Cross of Fire

by Colin Forbes

  'Dawlish is no more. The weapon delivery is destroyed. I don't think for a minute this will stop de Forge.'

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Marler had received his fresh instructions before Tweed had left Paris for Arcachon. For the first time he was not travelling Air Inter. He had waited for hours in the cabin of an Alouette parked on a small airfield outside Paris.

  In the seat beside him rested his large holdall containing his Armalite rifle and sniperscope. He ate the meals brought to him by a girl who said little. Between meals he dozed quite a lot of the time. But when the pilot came to shake him awake he was instantly alert.

  'News?' he asked abruptly.

  'They're on the move. All hell has broken out in the streets of Paris. We're flying south now...'

  All hell had broken loose in the streets of Paris. But the hell was being endured by the saboteurs infiltrated into the city and activated by Austerlitz.

  A group wearing Balaclavas threw open the rear doors of a furniture van parked close to the main telephone exchange and spilled out gripping automatic weapons. As they approached the entrance other men clad in Balaclavas swarmed round them carrying rifles.

  The leader of the attackers, bent on capturing the communications centre, was confused. Were these reinforcements he hadn't been told about? He was making up his mind when a rifle butt descended on the back of his head and he slumped to the ground.

  With no leader, his troops were even more confused. The next surprise was when tear gas shells burst at their feet. None of the saboteurs noticed that the newcomers in Balaclavas wore a thin green band on their right arms.

  The battle for the exchange was brief and rough. The CRS paramilitary troops - able to distinguish friend from foe by the green armbands - rounded up the Austerlitz attackers. They were bundled into waiting Berliet trucks hidden in side streets. Many of the defeated were carried aboard unconscious. The whole counter operation lasted exactly five minutes.

  Similar scenes were taking place all over Paris. Lasalle had skilfully predicted the likely targets, had distributed CRS men disguised in Balaclavas close to every key objective.

  The main assault was mounted against the Ministry of the Interior. A hundred Austerlitz troops surged out of various stolen tradesmen's vehicles. To their surprise and delight the gates were not locked leading into the courtyard from the Place Beauveau. Brushing aside the guards, they stormed into the courtyard, heading for the inside of the ministry. General de Forge had pinpointed this as the prime objective - on the advice of his wife, Josette, who had since disappeared.

  They stopped suddenly as large forces of other men in Balaclavas appeared in front of them. Behind them the gates were closed and they were trapped. Before they could decide what was happening the CRS in Balaclavas were on them, wielding rifle butts, rubber truncheons, cracking skulls, felling the invaders. The CRS are not noted for their gentlemanly behaviour. Any man without a green armband was a target.

  Navarre watched the violent melee from the window of his office on the first floor. Again the vanquished attackers were carried, thrown into a fleet of Berliet trucks which edged their way through the opened gates.

  An hour later the CRS unit commanders from all over the city had reported they'd done the job. Navarre acted immediately. Special CRS units had kept TV vans and reporters well away from the onslaughts. Navarre appeared on television. He briefly reported that 'terrorists' had been detained, that the city was now quiet.

  General Charles de Forge was a resolute commander. When he received the call from Major Lamy in Arcachon he listened.

  'It is a complete disaster, General!' Lamy sounded shaken. 'The Steel Vulture was almost inside the bassin when it blew up - exploded into the sky. It was reported that wartime mines had been seen floating offshore. I thought it was bluff. The extra weapons you were waiting for will never reach us ...'

  'Thank you, Lamy. Report back to GHQ.'

  De Forge put down the phone. He stood up to address the officer awaiting instructions.

  'We move now. Operation Marengo is launched. I intend to travel in the lead tank of an Armoured Division. I ordered the other commanders to open their sealed orders one hour ago. Victory will be ours - before the day is out...'

  Aboard L'Orage V Tweed read the statement de Forge had issued the night before - timed to catch the next day's edition of Le Monde.

  Exercise Marengo is being extended to Central France. The exercise will move no further north than Chateauroux. The population is warned to keep clear of where the exercise is taking place. Under certain conditions live ammunition may be used.

  'What does it mean?' Paula asked.

  Tweed looked out of the porthole. It was mid-afternoon and the cabin cruiser was swaying like a ballet dancer. He had taken another Dramamine.

  'Note the use of the word "exercise".' he pointed out. 'Repeated twice. An attempt to confuse Navarre. And from Chateauroux the N20 runs due north to Paris. As I predicted that will be his route. Not a devious flanking movement to the west as they thought in Paris.'

  'I am sure you are right.' said Berthier. 'He'll move at top speed through the night. When Paris wakes up de Forge's forces will be on the Champs-Elysees. He has won.'

  'What made you predict his route up the N20?' Paula asked.

  Tweed smiled drily. 'When I was visiting Josette in the Passy house I noticed a bust of Napoleon. One of de Forge's heroes. He'll have studied his campaigns. When Napleon was advancing against Wellington he drove his army at top speed direct for Brussels, surprising Wellington when his enemy reached Quatre Bras. Paris is de Forge's Brussels -the direct thrust by the shortest route.'

  'And nothing to stand in his way.' Newman said grimly.

  'Not a lot.' Tweed agreed. He looked at the DST officer in charge of the vessel. 'I think we should all return to Paris. There is an Alouette waiting for us on the island? Good ...'

  He paused as they heard someone crossing the gangplank. Newman moved to the side of the bottom of the companionway, the Smith & Wesson in his hand. Footsteps clumped noisily down the wooden steps. Victor Rosewater stopped at the bottom, smiled at Paula and the others.

  'I thought you'd be somewhere in Arcachon. Well, it's the big goodbye to Lord Dane Dawlish.'

  'We're all drenched in tears.' said Newman.

  Rosewater looked at Tweed. 'I thought you should know Major Lamy is still in Arcachon. Why isn't he with de Forge?' He glanced at Paula. 'Some unfinished business in Arcachon?'

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  'I also saw Brand in a bar in Arcachon late this morning.' Rosewater told Tweed.

  'Brand. I've been wondering about him.'

  Tweed said nothing more as he peered down out of the window of the airborne Alouette. Aboard the machine were Isabelle and Paula, chatting to each other, Stahl, Newman, Butler, Nield, and Berthier. All on their way home via Paris.

  Tweed, in a hurry, had been irked by the long delay on the island. Some mechanical defect in the Alouette's engine which had to be remedied. It was still daylight, but only just, when they caught up with the Third Army beyond Chateauroux.

  Tweed asked the pilot to fly lower. First there were truck-loads of infantry, armoured personnel carriers, motorcycle outriders. Then they saw the endless columns of huge mobile 155mm artillery. And ahead of the guns, also proceeding up route N20, more endless columns of heavy tanks. Raising his field-glasses, Tweed focused on the lead tank behind a swarm of motorcycle outriders.

  General de Forge stood in the turret of his Le Clerc tank. Disdaining a helmet, he wore his kepi and slung round his neck was a pair of field-glasses. Spotting the Alouette, he raised his own glasses and Tweed had the oddest sensation that they were staring at each other. Lowering the glasses, de Forge gave a jaunty wave as his tank thundered on.

  'He's now well north of the so-called exercise line,'

  Tweed said coldly. 'The line he laid down. The exercise to be confined south of Chateauroux. And it is the N20. How on earth is he clearing the
highway to give that army of steel through passage?'

  'I've no doubt he'll find a way.' Rosewater replied. 'And what was Brand doing in Arcachon? Waiting for the Steel Vulture?'

  'That, yes. And he may have had another objective. We have not seen the last of him.'

  Marler stood behind the pilot in the chopper flying south over the N20. It was still daylight and a shaft of sunshine like a searchlight had broken through the high overcast.

  'Here they come.' said the pilot in French.

  'To liberate Paris.' Marler replied cynically in the same language.

  Holding on to the back of the pilot's seat with one hand, he raised his binoculars. A group of outriders had stopped at an intersection. Behind them men were carrying signs from a civilian truck. Through the lenses Marler read the signs.

  Diversion. Do not miss! Army manoeuvres!

  'De Forge is taking over highway N20.' Marler commented. 'Keep following it. He can't be far behind.'

  'And the bastard is marching on Paris ...'

  The pilot maintained the same low altitude. Marler was watching the light. Soon it would be dusk, then dark. Which would mean accomplishing his mission could turn out to be impossible. He raised his glasses, saw a clutch of outriders speeding up the highway. Behind them rolled the tanks.

  Feet wide apart, bracing himself to keep steady, Marler refocused his glasses. He couldn't believe it. The erect figure of General de Forge was standing in the turret of the leading Le Clerc tank. Marler lowered the glasses, scanned the countryside. To the east of N20 a small hill rose. Mentally he checked the range.

  'Can you land on that flat-topped hill?' he asked the pilot through the microphone slung below his headset.

  'Perfect place to put down.'

  'Don't stop the engine ...'

  The machine swooped away from the highway in an arc. As it hit the summit Marler, who had taken off his headset, grabbed his holdall, threw open the door, jumped to the ground, crouching below the whirling rotor. Running to a rock embedded in the earth, he dropped flat, hauled out the Armalite, screwed on his sniperscope, perched the weapon on the rock, adjusted the sniperscope when he had the leading Le Clerc tank in his crosshairs.

  De Forge had a sensitive instinct for danger. He watched the chopper land. He turned once again and waved on the tanks coming up behind him with a confident gesture. He then gave the order to his gunner through his microphone.

  'Target chopper just landed hilltop to the east. Fire when ready!'

  The computer raced through its calculations at the speed of light. The huge barrel swivelled through ninety degrees. The elevation began lowering to bring it dead on target.

  Marler pressed the trigger two seconds before the tank's gun sent a shell hurtling towards the chopper. The special explosive bullet blasted the front of de Forge's skull clean away. His body sagged down on to the crew below, fountaining blood, splashing into the eyes of the gunner who automatically pressed the button.

  The shell curved a dozen feet above the chopper, landed on a farmhouse, killing the farmer, his wife, and three children, who were eating a meal.

  Marler switched his aim, fired three times over the heads of the outriders who had sat stunned on their machines. They leapt out of the saddles, gripped their automatic weapons, began firing at random towards the chopper now climbing rapidly off the hilltop.

  Inside the tank there was panic. De Forge, a grisly sight, was sprawled over them, still spraying blood. Five tanks behind the stationary vehicle, unaware that their General was dead, obeyed his last hand wave and trundled forward, their caterpillar tracks clanking and grinding like some huge stamping mill.

  Immediately ahead was a copse of trees and behind them drivers of petrol tankers held hoses, were drenching the highway with petrol which spread like a lake. A farmer held a torch made of straw. He flung the burning brand, the petrol lake ignited, the five advancing tanks rolled towards a curtain of flame.

  Confusion. Chaos. Tanks swivelling round, colliding with each other in their desperate flight from the wall of fire. Two tanks rumbled past either side of the tank where de Forge lay, crashed headlong into three Le Clercs moving up the highway. Soon the whole column ground to a halt, zigzagged across the highway. An army without a leader, without orders, with nowhere to go.

  The Alouette carrying Marler back to Paris was a grey dot in a grey sky as dusk fell and a sheet of flame spread across the fields on either side where bales of hay soaked in petrol had ignited.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  There is still the hunting down of Kalmar - identifying who Kalmar is.' Tweed said firmly.

  It was twenty-five hours later and they were all assembled in Navarre's office at the Ministry of the Interior. Navarre had just spoken.

  'We are cleaning up the mess rapidly.' he had announced. 'As you'll have seen from this morning's newspaper headlines, General Charles de Forge died tragically during an exercise when he insisted live ammunition should be used. We'll never know who accidentally shot him during that panic on route N20.'

  'One of his own troops?' Marler suggested.

  'That is the assumption.' Navarre had agreed. 'Then a large petrol tanker overturned, the petrol caught fire. As I said, a major tragedy.'

  'Yes, indeed.' Lasalle said with a blank expression.

  'The military exercise has been cancelled.' Navarre had continued. 'All troops have returned to barracks. There will be no reports of that mysterious graveyard Newman discovered in the Landes.'

  'Just one of those things?' Newman had commented cynically.

  'De Forge had earlier reported all the deceased as deserters. There's no point in upsetting the relatives. A logical outcome.' Navarre had remarked with typical Gallic realism. 'And the recordings for TV of the two witnesses, Martine and Moshe Stein, will never be relayed. The cassettes have been destroyed. The old lady, Martine, seems satisfied now she has heard of the death of de Forge. Moshe Stein is philosophical.'

  'And the smashing of the Siegfried organization is completed.' Kuhlmann commented. 'Which just about wraps it up.'

  Which was the point at which Tweed had intervened.

  'There is still the hunting down of Kalmar...'

  'How would we know where to start?' Rosewater asked. 'We haven't a clue as to his identity.'

  'I'm not so sure about that,' Tweed insisted. 'I made a phone call to Jim Corcoran, chief of security at Heathrow. He reported seeing Major Lamy arriving by direct flight from Bordeaux.'

  'With a lot on his conscience,' Navarre rapped out.

  'Corcoran followed him,' Tweed went on, 'got the number of the car he'd hired. I phoned the firm. Lamy was driving to Aldeburgh.'

  'I want to go back there,' Paula told him.

  'Too dangerous,' Tweed contradicted her. 'I also phoned Grenville Grange. Imagine who answered the call. Brand. He also is back in the Aldeburgh area.'

  'I have leave due.' Paula persisted. 'I'll go there in my own time. I want to lay the ghost of what happened there.'

  'Not a good idea.' Newman snapped.

  'So I don't want you coming with me. It's a personal pilgrimage.'

  'What about the trouble in the south of France?' enquired Tweed, changing the subject.

  'Dubois was given two options.' Navarre explained. 'One, he could disband his vicious racist movement, Pour France. Two, he could stand trial for high treason as a member of the Cerde Noir. He was reminded we have that tape with his voice on it. Guess which option he chose.'

  'He copped out.' Newman replied. 'That louse with the soiled tie has no guts.'

  'You are right. He has agreed to dissolve his party. He will return to his old job of grocer in Provence, selling rotten fruit at extortionate prices. Without leadership the racists are impotent.'

  'And we have to return to London.' Tweed said.

  'Then I can visit Aldeburgh again.' Paula asserted.

  It was late afternoon, a December afternoon, when Paula stood by the window of her bedroom at the Brudenell Hotel i
n Aldeburgh. Below her was the narrow Parade of the front. A storm of grey clouds was flooding in from the north east. Giant waves surged in, crashed against the sea wall, hurled spray as high as her window. A little wilder than the day when she had fled across the marshes with Karin but the atmosphere was similar. Time to go for her walk before it was completely dark.

  She checked the contents of her shoulder bag, tightened the belt of her raincoat, tied a scarf round her head and left her room. Hardly anyone about downstairs. She smiled at the receptionist, ran down the stairs to the rear entrance, turned left and walked towards the bleak marshes.

  Crossing the deserted public car park, her feet crunched the gravel of the road leading to the sea defences which were still being reinforced. At that hour the site was dosed: all the workmen had gone home. Passing the Slaughden Boat Storage yard she turned down the steep grassy path on to the marshes.