Colin Forbes - Deadlock

'A major gold robbery?'

'It's just possible. No more than that.'

'How would the organizer convert gold bullion into cash – he'd need to do that to pay the members of the team.'

'I have no idea,' Tweed admitted. 'Also, you heard about this murder of Gaston Blanc, found with his throat cut from ear to ear? That was how the Armenian truck driver who brought out the explosives into Turkey was killed. Then Charvet tells us they dragged a member of the UTS gang out of the Rhine – with his throat slashed from ear to ear.'

'Could be sheer coincidence.'

'You're right.' Tweed used a box of hotel matches to set light to his list, watched it burn in an ash-tray, emptied the relics down the toilet and flushed it. Paula was waving the empty champagne bottle when he came back.

'Like me,' Tweed said. 'Nothing in it. I admit frankly I really am floundering – just checking anything that catches my attention. We'd better get some sleep – see what the morning brings.'

The morning brought Arthur Beck, a grim-faced Beck. Tweed and Paula, who had just finished breakfast, took him up to Tweed's room. Beck planted his brief-case on a table, let Paula take his coat, said yes, he'd love coffee and sat staring at the brief-case.

'You'll never guess what we found inside Gaston Blanc's private safe – what's inside that brief-case.'

'So I won't try,' Tweed replied calmly.

'What do you think these are? Paula, you can look, too.'

He brought out a sheaf of six photocopies, unfolded them and laid them on the table. Paula covered them with a newspaper as room service arrived with coffee. When they were alone Tweed examined the diagrams carefully, then looked at Paula.

'Doesn't mean a thing to me. Some kind of engineering blueprints.' He looked at Beck. 'I give up.'

'So did I. Until I showed them to an inspector over at police HO – who is an explosives expert. He says they are incredibly sophisticated bomb-timers.' He picked up two sheets. 'He says these are probably the control boxes. I'm taking this lot with me to show Colonel Romer this afternoon.'

'Who is he?'

The bank director I told you about. The one who's providing me after two months with his report on the explosive used to blow the vaults. He's a demolition expert. He can bring down a mountain.'

'Basle could be interesting,' Tweed said quietly.

'More so than you might think. I had a phone call from the police chief there. They've just dragged out of the Rhine a second body – another member of the Russian Gang. Found in the weirdest place – the barge harbour on the north bank. A dredger hauled him out by chance.'

'How do you know who he is? There'd be decomposition after all this time in the water. You think he was shoved in from the harbour?'

'No. The current would naturally take him in there under certain conditions – if he was dropped in higher upstream. He's been there right under our noses. Identification? He had his papers inside one of those waterproof wallets. We checked his name with Munich. In case that's not enough guess how he was murdered. His throat was cut…'

'From ear to ear;' Tweed completed.

'Do you think it's going to work?' Klein asked. 'Of course,' Chabot replied. 'This is my job.' The question was the first sign of nervousness Chabot had seen Klein display. No, not nervousness. Excitement.

A kind of mad exhilaration. The reaction disturbed the Frenchman. The two men sat round the kitchen table in La Montagne a table Chabot had scrubbed clean before starting work.

One of the assembled timers lay inside its white metal box.

Chabot had used a watchmaker's glass (he always carried one) to handle the small pieces of precision metal, following the blueprint Klein had given him.

Klein had been fascinated to watch earlier how Chabot's stubby fingers had handled the bits and pieces with such delicate care. Now the only item missing from the timer was the detonator.

There had been a furious argument as to where Chabot should work. When Klein had returned with Hipper in the Volvo they had unlocked a cellar door and led Chabot down into the wine cellar, a stinking subterranean hole of tunnels which smelt of must. A rat had slithered over Chabot's foot. He had made no bones about it. He wasn't working in that hell-hole. Besides, he needed better lighting. The kitchen was the obvious place.

'You could be seen – working on the equipment,' Klein had objected.

'Shut it, for God's sake!' Chabot had burst out. 'Look at the window. Ten feet above the ground. And it faces that rock face. Who's going to see me in here? This is where I'm working.'

Now they were waiting for the experiment to be completed. Hipper had taken a control box and was driving the Volvo a distance of approximately ten kilometres. He would stop the car in an isolated spot, take the control box and press the button Chabot had indicated.

'He's taking too long,' Klein complained. 'I hope to God he hasn't crashed, had an accident…'

Which was pretty rich, Chabot thought – considering the way I saw you driving that Volvo when you first arrived. He lit a Gauloise and relaxed back in his chair. Despite his impatience Klein noted the Frenchman's aplomb. It boded well for a man who was going to handle a mountain of high-explosive.

Click!

Klein almost jumped. Chabot checked his watch. He'd synchronized it with Hipper's before the Luxembourger had left, emphasizing he must also check the time at the moment he pressed the button. Only in that way could Chabot be sure detonation was instantaneous.

'It works!' Klein said, his voice highly-pitched.

'Of course." Chabot took another drag at his cigarette, then took a sip of beer from the mug on the table. 'Now all I have to do is to assemble fifty-nine more of them. It won't happen overnight. How long do I have?'

'Time enough. Just get on with it. And keep down your nightly walks to the minimum. Hipper will get you food and drink.'

'Don't forget to leave me the cellar key. We'll keep the case down there – but I work up here. And I don't want to be asking Hipper's permission every time I want to take a pee. If you get my meaning.'

But Klein was leaving the kitchen, on his way upstairs to put on a businessman's suit, to pack a case. His mind was working ahead. Next on the list, as always. He had to arrive in Paris as soon as possible. Two important tasks.

To occupy Lara Seagrave's time with some convincing mission. And to hire the finest marksman in Western Europe.

'Let's take a tram,' Tweed said as they walked out of Basle Bahnhof into the sunshine. 'I seem to remember it's a Number Eight we want. Drops us almost outside the Drei Konige.'

'I like trams – but why?' asked Paula. 'You have a reason, I sense. You know Basle well, it seems.'

'Spent a month here once. There's the tram stop over there. Yes, I have a reason. One stop en route is Bankverein. I want to see where those robberies took place.'

Less than a hundred yards from the ancient facade of the Bahnhof, they waited on an island between streets busy with traffic. Tweed checked with the driver he was right and they boarded a Number Eight. It trundled off and Tweed chose a seat on the right-hand side facing the way they were going.

The green tram curved along its track between venerable old buildings. Tweed told Paula many of them were erected between 1100 and 1200 AD. The loudspeaker system announced the next destination before they reached it. In a few minutes they heard the driver's voice again. Bankverein. The tram stopped. Tweed peered out.

'There's the Zurcher Kredit Bank,' he whispered. He looked round as passengers alighted, got on board. More heavy traffic. Just as he remembered it. Then the tram was on the move again.

'It beats me,' he said.