Terminal. Part 8

'I'm getting to the bottom of this thing whatever happens,' Beck had replied.

'You can't fight the system...'

'You want to bet? Sir?'

Tripet came on the line and they exchanged brief courtesies. Beck then told the Geneva chief inspector what he wanted, how to handle it with finesse finesse. As the conversation proceeded he detected a note of worry in Tripet's manner. He's unsure of his position, Beck judged.

'Between you and me, Tripet, this comes right from the top. And that's just between you and me. I just hope you can pick him up before he leaves town. You know where he's staying. Call him, send over a car right away if you'd sooner handle it that way. I leave it to you, but do it, Tripet...'

Beck replaced the receiver and picked up the paper, studying the photograph. He was going to need all the help he could muster - even unorthodox help. If it came to the crunch the press was one thing they couldn't muzzle. Yes, he needed allies. His face tightened. Christ! He wasn't going to let the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds get away with it just because they had half the money in the western world.

Basle. Erika Stahel closed her apartment door and leaned her back against it for a moment, clutching the armful of newspapers. Seidler guessed she had been running as he looked up from the table. Her face was flushed an even higher colour than usual.

'We've time for another cup of coffee before I go to work,' she told him.

'That would be nice...'

She placed the papers in a neat pile on the table. She was such a tidy, orderly girl, he reflected. It would be marvellous to settle down with her for ever. She danced off into the kitchen, expressing her joy that he was back. He could hear her humming a small tune while she prepared the coffee. He opened the first paper.

'You cleared the table for me,' she called out. 'Thank you, Manfred. You're getting quite domesticated. Do you mind?'

'It could become a habit...'

'Why not?' she responded gaily.

The moment she returned to the living-room she sensed a major change in the atmosphere. Sitting in his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves, Seidler was staring at the front page of the Journal de Geneve Journal de Geneve. She placed his cup of black coffee within reach - he never took sugar or milk and drank litres of the stuff, another indication that he was living on his nerves. She stood close to his shoulder, peering over it.

'Something wrong?'

'My lifeline. Maybe...'

He took the gold, felt-tipped pen she had given him and used it to circle the box headed Sommaire Sommaire. She was so generous - G.o.d knew how much of her month's salary she had squandered on the pen. He'd have liked to go out and buy her something. He had the money. But it meant going out ....'

'Robert Newman,' she read out and sipped coffee. 'The Kruger case. Newman was the reporter who tracked his bank account to Basle. We still don't know how he managed that. Why is he so important?'

'Because, Erika...' He wrapped an arm round her slim waist, 'he's such an independent b.a.s.t.a.r.d. No vested interest in the world can buy him once he gets his teeth into a story. No one can stop him.'

'You know this Newman?'

'Unfortunately, no. But I can reach him. You see it even says where he's staying. I'd better call him - but I'll use that public phone box just down the street...'

'You didn't want to be seen outside...'

'It's worth the risk. I have to do something. Newman might even be working on the Gold Club story. Terminal...'

'Manfred!' There was surprise, a hint of hurt in her voice. 'When I told you about that you gave me the impression you'd never heard of either the Gold Club or Terminal.'

He looked uncomfortable. Taking the cup of coffee out of her hand he hauled her on to his lap. She really weighed nothing at all. He stared straight at her. He was about to break the habit of a lifetime - to trust trust another human being. another human being.

'It was for your own protection. That's G.o.d's truth. Don't ask me any more - knowledge can kill you when such ruthless and powerful forces are involved. Whatever happens, say nothing to Nagel, your boss...'

'I wouldn't dream of it. Can't you go to the police?' she asked for the third time, then desisted as she caught his look of fear, near-desperation. She saw the time by his watch and eased herself off his lap. 'I simply have to go, Manfred. My job...'

'Don't forget to deposit that case. In your own name.. 'Only if you sign this card. I collected it yesterday. No argument, Manfred - or I won't take the case...'

'What is it?'

'A deposit receipt for a safety box. We both have to be able to get access to it. Those are the only terms on which I'll take that case.'

He sighed, signed it with his illegible but distinctive signature and gave back the card. When she had left the apartment he sat there for some time, amazed at his action. A year ago he'd have laughed in the face of anyone who told him that one day he would entrust half a million francs to a young girl. The nice thing was he felt quite contented now he had taken the plunge.

The real effort, he knew, would be to phone Newman.

They were waiting for him when Newman followed Nancy out of the Pavillon. Two men in plain clothes seated in the reception hall who stood up and walked straight over to him. A tall man with a long face, a shorter man, chubby and amiable.

'M. Newman?' the tall man enquired. 'Could you please accompany us.' It was a statement not a question. 'We are police officers...'

'Nancy, go up to our room while I sort this out,' Newman said briskly. He stared at the tall man. 'Accompany you where - and why?'

'To police headquarters...'

'Address,' Newman snapped.

'Twenty-four Boulevard Carl-Vogt...'

'Show me some identification, for Christ's sake.'

'Certainly, sir.' Ostrich, as Newman had already nicknamed the tall one, produced a folder which Newman examined carefully before handing it back. As far as he could tell it was kosher.

'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 Munic.i.p.ale Biblioteque Munic.i.p.ale. 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 ident.i.ty 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 d.a.m.n thing to do with you. Ever since I came in this time I've been watched and hara.s.sed...'

'Hara.s.sed, Mr Newman?'

'Kindly listen and don't interrupt! I said hara.s.sed - and I meant hara.s.sed. 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, a.s.sistant 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 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...' 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 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...' 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 a terminal. I checked that. Just terminal ...' terminal. I checked that. Just terminal ...'

Newman sat staring into s.p.a.ce. 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 compet.i.tion.

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 terminal - and had watched Newman intently as he spoke. - and had watched Newman intently as he spoke.

Now this weirdo, Manfred Seidler, was offering to tell him all about - terminal. What the h.e.l.l 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?