by Peter Beck
Winter was taken by surprise. He wasn’t used to getting job offers in the middle of a chase.
‘Oh. Thank you very much. I feel flattered. I’d like some time to think about it. Perhaps we should discuss it after our round.’
Al-Bader nodded, laughed and adjusted his sunglasses. The man they were chasing was still a good hundred metres ahead and he turned onto a woodland path that led away from the course. ‘This path leads to the car park.’ When they got there, they saw the abandoned golf buggy and the taillights of a dark, Range Rover. They leaped out, Winter grabbed his SIG pistol from the golf bag and Al-Bader asked as they were running, ‘What do you drive?’
‘An Audi.’
‘Let’s take my car.’
‘It is a Quattro,’ Winter protested.
Without replying, Al-Bader pressed his remote control to click open a silver Porsche 911 turbo. Winter didn’t comment.
‘Hire car. Belongs to a company at Geneva Airport that specialize in exclusive models,’ Al-Bader explained, adding with a grin, ‘I always rent with fully comprehensive insurance.’
‘Thank God,’ Winter said, strapping himself into the red sports seat.
Al-Bader sprayed gravel everywhere.
AUGUST 3 – 16:47
The Range Rover hared down the narrow drive of Château de Plaisance, which was lined by a low, stone wall and originally built for horse-drawn carriages. The heavy four-by-four swerved perilously on the uneven cobbles. In the curves, the car’s wheels skidded through the mud at the roadside. The pursuers in the Porsche saw the red tail lights flash between the trees.
Al-Bader drove with the nonchalance of a playboy unconcerned about scratches, let alone insurance.
Winter was pleased his seat had side supports. The Porsche lay close to the ground and the way he was being thrown around meant it would only be a matter of time before they caught up with the Range Rover. When the four-by-four reached the main road, they turned right and zoomed through a little village with stone houses.
On the village square, stood the off-road patrol vehicle of the local policeman.
A few villagers were chatting outside the grocer’s.
Three women with shopping bags staggered to the side.
They exited the village at the same high speed.
A team of elderly mountain-bikers were so terrified they ended up in the roadside ditch.
Then they were on the pass that zigzagged up the mountain, alternating between long straights and tight hairpin bends. The centrifugal force on the tight bends thrust Winter to the side, while the subsequent acceleration pushed him back into his seat.
The Range Rover overtook without any regard for the traffic heading back down into the valley. A few drivers managed to avoid a head-on collision only by veering onto the mountain pasture, where grazing cows galloped to safety.
Al-Bader was forced to throttle his speed, change down gear and swerve around a Citroën Picasso that stood across the road. Very Picassan parking.
‘He’s trying to make it to France,’ Winter said.
‘They’ll stop him at the border.’
‘I doubt it’s manned.’
Al-Bader accelerated again and overtook a horse transporter. He hooted and flashed his headlights to warn an old camper van chugging in the opposite direction.
Not used to mountains, the overweight Dutchman was sweating from every pore. He slammed on the brakes and drove into the mountain. The heavy rear of his camper van skidded sideways across the road and blocked them.
The Arabic curses came impressively thick and fast. It took the Dutchman almost a minute to collect himself and find the right gear. Only then could the Porsche wriggle around the back of the camper van.
When they had an unimpeded view of the road again, the Range Rover was nowhere to be seen. They shot past a dozen cars in the traffic, took two more hairpin bends, drove alongside a horse pasture and then headed into a sparse fir wood that covered the mountain ridge.
‘What now?’ Al-Bader asked.
Winter tried to put himself in the mind of the Range Rover driver. What was he thinking? What was his goal? He would try to get himself to safety, probably in France. The attack had gone pear-shaped. The aggressors had been careless, surprised by the counter-attack and hadn’t banked on such a rapid escape.
‘Slow down!’
‘What? We’ve got to catch up with the bastard.’
‘He’s in a Range Rover, we’re in a Porsche. What would you do to shake off a Porsche?’
‘Go cross country,’ it dawned on Al-Bader. ‘Shit!’
He reduced his speed a little and the two men kept their eyes peeled for signs of the Range Rover. The forest was thin, interspersed with huge moss-covered boulders and low under-growth. Every few hundred metres a muddy track led off from the road. These were used by foresters to tow away felled trees. The tracks were not meant for sports cars and had deep ruts. With every rainfall the tyres of heavy tractors had dug in deeper and deeper. No fresh tracks were visible.
The forest opened out completely. They were nearing the highest point of the pass, marked by a low farmhouse, in front of which a pop-up restaurant had set some tables and umbrellas.
The Porsche stopped with a screech. Leaning out of the window, Winter smiled and asked, ‘Have you seen a Range Rover?’
The cheerful group that was sharing some bottles of white wine conferred and several hikers pointed to the ridge to the west.
Winter thanked them and said to Al-Bader, ‘He turned off on that track.’
The Porsche’s bonnet juddered as they left the main road for the path along the ridge. Fresh tyre marks were visible in the mud.
The sports car skidded. Stones scratched the undercarriage. Winter’s head hit the low roof of the car. Maybe the Audi would have been a better choice, after all, he thought.
They re-entered the forest, almost knocking over two young, unsuspecting hikers who had to yank their dog back by its collar. The young man stuck his middle finger up at the Porsche as it raced past.
The track rose fairly steeply and Al-Bader had to cut his speed even more as he wound his way through the trees.
Luckily the forest opened out again.
They arrived at a gently sloping meadow. Down to the left a few horses were grazing and beyond these stretched the mountain chains of the French Jura. To the right was a wind fence. Like in Nantucket.
And further ahead, about half a kilometre away, they spotted the Range Rover. It was heading at normal speed down the slope, perpendicular to the ridge.
‘There!’ Winter pointed ahead. ‘He thinks he lost us.’
Al-Bader put his foot down, left the track and smashed through a loose, wooden fence. The Porsche lost its right-wing mirror and the wooden slats flew everywhere. They were skidding diagonally down the pasture.
The gap was closing.
Further down, the horses started moving. They accompanied the unfamiliar vehicle at a gentle gallop, more curious than scared. Winter had always wondered why horses, who could jump fences with ease, allowed themselves to be penned in.
In the rear-view mirror Winter saw some of the herd dash through the hole in the fence. There would be a furious horse breeder today, as well as a livid greenkeeper. Venturing a sideways glance, Al-Bader said approvingly, ‘What magnificent creatures!’
‘Watch out! Ditch!’
Al-Bader wrenched the steering wheel to one side and they just missed a water ditch.
The sports car leaped back onto the sloping track.
Now only thirty metres ahead, the Range Rover accelerated again.
Al-Bader put his foot down.
Winter released the safety catch.
The track was tarred again. Advantage Porsche. Leaning out of the window, Winter balanced his body with his legs and shoulders and fired two shots at the rear tyres of the Range Rover.
The second bullet shredded the right-hand tyre.
The heavy Range Rover skidded, but regained control
.
They were back in the forest and speeding towards a hairpin bend, branching off from which was another mud track. As the off-roader swerved, Winter thought it would overturn. But the vehicle merely mowed down a post that held in place a pile of logs.
The logs rolled towards the Porsche.
Al-Bader cursed loudly in Arabic.
The poles clattered past, under and over the Porsche. Unperturbed about losing any further parts Al-Bader careered the sports car further up the slope.
From experience, Winter knew that these forestry tracks generally got narrower, turning into footpaths that could only be navigated by off-road vehicles or not at all. In winter the loggers would let the felled trunks, cleaned of their side branches, glide down the snowy path on a winch.
Al-Bader was more optimistic: ‘We’ve got him.’
The track scratched the Porsche’s undercarriage.
Despite its burst tyre, the Range Rover continued to head up the slope at full pelt. Black smoke billowed from the exhaust. The track climbed three hundred metres in a straight line. At the end of the forest, the track made a sharp turn to the left and became an impassable path that wound its way between the last few trees and the steep limestone face. Millions of years ago this had been part of a sea. These days, school groups came here looking for fossilized animals. Winter sensed the forest was thinning out. ‘Slow!’ he urged.
The driver of the Range Rover saw the danger a fraction of a second too late. He yanked the steering wheel, but his tyres no longer had any grip and he went shooting over the abyss at eighty kilometres per hour. The first thing he saw was the white light of the summer evening sky.
The car seemed to hang in the air for a long while, like the coyote in the Road Runner cartoons.
Slowly the Range Rover started to spin around its own axis. The driver saw the panorama of Lake Geneva, then the forest one hundred metres below. He was screaming. Then came the crash. When Winter and Al-Bader got out the man’s cry, mingled with the bang, was still echoing off the cliff face.
The two men stood on the edge of the chasm.
‘Shame about the Range Rover,’ Al-Bader said.
‘Yes. It lost its grip despite the four-wheel drive.’
At that moment the wreck exploded.
Exhausted, they sat on a park bench at the viewing point. Looking at his golf shoes, Winter said, ‘What did they want? The four men were after you. At least you were the one they shot at first.’
‘I really don’t know. I admit that not everyone is fond of me back home. But those attackers didn’t look like religious fundamentalists.’ He stroked his clean-shaven chin with his palm.
‘No, I got the impression that they were soldiers. Mercenaries perhaps.’
Remembering the three wallets, Winter took them out and emptied their contents onto the bench. Three driving licenses, well done, but probably forgeries with blurry photographs and nondescript names. No personal photos. Change and banknotes: euros, Swiss francs and US dollars – about a few hundred francs worth overall. The card from a Geneva hotel. In one wallet they also found a return ticket for the railway up to the Jungfraujoch – ‘Top of Europe’. The man had obviously been doing a bit of sightseeing.
Hearing a vehicle stop, they turned around and saw three officers get out of an off-road police car. Once Winter’s arm had received medical attention, he and Al-Bader spent the evening, and half the night, explaining to the various authorities what had happened.
The need for explanations increased with the discovery of the corpses on the golf course. Coordinating the two cantonal police forces involved took time, and things slowed down even more when the federal police stepped in.
It was agreed that the Geneva police would head the investigation. The three bodies on the golf course in Geneva outweighed the driver who had plummeted to his death in the canton of Vaud. Vaud and the federal police each nominated one liaison officer. At three o’clock in the morning, the officer in charge escorted Winter out of the interrogation room. Both men were overtired and only still able to function because of large amounts of coffee.
‘Monsieur Winter, thank you for your cooperation. A puzzling affair. Please remain at our disposal.’
They shook hands and Winter asked, ‘Have you any idea yet who the four men were?’
‘We’ve identified the three at the golf course. Two Americans and one Italian. The Americans were in the military for a long time. Amongst other things they were involved in dubious operations in Honduras and the first Gulf War. Then they became freelance security consultants. Colleagues of yours, so to speak.’ The tired, but friendly wink in the eye of the stout police officer told Winter that this wasn’t a serious comment. His suspicion that the attackers had a military background had been proved right. ‘What about the Italian?’
‘A Tyrolean. An arms fanatic and militant Nazi, with a string of previous convictions. Last year he beat up foreigners in Berlin.’
‘Were the IDs forged?’
‘Yes and no. The documents themselves were genuine. Just the names weren’t right. Either they had blank ones or they were helped by an accomplice working for the authorities.’
‘And the fourth man?’
‘We haven’t identified him yet. His body is pretty charred, but there’s no record of his fingerprints.’
‘Shame. Would you call me if there are any developments?’
‘I will.’
Al-Bader appeared from the neighbouring room, accompanied by another officer. He said goodbye, clearly not resentful and seemingly in a good mood. It was fate, a game. And he was happy to be alive. Al-Bader appeared fairly relaxed about the attack.
He clapped Winter on the shoulder. ‘Well, Winter, that’s that over with. Fancy a drink?’
Winter nodded and looked the policeman in the eye again. ‘One final question. Have you managed to work out where the men came from?’
‘The trail of the Italian is cold, but in the hotel rooms we found plane tickets. They flew into Zürich yesterday evening, no…’ the officer paused, checking the time, ‘two evenings ago, under their real names, from Boston.’
AUGUST 4 – 09:08
Before Winter opened the door to the bank’s headquarters, he closed his eyes for a moment. The night had been short, very short. His blood was throbbing from the stab wound in his arm. The degree of residual alcohol in him was high.
Al-Bader and he had taken a taxi from the police station to Geneva. Much to the annoyance of the rental company, the Porsche had remained in the custody of the police.
The hotel bar was already closed, but Al-Bader called room service, ordered a bottle of whisky to be brought to his suite and insisted that Winter join him in a toast to their adventure.
He’d told Winter that he received regular threats from religious fundamentalists and now increasingly from Western fascists. Although the two groups loathed each other they both feared that their homelands would be sold out.
After the second, exceptionally large, whisky Al-Bader said that the most difficult thing was to find out which competitor was behind the threats. After the third, he poured out his heart and Winter had to promise the drunk sheikh that he would consider his offer very seriously. Fear and alcohol.
Shortly after four o’clock Winter had made himself comfortable on the sofa and slept for three hours. When he left the suite, Al-Bader was snoring away in his huge bed. Winter took a taxi to Château de Plaisance and then drove his Audi straight to the meeting that the bank had convened at short notice. Yesterday evening Känzig had summoned him to Bern in less than flattering tones. Maybe he should give Al-Bader’s offer serious consideration. The pay would definitely be better. Winter took a deep breath. Fresh morning air. The massive door opened with the assistance of an electric motor and Winter climbed the steps to reception. He smiled at the two women behind the flowers, and with his security card opened the side door that led to the back offices. In Bern, the conference rooms were named after famous men, rather than mo
untains. No women. Winter was ten minutes late when he entered the Einstein room.
In the centre of the room stood an elegant table with six chairs. Schütz, Känzig and Baumgartner on one side, Hodel and Helfer on the other.
With a nod to his colleagues, Winter sat in the remaining free chair.
Without interrupting his rant, Känzig turned and fired a broadside at Winter: ‘Ah, our esteemed head of security is back. While our clients are being bumped off, you’re gallivanting on holiday. Not acceptable. From now on I expect you to be a more visible presence to reassure our clients that they and their money are safe with us in Switzerland.’
Winter smiled, waited for Känzig to pause in his lecture for breath and said, ‘Al-Bader’s younger twin brother is fine. I had a long chat with him this morning and he’s most satisfied with our work. Yesterday I saved his life. In my job that’s all part of client service.’
Känzig was speechless, but smart enough to keep quiet.
‘Explain the corpses on the golf course,’ Helfer said. ‘A prying crime journalist from Geneva wants to know what you were doing there.’
‘Playing a round of golf with a client,’ Winter said. ‘To my knowledge we don’t comment on individual client relations. Check the bulletin of the Geneva police.’ Winter gave a broad outline of the previous day’s events, finishing with the words, ‘Most likely a radical nationalist faction from America.’
His colleagues nodded.
‘And they have some connection or other with our bank,’ Winter added.
Now he had the undivided attention of everyone, even Känzig.
‘It’s just conjecture, but I’m starting to ask myself where the attackers got certain confidential information from.’
‘But I can’t say that to the media,’ Helfer said. He tailed off towards the end of his sentence, as if muttering to himself. Everybody knew he wasn’t exactly brimming with intelligence.