Colin Forbes - The Power

'I insist I'm driving back down those mountains in the BMW,' Gaunt barked out. 'Feel comfortable behind the wheel of that car. Eve, are you joining me? If not…' He turned to Jennie. 'You'll be most welcome as a passenger. And I'm a good chap as escort – with my trusty Colt.'

Gaunt appeared to be adopting a jovial manner to lighten the atmosphere. Watching him, Paula couldn't decide whether he was just a show-off, full of his own importance, or a formidable personality.

'I'd like to ride back with Tweed,' Eve said, gazing at him. 'If that's all right with you.'

'Newman will head the convoy, driving the station wagon this time,' Tweed explained. 'He has the advantage of being armed with the Uzi, a deadly weapon. Marler will travel next to him. He has the advantage of carrying his Armalite and the tear-gas pistol. The station wagon becomes the spearhead of the convoy.'

'What about the Espace?' Paula asked.

'That will follow behind the station wagon and I will be driving it with you alongside me. Cardon, armed with grenades, will travel in the row behind us. That leaves Butler and Nield, who will ride the motorcycles. But this time the convoy will maintain its sequence come hell or high water – with Butler as outrider in front of the station wagon all the time and Nield bringing up the rear. Eve sits next to Cardon in the Espace.'

'Hold on!' Gaunt boomed out, raising a hand. 'I'm with this party in case you've forgotten.'

'Which I hadn't,' Tweed shot back. 'You're car number three, following my Espace, with Nield behind you. And Philip,' he said, addressing Cardon, 'I know that inside your hold-all you have a collection of walkie-talkies. Give one to Marler, one to Paula, who has sharp eyes, one to Butler, one to Nield, and one to Jennie, who proved on the way up she also has sharp eyes.'

Cardon unfastened his hold-all and had distributed the walkie-talkies in less than a minute, including a clear instruction to Jennie as to how to operate it. Holding the instrument, Jennie looked at Eve with a mocking expression. She spoke to her in a whisper.

'You're lucky, darling. Nothing to do except make up to Tweed. They call it spare luggage.'

'Not too spare, dear.' Eve reached behind a couch, came up holding an automatic rifle in both hands, the muzzle pointed at the ceiling, Tweed noted with approval. 'And I'm a crack shot,' Eve went on, also in a whisper.

'Modesty really has become an old-fashioned virtue,' Jennie flashed back. 'I'll look after Greg for you.'

Tweed's acute hearing had picked up the catty exchange. He put his hands round the shoulders of both women.

'I am relying on both of you to back up the team when it comes to a crisis. Both of you have my full confidence.'

'What about me?' asked Amberg, who had remained silent and still while he listened to the arrangement of the convoy. 'I do have a Mercedes in the garage…'

'Leave it there,' Tweed told him. He'd purposely not mentioned the banker earlier, exerting a little more psychological pressure. 'You will be sitting in the Espace, in the second row of seats between Eve and Cardon.'

'Will you be carrying that rifle?' Amberg demanded, staring at the weapon Eve was holding.

'Bet your life I will,' she told him cheerfully. 'So when we're attacked, keep your head down. Now, what are we waiting for, everybody?'

'I'm waiting for you all to get a move on,' Tweed said brusquely.

'Amberg,' Newman snapped, 'you'd better hurry out to the garage and lock it up. Has anyone else a key to this place?'

'Yes. The woman who acts as housekeeper in my absence and lets in the other servants.'

'Wouldn't want them poking around in that garage, considering what it contains besides your car.'

'No, of course not…'

The convoy was drawn up in the deep snow in the courtyard and everyone was aboard their allotted vehicles when an ashen-faced Amberg, huddled in a fur coat, returned. Only Newman stood outside the Espace. He gestured for the Swiss to get aboard.

'I saw that car – and what was inside,' Amberg remarked. 'The garage is like a charnel house.'

'And may I remind you,' Newman said brutally, 'that all those men came here to kill us? Get in your seat and shut up.' -

'This could be a memorable journey,' commented Eve as the banker climbed in beside her, the rifle across her lap. 'Who knows? We might even survive it…'

'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.