Colin Forbes: Terminal

`It's not going as it usually does. We'd be away by now. I can feel it – something's wrong…'

`Shut up! Didn't you see Jan yawn? They're half-asleep at this hour. They've been on duty all night. Nothing ever happens at this Godforsaken spot. They're bored stiff. They've slipped into a state of permanent inertia…'

Seidler realized he was talking too much. He began to wonder whether he was trying to convince himself. He stared hypnotized by the horizontal pole. It began to, wobble. Christ! The tension was beginning to get to him.

The pole wasn't wobbling. It was ascending. Franz released the brake. The Renault slid forward. They were across! They paused briefly again while an Austrian official glanced without interest at Seidler's German passport, and then they were driving through the streets of the small town of Gmund.

`You realize you were photographed back at the frontier post?' Franz remarked as he accelerated along the highway beyond Gmund towards distant Vienna.

`What the hell are you talking about?'

`You were photographed by a man in civilian clothes. Didn't you see the flash-bulb go off? He had a funny camera with a big lens…'

`A civilian?' Seidler was startled. 'Are you sure? Someone with a torch came out of the guard but…'

`No torch. A flash-bulb. I watched him out of the corner of my eye. You were looking straight ahead.'

Seidler, a man in his late forties with a thatch of dark brown hair, slimly built, a bony face, a long, inquisitive nose and wary eyes, thought about it. It was the reference to a civilian which worried him Always before there had been no one there except uniformed guards. Yes, this was definitely the last run. He had just relaxed with this comforting thought when Franz said something else which disturbed him.

`I'm not helping you again,' the old man rasped.

Suits me to the ground, Seidler thought, and then glanced to his left sharply. Franz was staring straight ahead but there was a smug, conniving look in his expression. Seidler knew that look: Franz was congratulating himself on some trick he was going to pull.

`I'm sorry to hear that,' Seidler replied.

`That business back at the frontier post,' Franz went on. 'I felt certain they'd changed the guard. It's only a matter of time before they do change the guard. Jan won't be there to collect his Schnapps and wave you through. They'll search the car…'

He was repeating himself, talking too much, over-emphasizing the reasons for his decision. That plus the satisfied smirk. Seidler's devious and shrewd mind began searching for the real reason. His right hand thrust deep inside his coat pocket for warmth felt the flick knife he always carried in the special compartment he had had sewn into the pocket.

Money! Franz worshipped the stuff. But from what source could he obtain more money than the generous amount Seidler had always paid? The road to Vienna passes through some of the loneliest and bleakest countryside west of Siberia. Flat as a billiard table – a monotonous snow-covered billiard table – the bare fields stretched away on both sides, treeless.

It was still dark when they drove through one of the few inhabited places between Gmund and the Austrian capital. Horn is a single street walled by ancient, solid farmhouse-like buildings. Giant wooden double doors seal off entrances to courtyards beyond, entrances large enough to admit wagons piled high with hay and drawn by oxen.

What the devil could Franz be up to? Seidler, an opportunist par excellence, a man whose background and character dictated that he would always live by his wits, probed the problem from every angle. A Mittel-European, his father had been a Sudeten German in Czechoslovakia before the war, his mother a Czech.

Seidler spoke five languages – Czech, German, English, French, Italian. The Czechs – and Seidler was mostly Czech – have a gift for languages. It was this facility, plus the network of contacts he had built up across Europe – allied with a natural Czech talent for unscrupulousness – which had enabled him to make a good living.

Six feet tall, he sported a small moustache and had the gift of the gab in all five languages. As they approached Vienna he was still wrestling with the problem of Franz. He also had another problem: he had a tight schedule for the consignment inside the cardboard container resting at the tail of the Renault. The aircraft waiting for him at Schwechat Airport. His employers were sticklers for promptness. Should he risk a little time checking out Franz when they reached Vienna?

The first streaks of a mournful, pallid daylight filtered from the heavy overcast down on Vienna as Franz stopped the Renault in front of the Westbahnhof, the main station to the West. Here Seidler always transferred to is own car parked waiting for him. It wouldn't do to let Franz drive him to the airport – the less he knew about the consignment's ultimate destination the better.

`Here's your money. Don't waste it on drink and wild, wild women,' Seidler said with deliberate flippancy.

The remark was really very funny – the idea of Franz Oswald spending good money on girls instead of at the tavern. The old man took the fat envelope and shoved it into his inside pocket. His hands tapped the wheel impatiently, a gesture out of character Seidler noted as he went to the rear of the car, lifted the hatchback and grasped the large cardboard container by the strong rope handle. Slamming down the hatchback, he walked back to the front passenger window and spoke.

`I may have a different sort of job. No risk involved. A job inside Austria,' he lied. 'I'll get in touch…'

`You are the boss.' Franz released the brake without looking at his employer and the car slid past. Seidler only saw it by pure chance. On the rear seat a rumpled, plaid travelling rug had slipped half on to the floor, exposing what it had hidden. Seidler froze. Franz had stolen one of the samples from the consignment.

Early morning workers trailed out of the station exits below the huge glass end wall and down the steps as Seidler moved very fast. There was a jam-up of traffic just at the point where you drove out of the concourse and Franz's Renault was trapped.

Running to his parked Opel, Seidler unlocked the car, thrust the cardboard container onto the rear seat and settled himself behind the wheel. He was careful not to panic. He inserted the ignition keys first time, switched on the motor and pulled out at the moment Franz left the concourse, turning on to Mariahilferstrasse. Dreary grey buildings loomed in the semi-dark as Seidler followed. It looked as – though Franz was heading into the centre of the city – away from his home.

Seidler was in a state of cold fury and, driving with one hand, he felt again the flick knife in the secret pocket. The smirk on Franz's face was now explained. He was selling one of the samples. The only question in Seidler's mind now was who could be the buyer?

Stunned, Seidler sat in his parked Opel while he absorbed what he had just observed. A spare, brisk-looking man with a military-style moustache had been waiting for Franz. Outside the British Embassy!

Seidler had watched while Franz got out of his Renault, carrying the small cardboard container as he joined the Englishman. The latter had taken Franz by the arm, hustling him inside the building. Now it was Seidler who tapped his fingers on the wheel, checking his watch, thinking of the aircraft waiting at Schwechat, knowing he had to wait for Franz to emerge.

Ten minutes later Franz did emerge – without the container. He climbed in behind the wheel of the Renault without a glance in the direction of Seidler who sat slumped behind his own wheel, wearing a black beret Franz had never seen. Something in the way he had walked suggested to Seidler Franz was very satisfied with his visit to the British Embassy. The Renault moved off.