The Anvil

ELEVEN

As Rives was clearing his desk, he suddenly had the feeling that he was not alone. He paused as he imagined that he’d heard the squeaking hinge of a door somewhere along the corridor but there was nothing but the hum of the air conditioner and an intermittent buzz from a strip-light that needed replacing. He continued clearing things away and was fastening the clip on his briefcase when he heard movement outside in the corridor. ‘Is anyone there?’ he called out into the darkness. There was no reply.

Rives berated himself for being so jumpy. He put it down to the darkness and the fact that he had been doing something the company would rather he hadn’t. There was nothing quite like guilt for distorting things out of all proportion, he concluded. He checked his desk for the last time and walked to the elevator. Somewhere far above, the winding gear whirred into life and the indicator lights above the door flashed silently on and off as they tracked the rise of the car.

The doors slid back and he was about to step inside when he was suddenly joined by two men, one on either side of him. They appeared to have materialised out of nowhere. Rives was startled and blurted out something about not realising that there had been other people working on the floor. Neither man replied but all three got into the elevator. Rives pressed the button for the basement garage and his companions seemed content with that.

Rives was afraid. The two men did not look like any members of staff he’d seen before in the building. The taller of the two had a distinctively yellow complexion, almost jaundiced, he thought, while the other was short, squat and fair with a squarish head that seemed to grow directly out of his shoulders. Both men stared into the middle distance as the elevator descended.

The doors opened and the smell of petrol and car wax heralded their arrival in the garage. Rives was just beginning to think that he had been worrying about nothing when he felt his elbows being gripped and he was steered quickly towards a black, Mercedes estate car. He protested and started to struggle but the short man held up a pistol to his head and motioned with the barrel towards the car.

The yellow man drove while the other sat with Rives in the back, holding the gun on him but still not saying anything, making Rives feel like the Invisible Man. All his questions about who his captors were and where the hell they were going were ignored by two men who did not even bother to look at him. Outside in the street he could see people smiling and talking. They didn’t even know he was there.

The Mercedes drew to a halt outside a building in the fashionable district of Sacconex and Rives was told to get out by the driver who came round to open the door. He was prodded along by the gun and directed down a flight of stone steps to a side door. The yellow man opened the door and all three entered to find a man obviously waiting for them. He was younger than Rives, well groomed and well dressed. He might have been an executive in Sales or Marketing.

‘Ah, M. Rives,’ the man smiled. ‘Sit down please.’

‘What is going on?’ Rives demanded. ‘I protest! This is outrageous! I can only assume that there has been some sort of ridiculous mistake.’

‘No mistake M. Rives,’ said the man evenly. ‘Why did you request access to the X14 file?’

Rives’ insides turned to water as he realised what must have happened. The X14 file had a security monitor on it. When he’d been asked to enter his personal details, it had not been for purposes of granting him access. It had been to identify the person making the request! The man questioning him no longer looked like a sales executive. His eyes were devoid of emotion and promised nothing but bad news unless he talk his way out of the mess he had got himself into.

Rives claimed that it was his job to monitor the company’s profits in European countries. By chance he had come across a discrepancy in the company’s assets versus investments in one of them. The computer had told him that something called X14 was responsible. He had thought it his duty to investigate further so he had simply asked for the file on X14.

There was a silence in the room that threatened Rives’ nerves. He watched as the man in front of him tapped his pen slowly end over end on the arm of his chair.

‘So you had never heard of X14 before today?’ asked the man.

‘No,’ answered Rives.

‘Then how do you explain this,’ said the man, removing two pieces of paper from his inside pocket and handing them to Rives who accepted them like a writ. He knew what they were before he looked at them. The crumpled nature of the paper said that they had been taken from his waste-paper basket. They were his notes from two days ago when he had found the connection between Von Jonek and X14. Rives said nothing and looked at the floor.

‘I’m waiting,’ said the man.

‘All right,’ conceded Rives. ‘I was trying to find Dr Von Jonek.’

There was another agonisingly long pause before the man said, ‘Why?’

‘Because someone asked me to.’

‘Who?’

‘A friend.’

‘Name?’

‘Schmidt, Karl Schmidt. He and Von Jonek were students together a long time ago. He’d heard that Von Jonek was working for the company and asked for my help in tracing him.’

‘Then why didn’t you say this at the beginning?’ said the man with an air of benevolence that Rives found disarming.

‘I didn’t want to lose my job,’ said Rives. ‘I enjoy my work.’

The yellow skinned man came from behind Rives and stood at the shoulder of Rives’ interrogator, who looked up at him and said, ‘What do you think Rudi?’

‘I think he’s lying in his teeth,’ said yellow skin.

The seated man rested his elbows on the arms of his chair and brought his fingertips together thoughtfully before saying slowly, ‘Then perhaps we should do something about his teeth?’

Rives started to shake with fear as he anticipated the pain to come. He felt himself being gripped from behind by the squat man and cringed away from yellow skin who was coming towards him. He closed his eyes against the expected blow but felt himself being manipulated into a headlock. He opened his eyes to see that yellow skin was holding a pair of electrical pliers in his hand.

Rives’ mouth was forced open and, at the third attempt, yellow skin managed to lock the pliers on to Rives’ right incisor and lever it horizontal to the gum.

Rives had never known such pain. He screamed and started to shake uncontrollably as the taste of blood filled his mouth

‘At the risk of repeating myself M. Rives,’ said the man calmly. ‘Why did you request access to the X14 file?’

With a desperate courage which Rives had never even suspected that he possessed he maintained that his story had been true.

‘Well Rudi, what do you think now?’

‘I think he’s lying to his fingertips,’ said yellow skin with plain meaning.

Rives’ tormentor did not have to say anything this time. He simply watched the horror register on Rives’ face.

Rives’ courage gave out. He told his torturers everything they wanted to know.

This time the man seemed satisfied. He looked to the squat man and nodded. The man screwed a silencer on to the end of his pistol.

Rives’ body was loaded into the back of the Mercedes and the three men set off to visit Eva Stahl.

Rives had told them about the man named Keith Nielsen who used to work with Eva at Lehman Steiner but had not been able to tell them what hotel he was staying at. No problem. Eva Stahl would tell them.

By nine thirty in the evening MacLean was convinced that this was going to be another day with no word from Eva. Frustration was building up inside him so he decided just had to get out for a while He had just left the hotel when Eva called. She left a message with the desk that he should phone as soon as he returned. MacLean came back just after ten and made the call from the desk.

‘Wonderful news,’ said Eva. ‘Jean-Paul has traced X14. He knows where Von Jonek is!’

‘Where?’

‘Come on over and we’ll tell you all about it.’

‘When?’

As soon as you like. He should be home at any moment now… actually he’s a bit late as it is.’

‘I’m on my way,’ said MacLean. It sounded like a celebration might be in order later. He checked that he had enough money in his pocket and also that he was carrying his passport. This was routine and the result of another of Doyle’s rules. When you’re in the field, stay mobile and solvent. MacLean tossed his key on to the desk at Reception and ran down the steps outside to hail a cab.

A black Mercedes was leaving the rue St Martin as MacLean’s cab turned into it. MacLean paid it scant attention; he was looking for Rives’ white Citroen as a sign of his return. He didn’t see it. Still tingling with anticipation he reached Eva’s apartment and rang the doorbell: there was no reply. He rang again and this time the continuing silence spawned a hellish flashback to what he’d found at Vernay’s flat in Edinburgh. Fear gripped at his stomach as he rang again with still no response. He put his ear to the door and thought that he could heard a sound. He listened again and heard a distinct moan coming from inside.

He put his shoulder to the door and entered to find Eva lying on the floor in a pool of blood. She had been badly beaten. He cradled her head in his arms and began wiping the blood away gently with a handkerchief. Eva opened her eyes and tried to speak. ‘Told them your hotel… didn’t tell them you were… Sean MacLean…’

The effort was causing her agony but she was determined to continue. ‘Jean-Paul is dead…’

MacLean swallowed; he could see that Eva herself was close to death. The blood in her mouth was coming from her lungs, probably punctured by broken ribs. There was no point in breaking off to call an ambulance; it was more appropriate that she should spend her last few living moments in the arms of a friend. He kissed her gently on the forehead and she responded with the merest shadow of a smile.

‘I’m so sorry,’ whispered MacLean but it seemed desperately inadequate.

Eva tried to speak again. ‘Your little girl,’ she murmured. ‘May Haas… X14… May Haas.’

‘Who is May Haas, Eva?’ MacLean asked.

May Haas is… ‘ Eva tried to take a breath but failed. Her head fell to one side.

MacLean laid her gently down on the floor and closed his eyes for a moment. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he whispered.

MacLean stood up and tried to think rationally. The opposition must be on their way to his hotel. In fact, they would probably be there by now. What would they do when they found out he wasn’t there? The answer seemed clear enough. They would wait for his return. They would have no reason to suspect that he’d been on his way to Eva’s apartment. They would be waiting for an unsuspecting Keith Nielsen to return from wherever.

MacLean saw two options. He could go straight to the airport and, with a bit of luck, be out of the country by the time the opposition got fed up waiting at the hotel. Or he could go back to the hotel and even up the score for Jean-Paul and Eva. The element of surprise would be on his side because the hunted were under the mistaken impression that they were the hunters.

The warning voices of Doyle and Leavey whispered to him. ‘If you let it get personal, you can start digging your own grave.’ Was that what he was doing? Was he thinking purely of personal revenge or was there some advantage to be gained from going to war with Eva’s killers? The objective: he had to remember the objective. He was here to get Cytogerm for Carrie.

MacLean poured himself a glass of cold water in the kitchen and gulped it down. He’d come so close to finding out where Von Jonek and Cytogerm were but it had all gone horribly wrong and all he was left with was a name, May Haas. She was the only link he had to go on and he would have to find her on his own. On the other hand the opposition knew that a man named Nielsen was interested in the X14 project. They did not know that Nielsen was really Sean MacLean but to all intents and purposes, it would now be as dangerous to travel under the name Nielsen as it had MacLean.

It didn’t look good but that part of the opposition who knew about Nielsen were currently sitting outside his hotel. They would have gone directly there after leaving Eva’s apartment so there was a chance they hadn’t yet reported back to their employers. If he could get to them first, Keith Nielsen’s identity would be safe and he could continue using the name while he searched for May Haas. It seemed like a good reason to go to war.

He searched the flat for anything that might be useful in the coming conflict. He couldn’t hope to find a gun, which was what he really needed, but kitchen knives were better than nothing. He selected two and started a little pile to which he added scissors, a screwdriver, pepper, matches, a candle and a tube of superglue. A cupboard under the sink yielded two butane gas cylinders for a camping stove and some plastic tubing from a home winemaking kit. A torch and some clothes pegs completed the inventory. He packed the lot into a plastic bag and left the apartment, closing the door quietly behind him. He hailed a cab to take him to a hotel which stood about half a kilometre from his own. Making a show of entering the hotel for the driver’s benefit, he turned as soon as the man had driven off and started out on foot for his own hotel. He used the shadows intelligently, flitting in and out of doorways, circling, criss-crossing and approaching in turn from both sides to see what he could see. He did not know how many men he was looking for and he didn’t know whether they would be waiting for him inside the hotel or outside.

MacLean’s attention came to rest on a black Mercedes estate car. It was parked in a narrow lane opposite the hotel in the perfect position to observe comings and goings. He could see two men sitting in the front of the car but his view of the back was obscured. He would have to circle round behind the car to see if there were more in the back. He back-tracked and entered the lane from the far end, moving swiftly and quietly from doorway to doorway until he could see that the Mercedes, which was parked with its nearside wheels up on the pavement, held three men. There was a third man sitting in the middle of the back seat. All three were watching the hotel entrance. Two were smoking.

MacLean felt sure he was looking at the opposition but how best to tackle them? They would be armed and he couldn’t hope to take on three armed men with a couple of kitchen knives. He decided that the car was their weak point. All three were sitting down and close together; they were vulnerable and unawares. But first he had to make sure they were the killers. He decided to offer himself as bait. He moved away from the car and retreated back down the lane. He ran down the neighbouring street until he neared his hotel and stopped, knowing that when he moved on a few steps, he would become visible from the lane. The men in the car would be bound to see him.

MacLean gambled that they would not rush him. There would be no point in creating a commotion in the street when they could deal with him quietly in his room in the hotel. He steeled himself to take the next step and prayed that the men in the car saw it that way too.

He walked on, making sure that they got a good view of him by pausing under a street light to pretend to check something in his plastic shopping bag. He walked up the steps of the hotel to the entrance and into the hall to collect his key from Reception. He got into an elevator but got out again on the first floor and ran quickly back down the stairs to keep watch on the hotel entrance through the glass panel of the door leading to the stairs.

He did not have long to wait before the three men from the car came casually through the front door and asked the Reception clerk something. They walked over to the elevators and got into one which had just been vacated by four people who were laughing and joking as they crossed the hall to the exit.

The elevator doors slid shut and MacLean ran quickly across the hall, using the four laughing people as a shield between himself and Reception. He did not want the desk clerk to see him leave. Once outside, he sprinted across to the Mercedes in the lane and prayed that it had been left unlocked. It had.

The question now was, did he have enough time to booby trap the car with what little resources he had at his disposal? The men would get no answer at his room and find the door locked. They would check with Reception that they had the right number and try again before finally forcing the door. MacLean reckoned that he had five minutes max.

He got into the back of the Mercedes and emptied the contents of his plastic bag on to the seat beside him. The butane cylinders were going to play a starring role in this production. He forced the length of plastic tubing from the wine kit over the nozzle of one of the cylinders and then cut off half to fit on to the other one. He then used a kitchen knife to cut an opening into the base of each of the front seats.

The cuts were just large enough to permit the insertion of the ends of the tubing. The cylinders themselves he pushed out of sight underneath the front seats. He wanted a reservoir of gas to build up in the car but it would have to be contained in some way so that it was not flushed away when the doors were opened. The seat squabs would prevent this.

Next, MacLean needed to find the car’s flexible fuel line. It was an estate car so there was a chance he could reach it from inside the car providing he could pry off the side panels in the rear luggage space. He pulled one of the rear seats forward so that he could climb through the gap into the back. Unfortunately the backspace wasn’t empty and he had difficulty finding enough room to kneel down and turn round. There was something under a tarpaulin, which was awkward to push to one side. He struggled to get both his arms under the bundle and froze suddenly when it made a sound. Sweat broke out on MacLean’s brow; he recognised the sound. It was the sound a corpse made when trapped air was expelled from its lungs.

With his heart thumping in his chest, MacLean withdrew his arms slowly from beneath the tarpaulin and pulled it back. The bloody face and staring eyes of Jean Paul Rives looked up at him. MacLean swallowed and replaced the tarpaulin. He steeled himself to carry on.

Time was running out but any lingering doubt about the identity of the three men as the killers had just been removed. He wrenched back the side panel in the luggage space and found the flexible fuel line. He cut through the underside in a place where fuel would start to leak out through a drainage hole on to the road and form a puddle in the gutter. The car had its wheels up on the pavement: the gutter was practically under its middle.

MacLean got out of the car not a moment too soon. He had just made it to the shadows on the other side of the lane when he saw the three men emerge from the hotel. Their voices were loud: they were arguing about something. He watched as they approached the car and knew that the next few seconds would be critical. Would they simply get in or would they stand around arguing? The gas cylinders must be about fully discharged, he reckoned. Any delay and the concentration in the seat squabs would start to fall. At last the three men stopped talking and got into the car.

MacLean readied himself with matches and lighter fuel but was not convinced that there would be enough petrol vapour in the gutter to trigger off the gas inside. He would wait as long as possible. The men had started to argue again and there was an air of despondency about them. He saw the driver take out a pack of cigarettes and put it to his mouth to draw out one with his lips. MacLean froze in anticipation.

The driver held up a lighter to the end of his cigarette and flicked it open. MacLean saw a flicker of yellow flame lick out from it before the car erupted in a butane flash fire. This in turn ignited the heavy petrol vapour outside and a violent explosion rocked the car. There was no question of anyone surviving the conflagration. Jean-Paul Rives was cremated along with his murderers.

MacLean walked away: he walked for two blocks then took a cab to the far side of the city and did not return until late. The night porter at the hotel told him all about the excitement he had missed, obliging him to spend a few minutes asking the questions he could be reasonably expected to ask. He then went to his room and drank whisky until whether he was asleep or unconscious was a matter of medical opinion.

MacLean plied his hangover with black coffee and faced the fact that last night had not been a nightmare; it had all happened. His friends were dead and he had murdered three men out there in the street. The burnt-out shell of the Mercedes had been removed by the police — this was Switzerland after all — but there were scorch marks on the walls of the lane nearby. He was all alone with only the name May Haas to cling to. Who was she? What was she? Presumably she worked for Lehman Steiner but as what? Doctor? Nurse? Scientist? Personnel would know but would they tell him?

At eleven o’ clock MacLean phoned Lehman Steiner and asked to speak to the chief personnel officer. There was a pause before a woman’s voice answered and asked what he wanted.

‘I wonder if you can help me,’ said MacLean. ‘My name is Dieter Haas, I’m trying to find my niece, May. I believe she works for your company?’

‘This is a very big company,’ replied the woman. ‘And we are not allowed to give out… ‘

‘Yes, I’m sorry,’ interrupted MacLean, ‘but you are my only hope. I’ve spent the last twenty years in Leipzig. My brother and I were separated many years ago by the Berlin wall. We never saw each other again. I’ve learned since that he died two years ago and that his wife is also dead. But they had a daughter, May. She is my only living relative and I would dearly like to find her. I’ve been told that she works for Lehman Steiner so I wondered if perhaps you could see your way to help me?

‘I see,’ said the woman; she sounded concerned and genuinely sympathetic. A nice person, thought MacLean; he hated conning nice people.

‘We don’t usually give out this sort of information but as this is obviously a special case… What exactly does Fraulein Haas do with the company?’ asked the woman.

‘I’m afraid I’ve no idea,’ confessed MacLean.

‘Oh dear,’ came the reply.

‘Is there a problem?’ asked MacLean in trepidation.

‘Sort of,’ said the woman. ‘It’s just that if you don’t know what type of employment she has with us then it could take some time to trace her. Perhaps I could call you back?’

MacLean thanked the woman but said that it would be better if he were to call her.’

‘Very well,’ said the woman. ‘I realise how important this must be to you. Give me an hour.’

‘Thank you,’ said MacLean. He spent most of the following hour pacing up and down the room. On the stroke of ten thirty he called back.

‘I think there must have been some kind of mistake,’ said the woman when she came on the line.

‘Mistake?’ asked MacLean with a sinking feeling in his stomach.

‘We have no one with the name of May Haas working with the company in any capacity.’

‘I see,’ said MacLean slowly.

‘I’m so sorry,’ said the woman.

‘Thank you, ‘ said MacLean, putting down the phone in slow motion. Where did he go from here?