Gavin Lyall - Midnight Plus One

Maganhard said: 'I seem to remember some famous political assassinations that worked in public places.'

'Political killings are by cranks – and they get caught. The point of a pro killer is that he can count the odds; he won't shoot unless they're on his side.'

'Amateurs are hell,' Harvey said absently, still looking carefully round the inside of the car. 'You can set up something that's watertight for the professional – you're playing the same rules. Then some amateur walks in and blows the whole thing. The trouble in our business is, we only fire the second shot. You get a guy who doesn't care if the second shot knocks his head off – what can you do?'

I turned and smiled reassuringly at the dark shape that was Maganhard. 'You see? Just be glad people like you and the General don't attract cranks – only real killers.'

Maganhard said: 'I'll try and remember to be thankful.'

Harvey just grunted and went on exploring the door at his side, and the partition in front.

I noticed we were going up a steep hill, but the car didn't. It would have taken a hopped-up Mercedes a lot of work with the gearbox just to keep us in sight. Morgan only changed down from top a couple of times. But you hardly need gears with a seven-litre engine that turns slowly enough to have started the old crack about 'it fires once at every mile-post'. That period of Rolls doesn't have much top speed – and never did have – but it'll go up a vertical slope like fire along a fuse.

We didn't even slow down for the corners. I got a hasty flashback of my past life the first time Morgan slammed that great chariot into a hairpin bend, but it just sailed round. The springing was as stiff as a five-day corpse. We got to know that springing better once we were over the crest and opened up down the straight on the other side. It felt very solid and stable, but when you hit a hole in the road your backside knew about it by special delivery.

Harvey finished his tour of inspection, swung round on me, and said abruptly: 'Okay – the car's secure. There's no microphones and that partition's soundproof. He can't hear a word.' He nodded at the back of Morgan's neck, a few inches away through the thick glass. 'So now tell me, Cane: why the hell are we riding in this heap?'

I smiled in a friendly way and said: 'It's a nice car. And as far as you're concerned, it's a free ride. Enjoy it.'

His eyes were cold and steady. 'A piece of cheese,' he said softly, 'just a big piece of Gruyère – and four blind mice sitting around in the holes thinking how nice somebody's left it lying around just when they felt hungry. Why are we riding in this car, Cane?'

'It's still a free ride.'

Miss Jarman said: 'Do you think the General-'

'Yes-I-do-think-the-General,' Harvey said, still watching me. 'Okay, Cane -1 know you've been right before. But just think of this: for the first time on this trip, somebody knows where we'll be -exactly where we'll be, within a few inches – when we're crossing that frontier. If that's a trap, it's a very damn good one.'

'I know,' I said. 'But look at it this way: we know exactly wherethey'll be waiting. And that hasn't happened before, either.'

'You mean itis a trap?' His eyebrows had that half-degree slant on them.

'Hell, of course it's a trap. What else d'you expect for three thousand francs in this business?'

Maganhard came awake at full volume: 'General Fay is working for – for this Calieron?'

I smiled over my shoulder at him. I liked the way he said 'this' Calieron, as if the world was full of Gallerons, all trying to lift his ten millions' worth of Caspar AC, but only this one likely to do it.

'Well,' I said, 'if the General wasn't working for him twenty minutes ago, I'll bet he is now. But I think he always was. It was always likely, wasn't it? There's damn few big deals in this part of the world where the General isn't working for one side or the other. And you and Fiez hadn't hired him.'

'You guessed this?' he shouted. 'And you let me pay him three thousand francs?' He was glaring at me as if I'd grown two heads, and neither of them friendly.

'Well, Idid suggest you paid a third of seven and a half,' I said soothingly. That'd have saved you five hundred. He knew he'd never collect the rest, but he wouldn't have dared refuse it.'

He wasn't soothed, of course. 'Why should I pay anything to be betrayed?'

'He did help get you out of jug – and you're still getting What he sold you: a cop-free ride to the frontier. He wasn't fooling about that. If he wanted us caught by the cops, he could have left you in the pen in Montreux. Anyway, we know they don't want us caught: they want us dead. You must have noticedthat.'

'And we're driving into a trap,' he said harshly.

'Let's just say we've conned them into giving us a free ride past the cops. And telling us where the trouble's coming.'

Harvey slanted his eyebrows again. 'You were planning this?'

I shrugged. 'I was spinning a coin. Either he wasn't working for Calieron, so he could have sold us some genuine help, or he was, and he'd try to steer us into a trap. When he came down, I just had to know if he was heads or tails.'

Miss Jarman said curiously: 'Howdid you know?'

'He didn't make enough money out of us. Three thousand is nothing in this game; he didn't even charge for getting Maganhard out of jail. Then he tried to fool us over the fortifications.'

'You mean the map's a fake?' Harvey said.

'No. What good would a fake do them? And, anyway, why should he have one lying around? – he didn't know we were coming. No – when I sounded worried about walking through the fortifications, he backed me up. He knows all about fortifications, but he didn't think I would, seeing they weren't much used in the last war.

'In fact, a fortified zone's one of the easiest things in the world to walk through; trenches are just a lot of paths sunk seven feet down. They're planned just so that you can rush up reinforcements or retreat down them or whatever. But he wanted us to think it was difficult – so he could steer us into just one place. That's why he called that map a "patrol path". There's no such thing: a patrol would go up through the communications trenches, if it didn't start from the front line itself.'

'So what's the map?'

'A tank path. A fixed line's also a base for the counterattack, and you've got to be able to send up your tanks: they can't go through the trenches. You'd have to have a path for them: bridges over the trenches and so on. That's what he tore off the bottom of the map: the title.'

Harvey nodded slowly. 'And a copy of the map's on its way to Liechtenstein by train right now?'

'I hope so. They should have plenty of time to get ready for us.'

'That's great.' He eased down comfortably in his seat. 'So we know they'll wait till then?'

'They're professional^'

He closed his eyes. 'That's always nice to know.'

We rolled past the last of the big cuckoo-clock style chalets of Montreux residents who don't like living in hotels or don't have bad enough consciences to make it necessary, and came into open farmland. Children at the roadside tried to sell us bunches of wild narcissus by waving them at us, but we steamed on past. On this trip, no flowers by request.

Beside me, Harvey was dozing, which wasn't typical for him. Maybe his short night and the long hangover had caught up. Behind, Maganhard settled down to reading the Journal de Genèvewhich he'd picked up in the General's rooms, and muttering things about share prices to Miss Jarman. I stretched my neck and caught her writing them down. I suppose it mattered.

About half past three we burbled through the outskirts of Fribourg, the great cliff of the old town hanging over us until we were on our way out on the other side. I did a bit of work on the Michelins with my watch and reckoned we were well on time.