This United State Part 25

'He was in a towering rage. I had to phone him again a short time ago. Another body was discovered after I received an anonymous phone call. Wonder who that could have been? This corpse was in a ground-floor room near the top of the Alley of the Eleven Thousand Virgins. Had a knife through his throat. It had penetrated through the back of his thick neck.'

'Who was this one?' Tweed enquired.

'Another.American. Another with a diplomatic pa.s.sport. A Rick Sherman. Also registered as staying at the Euler.'

'How did Mr Ronstadt react to this further news?'

'He was apoplectic. Raved on about how I was the Chief of Police and Basel was becoming the murder capital of Europe. He slammed the phone down on me before I could advise him to get in touch with his Emba.s.sy in Berne.'

'Things do seem to be warming up,' Tweed remarked.

'I know these men are gangsters,' Beck said, his tone grim. 'I still have to investigate.' He paused, looked at Newman and then at Butler, both of whom sat with their legs crossed. 'I wondered whether you had been outside this morning. I notice that Newman's shoes are drying out in this warmth, but the soles are still damp. As are Mr Butler's.'

'We went for a breath of fresh air along Blumenrain,' explained Tweed. 'Very fresh it was. I noticed your river police still have that boathouse under the lee of the promenade.'

'We have to watch the river. Along Blumenrairt? Well, that is in the opposite direction from the Alley of the Eleven Thousand Virgins.' Beck stood up. 'Thank you for allowing me to question you.'

'Any time, Arthur,' Tweed replied, standing up. 'Any time.'

Paula was about to open the door when Beck turned back. He smiled at Tweed.

'Incidentally, whatever the plans of the Americans were they seem to have put them on hold.'

'How do you mean?'

'Well, the car with two Americans which drove them through the checkpoint towards Freiburg - and possibly on to the Black Forest - has returned here. The officer at the checkpoint has told me he had the impression they have been recalled in quite a hurry. Take care of yourselves, everyone ...'

When they were alone Tweed rubbed his hands. Paula poured him more coffee, then looked at him as she spoke.

'You look pleased with yourself.' - 'Pleased, but not with myself - and not complacent. I just knew Ronstadt would be checkmated, at least temporarily...'

'Knew?' queried Paula.

'Wrong word, my sixth sense told me.'

'And how did you know the boathouse for police launches is still there?' she asked. 'We never walked along Blumenrain.'

'If you lean out of my window, as I did when we arrived, you can see it. You're interrogating me,' he joked. He looked at Nield. 'Pete, I meant to ask you earlier. Did you think to do something about your fingerprints on the handle of that knife you threw at Sherman?'

'Naturally. It was a bit of a job with Sherman in that position, but I managed it.'

'While I gently lifted the corpse,' Butler added.

'Thank heavens for that,' Tweed told them. 'Then there was that brick Irina removed from the wall.'

'Which we carefully put back in place,' Newman confirmed.

'You seem to have thought of everything.'

'That is our job,' Newman remarked.

-'I'm sure that sooner or later Ronstadt and his thugs will drive to the Black Forest - Kurt did tell us with his last word that the base is there. But recent events have thrown Mr Jake Ronstadt off balance - the loss of the money at the Zurcher Kredit, plus the loss of five of his men within hours. It does give us a breathing s.p.a.ce.'

'I have something for you,' said Marler.

He handed to Tweed the small black book with a faded cover extracted from the cavity behind the brick. Tweed was about to examine its contents when Nield spoke.

'And I've got something for you. I'll fetch it from my room. Back in a minute.'

Tweed had started to read the brief notes in English in the notebook when Nield returned. He handed Tweed a file. Tweed's mind flashed back to the American Emba.s.sy in London, when he had seen Jefferson Morgenstern placing a file into a safe which had looked like a bank vault. He looked up.

'Pete, is this what I think it, is?'

'It's the file you asked us to grab from the safe inside the Security room at Grosvenor Square.'

'How on earth did you manage it. I thought afterwards I'd given you an impossible task.'

'Simple, really,' Nield explained. 'Most of it was down to Harry, expert locksmith and safe-cracker. We went in late evening by a door in a side street. Harry spotted it was equipped with a concealed alarm. Took him no time to deal with that, to open the door. There were still people in the building. We crept up a side staircase, got into the room next to Security, left a special fire-bomb with timer under the window, then Harry unlocked the door into Security...'

'Pete did act as lookout,' Butler added, 'so I could concentrate on my bit.'

'His bit involved opening the safe. Biggest job I've ever seen.'

'The more complex they try to make them,' Butler remarked, 'the easier they are to get into. I closed it after we'd got our hands on the file.'

'About that time the fire-bomb went off,' Nield continued. 'It gave off a lot of heat, which cracked the gla.s.s of the window. Important, that. The bomb contained a huge amount of smoke which flooded out of the window. We heard alarms going off, people rus.h.i.+ng up and down the corridor outside.'

'How on earth did you get out?' asked Tweed.

'Simple. Opened the window when the fire brigade arrived - in no time at all. Saw them using a telescopic ladder to rescue a few people from another window. We waved like mad, they moved the ladder along, sent it up to us. Helped by a chap in a helmet, we climbed down the ladder, walked away. We wore charcoal black business suits - the type Americans pretending to be English are wearing at the moment. Walked to where we'd left our car, drove back to Park Crescent. Simple.'

'Nothing like as simple as you make it sound, I'm sure.'

Tweed opened the file. He sat back to read the first typed sheet. He read it again. Then he sat up straight. 'Oh, my G.o.d.'

'What is it?'

Paula had asked the question. She had rarely heard Tweed use the words he had just uttered. He sat rigid. He handed the file to her.

'Read that first sheet. The Americans are moving much faster with their operation than I'd antic.i.p.ated. Which means we may have very little time left to stop them ...'

The vast task force sailed on into the night, leaving behind Newport News, the naval base on the east coast of America. The centrepiece of the force, a main a.s.set of the United States, was the gigantic 110,000-ton aircraft carrier President President. The colossal s.h.i.+p had a crew of 6,500 men aboard, was armed with a devastating collection of nuclear missiles. Such s.h.i.+ps do not put to sea without a fleet of powerful escorting vessels - distributed at a distance to port and starboard, way behind the stern, way ahead of the immense bow. No nation in the world could have mustered a fleet as advanced and numerous as the escorts.

Aboard one escort vessel was a unit of SEALs. These were naval men trained to be the toughest fighters on the planet. On the same vessel were new fast-moving amphibious craft which could carry the SEALs to land them on any beach, put them ash.o.r.e so they could drive inland to destroy their target.

Perched on top of the endless deck of the aircraft carrier, reared the Island - the control tower, over forty feet high and composed of several different levels. The President President was one of the jewels in the crown of American world power. The movements of this terrible weapon of war were controlled by Rear Admiral Joseph Honey- wood. Six feet two tall, he was built like a quarterback and had a craggy face, which was why he was known throughout the US Navy as Crag. He sat relaxed in his chair at a lower level inside the Island. His eyes were blue, his hair dark, his movements slow and deliberate. was one of the jewels in the crown of American world power. The movements of this terrible weapon of war were controlled by Rear Admiral Joseph Honey- wood. Six feet two tall, he was built like a quarterback and had a craggy face, which was why he was known throughout the US Navy as Crag. He sat relaxed in his chair at a lower level inside the Island. His eyes were blue, his hair dark, his movements slow and deliberate.

Outwardly he was a calm man. He had never been known to allow a crisis to disturb him. He issued orders tersely, in a quiet voice. He abhorred anyone showing excitement on the bridge and an offender would be demoted on the spot. Which is why it was surprising that he had been startled when he had opened his sealed orders. Not that anyone observing him would have known his reaction. He read them twice, then handed them to his Operations Officer.

'Say, Bill, you might like to take a look.'

It was the opening, brief paragraph which caused the officer to muster all his self-control not to show surprise. That paragraph was followed by route instructions, ordering them to steer clear of all s.h.i.+pping lanes and flight paths of commercial airliners. As the Rear Admiral had done, the officer read the opening paragraph twice.

Objective: Great Britain. The English Channel off Portsmouth.

'I reckon, Bill,' Crag said in an offhand way, 'it should take us no more than seven days to reach our objective.

23.

'It's time we killed some of Tweed's people.' Vernon grunted, then continued. 'Better still, wipe out all the m ************ with one bomb. Put them underground for good.'

'Or underwater,' Ronstadt said viciously. 'You've given me an idea.'

He had called a meeting in his suite. Only three people were present, Ronstadt, Vernon and Brad. Recently Ronstadt had promoted the two men to be his deputies. He played with his pack of cards. That had been a smart move, he was thinking. If he gave them a task which was dangerous they'd go for it, puffed up with pride by their new status. Which left him in the clear if anything went wrong.

'Underwater?' queried the squat Brad. 'Don't get it.'

'Wouldn't expect you to - otherwise, feller, you'd be sitting in my chair. Like this suite?' he asked suddenly.

'It's great, Jake,' Vernon said quickly.

'It's really great,' Brad agreed.

'Play your cards right and maybe - just maybe - you'll have a suite like this one. Play your cards,' he repeated, then held up his pack. 'See what I mean, dopes?'

'Sure, Jake,' they both said at the same time.

'It was a joke, morons,' Ronstadt snarled. 'Trouble with you guys is you ain't got no sense of humour. Remember what we pulled off outside Paris last year? You do? Amazing. Guess we could do the same thing here. We need a whisperer. Has to convince that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Tweed. Guess I know who could do it for us.'

Standing up, Ronstadt left the table, walked over to a window, gazed at the traffic outside the Euler. He was turning the idea over in his mind. He suddenly returned to the table, where his two deputies were waiting for him.

'I've got it, you- guys. We use the bar here at the Euler. I hope you brought back the explosive when I recalled you from Hollental on my mobile. Hollental!' He grinned nastily. 'I've heard that's German for h.e.l.l's Valley. That's what we're going to give them. h.e.l.l.' His tone became savage. 'Tweed's mob has eliminated five of my men. I always pay back. And do I have to ask you again? Did you bring back the explosive?'

'We did,' Vernon said hastily. 'Enough to blow the Three Kings Hotel sky-high.'

'We'll need that kind of amount for this job. Give you details later. Stay in your rooms. Don't drink. Why are you still here? I have phone calls to make.'

'We're going now,' Vernon said, jumping up, followed by Brad.

Alone in the room, Ronstadt shuffled his cards, almost without realizing he was doing so. He'd had to tell his deputies about the five dead men - they'd soon notice they were missing. What he had kept to himself was the disaster at the Zurcher Kredit. He'd threatened Vernon with mayhem if he mentioned the scene he'd witnessed. In any case, what did Vernon know about money?

The one thing Ronstadt had hated doing was having to explain to Charlie what had happened. On top of that he'd had to ask Charlie to have more funds transmitted electronically from the US to the Zurcher Kredit. Charlie had given him a roasting.

Standing up again, he went back to the window. He'd better make that phone call, get the show on the road.

He grinned as he visualized what was going to happen this evening. He waved a hand behind the net curtain. 'Bye-bye, Mr Tweed ...'

Paula stared with shock at the doc.u.ment, the typed sheet Tweed had pa.s.sed to her. She could hardly believe what she had just read.

THE COMMONWEALTH OF BRITAIN.

Governor - Tweed.

Following Tweed's name was a list of other positions. One was Chief Medical Examiner. Each position had the name of a well-known Englishman or Englishwoman shown. She stared at Tweed as he spoke.

'Hand it round to everyone.'

'What does it mean?' she asked, pa.s.sing the sheet to Newman. 'Why is the word Commonwealth used?'

'Because in America a number of states are called by that name. The Commonwealth of Virginia is one example. You're looking at a blueprint of Britain to be absorbed into the United States. If they pulled it off we'd be the fifty-first state.'

'You really think they're going to try and do this?'

'I know they are. Morgenstern practically said so when I had dinner with him. Gave me a lot of plausible reasons why they had to do it - from America's point of view. I just listened most of the time, to find out what they were up to. For some reason Jefferson has great faith in me. Hence my appointment to the top job - Governor.'

'You'd make a good one,' Newman commented.

'Except I'd slip abroad rather than have anything to do with their plan. When you've all seen that sheet you'll realise what a supreme effort we have to make to defeat them. And I have a horrible feeling we're up against a tight deadline.'

'So how do we hit them?' asked Marler, who had just read the sheet.

'In Kurt's black book he mentions a place called St Ursanne. I happen to know it. It's an attractive village, or small town, south of here, in Switzerland, the French-speaking part, and close to the border with France. That's where we're going this morning.'

'Why?' asked Paula.

'Because in his little book Kurt has written after St Ursanne the Hotel d'Or, in La Ruelle. And a name, Juliette Leroy. He has scribbled after that General Guisan. I a.s.sume I have to use the same pa.s.sword when I meet Leroy as Marler used when he met Irina. I think Kurt Schwarz had great faith in women keeping secrets - providing he chose the right women.'

'He could make friends with women easily,' Paula said. 'I was very taken, by his gentle personality when he had dinner at my flat.'

'Hold on,' said Marler. 'We all come with you? I think we should after what's happened. But what about the Black Forest? If Ronstadt and Co. take off for that area we won't be here to follow them.'

'Ronstadt isn't going anywhere at the moment. He's waiting for more funds to arrive after Keith's conjuring trick at the bank.'

'You sound as though you know,' Paula said.

'I'm betting on being right. I'll cover the Black Forest before we go, by phoning Beck. No, I'll pop across the road, hope he's in, and see him. I think I can persuade him to get two off-duty officers to stand by the checkpoint in an unmarked car. If Ronstadt leaves they can follow him. We have to find out what there is in St Ursanne. I have great faith in Kurt Schwarz.'

'When are you going to see Beck?' Newman asked. 'Now.'

'Then I'm coming with you.'

'I welcome your company. The rest of you get ready for this trip. Incidentally, we're going by train. Paula, find out train times to St Ursanne. We have to change at a place called Delemont.'