The Power

32

'Norton here,' the American reported when he was connected with the President. He gave him the phone number of the Hotel Bristol. 'When you want tq contact me get Sara to leave a coded message. I'll come back to you as soon as I can…'

'Like hell you will. I need the number I can reach you at pronto. There's been a development.'

That's my best offer,' Norton snapped.

'OK, if that's the way it has to be,' March agreed in a deceptively amiable tone. 'Now pin your ears back. I've had a fresh message from the man with the growly voice. About the exchange. The big bucks for the film and the tape. Where are you? Basle?'

'No, Colmar, France. On the edge of the Vosges mountains.'

'Ever heard of a dump called Kaysersberg? I'll spell that to you. ..'

'No need. I was driving through it an hour ago.'

'Really? Department of Sinister Coincidence.'

'I don't get that… Mr President.'

'Say it was a joke. There's some crappy hotel in this Kaysersberg. L'Arbre Vert. I'll spell that. Sara says it means the Green Tree…'

'No need to spell it out. I noticed it, passing through.'

'You take a room there. Under the name of Tweed

'You can't mean it.'

'Growly Voice says you do. You wait for a call. You have the big bucks where you can lay your hands on them? The call may come tomorrow morning. It's up to you to get the film, the tape – and Growly Voice. In a box. Laid out nice and neat. You're running out of days. I said you had a deadline. Time is flying. I'm counting on you, Norton…'

'You can rely on me, Mr President…'

He was speaking into the air. March had gone off the line. Norton swore to himself as he left the phone cubicle in Colmar railway station. He'd deliberately given the Bristol number – where he'd never spend a night. He could call for messages. No way was he going to give the number of his small hotel at the edge of a stream in Little Venice.

He climbed in behind the wheel of his parked blue Renault. Switching on the ignition, he turned up the heaters. He didn't like the arrangement March had agreed one little bit. Registering as Tweed, goddamnit! Why? The blackmailer with the film and the tape had to be someone who knew Tweed, knew he was in the area.

Norton would make a list of everyone his unit had reported as having been seen with Tweed. One of those names on that list had to be Growly Voice.

When Bradford March had put down the phone he clasped his hands behind his bull neck and stared at the marble fireplace on the opposite wall without seeing it. He was in a vicious rage.

The blackmailer was playing games with him – with Norton, too. This constant switching of locations from one Swiss city to another – and now he'd moved the whole operation to France. Norton, persuaded to 'resign' from the FBI because the Director hadn't liked his tough, ruthless ways, was being led around by the nose. Growly Voice was running circles round him.

March looked up as Sara entered the Oval Office. He didn't like her expression.

'Very bad news, boss. Just heard about it.'

'Heard about what?'

'Harmer. Who gave you that large sum of money, then said he needed it back to pay off a bank loan. I guess he sure did.'

'What the hell are you talking about? Give, Sara.'

'Harmer committed suicide a few hours ago. Took a load of sleeping pills, then drank a lot of bourbon.'

'So.' March spread his hands, exposing their hairy backs. 'Problem solved.'

'If you say so.'

'Are you hinting he left a note?'

'For his wife, yes, he did.'

March leaned forward. 'C'mon. We'd better find out what he said in that note.'

'I know. I rang his wife to offer my sympathies. I also said you were shocked and sent your deepest sympathies.'

'Great. Don't have to write my own dialogue with you to do it for me. Just a moment. What did the note say?'

'The usual thing. He was so sorry, he loved her dearly, but the pressure of his responsibilities had proved too big a burden. She read it out to me over the phone before she broke down in a flood of tears.'

'Bye-bye Mr Harmer. It happens. All is well.'

'I hope so. I do hope so, Brad. For your sake.'

The Three Wise Men were assembled in Senator Wingfield's study. Again the curtains were closed, concealing the grounds of the estate. The lights were on. The banker and the elder statesman had been called urgently to the Chevy Chase mansion by Wingfield, who looked grim. He stared round the table at his guests.

'I am sorry to summon you here at such short notice, but the situation inside the Oval Office is not improving.'

'I heard about Harmer's suicide,' the banker commented. 'That's a big loss to the party. He not only contributed generously himself – more important still, he was a genius at fund-raising.'

'Let's face it,' said the elder statesman, gazing at the Senator through his horn-rimmed glasses, 'politics is a mobile situation. Harmer must have managed his affairs badly. He's replaceable.'

'I have a personal letter from Harmer,' Wingfield informed them. There was an edge to his cultured accent. 'I know the real reason why Harmer took his life. Read that…'

He tossed a folded sheet of high-quality notepaper on the table. The statesman read it first before handing it on to the banker.

Dear Charles: By the time you read this I'll have gone to a better place. I hope. Bradford March asked me to loan him fifteen million dollars. Don't know what this large sum was for. I did so. When I wanted it back to repay a bank loan on demand he refused to speak to me. Sara Maranoff phoned his message. The money was no longer available. Go to hell was the real message. Maybe I'm going there. Someone has to stop the President. Only The Three Wise Men have the clout.

'What could March have wanted that money for?' queried the banker.

'We'll probably never know,' the statesman told him. 'I hold the same view. It's not enough – for impeachment.'

'That letter could be passed to the Washington Post,' the banker suggested.

'Definitely not,' Wingfield said quietly. 'Ned, can't you imagine how March would play it? He'd get handwriting experts to prove it was a forgery. Then he'd rave on about a conspiracy – about how the three of us were trying to be the power behind the throne. Give him his due, he's a powerful orator. He'd destroy us. It's not enough for us to make a move.'

'Then what the hell is?' burst out the banker.

'Cool it,' the elder statesman advised. 'Politics is the art of the possible. I worked on that basis when I held the position I did under a previous president.'

'There's the business about him dismissing the Secret Service,' the banker continued, his anger unquenched. 'I understand he has a bunch of his own thugs guarding him now. Unit One, or some such outfit.'

'Which is the paramilitary force I told you about at an earlier meeting,' Senator Wingfield said quietly.

'It's against all tradition,' protested the banker.

'Bradford March is breaking a lot of traditions, Ned,' Wingfield reminded him. 'Which is another popular move in the present mood of the American electorate. We can only wait.'

'For what?' demanded the banker.

'For something far worse, Ned. Pray to God it doesn't surface…'

The tall figure of Jeb Galloway created distorted shadows on the walls of his office as he paced restlessly. Sam, his closest aide and friend, watched him, undid the jacket button constraining his ample stomach.

'Heard from your mystery man in Europe yet, Jeb?' he asked.

'Not a word. I think he's on the run.'

'Which means someone is running after him. Which means someone over there knows he exists. You're playing with fire. This gets back to March and he'll smear you for good. He's an expert. Part of how he got where he is. Trampling over other people's bodies. That's politics. March is the original cobra at the game.'

'There's no way anyone can connect my informant with me. And there's a safe way he can contact me – if he's still alive.'

'I think you should forget him, Jeb,' Sam warned.

'No. I have a duty. To the American people.'

Tweed was proved right when he passed through the Swiss, then the French, frontier controls at Basle station. The counters were deserted, the shutters closed; no one was on duty.

He boarded the Strasbourg express with Paula and found an empty first-class compartment. The whole train was nearly empty close to eleven in the morning. Behind them

Newman followed, the two Walthers belonging to Nield and Butler tucked inside his belt at the back. Cardon brought up the rear. At eleven precisely the express moved off.

'That conversation you had with Jennie Blade which you told me about,' began Paula, facing Tweed in a corner window seat. 'I've given it a lot of thought.'

'And your conclusion?'

'Jennie worries me. Has anyone except her seen this mysterious Shadow Man with the wide-brimmed hat? Has Gaunt?'

'It was the one question I forgot to ask him,' Tweed admitted. 'Although he didn't seem to take it seriously. Why?'

'Because if no one else has seen this Shadow Man how can we be sure he exists?'

'You've forgotten something,' Tweed reminded her. 'Old Nosy in Zurich gave us exactly the same description of a man who'd left the building shortly after Klara was garrotted.'

'Maybe Jennie was close by in the Altstadt when we were there. Saw a man like that leaving that building.'

'You're stretching supposition to breaking point.'

'Jennie was in Zurich at the time. We know that.'

'True.' Tweed sounded unconvinced.

'You know something?' Paula leaned forward. 'When a woman persists with trying to persuade a man of something he can eventually come to believe her.'

'Like you're persisting now,' he told her. 'Sowing a few doubts in my mind.' , 'Who do you think is behind all these brutal murders?' Paula asked, changing the subject. 'Have you any idea yet?'

'A very good idea. Go back to the beginning. Blowing up our headquarters in Park Crescent with a huge bomb. The timer for the bomb – a more sophisticated device than Crombie had ever seen. The fact that there are so many Americans swarming over Switzerland – all holding diplomatic passports. The fact that when Joel Dyson arrived at Park Crescent to hand over copies of the film and the tape Monica saw inside his suitcase American clothes – which suggests he'd just arrived from the States. The fact that our PM seems to be in the palm of the American President. All that has happened suggests limitless sums of money, a huge hostile organization. All that adds up to power – great power. Work it out for yourself. It's frightening.'

'You don't sound frightened,' she observed.

' I am not. I'm indignant, determined. The garrotting of Helen Frey and Klara was bad enough – although sometimes it's a risk of their trade. But Theo Strebel was a nice chap, didn't deserve to be shot. And that's curious and significant – two women garrotted, a man shot by someone he knew.'

'How do you know that?'

'Think of the precautions he took when we arrived – how we had to say who we were before he'd admit us.'

'I don't see the significance,' Paula confessed.

On a seat across the aisle Newman sat listening. He'd removed the two Walther automatics from behind his back. They now rested inside the pockets of the trench coat folded beside him.

Their owners, Butler and Nield, had hired cars in Basle for future use in the Vosges. It would have been risky taking firearms by car past a frontier post. They were now racing along the A35 autoroute to Colmar where they'd wait for Tweed and his team at the Hotel Bristol.

Cardon was seated in his usual strategic position at one end of the long compartment. Armed with his Walther, he could see any stranger approaching from either direction. He appeared to be asleep but his eyes never left the back of Tweed's head.

The express had stopped at St Louis, later at Mulhouse. Then it raced along to the distant stop of Colmar. Paula gazed out of the window to the west on the stretch from Mulhouse to Colmar. The Vosges were coming into view in the distance.

The sun was shining brilliantly again and the range, snowbound to midway down its slopes, showed up clearly. They'd be driving up into those mountains soon. Why did she find them sinister on this lovely morning? They swooped up and down in great saddlebacks with here and there a prominent summit. They looked so dreadfully lonely, Paula thought, so remote from the villages amid vineyards on the lower slopes.

As the express raced on north she reflected on the strangeness of this beautiful province. Its odd mix of French and German which appeared in the names of towns on a map she'd studied. Bollwiller. Ste-Croix-en-Plaine. Munster. Ribeauville.

In 1871 Bismarck's Prussia had annexed Alsace-Lorraine. At the end of the First World War France had taken Alsace-Lorraine back. She was still staring out of the window. Many of the houses had steep-pitched rooves like flat chutes, which suggested winter could be severe, with heavy snow.

She glanced at Tweed and he was humming to himself, which was a rare habit. Why was he so pleased?

'What are you thinking of?' she asked him.

'That with a bit of luck soon I shall meet the two men who, I'm convinced, hold the key to this whole horrific business.'

'And you're keeping their names to yourself?'

'Joel Dyson – who knows Amberg is at the Chateau Noir. Who is, I'm sure, so anxious to get back the originals of his film and tape.'

'The second man?'

'Probably the most important of all. Barton Ives, Special Agent of the FBI…'

'These are the ideal ambush points,' Norton said. 'All up in the Vosges. You should wipe out the whole of Tweed's team at one blow.'

Norton was meeting Marvin Mencken for the first time, because he had to make sure Mencken didn't make a mistake. But even at this face-to-face meeting Mencken realized Norton had been clever. Close together as they were, he couldn't see Norton's face.

They were sitting inside a small cafe in Little Venice, deep inside Colmar. Norton had searched the area to discover this place before phoning Mencken. The cafe was divided into two sections, separated by a heavy lace curtain. Tables on either side were close to each other.

One side was for customers who required food. Norton had arrived early, consumed an omelette and salad and a huge quantity of French bread. He needed plenty of food to fuel his exceptional energy. He had finished the meal before Mencken arrived, had waved away the waiter.

'Later…'

The windows facing the narrow street were also hung with heavy lace curtains. Mencken, as instructed, went into the bar entrance, ordered a glass of white wine and took it to the table next to Norton's beyond the curtain. As he sat down, facing the curtain, the only other customer had twisted round in his chair as though greeting a friend.

Yes, Mencken thought, Norton had been clever. The face he looked at was distorted by the lace curtain. Norton wore a French beret he'd purchased and his grey hair was tucked under it. He also wore a windcheater and a scarf which covered his chin. Perched on his nose was a pair of pebble glasses. The eyes which stared at Mencken were huge, intimidating. The map was held so Mencken could see it clearly, pressed against the curtain.

'Each cross marked on this map locates the ambush points,' Norton continued. 'See this one in Kaysersberg.'

'I've studied my own map. That place is a short drive from Colmar…'

'Just listen. The cross marks a bridge. If they go that way into the Vosges you could mine that bridge with explosives, detonate them by remote control.'

'OK,' Mencken said impatiently. 'I visited hardware and electrical shops before I drove here from Basle. I have the equipment I can use to make a timer system; crude, but it will work.'

There's a stone quarry I've marked here – on the way to Colmar from Basle. It has a shed with explosives inside

'OK, I don't miss much. I spotted it on my way here. It'll be like breaking into a piggy bank…'

'Kindly listen! Tweed and his team may arrive in this area at any moment – he moves very fast. So your first priority is to grab those explosives…'

'Which was my priority one anyway

'This cross, if you're listening, marks a cliff by the roadside. It looked pretty unstable and faces an abyss. Maybe you could create an avalanche when they…'

'OK. I like that…'

'This position – again high up above the snowline – is where you could catch them in a crossfire. You're not making notes.'

'Yes, I am.' Mencken tapped his forehead. 'Up here. I've a mind like a computer – one that works. Next?'

Norton gazed at Mencken from his side of the curtain. His view was also distorted – and the pebble glasses increased the effect. Mencken's face looked very skeletal with its hard pointed jaw line and prominent cheekbones. A man who would not hesitate to carry out any cold-blooded execution. Which suited Norton. But he still didn't trust him. In the slate-grey eyes which stared back he detected overweening ambition. You wouldn't miss a single chance to take over from me, he thought. So the answer was to be very tough with Marvin Mencken, a natural killer.

For several minutes he listed other areas in the Vosges marked by crosses. With his hands covered with silk-lined gloves, he eventually passed the map through to Mencken under the curtain. Mencken found the use of gloves interesting. It suggested Norton's fingerprints were on record in the States – maybe under a different name. Ex-CIA, FBI? Or a criminal history?

He snatched the map from under the curtain, put it in his pocket. He'd had a bellyful of Norton – explaining everything as though he was new to this type of work. Plus the fact that there was something patronizing in the other man's attitude. But Norton wasn't finished yet.

'Stay where you are. It's not just Tweed and his team we need to eliminate. I'm confident Joel Dyson will appear in this area

'Because my man spotted him outside the Zurcher Kredit in Basle, made him squawk…'

'And then let him escape alive,' rasped Norton. 'Not a great success, Mencken. Don't interrupt me again. Just concentrate on what I say. Joel Dyson must be eliminated. Equally important, that Special Agent FBI, Barton Ives, must be too. We need all of them wiped off the face of the earth.'

Mencken leaned forward. His nose was touching the curtain.

'I'll terminate the lot. It will be a blood bath.'

'Don't forget they could drive to the Chateau Noir by either route,' Norton reminded him,

'It will be a blood bath,'Mencken repeated.