by Colin Forbes
'I guess that would be an acquaintance of mine. Sergeant Rey. De Forge's booby trap specialist. I met him but when I left him he had trouble with his jaw. How did you get away?'
'After seeing what happened to the door, I scrambled out of a window, dropped into a narrow gully concealed by dead ferns. I crawled to safety. There is a similar escape route from the Villa Jaune, where we are going. I will show you. I will also introduce you to an old woman who knows how de Forge uses the Landes near the sea. As a burial ground ...'
It sounded macabre, but Moshe would tell him more when the time came. Moshe had now swung off the main highway to Biarritz on to the more countrified D42. The signpost had carried the legend ST GIRONS. With what Moshe had just told him Newman was recalling Tweed's precise instructions before he left Paris.
'It is the south which is de Forge's domain. Bordeaux is the symbol of defeat in 1871 and 1940 which he is exploiting to the full. This time, victory and power for France will come from Bordeaux, or so he is saying.'
'How do you know that?' Newman had asked.
'Lasalle has planted at least one informant inside de Forge's camp. I've no idea who it is, but Lasalle receives regular reports. So that is why I'm pleased you're going south. Find out what that devil is up to. Above all, if you can, find evidence which will bring him down. We are supporting Germany as well as France in this endeavour. And when you can, maybe you'd like to contact Kuhlmann's secret agent in Bordeaux - Stahl. You have his details ...'
Tweed, Newman remembered, had been unusually emphatic and forceful, stressing his points with chops of his hand. All indications that under his calm, detached manner Tweed was more worried than he'd ever been.
'Moshe, this Villa Jaune we're going to. Describe for me its location.'
'West of St Girons. Hidden in the forests of the Landes. But very close to the sea. At night especially you can hear the waves crashing on the nearby beach. And during the day, often, if it is a heavy sea. The dunes run for miles. It was an idyllic spot before the murders began.'
'What murders?'
'Better that you see for yourself. One demonstration, they say, is worth a thousand words. And there is someone who can show you maybe better than I can.'
'Describe the layout of the villa. Inside.'
'A single-storey old building built of wood. On the side facing the sea there is a verandah running along the front. Inside two bedrooms, one living-dining room, a kitchen, a toilet. That's it.'
'The entrances and exits,' Newman persisted.
'A heavy wooden front door leading to the verandah, windows at the front and on both sides. None at the back -except for one low down, almost level with the ground, which has bars. The window opens close to another deep gully similar to the one which saved my life at Tarbes. There is a rear door to one side. Also a cellar - with no way out.'
'I've got the picture,' Newman replied.
He said nothing more as they drove on through the night, passed through St Girons, which had no lights, and some distance beyond Moshe swung on to a track leading through the fir forest.
Newman checked his watch. It would be dawn in about two hours' time. Assaults were often launched at dawn.
In Arcachon, by chance, Butler chose the same small hotel Newman and Moshe Stein had used earlier as temporary accommodation for Stein. They walked in as planned during the middle of the night. Paula hanging on to Butler's arm, pressing herself close to him.
Butler wasted no time dealing with the sneaky-looking night clerk who studied the couple and Nield bringing up the rear with the cases. In his hand Butler held folded French banknotes, asked for three rooms alongside each other speaking in French.
'That might be difficult.' The clerk peered over his half-moon glasses. 'We are almost full up.'
'In late November? Come off it. We've had a long drive from the Cote d'Azur. I said three rooms, alongside each other. Of course, if you can't manage it...'
The banknotes began to disappear inside his pocket. The action galvanized the deal. He made a brief performance of studying the register.
'Pardon me. It so happens we have three such rooms on the first floor. Even in the middle of the night...' He named an excessive price.
'You think I'm a raving lunatic?' Butler continued in French. 'Take this for all three rooms for the night.'
'I will see you are not disturbed.'
The clerk leered. He was convinced the three rooms were a ploy - that Paula would be sharing a bed with Butler. Which was exactly the impression they wished to create.
Butler carried Paula's case into the middle room, so she would be flanked by Nield and himself in the other two rooms. He was leaving the cramped room when Paula spoke.
'Thank you, Harry. For looking after me.'
'Which reminds me,' Butler responded. 'No slipping away without us.'
'I promise. In the morning I'll phone Isabelle and hope I can go see her with my two escorts. Then in the afternoon we'll drive to the Villa Forban so I can renew my acquaintance with Jean Burgoyne. After phoning her first.'
'Should be OK. Just so long as we remember we're right in the danger zone. Anything could happen. Goodnight ...'
In a small apartment near the rue du Bac on the left bank in Paris, Marler sat up in bed smoking a king-size. He was fully dressed in French denims and a French shirt, and his only concession to brief relaxation was his open-necked collar.
By his side was one of the most sophisticated mobile telephones in the world, engineered by the basement crew at Park Crescent. It was equipped with a powerful transmitter and a very long aerial which extended at the press of a button. He was in frequent communication with Tweed at Navarre's Ministry of Defence. But its potential range was far greater.
Inside a ready-packed suitcase was an assortment of items apart from a change of clothes. Marler was posing as a cosmetics salesman: inside the small case were 'samples' of his trade - certain articles of equipment disguised by the Engine Room at Park Crescent to look like cosmetics.
Inside a large hold-all under a woollen scarf was a dismantled Armalite rifle complete with sniperscope and ammo. The weapon had been delivered to him inside the hold-all by one of Lasalle's trusted couriers in a dubious Montmartre club. Marler had then travelled aboard the Metro to return to his base. The only person in the world who knew his whereabouts was Tweed.
Marler was also carrying a very large sum of money and a collection of open-booking Air Inter tickets. Some had already been used. Checking the time, Marler closed his eyes and fell asleep. He had the ability to catnap at any hour. The mobile phone tucked on the pillow close to his ear. He'd hear the beep instantly. He was expecting fresh instructions.
Chapter Thirty-Three
'Here we are. My little home in the forest.' said Moshe.
Newman stared grimly at the Villa Jaune. It was large -but little more than an old wooden cabin. Located in a clearing, it was encircled by a dense palisade of firs which seemed about to advance on it in the night, to swallow it up. Where the hell the 'Jaune' - the 'Yellow' - came in was more than Newman could fathom, but he felt disinclined to ask Moshe.
He checked his watch. Well over an hour to dawn yet. As Moshe carried both cases to the verandah and opened the heavy front door, Newman gathered his own load. He took the sack containing twenty empty mineral water bottles, Isabelle's metal funnel, and the jerrican of spare petrol out of the car.
The vehicle was parked near the side of the 'villa', and was partly concealed by the bank of undergrowth Moshe had driven it into. Newman arrived on the verandah as Moshe switched on lights. Dumping his load, Newman called out: 'Moshe, I'm going to take a look round the outside. Be back in a minute.'
'A glass of wine will be waiting...'
A high wind was blowing spasmodically. As Newman prowled round the area he heard a sound like the surge of the sea, realized it was the wind in the treetops. The wind dropped suddenly and a similar sound continued. A crashing of breakers on the nearby shore.
> Newman studied all the approaches. He went to the rear of the cabin, found the deep gully Moshe had told him about. Masked by last autumn's dead bracken, it ran a distance away from the back of the Villa Jaune. A man crawling along it would be completely concealed from anyone standing at ground level. Halfway along it ran through a culvert, then continued on the other side.
Newman found the atmosphere of the Landes claustrophobic. He felt hemmed in as he moved silently over the spongy ground, his Smith & Wesson in his hand. He felt a need to get into the open and walked towards the sea.
The forest ended abruptly. Ahead of him was the vastness of the Atlantic, huge rollers sweeping in slowly, thumping down on the shore, spreading a carpet of surf on the beach. His night vision was good and he was aware suddenly of movement on the beach.
He was perched up where he stood and between where he waited and the beach was an area of Sahara-like sand dunes. Further south the dunes rose to a great height. The figure crouched by the shore, picking up something, was an old woman wrapped in a black shawl.
He moved back into the forest slowly, then walked rapidly to the cabin. Easy to find - from a distance it was a beacon of lights. Was Moshe crazy? He opened the front door and his companion was sitting in front of a large wooden table, sipping from a glass of wine. He gestured to a second glass.
'That is for you.'
'Are you mad? This place is lit up like a Christmas tree. If they are coming for you, you're making it so damned easy for them.'
'If they're coming, I am ready.'
'Well, I'm not. And there's a weird old woman fooling around on the beach. At this hour.'
'Good!' Moshe jumped up. 'Old Martine. She is the one who will tell you what has been happening here. We go to her now...'
'After you've switched off the bloody lights and locked the door ...'
Together they hurried to the sea. Newman had trouble keeping his balance as he plunged after a more sure-footed Moshe down the sand dunes. Moshe called out to the old woman, then warned Newman.
'Old Martine is suspicious of strangers. She has reason to be, as you'll hear. I will introduce you as a security agent from Britain - which in a way you are. She thinks all French security personnel are in league with de Forge.'
Newman now saw what the crone had been doing. Close to where the surf carpet covered the sand she was collecting brushwood washed ashore. Her lined face with a beaky nose and a strong jaw peered out at Newman from under the shawl as Moshe made the introduction.
'I am here on an official mission.' Newman told her frankly in French. 'To investigate the crimes of General de Forge.'
Her alert eyes studied him. 'Your French is very good for an Englishman,' she observed.
'I have been told that I can pass for a Frenchman...'
Newman spoke the words slowly in English, waited a moment, then reverted to French.
'You have information which would be useful to help me bring him to justice?'
The dam broke. She spoke rapidly, brandishing her sheaf of brushwood like a weapon. Her eyes glittered with hatred.
'My nephew was in the Third Corps. De Forge had him shot as a spy. Just as he had many others shot here. This is de Forge's cemetery - the Landes. Come with me. Come! I will show you. Come!'
Her free gnarled hand grasped Newman's arm. He was surprised at the strength of her grip as she hurried him back to the sand dunes, released her grasp, scrambled in front of him up the dunes with great agility. The wind had dropped and as she led them into the forest away from the surge of the Atlantic an eerie silence closed in on the group.
She was heading towards the Villa Jaune and then turned south away from it, following a path between the trunks of the giant firs. Newman checked his watch. He hoped this wouldn't take long. He was anxious to return to the cabin. As they'd passed through sleepy St Girons he'd noticed a car parked in a side lane with two men inside. He had the strongest instinct the maximum danger hour was close to dawn.
The crone led them down a shallow slope into a clearing littered with low humps shrouded with dead undergrowth and rotting bracken. Old Martine brandished her brushwood like a wand.
'De Forge's burial ground.' She peered up at Newman. 'You have strong nerves, sir?'
'I've seen some grim things in my time.'
'Then use your foot to dig into one of those humps. If you like, use your gloved hands - although you may not like what you find ...'
Newman crouched over the nearest hump, thrust aside a deep mass of matted bracken, swept soil damp from recent rain to one side. His hand encountered something hard. He dug deeper, stopped. He was staring at a skull, part of a skeleton stretched out and which, he guessed, must have lain there for at least two years.
But what fixed his gaze was the third eye in the skull. A hole which could only have been made by a bullet. No trace of clothes. Removing his gloves, he took out the small camera supplied by Park Crescent, pressed the button for night shots, took three. Putting on his gloves, he then replaced the soil, hauled the undergrowth back in roughly its original position.
'Now here!'
The crone had taken charge. She stood, erect now, her bony finger pointed at another hump which showed signs of recent disturbance. He walked over to it, crouched again, gritted his teeth, removed the covering of bracken and soil. Underneath lay the body of a French soldier in the early stages of decomposition. This time there was no doubt that he had been dispatched by a bullet fired into the forehead. Newman knew he was a French soldier because he still wore his uniform of a private.
He used his camera to take ten shots of this corpse. It was the body of a young man who had joined up to serve the Army and this was his fate. Newman then forced himself to search the corpse's pockets but all traces of identification had been removed. He looked at the man before he rebuilt the grave. The victim gave a macabre impression of being asleep.
'Now here!'
The crone again. The bony finger pointing at death, at another hump. Newman was experiencing a feeling of nausea. He shook his head, glanced slowly round the clearing, counted twenty makeshift graves. A horrific crime.
'Why?' he asked the crone.
Martine spat on the ground. 'De Forge eliminates those who do not support him. I told you about my nephew...'
'Yes. Suspected of being a spy. But what about all the others? They can't all have been spies.'
'Some objected to digging the graves. They were shot.'
'How do you know that?' Newman pressed.
'I saw, heard one man throw down his shovel, protest to his officer. He was shot immediately.'
'How could you see them without their seeing you?' Newman demanded, still unconvinced.
'I sat in the undergrowth at night when I heard activity. You don't believe Old Martine? Watch.'
She moved away, dressed in black, suddenly vanished into thin air. Newman had been watching her and was disconcerted. He looked round carefully, then called out.
'Martine, where are you?'
'Over here.'
Newman, followed by Moshe, walked in the direction her voice had come from. He damned near stumbled over the huddled form crouched at the foot of a thick tree trunk. He was convinced. He told Moshe he was going down to the beach for a moment. Newman was not taking any chance of infection after messing about with corpses. He threw his gloves out to sea: the tide was receding. Bending down, he washed his hands thoroughly in the surf.
When he was making his way back to Moshe he saw Martine in the distance, moving north up the beach, gathering more brushwood.
'We must hurry back to the villa,' he told Moshe. 'You know where Martine lives?'
'In a tiny abandoned villa on the outskirts of St Girons. She keeps herself warm with brushwood fires and logs from the forest. She sells the excess, uses the money to feed herself.'
'How some people live.'
'At least she is alive.' Moshe waved a hand towards the hideous burial ground. 'Troops from de Forge's army land in rubber dingh
ies from the sea. I sometimes heard the crackle of rifle fire. I thought it was target practice. I never dreamt I was hearing firing squads.'
'Talking about survival, we have to make certain preparations as soon as we reach the villa. This is what we will do...'
The attack came a little earlier than Newman had expected. They were settled inside the cabin with only lights switched on illuminating the verandah when they heard the distant chant coming closer.
'Death to all Jews! Death to all...!'
Since returning to Moshe's home both men had been working non-stop. Moshe had oiled the rear barred widow so it slid open noiselessly. Newman had obtained cleaning cloths from Moshe, had torn them into strips. Then he attended to the mineral bottles he'd obtained from Isabelle. He divided them up - ten for himself, ten for Moshe. The bottles, caps screwed on, were distributed in the pockets of Newman's trenchcoat, tucked down inside his belt. Moshe wore a jacket with large pockets, similarly stuffed with bottles; more inside his own belt. Newman gave him his spare lighter as the chant grew in volume. They were very close now.
'I still think you should leave,' Moshe began arguing. 'If you go now you could probably escape.'