Death Train

Seven

The man who joined Hendrique for breakfast the following morning was Eddie Kyle. He was a stocky, forty-year-old Londoner with a pale skin and crew-cut red hair. He had a long criminal record at Scotland Yard and was currently on their wanted list for a variety of crimes, the most serious being the murder of an East End gangster. The murder had been ordered by Hendrique, for whom Kyle had been working during the last five years. He was also an experienced pilot of both helicopters and light planes and flew exclusively for Hendrique, ferrying both arms and drugs in and out of Amsterdam on a regular basis.

‘Everything’s been arranged,’ Kyle said.

‘Excellent.’ Hendrique looked up as Sabrina entered the dining car. ‘Is that the woman who shot Rauff?’

Kyle pretended to gaze around the carriage, his eyes lingering on her for a moment. ‘That’s her all right.’

‘Are you sure? You said her face was partially hidden under an anorak hood.’

Kyle grinned. ‘I never saw her face properly but I’m not likely to forget a figure like that. It’s her all right. What a pity.’

‘Getting sentimental in your old age?’ Hendrique asked disdainfully.

Kyle stared at her image reflected in the window beside him. ‘What I had in mind has nothing to do with sentimentality.’

‘She killed Rauff and she’d have killed you if your luck hadn’t been running. We’re dealing with a professional, not one of your dumb Amsterdam whores. Remember that next time, it might just save your life.’

The anger in Hendrique’s voice was enough to wipe all expression from Kyle’s face. He was subdued for the remainder of breakfast.

Karen Schendel looked up and smiled at Whitlock when he knocked on the open door.

‘Morning,’ she said in a friendly voice, then pointed to the desk to remind him about the microphone.

‘Morning.’

He gestured for her to move aside so he could take a closer look at the microphone. She eased her chair back but made no move to stand up, filling the silence with small talk as he crouched down, his head twisted at an angle to peer underneath her desk. It was as she had drawn it. The kind that cost about a hundred dollars on the black market. Sophisticated but very compact. His eyes flickered over her legs sheathed in fine black stockings. They were exquisitely shaped, even better than Carmen’s legs. The thought of his wife jarred him guiltily out of his fantasy and when he glanced up Karen was smiling at him. He was about to apologize, remembered the microphone, then moved round to the other side of the desk and sat down.

‘Coffee?’ she asked.

‘I had some before I left the hotel. I’d like to get started if you don’t mind.’

‘Not at all,’ she replied as she shuffled her papers into a neat pile.

She waited until they were clear of the office before speaking again. ‘How’s your shoulder this morning?’

He wriggled his arm. ‘No after-effects, yet. I soaked it in a hot bath last night; it should be okay now.’

‘I was worried about you.’

The sincerity in her voice surprised him.

Once inside the lift she pressed the button for the floor she wanted and handed him a folded sheet of paper. On it were four names written neatly underneath each other.

‘They’re my four suspects. Especially Dr Leitzig. I’ve arranged for you to meet him first.’

‘What’s his position?’

‘He’s the senior plant technician. That entails overseeing the entire reprocessing operation.’

‘Does he do the monthly stocktaking?’

‘Along with the plant manager and other members of the scientific staff. It’s very strictly controlled.’

‘Is he involved in writing up the stocksheets?’

The doors parted and they emerged into another carpeted corridor.

‘No, that’s all done by computer. As I said last night, it’s diversion as opposed to MUF. The plutonium’s being siphoned off before the figures reach the computers.’

He grabbed her arm as she was about to knock on a frosted-glass door halfway down the corridor. ‘You’ve made a lot of accusations but you haven’t come up with a single shred of evidence to back them up.’

‘I told you, I don’t have any evidence–’

‘Then what are your grounds for these suspicions?’

‘You don’t believe me, do you?’ she snapped. ‘You don’t believe me.’

‘Right now I don’t know what to believe. You’ve got to give me something constructive to work on, can’t you see that?’

Her eyes were blazing. ‘All I have to do is make one phone call to the plant manager and I can blow your cover.’

‘And what good would that do either of us?’ he asked calmly.

She sighed deeply and nodded. ‘I’m sorry, C.W., I’m just not used to confiding in the people around here. I’ll tell you everything I know after you’ve seen Leitzig. Agreed?’

‘Agreed,’ he answered reluctantly, wishing he had more to go on before meeting Leitzig.

Karen knocked on the door, then opened it without waiting. A middle-aged woman looked up from her typewriter and smiled at them. The two women spoke rapidly to each other in German, their conversation punctuated with laughter.

Karen finally turned to Whitlock. ‘It’s back to German I’m afraid. She doesn’t speak any English.’

‘And Leitzig?’

‘He does but it’s a case of getting him to speak it. He can be very stubborn at times. I’ll see you later.’

He exchanged a polite smile with the secretary after Karen had left, then picked up the only magazine on the coffee table and leafed through it, his interest not overly stimulated by a computer programming manual written in German.

The inner door opened. The man who emerged was in his late fifties with short grey hair and round, wire-framed glasses.

Whitlock stood up and shook the extended hand, unwilling to speak until he knew which language Leitzig intended to use.

‘I am Dr Hans Leitzig.’

Whitlock was relieved that it was English.

‘I am on my way down to the reprocessing area. Perhaps you would like to come along so you can see the plant in operation?’

‘Thank you, I would,’ Whitlock replied.

‘Which hotel are you staying at?’

‘Europa.’

‘Good choice,’ Leitzig said, then spoke briefly to his secretary.

Whitlock studied him. He could have been the driver of the Mercedes at the Hilton Hotel, but then so could the majority of Mainz’s male population. It had all happened so quickly.

‘Karen was telling me you are writing about the workforce rather than about the plant’s operational side. I think that is a good idea, especially in the light of the bad publicity the industry has had since Chernobyl.’

‘My sentiments exactly,’ Whitlock said, hoping the sycophancy came through in his voice.

Leitzig led him to the changerooms where they pulled on white overcoats. Whitlock had to be reminded to clip on his compulsory dosemeter badge.

‘How much of the reprocessing area did Karen show you yesterday?’

‘She was unavailable. I was shown around by her assistant. He didn’t bring me down here at all.’

‘How much do you know about the reprocessing operation?’ Leitzig asked as they left the changerooms.

‘Not much, I’m afraid,’ he lied.

‘It is not too difficult to understand. Come on, I’ll show you where it all starts.’

Leitzig led him through a succession of corridors until they reached an area marked STORAGE PONDS with a no-entry sign beside it and the words AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY in black paint underneath. Leitzig fed his ID card into one of the steel doors. It swung open to reveal a lime-green cavern over three hundred feet long and another eighty feet high above the waterline. The water, Leitzig told him, was thirty feet deep. Two sets of catwalks spanned the length of the cavern and four smaller catwalks led out into the water, all of them enclosed by safety railings.

Leitzig pointed to the rows of steel containers submerged in the water, and described how they had been transported to the plant in 100 tonne flasks with walls fourteen inches thick.

‘How long are they stored here for?’

‘Ninety days here, and another ninety days at the nuclear power station prior to transportation.’

‘So presumably the water acts as a coolant?’ Whitlock asked as he looked over the railing at the water fifty feet below him.

‘Correct. It acts as a shield for the operators. We’d already be irradiated if the water wasn’t there to absorb the radiation emitted by the fuel.’

‘Sobering thought,’ Whitlock muttered, then followed Leitzig out of the cavern.

Next they went into the main building where part of the reprocessing cycle took place. They watched from behind a protective glass partition, seemingly erected to shield the visiting public from any of the harmful gamma rays. Leitzig explained that it was actually there to blot out any outside noises which might distract the skilled operators from their delicate and sensitive work.

All work was carried out using remote-controlled equipment and monitored on closed-circuit television screens.

‘After the quarantine period’s over,’ he went on, with an air of simplifying an impossibly complex process, ‘the containers are transferred into the decanning cave through a series of sub-ponds leading off from the main storage pond. Once inside the cave, which is constructed of concrete walls seven feet thick, the fuel element can be observed both on closed-circuit television and through specially designed windows built into the walls. Each window is filled with a solution of zinc bromide which, although transparent, is able to absorb the short wavelengths of gamma radiation. The element is first placed on the stripping machine where the contaminated cladding is cut away, then dropped on to a conveyor belt to be stored under water in concrete storage silos. The bare fuel rods are then loaded into a transfer magazine, which can hold up to thirty-eight rods at any given time, and dissolved in nitric acid. The nitric acid solution is then mixed with an organic solvent and the uranium and plutonium are separated from the waste products. The waste products, which contain radioactive fission products, iron from the plant machinery and chemical impurities from the fuel, are then reduced by evaporation and stored near the plant in tanks at temperatures of 50°C. The acid solution enters another section of the plant where it passes through a second organic solvent to remove any lingering waste products, then, on coming into contact with a water-based solution, the uranium and plutonium separate, the plutonium returning to the water solution and the uranium remaining in the solvent. They emerge as uranyl nitrate and plutonium nitrate, ready to be used in the fuel cycle again.’

It was two hours later when they returned to Leitzig’s office. He had his secretary order some coffee, then closed the door and sat down behind his desk.

‘What’s the percentage of uranium to plutonium after the elements have been reprocessed?’ Whitlock asked.

‘The normal breakdown of recovered uranium’s ninety-nine per cent to point five per cent of plutonium. The other half per cent is made up of radioactive waste. It may vary by point one or point two but never more than that.’

‘And those statistics are transferred on to the computer?’

‘Of course, but I fail to see where this question is leading.’

Whitlock smiled. ‘Sorry, it’s just my journalistic training getting the better of me. Can we talk about you now?’

‘Ask away,’ Leitzig replied, folding his hands on the desk.

‘A little background on yourself?’

‘It’s all very commonplace I’m afraid. I was born in a small town called Tettnang which is fairly close to the Austrian border. It’s only got a population of about fifteen thousand and it’s situated in the heart of asparagus country. I remember how happy I was when I was accepted at Hamburg University, because I could at last get away from my mother’s asparagus dishes.’

He chuckled to himself then reached for his cigarettes and lit one. ‘I went to England to work after my graduation. First at Calder Hall, then at Sellafield. I left the industry in the early seventies and came back here to work at the Max Planck Institute of Chemistry. I spent several years at the Institute before returning to the industry. I’ve never regretted the decision.’

‘So how long have you been the plant’s senior technician?’

‘Two and a half years now.’

‘And what do you do in your spare time?’

‘Fishing mainly. There’s nothing more relaxing than to drive the Land Rover into the country for a day’s fishing.’

‘Married?’

‘No,’ Leitzig retorted defensively then held up his hands apologetically. ‘I’m a widower.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘My wife’s death was the main reason for my returning to the industry. I was able to throw myself into my work, which helped to take my mind off the fact that she was gone. I used to dread going home at night; the silence and solitude were almost too much to bear.’

‘Why didn’t you move?’

Leitzig looked surprised by the question. ‘I could never turn my back on our home. It contains so many memories.’

‘Sure,’ Whitlock replied sympathetically. ‘Any children?’

‘Neither of us wanted any. I regret that now.’

Whitlock thought about his own situation. What if something were to happen to Carmen? Would he end up as desolate and lonely as Leitzig?

The secretary entered with the coffee tray and made room for it on the desk. Leitzig poured out two cups and offered Whitlock milk and sugar.

A blue light flashed on the control panel on the desk. Leitzig acknowledged it, then stood up.

‘You must excuse me, I am needed down in the plant.’

‘Nothing serious, I hope?’

‘They wish to consult me about something, that is all.’ He pointed to a red button on the control panel. ‘That is the danger light. It would come on if ever there were a criticality incident somewhere in the plant. Apparently it emits a deafening siren at the same time. Fortunately I have never heard it. Please stay and finish your coffee. Hopefully we will be able to finish our conversation later today.’

‘I’d like that.’

‘Fine. I shall ask my secretary to call Karen for you as it is very easy to get lost in these labyrinths if you don’t know your way around.’

Karen arrived a few minutes later and they walked in silence to the lift.

‘I’ve been thinking about what you said earlier,’ she said as the lift doors closed. ‘We have to work together, it’s the only way we’re going to get to the bottom of this.’

The doors parted and a secretary stepped into the lift. She exchanged a polite smile with them and a silence descended until the doors parted again and Karen gestured for Whitlock to follow her.

‘Where are we going?’ he asked.

‘The computer suite,’ she replied, then held up the folder she was carrying. ‘These are photostats of the inventory stocksheets for the last two years. I’ve been through the figures with a fine toothcomb but I can’t find any discrepancies. Perhaps you’ll be able to pick up on something I’ve overlooked.’

She pushed open a pair of swing doors and they entered the room. It reminded him of the computer room at UNACO headquarters, with the rattling of telex machines and the incessant whirring of printers. They crossed to the bank of VDUs and sat down in front of one of them.

She instinctively shielded her fingers from him as she fed in her personal security code. It was accepted and a menu of eight options appeared on the screen. She chose a number which further sub-divided into another menu. Again it asked for a security code. Once she had fed it in the screen displayed lists of figures. She pressed the ‘print’ button. There were seventeen pages of figures and she printed them all before collecting the paper and tucking it into her folder.

‘You can go through this in my office although I doubt you’ll find any discrepancies. As I said, I’ve already been through it entry by entry.’

He took her arm and led her to one side, out of earshot of the nearest analysts. ‘You still haven’t told me about your suspicions.’

‘Several times when I’ve been working late I’ve seen Leitzig with a powerfully built man with jet-black hair. He was always dressed in a white overall, like those worn by the company drivers. Only he doesn’t work here.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘I hire the drivers. Anyway, I followed him one night.’

‘And?’

‘He drove to a warehouse in Rampenstrasse on the banks of the Rhine. I couldn’t see what happened inside but when he finally came out he was with two other men I’d never seen before. They left in a Citroën. I even tried to get into the warehouse but it was padlocked.’ She shrugged in desperation. ‘I know it’s not much to go on.’

‘It’s enough. Come on, let’s take a look at those stats.’

Neither of them saw Leitzig through the circular glass window in the swing door further up the corridor. He timed his movements perfectly, slipping into the computer suite just after they left and heading for the nearest computer. He fed in his own security code and chose an option from the sub-menu. It read EMPLOYEE TRANSACTIONS. He fed in Karen’s security code. It showed her transactions for the day, the last being seventeen pages of inventory statistics. Nothing else. He pressed ‘Enter’ until the main menu reappeared on the screen. He had been suspicious of Whitlock ever since he first met him. Whitlock knew far more about the nuclear industry than he had let on; that had been obvious from the questions he had asked during the tour. If he were a journalist why would he want the inventory figures for the last two years, especially seeing that he was supposed to be writing an article on the plant’s workforce? And why was Karen Schendel helping him? How much did she know? What made it even more suspicious was Whitlock’s appearance so soon after the last of the plutonium had been taken to the warehouse. It was all too much of a coincidence.

Leitzig knew he had to cover his own tracks. He would have to kill Whitlock.

A light snow had fallen over Central Switzerland during the night and Werner almost lost his footing as he climbed from the taxi at Brig Station. He paid the driver, then negotiated his way carefully across the road, paused at the entrance to wipe his feet, then crossed the concourse to the platform. People looked at him, certain they had seen his face before. They had, on numerous TV chat shows across Europe, but now, with his homburg tilted down over his forehead, none of them could put a name to the face.

The train pulled into the station a few minutes later, fifteen hours behind schedule. He boarded it and made his way down the corridor to his reserved compartment. The door of the adjoining compartment opened and Hendrique peered out at him.

‘Good morning,’ Werner said, then entered his own compartment where he tossed his homburg on to one of the couchettes, then unbuttoned his overcoat and laid it neatly on the overhead rack.

Hendrique stood in the doorway, his hands thrust into his trouser pockets. ‘Let’s skip the pleasantries and get a few things straight right from the start. I’m not particularly thrilled about having to take orders from someone who’s spent his life behind a desk but, as you’re probably aware, the old bastard’s got me by the short hairs and I haven’t got much choice. Having said that, my men and I will do everything in our power to ensure the cargo reaches its destination. It’s just another job to us.’

‘I’m not particularly thrilled about having to work with a drug pusher but circumstances are such that I too am left with little alternative. I suggest we put aside our personal feelings and work together as a team. We are supposed to be on the same side.’ Werner lit a cigarette then pushed past Hendrique and closed the compartment door behind them. ‘I need a coffee. Coming?’

Hendrique led the way down the corridor then paused as he entered the dining car. Inclining his head almost imperceptibly, he indicated Sabrina, who was seated at one of the tables.

‘That’s the woman who shot Rauff.’

Werner stared at her. ‘It can’t be!’

‘You know her?’

Werner nodded. ‘She used to be one of the most popular debutantes in Europe a few years ago. Are you sure it’s her?’

‘Kyle’s positive.’

Sabrina turned away from the window as the train eased out of the station and caught sight of Werner approaching her. ‘Stefan?’

Werner embraced her, kissing her lightly on both cheeks. ‘I can’t believe it. After all these years we meet up again. It’s truly a small world.’ He noticed her eyes flicker toward Hendrique.

‘I’m sorry, this is Joe Hemmings, my security adviser. Sabrina–’ he trailed off with an embarrassed smile. ‘Forgive me, I’m terrible with names.’

‘Cassidy,’ she said, holding Hendrique’s penetrating stare. ‘Sabrina Cassidy.’

‘How do you do?’ Hendrique said coldly, then turned to Werner. ‘I’m sure you have a lot to talk about so I’ll leave you to it. If you need me, sir, I’ll be in my compartment.’

‘He must be a bag of laughs,’ she said after Hendrique had gone.

‘He just takes his work very seriously. May I join you?’

‘Of course.’

Werner ordered himself a coffee from the steward, then sat down opposite her. ‘I still can’t get over it. It must be four or five years now since I last saw you.’

‘Five years,’ she replied after a quick mental calculation.

‘The last I heard you were making something of a name for yourself on the racing track.’

‘Saloon car racing. It came to an abrupt end at Le Mans when I rolled my Porsche. I spent the next four months in the American Hospital of Paris. In retrospect the crash was the best thing that ever happened to me.’

‘In what way?’ he asked in amazement.

‘I learnt a lot about myself during my convalescence. I realized my life was going nowhere.’

‘So what are you doing now?’ he asked her after paying the steward for the coffee.

‘I’m a translator in New York.’

‘Married?’

She held out her left hand. ‘Nobody wants me.’

‘I can’t believe that.’

‘What about you? Is there a Mrs Werner?’

‘There probably is but I still haven’t met her.’ He sipped the coffee, then looked across the rim of the cup at her. ‘What brings you to Switzerland?’

‘I’m on vacation,’ she replied, then turned to the window when it was suddenly enveloped in darkness.

‘We’re in the Simplon Tunnel. You enter it in Switzerland and leave it in Italy ten miles later.’

‘I’d have thought with your limitless resources, Stefan, you’d be travelling by air, not on some poky little train that looks like it’s going to take till eternity to reach its destination.’

Werner looked around, then leaned forward. ‘Normally I would but this is a special case. My company have patented a new design in freight containers, using a revolutionary new material. It’s more durable and economical, that’s all I can tell you. It has to get to Rome for further testing without our competitors finding out how it’s being transported. We were originally going to fly it down but word reached us that some of our airline staff had already been bribed by one of our main competitors to give them a preview before it was to be flown out, so we had to change our plans at the last moment. We decided on the most innocuous means of transport imaginable. As you said, a poky little train. Joe Hemmings has been on board ever since it left Lausanne and I’ve even got a man locked in with the freight container just in case something should happen. Not that I think it will, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.’

‘And what if something were to happen?’

‘We’d take whatever steps were deemed necessary to deal with it. Industrial espionage is such a dirty business.’

‘So you’re staying with the train until Rome?’

‘That’s the plan. What about you?’

‘Same. At least we’ll have a chance to talk about the old days.’

‘I look forward to it. Dinner tonight?’ he asked.

‘Fine. Eight o’clock?’

‘I’ll make the reservation, if that’s what one does on a train like this.’ He pushed back his chair and stood up. ‘You’ll have to excuse me, my dear, I have work waiting for me in my briefcase.’

‘No rest for the wicked.’

‘Until tonight then.’

He returned to his compartment and rapped on the communicating door. The bolt was released and Hendrique slid the door open.

‘Have a pleasant chat?’

‘You can cut that out,’ Werner snapped. He took the map from his overcoat pocket and sat down. ‘She didn’t buy the story about the freight container.’

‘Are you surprised? She’s a professional, not some two-bit amateur sent by one of your rivals.’

‘Did Kyle–’

‘It’s all done,’ Hendrique cut in. ‘All you have to do is give the word.’

Werner opened the map and traced his finger along the train’s intended route. ‘Next stop’s Domodossola. Then it stops again at Vergiate, about fifty miles north of Milan. You’ll have to make the call at Domodossola, we can’t afford to waste any more time.’

‘Excellent. That just leaves the other one. I’ll deal with him personally.’

‘I don’t want any shooting on the train.’

‘Who said anything about shooting?’ Hendrique held out his hand. ‘Have you got the number?’

Werner unzipped his holdall and withdrew a newspaper. ‘It’s written across the top of the front page.’

Hendrique took the newspaper and returned to his own compartment.

The conductor rapped on the compartment door as the train drew into Domodossola station, its first stop after the Simplon Tunnel.

Hendrique opened it. ‘What?’

‘I spoke to the driver. He says he’ll wait five minutes here for you, then he’s leaving.’

Hendrique grabbed him by the lapels and forced him up against the narrow built-in wardrobe.

‘I’m paying you well to make sure my few requests are carried out without any hitches. You make sure this train waits for me, no matter how long I am.’

‘It’s the driver–’

‘I don’t care about the driver. This train will wait for me. Understand?’

The conductor nodded nervously, then scurried away down the corridor.

Hendrique turned up the collar of his parka as he stepped out into the lightly falling snow and crossed the platform to the public telephone mounted in a cubicle outside the station cafeteria.

He dialled the number written in red at the top of the newspaper then fed four hundred-lire coins into the slot.

The receiver was answered at the other end.

‘I’d like to speak to Captain Frosser,’ he said in German.

‘Captain Frosser’s busy–’

‘Tell him it’s about the Rauff murder. I’m calling long distance from a public telephone.’

‘One moment, sir.’

‘Hello, Captain Frosser speaking,’ a voice said seconds later.

‘The woman you’re looking for in connection with the Rauff murder is travelling on a train bound for Rome. It should reach Vergiate within the hour. Her name’s Sabrina Cassidy.’

Hendrique dropped the receiver back on to its cradle, then tossed the newspaper into the wire bin on the platform on his way back to the train.

Bruno Frosser stared at the receiver after the line had gone dead, then reluctantly replaced it.

‘What is it, Captain?’

Frosser sat back and clasped his hands behind his head. He looked at his assistant, Sergeant Sepp Clausen, a policeman much in the same mould as he had been in his late twenties. Ambitious and determined. Except Clausen had more hair than he did at that age.

Frosser, at forty-three, had barely any hair now apart from the little that curled down above his ears to meet at the nape of his neck. It had never bothered him that the little hair on his head was brown and that his thick moustache was grey or that his fellow officers constantly teased him by patting his ample stomach and asking when the baby was due. All that ever bothered him was his work and his chances of promotion.

‘Where the hell’s Vergiate?’ Frosser asked in his gravelly voice.

Clausen didn’t know but he knew better than to say so and reached for the atlas in the bottom drawer of his desk.

‘Vergiate, Vergiate,’ Clausen muttered as he traced his finger down the index. There was no listing. He reached for the telephone.

‘I’d like an answer today if possible.’

Clausen ignored the sarcasm. He had come to learn that it was the closest Frosser ever came to humour.

Frosser stroked his moustache as he thought about the case. It was certainly one of the most baffling he had ever come across since his promotion to the Fribourg CID five years before. It had started with an anonymous caller, almost certainly English-speaking, who had tipped him off in broken German about the body in the warehouse. Then, within an hour of the local radio and TV stations broadcasting details of the murder, two boys had come forward to say they had seen the body. They had also made up an identikit of the woman they thought had called herself ‘Katrina’. Sabrina was close enough for him. There were still too many unanswered questions, like, who was the black-haired man the boys had seen loading beer kegs into a deserted wagon the day before the murder? Barrels that weren’t there when he arrived at the warehouse. Why had the skip been sprayed with bullets? Who was the second anonymous caller who had told him she was on the train? And even if she was the killer, where did the two men fit into the puzzle?

‘Vergiate’s in Italy, sir,’ Clausen announced, his hand over the mouthpiece. ‘It’s about fifteen miles from Varese.’

‘That’s near Milan isn’t it?’

‘Near-ish,’ Clausen replied, screwing up his face.

‘Get a helicopter on standby. I want to fly to Vergiate as soon as possible.’

‘It might take some time, sir.’

‘So might your chances of promotion if you don’t get me a helicopter pronto.’

Frosser dialled the private line of a senior detective with the Milan CID he had known for the past twelve years. He wanted a deputation party waiting to board the train once it arrived at Vergiate.

‘Do you want some more coffee?’ Sabrina asked, pointing to Graham’s empty cup.

‘Yeah, why not? There isn’t much else to do on this damn train.’

She caught the waiter’s attention. ‘Possiamo avere un altro caffè, per favore.’

The waiter replenished both cups and brought them a fresh jug of milk. The standard of the food had surprised them. Although the portions were small they were delicious. It reminded her of a gem of a restaurant she had found in New York’s Greenwich Village. The building’s exterior was bleak and the decor appeared shabby but the preparation and presentation of the food were comparable with any of the city’s leading restaurants. It was one of the few places she could get away from her Yuppie friends.

‘Vergiate,’ Graham said as the train passed the first of the signposts on the approach to the station.

‘What?’ she asked, her thoughts interrupted by his voice.

‘We’re arriving at Vergiate,’ he said.

‘I wonder what they’re doing here?’ she asked, pointing out of the window.

‘Who?’ he asked, craning his head to follow the direction of her pointing finger.

‘La polizia. There, on the platform.’

‘Maybe there’s a murderer on board. It might liven things up a bit.’

‘I can think of a couple, present company excluded of course.’

‘Of course,’ he said, feigning a look of shock.

When the train came to a halt the rear end of the dining car was facing the four policemen.

She suddenly became aware of the contempt and disdain on Graham’s face as he stared out of the window at them. She knew he disliked dealing with the police but she had never asked him why. She decided to do so now, knowing it could well backfire on her.

‘I don’t like people I can’t trust. There are too many cops on the take these days, especially back home. What infuriates me most of all is that these bent cops aren’t protecting the public who pay their wages, they’re protecting the criminals who pay their bribes.’

‘It’s a minority–’

‘Is it?’ he cut in sharply. ‘Until they clean up their act this is one guy who’ll treat cops and criminals alike.’

Two of the policemen had entered the dining car and Graham watched them walk up to Sabrina, who had her back to them.

‘Sabrina Cassidy?’ the one wearing the sergeant’s insignia asked after comparing her face to the photocopy of the identikit in his hand.

‘Yes,’ she replied cautiously.

‘I have a warrant for your arrest,’ the sergeant said, pronouncing each word carefully in a thick Italian accent. ‘Would you come with us, please?’

‘So where’s the goddam warrant?’ Graham snapped.

‘Mike, please.’ She looked up at the sergeant. ‘On what charge?’

‘Murder.’ The sergeant withdrew the warrant from his tunic pocket and unfolded it. ‘The murder in Fribourg of Kurt Rauff. You’ll be deported back to Switzerland to face trial.’ He glanced at Graham. ‘Are you travelling with Miss Cassidy?’

Graham knew the drill; it was all typed out so neatly in the UNACO manual. The success of any given mission must be regarded as paramount regardless of the plight of any individual Strike Force operative during the course of that aforementioned mission.

‘No,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘We met on the train yesterday. Her berth’s next to mine.’

‘I would still like to see your passport,’ the sergeant said.

The sergeant accompanied Sabrina to her compartment and sent his deputy with Graham to fetch his passport.

Graham ferreted through his holdall and pulled his passport out from amongst his clothes.

The young policeman snatched it from him and opened it. He was satisfied the photograph was that of Graham. ‘Mi-kel Green,’ he said, reading the name in the passport.

‘Michael, for Christ’s sake!’ Graham snapped.

The policeman waved him aside and rifled through the contents of the two holdalls. He looked somewhat aggrieved at finding nothing more lethal than a razor. The Geiger-Müller counter was in the wardrobe and Graham had the key in his pocket. The policeman glanced at the wardrobe but didn’t bother investigating it any further. As Graham left his compartment he prayed there was no noticeable bulge from the holstered Beretta under his jacket. If they decided to frisk him–

Sabrina’s hands were manacled in front of her when Graham opened the door to her compartment. The sergeant was holding her Beretta in a sealed plastic bag. He took the passport from his deputy and flipped through it before pocketing it.

‘What are you doing?’ Graham demanded.

‘You’re free to travel inside Italy. We’ll decide when you can leave.’

‘And here I thought fascism died with Mussolini,’ Graham snarled. ‘I hope Miss Cassidy’s entitled to the customary phone call usually associated with the democratic judicial system?’

‘She’ll be allowed a phone call,’ the sergeant replied gruffly.

‘Is there anything you need?’ Graham asked her.

‘A hacksaw?’ she replied with a smile. ‘I’ll be okay. It’ll be sorted out soon enough when I contact the proper authorities.’

Graham took her trenchcoat from the overhead rack and draped it over her wrists to hide the handcuffs.

‘Thanks,’ she said softly.

‘Where will you be staying once you reach Rome?’ the sergeant asked.

Graham shrugged. ‘I haven’t made any definite plans. I’m not going to be accepted anywhere now without my passport.’

‘Report to any police station once you arrive in Rome. By then the Swiss police will know if they’ll need a statement from you or not. Your passport will be returned to you then.’

The young policeman gathered up Sabrina’s two holdalls and disappeared out into the corridor. The sergeant hooked his arm under hers and escorted her from the compartment.

Graham slumped on to the nearest couchette and rubbed his hands over his face.

Sabrina glanced over her shoulder as she alighted from the train. Hendrique was standing by one of the dining car windows, a satisfied expression on his face.

It was the first time Sabrina had ever been inside an interrogation room and what she found in Fribourg shattered the Hollywood image of four whitewashed walls with a table and two wooden chairs in the centre of a bare concrete floor and a single, naked bulb hanging from a piece of platted flex. The walls were cream-coloured and matched the beige carpet on which stood a table and two padded chairs. A fluorescent light shone overhead and the wall heater behind her made the room even warmer than her berth had been on the train.

She had refused to answer any of Frosser’s questions on the helicopter which had flown them back to Fribourg. Once there she had, on Philpott’s instructions (her one phone call), kept up her silence for fear of incriminating herself. Frosser had spent a frustrating thirty minutes with her in the interrogation room and her only response to his barrage of questions had been a quiet ‘ja’ at the outset when asked if she understood German. It turned out he spoke no English. She actually felt sorry for him.

He was obviously a good and dedicated policeman yet he was floundering in something that was completely over his head. He had enough evidence against her, in the form of the Beretta, but he was still struggling to establish a motive for the killing. It was also something of a test case for Philpott. It was the first time a UNACO operative had been held on a murder charge anywhere on the European continent.

An operative had been arrested in Morocco two years earlier for the rather clumsy killing of a Chinese double agent and after the negotiations had failed Strike Force Three, then still containing Rust, had carried out a daring midnight raid on the prison to release their colleague.

As demanded by Philpott, no Moroccan was hurt in the incident. She knew hers would be a very different case. It would be down to a mixture of tact and diplomacy while ensuring the confidentiality of UNACO at all times. It was in nobody’s interests to have her face a murder charge in the full glare of international publicity. If one journalist got the faintest whiff of UNACO’s official existence

The door opened and Frosser entered, his tie loose at his throat and his waistcoat unbuttoned under his open jacket. He tossed a dossier on to the table and sat down.

‘One of the bullets taken from Rauff’s body has been positively identified as having come from your gun. That makes a very strong case for the prosecution. You’re not doing yourself any favours by remaining silent.’

She stared at the wall opposite her.

He opened the dossier and tapped her passport. ‘Forensics have confirmed it’s a fake. Whoever made it for you is a very skilled craftsman. It also puts a new slant on the investigation. I don’t believe it was a crime of passion any more.’

She was relieved to hear it. Not only had she been appalled by the very idea of her agreeing to meet someone like Rauff at a deserted warehouse but some of Frosser’s insinuations and innuendoes had nearly provoked an angry outburst from her on more than one occasion.

‘The other bullets match the FN FAL found in the warehouse. It had been wiped clean.’

She was about to speak then snapped her mouth shut. Hendrique had thought of everything, even to the point of substituting one FN FAL for the other.

‘What were you going to say?’

She continued to stare at the wall.

‘I’ve been underestimating you all along. When I first saw you I automatically thought: beautiful woman, crime of passion. I even conned myself into believing those anonymous calls were part of some eternal triangle. Not any more. You, an American with a forged passport, and Rauff, a criminal connected with several of Europe’s most influential racketeers. I must have been blind. It wasn’t any crime of passion, it was a hit.’

She preferred the idea of a hit to her shooting Rauff in some jealous rage. Even so, Frosser was still guessing.

‘It was a hit, wasn’t it?’

She drained her coffee cup then folded her arms on the table and stared at the wall again.

There was a knock at the door and Clausen, Frosser’s assistant, came in. ‘It’s all set up, sir.’

Frosser stood up. ‘Please come with me Miss Cassidy.’

She was sandwiched between the two men as they walked the length of the corridor. She knew what was going on the moment they opened the unmarked brown door. Eight other women stood silently in front of a black backdrop. An identification parade.

Frosser left Clausen to organize the line-up and went into the adjoining room where he sat down on a wooden chair, his mind on the latest developments in the investigation.

‘Ready sir,’ Clausen said as he entered the room.

Frosser got to his feet and looked through the one-way glass, a powerful spotlight now illuminating the nine women standing motionless in front of the sombre backdrop.

‘Bring in the first boy,’ Frosser said.

Clausen opened an inner door and a policewoman ushered in one of the children.

Frosser smiled at him. ‘Marcel, right?’

The boy nodded nervously.

‘There’s no need to be frightened, they can’t see us.’ Frosser led Marcel closer to the window. ‘I want you to look very carefully at those ladies and tell me if you see the one you spoke to at the warehouse. Take your time.’

Marcel pointed. ‘That’s her. The pretty lady.’

‘Which number?’

‘Three.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’.

‘Thanks,’ Frosser said and ruffled Marcel’s hair.

Clausen led Marcel out and ushered in Jean-Paul. He also pointed out Sabrina. Clausen ushered in the third witness, a young man with ragged blond hair and a crucifix earring.

‘Herr Dahn,’ Clausen introduced him to Frosser.

‘I believe you spoke to Sergeant Clausen about the identikit photo in the newspaper.’

Dahn nodded. ‘I’m sure it’s the same woman who spoke to Dieter the day before he died.’

‘Dieter Teufel. You worked with him at Lausanne station, I believe?’

‘It depended on the shifts, but I was there the morning she spoke to him.’

‘Take a look through the window and tell me if you see her.’

‘That’s her,’ Dahn said without hesitation. ‘Number three.’

‘Are you absolutely certain?’

‘Would you forget her? She was there with another man but I don’t remember what he looked like.’

‘Do you know what they were talking about?’ Frosser asked.

‘He said she was asking about train schedules but knowing him he was probably trying to chat her up.’

‘And you didn’t see her again?’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Thank you for your time,’ Frosser said, opening the door.

Dahn reluctantly turned away from the window and left the room.

Frosser told Clausen to disband the identity parade and then escorted Sabrina back to the interrogation room.

‘The case against you is getting stronger by the minute,’ Frosser said after she had sat down. ‘You’ve been positively identified by two witnesses as having been at the warehouse when Rauff was murdered. Does the name Dieter Teufel mean anything to you?’

Had he been a less experienced policeman he would have failed to notice the split-second flicker of her eyes as she unconsciously reacted to the name. It was as good as an admission as far as he was concerned.

‘He was killed under a train the day after you were seen talking to him. It was initially put down to an accident but now I’m not so sure. Could he have been pushed?’ He let the question hang as he crossed to the wallheater to turn it down. ‘I’ve got enough evidence to convict you but there are still too many unanswered questions. I’m going to get my Lausanne colleagues to reopen the Teufel case. If I can pin a second murder charge on you you’ll be inside for life. And I mean life.’

She bit the inside of her mouth, a nervousness creeping into her thoughts for the first time since her arrest. If she was charged and the case went to court, which must be a possibility depending on how Philpott intended to handle the situation, there was enough evidence to convict her of at least wounding Rauff. The Beretta had been found in her possession but it would be far more difficult for the prosecution to connect her to the FN FAL found in the warehouse. If, however, Frosser managed to plant a seed of suspicion in a jury’s mind that she was somehow implicated in Teufel’s death (it would be virtually impossible to charge her with it), the evidence hinging on the FN FAL could sway the jury against her. It could mean the difference between attempted murder and murder. A murder conviction would land her in a maximum security prison, out of UNACO’s reach. She prayed that Philpott had a few aces up his sleeve.

‘The commissioner will see you now, Colonel Philpott,’ the pretty blonde secretary said after acknowledging the intercom on her desk.

Philpott pressed his cane into the soft pile of the pale-blue carpet and eased himself to his feet.

The man warming himself by the artificial fire as Philpott opened the office door was in his early sixties, with thick white hair combed back from a face creased with the lines of responsibility from sixteen years as head of the Swiss police. Reinhardt Kuhlmann immediately stepped forward to offer Philpott an arm to lean on.

‘Stop fussing,’ Philpott said irritably. ‘It’s only a stiff leg.’

‘It wasn’t bothering you the last time I saw you.’

‘That’s because we were in Miami in the middle of summer. It’s the cold that makes it so damn stiff and bothersome.’ Philpott sat in the nearest of the two armchairs.

‘Coffee?’ Kuhlmann asked.

‘Not if you’ve still got some of that Hennessey cognac tucked away somewhere,’ Philpott replied, extending his palms towards the fire grille.

‘You’ve got a good memory considering you haven’t been up here for eighteen months,’ Kuhlmann said with a smile.

‘Some things in life are worth remembering. Your cognac’s one of them.’

‘You sound like the voice-over for a TV commercial,’ Kuhlmann said and poured a measure of cognac into a balloon glass.

‘Aren’t you having one?’ Philpott asked as he accepted the glass.

‘No alcohol. Doctor’s orders.’

‘What’s wrong?’ Philpott asked with an anxious frown.

‘Ulcers,’ Kuhlmann replied with a dismissive flick of his hand.

‘You’re pushing yourself too hard.’

‘That’s good coming from you,’ Kuhlmann said and sat in the other armchair.

‘Why can’t you accept retirement like everyone else? You’ve got a wonderful wife, not to mention your two sons and their families. I know they’d all want to see more of you.’

‘Neither one of us is the retiring kind, Malcolm, and you know it. How’s Marlene?’

Philpott stared at the cognac. ‘Our divorce came through earlier this year.’

‘I’m sorry, old friend, she’s a good woman.’

‘I wouldn’t disagree with that. She was the perfect tonic after my messy divorce from Carole. At least there weren’t any ugly courtroom scenes this time round. We’re still good friends.’

‘That’s the main thing,’ Kuhlmann sat back and crossed his legs. ‘I’ve made some initial enquiries about your operative. It’s not going to be easy, Malcolm.’

Philpott placed the balloon glass on the table beside him. ‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning it’s not going to be a matter of conveniently dropping the charges. Not only is the investigating officer one of the country’s leading detectives but the local press have also latched on to the case because of your operative’s film star looks. It makes a great front page story.’

‘Don’t imagine for one second I intend to sacrifice one of my best operatives just to satisfy this country’s gutter press.’

‘She killed a man–’

‘She wounded him, his colleague killed him.’

‘She still shot him. This is Switzerland, not the OK Corral.’

‘He was pointing a semi-automatic at her. What was she supposed to do? Ask him nicely to put it down? It comes back to the same old story: you’ve been opposed to UNACO ever since its inception.’

‘I’ve been opposed to gun-toting foreigners shooting up my country,’ Kuhlmann retorted angrily.

‘I can see your point. After all, your city financiers don’t need guns to launder dirty money.’

Kuhlmann held up his hands. ‘This isn’t getting us anywhere. You’ve got to understand my position, Malcolm. I can’t just wave a magic wand and get her off. Even if I could get Frosser to drop the charges how could I justify it to the public? There’s too much evidence against her. The press would crucify the whole legal system. My hands are tied.’

Philpott glanced at his wristwatch. ‘It’s three o’clock. You’d better have managed to untie them by six.’

Kuhlmann stood up, fury evident in his eyes. ‘Is that a threat?’

‘It is if you feel threatened. You’re the police commissioner, Reinhardt, use some of the authority that’s been vested in you.’

‘This is Switzerland, not Russia. Frosser has quite properly arrested your operative for attempted murder. I can’t overrule his actions without a valid reason and I don’t think you’d want me to tell him about UNACO, would you?’

Philpott took a sip of cognac and rolled it around in his mouth, savouring its smooth taste, then tilted his head back and allowed it to trickle down his throat, its warmth spreading through his body.

‘I see you’re determined to force my hand, Reinhardt. As you’re probably aware I’m answerable only to the Secretary-General and if you and I haven’t come to an acceptable agreement by six o’clock tonight I intend to call him personally and ask him to intervene on my behalf. I doubt he’d even bother consulting your ambassador at the United Nations: he’d be straight on to your President’s, private line to quietly remind him that Switzerland is one of the signatories on the original UNACO Charter. Furthermore, once this assignment’s been successfully completed detailed reports will have to be sent to the leaders of all those countries our operatives have entered. That includes your President. I write the report and I might find myself sorely tempted to highlight the lack of Swiss security if one of my operatives is rotting in one of your jails because she defended herself against a known criminal toting a semi-automatic rifle. It’s up to you how I word my report.’

Kuhlmann moved to the window of his sixth-floor office overlooking Bahnhofstrasse, Zurich’s financial metropolis, and stared out over the River Limmat running through the heart of the city centre. His voice was bitter when he spoke. ‘Intimidation, blackmail, threats, not to mention your apparent willingness to bend the law to suit your own purposes. You’ve become just like the very criminals UNACO was set up to combat.’

‘It’s not by choice, Reinhardt, but the only way to deal with this new breed of criminal is to fight him at his own game. I’m only sorry I’ve had to resort to some of those tactics today but my operatives are more than just employees to me. Marlene used to say I loved UNACO more than I loved her. She was nearly right. It’s not UNACO as such, it’s the people who work there. Especially my field operatives. They’re like a family to me. Sabrina personifies the kind of daughter I would love to have had and now that she’s in trouble I’ll move heaven and earth to get her back safely into the fold.’

‘Even if it means sacrificing our friendship?’

Philpott got to his feet and reached for his cane. ‘I’ll call you at six tonight.’

‘You never answered my question,’ Kuhlmann said.

‘Didn’t I?’ Philpott replied, then closed the door silently behind him.