by Colin Forbes
`You've told me where – now tell me why…'
`That will be explained by someone at headquarters.. Ostrich became a little less formal. 'Frankly, sir, I don't know the answer to that question. No, a coat isn't necessary. We have a heated car outside…'
`I'm going up to my room. I have to tell my wife where I'm going…'
He found Nancy waiting at the elevator, making no attempt to get inside. With his back to the two men, who had followed him to where they could watch from the end of the corridor, he took out his scratch pad, wrote down the address of police headquarters, and gave it to her.
`If I'm not back in an hour, call this number and set Geneva alight. That number under the address is the registration of the car they've got parked outside.'
`What is it all about, Bob? Are you worried? I am.. `Don't be. And no, I'm not worried. I'm blazing mad. I'll tear somebody's guts out for this…'
Hidden inside the alcove of the doorway, Julius Nagy watched as Newman climbed inside the back of the waiting car with one of the men while the shorter man took the wheel. He hurried to a waiting cab and climbed inside.
`That black Saab,' he told the driver. 'I want to know where they're taking my friend…'
Newman thought Chief Inspector Leon Tripet, as he introduced himself, was young for the job. He sat down as requested, lit a cigarette without asking permission, and looked round the room, his manner expressing a mixture of irritation and impatience. He carefully said nothing.
Tripet's second-floor office, overlooking the Boulevard Carl-Vogt, was the usual dreary rabbit hutch. Walls painted a pale green, illuminated by a harsh overhead neon rectangular tube. Very homely.
'I must apologize for any inconvenience we may be causing you,' Tripet began, sitting very erect in his chair. 'But it is a very serious matter we are concerned with…'
'You are concerned with. Not me,' Newman said aggressively.
'We all admired your handling of the Kruger case. I have met German colleagues who are full of praise for the way you trapped Kruger and exposed his links with the DDR…'
'You mean Soviet-occupied East Germany,' Newman commented. 'Also known as The Zone. What has this to do with my summons here?'
'Coffee, Mr Newman?' Tripet looked at the girl who had come in with a tray of cardboard cups. 'How do you like it?'
'I don't – not out of a cardboard cup. I can get that at British Rail buffets, which I don't patronize.'
'I read your book,' Tripet continued after dismissing the girl who left him one of the cardboard cups. 'One thing which really fascinated me was the way you were able to tap in to the terminal keyboard.
He paused to drink some coffee and Newman had the oddest feeling Tripet was watching him with all his concentration for some reaction. Reaction to what? He remained silent.
'I refer to the keyboard at Dusseldorf where the Germans house their giant computer which has so helped them track down hostile agents. You have come to Switzerland on holiday, Mr Newman?' he added casually.
Newman stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette in the clean ashtray, watching Tripet with a bleak look as he did so. He stood up, walked over to the window behind the Swiss policeman and stared down into the street. Tripet asked was there something wrong?
Newman didn't reply. He continued staring down, being careful not to disturb the heavy net curtain. Julius Nagy was standing in the entrance to the building opposite which Newman had observed when he had arrived. Biblioteque Municipale. Public Library.
`Tripet,' he said, 'could you join me for a moment, please?' `Something is bothering you,' Tripet commented as he stood beside the Englishman.
`That man in the doorway over there. Julius Nagy. He's been following me since we arrived at Cointrin. A friend of yours?'
'I'll have him checked out,' Tripet said promptly and headed for the door out of his office. 'Give me a minute…'
`There's a phone on your desk,' Newman pointed out.
But Tripet was gone, closing the door behind him. Newman lit a fresh cigarette and waited while the comedy was played out. Within a short time he saw two policemen in their pale grey uniforms, automatic pistols sheathed in holsters on their right hips, walk briskly across the road.
There appeared to be a brief altercation, Nagy protesting as the policemen each took an arm and escorted him across the road out of sight into the building below. Newman grinned to himself and was seated in his chair when Tripet returned.
`We are questioning him,' he informed Newman. 'I have told them to concentrate on learning the identity of his employer.'
`Who do you think you're fooling?'
`Pardon?'
`Look here,' Newman rasped, leaning across the desk, 'this charade has gone on long enough…'
`Charade?'
`Charade, Tripet! There was a time not long ago when I was welcome in Switzerland. I helped over a certain matter which has not a damn thing to do with you. Ever since I came in this time I've been watched and harassed…'
`Harassed, Mr Newman?'
`Kindly listen and don't interrupt! I said harassed – and I meant harassed. You drag me over here for a meaningless conversation. You send two of your menials to pick me up publicly at the Hotel des Bergues like a common criminal. You don't even have the decency to phone me first…'
`We were not sure you would come…'
Newman rode over him 'Don't interrupt, I said! Then you pretend you don't know Nagy. You go out of the room to give an order instead of using the phone in front of you – so I won't hear the order you give. "Bring in Nagy. Make it look good – he's watching from my office window." Something like that, yes, no? Well, I've had it up to here. I'm communicating with Beck of the Federal Police in Berne. Arthur Beck, Assistant to the Chief of the Federal Police…'
`It was Beck who asked me to bring you here,' Tripet informed him quietly.
Newman insisted on returning to the Hotel des Bergues in a cab despite Tripet's efforts to provide an unmarked police car. On the way back across the river he sat thinking, his mind tangled with contradictory ideas. There was no peace for him when he'd paid off the cab and went upstairs to his room. Nancy opened the door and he knew something had happened. She grasped his arm and wrapped it round her waist.
`Bob, I thought you'd never come. Are you all right? What did they want? While you were out I had the weirdest phone call. Are you all right?' she repeated. 'Shall I get coffee? Room Service does have its uses.' All in a rush of words.
`Order three litres. No, sit down, I'll order it myself – and I'm fine. Tell me about the phone call when I've organized coffee.' He grinned. 'We have to get our priorities right.
He refused to let her talk until the coffee had arrived. He gave her an edited version of his visit to police headquarters, conveying the impression they were intrigued by the newspaper article and wanted to know what story he was working on. And, he reflected, that might just be the real motive behind his interview with Tripet.
`Now,' he began after she had swallowed half a cup, 'tell me in your own words about this phone call.' He grinned. 'I'm not sure, of course, who else's words you would use…'
`Stop kidding. I was jumpy at the time, but I'm better now. Anyone ever tell you you're a good psychologist?'
`Nancy, do get to the point,' he urged gently.
`The phone rang and a man's voice asked to speak to you. He spoke in English but I know he wasn't English – or American. He had a thick, Middle-European accent.
`Whatever that might be.'
`Bob! We do have a mixture of nationalities in the States. And I'm not bad on accents. Can I go on? Good. I told him that you weren't here, that you'd be back sometime, but I didn't know when. He was persistent. Did I have a number where he could reach you? It was urgent…'
`Urgent to him,' Newman interjected cynically.
`He sounded urgent,' she insisted. 'Almost close to panic. I asked him for a number where you could call him back, but he wouldn't play it that way. Eventually he said he
'd call you later, but he asked me to give you a strange message, made me repeat it to make sure I'd got it…'
`What message?'
`He gave his name, too. Reluctantly and only when I said I was going to put down the receiver, that I didn't take messages from anonymous callers. A Manfred Seidler. I made him spell it. The message was that for a generous consideration he could tell you all about terminal…'
`He said what?'
`Not a terminal. I checked that. Just terminal…'
Newman sat staring into space. He was alone in the bedroom. Nancy had gone shopping to buy a stronger pair of boots. She'd observed that the smart girls in Geneva had a snappy line in boots, Newman suspected. She was not going to be left behind by the competition.
Terminal.
Newman was beginning to wonder whether his conversation with Chief Inspector Tripet had been as meaningless as he'd thought at the time. Correction. Beck's conversation with him by proxy via Tripet. What was it he'd said?
One thing which really fascinated me was the way you were able to tap into the terminal keyboard. And Tripet had emphasized the word terminal – and had watched Newman intently as he spoke.
Now this weirdo, Manfred Seidler, was offering to tell him all about – terminal. What the hell did the word signify? Tripet – Beck – had linked it to the operation of a highly sophisticated computer. Could there be any connection with the Kruger affair?
Kruger was serving a thirty-year sentence in Stuttgart for passing classified information to the East Germans. The Kruger case was over, fading into history. What signal was Beck sending him? Was he sending him any signal? More likely he was checking to see whether Newman's trip to Switzerland had anything to do with – terminal. Well, it hadn't. But maybe when he arrived in Berne he'd better contact his old friend, Arthur Beck, and tell him he was barking up the wrong tree. He had just reached that conclusion when the phone rang. He picked it up without thinking, assuming it was Nancy telling him she would be later than she'd expected.
`Mr Robert Newman? At last. Manfred Seidler speaking…'
Eleven
Bruno Kobler came into Geneva from Berne by express train. He paused in the booking hall, an impressive-looking man who wore an expensive dark business suit and a camel-hair overcoat. Hatless, his brown hair was streaked with grey. Clean-shaven, he had a strong nose, cold blue eyes which Lee Foley would have recognized immediately. A killer.
His right hand gripped a brief-case and he waited patiently for the two men who had travelled separately on the train from Berne. Hugo Munz, a lean man of thirty-two wearing jeans and a windcheater, approached him first.
`Hugo,' said Kobler, 'you take Cointrin. Go there at once and watch out for Newman. You've studied the newspaper photo so you will spot him easily. I doubt if he's flying anywhere but if he is, follow. Report back to Thun.' He looked directly at Munz. 'Don't lose him. Please.'
He watched Hugo walking briskly towards where the cabs parked. A moment later the second man, Emil Graf, wandered casually up to him. Graf was a very different type from Munz. Thirty-eight years old, small and stockily-built, he wore a sheepskin. A slouch hat covered most of his blond hair. Thin-lipped, he spoke on equal terms to Kobler.
`We've arrived. What do I do?'
`You wait here,' Kobler told him pleasantly. 'You also watch out for Newman. If he leaves Geneva, my guess is he'll go by train. In case I miss him, hang on to his tail. When you have news, report back to Thun.'
He watched Graf wander back inside the station, his right hand holding the carry-all bag which contained a Swiss Army repeater rifle. Kobler had made his dispositions carefully. Graf was more reliable, less impetuous than Munz. Typically, Kobler had saved for himself the most tricky assignment. He walked out of the station, got inside the back of a cab and spoke in his brisk, confident voice to the driver.
`Hotel des Bergues…'
Inside the cab as it proceeded on the short journey to the hotel Kobler dismissed both men from his mind. A first-rate business executive he was now concentrating on what lay ahead. Kobler had come a long way. The only man his chief trusted implicitly, millions of francs passed through Kobler's hands in the course of a year.
A commanding personality, a man attractive to women of all ages who sensed his dynamic energy, he could walk into the Clinic, the laboratory and the chemical works on the shores of Lake Zurich and issue any instruction. He would be obeyed as though the order had been transmitted by his chief. He was paid four hundred thousand Swiss francs a year.
Unmarried, he dedicated his life to his work. He had a string of girl friends in different cities – chosen for two qualities. Their ability to feed him confidential information about the companies they worked for – and their skill in bed. Life was good. He wouldn't have exchanged his position for that of any other man he had ever met.
He had served his obligatory military service with the Army. He was an expert marksman and was classified to act as a sniper when they came from the north-east. Not if. When the Red Army moved. Still, very soon they would be ready for them – really ready. He jerked his mind into total awareness of his immediate surroundings as the cab pulled up outside the Hotel des Bergues.
`I don't know any Manfred Seidler – just assuming that's your real name,' Newman snapped back on the phone. He was sliding automatically into his role of foreign correspondent. Always put an unknown quantity on the defensive.
`Seidler is my real name,' the voice continued in German, `and if you want to know about a very special consignment brought over an eastern border for KB then we should arrange a meeting. The information will cost a lot of money…'
`I don't deal in riddles, Seidler. Be more specific.. `I'm talking about Terminal…'
The word hung in the air. Alone in the bedroom, Newman was aware of a feeling of constriction in his stomach. This had to be handled carefully.
`How much is a lot?' he asked in a bored tone.
`Ten thousand francs…'
`You're joking, of course. I don't pay out sums like that…'
`People are dying, Newman,' Seidler continued more vehemently, 'dying in Switzerland. Men – and women. Don't you care any more? This thing is horrific.'
`Where are you speaking from?' Newman enquired after a pause.
`We're not playing it that way, Newman..
`Well, tell me, are you inside Switzerland. I'm not crossing any frontiers. And I'm short of time.'
`Inside Switzerland. The price is negotiable. It's urgent that we meet quickly. I decide the place…'
Newman had made up his mind, thinking swiftly while he asked questions. He was now convinced that Seidler, for some reason, was desperately anxious to meet him. He broke a golden rule – never give advance notice of future movements.
`Seidler, I'm just about to leave for Berne. I'll be staying at the Bellevue Palace. Phone me there and we'll talk some more.'
`To give you time to check me out? Come off it…'
`I'm impressed with what you've said.' Newman's voice was tight and he let the irritation show. 'The Bellevue Palace or nothing. Unless you will give me a phone number?'
`The Bellevue Palace then…'
Seidler broke the connection and Newman slowly replaced the receiver. His caller had managed to disturb him on two counts. The 'eastern border' reference. Which eastern border? Newman didn't think he'd been talking about the Swiss frontier. That conferred on Terminal potential international dangers.
And then there had been the mention of 'KB', which Newman had deliberately not queried over the phone. KB. Klinik Bern? The talk about people dying he had dismissed as window-dressing to arouse his curiosity. Strangely enough, as he walked round the bedroom, smoking a cigarette, the words began to bother him more and more.
When the conversation opened, Newman had put Seidler in the category of a peddler of information – reporters were always being approached by these types – but later he had detected fear in Seidler's attitude, stark fear. There had been a hint of a
terrible urgency – a man on the run.
`What have I walked into?' he wondered aloud.
`Tell me. Do…'
He swung round and Nancy was leaning with her back against the door she had opened and closed with extraordinary lack of noise. She moved like a cat – he'd found that out on more than one occasion.
`Seidler phoned while you were out,' he said.
`And he's worried you. What is going on, Bob?'
`He was trying to sell me a pup. Happens all the time.' He spoke in a light-hearted, dismissive tone. 'I'm glad you're back – we're catching the eleven fifty-six train to Berne. An express – non-stop…'
`I must dash out again.' She checked her watch. 'I saw some perfume. I'm packed. I have time. Be back in ten minutes…'
`You'll have to move. You're like a bloody grasshopper. In and out. Nancy, I don't want to miss that train…'
`So you can use the time settling up the bill. See you…'
`M. Kobler,' the concierge greeted the man who had just walked into the Hotel des Bergues. 'Good to see you again, sir.'
`You haven't seen me. Robert Newman is staying here.' `He's upstairs in his room. You wish me to call him?' `Not at the moment…'
Kobler glanced quickly inside the Pavillon before walking into the restaurant. He chose a table which gave him a good view through the glass-panelled door of the reception hall, ordered a pot of coffee, paid for it, and settled down to wait.
The cab he had travelled in from the station was parked outside. He had paid the driver a generous tip with instructions to wait for him. A titian-haired beauty wearing a short fur over her jeans tucked inside knee-length boots walked in and he stared at her.
Their eyes met and a flicker of interest showed in hers as she passed his table and chose a seat facing the reception hall. It was nice, Kobler reflected, to know that you hadn't lost your touch. She had, of course, in that long glance assessed his income group. Not a pro. Just a woman.
Half an hour later he saw a porter carrying luggage out of the reception hall, followed by an attractive woman, followed by Newman. He stood up, put on his coat and walked out of the revolving doors in time to see Newman's back disappearing inside the rear of a cab. He glanced along the pavement to his left and stiffened. Kobler missed one development as he climbed inside his own cab and told the driver to follow the cab ahead.