Алистер Маклин - Red Alert

‘May I take it with me? I would like to examine it more closely in the laboratory.’

‘Please, take it,’ Whitlock said, handing the watch to Gottfried.

‘I never want to see it again.’

Gottfried smiled, then dismantled the X-ray machine.

‘Can I at least buy you a drink before you go back to Zürich?’ Whitlock asked.

‘That is very kind of you but I have to get back as quickly as possible. Yours is not the only such difficulty awaiting my attention, you understand.’

‘Of course. I hope it all goes well.’

‘I am sure it will.’ Gottfried closed the attaché case and locked it. ‘Nice to have met you, Mr. Whitlock.’

‘Likewise,’ Whitlock said, shaking Gottfried’s hand. ‘I just wish it had been under more relaxing conditions.’

‘ C’est la vie ,’ Gottfried replied with a resigned shrug, then took his leave.

Whitlock closed the door behind him then kicked off his shoes and lay on the bed, his hands clasped behind his head. He knew he should be feeling great relief now that he was rid of the watch. But he only felt empty. It was probably the same feeling the condemned man feels on the eve of his execution. He stifled a yawn. His body was exhausted but his mind was awake. Very awake. He glanced at the telephone and thought about Graham, Sabrina and Kolchinsky. He knew none of them would be sleeping. But at least they had each other for company. He had nobody. Not even his wife. He’d probably get back to the apartment and find the divorce papers in the post. If he got back, he reminded himself. That all depended on Ubrino.

He sat up and reached for the telephone. He rang the apartment in New York. He let it ring for the customary minute. No reply. He thought about calling her work number then replaced the receiver and pushed the telephone away from him. Why bother? There would be no reply.

C’est la vie …

Thursday

‘What time is it?’ Graham asked.

‘Five minutes later than the last time you asked,’ Sabrina replied, exasperated. ‘And ten minutes later than the time before that. And fifteen–’

‘Okay, you’ve made your point. Ask a civil question and all you get is sarcasm.’

‘That’s rich coming from you, Mike–’

‘Sabrina, please,’ Paluzzi interceded quickly, his hands raised defensively. ‘We’re all on edge, let’s not make it any worse than it already is.’

Paluzzi sat behind the wheel of the white BMW 735i that Kuhlmann had had delivered to the hotel for them that morning. Graham sat beside him. Sabrina and Calvieri were in the back. They had been parked in the street that overlooked the Offenbach Centre for the past forty minutes, waiting for Kolchinsky to call them on the two-way radio lying on the dashboard. So far only silence. Paluzzi stared at the building in the distance. He remembered the official opening earlier in the year when one critic had called it ‘a monstrous glass and aluminium bandbox, without the ribbons’. He could see what the critic had meant. There was nothing appealing about it. A ten-storey building, cylindrical in shape, with a glass and aluminium exterior and a flat roof to accommodate a helipad. Helicopters had been landing and departing regularly in the last forty minutes and he was sure the traffic would get busier as the day wore on.

‘What’s the time?’ Graham asked, nudging Paluzzi’s arm.

Paluzzi pulled back his sleeve to reveal his gold Cartier watch.

‘Nine twenty-four. Where’s your watch?’

‘It got bust on the mountain yesterday. I’ll send it to the jeweller’s when I get back to New York. It’s pretty special to me.’

‘Was it a present from your wife?’

‘Yeah,’ Graham muttered, then lapsed into silence.

Paluzzi turned his attention back to the Offenbach Centre. The more he looked at it, the more he came to agree with the critic. Berne, a beautiful, medieval city, had always rebuffed the advances of modern development, and planning permission had been granted to Jacob Offenbach, the Swiss multimillionaire, only on condition that the Centre was built on the outskirts of the city, away from the charm of the Old Town district. The people of Berne had never taken it to their hearts, calling it the Raumschiff, the spaceship, because of its futuristic appearance and design. It would never be accepted by the locals, and he could see why.

‘Does anyone mind if I smoke?’ Calvieri asked, breaking the silence.

‘Yeah, I mind,’ Graham bit back, then threw up his hands dismissively. ‘What the hell, I’m going for a walk. Do what you want.’

‘Don’t go far,’ Paluzzi said. ‘Sergei could call at any moment.’

‘Stop panicking, I’m only going to that fruit and vegetable shop over there.’

Graham forced himself not to slam the door behind him. Sliding on his dark glasses, and then thrusting his hands into his pockets, he walked the length of the narrow street to the shop. He crouched in front of the display outside, which was shaded from the sun by a white canopy, and tested the apples for their ripeness. He suddenly became aware that he was being watched. He looked up. A five-year-old boy stood in the doorway, pointing a toy gun straight at him. Graham feigned a look of surprise and slowly raised his hands. The boy glanced with alarm at Graham’s chest. Graham looked down. His bolstered Beretta was visible.

He immediately got to his feet and covered the holster with his jacket.

The boy stared fearfully at him, then ran into the shop. Graham cursed himself but a hand grabbed his arm before he could go after the boy. He spun round to find Sabrina behind him.

‘What happened?’ she asked, then glanced towards the doorway after he had told her. ‘I’ll talk to him. He’s hardly going to understand you, is he?’

Graham nodded and she disappeared into the shop. She emerged a minute later with a brown-paper bag in her hand. The boy was with her.

‘Magnum!’ the boy shouted with a wide grin, then pretended to shoot at Graham before hurrying up the street and disappearing into one of the houses.

‘He thinks I’m Magnum?’ Graham asked in amazement.

‘I told him you were a real-life Magnum. It certainly appealed to him.’

She took an apple from the bag and tossed it to Graham. They crossed the street to the site of a demolished house and sat on what remained of the front wall.

‘I’m sorry I snapped at you in the car,’ she said at length. ‘I had a pretty rough night. I don’t know how much sleep I actually got. About two hours, probably.’

‘That much?’ Graham replied, turning the apple in his hands. ‘I doubt I even got an hour.’

‘How did you pass the time?’

‘I watched television, there wasn’t much else to do.’

She sat forward, her elbows resting on her knees.

‘I tried to but I found I couldn’t concentrate for more than a few minutes at a time. In the end I was just glad of the background noise. I don’t think I could have coped with the silence.’

‘I know what you mean. There was a soccer match on one of the channels. I stayed with it for the whole game but I still couldn’t tell you the score. Hell, I couldn’t even tell you who was playing.’ He tugged back her sleeve to check the time: 9.37. ‘Twenty-three minutes left. And here we are sitting around waiting to die.’

She put a hand lightly on his arm. ‘I hate this waiting as much as you do, but you know that Sergei’s right. If Ubrino did see us, he’d be sure to bolt. Then what?’

Paluzzi jabbed the horn and, climbing out of the car, beckoned them frantically to him. They ran to the car.

‘What is it?’ Graham asked breathlessly.

‘Sergei’s just been on the radio. Ubrino’s been caught inside the building but he won’t say anything unless Calvieri’s there.’