Colin Forbes - The Main chance

Paula had expected the Chateau les Rochers to have a fairy-tale appearance. As they crawled over the last ridge she saw how wrong she had been. It was more like a medieval fortress with tiny turrets at the corners. In the centre of a flat roof reared a tall wide turret festooned with a system of wires and tall aerials. Tweed grunted as they paused. `There's his communications centre perched even higher than the trees behind it. From here he controls his banking empire. I hope he's at home.'

Calouste was at home.

It was a mania with him to remain the Invisible Man. So he had had constructed at his different HQs a series of rooms underground – as at Shooter's Lodge. The same method had been organized at the Chateau. He was now working in a large, luxuriously furnished cellar under the Chateau.

There were two entrances. One was a large trapdoor, now open from a ground-floor corridor which led down via half a dozen steps into his sanctum. The second entrance was above the desk where he was sitting. A flight of steps led up to a platform with a heavy iron door open. By the side of the door was a control system built into the wall with buttons numbered from one to twenty-four. On its own was a brown button which locked the less secure trapdoor.

Calouste was dressed in a velvet jacket, velvet trousers and tennis shoes. The room was dimly lit except for the powerful desk lamp by which he worked. He wore his tinted, gold-rimmed glasses through which he could see clearly. Above his spade-shaped jaw his mouth was moving rapidly as he issued instructions to various of his banks on his phone, linked to the sophisticated communications system on the top of the Chateau.

He had heard nothing of the commotion on the lower slopes of the Ardennes. Orion, his informant at Hengistbury, had warned him Tweed and his whole team had left the manor. His intuition had told him they were coming to Belgium. That was no problem. Inspector Benlier and his special unit would kill every member of that team. He was especially anxious to hear that Tweed was dead.

A coloured servant appeared on the platform above him. He was carrying a tray with a glass and a bottle of the finest cognac. Calouste poured a full glass from the bottle, then placed the bottle next to a Glock pistol. Calouste always bolstered his guards with his own weapon. It made him feel so safe. He drank to the end of Tweed, the major obstacle to his plans for the Main Chance Bank.

Skirting well clear of the grim fortress-like building with its tall communications turret, Tweed, with Paula by his side in the Land Rover, followed Philip's vehicle. Parked at the summit, he pointed as the others joined them.

Close to the rear fortress walls was a huge lake with a big dam at one end. Attached to the wall of the lake near the Chateau was a sizeable box with a thick coiled hose on top. `What's the plan?' Tweed asked. `Harry and I will lower the dam and a vast amount of water fed by natural springs on the top of that knoll will pour into the lake. Prior to that I'll have attached that hose to the inlet into the air-conditioning system. The other end of the hose I'll drop into the lake. On a recent recce I looked into a number of windows in the Chateau. All the rooms have a large air-conditioning grille let into the wall.' `Will it work?' Paula wondered. `You've forgotten Philip was a top engineer before he joined us. `And,' Harry remarked, 'the walls of the Chateau look shaky to me.' `And Harry was once in the building trade,' Tweed added.

They watched as Harry dug inside a deep pocket in his windcheater, produced a chisel. Paula was amused. Harry would not go anywhere without his tool kit, now hidden in his spacious pockets. They watched as he bent close to the wall of the Chateau, hammered quietly at the mortar, which fell out. Brick-shaped stones above started to slide down. `Whole miserable chute could collapse. No maintenance,' he said when he returned.

Philip waved to Harry to accompany him. First he hurried to the large aluminium chamber controlling the air-conditioning. Unscrewing a round plate with Feu stamped on it, he then forced one end of the thick rubber pipe inside the hole. The other end was dropped into the lake. `I think that plate he removed,' Tweed said, 'is in case the air-conditioning system ever catches fire. The whole Chateau would be enveloped in flames. Unless huge quantities of water poured into it.' `If you say so,' Paula replied dubiously.

Philip and Harry had now taken up positions at either end of the dam behind huge wheels they began turning. Paula gazed in fascination as the top of the dam, smeared with green slime, began to sink rapidly. A wave of water penned up on the far side poured into the lake, then became a great flood as Philip and Harry continued turning their wheels. `That's enough,' Philip said as he ran back with Harry.

Tweed felt in his overcoat pocket, pulled out something he'd forgotten was there. It was the crinkled-face mask worn by the thug he'd hurled over the chalk pit near Gladworth. He gave it to Philip. `A peculiar object…' `Made in Paris,' Philip told him, `by the most expert mask maker in the world. Costs a fortune – it's so flexible. I think I'll wear this. Might gain us entry through the main door without a fuss.'

Arriving at the door, he hammered the heavy iron knocker. A man's face appeared when a Judas window was opened. The face looked startled. `Oh, Mr Calouste. I thought you were in your office.'

Harry stood out of sight to one side of the door, truncheon in his hand. Turning of three keys, removal of several chains. Philip walked in, flipped his truncheon, smashed it on the man's head. He collapsed. Another man with a dagger appeared, raised it to strike Philip. Harry's truncheon struck his elbow. He gasped with pain, dropped the dagger as Harry broke the other arm with his truncheon. A hard tap on the forehead and he collapsed on top of his fellow guard. `That corridor ahead is straight and level,' Philip remarked. 'The one to our left slopes downward. Calouste is a mole. We'll find him somewhere along here underground…'

Paula slipped ahead of him, turned a corner, still going down, stopped. She pointed. Vague lighting showed a trapdoor, the lid raised vertically. Followed by the rest of the team she descended six steps after crossing a platform. The cellar-level room was large, dim except for a desk lamp at the far end. A figure was hunched over a desk with its back to her.

Harry paused, used a blurred torch to check the edges of the opening. Electrically operated. He took a small tube from his pocket, squirted a small amount of gunge between two of the electrodes. The gunge hardened immediately.

With their thick-rubber-soled boots they made no sound as they all descended to the platform. Beyond six stone steps led down into the weird room. Paula crept down to the floor.

Blinding lights flashed on. Calouste had crept up onto the platform above his desk. The team's eyes blinked in the glare. Calouste held a Glock pistol in his hand, aimed point-blank at Paula. Tweed, now at floor level, glanced anxiously at her as she stood with her back to the wall. Calouste spoke sneeringly in public-school English. `All present and correct. If anyone moves an inch I will shoot Miss Grey in the chest.'

The team froze.

Paula glanced along the wall. Close to Calouste's platform an air-conditioning grille of some size was dribbling water. Calouste, in his velvet suit, was speaking again, theatrically. `None of you will leave the Chateau alive.' His tone became sadistic. 'Your bodies will be eaten by crows, which round here are vicious. Not vegetarians.'

He chuckled. Not a pleasant sound. His eyes were as dead as his soul. Paula noticed the floor sloped down from where they stood. She fainted, sliding down the wall. Calouste was amused. `She is scared to death. Quite rightly so. This is what is coming to her…'