By Stealth

47

`She is asleep, Ilena. That is helpful. We can make our final preparations now.'

`You want bowl of hot water?'

`Not yet.' Hyde sounded testy. will tell you what is required when it is required. Clean this floor again with that vacuum cleaner. Sand has penetrated from outside.'

Paula, stretched out on the couch, had her eyes shut but was wide awake. She compelled her whole body to remain relaxed, to give no indication that she was fully conscious. Listening but not seeing was a horrible experience. Her imagination worked overtime.

She heard the purr of the vacuum cleaner as Ilena obeyed Hyde's instruction. She heard the familiar snap as he opened his bag. A minute or so later there was a tinkle. He was carefully laying out his scalpels in the correct sequence.

She'd had her eyes wide open just before the sound of the key being inserted in the door behind the wooden platform at the top of the steps. The platform had a single wooden rail, thigh high to guard against someone falling over the edge.

It was still daylight but the light was fading. The wind was still blowing and as Hyde continued arranging his instruments there was a banging sound. The shutter had come loose again. They had switched on the fluorescent strip when they entered – and this made keeping her closed eyes still more difficult. Hyde swore foully.

`You stupid cow! You still haven't fixed that damned shutter. Do I have to do everything for myself?'

Obviously, Paula thought vaguely, Hyde had forgotten that Starmberg was the one who had most recently attended to the closing of the shutter. As the vacuum went on purring she heard the scape of the chair across the floor. Hyde was about to stand on it to fasten it once more.

`Your clumsy fingers!' Hyde railed as Paula heard again the chair creaking, protesting under the weight of a human being standing on it. Human being? she thought. That was a misnomer if ever there was one – Hyde was a monster.

There was another bang as Hyde pulled the shutter closed, then the scraping of metal as he struggled with the catch. Hearing – not seeing – was becoming unbearable. Paula gritted her teeth, heard the chair being pushed back into its position against the wall.

The purring of the vacuum cleaner stopped. There was a forbidding silence. She might have been alone for a few brief seconds. Then Hyde spoke.

'Take that thing away. Prepare the bowl of hot water. It must be boiling hot for sterilization of my instruments.'

The heavy clump of Ilena's elephantine footsteps mounting the stairs. The door opening, closing again. She was now alone with Hyde. Thin talon-like fingers grasped her by one arm, shook her vigorously. She opened her eyes slowly. Dr Hyde was smiling down at her.

`As you will see, Miss Grey, the operating table is ready. Now there is nothing to worry about. I am going to give you an injection which will put you to sleep. Then I will move you on to the table…'

With Butler following close behind in his own Volvo, Marler had driven at speed to 'Fonder. The sky was a sea of grey clouds scudding above him in the wind. He arrived, driving slowly now, in the cobbled street where his lodging house was situated.

To his surprise he saw a grey BMW parked on the opposite side of the street facing his temporary home. Then he saw Newman, smoking a cigarette, striding up and down with obvious impatience. Second surprise. As he parked, Newman opened the passenger seat door and sat beside him.

`Don't turn off the engine,' Newman snapped. `If you say so,' Marler replied calmly.

`Have you got a lead to where they're holding Paula?' Newman demanded.

Butler had left his own car, was leaning outside the open window, listening.

`Not yet,' Marler admitted reluctantly. 'But we have some sort of a lead as to where that cab driver dropped Dr Hyde,' he added quickly.

Newman's manner and expression was bleak. He seemed on the verge of explosion point.

`Far from here? Tell me quickly.'

Tersely, Marler recalled the information Butler had extracted from Johnny Clausen. He also explained how he knew the area from his drive beyond Hoger the previous night. Butler produced his map, showed Newman the cross marking the point where Clausen had dropped Hyde.

`Leave your car here,' Newman ordered Marler. 'We'll drive there in my BMW.' He looked at Butler. 'You keep up with us in your Volvo. Come on! Every minute could count.' He paused, half-way out of the car. 'Are you both armed?'

`I am,' Butler said. 'Walther.' He patted his hip.

`And that hold-all on the floor in the back contains my Armalite,' Marler informed him.

`Bring it with you. And better switch off your engine…'

Marler sat beside Newman as they accelerated once outside Tonder. Newman gestured with his head towards the windscreen, which was smeared with gritty sand.

`Tonder is a gem. Coming down the coast road through the South Jutland area is pure hell. God, what a wasteland! Like Macbeth's blasted heath. Miserable scrubland. Nothing but sand and weedy tufts of grass. Then the wind blows up the blasted sand all the time. It's a nightmare.'

`I have found Dr Wand's colony of twenty-eight new bungalows, all furnished and waiting for occupation. In a remote spot close to the sea, hidden behind sand dunes. And it is in the area marked on one of those maps brought back from Lop Nor by Cardon. Where is Cardon? And Tweed?' Marler asked.

`Cardon is doing his own thing. Tweed stopped off at some closely guarded military encampment south of Esbjerg. He thinks Stealth is due tonight. But Paula is our priority.'

`Agreed.'

Marler kept quiet for a while, sensing Newman's mood of fury and frustration. It was Newman who broke the silence when they were north of Hoger, approaching the intersection where Marler had turned west heading straight for the sea.

`You must have driven around a lot – searching. Sure that you haven't seen a likely place where they might be holding Paula? Something odd that caught your attention?'

Marler snapped his fingers. Newman's phrasing had triggered off a recollection. He was still guiding him.

`Slow down, we're coming to a side road off to the left. Not much of a road, but take it…'

'Why?'

`Stop asking bloody fool questions. Slow down. We turn off here to the left,' Marler snapped.

Newman swung the wheel and they drove more slowly down a strip of road. Marler spoke as he leaned forward to see more clearly while the wipers whipped madly to clear the sand.

`A remote house. Sizeable, but derelict, I thought. The light was just about as it is now. Fading. Driving past the front twenty yards or so away – across sand off the road – I saw a light in a semi-basement window. When it vanished, I thought I'd imagined it. Now I don't think I did. There it is. Get ready to turn off the road, drive over the sand when I say so. And don't ask why!'

`A green Renault? That was the car parked by the road where that cab driver dropped Hyde?'

`A green Renault, yes.'

`There's some sort of shed at the back which could serve as a garage…'

`Turn on to the sand. Now!'

After waking Paula, Hyde walked away to the operating table, picked up a hypodermic out of an enamel tray where his instruments were neatly laid out. He took his time. Never rush things.

Behind him Paula slid her hands out from under the straps. She had struggled for hours to achieve freedom of movement. Once her hands had been freed, she had loosened the straps round her ankles. Left alone, she had exercised her aching legs, bending her knees time and again, flexing her wrists, gripping the fingers of one hand with the other.

Would her legs hold her up? Hyde had his enamel tray at the far end of the long table. She whipped her legs on to the wooden floor. It was a one-to-one duel – but only before Ilena, the ox-like horror, returned.

She felt unsteady but forced herself to move to her end of the table. At that moment Dr Hyde turned round, hypodermic grasped in his right hand, saw her. His eyes widened with surprise, then with manic fury. lie moved towards her and she waited. When he was close she made her legs run down the far side of the table – so they had a barrier between them.

Her right hand grasped a scalpel as he came after her. A moment later he was close. Her other hand picked up a small glass containing a blue liquid. She threw whatever the contents were into his face. He stopped, blinked, put his left hand up to his glasses. Still unsteady, Paula lurched forward. Remembering something else Butler had taught her on the training course, she aimed the scalpel for a point between his ribs. Hit the ribs and it would glance off. She put all her strength behind the thrust, felt the scalpel sink in through the cloth of his coat and well beyond. Like a knife going into butter, she thought viciously. No mercy for this bastard. She rammed the scalpel in deep, let go, stood back.

Expressions flitted across Hyde's face as he stood stock-still. Surprise, amazement, fear. The hand holding the hypodermic flopped gently on the table, releasing the hypodermic with its deadly needle point. A patch of red welled up over his white coat where the scalpel had penetrated. He took two steps towards the foot of the staircase, then slumped face-down to the floor.

He wriggled, rolled over on to his back, his legs flapping on the floor, then there was less motion and he let out a deep groan of pain.

Paula, more hard-faced than anyone had ever seen her, picked up the hypodermic. Ilena would be back soon with her bowl of boiling water. Paula was not confident she could successfully eliminate the stocky nurse. And as soon as she entered the basement she'd see Hyde lying on the floor.

Paula, her strength growing with every movement, climbed the stairs and stood on the platform. She held the hypodermic ready and prayed. That was when she heard the key being inserted in the lock, but it was not turned. In the hall someone was hammering on the outer door.

After pressing the bell and hearing nothing inside, Newman used his fist to hammer on the heavy front door of the house. They had found a green Renault inside the makeshift garage at the back. This was the place. He heard sounds of bolts being withdrawn, a clumsy key being turned. He had a smile on his face as the door swung slowly inwards.

A squat, slab-faced woman with very short hair, wearing a white coat, faced him. She held a long-barrelled Mauser in her hand, aimed at his stomach. He frowned, raised his hands.

`No need for that. I've lost my way.'

He backed away slowly, step by step. She followed him.

`How you get there?'

The barrel of the gun emerged beyond the doorway, then the thick hand holding it. Pressed against the side of the house, Marler brought down the barrel of his Armalite with savage force on her wrist. She dropped the gun and grunted like a wild boar. As she retreated back into the house her other hand produced a wicked wide-bladed knife, doubled-edged. She held it in front of her as she continued back and Newman followed.

`Where is the girl?' Newman snapped.

`Girl die if you come in…'

Newman continued to advance, followed by Marler and Butler. She reached the door to the basement. Despite Marler's ferocious blow, her right hand turned the key and she backed on to the platform inside the basement area.

She saw Paula and started to swing her huge knife round. Two things happened at the same moment. Paula plunged the hypodermic into her thick wrist, depressed the plunger. Newman's right leg shot up and kicked her in the stomach. It was like kicking a tree trunk but Ilena was rammed back against the rail. The wood refused to take the strain. With the hypodermic still in her wrist, her eyes rolling, she fell backwards ten feet to the wood floor. Her obese body lay still, her head oddly twisted to one side.

`Oh, thank God!'

Paula threw herself into Newman's arms. He hugged, kissed her as she clung to him, then straightened up. She spoke as Butler, Walther in hand, began to search the rest of the house upstairs. Marler checked the ground floor.

`Lord, I need a wash,' Paula said.

`Try the kitchen at the back,' advised Marler, who heard her as he returned from his swift scrutiny. 'There's a sink with taps.'

When she had gone Newman and Marler went down the steps into the basement. Newman checked Ilena's pulse. Nothing. He looked up at Marler.

`Dead as a doornail. Her neck's broken.'

`This thing's alive,' Marler reported, pointing to Hyde. `What do you think?'

`If he faces a trial, he'll get X number of years. Then some shrink will testify he's normal and they'll release him. I'm not in favour.'

`Join the club.'

Using his knuckles to avoid leaving fingerprints, Marler heaved over the table. Hyde screamed as it landed on his knees, pinning him down. His precious scalpels scattered all round him.

`He'll bleed to death before he's found,' Newman commented.

`Which is the object of the exercise,' Marler replied.

Paula freshened herself up under the tap of cold water. Butler had found her shoulder-bag thrown on a couch in a front room. To her surprise the contents were intact – including her. 32 Browning.

`No one and nothing else in the house,' Butler remarked. 'Except an oil lamp burning in the front room.'

Newman disappeared inside the front room. He closed the door, knocked the oil lamp on to the wooden floor, went back into the hall, again shutting the door.

Paula had walked out into the fresh sea air, took in deep gulps. Then she stiffened. The wind had dropped suddenly. As night fell the air was still. No more sandstorms. Only an uncanny silence. She had stiffened because of what she saw creeping in from the sea. A dense mist. Growing denser every minute.