Gavin Lyall - Midnight Plus One

Harvey nodded. 'So they'll come just across the frontier -but only just?'

'I think so. Most of the fortified zone isn't fortified at all: most of it's just headquarters buildings, artillery platforms -stuff like that. It's only the last couple of hundred yards -the battle zone itself – that's really built up. And that's bang on the frontier.'

'Plenty of cover,' he said thoughtfully, 'and just a short step home to Liechtenstein.' He nodded again. 'And what are the Swiss cops going to do when they hear shooting?'

'Come running. But they'll be half a mile away, up on the road, and they'll be running through trenches. I think they'll miss the big picture.'

Maganhard said sharply: 'They will know I am in Liechtenstein.'

'They'll guess it. But they can't come chasing across that frontier. The Sûreté'llhave to start all over again, asking Liechtenstein to extradite you. You – or Fiez – should have enough pull to hold that off for a-few days. By then-' I shrugged.

The girl said quietly: 'I think that's Liechtenstein.'

It was the lights of Mais and Balzers, the two little towns – villages – down just inside the frontier. Still miles away, across a river we hadn't yet reached, but somehow very bright and close. All we had to do was be in those towns; by then, our troubles would be behind us.

The Rolls trundled steadily on, angling away, turning its back on the lights as it ran down to cross the river where both banks were Swiss territory.

We crossed at the first bridge, turned back north through Maienfeld, and started the climb up to St Luzisteig. The tank path would begin there.

On our right was the steep mountain wall, turning to snow a couple of thousand feet up: that was the right wing of the St Luzisteig fortifications. Ahead on our left Was the long dark bulk of the Fläscherberg, the ridge that was the central anchor of the defences. By now, out there, the defences would be beginning: the old overgrown humps of the hundred-year-old stonework, mixed with the modern first-aid dugouts, artillery locations. But soon the real trenches, pillboxes, wire. Too dark to see. But there.

It wasn't easy to think of cold, waterlogged trenches and rusty barbed wire, not from the back of a Rolls Phantom II. It was too solid, warm, and imperturbable to imagine anybody stopping us. All I had to say was 'Drive on, my man,' and we'd bluff our way through at the frontier easily. Why bother with barbed wire?

I was learning how the rich can get to feel – and why they suddenly wake up in such trouble. Maybe they wrap themselves up warm in Rolls-Royces, in mahogany and dark leather, and say 'Drive on.' It couldn't happen to them. And that was why it did.

Both kings and fieldmice would be showing their passports on the frontier tonight.

We passed a handful of lights, the last village before St Luzisteig itself. Morgan slowed down, searching the roadside carefully. There was a notice saying that stopping and taking photographs was highly Verboten. We were in the right place. The Rolls drifted to a stop.

We were just before the high point of the road; from a couple of hundred yards ahead, it sloped down to Liechtenstein, three kilometres away. The plan would be that tanks could get to here on the road itself, out of sight of the enemy over the crest. Then they'd swing off on to the tank path.

Morgan switched off the lights, climbed down, and opened the left rear door. I had my hand on the Mauser, down in the briefcase, but he was still being the perfect chauffeur. It wasn't his job to swing the axe; he just led us politely up to the chopping block. I climbed stiffly out and looked up at the sky.

Inside the narrow valley the light had seeped away quickly, but the sky was more opaque than really dark. It was a stampede of broken, lumpy cloud hurrying south-westwards, jumping from peak to peak, and letting through flares of thin, nervous moonlight. A cold wind nibbled at me and I buttoned my raincoat. But there was another cold wind nibbling inside.

Harvey came up between me and Morgan, took out his revolver, and checked the load. I'd never seen him do that before: a gunman always knows exactly how many rounds he's got left.

'Congregation will sing three choruses of Wir fahren gegen Liechtenstein and we'll roll,' he said. He turned to Morgan and pointed the gun. 'Don't try for that gun.'

In the quiet, Morgan made a small sucking noise between his teeth. Then he looked past Harvey at me. 'I never did trustyou,' he said.

'That makes it even.' I walked round behind him and lifted a huge.45 Webley service revolver from under his raincoat. It must have given him ten sorts of rheumatism driving with that cannon back there.

'You'll be taking the Rolls, I suppose?' he said gloomily. 'You know they'll arrest you, anyway, man.'

'Not if we go down that tank path.'

'But – after that they'll think the General is involved!' He sounded honestly outraged.

'Wrong answer, Sergeant. Don't you remember? – we're not supposed to know it's a tank path – or that something's going to happen down there. And the General's already involved up to his moustache; if he gets a bit of it up his nose, well – he shouldn't have sold us out.'

He just glowered at me, a little bent man searching his little bent brain to save the reputation of a crumbling old crook back in Montreux. Nothing to give three cheers for but maybe nothing to sneer at either.

Then he said: 'He's sold out better men thanyou.'

Behind me, Maganhard said: 'I hope I'm not expected to take that as evidence of General Fay's kind heart.'

Morgan glanced contemptuously at him, then walked off back down the road to Maienfeld, moving with the last remnants of a military strut.

I watched him out of sight, round a bend, then walked across to the left-hand side of the road and started looking at the fence.

Twenty yards up I found what I was looking for: a thin place in the wire fence, guarded by a couple of barbed-wire strands. I waited for a flare of moonlight, then picked out a faint track beyond it leading off at the right angle.

I found Miss Jarman just behind me. She asked: 'Is that the path?'

'That's it.' I hauled out Morgan's big revolver, broke it open so that it couldn't fire accidentally, then caught the top wire strand between the hammer and the breech, and started twisting quickly side to side. Not as good as wire-cutters, but it works in the end.

The girl said: 'It won't be easy without lights. And it might be overgrown by now.'

'They probably clear it every few years – and anything a small tank'll knock down, so will a Rolls.'

'Can you drive a Rolls?'

I shrugged. 'They're rich men's cars, not wild men's. They can't be difficult.'

'You're used to the ignition retard-and-advance and mixture controls?' she asked sweetly. I stared at her. She said: 'I'd better drive.'

'Don't be-' The wire strand broke. 'Don't be crazy. In case you didn't know, you're not even coming on this trip. You walk back to Maienfeld and get picked up tomorrow.'

She said quickly and tonelessly: 'My father had a Phantom II as official car when he was Governor-General. I learnt to drive on one. So I'd better drive.'

I thought of asking where he'd Governor-Generalled, then decided I believed her, anyway. And she had a point about the driving; whatever I'd said about Rolls's not being difficult, this one had been built for a style of driving more than thirty years old. I started to work on the second wire. She said: 'It would let you and Harvey keep your hands free, as well.' Which was another point.

'Unless,' she added, 'you still think I'm on the other side.'

'No.' I shook my head. 'I don't think that. I don't think you were trying to get yourself – and Harvey – killed. I just wasn't sure you knew the danger of tapped phones – or just people talking. Somebody says "Maganhard's secretary rang me today from Montreux," and the word gets around. That could be just the same as selling us out.' I waited a moment, then asked: 'So who were you ringing?'