The Power

45

'Ives, whichever route Tweed and his team use to come back down off the mountains they have to pass this point,' said Cord Dillon. Seated inside his car, his window open, Dillon had the hood of his coat pulled well down over his head.

He was speaking to a man astride a motorcycle parked next to the open window. At the front of his machine a Union Jack fluttered in the icy breeze, attached to the top of the extended radio aerial.

Barton Ives, Special Agent of the FBI, was even more muffled up. Wearing a helmet and goggles, the lower part of his face was masked with a thick woollen scarf. He had lifted it above his firm mouth to converse with Dillon.

'Tweed knows the Union Jack is partial proof of your identity,' Dillon went on. 'But he'll need more than that…'

'I have my papers…'

'He'll need more than those,' Dillon warned. 'So he has your description. When you contact him show him your face and hair immediately. He has a tough bunch with him who don't hesitate to shoot any suspect character.'

'I'll tell him my story as soon as I get the guy on his own. Trouble is,' Ives went on, 'he'll never believe it. Too goddamn earth-shaking.'

'It's all of that,' Dillon agreed. 'Didn't believe it myself when you first told me. It's quiet here but we'd better not be seen together any longer.'

That gas station over there,' Ives commented. 'It has a coffee shop. I'll buy myself a drink, sit at a window table. I'll have a good view of the road from there.'

'OK,' Dillon agreed, reaching for the brake. 'But make contact before Tweed and his team hit the heavy traffic. I saw him go up in a Renault Espace, with a Renault station wagon and two motorcycle outriders as escort. The Espace is a grey colour. On your own now, Ives. So stay lucky…'

The convoy's journey down through the Vosges had been uneventful so far. That is discounting the fact that an icy breeze combined with a fall in temperature had made the twisting road like an endless skating rink. Inside the Espace, even with the heaters turned up full blast, Paula felt the chill penetrating her gloves, her clothes.

Several times Tweed, behind the wheel of the Espace, had felt the insidious slide of a skid. On one occasion he had a cliff wall to his left, a bottomless abyss to his right. He had driven with the skid, which had taken the front right-hand wheel within centimetres of the drop.

'Oh, my God!' Amberg cried out, jerking upright.

'Shut up, like Newman told you to,' snapped Paula.

She glanced at Eve, saw her hands had tightened on the rifle. Paula's own hands had stiffened inside her gloves. Eve turned on Amberg.

'Walter,' she said in a cold voice, 'I'm beginning to suspect you are the real target. After all, whoever those people were, they attacked the Chateau Noir. So you could be the one who is putting our lives at risk. That being so, kindly shut your face. I hope you are understanding my message, Walter.'

Cardon turned slowly sideways and nudged the banker before he spoke.

'Do keep quiet, old chap. The driver needs all his concentration. Ready for the next skid.'

Tweed heard all this with a corner of his mind as he stared ahead at the next bend, trying to detect whether there was more ice under the treacherous covering of snow on the steep downward spiral.

Ahead of them, Newman, behind the wheel of the station wagon with Marler next to him, had negotiated two skids and had been driving slowly. Now he reduced his speed to a crawl. It was only a few minutes later that the road levelled out, widened on a small plateau. He signalled that he was stopping.

Tweed pulled up behind him after signalling to Gaunt who was following them in the BMW with Jennie huddled in a sheepskin next to him. Newman had alighted and Tweed, his arms aching with tension, was glad to join him in the snow as Paula and Cardon followed him. Marler then stepped out, the Armalite gripped in his right hand. Newman pointed to a large sign in front of a large single-storey wooden building which appeared deserted. Paula read it.

LA SCHLUCHT 1139.

'I don't believe it,' she said. 'We're still over three thousand feet up in the Vosges. I assume that height is in metres.'

'You assume correctly,' Tweed responded, banging his gloves together to get the circulation back into both his hands. 'In summer I imagine that place is open for refreshments. This is what is called a panoramic viewing point on maps – something like that.'

'A panorama it is,' Paula agreed.

To the north and south stretched the Ice Age world of the peaks and crevasses of the Vosges, the white summits reminding Paula of shark-like teeth. They had emerged from the zone of shadow and everywhere the sunlit snow sparkled like a million diamonds.

The cold was intense and Paula, like Eve and Jennie, who had run down from the BMW, began stamping her booted feet, which felt like blocks of ice. Gaunt came striding up as Tweed conferred with Newman, Marler and Cardon.

'I don't like it,' Tweed warned. 'So far there has been no sign of the opposition, no attempt to stop us. Yet! Something pretty nasty has to be waiting for us beyond here.'

'Oh, I don't know about that,' said Gaunt, who had taken no part in the defence of the chateau. 'My bet is they shot their bolt, back up there, whoever they were. Let's press on, regardless. Get back to Colmar and the Brasserie before dark. I can feel a drink comin' on.'

Paula stared at him blankly. Jennie raised her eyebrows to heaven. Tweed ignored him, hauled out his walkie-talkie, called Butler.

The two outriders, Butler and Nield, posted at the front and rear, had stopped their machines without coming to join the conference.

'Butler,' Tweed said, 'keep your eyes skinned for anything unusual. I don't like the peace we have enjoyed so far.'

'Agreed. Neither do I,' Butler responded.

Nield also agreed when Tweed contacted him, made a similar reply to Butler's.

'Let's get moving,' Tweed ordered. 'Proceed with extreme caution…'

Beyond the Col de la Schlucht the road descended at a precipitous angle round a series of hellish hairpin bends. During their brief stop Paula had been struck by the sinister silence which had fallen over the Vosges. A heavy silence which you could almost hear. She sat upright, staring ahead. The mountain began to rise up sheer to their left. To the right the abyss became a white chasm with no sign of where it reached bottom. Beside Newman, in the station wagon, Marler had laid his tear-gas pistol in his lap, was craning his neck to check the heights. It was Butler who issued the early warning.

'Everyone slow to a crawl. Be prepared to stop the moment I tell you. Two men on top of the big cliff ahead.'

'Message received,' Tweed replied, holding the wheel with one hand briefly along a short straight stretch.

He had finished speaking when, thirty seconds later, he heard Nield calling him. An urgent note in his tone.

'We're being followed. Bloody great truck. Nestle. A half-mile behind me and coming like the clappers.'

In the distance, just short of yet another bend, Butler had propped his machine against the rock wall, had begun to climb up a ravine. Marler told Newman to stop, jumped out, Armalite in his left hand, tear-gas pistol in his right. Keeping close to the rock wall, he ran down the icy road like a marathon entrant, reached the ravine and shinned up it close behind Butler.

Paula had focused her binoculars on the rock wall near the bend. She pursed her lips before she spoke.

'That's a huge granite cliff sheering up vertically from the road by the bend. Obviously unstable. I'm sure it's covered with a curtain of steel mesh.'

Tweed nodded as he stopped the Espace. Paula's news was disturbing. They had something possibly very dangerous ahead of them – and coming up fast behind them was this huge Nestle truck Nield had spotted. Tweed didn't think the two incidents were a coincidence. They were caught in a pincer movement of potential destruction. It all had the signature of Norton written across it.

'I'd better go and give them back-up,' Paula suggested.

Tweed swung round in his seat, grasped her arm. He shook his head.

'Stay here. Marler and Butler will be more than a match for two thugs. I just hope they clear the way before that truck coming up behind us arrives. It's going to try and push us all off the road into eternity.'

'If I run back now past the BMW I could probably shoot that truck driver,' Eve suggested.

' Stay put. No one moves,' Tweed ordered.

'Are we just going to sit here?' Amberg demanded.

'We are going to do just that.'

'Surely someone can do something,' Amberg persisted.

Two men are doing something,' Tweed replied in the same flat tone. 'You can do something – keep quiet.'

Tweed had experienced similar reactions before. In a crisis people couldn't just wait. To soothe their nerves they needed action – anything which involved movement. So often it was safest to wait – once counter-measures had been taken. And they had been.

Butler and Marler, using their gloved hands, had hauled themselves up to the top of the ravine. Butler peered over the rim of a rock. Then he crouched down again and looked at Marler below him over his shoulder.

Tricky,' he reported. Two thugs about thirty feet away. Top of the cliff is flat. Boulders scattered in groups across it.'

'I could take them with the Armalite.'

'Not that simple,' Butler objected. 'They have set up explosives to bring down the cliff on the road…'

'How do you know?' Marler whispered impatiently.

'Because I can see another of those old-fashioned plunger devices like the one on top of the tower at Kaysersberg. Hang on, you weren't there. They're both near the handle that only needs pressing to bring down that cliff. I'm sure of it. And on the road they've got the Nestle truck coming after them…' Butler had heard Nield's message just before switching off his walkie-talkie and knew they were desperately short of time before the truck arrived.

'We have to lure those thugs away from that plunger handle,' he told Marler. 'Question is, how the hell do we do that?'

The stocky American driving the truck was grinning wolfishly to himself. He had caught a glimpse of the stalled convoy and was closing the gap rapidly. He wore a woollen cap pulled down over his low forehead and talked to himself for company.

'Won't be long now. I'll ram the lot of you over the edge down into that abyss. You'll end up dead meat. Maybe spring before what's left of you is found. Old bones…'

With two accomplices he had earlier hijacked the big vehicle as the original driver crossed the Vosges. They had cut his throat and thrown the body into one of the crevasses in the ice. But not before the American now driving had pulled off the victim's woollen cap. He felt the cold.

The truck was loaded to the roof with supplies, adding to the enormous weight of the juggernaut. The weight was now helping the driver to keep going, holding the surface of the snow-covered road well.

'Another five minutes,' he said to himself. Then it will be all over for you poor schmucks…'

Marler had eased himself up the ravine alongside Butler. He peered over the rim of the boulder, looked at the side of the ravine where they had pressed away snow during their ascent. With his gloved hand he began digging and clawing at a small piece of protruding rock while Butler held his tear-gas pistol. The rock came loose, Marler tested its weight in his hand and nodded. 'Give me back the pistol,' he said. 'With luck this will get them well clear of the explosive box. You take the one with the sheepskin, I'll sort out the thug with the windcheater, if it works.'

'It has to,' Butler said, glancing at his watch.

Marler hoisted himself higher up, being careful to hide himself behind the boulder. Sheepskin was standing with binoculars pressed to his eyes, obviously wondering why the convoy had stopped moving. Windcheater hovered dangerously close to the plunger handle.

About thirty feet away from where the thugs waited, well inland from the brink of the cliff, was a scatter of very large boulders massed close together. Marler raised his arm, aimed for the centre of the scatter, threw the rock.

'Hey, Don, what the friggin' hell was that?' called out Sheepskin, dropping his binoculars looped round his neck with a strap.

'Came from over there, Jess,' Windcheater replied. He pointed to the scatter of boulders. 'We'd better take a look. They could've sent up someone. Get ready to take him out

Gripping machine-pistols, both Americans advanced alongside each other, their gaze fixed on the boulders. Marler smiled to himself as he half-crouched, half-stood behind the boulder. He used it to rest both arms to steady his aim. Very stupid to walk next to each other. He pressed the trigger.

The shell struck a boulder just in front of the two thugs, burst, flooded the air with tear-gas. Earlier Marler had noted the icy breeze at la Schlucht was no longer blowing. Marler and Butler moved like greyhounds as the Americans Coughed, spluttered, staggered, held a hand to their eyes, still clutching the machine-pistols.

Despite the pain of the tear-gas both thugs were staggering at surprising speed back towards the plunger. Marler realized that a lot of the deadly vapour had exploded away from the targets. They were nerve-wrackingly close to the plunger when Marler reached Don, whose vision was obscured. He saw only silhouettes.

Marler had dropped his pistol, was holding his Armalite with the barrel across his chest, gripped at both ends. He drove it with a ferocious thrust against Don, forcing him backwards, preventing him from making any use of his own weapon. At the last moment Don realized he was on the edge of the brink.

'No! For Chrissakes…'

Marler, careful where he placed his own feet, gave one final savage shove. The American fell back into space. In a bizarre gesture he hurled his weapon away from himself. Marler caught it with one hand in mid-air. With a high-pitched yell of pure terror the American plunged down. At this point the lip of the cliff protruded well over the road below. The piercing yell continued echoing round the Vosges as the somersaulting body, arms flailing, missed the road and plunged on down, down, down into the abyss.

At almost the same moment Butler hammered the barrel of his Luger down on to the hand of Jess, forcing him to drop the weapon. He then struck his adversary across the face, left, right, left. The onslaught drove Jess back and back. He was close to the edge when Butler brought the barrel down on his skull with all his force. Jess collapsed out of sight, following his fellow American in to the chasm.

Marler and Butler had worked as a perfect team, keeping to the original plan, each tackling the thug closest to him. Butler was breathing heavily as Marler ran back to retrieve his tear-gas pistol. When he returned Butler had recovered his breath, was operating his walkie-talkie.

'Tweed. Cliff laced with explosives. Later we can get down the shallow slope south of the cliff, join you on the road. Get Cardon to grab my machine if he can. Pete can be bait for the truck. We'll take it from there…' 'Agreed,' Tweed's voice answered tersely. There was very little time left. He gave Nield brief instructions. Nield acknowledged. Tweed signalled to Newman to move on, told Cardon the plan, started the Espace moving, warned Gaunt via Jennie over her walkie-talkie to get moving, keep close…

At the summit Butler pointed out to Marler several places where holes had been drilled in the unstable cliff, explosives inserted. Dynamite, he thought. Marler took up a position at the brink, looked down. It was lucky he had never suffered from vertigo. The drop beyond the road was dizzying. From this point he could see the movement of the convoy and – more important still – the position further back where Pete Nield sat astride his motorcycle, calmly waiting for the arrival of the juggernaut. Live bait. He'd have to time it to a fraction of a second.

The driver of the Nestle truck was chewing gum. Whatever he was doing – driving, talking, waiting to kill a target – he was always chewing gum. The truck swayed a little despite its great weight as the front wheels passed over ice, but the vehicle held on to the surface as though glued to it.

He had had the heaters turned up full blast for quite a while, the windows of the cab firmly closed, and the atmosphere inside was a nauseating mixture of sweat, oil and heat. The driver was unaware of this. He was about to open the window briefly to spit out gum, prior to inserting a fresh stick in his thin-lipped mouth, when he rounded a corner and saw Nield seated on his machine, a stream of exhaust like steam ejecting from the pipe.

The driver grinned wolfishly again, rammed his foot down on the accelerator. Nield took off like a bird, keeping close to the wall of rock as he appeared to fly across the snow. Chewing Gum was startled, annoyed at the lightning take-off, He rammed his foot down further.

'You're the salad, pal,' he said to himself. 'Then we can get on with the main course.'

He was particularly looking forward to tipping the Espace over the edge. That was going to give him a real kick. He burned rubber as Nield disappeared round the corner of the massive cliff overhanging the road. This was fun, Chewing Gum thought.

The corner was sharper than he'd anticipated. He braked to take it. That was when he heard a rumbling sound. He frowned, glanced up, then stared in horror. Above him as he leaned forward, gazing up through the windscreen, he saw a vast black curtain descending on him. Huge boulders crashed on to the road ahead of him and bounced off the edge.

He was no longer chewing gum. His teeth were clamped together in sheer fright. Something hit the top of his cab, denting the roof. A small boulder rolled off and down into the white hell below. The windscreen was suddenly blotted out as shale fell, piled up on the hood. He was driving blind.

'Jesus! No… o…!'

He screamed. The wheel no longer responded to the frantic turn of his clawed hands. A sound like thunder roared out as thousands of tons of granite fell on the juggernaut like a giant sledgehammer. He felt the truck tipping over towards the brink. Through the side window he saw the chasm coming up to meet him. The juggernaut was pushed off the road, began turning like an immense cartwheel as it dropped into the depths. Chewing Gum's head, his mind, was spinning out of control. The truck gathered speed, plunged on down into the three-hundred-foot ravine. It hit ice-covered rocks, burst into flames which sizzled as the snow quenched them and the juggernaut died.