Precipice

by Colin Forbes

  'What kind of danger?' asked Tweed.

  'You are to be spared. Brazil has ordered you are not to be harmed in any way.' Archie paused, switched his gaze to Newman. 'My informant has just told me that Craig, with Brazil's backing, has ordered his thugs to exterminate every member of Tweed's team, including yourself.' He looked back at Tweed. 'They have names. Paula Grey, Robert Newman, Philip Garden. They also know two other men exist but so far they have no names.'

  'I see.'

  Tweed stood up, thrust his hands into his jacket pockets to conceal the fact he was clenching and unclenching them to regain self-control. He was in a state of fury he rarely experienced. The idea that he was to be left alive while his team was wiped out filled him with venom. He walked round the room several times, then sat down opposite Archie.

  'Is the word "exterminate" you used your own or, if you know, was it the word used by Craig?'

  'Craig apparently used that exact word,' Archie replied, and took a sip of water from the glass Newman had given him.

  'I see,' Tweed said again.

  'The danger is grave,' Archie continued. 'My informant told me there will be teams of killers waiting at the airport, at the main station across the way, also teams of motorcyclists watching the motorways out of Zurich.'

  'They've sewn us up pretty tightly,' Newman remarked.

  Archie smiled, a warm smile. 'Now I must go.'

  'How much do I owe you for your expenses and your fee?' Newman asked.

  Two thousand francs for expenses. This time I do not want a fee. Marler is always very generous with me. And this time, bearing in mind the grave news I bring, I am glad to do you a favour.'

  Newman took out his wallet, peeled off four thousand-franc notes, laid them on the table in front of Archie. He picked up two of the banknotes and left their twins.

  'Do not embarrass me. I should go now.'

  'This hotel may be watched.' Tweed warned. He stood up to go to the windows, realized the curtains had been closed. 'It will be dark outside.' he warned a second time.

  'It was dark when I entered via the Bistro, the small snack restaurant open to the public with a door on to the street. I came in that way.' Archie explained. 'I shall go back that way, order a cup of coffee and wait until I see some girls leaving. I will leave with them, asking them in German how to get to the lake. When I arrived I came into the Bistro, as I have said, then I walked into the lobby by the door which leads into the hotel. Any watcher will have seen one man enter the cafe and the same man come out with a couple of girls. I am most careful.'

  'Thank you for all your help.' Tweed said, standing up and escorting him to the door. 'You must take care of yourself. Wild animals are on the prowl.'

  'Thank you. And do not forget Marchat in Sion.'

  After Newman had returned from escorting Archie to the lobby, but without leaving the lift himself, he found Tweed pacing again.

  'It looks as though we're trapped.' Newman commented.

  'That is how it would appear.' Tweed replied.

  30

  Earlier on the same day Philip had caught an express from Zurich to Geneva. He would have liked to visit the dining car but felt he could not leave his case in the first-class compartment. The train was quiet and he had the compartment to himself during the journey diagonally across Switzerland.

  It began snowing heavily soon after the train had left Zurich. Watching the slanting fall of the white curtain he nearly fell asleep. He got up, opened the window, let ice-cold air sweep into the compartment for a few minutes, then closed the window.

  After stopping briefly at Berne, the express moved on and the snow ceased. Later, to the east, he had a panoramic view as the sky cleared and the sun came out. He could see the western end of the massive Bernese Oberland range which guarded the entrance to the Valais.

  'Doesn't look too inviting,' he said to himself.

  Arriving at Geneva, he took a taxi to the Hotel des Bergues, asked for a room overlooking the Rhone. He had an early dinner and by the time he returned to his room it was dark. He stood by the window looking across the Rhone where small ice floes drifted past.

  He was recalling the firefight he had shared with Paula in the Old City. Lord, the lady had guts. He wished now she was coming with him. The silence in the room began to get on his nerves. He turned on the radio for some music. Ever since his wife's death he had not been able to stand silence inside a room on his own.

  Setting the alarm on his travelling clock for an early rising, he took a shower, put on his pyjamas, and flopped into bed. He read a few pages of a paperback, turned off the bedside light, and promptly became alert. He was thinking of Jean.

  He had stayed at this hotel with his late wife, had been careful on arrival they didn't give him the same room. He lay still, on his back. This room had a double bed. The room he had shared with Jean had also had a double bed. It was automatic for Philip to have chosen the right-hand side as viewed from the bottom of the bed. Jean had always slept on the other side.

  Eve came into his mind. He suddenly realized that when alone he often thought of Jean - daily, in fact. But he rarely thought of Eve, despite the amount of time he had spent with her. And it was only when he was with her that she held him in her spell. He knew she was coming closer to him each time they met. He also knew now that he was not on the same waveband as her.

  He turned over before he fell into a deep sleep. On one side the pillow was damp. The alarm woke him with a start. He had been dreaming he was with Jean, walking down the street of a strange town as they chattered with each other like magpies. They had never been short of something to talk about.

  He washed, shaved, got dressed quickly. He took his coat and case down to the Pavilion restaurant with him. In the lobby a fat man with a bushy moustache was reading a paper. For a moment their eyes met.

  Philip had checked the train times the night before as he ate dinner. He arrived at Cornavin Station some minutes before the express was due to leave. When it moved slowly into the station he was standing behind a pillar where he could see the full length of the express. The metal plates on the outsides of the coaches gave the destinations, ending with Milano.

  No one else was about except for a couple of uniformed railway staff. He was also watching the second hand on the platform clock. Swiss trains always left dead on time. No one appeared to have boarded trie express as he ran forward, climbed into a first-class coach. The automatic door closed behind him and the long international express glided out of Cornavin.

  The one section of the train Philip had not been able to watch was the front coach, due to a curve in the platform. It did not surprise him he was the sole passenger. At this early hour, at the beginning of March, he had anticipated few passengers.

  In the coach he sat in a seat for two, facing the engine and two similar seats. He had chosen the left side of the train because on the other side it would soon be running past Lake Geneva. He did not wish to recall the memory of his previous journey with Jean when they had gazed out at the panoramic view of the lake and the mountains of France on the far shore.

  Philip's emotional mood had changed. He was in a grim frame of mind.

  'God help anyone who gets in my way.' he said to himself.

  The coach door leading to the next section slid open and a man walked slowly towards him. A fat man with a bushy moustache and a ruddy, outdoor face. The man who had sat in the lobby of the Hotel des Bergues the previous evening.

  'May I sit down opposite you, sir?' the fat man asked.

  He spoke in English, had an overcoat over his arm, wore a black suit with a pale yellow tie bisecting a clean white shirt. He remained standing while he waited for Philip's reply.

  Outwardly, Philip was amiable - he even smiled. He gestured towards the seat.

  'Please do.'

  Inwardly he was totally alert, ice-cold. If this was the beginning of trouble so be it. He would render the newcomer unconscious.

  'Most kind of you.' the fat m
an said as he settled himself. 'We appear to be the only two passengers on the express so far. I like a little company when I'm travelling. My card, sir.'

  Philip took the small piece of pasteboard. He read it with a shock.

  Leon Vincenau. Inspecteur. Police. Geneve.

  'Thank you.' he said quickly. He smiled again as he handed the card back to the fat man. Vincenau waved a hand.

  'Please keep it. You might want to get in touch with me.'

  'Why should I want to do that?' Philip asked as he tucked the card inside his wallet. The card had a phone number.

  'Because you are travelling alone. Because the world -even Switzerland - has turned into a dangerous zoo. We collected six bodies off the street after a shoot-out in Geneva a day or two ago.'

  'Then Geneva is a good place for me to leave. Are you, if I may ask, on business or pleasure?'

  'I am never sure. A detective is on duty twenty-four hours a day.'

  'You are travelling far?' Philip enquired.

  Damn this for a lark, he thought. I'll be the one who asks the questions.

  'To the end of the line. To Milano. A terrible city. You take your life in your hands when you cross a street. The lights are in your favour, they change when you are three-quarters of the way over. The armada of traffic comes straight at you. If you didn't hurry they would run you over.' He waved a hand. 'Different countries, different manners. Would it disturb you if I smoked a cigar?'

  'Go ahead. I think I'll use up one of the few cigarettes I smoke in a day . . .'

  The fat man took out a cigar case, extracted a cigar, neatly trimmed off the end which he placed in the ashtray, then used a match to light it, moving the match backwards and forwards.

  For the next hour or so Philip, growing more and more intrigued - even fearful - by what he saw out of the window, said nothing. Vincenau, wreathed inside the smoke from the large cigar he was smoking slowly, also said nothing. Philip suspected it was the old police tactic - using silence to compel the suspect to start saying something.

  After leaving Montreux, the express entered the vast and endless gorge which was the Valais. Philip looked out on a frozen world. On both sides the world was hemmed in by continuous ranges of high, rugged, grim mountains.

  The mountains, their summits towering so far above the express he couldn't see them often, were covered in deep snow. At frequent intervals mysterious valleys disappeared inside the mountain walls, their entrances guarded by immense cliffs.

  Every now and again there would be a sinister narrow gash, a crevasse enclosing a threadlike waterfall, now solid ice. He saw great rock outcrops over which, at one time, water had spilled. Now the water was frozen into dagger-like stalactites, often a hundred feet long. Dozens of them formed palisades of ice.

  They passed through Martigny, a small town huddled beneath a menacing giant of overhung rock, gleaming like an enormous mirror as a brief shaft of sunlight broke through the low overcast. There was no sign of life and the streets were piled high with snow.

  Philip thought he had never before seen such a wasteland, as though this part of the world had returned to the wilderness of the Ice Age. He knew Vincenau was watching his reaction through the smoke and kept his face expressionless.

  The floor of the valley, along the centre of which the rail line ran, was a bleak expanse of snow. Here and there was a sign of life. From the chimney of a stone house, perched on a lip, rose a trail of smoke vertically to meet the overcast above them. Could Siberia be any worse?

  Vincenau tapped ash from what was left of his cigar, used the cigar as a pointer.

  'See that snail-like thing halfway up that mountain? It's a small train.'

  Philip gazed in disbelief at the two tiny coaches which appeared to be clinging to the face of the mountain as they crawled higher and higher.

  'Where is it going to?' he asked.

  'It ends near a glacier. There are villages which have to be served. That is their only communication with the outside world in March. It will have a small snowplough attached to the front.'

  'All right, if you like the quiet life.' Philip commented.

  'The people who survive here are a tough, sturdy breed. The trouble is all the young folk have left for the bright lights of the cities. There are villages up in those mountains which are deserted, the houses becoming derelict. Old wooden houses with shingle roofs. Apart from tourism and vineyards in good weather later the Valais is dying.'

  It was a long speech for Vincenau and, once again, Philip had the feeling his companion, conducting the conversation in French, was studying his reaction. He checked his watch and stood up to lift down his case from the rack.

  'You are getting off at Sion?' Vincenau enquired.

  'Yes.'

  'Look out of the window.'

  They were passing more slowly through a small station. On the platform stood a group of what looked like young refugees, waiting for a stopping train. Several were holding broken skis. One girl was on crutches and had her right leg swathed in bandages. All of them looked in a state of misery. Vincenau sighed.

  'They will do it.'

  'Do what?' Philip asked.

  'Go skiing when they have been warned that the weather is changing, that the ski slopes are treacherous.'

  The express was slowing even more when Philip saw out of the window an airfield. It was quite close to the rail line and a snowplough stood motionless at one end of a runway it had just cleared.

  'That's just outside Sion.' said Vinceneau. 'They must be expecting an aircraft to land.'

  'Well, I'd better get to the exit door. These trains don't wait long.'

  'One minute at Sion.' said Vincenau.

  He stood up to shake hands after stubbing his cigar. He stood close to Philip, who noticed his fleshy nose had red veins. The Swiss detective obviously liked his wine.

  'Do not go up into the mountains,' Vincenau said with great emphasis.

  'Thank you for your company. I hope conditions in Milan are better.'

  Philip was standing by the exit door when the train stopped and the door slid open automatically. He was the only one to step down onto the platform. He waited, seeing no sign of station staff, no sign of anyone. The express moved off and Philip watched it disappearing rapidly. He felt he had just lost his last link with civilization.

  Vincenau did not travel on to Milan. He got off at the next stop, Brig. He hurried to a phone, dialled Beck's private number at police headquarters in Zurich.

  'Beck speaking.'

  'Inspector Vincenau here, sir. Speaking from Brig in the Valais. I accompanied Philip Cardon on an express from Geneva. He didn't give me his name but he fitted one of the descriptions you gave me. I will repeat it . . .'

  He did so while Beck, in his office overlooking the River Limmat, listened carefully. He only spoke when Vincenau had finished.

  'Yes. That would be Philip Cardon. Where was he going to?'

  'He got off the express at Sion.'

  'Who was with him?'

  'No one. He was alone. Of that I am sure.'

  'Alone! Oh, my God . . .'

  After he had finished speaking to Vincenau and they had agreed Vincenau should catch the next express back to Geneva, Beck, who had been up all night, put down the phone and sat thinking. He was appalled at the news. Beck took quick decisions. He called the Schweizerhof, asked to speak to Tweed, told him he was on his way over.

  In his room Tweed told Newman what Beck had said. He had also been up all night. He had held a conference with Newman, Marler, Butler, and Nield on the problem of leaving Zurich alive.

  'I have a plan.' Marler had suggested. 'We take a train. Preferably an early morning express before commuters clutter up the station. I will lead a guard team - all disguised in station officials' uniforms.'

  'How are you going to get hold of themRIGHT SQUARE BRACKET' Newman had begun, only to be interrupted by Tweed.

  'No good. There will be some passengers about and if it comes to a shoot-out i
nnocent people could end up as corpses.'

  Whatever plan was suggested it always came up against Tweed's objection that innocent lives could be at stake. For the first time in his life Tweed felt checkmated.

  They were all still in Tweed's room when Beck tapped on the door, came in with his fur coat, flecked with snow, over his arm. Typically, he came straight to the point.

  'I've just heard that Philip Cardon has arrived - in Sion.'

  He explained briefly the circumstances which, on his orders, had led Inspector Vincenau to the Hotel des Bergues.

  'That is where Philip Cardon and Paula Grey stayed on the night of the massacre in Geneva. Some instinct led me to have the hotel watched.'

  'Well, at least Philip has got there safely.' Tweed remarked.

  'What the hell's wrong with you?' Beck had exploded. 'One man against all those troops Brazil has brought in from France and Germany!'

  'He will cope

  'You hope.'

  It was not a remark which made Tweed feel any better. He then explained to Beck that they were trapped inside Zurich - and why. Beck listened, then sat down, frowning.

  'That I will not put up with,' he announced grimly. 'So you wait here for two hours. Have a leisurely breakfast. Then walk into the station and catch the first express.'

  'What have you in mind?' enquired Tweed.