by Colin Forbes
To Newman's surprise Tweed made no attempt to back up his failed argument to stop Eve driving to the Chateau Noir tomorrow – almost today now. Sipping his Riesling, Tweed held Eve's inviting gaze and then took a view which infuriated Newman.
'I think you're right to keep the appointment with Amberg. It's taken long enough to track him down. What time are you to meet him?'
'Eleven in the morning. He even said he might provide lunch since there wasn't anywhere else to eat near the chateau. I accepted.'
'You were surprised when he suggested lunch?' enquired Tweed.
'Very. I've never taken to Walter and assumed it was a mutual feeling. I'm beginning to think maybe it could be pure shyness where women are concerned. Perhaps I'm due for a pleasant shock tomorrow.'
'Don't bank on it,' Newman told her sharply.
'What a pessimist Bob is.' Eve raised her head from his shoulder. Smoothing down her hair, she leaned over the table to where Tweed faced her, grasped his hand. 'Do you object to my driving up to see Walter in the morning?'
'Why should I? Because of the ice and snow the roads are very dangerous, I gather. And very low temperatures during the night won't help. But you must make up your own mind.'
'Then I shall be going, so I suppose I'd better get up to bed.'
Tweed noted she moved very steadily as she came round the end of the table, bent down, kissed him on the cheek. Her hair brushed the side of his face, giving him a tingling sensation.
Thank you, Tweed. For your moral support.' She turned her gaze on Newman. 'As for you, Mr Pessimist, have a nice day – as the pathetic Americans are always saying.' She gave him a little wave, a wry smile and disappeared into the hotel.
'What the devil are you up to?' Newman burst out when they were alone. 'All hell is liable to break loose on those mountain slopes tomorrow…'
'I agree,' Tweed interjected amiably, then finished off his wine.
'Every conceivable weapon could be used against us,' Newman raved on, keeping his voice down. 'So why send Eve into a battlefield?'
'You'd managed to persuade her not to go then?'
'Well, not exactly…'
'Be frank. Didn't she refuse point blank to take any notice of your attempt to get her to change her mind?'
'Yes, she did,'Newman admitted.
'I sensed this as soon as I arrived. Eve is a woman of great character, of exceptional willpower. By agreeing with her, I made her sympathetic to me. There is a faint chance – no more – that when she recalls what I said about the dangerous roads she'll change her mind,'
'So why do I get the feeling you're conducting some very devious manoeuvre?' Newman demanded. 'And what time do you plan we reach the Chateau Noir?'
'Not long after eleven in the morning – when Eve Amberg has arrived there, if she makes the trip.'
38
Paula tapped on Tweed's door at seven the following morning. He called out for her to come in and she found him in the bathroom, shirt collar open as he stood before a mirror shaving.
'Should I come back later?' she suggested. 'You ought to be able to get ready in peace.'
'You've seen a man shaving before today. Sit down while I talk. I need a sounding-board about this whole business – going right back to the massacre at Tresillian Manor.'
'Fire away.' She perched on the edge of the unused bed. 'I'm listening with all my ears, as the French say, and we are in France.'
'So far I have assumed that the same people who blew up our Park Crescent HQ also perpetrated the hideous massacre at Gaunt's manor. You were always sceptical.'
'Yes, I know. Maybe I underestimated the enormous power of the apparatus we're up against.'
'I'm wondering now if / gave them a little too much credit for almost superhuman organization – synchronizing the two events.' He wiped soap off his face, cleaned his brush and razor. 'It would require truly superhuman planning – to blow up our HQ in London and then commit the massacre all within a few hours.' Tweed's tone sharpened as he put on his tie. 'I honestly don't now believe such timing was possible, that it happened that way. They wouldn't have the information in time – that Amberg was at the manor and that Joel Dyson had deposited copies of the film and the tape with us. Not enough time to organize both the massive car bomb and the massacre way down in Cornwall.'
Paula frowned as she snapped her compact shut after checking her appearance behind Tweed's back. She stared at him as he put on his jacket.
'What you are suggesting contradicts all our theories.'
'My wrong theories.' Tweed folded his arms on the back of an upholstered chair and stared down at her. 'It came to me in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep. I've assumed I was trying to assemble the pieces of a single complex jigsaw. Now I'm sure that there are two jigsaws.'
'Help!' said Paula in mock confusion. 'I don't think I could cope with that. Two separate jigsaws?'
'No, it's far more diabolical than that. These two jigsaws interlock. To put it simply, one couldn't exist without the other.'
'Simply? If you say so.'
'Paula, it all started with Joel Dyson flying in from the States with a film and a tape. Whatever is recorded on those two items is so earth-shattering that an army of top professionals flies in after Dyson. Those pieces of the jigsaw fit. One jigsaw so far.'
'And these cold-blooded professionals – killers – are all American,'she pointed out.
'True. Ponder that and you might get a glimmer as to who is behind the apparatus controlled by Norton. I admit the idea is world-shaking. Want to guess who?'
'No idea. Go on.'
'Maybe we should have breakfast…' Tweed began.
'Let it wait a bit. I want to hear more,' Paula urged him on. 'I sense you've had a mental breakthrough.'
'Let's call the American apparatus Goliath. They track Dyson to Park Crescent, assume – correctly – that he's left the film and tape with us, although they don't know they're copies. Goliath organizes the massive car bomb to destroy the film and tape. Still with Jigsaw One.'
'What about Jigsaw Two?'
'I'm now convinced the massacre at Tresillian Manor was carried out by someone else. Let's borrow Jennie Blade's Shadow Man. He knows Dyson flew on to Zurich with the copies of the film and the tape-'
'Assumption,' Paula objected. 'How do you know that?'
'It's the only sequence of events which explains the new theory I've developed, which I'm sure is the right one. Do let me finish. Shadow Man has to be someone who knows the Ambergs – and therefore knew what Dyson had left with them. He has to be someone who knows the Ambergs,' he repeated, 'because he knew Amberg would be at Tresillian Manor on the day of the massacre. Those two items are worth a fortune – proved by the tremendous efforts the Americans are making to get them back, to eliminate anyone who might know about their existence. Am I going too fast?'
'No. I'm beginning to get ahead of you. Shadow Man wants to lay his hands on film and tape, wants the fortune they could bring him.'
'So, logically, he plans and carries out the massacre at Tresillian Manor. His real target was, of course, Amberg.'
'Why?'Paula enquired.
'Because he knows he can handle the more passive twin – Walter. He also knows he'd never get Julius to release them to him. Solution? Murder Julius. Which leaves the weak Walter to obtain the film and tape from. Hence the two interlocking jigsaws – and the fact that one couldn't exist without the other.'
'I do see what you mean now. Whatever happened in America created a chain reaction among a lot of people.'
'Which is why I insist the two jigsaws are linked like identical twins.' Tweed gazed into the distance out of the window. The sun shone on steeply slanting rooftops. 'What we need to do is to get hold of that film, see what is on it, and listen to the tape. Which is what I'm going to demand from Amberg when we reach the Chateau Noir today. He must have hidden them somewhere, may even be carrying them around with him. Now, breakfast.'
'Just before we go
down, we have a problem,' Paula warned. 'It's called Jennie Blade. Somehow she's found out we're going up into the Vosges this morning. She insists on coming with us. I argued but got nowhere. She's scared stiff of the Shadow Man.'
'Let Gaunt take care of her,' Tweed said, grasping the door handle. 'She's his girl friend.'
'Gaunt has driven off early this morning in his BMW. He had Eve with him. She didn't look too happy with him. I saw Gaunt heading off towards the Vosges and Eve had her chin up, staring fixedly away from him.'
'I can guess what that was about,' Tweed remarked and smiled wrily. 'Eve wanted to go up to see Amberg at the Chateau Noir on her own and Gaunt – dominating as ever – bullied her into going with him. He may have made a mistake. Eve can handle even Gaunt if push comes to shove. And we can't be lumbered on this trip with Jennie.'
'Better tell Jennie yourself. Oh, I waved off Marler when he drove away at dawn on his way to the Ballon d'Alsace.'
'Why were you up at that hour?'
Tweed had paused, still holding the door handle. He had not yet unlocked the door while he waited for her reply.
'Couldn't sleep,' Paula told him. 'Something someone said was important and I can't recall it. Got up in the middle of the night, had a shower, got dressed, went downstairs. Which is how I saw Marler before he left for that gliding school. I had an early breakfast, then saw Eve leaving with Gaunt. But I'll join you for more coffee. This is going to be a rough ride up into the Vosges, isn't it? I found all the Americans had checked out early.'
'Yes, it will be a very rough ride up to the heights of the Chateau Noir,' Tweed warned her.
Tweed and Paula did not breakfast alone in the Brasserie. They had hardly sat down and ordered continental breakfast when Jennie Blade appeared. Clad in ski pants tucked into ankle boots, a white woollen polo-necked sweater which emphasized her figure, and carrying a sheepskin, she sat down at their table, facing Tweed.
'May I join you?'
She gave him a ravishing smile and nodded to Paula who stared back at her without comment.
'You just did,' Tweed pointed out.
'I hope I'm not interrupting an intimate tete-a-tete,' she went on, glancing again at Paula.
'Hardly, at breakfast time,' Tweed replied drily.
'I hear you're driving up into the mountains today. You know' – she gave him her most beguiling smile – 'I couldn't sleep a wink last night -I couldn't get out of my mind my experience with that Shadow Man in the fog. So, please, please, take me with you. You could come back and find me dead.'
'Anything is possible,' Tweed agreed neutrally.
'Then that's settled, you'll take me up there with you -and with you by my side I'll feel perfectly safe, Tweed.'
'Paula is likely to be by my side.' He drank the coffee a waiter had appeared with as though by magic, which Paula had then poured. 'Space will be at a premium,' he said.
'What is the premium you would like me to pay?' Jennie shook her golden mane off her shoulder, gazing at Tweed with an expression which made Paula grit her teeth. 'I will pay in any currency you specify,' she went on suggestively.
'How about Hungarian forints?' Paula snapped.
'I am asking Mr Tweed,' Jennie said politely, not looking in Paula's direction. 'Seriously, it was a horrible experience last night. And the Met forecast is for more fog this evening. That's when he appears – the Shadow Man. I won't be any trouble. I'll do exactly what you tell me to do – or not to do.' Her voice trembled. 'Please. Oh, please, Tweed. Let me come with you.'
'If I let you,' Tweed said grimly, 'you will obey orders from the word go.' He held up a hand. 'No more protestations. I've laid down the conditions. No more to say.'
Inwardly Paula swore as she savagely piled butter on her croissant. You wily, conniving little devil, she said to herself. What surprised her most was that Tweed had fallen for Jennie's feminine tactics. Or had he? She glanced at Tweed and he looked back without any expression.
Brilliant sunshine reflected off the snow which had descended on Colmar overnight. Tweed screwed up his eyes against the glare of the strong light as he walked alone outside the main entrance to the Bristol. He was waiting for Newman to drive the Espace from where it had been parked overnight.
Locals were hurrying to work. A girl slipped on a patch of invisible ice beneath the snow and Tweed saved her, grabbing her arm. She peered at him gratefully from beneath her hood. 'Merci!' With her hair concealed under the hood, a scarf pulled up over her chin and drainpipe trousers protruding from under a long padded windcheater Tweed had briefly mistaken her for a man.
As he stood near the kerb a large man wearing a hood with earmuffs and a long heavy trench coat brushed against him. Tweed stiffened as a strong hand gripped his arm.
'Now don't get alarmed, old chum. I've waited for ever for you to come out. Important development…'
The American twang was distinctive. Cord Dillon's voice. Tweed stood quite still, clapping his gloved hands together as though feeling the cold. He spoke without looking at the American, his lips hardly moving.
'From now on we must keep in close contact. You can phone me at the hotel after nine in the evening. What is the important development?'
'Special Agent Barton Ives is near by. Wants to talk with you. The recognition signal will be a Union Jack, your national flag.'
'Describe him to me again, briefly…'
'About my height. Much slimmer build. Thick black hair. Now clean-shaven. Aged thirty-seven. Strong Anglo-Saxon features. Ice-blue eyes. He'll find you when it's OK. This place is crawling with watchers – hostile.'
'Ives will be taking a chance unless he's careful,' Tweed warned.
'He's careful. He's FBI. Was. Be in touch
Tweed was still clapping his gloves together in a slow rhythm as Newman arrived with the Espace, punctuating his thoughts. Was one of the two key men in this crisis -Barton Ives and Joel Dyson – really going to contact him? If so how? He wished he'd told Dillon they were on their way into the mountains. Paula walked briskly out of the hotel. It was no surprise that close on her heels Jennie Blade, clad in sheepskin, hurried up to the vehicle.
Tweed wondered if Jennie would have been so eager to join them if she'd known what was facing them during the long climb into the even more heavily snowbound mountains.
39
'We're being followed already,' Newman commented as he drove the grey Espace along the snow-covered road across the plain below the foothills rising in the near distance.
'The big cream Citroen, you mean?' Tweed suggested.
'That's the bastard.' Newman glanced over his shoulder to where Jennie sat. 'Excuse my French but if you had any idea this would be a holiday outing you're in for a very big surprise.'
The Renault Espace V6 was a spacious vehicle which could easily seat six people in three rows. Its large curved snout reminded Paula, seated next to Tweed, of a shark. Tweed occupied the middle seat with Newman on his left. In the row behind them Jennie, huddled in her sheepskin, was curled up like a cat on her seat.
Butler, clad in leathers with a large helmet, had passed them riding a Harley-Davidson and was leading the convoy as it drew closer to Kaysersberg. A distance behind them Nield drove the station wagon with his Walther tucked under a cushion on the front passenger seat.
Philip Cardon, astride his own motorcycle, roared past them, then slowed as his eyes kept swivelling from side to side. The Citroen shadowing them had so far kept well back from Nield's station wagon.
'Why should anyone follow us?' called out Jennie.
'Presumably to see where we're going,' Paula snapped without bothering to turn her head.
'Why would they want to do that?' Jennie persisted.
'So when we skid they can see in time the dangerous stretches of the road,' Paula snapped again. 'Could we possibly have a little quiet so the driver can concentrate? Also I'm checking a map. We're coming into Kaysersberg very shortly,' she warned Newman. 'I can see the old buildings on the outskirts.'
' I'm not worried at all about us skidding,' Jennie went on. 'Bob is a marvellous driver. You should have more confidence in him.'
Paula's eyes blazed as she checked the map again. So far as she was concerned Jennie Blade was spare luggage which could be dumped by the roadside at any time. Tweed, seeing her expression, was secretly amused. He was also suspicious.
Jennie's air of naivety was just a little too innocent and he was certain she was baiting Paula. Cardon returned on his motorcycle, made a gesture for them to slow down. Newman responded immediately, saw Cardon perform a highly skilled U-turn in the snow, then come racing back, speeding up as he overtook them.
'We shall soon be inside Kaysersberg,' Paula warned again. 'Which probably means we'll have to crawl.'
'Presenting a slow-moving target,' Newman commented.
The ancient buildings of the medieval gem closed round them on both sides as Newman reduced speed to little more than walking pace. Paula stared with admiration at the antique buildings, many with wooden cross-beams buried in the plaster walls and slanting at crazy angles.
'This is wonderful,' she enthused. 'It reeks of character, of the Middle Ages. And look at that hump-backed bridge…'
Standing by himself in an alley-way midway inside Kaysersberg, the man wearing a fur hat and an astrakhan coat held a mobile phone to his ear. The aerial was extended as he peered at the bridge through his half-moon glasses and listened to the report from another mobile phone inside the cream Citroen.
'Our main competitor is aboard the grey Espace,' the driver reported. 'Plus a man and two women.'
'Maintain your present position,' Norton ordered. 'Keep well back. I'm talking about survival…'
He slid the aerial back inside the phone. Once the Espace started to cross that bridge it was the end of Tweed. One mission accomplished. Chateau Noir next.
'Brake!' Tweed ordered. 'Stop this vehicle at once.'
Newman obeyed immediately, sat behind the wheel with the engine ticking over. Cardon was approaching on his motorcycle. Newman was mystified by Tweed's sudden command.