The Main chance tac-23

by Colin Forbes

It was swerving from left to right, then back again after crossing lanes. For some reason the driver had his interior light on. She caught a vague glimpse of a fat man togged up in evening dress. `Now!' yelled Philip.

  The lead police car had almost caught up with them, again approaching on the offside, its siren a hellish scream. Paula had her window down, threw out two handfuls of spiked caps. `Now!' Philip yelled for the second time.

  Tweed already had his window down. The spray gun was perched on the window's edge. An amazing amount of oil jetted out on to the road, creating a black lake in the moonlight.

  There were a couple of loud bangs as the spikes destroyed two tyres on the lead police car. It swung round and smashed into the rear section of the limo, swivelling it round. The second police car skidded on the oil, rammed into the side of the first police car. The third police car tried to swerve too late, ploughed into the side of the second police car. The fat driver of the limo staggered out, unhurt, and shook his fist, his mouth moving. `There you are. Chaos,' said Philip.

  Leaning over to look through the rear-view mirror, Paula saw a mass of twisted metal which reminded her of a car-crusher yard. Skilfully, Newman swung in a wide arc, followed by Harry, avoiding the wreckage completely. `Not bad timing,' Philip, 'it all depended on assessing the position of that limo.' `Well, that's behind us,' said Paula. She had closed the window quickly. Arctic air had entered their Land Rover. Philip had the heating turned full up and soon she was comfortable again. `We've beaten Inspector Benlier,' she remarked with relief. `Oh, that was just the opening shots,' Philip replied. `What do you mean?' asked Tweed. `I call that the prelude. Ahead we go up into the Ardennes to Calouste's HQ at the Chateau les Rochers to destroy him. Don't expect a Christmas party.'

  34

  The Ardennes. `I'm turning off the main road in a minute, heading across the Ardennes,' Philip said. 'It's some of the bleakest land I've seen in Europe. Remote. Tourists never come here.'

  Paula lowered her compact powerful binoculars. She had aimed them ahead while they were still on the main road. `I think you ought to know I saw a lot of headlights coming this way from the direction of Liege.' `That's good news,' Philip said ironically as he turned to the right off the main road. 'Benlier has a section of his corrupt unit temporarily stationed in Liege.' `Where does this lead us to?' Tweed asked. `It's the direct route to Namur and Marche, but I'll bypass both towns by using country roads. It may be a rough ride.' `Rough ride?' Paula repeated. 'So what was that we've just experienced?' `Calouste's HQ is high up in the Ardennes. Chateau les Rochers, an ancient castle perched on the border of Belgium and the toy state of Luxembourg. So he can say he's resident in either country, whichever suits him at any particular time.' `This country we're driving through is like a flat desert,' Paula commented. 'It's like a moonscape, and rocky.' `I turned off the main route across country without your realizing it. We might just elude those police cars.'

  Moonscape? As he gazed out, Tweed thought Paula's description was perfect. The Land Rover had started to wobble from side to side. The flat so-called plain was desolate. Its surface was littered with small rocks, shale and pebbles. `This whole area is unstable,' Philip remarked casually. Paula glanced once at him and realized he was looking grim. He was wondering how to get them out of this. She had never before seen him looking so serious. Her reaction steeled her nerve. She twisted round in her seat, pressed her binoculars to her eyes, focused on the three police cars. She could hear a distant whine. The fools still had their sirens shrieking out here in this totally deserted region. And their blue lights were still flashing. Idiots. Paula focused on the lead car. A policeman was standing, head and shoulders poked through the open roof. `A slim man,' she said, 'in full uniform with gold braid and wide shoulders. Mouth open as though he's shouting.' `That will be Benlier himself,' Philip told her, `shouting en advance.' `Must think he's Napoleon at Austerlitz,' Tweed commented drily.

  Quite suddenly the gradient changed. They were climbing a steep slope, up and up. Paula focused her binoculars on their destination. `There's a ridge above us,' she reported. 'Perched on its edge a line of big boulders, one of them enormous.' `They weren't there when I came here on a recce three days ago. There's been a landslide…' `Head for that gap between them,' Paula urged. 'Just to the left of that huge chap. Your Land Rover will pass through easily.' `You think so?' Philip queried. `Do as she suggested,'Tweed ordered. 'She has some plan and so often she's right.' `Will do,' Philip agreed with a grin. `Newman and Harry are close behind us,' Paula reported as she glanced back. `So are the police cars,' Philip remarked. `This is better,' Paula said as she lowered her window a few inches and breathed in ice-cold air.

  Her brain was now working at full power. `Better than what?' Tweed chaffed her. `Being indoors. The manor was giving me the creeps. Wasn't much better in The Forest. Claustrophobic atmosphere.' `Which may have been an element,' Tweed observed, `in the murders.' `Don't miss the gap,' Paula shouted at Philip, who was just turning his wheel, heading for the opening, followed by Newman's and Harry's vehicles. `That's better,' Paula added. 'You'll just scrape through.' `I'll just glide through,' he said with another grin. `And I think I've spotted your strategy…' `Better late than never.'

  The Land Rover had at least a foot's spare space as he passed through behind the rampart line of boulders. Paula stared at the treacherous ground scattered with a slither of shale. `Park the vehicle pointing up the hill,' she suggested. `We may have to leave quickly if everything starts to give way.' `I had thought of that,' Philip replied amiably. 'It's like quicksand.'

  The other two vehicles had arrived after passing through the gap. They had followed Philip's example, pointing uphill for a quick getaway. There was a crackle of gunfire even though the pursuing police cars, coming up fast, were still a quarter of a mile below them.

  'Prepare to meet the enemy, as they said a hundred years ago,' Tweed ordered.

  35

  They divided up naturally into couples. Tweed and Paula were cautiously testing the stability of the enormous boulder. He gently leaned against it and the massive rock trembled. On the other end Paula's effort to move it failed. It remained rigid. `It will take both of us to shift it when the time comes,' Tweed called out to Paula. 'At this end I can see through the gap when they're coming. When I shout "Now!" heave with all your strength.'

  Beyond the gap Newman and Marler had tested two boulders very close together. They were positioned behind the smaller boulder, which still looked like a killer.

  Beyond them Harry, with his partner Nield, also stood behind two boulders almost touching each other. Paula could see what had caused the boulders to pause where they had. Behind the rampart was quite a wide area of flat ground, before the surface again climbed steeply to another distant ridge. The flat area had slowed their momentum to almost nothing and the slight ridge they were perched against now had brought them to a halt. For the moment.

  It was quiet now under the glow of the moon. Benlier must have ordered his men to silence their sirens so they could hear his commands. The three police cars had stopped moving for the moment and the only sound was the purr of their distance engines. There was no more crackle of futile gunfire and a heavy silence had settled over the Ardennes. `Calm before the storm,' Paula said to herself.

  Like the rest of the team she had donned her heavy motoring gloves. Bare hands pushing at the sharp- edged rocks would have ended up cut to ribbons and bleeding profusely. She stamped her booted legs on a flat rock to keep her circulation going. Then she walked over to where Tweed was peering round their giant boulder. `Go back to your post,' he said quietly. 'When they come I'll shout "Now!"You push with all your strength. But be very careful you don't go with the boulder.' `Understood.'

  Their own three Land Rovers had been parked pointing uphill. The purr of their engines was lost with the engine sound of the police cars revving up. `Won't be long now,' Tweed warned. `Sooner the better,' Paula replied.

  She was worried that her own we
ight added to Tweed's might not be enough to shift the massive boulder. She would have liked to have taken deep breaths but realized that wasn't a good idea. At this height the air was like liquid ice.

  Peering round the end Tweed saw Benlier, motionless. He was wearing white gloves, which looked ridiculous. He was deliberately delaying to heighten the tension. To break their nerves.

  Then his hands rose in the air, made a forward movement. He shouted a command which Tweed couldn't catch. The police cars accelerated upward, Benlier's in the lead, his two supporting cars behind him. `Now!' shouted Tweed.

  Paula put every ounce of strength into her push. No movement. Then the boulder was surging forward and down. She nearly went with it. Remembering Tweed's warning she dug her feet into the ridge, regained her balance, stared at the spectacle. An avalanche of boulders was speeding down the slope and now she could see the enemy.

  With half his body exposed up through the open car's roof Benlier gazed in horror. 'Swerve!' he screamed at his driver, who never heard the order. Benlier was paralysed with fright. The world had gone. The moon had gone. The massive height of the boulder loomed over him. He tried to get back down inside his car but seconds had become years. The immense weight and size of the boulder hit the car, crushed it flat. Benlier's broken body was somewhere amid the smashed metal. Hardly pausing, the boulder trundled at increasing speed down the slope and soon, to Tweed and Paula, watching, it was no more than a large pebble a long way down.

  Marler and Newman had got both their boulders moving. One police car swerved, avoided by inches the first boulder and was then flattened by the second boulder.

  Further along the rampart Harry and Pete had both boulders moving together. Paula saw the panic-stricken driver swing to avoid them. He was broadside when both boulders hit him, turning the vehicle over as they crushed it.

  The sudden silence over the Ardennes was a shock. Tweed focused his night-vision glasses, called out in a quiet voice. `No sign of life. They're all dead.' `Weapons,' Philip called back.

  He darted downhill towards the carnage. Paula fled after him before Tweed could stop her. She caught up with Philip, who stopped to speak to her. `This will be grisly.' `No more than what I've seen in Professor Saafeld's lab,' she snapped back.

  They reached the remnants of Benlier's car first. Protruding from an open door was half the body of a policeman who had tried futilely to escape. Taking off a glove, Paula bent down and grasped a telescopic truncheon from his belt. She wiped blood off the other end on his uniform. Philip had hauled out another truncheon from Heaven knew where. Then he gave a grunt of delight. From the belt of the same body he eased out a.32 automatic. He checked the weapon. It was fully loaded and uncontaminated with blood. `Paula,' he said, standing up and grinning, 'a present for you.'

  He handed her the automatic and she grasped it with pleasure. First, she double-checked the mechanism, noted it was fully loaded. Then she lifted up her fur coat, slid the weapon inside her left boot, which served as the leg holster she was not wearing.

  Philip ran across the slope to the police car which had ended up broadside on, pulverized by the boulder sent down by Pete and Harry. He could hardly believe what he saw strewn across the ground. Four more telescopic truncheons.

  He knew the Belgian police kept spares stacked on a shelf above the seats. The violent impact must have hurled them out of the window. With great satisfaction he gathered up his find. Newman with Marler and Pete with Harry arrived to see what was happening. He handed each of them a truncheon. `Might I ask what is going on?' Tweed's stern voice called to them as he hurried down the slope. `Weapons,' Philip said. He handed his own to Tweed. `And why do we need these now that the police unit has been dealt with?' `Because there are four guards at the Chateau les Rochers' `Never known how those things work,' Paula commented.

  Tweed gripped the handle, then whipped it sideways quickly. The extension shot out and he was holding a truncheon at least half as long again. He handed it back to Philip after retracting the extension. `You'll be more skilled with this that I am. So what's the next move, Philip?' `We race to the top of the Ardennes. Then we launch our assault on the Chateau'

  Paula had expected the Chateau les Rochers to have a fairy-tale appearance. As they crawled over the last ridge she saw how wrong she had been. It was more like a medieval fortress with tiny turrets at the corners. In the centre of a flat roof reared a tall wide turret festooned with a system of wires and tall aerials. Tweed grunted as they paused. `There's his communications centre perched even higher than the trees behind it. From here he controls his banking empire. I hope he's at home.'

  ***

  Calouste was at home.

  It was a mania with him to remain the Invisible Man. So he had had constructed at his different HQs a series of rooms underground – as at Shooter's Lodge. The same method had been organized at the Chateau. He was now working in a large, luxuriously furnished cellar under the Chateau.

  There were two entrances. One was a large trapdoor, now open from a ground-floor corridor which led down via half a dozen steps into his sanctum. The second entrance was above the desk where he was sitting. A flight of steps led up to a platform with a heavy iron door open. By the side of the door was a control system built into the wall with buttons numbered from one to twenty-four. On its own was a brown button which locked the less secure trapdoor.

  Calouste was dressed in a velvet jacket, velvet trousers and tennis shoes. The room was dimly lit except for the powerful desk lamp by which he worked. He wore his tinted, gold-rimmed glasses through which he could see clearly. Above his spade-shaped jaw his mouth was moving rapidly as he issued instructions to various of his banks on his phone, linked to the sophisticated communications system on the top of the Chateau.

  He had heard nothing of the commotion on the lower slopes of the Ardennes. Orion, his informant at Hengistbury, had warned him Tweed and his whole team had left the manor. His intuition had told him they were coming to Belgium. That was no problem. Inspector Benlier and his special unit would kill every member of that team. He was especially anxious to hear that Tweed was dead.

  A coloured servant appeared on the platform above him. He was carrying a tray with a glass and a bottle of the finest cognac. Calouste poured a full glass from the bottle, then placed the bottle next to a Glock pistol. Calouste always bolstered his guards with his own weapon. It made him feel so safe. He drank to the end of Tweed, the major obstacle to his plans for the Main Chance Bank.

  36

  Skirting well clear of the grim fortress-like building with its tall communications turret, Tweed, with Paula by his side in the Land Rover, followed Philip's vehicle. Parked at the summit, he pointed as the others joined them.

  Close to the rear fortress walls was a huge lake with a big dam at one end. Attached to the wall of the lake near the Chateau was a sizeable box with a thick coiled hose on top. `What's the plan?' Tweed asked. `Harry and I will lower the dam and a vast amount of water fed by natural springs on the top of that knoll will pour into the lake. Prior to that I'll have attached that hose to the inlet into the air-conditioning system. The other end of the hose I'll drop into the lake. On a recent recce I looked into a number of windows in the Chateau. All the rooms have a large air-conditioning grille let into the wall.' `Will it work?' Paula wondered. `You've forgotten Philip was a top engineer before he joined us. `And,' Harry remarked, 'the walls of the Chateau look shaky to me.' `And Harry was once in the building trade,' Tweed added.

  They watched as Harry dug inside a deep pocket in his windcheater, produced a chisel. Paula was amused. Harry would not go anywhere without his tool kit, now hidden in his spacious pockets. They watched as he bent close to the wall of the Chateau, hammered quietly at the mortar, which fell out. Brick-shaped stones above started to slide down. `Whole miserable chute could collapse. No maintenance,' he said when he returned.

  Philip waved to Harry to accompany him. First he hurried to the large aluminium chamber controllin
g the air-conditioning. Unscrewing a round plate with Feu stamped on it, he then forced one end of the thick rubber pipe inside the hole. The other end was dropped into the lake. `I think that plate he removed,' Tweed said, 'is in case the air-conditioning system ever catches fire. The whole Chateau would be enveloped in flames. Unless huge quantities of water poured into it.' `If you say so,' Paula replied dubiously.

  Philip and Harry had now taken up positions at either end of the dam behind huge wheels they began turning. Paula gazed in fascination as the top of the dam, smeared with green slime, began to sink rapidly. A wave of water penned up on the far side poured into the lake, then became a great flood as Philip and Harry continued turning their wheels. `That's enough,' Philip said as he ran back with Harry.

  Tweed felt in his overcoat pocket, pulled out something he'd forgotten was there. It was the crinkled-face mask worn by the thug he'd hurled over the chalk pit near Gladworth. He gave it to Philip. `A peculiar object…' `Made in Paris,' Philip told him, `by the most expert mask maker in the world. Costs a fortune – it's so flexible. I think I'll wear this. Might gain us entry through the main door without a fuss.'

  Arriving at the door, he hammered the heavy iron knocker. A man's face appeared when a Judas window was opened. The face looked startled. `Oh, Mr Calouste. I thought you were in your office.'

  Harry stood out of sight to one side of the door, truncheon in his hand. Turning of three keys, removal of several chains. Philip walked in, flipped his truncheon, smashed it on the man's head. He collapsed. Another man with a dagger appeared, raised it to strike Philip. Harry's truncheon struck his elbow. He gasped with pain, dropped the dagger as Harry broke the other arm with his truncheon. A hard tap on the forehead and he collapsed on top of his fellow guard. `That corridor ahead is straight and level,' Philip remarked. 'The one to our left slopes downward. Calouste is a mole. We'll find him somewhere along here underground…'