Colin Forbes - Double Jeopardy

Martel ran. Reaching the end of the alley he turned right and by the glow of a street lantern read the legend Stadtpolizei on a wall-plate. The entrance was round the corner in Bismarckplatz. He shoved open the door and stopped in front of a counter behind which a startled policeman gazed at him.

He slammed down a piece of plastic like a credit card on to the counter and slipped the Colt back inside its holster as the policeman surreptitiously unbuttoned his hip holster. Still short of breath, he gasped out the words.

'Sergeant Dorner! And bloody quick! If he's at home get him out of bed. There's my identification. And send a couple of men to Krummgasse. There should be a body for them to trip over…'

'We've had an alert out for you, Martel – they should have seen you when you crossed the Bavarian border…'

Martel was impressed by Sergeant Dorner. A short, burly man in his early forties, he had sandy hair, shrewd grey eyes with a hint of humour, and a general air of a man who knew what he was doing, a man not frightened to take decisions.

Martel was seated across a table from the police officer on the second floor of the building overlooking Bismarckplatz, drinking a cup of strong coffee. It was very good coffee.

They had found the body lying in Krummgasse, the body Martel had identified as Rolf Gross, the second man who had arrived late at the Bayerischer Hof. They had found more than that. Underneath the corpse – Martel's powerful blow had split Gross's skull – was lying what Dorner called a 'flick hypodermic'. He held up the weapon with the needle projecting inside a plastic bag.

'You were lucky,' Dorner commented. 'And this clears you. The fingerprint boys checked Gross's against those on the handle. It must look like a felt-tip pen before this button is pressed and the needle shoots out. Forensic were dragged out of bed to tell me what it contains…'

`And what is inside it?'

'Potassium cyanide in solution. It's the kind of weapon you'd expect the Soviets to have dreamt up…'

`Maybe they did…'

But these people are Delta – neo-Nazis. I've never seen any weapon like it before…'

'I have. It's a Delta special,' Martel replied with grim humour. `So how do you account for the fact that neo-Nazis are using it?'

'I don't,' Dorner admitted. 'Nothing makes sense about what is going on. We're finding the caches of their weapons and uniforms with Delta badges too easily…'

'Too easily?'

`Yes. Erich Stoller of the BND is on his way here. I got him out of bed, too…' Dorner lowered his voice. 'When Stoller flew here after Warner's body was found he told me he has an informant who regularly passes on the location of these arms dumps. Always in an uninhabited place – an abandoned farm building, an empty villa.'

'In other words you get the arms, the uniforms – the news in the press – but you never grab a single person?'

'Weird, isn't it?' Dorner stood up and lit a cheroot, staring out of the window he had closed against the mist. 'We get no individual, no record of a property owner we can trace. Just as we've been unable to locate any colleague of Gross's…'

'I told you Erwin Vinz is staying at the Bayerischer Hof…'

'Paid for his room and left ten minutes before my men got there. Said an urgent business message had called him away. I've put my best man on guard outside Claire Hofer's room – dressed as a porter, he's whiling away the night cleaning shoes.'

`Thanks.' Martel, almost dropping from lack of sleep, was beginning to approve of Sergeant Dorner more and more. `And as I told you, Reinhard Dietrich was staying at the same hotel…'

'Not staying,' Dorner corrected him. 'He arrives in that bloody great Mercedes, has a leisurely dinner, a chat with you – and then leaves. What do I charge him with? Eating too large a dinner and smoking Havana cigars?' He eased his large buttock on to the edge of his desk. 'Bloody frustrating…'

`So we set a trap – make them an offer they can't refuse.' Dorner took the cheroot out of his mouth and frowned. 'Just what are you proposing?'

It took Martel one hour, the arrival of Erich Stoller, eight cups of coffee and four cheroots to obtain their backing for his plan.

Friday May 29

Claire reports Warner made three mentions Operation Crocodile…

While Martel was finally catching up on his sleep at the Bayerischer Hof after the key meeting with Stoller and Dorner, Tweed – in his Maida Vale flat – was playing the same section of the tape-recording of Martel's report from St. Gallen over and over. It was the fifth time he had listened to the recording, he was alone and tired.

During the day there had been another row with Howard who was about to fly to Paris. There he was attending a meeting of the four security chiefs responsible for the security of the VIP's who – in only five days' time -would start their journey from Paris aboard the Summit Express bound for Vienna.

The British Prime Minister would fly to Charles de Gaulle Airport and from there would be driven direct to the Gare de l'Est. At about the same time the French President's motorcade would be on its way to the same destination.

The head of the French Secret Service in control of security for his President was Alain Flandres, an old friend of Tweed's. And the American President, flying the Atlantic direct to Orly Airport in Air Force One, would be driven from there at high speed to join the others.

The security chief – head of the American Secret Service – responsible for his chief of state was Tim O'Meara, a man Tweed had met only once. It was a recent appointment. The fourth VIP – Chancellor Kurt Langer of West Germany – was scheduled to board the express the following morning at Munich. Erich Stoller of the BND would lose sleep watching over his master.

`Why this bloody train lark?' Tweed had asked Howard during the confrontation in his office. 'They could all fly direct to Vienna to meet the Soviet First Secretary. It would be a damned sight safer…'

'The French President,' Howard had explained tersely. 'Hates flying. The excuse given is they'll all take the opportunity to coordinate policy at leisure before the train reaches Vienna. I do need every man possible and Martel…'

'What's the route?'

'The direct one,' Howard had replied stiffly. He implied Tweed's knowledge of geography was limited. 'Paris to Strasbourg…'

'Ulm, Stuttgart, Munich, Salzburg – then Vienna…' 'Then why ask?' Howard rasped.

'To check no diversion is planned…'

'Why the hell should there be one?'

'You tell me,' Tweed had replied, watching with some satisfaction as Howard stormed out of the office.

But Howard had cause to worry, Tweed thought later in the early hours in his flat. The Times atlas was open in front of him with the double-page spread of Plate 64 – South-West Germany including the northern tip of Switzerland. On it he followed a large section of the route from Strasbourg across Bavaria to Salzburg.

Operation Crocodile…

What the hell could that be? He took off his glasses, rubbing his eyes. Without them everything – including the map – was blurred. You saw everything in simplified shapes. He raised a hand to close the atlas and then stopped, rigid, like a man unable to move. He could see the crocodile!

In the morning after breakfast Martel made an elaborate pantomime about hiring a launch from a man in Lindau harbour – the same harbour from which Charles Warner, also in a hired launch, started out on his last journey.

There was a lot of waving of hands. There were discussions about the merits of one vessel compared with another. There was debate as to how long he wanted to hire the craft for. Finally, there was lengthy argument about the price.