Terminal (28 page)

`A stalking horse?' She wrinkled her smooth brow. Nancy really did have a superb complexion Newman thought. He had a vivid recall of the state of Tommy Mason's complexion in the morgue. 'I don't understand,' Nancy said.

`Then I'll try and explain it, so you'll understand, so maybe just for once you'll listen to me. And — no maybe — do as I tell you...'

`Give me one good reason.'

She annoyed him by standing up and walking over to gaze out of the window. It was another overcast day. A cloud bank like a grey sea pressed down on Berne. A white mist drifted closer along the river, heading in towards the city off the Bantiger.

`There's some kind of conspiracy,' Newman began. 'It's very widespread. I'm still vague on the details but I sense that it affects the whole of Switzerland — what you'd call in America the industrial-military complex. The police — the Federal lot — may be mixed up in it. Do you realize what that means?'

`I'm sure you're going to tell me...'

`I'm sure as hell going to do just that. You didn't understand my reference to a stalking horse. I happen to be a well-known foreign correspondent. I can't convince anyone I'm not here after another big story. The Kruger thing has caused them to think like that. So if we make one wrong move, take one step that disturbs them, the whole Military Intelligence and police machine will crash down on our heads. Are you with me so far?'

`I think so. The weather is beginning to look fantastic...'

`Bugger the weather. There appear to be two rival power groups fighting each other for supremacy. One group may be trying to use me to break the other — by exploding the whole conspiracy in a sensational exposé story in
Der Spiegel
. The group working underground is very powerful — I think it may have millions of Swiss francs at its disposal. Money means power — power to infiltrate the security organs of the state...'

Newman stopped in mid-sentence. When she turned round he was staring at the bottom of his cup. She went to him and placed her arm round his neck.

`What is it, Bob?'

`I may have missed something. What if we are dealing with patriots? Not villains in the normal sense of the word — men who sincerely believe they are protecting their country, who will go to any lengths to achieve their purpose?'

`And if that is the case?'

`It makes things far worse, more dangerous.' Newman put the cup on the tray and started pacing the room, hands clasped behind his back. 'I'm right, Nancy. There is no one we can trust. We're on our own. There are only two men who could crack this thing wide open...'

`Waldo Novak?'

`Yes. And Manfred Seidler. The police have put out a dragnet for Seidler. I have to reach him first. You make no trips to the Berne Clinic on your own. A certain Army officer went cold on me when I mentioned the place. So, we only visit the Clinic together. And when I'm out on my own — as I will be tonight when I see Novak — you stay in this hotel. Preferably in one of the public rooms …'

`You make me feel like a prisoner,' she objected.

He grabbed her by both arms and pulled her close to him. She stood quite still when she saw his expression.

`One more thing you'd better prepare yourself for. We might have to make a run for the border. I know places where it's possible to slip across quietly...'

`I won't go without Jesse...'

`Then we may have to take him with us. I don't like that remark he made to you about "experiments". God knows what is happening inside that place. Swiss Army guards. Dobermans. It's abnormal.'

`Bob, listen to me. In two days' time they're holding a reception here for that medical congress. I made some enquiries on my own from the concierge. He has a list of guests expected. One of them is Professor Armand Grange. Why don't we wait for him to come to us?'

He released his grip and she rubbed her upper arm. He had held her so tightly she felt bruised. She had never known him so alarmed and yet so determined at the same time. He went to the window. She had been right about the view. It was fantastic. The drifting wall of white mist now blotted out the lower slopes of the Bantiger so the flat summit appeared to be an island floating on a white sea.

`You could have an idea there,' he said slowly. 'So tonight it's Novak. Seidler as soon as we can arrange a rendezvous. Then I believe we shall know …'

A heavy grey overcast also shrouded lunchtime London, but here there was no mist creeping in. Inside the Park Crescent office Monica inserted the documents into the folder and handed it to Tweed who was checking the small suitcase he always kept packed ready for instant departure.

`Here are your air tickets for Geneva,' she said. 'A return flight booked for tomorrow. If anybody is checking at Cointrin they'll assume it's an overnight visit. You have that note with the train times to Berne?'

`In my wallet...'

Tweed looked up as Howard strolled into the office, again without knocking on the door first. He snapped the catches on his case shut and dumped it on the floor. Howard stared at it as Tweed, taking no notice of him, put a file in a drawer and locked it.

`I've just heard the appalling news,' Howard said gravely. `Are you off somewhere?'

`Berne, of course.'

`Because of Mason? The decoded telex from the Embassy refers to an accident...'

`Accident my foot!' Tweed allowed the contempt he felt to show in his tone. 'I talked to Wiley on the phone. Mason goes for a walk late at night, then falls into the river. Does it sound likely? Look at his age, his track record. Mason was murdered and I'm going to find out who did it.'

`Isn't that a job for the Swiss police?'

Howard brushed an imaginary speck from his sleeve, shot his cuffs and strolled round the office, glancing at the papers on Tweed's desk. Tweed sat in his chair and adjusted his glasses. He said nothing, waiting for Howard to go.

`The Swiss police,' Howard repeated somewhat peevishly.

`Have you forgotten what Mason brought back from Vienna? I gather you read the Ministry of Defence report on the object. I find the implications quite terrifying. I think that is why they killed Mason.'

`And who might be "they",' Howard enquired with characteristic pedantry.

`I have no idea,' Tweed confessed.

`You're going alone? No back-up?'

`I told you earlier I might have to call in outside help — that we're fully stretched with Martel being away. I've had someone out there for some time.'

`Who?' Howard pounced.

`The helper's safety — survival — may depend on secrecy, total secrecy. The person concerned knows Switzerland well.'

`You're being very coy about their sex,' Howard observed.

Coy
. Tweed winced inwardly at the use of the word. Taking off his glasses, he polished them with his handkerchief until Monica gave him a paper tissue. Howard stared at Monica.

`Does she know?' he snapped.

`She does not. You can leave the whole matter in my hands.'

`I don't seem to have much choice. When do you leave?'

`This evening..' Tweed decided he had been very cavalier with Howard. 'I'm catching the nineteen hundred hours flight to Geneva. It arrives twenty-one thirty local time Then the express on to Berne. At that hour anyone watching the airport is likely to be less alert.'

`You'll contact Beck, I suppose?'

`Frankly, I have no idea what I'm going to do.'

Howard gave it up as a bad job. He walked stiffly to the door and then paused. It occurred to him that if Mason had been murdered this could be a dangerous one. If anything did happen to Tweed he'd regret an abrupt departure.

`I suppose I'd better wish you luck.'

`Thank you,' Tweed replied politely. 'I think I'm going to need a lot of that commodity …'

On the first floor of the Berne Clinic Dr Bruno Kobler had finished checking the medical files when the door to his office opened. A large shadow entered the room which was lit only by the desk lamp despite the darkness of the afternoon. Kobler immediately rose to his feet.

`Everything is ready for tonight,' he informed his visitor. `We are nearly there,' the huge man wearing tinted glasses commented in his soft, soothing voice. 'One more experiment tonight and then we shall be sure. Any other problems?' `There may be several. Newman for one...'

`We can deal with extraneous matters after the medical congress and the reception at the Bellevue Palace,' the large man remarked as though referring to a minor administrative detail.

His bulk seemed to fill the room. His head was large. He was plump-faced and had a powerful jaw. His complexion was pallid, bloodless. He stood with his long arms close to his sides. He created the impression of a human Buddha. He had a capacity for total immobility.

He wore a dark business suit which merged with the shadows. The huge picture windows were smoked plate glass, which deepened the gloom. He wore tinted glasses because strong light bothered his eyes. He was a man who would dominate every room he entered without speaking a word. And his powers of concentration were phenomenal.

`Once the medical reception at the Bellevue is over they will all go home,' he observed to Kobler. 'Then will be the time to clear up loose ends. Then we shall present
Terminal
as a fait accompli.
Tous azimuts
,' he concluded. The dream of a generation of the General Staff will be reality.'

He stared out of the window at the distant mountains. The massive butte, rugged and brutal, rearing above the low cloud bank. The Stockhorn. There was a similarity between the rock which had dominated Thun for cons and the man who stood, still quite immobile, staring at it.

`This is the subject I have chosen for tonight's experiment,' Kobler said, walking round his desk to show the open file, the photo of the patient attached to the first page. 'You approve, Professor?'

Twenty

For the rest of the day Newman encouraged Nancy to explore Berne with him. Anything to get her outside the hotel. He had not forgotten her remark,
You make me feel like a prisoner
. He expected to be away for a long time in the evening, interviewing Dr Novak in Thun. He wanted to be sure she did stay inside the Bellevue Palace.

Their exploration was also therapy for himself. He needed to clear his mind of two tense interviews which had already taken place. The trip to the morgue with Arthur Beck, followed by their conversation in his office. And his encounter — it had seemed like that — with René Lachenal kept running through his mind. Why was the normally cool Lachenal worried? Something, Newman was convinced, was preying on the Intelligence man's mind.

It was bitterly cold as they wandered along the arcades, stopping while Nancy gazed in shop windows. He took her the full length of the main street, the cobbled Marktgasse with an ancient tower at either end, continued along the Kramgasse and the Gerechtigkeitsgasse.

They were walking down the centre of the peninsula towards its tip at the Nydegg bridge where the Aare swings in a huge hairpin bend and sweeps on parallel with its earlier course on the other side of the city. Gradually the streets began descending until the arcaded walks were elevated above the street below. Slim, pointy-nosed green trams rumbled past but otherwise there was little traffic.

They reached the approach to the Nydeggbrucke and Newman peered over a wall down at a huddle of weird old houses that fronted on a street at a lower level. Nancy stared down with him.

`They must have been here for centuries...'

`It's the Matte district. No wars, you see. So the past is preserved. Let's hope to God it continues that way — it would be a crime for this lovely old city to be touched...'

He vetoed her suggestion that they should visit Jesse. She didn't argue the point when he explained.

`It could scare off Novak from coming to meet me this evening. I sensed he was nervous enough about the whole idea as it is...'

`I wonder why?'

`I think he's a frightened man. Frightened but at the same time desperate to talk to someone he can trust.'

`There seem to be a lot of frightened men. Manfred Seidler is another. What do I do if he calls while you're out?'

`Tell him I'm sticking to the arrangement we made. If he'll call me tomorrow, I'll meet him tomorrow..