Cross of Fire

by Colin Forbes

  Only Tweed was certain what was needed. A foreigner in a foreign capital, he seemed as relaxed as if he were behind his desk at Park Crescent. He spoke decisively.

  'I know what we must do, but first bring me up to date on the present situation as you see it.'

  It was Navarre who answered, still forceful even at this late hour.

  'As you know, Masson has bypassed me, has announced publicly the appointment of General de Forge as temporary commander of the Third Army. That army is now manoeuvring over the whole of the south of France. Pretended objective of the so-called exercise? To repel an invasion force landing at Marseilles, Toulon, and Bordeaux from the sea and the air. The fictitious enemy is a General All, a dictator based in North Africa - coming to the aid of his persecuted Arabs in France. Which fits in with the anti-Arab propaganda of Dubois.'

  'And the real objective?' Tweed asked.

  'It gives de Forge the perfect excuse to move his army over a huge area in any direction.'

  'We must strike now.' Tweed insisted. 'Without pause, without mercy. These are evil forces we confront - racist, anti-Arab, anti-German, anti-American.'

  He had stood up when Chief Inspector Otto Kuhlmann hurried into the room. His teeth were clamped tightly on his unlit cigar. He held a folded sheet of paper in his hand.

  'I've just returned from a lightning trip to Germany,' he informed Navarre. 'May I continue?'

  'By all means.'

  'Tweed,' Kuhlmann began, 'early in the crisis you advised me to send undercover police to Basle and Geneva. You said that was where Kalmar passed on instructions for the next phase. In neutral Switzerland. And where he got orders.'

  'So what has happened?' Tweed enquired.

  'Four people we know are involved in this business visited either Basle or Geneva - or both - recently. Here is a list of their names and destinations.'

  Tweed unfolded the sheet. He glanced down the list, handed it back to Kuhlmann.

  'The man we know as Kalmar is on that list. I just can't prove it. Yet.'

  Tweed went straight to his own office, closed the door and sat at his desk. There were urgent phone calls he wanted to make without anyone overhearing him, specific instructions for action he wanted to give.

  His first call was to Marler.

  His second call was to Newman and he spoke to him for some time. Then he asked to speak to Butler. His orders were brief. He asked to speak to Pete Nield. Again the orders were brief.

  He asked Nield to put Paula on the line. Again it was a long conversation - far warmer than his previous call to her. He had just put down the phone when Kuhlmann came in.

  Take a seat, Otto. No, I'm not identifying Kalmar. My strategy is that the assassin should feel he's safe, unsuspected.'

  'OK by me. I came to talk to you alone. While in Germany I had a brief radio signal from Stahl. Remember him?'

  'Of course. The Hotel des Bergues in Geneva - seems ages ago. You told Paula and me about him. Your agent posing as a Frenchman inside Bordeaux. You gave me the assumed name, his address, his phone number.'

  'I said the signal was brief. It was also encouraging - and disturbing. He has valuable information but can't get out of Bordeaux. Can you help?'

  'I think so. I have people in the area. The codeword for identification was Gamelin.'

  'Correct. And thank you for your help.'

  'I can promise nothing, Otto,' Tweed warned, and the German left the room.

  Tweed reached for the phone, dialled the number of the Atlantique Newman had given him. He was going to make it very clear to Newman that it was up to him whether he ventured into Bordeaux again to rescue Stahl. Newman had had more than his fair share of ordeals so far.

  When Tweed had phoned Marler earlier the slim Englishman was perched on the edge of his bed in the apartment near the rue du Bac in Paris. Smoking a king-size, he had a large-scale map of France spread out and was studying it. When the phone rang he picked it up and careful not to give any name.

  'Yes? Who is it?'

  'Tweed. Another mission. Urgent. Of course. I want to step up the pressure, screw it down tight. We're launching full-scale psychological warfare. At least, I am. Any ideas?'

  'Give me a sec to think.'

  Marler blew a smoke ring, watched it float up to the cobwebbed ceiling of the small scruffy room. The ring dissolved.

  'I've thought of something. Pure psychological warfare. It means I'll be away from here for a while.'

  'Good luck....'

  Marler put down the mobile phone inside his small open case on a chair. He checked his open-flight Air Inter tickets. He'd used several but there were plenty left. Selecting a container of face powder with a yellow undertone, he walked over to the wall mirror and applied some.

  It was an innocuous item among his samples. After all he was posing as a cosmetics salesman. The powder gave his skin the sallow tinge which is common to certain Frenchmen. He studied himself in the mirror, adjusted his beret to a jaunty angle.

  He wore washed-out blue denims and a windcheater. He had days before tested out his appearance, walking into a bar, ordering a drink. He had lingered over the one drink the way Frenchmen in bars do. He had chatted to the barman, to several customers, complaining about how bad business was. They had all agreed. More important, they had all accepted him as one of them.

  'Time to go out and do your thing.' he told his mirror image.

  He was aware he was talking to himself. It was a habit he occasionally indulged in when on his own for long periods. He looked forward to leaving the rundown apartment on the Left Bank where the heating was nil.

  At the Atlantique in Arcachon Newman also had a map spread out on his bed, but this was a large-scale map of Bordeaux. In the room with him were Paula, Butler, and Nield.

  'I have to go back into the city to haul out Stahl, a German agent in hiding,' he explained. 'I'm going in tonight. Best chance after dark.'

  'You're crazy,' Paula burst out. 'First, you were lucky when you went there before. And all the news reports far more security now than there was earlier. Look at the papers...'

  They, too, were spread over Newman's bed. All showed pictures of the riots in Marseilles and Toulon. The most prominent feature of the photographs was of men in Balaclavas with the Cross of Lorraine - the crosses blazing with fire in the night. The atmosphere of insurrection was growing by the hour.

  'Second,' Paula hammered away, 'you'll have no sleep if you go to Bordeaux. And you have to meet that helicopter near the etang at dawn tomorrow. Your reflexes won't be so good if you run into something, which you probably will.'

  'Thanks for the vote of confidence.' Newman snapped back.

  'I'm just thinking of your safety, you cretin.'

  'Let's cool it.' Newman grinned. 'I'd grasped that and I am grateful, touched.'

  'Obstinate bastard.' she chaffed him, her good humour returning with his infectious grin.

  They hugged each other. Pete Nield winked behind them at Butler. There always came a moment like this during an operation. A situation of continuing danger. Too little sleep. Fatigue. Nerves frayed.

  'I can't find Stahl's address on the map.' Newman admitted as he released Paula. 'The Passage Emile Zola. Before I head for Bordeaux I'll visit Isabelle. She should know.'

  Paula grinned wickedly. 'Mind she doesn't keep you there all night in her apartment.'

  He slapped her on the rump, looked at Butler and Nield.

  'You two take good care of her while I'm away.'

  'But you have to come back here before ... you drive down to meet the Alouette.' Butler said.

  He'd been on the verge of saying before you drive down to the Landes. But he guessed Newman had omitted to tell her about that dangerous expedition. And Newman's instruction about her had been superfluous: on the phone Tweed had told Butler and Nield separately that he held them personally responsible for Paula's safety, that she was in grave danger.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Victor Rosewater was
a long way from Arcachon. He sat in the living room of his ultra-modern flat in the Konvikstrasse in Freiburg - on the edge of the Black Forest in Germany. He checked his watch. 4 a.m. Helmut should arrive shortly.

  Rosewater had been flown by a private plane from Bordeaux Airport to Basle in the middle of the night. After paying the pilot the substantial sum agreed, Rosewater had driven his car parked near the airport across the Swiss border up the autobahn to Freiburg.

  The weather was lousy. Heavy snow smothered the ancient rooftops of the University city. Rosewater got up, walked into his kitchen which had every up to date appliance. He poured himself another cup of coffee from the percolator, went back to his chair in the living room. As he sipped coffee he stared at the photograph of Paula Grey he had secretly taken. The print was propped up against an old silver jug he had bought in an antique shop. Silver was his hobby and he had quite a collection.

  Paula was a very attractive girl, he thought. And, unlike so many attractive women, she had a vibrant personality. 'You've got everything going for you,' he mused.

  Helmut Schneider: his mind switched to the German he had flown to Freiburg to meet. Helmut was an extrordinary man. He had a network of informants through the whole of Germany, a number of them unsavoury characters. Among the more respectable were barmen, hotel commissionaires and concierges, cab and bus drivers - all people who noticed what was going on round them, who heard unguarded conversations.

  Among the less savoury were brothel keepers, unlicensed arms merchants and dubious night club bouncers. It was a world the public had no idea existed.

  Until recently Helmut had told them to inform him, for a price, about any strangers patronizing these establishments with Irish accents, their modes of transport. By using these sources Rosewater had tracked down several IRA cells before they'd had time to become active.

  He had recently given Helmut a new instruction. To search for clues as to the whereabouts of Siegfried units. Now he waited to hear if Helmut had had any luck.

  The weird thing was Helmut rarely left his cheap apartment in Frankfurt. All communication was carried out over the phone. But Helmut was a man of cunning. He took short-term leases on an apartment, rarely using the same phone number for more than two months.

  He would then move on to another part of Frankfurt. This involved calling a host of informants to give them his new number. But Helmut had a strong instinct for survival. Staying in one place for long was risky, could easily be a lethal mistake.

  A tapping on the knocker of the front door interrupted the mind-wanderings of Rosewater. He jumped up, hauled from his holster a 7.65mm pistol, went to the solid front door, and peered through the spyhole before drawing bolts and unlocking the door.

  Outside crouched a bizarre figure. Dressed in black from head to foot, the man wore black glasses and carried the white cane of a blind man. It took Rosewater a moment to recognize Helmut Schneider.

  'Shake the snow off your coat.' he ordered. 'And maybe you'd be considerate enough to remove your boots.'

  The apartment had fitted carpet wall to wall. Meticulous in his dress, Rosewater kept the luxurious apartment clean as a new pin. He closed the door after Schneider had removed the soft snow from his coat, divested himself of his boots and walked into the warmth of the hall. Rosewater gestured towards the living room, took coat and boots to the kitchen, hung up the coat behind a door and dumped the worn boots in the sink. He poured another cup of coffee and handed it to Schneider, who had seated himself in an armchair, feet in socks stretched out towards a radiator, in the living room.

  'Any results?' About Siegfried?' Rosewater greeted his guest.

  'A clever girl has infiltrated their High Command. Won't tell you who she is.' Schneider grinned, exposing two missing teeth. 'She has personal reasons to hate the guts of shit like that. She has brains - and she's got guts.'

  Schneider had removed his dark glasses and his cunning eyes gleamed with satisfaction. Arriving at the apartment he'd looked like a down-and-out: now he was alert, erect, and watchful. Like a clever ferret.

  'But actual results?' Rosewater demanded impatiently.

  'Contain yourself,' Schneider reproved him, continuing in German, the language both men were speaking. 'It's warmer in here. Like bloody Siberia out there.'

  'Why the elaborate disguise?' Rosewater asked, suddenly anxious. 'You weren't followed?'

  'I was.'

  'You mean to here? For God's sake ...'

  'Contain yourself,' Schneider repeated, pleased that he had shaken the normally cool Englishman. 'You really think I can't spot a shadow? Two of them, moving separately. I lost them in Heidelberg. Then I changed cars at a friend's place. Then I put on this gear when I'd left the second car on the outskirts of your patch.'

  'Very professional.' Rosewater forced himself to mask his growing irritation. 'And the results?'

  'Siegfried is in Hamburg, Dortmund, Berlin, Hanover, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Karlsruhe, Munich, and Stuttgart. It's a big operation.'

  While talking Schneider extracted an old wallet from beneath three layers of clothing: two woollen pullovers and a jacket. He unzipped a concealed compartment, took out a grubby, folded sheet of A4 paper, handed it over to Rose-water. Then he spread his feet a little closer to the radiator.

  Rosewater looked down the list of detailed addresses and recognized several. He looked at Schneider who had removed his mittens, was holding the cup in both hands to warm himself.

  'This is the lot?' he asked.

  'By no means.' Schneider finished his coffee, placed the cup on the hearth. 'I expect to have another long list very shortly. I'll phone the number you gave me so they can contact you.'

  'Good.'

  Rosewater was thinking Schneider was ideal for the job. A social outcast, a man able to mingle with, to haggle with the shabby half-world which was his network. And there was no danger he'd try to pre-empt Rosewater by handing to the police this information. The police were his enemy.

  Schneider, a pickpocket, had served five short sentences in German prisons. One more misdemeanour and he'd go down for a very long sentence.

  Time you left,' Rosewater suggested.

  Schneider made the universal gesture asking for money - rubbing thumb against middle finger. Rosewater made it a matter of policy to wait until he asked for money: it discouraged the German from thinking there was a bottomless pit available.

  Taking four five-hundred Deutschmark banknotes from his pocket he handed them over. The equivalent roughly of seven hundred pounds. But Helmut's expenses came high. The German looked dubious.

  'Not enough to cover what I'll have to pay out. Double this might just manage it.'

  'I haven't got that to spare.' The usual haggling which Schneider expected. 'You'll have to get by with this. Not a Deutschmark more.'

  He produced two more five-hundred Deutschmark notes, dropped them on the table. Schneider scooped them up as Rosewater went into the kitchen, collected the coat and boots. He banged the latter to get rid of the snow which hadn't melted in the warmth of the central heating. He was anxious to get Schneider out of the apartment.

  The German put on his disguise before leaving. Adjusting his dark glasses, he adopted a stooped posture, tapping the white cane against the walls to accustom himself again to his role of blind man.

  Rosewater was glad to see the back of him. He was anxious to drive to Basle Airport. There he would catch the first flight to Bordeaux via Geneva, driving on to Arcachon. Rosewater had overheard in the Bar Martinque a man with a distinct Irish accent. Discreet enquiries had confirmed the Irishman frequented the bar. And also he wanted to meet Paula Grey again.

  Twelve hours earlier during the previous evening Newman had driven to Isabelle's apartment from the Atlantique. As he moved along the front the bassin was a seething mass of heaving waves, reminding him of Aldeburgh.

  He was also thinking of the notes he'd extracted from the polythene envelope attached to poor Jean Burgoyne's lifeless body. Readin
g them alone in his room he had been startled to find he was looking at plans for an army movement on Paris. The details gave the route to be followed north by a lightning thrust of de Forge's armoured divisions. Their objective was Paris.

  Could the information be genuine? Newman thought so: Jean had given map references, used language which sounded to have been extracted from military dispatches. His dilemma was whether to entrust such vital data to an Alouette which might crash before it arrived in Paris. How else could he get the notes into the hands of Tweed?

  Parking in a side street a short distance from her apartment, well away now from the front, he stepped out. Before he approached the entrance he stood banging his gloved hands round his body while he made sure he had not been followed.

  He had phoned Isabelle just before leaving the Atlantique. When he pressed the bell beside her apartment door she had it thrown wide open in seconds. She was talking while she locked and bolted the door.

  'It has been so long since I've seen you, Bob. You will stay the night? If you don't want to make love we'll sit and chat. Perhaps I shouldn't have said that. But I've been thinking of you. Have you been thinking of me?'