Colin Forbes - Double Jeopardy

'I approached her directly through the Minister. I spent half an hour with her. I told her one of the four security chiefs, may be an assassin…'

'She must have loved that…'

'Took it very calmly,' Tweed replied. 'She even said she would feel perfectly safe in our hands. She went through your dossier while I was there. Incidentally, you brought a good passport picture of Claire Hofer with you? Good. Do you trust her?'

'With my life – I have done already. Twice..

'Give me her photo.'

Tweed sat down at the table, produced a second card, a duplicate of Martel's but without the photo or signatures. Taking a tube of adhesive from his pocket, Tweed carefully affixed Claire's photo in position. He then extracted a pen Martel had not seen before and proceeded with great care and skill to forge the PM's signature twice. He looked at Martel over his glasses.

'I have her permission – and she loaned me her pen to do the job. Here is Miss Hofer's card. One thing I must remember to do above all else.'

'What's that?'

'Return the PM her pen. She'll give me hell if I forget. One thing more is exercising my mind – before we go. Manfred…'

'What his next move will be, you mean?'

'I know,' Tweed replied. 'I have duelled with him long-distance before and I should know by now how his mind works. Sit in his chair for a moment. He has been informed that we know one of the four western leaders is marked down for assassination. When we reveal to the security chiefs that one of them is the assassin he will react – he may already have put into action the next phase of his strategy …'

'Which is?'

'Smokescreens. To conceal the identity of the killer he will try to divert our suspicions to the wrong man. He will aim for the maximum confusion in our minds – simply put, so we don't know where the hell we are. And we have no time at all left to locate the guilty man.'

'You agree my idea, then,' Martel said and stood up, checking his watch.

'Yes. We tell the security chiefs one of them is a phoney. And then watch all hell break loose…'

Reinhard Dietrich was in a state of controlled fury as he drove the Mercedes 450 SEL from his apartment to the underground garage which Manfred had designated as the meeting place. On the phone it had almost been in the nature of a summons for Dietrich to come immediately – alone and with just sufficient time to get there.

Inside the deserted underground garage Manfred sat behind the wheel of his BMW hired under a fictitious name with false papers. He had deliberately arrived early and positioned himself so his car would face Dietrich's on arrival.

He heard Dietrich coming, driving on the brake.

The garage was dimly lit and Manfred timed it perfectly. As the millionaire appeared driving towards him he turned on his light full power. The unexpected glare blinded the industrialist who threw up a hand to shield his eyes and cursed as he reduced speed and pulled up alongside the BMW. Manfred promptly turned off his lights, which further confused Dietrich's vision.

He saw a vague image of a man wearing a dark beret, the face turned towards him concealed behind large sun-goggles. Switching off his motor he lowered the window. Manfred was already talking as the window purred open.

'If you lose the election you go ahead with the putsch as planned. Your men in full uniform. You march on Munich – make it as much a replica of Hitler's 1923 march on Munich as you can.'

'Hitler didn't succeed,' Dietrich pointed out. 'He ended up in Landsberg Prison…'

'Where is the new weapons dump?' Manfred interjected. 'I see…' He paused. 'We are so close to zero hour you should use armed guards to protect the place this time. That is all…'

'Wait!'

Manfred had not even heard the plea. He was driving out of the garage, his red tail-lights disappearing round a corner. Dietrich swore again, took out a cigar and lit it. The arrangement was he should wait two minutes before he also left.

Arriving back at Munich Airport, Martel took a cab to the corner of a side street in the city. Waiting until the cab had gone, he walked the last four hundred yards to the Hotel Clausen where the Swiss girl was staying. He was relieved to find Claire safe in her room.

'I've been busy while you were away,' she announced. `I spent a lot of time at the Hauptbahnhof

'That was foolhardy – you could have been spotted…' 'When will you learn I'm not stupid?' she flared up. 'I change my clothes before each visit. A trouser suit in the morning, a skirt and blouse with dark glasses after lunch…'

'Sorry.' Martel dropped his brief-case on the bed and stretched his arms. 'I'm tensed up. The Summit Express leaves Paris tomorrow night and we're no nearer knowing who the target is, let alone the assassin…'

'The dossiers that woman in London is checking? She has found nothing?'

'It could be Flandres, Howard, O'Meara – even Erich Stoller. Any one of them. But she's persisting. The Hauptbahnhof…'

'You never told me what you had noticed after we ran for it,' she reminded him.

'Your impressions first.'

He slipped off his shoes, lay on the bed and propped his back on the bedboard. While she talked he smoked and watched her, thinking how fresh and appetising she looked. He felt a limp, sweaty, mess: the humidity in Munich was growing worse.

'The Hauptbahnhof here,' she began, 'and probably in Zurich – for the same reasons – is the mobile headquarters of Delta. Which explains why Stoller has never managed to locate their main base. The schloss Dietrich has in the country is a blind…'

'Goon.'

'It makes an ideal headquarters because of all the facilities. It is always crowded. So a meeting between two men-or several- is unlikely to be noticed. Couriers come in on trains, deliver their messages – and depart on other trains. They never actually go into Munich! How am I doing?'

'Promising. Do go on.'

'You observed one of those meetings- the man off the Zurich Express. Plenty of meeting-places – far less risky than any so-called safe houses which might be located and watched. The cafeteria, the cinema, and so on. They even have fool-proof communications which can be used with the certainty no call will ever be intercepted. The payphones.'

'I think you've got it,' Martel agreed. 'But suppose they are spotted?'

'Look at the number of exits available. They can even rush on to a train just leaving. Remember how we escaped – by diving down into the U-Bahn

'That's what I think Warner worked out – all you've been saying. And it explains his reference to the Hauptbahnhofs in his little notebook.'

'I did observe one thing which worried me,' Claire went on. 'I saw men coming in on different trains, tough-looking customers who all made for the self-locking luggage containers. They had keys to the lockers and collected large, floppy bags – the kind you use to conceal automatic weapons. Then they walked out into the city…'

Martel whipped his legs off the bed and frowned in concentration. 'You mean Dietrich is sending in an elite force – probably placing them in hotels close to strategic targets like the TV station, the central telephone exchange – all the key centres of control?'

'That was my guess…'

'We should contact Stoller,' Martel was pacing the room. 'The trouble is we don't know whether the assassin we're trying to pinpoint is Stoller. If he is, he'll thank us – and do nothing.'

'Can't we do one damned thing?' Claire protested.

'We can try…'

'Alain,' Tweed said quietly, 'we know one of the four passengers aboard the Summit Express leaving for Vienna tomorrow night is the target for an assassin…'

'We must certainly assume that, my friend,' Flandres replied.

They were eating dinner in a small restaurant at the end of a court off rue St. Honore. Le patron had escorted them to a table in a secluded corner where they were able to converse without being overheard: It was an exclusive place and the food was excellent. Alain was in the most exuberant of moods.