Colin Forbes - Terminal

`Newman speaking…'

`This is Manfred Seidler. I am only going to say this one time…'

`You'll repeat it if I don't get it. Go on…'

`Le Pont, in the Juras, near Lac de Joux. You know it?' `Yes…'

`We rendezvous at exactly nineteen twenty-eight hours. At the station. I will be on the train which arrives at nineteen twenty-eight…'

Tor Christ's sake, I'll never make it. Don't you realize it's five o'clock now?'

`If you are interested in the information I can provide – no details over the phone – bring two thousand Swiss francs in cash. Park your car a very short distance from the station – but out of sight. I shall be carrying two suitcases.'

`I need more time. There's snow in the Juras. The roads will be hell…'

`Nineteen twenty-eight hours. And I won't wait. Are you coming or not?'

`I'm coming…'

There was a click at the other end of the line. Seidler had broken the connection. Newman replaced the receiver and checked his watch again. He examined the map quickly while Nancy leaned over his shoulder.

`Can we make it?' she asked.

`If we go this way we just might. He's cutting it bloody fine…'

His finger traced a route from Berne along motorway N12 down to Lake Geneva. The finger turned on to motorway N9 – roughly running parallel westward to the lake until it joined the third motorway, N1. At a place called Rolle, between Lausanne and Geneva, on the shore of the lake, Newman traced a route along a road winding up over the Juras and stopped at Le Pont.

`That's a long way round,' Nancy objected. 'It's two sides of a triangle…'

`It's also the only way we'll get there in time – by using the motorways. And I've driven up the section from Rolle, so I know the road. It will be diabolical when we get above the snow line. Come on, girl. I'll take the cases. Thank God I had the tank refilled on the way back from Thun…'

They were waiting for the lift when Nancy told Newman to go ahead to the car and she'd follow. 'I've forgotten my purse,' she explained as the lift arrived and Newman, swearing, stepped inside.

Lausanne Gare. Seidler lugged the two suitcases out of the phone booth back on to the platform. He felt a sense of relief: Newman was coming. He hurriedly made his way to the restaurant where there would be plenty of people while he waited for his next train.

He was deliberately taking a roundabout route – to make sure he was not being followed. Now he had to wait for the Cisalpin, the Paris express which travelled non-stop to the frontier station at Vallorbe. From there he would back-track on the small local leaving Vallorbe at 19.09 and reaching Le Pont at 19.28.

Berne. `Leupin calling, Chief. Newman has just left the hotel carrying two cases. He's putting them in the back of his car, the Citroen. Hold on, his fiancee has dashed out to join him…'

`It's all right, Leupin,' Beck reassured his subordinate. 'I have allocated another six men to the job – as a contingency measure. Six men with three more cars. They can leapfrog to make sure he doesn't know what we're doing. You and Marbot tail him for the first lap. Good luck…'

Beck put down the phone and sighed as he looked across at Gisela. She brought over the fresh cup of coffee she had poured for him. It looked as though it was going to be quite a night: Beck was in his shirt-sleeves, the sure sign of a long siege.

`Newman and his girl just left the Bellevue with two cases,' he told her. 'They're getting into that hired car…'

`They're trying to leave the country?'

`That would be out of character for Newman at this stage of the game. You have laid on that other facility I requested?' The machine is already standing by…'

It was very dark that night. It was very cold. Newman almost made the Citroen fly, moving well over the limit when he felt he could risk it on the motorways. At that, they were overtaken several times, twin headlights turned full on, flashing past them at God knew what speed.

`That couldn't be the police, could it?' Nancy wondered aloud when the second car sped past.

`Hardly. The first was a Saab, that was a Volvo…'

`I keep thinking about Jesse. I don't see what we can do about him.'

`Nothing. I can see where you get your stubborn streak from.'

`We can't just do nothing…'

`Leave him to me…'

`And what does that mean?' she asked.

`I'll think of something…'

He slowed down on the way to Geneva. A few minutes later the route sign appeared indicating a turn-off. Rolle VD – Rolle, Canton of the Vaud. Newman swung away from the lake, away from the N1 on to the side road north which immediately began to climb. In the distance the Juras loomed like a giant white tidal wave arrested in mid-motion. Then they were above the snow line.

In their headlights the narrow road ahead was like a mirror, a mirror of ice. The road turned and twisted, climbing steeper and steeper. The danger signs began to appear, signs with a sinister zigzag. Risque de Verglas. Skid. Ice. Now the road really began the ascent. Newman's arms ached with the strain of holding the wheel, keeping the car on the road. Nancy glanced at him. His lips were compressed, eyes narrowed. She lit a cigarette, glanced in the wing mirror. The lights of the black Audi were still there. A long way back on an unusually straight section. First the Saab, then the Volvo, now the Audi. She looked ahead and stiffened.

`Oh, Christ!'

The wave of the Juras hung above them. Verglas. The zigzags were incredible. Newman was constantly turning the wheel. And now they had entered a narrow gulch. Snow banked high on both sides. Beyond reared dark walls of dense fir forest, the branches of trees sagging under the weight of the snow. She reached to turn up the heater and found it already full on. They went on climbing, twisting inside the gulch. The clock on the dashboard registered 19.20 hours. Eight minutes to rendezvous time. They'd never make it.

They went over the top without warning. Swinging round a particularly suicidal bend, the road suddenly levelled out. They started to descend. Lights appeared in the distance. `Le Pont,' Newman said.

A cluster of houses, steep-roofed, spilling down a hillside. The roofs heavy with snow. Wooden balconies at first-floor level. Hardly more than a hamlet. Newman nudged the car past a hotel ablaze with lights. Hotel de la Truite.

`Look!'

Newman pointed up at the hotel. Under the eaves shards of ice a foot long projected downwards. A palisade of icicles. Inverted. The station was little more than a one-storey hut, an isolated building with no one about. The dashboard clock registered 19.26 hours. Newman parked the car beside the building, out of sight of the exit. First, he had swung it through one hundred and eighty degrees – involving a major rear-wheel skid which made Nancy clench her hands. Ready for a swift departure. He left the engine ticking over.

`I want you to take over the wheel,' he told Nancy. 'I'm going to stand near the exit when the train comes in. This could be a trap. If I come running move like a bird when I dive inside – back the way we came. I'm leaving you now – look, the train is coming…'

The train, three small coaches, an abbreviated caterpillar of lights, stopped behind the station – no more than a wayside halt. Newman heard the distinctive sound of a door slamming. A gaunt-faced man, hatless, carrying two suitcases, appeared under the pallid light over the exit. He had a haunted look, calling out in German.

`Newman! Where is the car… I am being followed…'

Two men appeared behind him in the exit. A car driven at high speed came up the road from the direction of Neuchatel- and Berne. Its headlamps swept like searchlights over the station exit. Newman caught a flash of red – red like the Porsche he had seen on the Thun motorway. There was a scream of brakes applied savagely. The barrel of a rifle projected from the driver's window. At the same moment Nancy drove the Citroen round from the side of the station, pulled up, threw open the doors.