Dennis Wheatley - The Satanist

Bumping and skidding on his motor cycle he had, soon after seven o'clock, reached the engine-house. Inside it five Chinese, all of whom he described as of the coolie type, had been squatting on the floor of a common living and bunk room eating breakfast. But none of them could answer his questions and it seemed that they could speak only their own language. By signs he had then indicated that he wanted to be taken up to the cave, but they had shaken their heads and begun to show hostility; so he had had no option but to return to Lax.

Immediately the group about him had heard his story Jodelweiss gave him a place in the leading car. The others re-distributed themselves, then the cavalcade set off again, now heading almost due north along a rough road that led up into the mountains, and on which, the Sergeant said, about twelve kilometres distant lay the cable railway.

As the cars wound in and out among the foothills of the chain C.B. wondered anxiously if the old policeman had not done more harm than good by his reconnaissance.

Up till an hour ago, unless Lothar had been keeping an occult watch on Otto, he could not have been aware that they had traced him to Switzerland; but if the Chinese labourers had reported the Sergeant's visit that might have aroused Lothar's suspicions. With luck he would assume that only chance or a routine round had brought a local policeman to the engine-house, but his psychic perceptions being so acute it was possible that he would deduce a warning from it. If so, he was now overlooking their approach and, awful thought, if he had his rocket ready, that might precipitate his launching of it.

When they reached the hamlet Jodelweiss spoke into the car radio. He ordered one of the police cars behind them to stop, and its crew to search the hamlet in case any of the men from the engine-house or cave should have come down there since the Sergeant's visit, and be temporarily hiding in one of the barns. A few kilometres further on, as they came opposite the aircraft hangar, he detached another squad for a similar purpose.

All of them were now craning forward in their seats to catch the first glimpse of the cable railway up which forty-eight hours earlier the stolen war-head had been carried. At length they rounded a last bend and came in full view of it. Half a mile ahead lay the engine-house. Beyond it, in the distance, far up the valley and on its opposite side from the railway, a little group of figures were moving. They were making their way up a broad gully towards a dip in the ridge and were visible only because they had already passed the snow line.

The Brigadier spoke into the walkie-talkie he was carrying, ordering two jeeps filled with ski-troops to go after them and bring them in; but the sight of the group, which was so obviously making off, was enough to tell Verney that his fears had been well founded. The Sergeant's visit two hours earlier must have alerted Lothar to the fact that Switzerland was being combed for him. Since then, no doubt, he would have used his psychic powers to detect and observe the advancing column of police and troops.

Two minutes later the leading cars pulled up outside the engine-house. Their occupants tumbled out. Armed police and troops dashed inside. A Lieutenant emerged again almost at once and shouted, 'The place is empty, but the cage is down here.'

C.B. was staring after the tiny figures that stood out against the snow, and wondering now if Lothar was one of them. Barney tugged at his sleeve and cried, 'Come on, the cabin's here! Come on, or there won't be room for us in it.'

'Half-a-mo', partner,' C.B. replied. 'The bird we are after may have fled the nest. Maybe he's one of those little moving dots up there.'

'He'd never have abandoned his rocket at this stage,' Barney argued quickly. 'I swear he'd die rather. And if... if Mary's not dead, she will be with him.'

'If the rocket was all fixed to go, he might have. He could have left it with a time fuse attached to launch it. Anyhow, the rocket is first priority. These cable-railway cages usually hold only four, and the Brigadier told me that he had been ordered to bring explosive experts with him. I'm sorry, Barney, but we must let them go ahead so that they may have the best possible chance to get at that war-head in time to dismantle it. But Lothar is our pigeon, and getting him our best hope of saving Mary. If he is one of those dots up there we must go after him.'

With a murmured apology Barney almost snatched a pair of field-glasses from an officer who was standing nearby. Swiftly he focused them on the distant figures and, after a moment, said, 'There are seven of them. That is two in addition to the five Chinks that the Sergeant found down here in the engine-house. None of them looks like a woman; but in those clothes one can't tell. Anyhow, Colonel Washington's not one of them. I'm sure of that because of his height.'

At that moment there came the sudden crack and roar of an explosion. Its blast flung them both forward on their knees. As they picked themselves up they looked round to find that the engine-house was now a smoking ruin. Shouts and screams were coming from it. Troops and police were running to the assistance of their wounded comrades. For a few minutes everything was confusion.

As the smoke above the wrecked building cleared Barney suddenly shouted, 'Look! Look! There he is. The explosion has brought the murdering swine out to see the results of his handiwork.'

Following Barney's pointing finger, C.B. saw that a figure had emerged from the cave and was now standing on the edge of the broad ledge, looking down through a pair of glasses at the scene of havoc. He, too, had no doubt that it was Lothar.

Richter staggered up to them, his face blackened, his eyebrows singed and his uniform torn.

'What happened?' Verney asked him.

The American was still panting. 'That devil had booby-trapped both the cage and the engine. I chanced to be looking towards the winding gear as a corporal pushed over the lever. Both bombs went off simultaneously. The Brigadier and Jodelweiss were both in the cage. With them and in the freight compartment they had several sappers; bomb experts. All of them are to hell and gone. So are six or eight fellers who were standing round the engine. I was lucky. I couldn't get a place in the cage but I was standing alongside it by the opening. So I was blown clear.'

As he finished speaking Fratelli limped up to them. He had been outside the building but near it, and a flying length of wooden rafter had caught him a nasty blow on his left leg. Otto had escaped altogether, as he had been well away from the engine-house and, already certain in his own mind that Lothar was still in the cave, was staring up at it.

Within a few minutes the last of the wounded had been rescued from the smouldering debris, and a tall, thin Major came up to them. The greater part of the troops were his own men and, now that the Brigadier had been killed, he was the senior officer present. After expressing his fury that the police should have allowed them to walk into such a trap, he demanded to know the object of the operation.

In a low voice Fratelli told him, upon which he promptly declared his intention of having his tanks train their guns on the cave and shell it to blazes. The others swiftly implored him not to, as they feared that the concussion of the bursting shells might set off the H bomb war-head that they believed to be at the far end of the tunnel. It was Verney who said,

'There is only one thing for it now, Major. We have got to get up there by climbing; and the more of us who make the attempt the better, because he may have some means of inflicting casualties on us as we go up. I suggest that you should form your men into groups and send each group up by a different route. Some should certainly be sent round the shoulder of the mountain so as to work their way up, if they can, to the far entrance of the tunnel that can't be seen from here.'