Hostage Tower (24 page)

The timer ticked remorselessly on. 4.22. 4.21. 4.20.

Smith motioned to Leah to turn off his oxygen tap. He pushed up the rubber mask, and let the breathing pipe drop from his mouth.

She looked at him, an unspoken query on her face. He gently lifted her mask off and teased the tube out from between her strong white teeth.

Leah had a sudden premonition, yet dared not give voice to it. But she knew Mister Smith … better than he imagined.

Smith's voice was like an evil caress, a touch from the grave: like the breath of Satan.

‘Leah, you have always pleased me greatly,' he purred. ‘I could not have asked for a better companion. You have been loyal, inventive, daring; you share my glorious vision of crime as a redeeming force, a power that can cleanse the soul and uplift the spirit.

‘But Leah … dear, faithful Leah; my brave passionate friend.'

Leah's mouth was dry with the sour taste of
fear. Smith saw burgeoning panic in her eyes, those blue-green eyes that regarded him normally with such undiscriminating adoration. He touched her face, stroked the rounded cheek; he let his finger trace the curve of her eyebrow, and smiled understandingly as she tried to speak but couldn't, the words lodged in her throat like uninvited guests.

‘It's simply that … I'm tired of you, Leah.' The fingers wandered down the other cheek, trailing over her ear, and settling on her smooth neck.

‘I need a change, my pet. Besides, you will be an encumbrance on the journey I am planning to take. You will slow me down, Leah. I cannot permit that to happen. You are, I regret to say, dispensable. Superfluous.'

Leah found the words at last, and they came tumbling out: declarations of love, protestations of faith, words of pleading … begging.

Smith's manicured hand still rested on her neck. ‘Of course, of course, Leah, of course I understand. And we shall meet again, as you say. One day. Who knows? But for now, sweet Leah, this is –' he paused and chuckled as the thought occurred to him ‘– this is one bath I shall be taking alone.'

He laughed, found the pressure point in her neck, dug his finger into it, and carefully caught her as she slumped unconscious to the concrete floor.

‘We can't have you damaged now, can we?' he murmured. ‘I don't like pretty things to be hurt – and you are a pretty little thing, Leah.' Her unseeing eyes looked up at him.

‘Yet I believe,' Smith went on, as though she could hear him, ‘that I actually heard you say one day that I was “boring”, was it? Did you think I'd forgotten that, Leah? Oh no, my dear. Mister Smith never forgets anything.'

He had cradled her head, and now he let it fall on to the stonework. Her mouth gaped open, and only the rise and fall of her breasts showed that she was still alive.

Smith readjusted his mask and tube, and set the aqualung tap once more to ‘on'. He shook his head sadly, and lowered himself into the water-main. His hand holding the rim of the inspection hatch, he uncoupled the nylon thread from the bolt, and pulled on it.

Three blue rubberized diver's bags swam into view. They were linked together, fat, bulbous cylinders, like monstrous sausages.

Smith smiled and released them, keeping hold of the end of the line.

The king-sized dollar frankfurters and the swiftly moving current pulled him to the Seine.

Sabrina's tremulous fingers touched the detonator. Holding her breath, she hooked her thumbnail and fingernail around the live wire.

Millimetre by millimetre, with sticky globules
of plastique clinging to it, the detonator slid out. It freed itself from its vicious mooring with an obscene ‘plop'.

Sabrina groaned and murmured a long, drawn-out ‘H-e-e-e-y.' She let the detonator fall from her hand, and it plummeted to earth.

‘One down,' she breathed. ‘Three to go. Ah well –'

The clock dial on the red box showed 3.52. 3.51. 3.50. 3.49 …

Graham launched himself furiously against the door of the inspection chamber. It splintered under his charge, and he burst into the room at the crouch, prepared to sell his unprotected life dearly.

He pulled up short, taking in the open water-main, the unconscious woman – and the line of bubbles leading out to the river.

Without a second's hesitation he bent down, ripped the mask and tube from Leah's front and the tank from her back, donned them swiftly, and dropped into the fast-flowing stream …

Sabrina squirmed down the flailing rope, and pulled up short, jamming her feet against the tower struts, opposite the next charge. Her head told her to get on with the job: to disarm the second, the third, the fourth bombs.

Her heart told her there just wasn't time. When the mighty tower buckled and plunged to the ground in a tangle of twisted iron, she would still
be on it. She sniffed, and approached the muddy-grey mess of plastique.

Crew members and hostages jumped off the tower to freedom or arrest as C.W. clambered up the spidery frame and snapped on a torch to locate Sabrina. He spotted her with her hand easing into the heart of a girder, and he wisely kept silent.

Then he saw her holding a detonator, clinging to the swaying rope and wiping her streaming brow on the shoulder-piece of her combat jacket.

‘Sabrina – it's me. How many have you got?'

She followed the beam of light to its source. ‘Oh, thank God you're here, C.W. We may have a chance now. Not a big one, but at least a chance. This is my second –' she tossed the detonator into the wind. ‘I've done the west and south pillars. I haven't touched east or north. Take whichever you like.'

C.W. galvanized his weary body into action, and scrambled over the tower as if his life depended on it.

Which it did.

The timer clicked on. 2.48. 2.47. 2.46. 2.45 …

Arc-lamps were now trained on the tower from all sides. At the communications van, Ducret and Poupon followed through binoculars every agonizing second of the battle to save their preposterous tower.

‘How much time left?' Ducret muttered.

‘We don't know precisely when the charges
were armed,' Poupon replied, puffing his pipe into Ducret's face, ‘but there can't be more than three of Smith's fifteen minutes remaining. So –' he shrugged expansively.

‘I hope to God Philpott knows what he's doing,' Ducret commented. ‘Presumably there's been no sign of Smith among the men we captured?'

Poupon shook his grizzled head. ‘Nothing. But
I
think Philpott knows what he's doing, Monsieur le Ministre. And I hope to God that those two on the tower do, as well.'

2.01. 2.00 1.59 …

C.W. strained out over the spiral section of staircase and lunged for the playful rope. The wind gusted again, but this time it favoured the good. The rope flew to his hand.

He grabbed it thankfully, and launched himself into space, swinging out in a wide arc, and surging back towards the east pillar at a dangerous speed. At the girder junction, C.W. took one hand off the rope and clawed for a cross-beam. His fingers connected, but the strut was slick with evening dew, and it slipped from his grasp.

C.W.'s body slammed into the pillar and bounced off. He shouted and swore, and kicked himself away to come in again at a less acute angle. With a plummy slap, his hand found the cross-beam, and locked on to it.

He trapped the precious rope and, as Sabrina had twice done, wedged it safe as he faced the east pillar bomb.

His hand snaked out – but his naked foot, curled on the lower cross-strut, skidded off. He grunted and made a wild sweep for the girder, hooking his heel painfully on to the horizontal.

‘Cool, baby, cool,' he breathed. ‘Play it like diamonds – or that gorgeous Chinese horse.'

Summoning all his nerve and skill, C.W. throttled down, and carefully drew out the detonator.

He looked around wildly, and saw Sabrina making her way as best she could towards the north flank.

The dial on the concealed timing device pipped under the minute mark.

‘Leave it, honey!' he screamed, and set off across the tower like a demented acrobat. Again – as he had with Adela Wheeler on his back – C.W. chose the hard way. He abandoned climbing when he reached a point he thought was level with the charge, swung himself up to a horizontal I-beam, and ran across it at full tilt, unseeing and uncaring.

The timer marked off the vanishing seconds. 23. 22. 21 …

Sabrina had also lost all sense of fear. Reckless of the danger, she unknowingly raced C.W. from the opposite side of the tower, and they collided in a tangle of arms and legs at the north pillar junction. The timer stood at nine seconds – and counting.

‘Where the – is it?' C.W. gasped, feeling in the box of the girder.

‘Oh my God,' Sabrina cried, ‘we're too low. It's up there!' She pointed above their heads. The blob of plastic with its wired catalyst rested out of their reach.

Four seconds.

‘Up!' C.W. screamed, making a cradle. Frantically, she hooked her foot into his clenched hands and he levered her into the air.

It was no time for finesse. No time for anything.

Two seconds.

She dipped her fingers into the plastic, drew out the detonator, and tossed it back over her head.

One second. Zero. Ignition!

The detonator exploded in mid-air. Simultaneously, the three from the other pillars fired where they lay on the ground.

Sabrina Carver locked her ankles around the neck of C. W. Whitlock and her arms around the cold iron column and cried into the wind.

But the Eiffel Tower was safe.

The wide mouth of the water-main opened on the bank of the Seine, and coughed up three plump sausages and a man in a black wet-suit.

Smith surfaced, peered through his mask in every direction, and kicked strongly for the rubberized ransom bags. He collected them, hauled his body on to the leading bag, and struck out down river towards an anchored Bateau Mouche.

Two minutes later, a second black-suited, aqualunged figure shot from the pipe in the powerful current and was tossed head over heels into the river. Graham flapped like an ungainly, paddling dog, clawed his way to the surface, and trod water.

He, too, looked this way and that. Light flooded on to the Seine from behind him, and from the glow of street lamps. He saw his fast-crawling quarry on the buoyant raft, and noiselessly set out after him.

Smith reached the Bateau Mouche, grasped the ladder, and pulled himself up on deck. He had tied the nylon thread around his waist, and he reached down to tug the bags to the side of the boat and drag them in.

Mike abandoned his churning crawl, and settled into a quieter breast-stroke. His passage through the even surface of the water created hardly a ripple.

Smith stowed the ransom bags away, and padded over to the helm of the Bateau Mouche. He started the engine. It came to life with a sudden roar.

Smith ran forward and cast off the bowline, leaving it trailing. He was doubling back the length of the boat to cast off the sternline, when he spotted the dark shape angling in towards the stern.

Smith had no gun with him. Nor was there one on the boat. Nonetheless, he was not completely unarmed. Smith was never completely unarmed.

But he chose not to tangle with the newcomer. Instead, he threw off the sternline, and felt the Bateau Mouche drift slowly away on the current. He sped forward again, to take his place at the helm. A smile played on his lips.

His hands closed on the gear-shift levers, and Smith threw both engines into reverse. Then he jammed the throttles up to full-speed.

The river foamed and boiled under the plunging boat, and Smith, standing at the door of the wheelhouse, peered into the spume passing the bow.

His smile changed to a broad grin as a solitary aqualung, its straps torn and hanging loose, floated by.

Smith turned and re-entered the wheelhouse. He eased the throttles back, and levered the gearshift to forward.

The Bateau Mouche chugged amiably down the Seine, different from the other boats taking the night air only in the respect that it sported minimal lights. Leisurely, Smith changed back into the clothes he'd brought with him from the tower.

He whistled, and occasionally looked out through the window above the helm. He scanned the sky, fell silent, looked out again – and, once more, fell to whistling. It was a jaunty little sea shanty. English, Smith thought. Great seafaring race, the English.

Large rubber tyres formed a waterline frieze along the side of the Bateau Mouche, and Mike Graham clung groggily to the last in line. He dragged himself up the side of the boat, and slithered over the rail to land in a wet heap on deck.

Mike lay there for a few moments getting his breath and his senses back. Then he climbed to his feet, and crept past the benches under their striped awning towards the bow. He sidled up to the wheelhouse, and peeped through the glass door.

He met Smith eyeball to eyeball.

Smith throttled back, and put his engine in neutral. He leaned down, as if he had all the time in the world, and casually drew a long-bladed knife from a sheath at his right leg.

Graham saw light winking on the metal, and backed away. Smith jerked open the door and moved in eerie silence out on to the slippery deck.

Warily, they circled, Smith's keen eyes ranging over Graham from head to foot. He registered no surprise when he saw who it was. The fact that the Eiffel Tower had not blown didn't particularly distress him. He had his ransom, and the escape path was clear. Well, almost. And if anyone among his crew was to survive and elude capture, Smith would have bet on Mike Graham.

Smith was finally satisfied that Graham was not armed. He danced in like the practised knife-fighter he was, arm held low, the knife sitting easily in
his upturned hand, twisting and turning, perfectly balanced.

But Mike Graham, too, was a master of many forms of combat. He knew knife-men well, and had long since diagnosed their strengths and weaknesses. The weaknesses he had found many ways of exploiting: and the strengths he was adept at turning against the man with the dagger.