Алистер Маклин - Red Alert

She dug her hands into her pockets and chewed her lip thoughtfully.

‘No, I don’t think so.’ She suddenly nodded her head. ‘Wait a minute, isn’t he that terrorist who’s just taken over as the new leader of the Red Brigades? We ran a short item on him a couple of days ago. What has he got to do with me?’

‘You tell us, Miss Rietler,’ Paluzzi said.

‘Tell you what?’ she snapped.

‘Why your phone number appears in his address book hidden in his apartment in Milan.’

‘This is too much–’

‘Where is the vial he gave you to hide?’ Paluzzi cut in sharply.

‘I’ve had enough of this badgering. I’m calling the hotel security.’

She disappeared into the bedroom and snatched up the receiver.

‘I’d put that phone down, Miss Rietler,’ Paluzzi said from the doorway. ‘Or should I call you Miss Dannhauser?’

Her body stiffened and her fingers tightened around the handset. The act was over. She replaced the receiver and sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the carpet.

Paluzzi picked up a framed photograph from the bedside table and his eyes narrowed in sudden comprehension.

‘What is it?’ Whitlock asked, looking at the freckle-faced boy in the photograph.

‘He’s the spitting image of his father. And I thought I knew everything about Calvieri.’

‘That’s Calvieri’s son?’ Whitlock said in astonishment.

‘He couldn’t look more like his father if he tried,’ Paluzzi said, then looked down at Ute Rietler. ‘He gave you the vial, didn’t he?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she replied, but there was no conviction in her voice.

‘Ute, you’ve got to help us,’ Paluzzi said softly.

‘I can’t.’

‘Why?’ Paluzzi asked.

‘He said he’d expose my past unless I did what he wanted.’

‘You’re not making any sense, Ute,’ Paluzzi said. ‘Your past has already been exposed. We know about it. You must cooperate with us, it’s your only chance.’

‘I can’t,’ she repeated.

‘And what’s going to happen to your son when you’re jailed for life for conspiring with a terrorist? He’ll be taken into care. I doubt you’ll ever see him again. Is that what you want?’

There was a long silence. Ute Rietler was struggling with her inner emotions. When she finally spoke, it was in a barely audible voice.

‘It’s taped underneath the chassis of our outside broadcast van. It’s parked near the main gate.’

Whitlock bolted into the adjoining room to call Philpott.

‘I don’t know what’s in it, you must believe me,’ she pleaded. ‘Tony said it would be picked up by a member of another terrorist group some time today. That’s all he told me.’

‘When did you meet Tony?’

‘Rome, eight years ago. I went there to stay with some friends after my parents were killed in a car crash outside Bonn. I met him at a Red Brigades rally. We fell in love at first sight. At least that’s what I thought at the time. I found out later that I was just another in a long line of girlfriends. We’d only been seeing each other for a couple of months when I discovered I was pregnant. That’s when I came to my senses. I wanted my child to have a proper family, not be surrounded by anarchists and killers. Tony was very understanding but he refused to leave the Red Brigades. He said his place was with them. I decided then I wanted to start a new life so that Bruno would never have to know about his father. Tony helped me fake my own death, a boating accident in the Adriatic. I was listed as missing, presumed dead. He got me a new passport in the name of Ute Rietler and I decided to start afresh here in Switzerland. I cut my hair, dyed it and took to wearing contact lenses instead of glasses. I got a job with ZRF, and the rest I’m sure you know.

‘I never saw or heard from him again until he called me last week, asking for my help. I told him I didn’t want anything more to do with the Red Brigades but he threatened to splash my past across every tabloid in Europe if I didn’t agree to help him. What choice did I have? I went to his hotel last night and picked up a package from the reception desk. His instructions were with the metal cylinder. I never knew what was in it…’ Her voice faded to nothing and she wiped a tear from the corner of her eye.

‘You’re going to take Bruno into care, aren’t you?’

‘No,’ Paluzzi replied, and paused in the doorway to look back at her. ‘I promise I’ll do everything I can to keep your name out of this.’

She smiled weakly, then put her hands over her face and began to cry softly to herself.

In the other room Whitlock was standing by the window, staring absently at the traffic in the street below.

‘Ready?’ Paluzzi asked.

‘Sure.’ Whitlock crossed to where Paluzzi was waiting for him at the door. ‘What happened in there?’

‘I’ll tell you about it in the car,’ Paluzzi said, opening the door.

Whitlock stepped out into the corridor and instinctively glanced at his watch: 4.46 p.m.

Philpott sent Graham and Marco to get the vial. Vlok had arranged for a maintenance van to be parked at the back of the building for their use.

Marco got behind the wheel and started the engine. Graham climbed in beside him. Marco slipped the van into gear and drove to where the dozens of media pantechnicons were parked. He cruised the road leading to the boom gate as they scanned the pantechnicons for the one belonging to ZRF. He braked in front of the boom gate there was no sign of the one they were seeking. A guard approached the driver’s window and Marco asked him whether he knew where the ZRF vehicle was parked. The guard consulted the clipboard in his hand. He flicked through the sheets of paper, then leaned his arm on the open window and showed Marco its position on a plan he had made of the media vehicles the previous night. It was parked on the grass behind the row of vehicles nearest the road.

Marco thanked him, did a U-turn, and drove back ten yards before finding a space between two giant pantechnicons big enough to drive through. He braked immediately. The grass was seething with cables. They would have to continue on foot.

Graham jumped out and picked his way through the cables to a white vehicle with the letters ZRF painted in black on either side. Marco went after him and after looking around quickly he slid underneath the pantechnicon where Graham was already feeling around the edges of the chassis for the metal cylinder. Ute Rietler was hardly likely to have crawled right underneath and taped the vial to the centre of the vehicle’s underbelly.

They heard voices and tucked their legs out of sight seconds before a couple of engineers approached the back of the pantechnicon and climbed inside, closing the door behind them. Graham indicated for Marco to start at the front and work his way back. He would start from the back.

Marco nodded and leopard crawled to the front of the pantechnicon.

Graham reached the back section then removed a small torch from his pocket and switched it on. He played the beam across the chassis, concentrating on the edges. The door opened again. He switched off the torch. A man came out and paused at the foot of the steps, inches away from where Graham lay motionless on the grass. He shouted something in German and a moment later a packet of cigarettes was thrown to him. The man didn’t catch it and the packet landed on the middle step. For a horrifying moment Graham thought it was going to topple off the step and land next to him. It came to rest on the edge of the step. A hand appeared and picked it up. The man walked away from the pantechnicon, and Graham exhaled deeply. As he switched the torch on again, a hand touched his leg. He looked round sharply, cracking the back of his head painfully on the exhaust pipe. Marco held up a hand apologetically then patted the breast pocket of his maintenance overall.