Hands of the Traitor (32 page)

"Stop!"

The tall man with the ponytail, the man
driving the car, still didn't understand. He hit the back of his
head with the loose end of the links. The man understood now. He
was stupid, driving all over the place. Sadique grinned. There, the
man was stopping. These two men were fine companions. It was a
shame there were no fixes left to share with them.

Just one more touch with the chain and the
man driving the car would be easy to put into bonds. He laughed to
himself as he flicked the end of the chain forward. Both men
slumped in their seats. He would start on the younger one -- the
one with the pointed beard.

*

FRANK HEINMAN
quickly realized
that the injuries to his head were more superficial than terminal.
The back of his scalp was cut but he'd not lost consciousness, in
spite of receiving one hell of a crack from the wild foreigner. The
man with the shaved head was a real kook. It wasn't just the
Berlitzan oil that had made him behave like this. It had to be
insanity as well.

He fought ineffectively as the psycho
tied him to the front passenger seat with a length of cord and
pushed a gag into his mouth. The couple in the Volvo must have been
camping. There was plenty of the damn cord around. He was like the
proverbial dumb animal being taken to the slaughter.

As he watched his son being dragged into
the back, he felt his emotions erupt. Although he'd never got on
with Jason, he wasn't going to let this stranger mess his son
about. He managed to spit the gag from his mouth but the cords bit
in tightly as he struggled. The maniac must have learnt a thing or
two about knots in his more rational moments.

"What the hell!" Jason recovered
consciousness in an explosive instant.

"Don't annoy him." It was a timely
warning. "Find out what he wants."

"
Vous etes mes amis
." The big man smiled a
yellow-toothed smile as he spoke.

Frank struggled again to loosen the
cords. "What the hell is he saying, Jason? You speak the
language."

"
Amis
is friends. He wants to be friends."

"Tell him he has one hell of a way of
showing it."

"
Amis,
" repeated Jason to the big man with the chain.
"
Nous sommes
vos amis
."

"Now what's going on?" Frank
demanded.

"I'm telling him we're his
friends."

"You'd be better off telling
him to untie us." Frank wrenched at the cord around his waist and
it cut into his flesh. "I'll give him
amis
when we're out of here!"

The maniac got into the
driver's seat, grinning. "Sadique!" He pointed to himself proudly.
"
Je
m'appelle Sadique!
"

"He's telling us he's called Sadique,"
said Jason.

"Hell, boy, I don't care if he's
called Daffy Duck." Frank could feel a crushing pressure in his
chest as he struggled for breath.

"Just shut it," muttered Jason from
the rear seat. "I'm trying to get out of these ropes."

The maniac let out a cry of triumph as he
pulled a gold cylinder from Jason's bag. Perhaps he recognized it
as the type of cylinder that had affected his friends. Frank turned
away. Telling him not to open it would be an invitation to do so --
if they could speak the same language.

The lunatic needed no such
bidding. He was already unscrewing the cap as a bright red Japanese
sports
car,
top open, shot by. The young driver had swerved towards the Volvo
and blasted out a bar of Colonel Bogey as he was alongside. The
passenger added to the provocation by waving derisively.

The red automobile was the trigger. A
smell of tom-cats filled the Volvo. The young men in the open car
had pushed the junkie into taking retaliatory action, and the
maniac pressed his foot hard to the floor of the Volvo. The smoking
rear tires screeched in protest as he swung the station wagon in a
full one-eighty. The madman kept his foot down and accelerated
towards the disappearing rear of the Mazda on the highway back to
Calais.

Frank fought to stay calm as the bonds
cut into his arms and chest, but his fear was changing to fury.
This creature was about to kill them, and he could do nothing about
it. It was more than frustration; it was a rage that he had no wish
to control.

As they plunged down the hill, Frank
realized that the young Mazda driver was out to play games. He'd
obviously seen the big Volvo turn in the highway and now let it
catch up. Then, as the madman calling himself Sadique pulled out to
overtake, he accelerated away, before slowing again in a taunting
maneuver as they climbed the steep, winding hill.

The driver of the red Mazda was living
dangerously. There was a bend coming up, a sharp left-hander at the
top of the narrow gorge. Frank recognized it as the place where
Jason had nearly put a wheel wrong coming the other way; a bend
with a breathtaking drop to the river, with only a low wall for
protection. He'd been angry with Jason at the time for driving
carelessly.

The maniac with the chains gripped the
steering wheel, his knuckles white, screaming abuse at the car only
a few yards ahead. The Mazda driver slowed at the top of the hill,
but only enough to be sure of taking the corner safely. The Volvo
lurched violently and stayed close.

The driver in the Mazda turned in time to
see the station wagon bearing down on him before it smashed heavily
into the back of his car. The massive bumper of the Volvo lifted
the red sports car's rear wheels high in the air, forcing it
forward, its steering on full left lock in a futile attempt to
avoid the drop. But the Mazda was being pushed straight
ahead.

The sports car smashed through the low
wall as the occupants struggled to their feet in a desperate bid
for safety, until they were standing almost to attention in their
seats. Then they were gone.

The Volvo was going with them. Frank
Heinman let out a scream. But the engine pan caught on the remains
of the stonework -- and the blue station wagon stayed
put.

Chapter
25

HE WAS
going to die.

The maniac was going to kill him, was
going to kill Jason as well. Like his own father, he was meeting a
violent death in a foreign land.

The Berlitzan oil still smelt strongly
in the Volvo. The smell alone would provoke anger, without the
virulent effect it was having on his nervous system. The corrosive
oil had already eaten through the floor and left a smoking hole in
the steel.

Frank realized just how much he'd admired
his father -- once. Now he felt a terrible resentment. Albert B.
Heinman -- an uncaring man who got what he deserved on that Nazi
missile site. It was Jason's fault they were here now. He'd kill
Jason -- as soon as he could get free from these damn
ropes!

The crazed devil leapt from the Volvo.
For a moment it seemed that the station wagon would tip forward
with the shift in weight. The vehicle rocked, then settled, with a
sheer drop to the rocks far beneath the front wheels. The lunatic
stood on the edge of the gorge and screamed unknown words into the
depths.

Then he jumped.

Demented by a mixture of drugs and
Berlitzan oil, the maniac with the chains hurled himself forward.
With his arms and legs waving crazily, he disappeared from sight,
in all probability drawn by the sight of the red Mazda lying on the
rocks far below.

Jason started to moan in the
back of the Volvo and Frank turned to look at his son with
loathing. Things said in the past, silly things, took on monstrous
importance. The insults and stupid actions, the lack of company
loyalty. The infection went too deep to be cured. Jason had been
like a disease since the day he was born. Those illegal arms deals
with Hammid Aziz had put DCI's reputation at risk. He'd kill him
now
-- if he
could only get free. He struggled again, but the cords would never
loosen.

"For God's sake, stop it,
Father!"

Frank continued to struggle in the
front passenger seat.

"Keep still," yelled his son. "We're
going over."

"I never wanted you. I hope you die,"
retorted Frank. He wondered why he'd tolerated his son for so
long.

"Berlitzan oil!" Jason breathed
deeply. "We can beat it."

"I'm going to kill you, boy." He
would, as soon as he was free.

"We don't have to let the stuff get to
us." His son sounded calmer now. "Direct your hatred outside of
this car. Think of other people you want to kill."

"I hate
you!
" Frank clenched his teeth and let
out a stream of obscenities.

"Think of someone else." Jason leaned
close to the open window in the back of the Volvo. "Think of that
English soldier in the war. Think of someone outside the family you
really hate."

"Who do you hate, Jason?"

His son suddenly screamed with rage.
"DCI! I'd destroy the whole damn organization if I could. But I
don't blame you."

Either the smell was clearing
or Jason had hit on the Achilles heel of Berlitzan oil. If he
couldn't control his hatred, he could at least direct it
against
an
enemy who wasn't here. Jason was a good son, but the English
soldier had deserved all he got with that knife. How he'd hated
that man. He could rip him apart again.

"You okay, Father?"

"I don't hate you anymore," he said
quietly.

"See, it's working." Jason sounded
jubilant as he breathed more fresh air from the open window. "We've
cracked it. Just keep thinking love."

Frank didn't bother to reply. He was
back in the hospital cutting the hands off Alec Rider. Ripping at
the man's mouth so that the jaw snapped wide open to reveal the
toothless gums. And the eyes. He could see the old soldier's eyes
filled with terror, just like his father's eyes in 1944 when he
leaned forward to pull the pin from the grenade.

*

SOPHIE SOUNDED
by far the
brightest of the three as the ageing Renault made its smoky way
down the A1 towards Paris. Although not as direct as the A26
through Reims and Troyes, this was a busy
autoroute
where the police would find it hard
to observe the occupants of every car.

Matt leaned forward in the back seat.
"Tell me, Sophie, why do you remember my grandfather so
well?"

"Ah, my Tommy from the war. Your
grandfather was a lovely man, Matthieu."

"Lovely," agreed Matt. "I don't want
to upset you too much, but can you tell us exactly what happened at
the Nazi launch site?"

"I have always felt a share of the
guilt, so perhaps it is time I faced up to what took place. The two
Americans came in a small German plane. Colonel Röhm was in charge.
He said the Americans had brought a secret weapon. I think he was
joking."

"It was no joke," said
Matt.

The old woman ignored the
interruption, apparently absorbed in the events. "The plane
returned that night to take the Americans away. There were reports
of Allied landings along the Pas-de-Calais. It was a false
alarm."

Matt struggled to follow the
conversation. His French was good, but Sophie spoke too quickly for
him at times. "And then the site blew up?"

Sophie nodded slowly. "Tommy fired his
machine gun, and the German plane ran out of control. It hit the
store where they kept the flying bombs. The two Americans ran with
me to the wire where your grandfather was hiding. Tommy had already
opened the top of one of those gold cylinders, and when the four of
us huddled together for safety we all became angry."

"It was a poison gas."

"I do not know, Matthieu. Perhaps. But
the two Americans got mad with each other and with Tommy. I think
we were all out of control."

"And they hit my grandfather on the
head?"

"The three of them behaved like savages.
Tommy cut the old man's hands off with his chef's knife -- while
the old man was still alive. Tommy kept shouting that he must have
the gold rings. The older American was making so much noise that
Tommy forced a grenade into his mouth to shut him up. His son,
Frank, reached across and did something to it. The noise as it
exploded was terrible. Frank Heinman was hit in the mouth and arm
by some of the fragments. I got the blood and the brains of the old
man all over me. That made me scream even more. I did not realize
at first that Tommy had also been injured by the
grenade."

"I knew nothing about this," said Matt
softly. Perhaps it was as well his grandfather had never
remembered. "But only one of the Americans died; the young one
escaped. Am I right?"

Sophie nodded. "I dragged Tommy into
the reeds. The Germans found the body of the old man and took him
away with the dead soldiers, and the young American was driven off
in a staff car with Colonel Röhm."