Milo elevated it while you were in the locked room?'
'Yes. I'm not an expert on missiles. Far from it. But the complex of dishes we saw did suggest to me some kind of radio and electronic system. But missiles? Never.'
Paula was looking at Milo, still smoking the last of his cigar. He had a faint, almost quizzical, smile on his face. He stubbed out his cigar butt.
Rondel waved both hands in a confused gesture, as if to say I don't see where you're going. Then his right hand had whipped out an automatic from under his arm. He levelled it at Lisa.
'Everyone except Milo stand up. Now! Or I'll shoot Lisa. And place your hands at the back of your necks. Lisa has five seconds to live.'
They all stood up quickly. They placed their hands behind their necks. Newman had thought of reaching for his revolver, but the automatic Rondel was gripping in both hands was a .32 Browning. A gun like the one Paula carried inside her shoulder bag. The magazine had a capacity to hold nine rounds. More than enough to kill them all. A bullet for each of them. On top of that, his professional eye noted the way Rondel held the weapon. He could use it swiftly, swinging it from one target to another as he pressed the trigger.
'How is Mr Blue, or M. Bleu if you prefer it? Or Herr Blau as you are known in Germany?' Tweed asked Rondel.
Surprise, followed by astonishment, flickered in Rondel's eyes. He looked taken aback, but still the Browning remained steady, aimed at Lisa. He spoke to Milo out of the corner of his mouth.
'Old man, you sit still,' he sneered insultingly. He spoke to Tweed, still staring at Lisa. 'What the hell are you talking about?'
'You are Blue, Bleu and Blau. I took the trouble to phone my assistant in London, asked her to get my friend, security chief at Heathrow, to check passenger manifests. Computers enable him to do that amazingly quickly. He came up with flights for M. Blon. That was audacious . . .' He had nearly said 'arrogant', but decided it would be too provocative with Rondel now living off his nerves. '—First on a flight to Washington, a week before Jason Schulz, aide to the American Secretary of State was murdered. Second, M. Blon was flying to Paris five days before Louis Lospin, aide to the PM of France was murdered. Third, M. Blon is off again flying to Berlin from Hamburg a day before Kruger, aide to the Deputy Chancellor of Germany was murdered. Killing Jeremy Mordaunt can't have posed any problems - lure him down to Alfriston, near where you have a house, and he is murdered inside the tunnel. Why?'
'You've been a busy little bee,' Rondel sneered again.
'Why were they a danger to you?'
'Because they carried confidential and compromising messages to their chiefs. I decided the time came when diey knew too much. And their chiefs were nervous.'
'So we had a unique case of an assassin who hired himself.'
'That's rather a good way of putting it,' Rondel agreed, with a hint of hideous pride.
'But at least you got a lot of the money needed to finance the murderous bandits who would create chaos. Not all of it.'
'What the hell are you talking about?' Rondel demanded.
'Some money had to be sent, otherwise you would have become suspicious. It was sent from a deserved quarter.'
'What quarter?'
'An accountant friend of mine . . .' He was careful not to name Keith Kent. '. . . Burrowing into the Zurcher Kredit statements found Gavin Thunder had a secret and substantial deposit. To evade tax, no doubt. His money was sent.'
'Who by?'
'Irrelevant.'
'By me,' Lisa said quietly. 'I cleaned out his account.'
'You did what?'
Rondel's hands gripped the Browning just a little tighter. For an awful moment Tweed thought he was going to press the trigger.
'Clever little lady,' Rondel sneered.
'And also,' Tweed continued, 'I'm convinced you are the fifth man.'
Tweed was desperately keeping Rondel talking. In the faint hope that something would happen to make him drop the gun. Anything, he prayed, although his brain told him a diversion was hardly on the cards.
'The fifth man?' Rondel queried.
'Yes.'
Tweed then recalled the scene he had witnessed at the windmill near Sylt - when the FBI man had been told by a civilian that the fifth man had not arrived.
'The fifth member of the Elite Club,' he concluded.
Rondel's expression changed in a way that startled, disturbed Paula. He grinned, one side of his mouth twisted down. There was no mirth in the satanic grin. Only arrogance and triumph. For brief seconds he held the Browning with only his right hand, using the left hand to flick back the lapel of his jacket. Pinned to it was the Elite Club's symbol, the letter 'E' reversed so it had a Greek look.
Then he was again gripping the Browning with both hands, and again it was aimed point-blank at Lisa. Newman had been calculating whether he could rush at Rondel. Reluctantly he decided it would be committing suicide to no purpose. The distance between where he stood and Rondel, standing in front of the picture window, was too great. Everyone would end up dead.
'We know what you plan for the Western world,' Tweed informed Rondel. His brain was running out of subjects to talk about which would hold Rondel's interest. 'I have Thunder's outline of the plan in my pocket. It is even initialled GT. Gavin Thunder.'
'I don't believe you,' Rondel snapped. 'You're just talking for the sake of talking. Hoping for something -something which will not occur.'
'I can show you the document if you will permit me to take it out of my breast pocket. Slowly.'
' Very slowly,' Rondel ordered him. 'Any trick and Lisa will have departed this world with one bullet.'
Tweed moved his hand in slow motion. He pulled the corner of the folded sheet out inch by inch. Rondel's eyes were watching him but kept switching to the others. Tweed pulled the sheet clear of his pocket. He screwed it up into a ball and lobbed the ball of paper on to Milo's desk.
'Let Milo read it and then give it to you,' suggested Tweed.
'Yes, read it, Milo,' Rondel agreed. 'You always said what a master planner I was.'
'And a lot of it came from your brain, I suspect,' Tweed added, playing on Rondel's vanity.
'Oh, it did. The other members of the Elite Club made a few alterations but they were only minor changes. Basically, it is my plan. Go on, read it, Milo.'
The hunched figure put a fresh cigar in his mouth. Then, moving slowly, he unscrewed the paper, smoothed it out, began reading it, far more slowly than he normally absorbed a document. He picked up his lighter fashioned in the shape of an automatic. He finished reading it and nodded his head.
'Truly, it is brilliant. It should do the job, I'm sure. I congratulate you.'
Paula felt sick. They had got it wrong again. They were in this together. Of course they were. They were partners in the gigantic crime which was about to be committed against the world. Milo raised the lighter close to the tip of his cigar. In a lightning movement that Paula hardly saw he turned the lighter so the muzzle pointed at Rondel, pulled the trigger. Four bullets from the muzzle were embedded in Rondel's chest.
Rondel threw up both arms, dropping the Browning, fell back against the picture window. His body crashed straight through the glass, disappeared. Left behind in the special glass was a perfect silhouette of Victor Rondel, arms upraised. Paula thought it the most macabre epitaph she had ever seen.
Only Harry saw the final end. He heard the gl
ass crack and a body flew out into space. He watched as it dropped down the side of the mountain, turning in the air like a cartwheel.
He watched as it reached the Baltic far below. The body hit the surface head first, sank below the surface, left behind a white circle of surf, which quickly vanished. The water closed over where Rondel had plunged into the calm sea.
Although the place was well soundproofed, Harry thought he had heard the crack of four shots. With the Uzi in his hands he burst into the study. Tweed shouted at the top of his voice.
'OK, Harry. It's OK. OK.'
Milo was still holding the silver-plated automatic so Tweed was scared stiff Harry would open fire on him. He had shouted in time. Harry lowered the muzzle of the Uzi, laid it on a nearby table. Looking round at everyone he made a typical remark.
'Whoever went out of that window has gone for a very big dive.'
'I have two automatics,' Milo explained. 'One the lighter my wife gave me as a present. I decided secretly to have a replica made which looked exactly like my lighter, but was a real gun. I thought it might come in useful one day.'
'It did today.' said Tweed. 'Isn't it time you put your system into action?'
I'm sure you're right. Please come with me. Paula also. I invite the rest of you to have a drink, something to eat
CHAPTER 44
Standing outside the steel door, Milo asked Paula to check that he pressed the right sequence of digits in the combination box to open the door. Up to that point she had been astounded at the glacial calm Milo had displayed during the whole ordeal. Now she realized he had hidden the inevitable tension he had experienced.
She watched him and he pressed the correct digits. As he opened the heavy door he looked at the red button but did not press it. Putting his hand in his pocket, he turned to her.
'You might like to see the end of the Internet. Stand well clear of the door into the computer room. The staff in there will rush out at top speed. Here they come.'
The alarm had gone off inside the room. About twenty girls in white coats left their computers, jumped up, ran for the door which Paula had opened for them. They kept on running down the corridor and disappeared. Looking into the room, Paula thought it looked strange - all those screens still working and no one left in the room.
'Put on these dark glasses and insert these earplugs,' Milo told her.
She was doing so when Tweed and Milo went inside, closed the door behind them. She checked her watch. From her previous experience she guessed it would take no more than five minutes for the system to emerge from the top of the chimney.
She imagined Milo opening the door of the circular machine, then pulling down the extreme right lever and the one on the left. The system would appear as the two men watched, looking up at the glass dome. Again, she imagined a pause before Milo pulled the red-handled lever down to its fullest extent. Later, Tweed told her Milo had not paused.
She was staring into the computer room, after closing the door, seeing it darkly through her glassess. She checked her watch again. Nothing had happened. Had Rondel sabotaged the sytem? He might well have done so, if he knew how.
Hell broke loose. She blinked even though wearing the dark glasses. The screens had gone mad. It was worse than the 'glitch' they had witnessed at Park Crescent, so long ago, it seemed to her. Much larger missiles seemed to be shooting at all angles across the screens. Some screens had blacked out altogether. Then she saw them fracturing, spilling whatever they were made of onto the floor. Even with plugs protecting her ears she could hear the most devilish screaming sounds. It was chaos, wiping out across the West a system people had worshipped, had indulged in perverse practices.
She thought of Monica, saw a phone on the wall, picked it up in the hope of calling Monica. The phone was dead, had also been destroyed.
At Park Crescent, Monica, sitting in front of her screen, warned by her previous experience, had fled from the room as the sound mounted to fresh crescendoes. She had slammed the door shut behind her.
Paula continued to stare into the room as more screens were shattered. In some cases the material they were made of stayed in place. These screens were fractured and showed instead a complex series of spider's webs. Someone touched her arm and she jumped. It was Tweed's hand.
He gestured for her to return to the study as Milo came out behind him. When they re-entered the study everyone, including Harry, was seated at the banquette, eating and drinking as though they had starved for days. Milo went back to his desk, stubbed his smoking cigar, lit another.
'It's all over,' said Paula as she sank into her seat.
'Not quite,' Milo told her. 'I am waiting to hear from Danzer. He is close to the island of Sylt.'
Had Tweed been able to observe Danzer, standing behind a tree in a wood immediately above where the Sikorsky helicopter had landed, transporting its four VIPs from Hamburg Airport to Sylt, he would have been impressed. Danzer had waited patiently for several days while the meetings took place inside Inselende. He looked straight down on the grounded chopper, seen through a haze of brambles.
He had catnapped when he could, but for hours he had watched, checking the routine of American guards protecting the machine. As he had hoped, at night, after exercising great vigilance, the guards had got fed up, had become sloppy. Instead of patrolling round the machine they sat together in a hollow some distance away, playing cards.
Danzer had also noticed that a mechanic came just before dark to check the machine. He had further noticed that the mechanic took a flask from his pocket before boarding the chopper, gulped some of its contents, then climbed the staircase, which remained lowered. An appalling breach of security.
It was on the third night, or so Danzer thought - he was beginning to lose track of time - when the mechanic was staggering when he arrived. Clearly he had indulged his liking for the flask earlier. Danzer decided it was now or never. He had picked up his satchel, clambered down the slope, coming up behind the mechanic who had stopped to take another gulp from his flask. Bourbon, Danzer guessed. He tapped the mechanic hard on the back of his head with a leather-covered sap. The mechanic had sagged to the ground.
Checking his pulse, Danzer was relieved to feel it chugging steadily. He picked up the flask the mechanic had dropped, poured a small quantity down the front of his victim's boiler suit.
He next picked up the clipboard the mechanic had carried under his arm. Once an inspection was completed die mechanic had ticked the box alongside die date, confirming he had checked the machine. A fat pencil, attached to the clipboard, hung loose. There was just enough light left for Danzer to tick the clipboard in the way the mechanic always did.
With a last glance towards the hollow, where he could hear the guards singing, Danzer, carrying his satchel, climbed aboard. He then worked quickly, knowing he would be trapped if a guard appeared.
From his satchel he lifted out carefully a long black box with wires protruding. Lying down, he placed the box in what he hoped was an invisible position at the front of the control cabin. He elevated die small aerial, took a deep breath, pressed the button which activated the device. A small red light, out of sight almost, came on.
Standing up, he grasped the now empty satchel, peered out, ran silently down the telescopic staircase. He walked quickly back up the hill where he had waited for so long. Slipping inside the trees, he glanced back, startled to see the mechanic sitting up, rubbing the back of his head with his hand.
With luck he'd associate the pain with a hangover. Danzer saw him stagger to his feet, pick up his clipboard. He looked up at the staircase, fumbled with a torch, shone die beam on his clipboard. He obviously couldn't recall whether he had maintained the chopper. He peered closely at the clipboard. Apparently satisfied that the tick showed he'd done the job, he stumbled back away from the machine.
Danzer sighed with relief, made his way across to a more distant hilltop closer to Denmark. Inside the copse at its summit he extracted a pair of binoculars from the cap
acious pockets of his dark jacket, looped them round his neck, leant against a tree and closed his eyes.
Raucous voices woke him the following morning. It was broad daylight and a lot was happening. He saw a large trolley packed with luggage driven to the foot of the chopper's staircase. Soldiers carried it aboard.
Minutes later a black stretch limousine arrived, stopped at the staircase. Uniformed military officers opened the doors. By now Danzer had the binoculars pressed to his eyes. He checked the passengers aboard one by one.
First Gavin Thunder, thinking this was the last time he would agree to fly by helicopter. Followed by the American Secretary of State, then the Deputy Chancellor of Germany and the French PM. Danzer saw all their faces.
He had picked up the small red box with three buttons along its top. Two white, one blue. He raised the aerial as the staircase withdrew inside the machine. Then, to Danzer's horror, he saw an American soldier holding a rifle climbing up the hill towards him. Danzer froze. Movement attracts attention. The soldier stopped behind a bush and Danzer realized he was answering a call of nature.
Above the fuselage of the Sikorsky the main rotor and the tail rotor began to whirl slowly, then more rapidly. The pilot began to lift his machine carrying its valuable cargo off the ground. A squad of soldiers on the ground stood to attention, saluted.
The machine was about two hundred feet up when Danzer pressed the blue button of his radio device. The chopper exploded. Pieces of the rotors, of the fuselage, were hurled into the sky. The machine crumbled, fell heavily to the ground, lay there like a scrapyard. Danzer had expected fire but for seconds there was a terrible silence. Then the fuel tank detonated. Great orange flames flared up an incredible height, followed by black smoke. Danzer shoved the master control box into his satchel, ran through the wood to where his old Volvo was parked. The engine started immediately and he began the long drive to the north, into Denmark and across Jutland.