Terminal. Part 17

'Some crusty old colonel of about eighty?' he asked with deliberate indifference.

'No! He's very good-looking. About thirty. Very neat and with a moustache. Talks with a plum in his mouth. I found him very amusing. What time do we meet Dr Novak on Thursday?'

'We don't. I go alone. He won't open up in the same way if you're present. And Thun is getting a dangerous place to visit. Or have you forgotten what nearly happened to us on the motorway?' don't. I go alone. He won't open up in the same way if you're present. And Thun is getting a dangerous place to visit. Or have you forgotten what nearly happened to us on the motorway?'

'No, I haven't!' she burst out. 'Which is why I think you might have made more of an effort to get back earlier - to have dinner with me. I needed company. Well,' she ended savagely; 'I got company...'

The phone started ringing. Newman glanced at Nancy who shrugged her shoulders. He suddenly realized she was wearing a dress he hadn't seen before. Another black mark, he supposed. No comment. The bell went on ringing and ringing. He picked up the receiver.

'A M. Manfred Seidler to speak to you,' the operator informed him.

'Newman, we must meet tomorrow night. I will phone details for the rendezvous late tomorrow afternoon...'

Truculent. Hectoring. Was there also a hint of desperation in Seidler's tone? Newman cradled the phone on his shoulder while he lit a cigarette.

'Newman? Are you still there?'

'Yes. I'm still here,' Newman replied quietly. 'Tomorrow is out of the question...'

'Then we do not meet at all! You hear me? Other people will pay a fortune for the information I have..

'Sell it to the other people then...'

'Newman, people are dying dying! I told you that before. Don't you even care?'

'Now you listen to me, Seidler. I can probably meet you three days from now. That's my best offer. And I need to know in advance the rendezvous...'

'You have a car?'

'I could get hold of one.' Never give out even the smallest item of information to someone who is a completely unknown quant.i.ty. 'And if you don't come to the point I'm going to put down the phone.

'Don't do that. Please! For G.o.d's sake! Newman, I will call you again tomorrow at five o'clock. No, not tomorrow. Five o'clock on the day we meet. You must have a car. And, believe me, it is. too dangerous over an open line to give you details of the rendezvous. Dangerous to you - as well as to me..

'Five o'clock the day we meet. Good night...'

Newman replaced the phone before his caller could say one word more. He lit a cigarette and sat down on the edge of the bed, smiling at Nancy who sat watching him intently.

'You were pretty tough with him,' she said.

'In a two-way pull situation like that one partic.i.p.ant comes out on top - dominates the other. When we do meet I'll get a lot more out of him if he's at the end of his tether. I think he's pretty near that point now. For some reason I'm his last hope. I want to keep it that way.'

'And the day after tomorrow you see Dr Novak in Thun?'

'Yes. I'm banking a lot on that meeting. I suspect we may have a similar case with Novak to the Seidler situation. Both men living on their nerves, scared witless about something. I just wonder if it's the same thing...'

'Bob, there's something I didn't tell you. But first you've got to eat. An omelette? Very digestible. Followed by fruit?'

He nodded and sat smoking while she called Room Service. The atmosphere between them had changed, had turned some kind of corner. They'd needed that phone interruption to quench their irritation with each other. Seidler had done them a favour. He waited patiently until she'd given the food order, asking also for a bottle of dry white wine and plenty of coffee. She then sat on the bed beside him.

'Bob, what do we do next? I don't know.'

For Nancy Kennedy it was a remarkable comment. She sounded bewildered, as though it was all happening too fast and she couldn't take it in. He put it down to her American background. Europe functioned differently, was infinitely complex.

'First, as I said, I see Novak. Find out what is really happening inside the Berne Clinic. That's why we are here. I'll have to find some way of putting the pressure on him, break him down. That's Item One. Next, the following day, we meet Seidler, find out what he knows. I have a feeling it's all beginning to come together. Fast. What was it you'd omitted to tell me?'

'When I was talking to Jesse at the Clinic while you occupied Novak's attention he told me they were conducting some kind of experiments...'

'Experiments? You're certain he used that word?' You're certain he used that word?'

'Quite certain. He didn't elaborate. I think he was worried Novak would hear us talking...' There was a knock on the outer door. 'I think this is your food. Eat, drink and then bed...'

Half an hour later they had undressed, turned out the lights and Newman knew from Nancy's shallow breathing that she was fast asleep. Exhausted by the day's events. He lay awake for a long time, trying to see a pattern to what he had learned.

The weird business of the rapid incidents which Beck couldn't understand. The theft of an Army mortar. The theft of one Army rifle plus twenty-four rounds of ammo. The snowplough incident he had good reason to understand, Newman thought grimly.

Then the murder - it had been murder, he was convinced - of Julius Nagy. The disappearance of Lee Foley. And Blanche had told him Foley had been in the vicinity of the Berne Clinic at the time of his visit with Nancy. So everything - excluding the Nagy killing - was happening in the Thun district.

The Gold Club business which seemed to bother Beck so much. And Seidler's reference in his Geneva phone call to bringing in a consignment across an eastern border. A consignment of what? Across which border? Newman felt certain that if only he could arrange these different factors in the right sequence a pattern would emerge.

He fell asleep with a disturbing thought. The photo showing Bruno Kobler, administrator of the Berne Clinic - again Thun - in conversation in front of the Taubenhalde with - Arthur Beck.

Seventeen.

Wednesday, 15 February. Lee Foley had been sitting in the cinema for an hour when he checked his watch. He had spent most of the day inside different cinemas - there are over half-a-dozen in Berne. It had been a more restful activity compared with the previous day's expedition to spy out the lie of the land round the Berne Clinic.

He had used this technique before when he went under cover, when an operation reached the stage of a loaded pause. After leaving the Savoy Hotel, he had parked the Porsche at different zones. He bought food he could take away and eat while he sat inside a cinema. He slept while inside a cinema. He emerged into the outside world well after dark.

Leaving the cinema, he took a roundabout route to where the car was parked. Satisfied that no one was following him, he headed straight for the Porsche. He approached the car with caution to be certain no one was watching it. He strolled past it along the deserted arcade, then swung on his heel, the ignition key in his hand. In less than thirty seconds he was behind the wheel, had started the engine and was driving away.

Tommy Mason had finished writing his report for Tweed which included details of his brief trips to Zurich by train. He was stiff from sitting in one position in his bedroom for so long and he wanted to think. Mason thought best while he was walking and wanted to ease the stiffness out of his limbs before he went to bed.

He walked out of the main entrance to the Bellevue Palace. At that time of night the huge hall and the reception area beyond - the area which within days would be used for the Medical Congress reception - were empty. The night concierge looked up from behind his counter, nodded to Mason and went back to checking his schedule for early morning calls.

Mason, protected against the freezing cold of the night with his British warm, woollen scarf and a slouch hat, made his way down to the river. He had taken the same walk the night before. It crossed his mind he was breaking a cardinal rule. Never keep to a routine. Vary your habits - daily. Worse still, he had left the Bellevue about the same time the night before. He had become so absorbed by his report he had not realized what he was doing.

Still, it was only the second night. He d.a.m.ned well had to get some exercise or he wouldn't sleep. His mind was active. Mason guessed that he was close to promotion. The fact that Tweed had pulled him out of Vienna and stationed him temporarily in Berne indicated that.

The wind caught him as he reached the Aarstra.s.se. He stepped it out, heading for the Dalmazibrucke, a much lower bridge than the Kirchenfeldbrucke he would eventually use to cross back over the river to reach the Bellevue.

Absorbed as he was by his thoughts- the report for Tweed, his coming promotion - Mason continued to look round for any sign of life. No traffic. No other pedestrians. To his left, in the dark his eyes were now accustomed to, the ancient escarpment on which Berne is built rose sheer in the night. He continued walking.

He reached the Dalmazi bridge, and still the whole city seemed to have gone to bed. The Swiss started their day early so they were rarely up late. Below him the dark, swollen flow of the water headed for the curious ca.n.a.l-like stretch below the Munster. At this point the Aare empties itself through a number of sluices to a lower level before continuing its curve round the medieval capital. He heard the car driving slowly behind him. It stopped. He turned round.

At the same moment the driver switched his headlights on full power. Mason was temporarily blinded. b.l.o.o.d.y nincomp.o.o.p. The headlights dipped and the car remained stationary. A courting couple, Mason guessed, oblivious to the cold of the night inside their heated love nest. The driver had probably intended to turn them off and had operated the switch the wrong way, his mind on more enticing prospects.

He was in the middle of the bridge when he resumed his walk. The lead-weighted walking stick - the most innocuous of weapons - struck him with tremendous force on the back of his skull. He was sagging to the pavement when powerful arms grasped him, hoisted him and in one swift, final movement propelled him over the rail of the bridge.

Unconscious, Mason hit the ice-cold water with a dull splash. Less than half a minute later a car's engine fired at the entrance to the bridge and was driven away. In that half- minute Mason's body had been carried close to the Kirchenfeldbrucke. Pa.s.sing under the high, vaulted arch supporting the bridge, the body was suddenly swept to the right as the flow of the Aare increased in power and speed.

Caught up in a frothing whirlpool, Mason's skull hammered with brutal force against the sluice where it lay trapped. Time and again the river hurled the body into the sluice with the action of a sledgehammer. The slouch hat had gone its own way, bobbing along the surface until it, too, was swept sideways through a more distant sluice. It pa.s.sed through effortlessly, soggy now with water. Somewhere before the next bend in the Aare it sank out of sight. Bernard 'Tommy' Mason would never see his cherished promotion.

Gisela, a.s.sistant to Arthur Beck, looked up from her desk as her chief came into the office, took off his overcoat and hung it by the loop. He sat down behind his own desk, unlocked a drawer and took out the file on Julius Nagy.

'It's terribly late,' Gisela chided. 'I thought you'd gone home. Where have you been?'

'Walking the arcades, trying to make some sort of sense out of this apparently disconnected series of events. One stolen mortar, one stolen rifle with its ammunition, the disappearance of Lee Foley. No news about him yet, I suppose?'

'None at all. Would you like some coffee?'

'That would be nice. Then, talking about going home, you push off to your apartment. As you said, it's very late...'

When she had left the room Beck pushed the file away. Sitting gazing blankly into the distance, he began drumming the fingers of his right hand on the desk.

Behind the wheel of the Porsche Lee Foley was careful to keep inside the speed limit as he drove along N6, even though the motorway from Berne to Thun was deserted. He had divested himself of his English outfit and now wore jeans and a windcheater. Pulled well down over his thick thatch of white hair he wore a peaked sailor-style cap of the type favoured by Germans.

He would spend the night at a small gasthof gasthof outside Thun. By the time the registration form reached the local police in the morning - or maybe even twenty-four hours later as he would be registering so late - he planned to be away from Thun. outside Thun. By the time the registration form reached the local police in the morning - or maybe even twenty-four hours later as he would be registering so late - he planned to be away from Thun.

When he got up in the morning he would use a public booth to make the agreed phone call at the agreed hour. This, Foley was convinced, could be the first decisive day. And very shortly he would surface, come out into the open again. It was all a question of getting the timing right. Foley was very good at sensing timing: he had established the right contacts.

He drove on, his profile like that of a man carved in stone. Taken all round, it had been a strange day. He dismissed it from his mind. Always tomorrow - the next move - was what counted.

In Basle it was well past midnight as Seidler paced back and forth across the sitting room. On a sofa Erika Stahel stifled a yawn. She made one more effort.

'Manfred, let's go to bed. I have been working all day...'

'That b.a.s.t.a.r.d Newman!' Seidler burst out. 'He's playing me like a fish. People don't do that to me. If he knew what I've got in that suitcase he'd have seen me when I first called him in Geneva...'

'That locked locked suitcase. Why won't you let me see what you have got inside it?' suitcase. Why won't you let me see what you have got inside it?'

'It's a sample, a specimen...'

'A sample of what?'

'Something horrific. Best you don't know about it. And it's the key to Terminal Terminal. It's worth a fortune,' he ranted on, 'and I'll end up giving it to Newman for a pittance, if I'm not dead before then. A pittance,' he repeated, 'just to gain his protection...'

'I've banked a fortune for you in that safety deposit,' she reminded him. 'Surely you don't need any more. And when you talk about it being horrific you frighten me. What have you got yourself involved in?'

'It will soon be over. Newman said he'd meet me. The rendezvous will have to be a remote spot. I think I know just the place...'

Erika realized he could go on like this for hours. He was nervy, strung up, maybe even close to a breakdown. She stood up, walked into the kitchen and came back with a gla.s.s of water and a bottle of tablets.

'A sleeping tablet for you tonight. You'll need to be fresh for your meeting, all your wits about you. We're going to bed now. To sleep sleep...'

Ten minutes later Seidler was sprawled beside her in a deep sleep. It was Erika who stared at the ceiling where the neon advertising sign perched on the building opposite flashed on and off despite the drawn curtains Horrific Horrific. Dear G.o.d - what could the suitcase contain?

The same atmosphere of restlessness, of moody irritability which infected Basle was also apparent all day in Berne. Gisela had noticed it in her chief, Arthur Beck, and both Newman and Nancy had found the day a trial. They had felt lethargic and everything seemed such an effort they pa.s.sed the whole day trying not to get on each other's nerves. Before going to bed, Newman went out for a long walk by himself.

Returning, he tapped on their bedroom door and heard Nancy unlock it. She was wearing her bathrobe. The second thing Newman noticed as he walked into the bedroom and threw his coat on the bed was a fresh pot of coffee, two cups and a jug of cream on a tray.

'I've had a bath,' Nancy said as she lit a cigarette. Did you enjoy your walk? You've been out ages...'

'Not especially. Enjoy your bath?'

'Not especially. Trying to bathe myself was one h.e.l.l of an effort. Like paddling through treacle. What's wrong with us?'

'Two things. The concierge explained one cause - the fohn fohn wind is blowing. You get edgy and tired. Yes, I know - you don't feel any sense of a wind but it drives people round the bend. And the suicide rate goes up...' wind is blowing. You get edgy and tired. Yes, I know - you don't feel any sense of a wind but it drives people round the bend. And the suicide rate goes up...'

'Charming. And the other thing?'

'I sense this whole business about the Berne Clinic is moving towards a climax. That's what is getting to us ...'

The unmarked police car with the two plain clothes Federal policemen drove slowly along the Aarstra.s.se towards the lofty span of the Kirchenfeld bridge. The river was on the far side of the road to their left. Leupin sat behind the wheel with his partner, Marbot, alongside him. They were the two men Beck had earlier in the week sent to the Bahnhof to watch for Lee Foley. It was Marbot who saw the sluice.

In the middle of the night it was freezingly cold. Because they had the heater on full blast the windscreen kept misting up with condensation. Leupin cleared it with the windscreen wipers while Marbot lowered the side window at intervals to give him a clear view.

'Slow down, Jean,' Marbot said suddenly. 'There's something odd over there by that sluice...'

'I can't see anything,' Leupin replied but he stopped the car.

'Give me the night-gla.s.ses a sec...'

s.h.i.+vering, rubbing his hands as the night air flooded in through the open window, Leupin waited patiently. Marbot lowered the binoculars and turned to look at his companion.

'I think we'd better drive over there - where we can get on to the walkway to the sluices...'

As the car was driven away to cross the Aare, Mason's battered, waterlogged body continued to be churned against the sluice, a sodden wreck of a man with the head lacerated in a score of places.

Eighteen Thursday, 16 February. The headquarters of Army Intelligence in Berne is located in the large square stone building next to the Bellevue Palace if you turn left on emerging from the hotel. This is Bundeshaus Ost.

Newman entered the large reception hall beyond gla.s.s doors, walked up to the receptionist and placed his pa.s.sport on the counter. His manner was brisk, confident and he spoke while his pa.s.sport was being examined.

'Please inform Captain Lachenal I have arrived. He knows me well. I am also rather short of time...'

'You are expected, M. Newman. The attendant will escort you to Captain Lachenal's office...'

Newman gave no indication of his astonishment. He followed the attendant up a large marble staircase. He was escorted to Lachenal's old office on the second floor, an office at the rear of the building with windows overlooking the Aare and the Bantiger rising beyond on the far bank of the river.

'Welcome to Berne again, Bob. You come at an interesting time - which no doubt is why you are here...'

Lachenal, thirty-five years old, tall and thin-faced with thick black hair brushed over the top of his head, exposing an impressive forehead, came round his desk to shake hands. The Swiss was an intellectual and in some ways - with his long nose, his commanding bearing, his considerable height and his aloof manner - he reminded Newman of de Gaulle. He was one of the world's greatest authorities on the Soviet Red Army.

'You expected me,' Newman remarked. 'Why, Rene?'