by Colin Forbes
'That's a problem.'
'Not really.' The burly Butler shrugged. 'The plan is we go first to the Pullman Hotel in the Meriadeck area, book in, pay in advance with cash, leave a few things in our rooms, then take off.'
'So? The fat little man with the cheroot?'
'We don't drive straight to Archacon when we leave the Pullman tonight. I've studied a map of the area. First we drive south. That Fiat has a very advanced-looking radio aerial. Cheroot may make regular reports. There is a country road I'll take, again heading south. Later we double back, make for Archachon and the delectable Isabelle. Newman's description, not mine.'
'And Cheroot?'
'Will no longer be with us...'
Paula had phoned Jean Burgoyne at the Villa Forban from Paris. Jean had told her tomorrow afternoon would be a good time for her visit: she would be alone at the villa. Paula had decided it would be a good chance to go and see Isabelle Thomas at Arcachon in the morning.
It was Harry Butler who had worked out the strategy on the assumption they were spotted by so-called 'DST' agents. They arrived at the modernistic Pullman, registered for one week, paid for two rooms in advance in cash. The hotel reminded Paula of a concrete bee-hive, especially when she looked round her room on the floor entitled Privilege -which meant their expensive accommodation.
The solid double-glazed window was shaped like a cell in a bee-hive, was difficult to look out from at that height. She moved quickly, lifted the lid of her case, took out a large plastic bag. Inside were a few clothes she'd been on the verge of throwing out.
She hung several things in the small cupboard. In the bathroom she put a half-used tube of toothpaste in a glass, tucked a worn toothbrush beside it and added one canister of talcum powder. Anyone secretly entering the room would conclude she was returning there shortly. Checking her watch, she closed her suitcase, waited exactly thirty minutes, and took the elevator back to the lobby.
Butler, having furnished his own room in a similar fashion with articles he never wanted to see again, was waiting behind the wheel of the Renault. Pete Nield sat in the back: arriving later by taxi from the airport he'd furnished his room with similar unwanted articles.
'Arcachon, here we come.' whispered Paula, sitting next to Butler.
'Not yet. Cheroot and his Fiat are parked up the road. First south out of Bordeaux into the countryside...'
Half an hour later they were driving along a traffic-free country road. Free except for their Renault and the headlights of a car some distance behind them. As they drove on Paula began talking.
'I wonder what's happened to Marler? He seems to have vanished off the face of the earth.'
'He's over here somewhere,' Butler responded. 'Don't ask me where because I haven't a clue.'
'Tweed had some very special mission for him. Love to know what it is. Most mysterious.'
'Why not ask Tweed when you next see him?'
'I suppose he's still in Paris. I got the impression he intends to stay there for a while to maintain contact with Navarre. We really have arrived at a historic time. The President and the Prime Minister killed in that TGV crash.'
Paula had first heard the news from a Frenchman she'd chatted to aboard the flight to Bordeaux. The few passengers were all talking about it excitedly. She also thought she had detected signs of alarm.
'I suppose I could ask Tweed,' she said with a poker face.
'And get a flea in your ear,' Butler grinned. 'And I'm willing to bet Marler - wherever he is - doesn't have any idea where we are. Tweed is playing this one very close to his chest.'
He stiffened as the car crested a hill, glanced quickly in his rear-view mirror. Nothing behind except Cheroot and his Fiat. They descended a long straight slope. Nothing on the road ahead as far as they could see by moonlight. Butler slowed at the bottom of the hill, paused, manoeuvred his car so it blocked the narrow road broadside on.
'As good a place as any.' he said in his matter-of-fact manner.
'For what?' Paula asked.
'Wait and see.'
Butler checked the Walther in his hip holster, the weapon Paula had handed to him in a briefcase in the Swiss restaurant in Paris. Lasalle had been very accommodating and Paula was carrying a .32 Browning hi her shoulder bag. Similarly, Nield was armed with another Walther. Butler took a map from the door pocket, got out of the car, leaving his headlights full on.
He walked a short distance back the way they had come and then stood in the road, holding up the gloved hand gripping the road map. The Fiat crested the hill, came rushing down towards him, slowed, crawled cautiously as Butler waved.
The Fiat stopped. Only the driver, Cheroot, behind the wheel. Butler walked confidently forward, displaying the map in the car's headlights. He came up on the side of the driver who had lowered the window, was gazing at him suspiciously. Butler began to gabble in French.
'We have lost our way. I don't even know where we are. This map is no help. Maybe you could ...'
The fat little man, wearing a dark suit, kept the smoking cheroot clamped between his thick lips as he listened. Butler's right hand, encased in a motoring glove, struck like a snake. His clenched fist smashed into the Frenchman's jaw. There was a click as though something had been dislocated. The driver sagged behind his wheel.
Butler opened the door, felt around inside his overcoat, hauled out a .32 Browning. He hurled it over a hedge into a field, then followed it with the mag he'd first extracted.
Continuing his search, Butler found an Army identity card in his breast pocket. Caporal Jean Millet. He skimmed the card after the weapon into the field. A soldier who loses his identity gets into a helluva lot of trouble. Butler then noticed Millet had bitten right through his cheroot, leaving half of it presumably in his mouth - the other half lay burning on the floor. Maybe it would set the Fiat ablaze. With luck.
Butler ripped out the microphone apparatus attached to the dashboard, reached up and broke the aerial off the roof. Next he drew the key out of the ignition, hurled that into the night. His last act was to open the bonnet, feel around with his gloved hand, ripping up wires. As he walked back to the Renault he decided he could assume the Fiat had been immobilized. He got in behind the wheel.
'Trouble?' enquired Paula.
'For Corporal Jean Millet, yes. Now we can double back to Arcachon. Let's hope the natives are more friendly there.'
Chapter Thirty-Two
General Charles de Forge was alone in his office at GHQ, Third Corps, when the phone rang. Expecting Lamy, he lifted the receiver, announced himself in a brusque tone.
'Manteau speaking.' a voice said in perfect French. 'I did the job for you. Not bad. The President and the Prime Minister with one bomb. Which is what you wanted, I know...'
'Who the hell are you?'
'Manteau. I just said so. Wrecking the TGV should come cheap to you for two million Swiss francs. I'd advise you to pay up this time, General. You don't want me to turn my attention to Third Corps GHQ, do you?'
'I need proof...'
'Which you will get shortly. When you are convinced I'll tell you how to make the payment. In high-denomination banknotes. I hope the serial numbers don't run in sequence. I wouldn't like that.'
'Are you threatening me?'
'No, of course not. I never threaten. I act. Take it as a piece of life-saving advice. Goodbye ...'
The connection was broken. Stunned by the audacity of the call, de Forge sat still. Where the hell was Lamy? A knock on the door jerked him out of his state of momentary confusion. He called out in a barrack-room tone.
'Enter!'
The door opened and Lieutenant Berthier, immaculate as always in his uniform, walked in holding a sheaf of papers in his left hand. His hair was still browner than normal: the result of the colourant he'd used before travelling to Aldeburgh. Just in time he remembered to salute.
'Well? Is it important? I'm expecting someone else.'
'Major Lamy phoned on his way here. I told him about the
Reuters reports we'd just received and he said you would wish to see them at once.'
'Then put them on my desk.' De Forge prided himself on his ability to think of three things at once. 'You were sent to Arcachon to locate Isabelle Thomas, the mistress of the spy, Henri Bayle. You succeeded?'
'Not yet, General. She is not in the phone directory...'
'Phone directory!' De Forge's fist crashed on his desk. 'I send you there to find someone. You have her description from that barman at the Miami dive. And all you can do is to check the phone directory?'
'I did more, I assure you. I made discreet enquiries - no shopkeeper in Arcachon I was able to contact had any knowledge of her. I walked the streets in the hope of seeing her. Walked the streets all night...'
'Then go back and walk the streets all day. She could be dangerous. We do not know what Bayle told her. Return to Arcachon at once!'
'Yes, General...'
During the conversation de Forge realized the marked map of Paris was spread open on his desk. He folded it while he gave Berthier his dressing down. Alone, he began to read the reports with growing amazement. An hour later he was staring into space when there was another knock. This time it was Major Lamy.
'Where the hell have you been?' de Forge demanded 'You have been absent for many hours.'
'I have just returned from Lyons. My return flight was delayed because of what happened. Have you read those reports?'
'I have read them.' De Forge sat very upright in his high-backed chair. 'It says here some old man in a village near the viaduct was train-watching through binoculars. Some damned stupid hobby of his. He says he saw just a few minutes before the TGV arrived a man in a cloak on the viaduct. Manteau! Later, DST officers searched the village, found a grey cloak stuffed in a litter bin. I don't understand any of this. Kalmar was supposed to ...'
'Kalmar was assigned the mission ...'
'Don't interrupt me! While you were taking for ever to return from Lyons I had a phone call. Guess who from?'
'Kalmar?' Lamy suggested.
'No! From Manteau! How the devil would he get hold of my private number? Manteau said he had wrecked the TGV. I didn't believe him. Now I read these reports. That idiot of an old man couldn't have invented his story - no one had heard of Manteau. On the phone he demands two million Swiss francs for destroying the TGV. You'll have to handle him when he calls again.'
'You don't mean we pay that enormous sum?' Lamy queried.
Tell me, Lamy, just how much have we paid out to the unknown Kalmar so far?'
'Three million Swiss francs. That is for various jobs.'
'I know that!' De Forge stared down his subordinate. 'I have handed over three million for you to pass on to the ghost man, Kalmar. Someone has a lot of money in their Swiss bank account. Haven't they, Major?'
'General!' Lamy protested, shaken. 'I have told you how Kalmar operates. I phone a number, a girl answers, tells me the public phone box I have to go to, its number. Or, frequently, she asks me for names - the targets. Then she tells me the remote phone box I must go to. I wait for Kalmar to call me at that box at the agreed time. I give him more detailed instructions about the target - or targets. He speaks to me in English but with an accent I can't identify. I leave the money in a cloth bag behind the box. Every time be warns me he is watching - that if I attempt to identify him when he collects he'll kill me.'
'All very convenient.' de Forge sneered. 'Now we will turn our attention to Operation Austerlitz. The organization of panic in Paris. The sabotage units are moving into place?'
'All is going according to plan...'
'The famous phrase which means everything is going wrong. What is your view of Berthier?'
'One of my most trusted men.' Lamy replied emphatically.
'Those are the ones to watch.' de Forge observed cynically. 'A successful traitor is the man everyone has the utmost confidence in.' He unfolded the map of Paris which was marked with the positions of the saboteur cells moving into the capital. 'I had Berthier here an hour ago and I noticed he was studying this battle map upside down.'
'He is a member of the inner circle - the selected few who make up the top security section of Intelligence. I would expect him to be interested in all that is going on.'
'If you say so.' De Forge sounded unconvinced. 'The main thing is we must time Austerlitz carefully. It is too early to strike yet. The explosion must precede our march on Paris - to restore order when the present system is on the verge of collapse.'
'Our men will await the agreed signal.'
'See that they do. It could be soon now. Meantime step up security in the Landes. Do it now.'
'And Kalmar? When he calls?'
'Stall him. Although it is my bet this Manteau will call you first. Insist on finding out how he knew our next requirement.' De Forge stared grimly at Lamy. 'My main worry is still this Kalmar-Manteau mystery. Is it the same man or are there two of them? But that is your problem. And don't forget.' he repeated. 'I want security in the Landes tighter than a steel drum.'
In Paris the lights were burning late in the Ministry of the Interior. Navarre had ordered food and drink to be brought in for himself, Tweed, Lasalle, and Kuhlmann.
The German police chief had been frequently on the phone to his Chancellor. The news of the catastrophe of the TGV wreck had reached Germany. Navarre also spoke to the Chancellor, assuring him that the crisis was coming under control, that all anti-German and anti-US demonstrations had been banned, that they represented only a tiny fraction of fanatics, which was the truth.
'Your plan is working, Tweed?' he asked during a brief interval of peace.
'My people are in place.' Tweed replied. 'They know what they have to do. We have moved with extraordinary speed. But what are your plans now France is without a President, a Prime Minister?'
'I have called an emergency meeting of the surviving cabinet for two this morning.'
'Why that unearthly hour?'
Navarre grinned. 'I plan to take control. Someone has to. I have great stamina. I am an owl - the night hours are my friend. If necessary I will exhaust the others until they agree to my appointment as temporary Prime Minister. But I will also retain control of the Ministry of the Interior.'
'A key post.' Tweed observed.
'Exactly. I am already mobilizing large numbers of heav ily armed CRS units ready to move south. I have commandeered a large fleet of helicopters. We may need them in the Landes.'
'Why the Landes?' Tweed asked.
'Because General de Forge's strength, his support, is in the south. Reports are coming in of civilians buying up carbines and ammunition. Ostensibly for hunting. But I know they fear the Algerians. Dubois of the Pour France, backed by de Forge, will do everything he can to add fuel to the flames. He is already making speeches saying the Muslim element must be deported before North Africa goes up in flames.'
'Going back to your taking over the Premiership.' Tweed pointed out, 'won't your appointment have to be confirmed by the National Assembly deputies?'
Navarre grinned again. 'Quite true. But there is a precedent. In 1958 de Gaulle was called back, confirmed by the Assembly to form a government. The deputies were scared witless, desperate for strong leadership, fearing a paratroop landing in Paris by French troops from Algeria. A similar situation prevails now. The deputies are again scared out of their wits, desperate for strong leadership. De Forge hopes to put himself forward - but I'm pre-empting him. Tonight. At 2 a.m.'
They were eating when a further phone call came through for Kuhlmann. He listened, said very little, asked to be kept constantly informed, put down the phone.
'My informant has located another Siegfried cell. This time in Hamburg. Armed police stormed the building they were holed up in.'
'They?' Tweed queried. 'You mean this time you trapped some terrorists?'
'Three men and a very small cache of explosives and arms. Early interrogation indicates the men captured are small fry from Alsace. Which makes sense s
ince they speak both French and German in that French province near Switzerland.'
'The same informant who put you on to the other places, the one in Freiburg?' Tweed asked quietly.
'Yes. Why?'
'I just wondered. And now I am also wondering how Newman is getting on. Heading straight into the Landes.'
After bypassing the city, Moshe drove on and on along the N10 over a hundred kilometres south of Bordeaux. It was the middle of the night but Moshe seemed tireless, refusing to let Newman share the driving as be overtook long-distance truck after truck. The road surface was excellent and they were now deep in the Landes.
On both sides dense stands of black fir trees walled in the road, an endless land of trees. Newman noticed that some of the juggernauts they overtook had names. A reminder of how far south they were, that Spain was not so far away. Newman was becoming hypnotized by watching twin glaring eyes approaching from the opposite direction, speeding past. Then the traffic thinned. Moshe began talking to keep himself alert.
'One incident during the Tarbes massacre I forgot to tell you. All the other Jews were burnt to death, as you already know. Two of us decided we would escape by a rear exit. My friend went ahead of me to open the door while I searched for a weapon. When he opened the door it blew up in his face, threw his mangled body against the wall opposite.'