Hostage Tower (14 page)

‘Please,' Smith gestured towards Leah. ‘You will be comfortable, and unmolested, in the VIP room.'

‘I know the room well,' Mrs Wheeler rejoined, ‘whereas I honestly doubt whether you have ever been inside it – or would be welcomed there if you did.' She turned on her heel, brushed Leah aside, and walked firmly out of the restaurant.

The dining-room commandos spread out and herded the guests into a corner at gun-point. Graham and his ice-cream vendor arrived, with members of the tower staff under guard. On the second landing, far above their heads, other commandos poured out of the elevators and trained their guns on the trippers. A guard rushed to an alarm button, but was cut down by a burst of fire from a Kalashnikov.

Pei shouted through a loud-hailer. ‘No one is to move. Stand absolutely still. Do not try to be heroes. You will die if you do.'

The elevator continued its deadly journey. The top observation platform, at the very summit of the tower below the television mast, was only lightly peopled. The assault team took it with ease, disarming and trussing up the defeated guards.

In the first-level restaurant, C.W. unlocked a catering crate marked ‘Microwave Oven P769/521 COOKFAST'. He called Mike Graham over, and together they tenderly lifted out a darkly gleaming Lap-Laser. Up aloft by the rail of the second gallery, three men just as carefully hoisted Sabrina Carver over the side of the tower. She wore a welding mask, and someone handed to her an acetylene torch and a stout iron bracket. Sabrina got to work … and she was a fast worker.

Mrs Wheeler sat in a comfortable chair in the VIP room, hands clasped to stop them trembling. She had resolutely refused to speak to Leah who had locked the door and left. She had no idea what Mister Smith required of her – apart from the obvious ransom for her release. She suspected, though, that he had chosen the location badly. If she was trapped on the Eiffel Tower, then so was he. She had a premonition – which, surprisingly, was not too distasteful – that she would not survive the day.

Tourists arrived in their droves from above, and huddled together on the gallery, and in the open spaces and restaurant, as Smith took a loud-hailer and addressed them. ‘All visitors and tower personnel, listen to me. You will be released safe and unharmed if you do not panic, and if you do precisely as you are instructed. You will shortly enter the elevators in small groups, as directed by my staff. Once on the ground, please leave the area of the tower immediately. If you do not, you
will place yourselves in very grave danger indeed. Now – get to the elevators, and wait your turn as my men tell you.'

Sabrina, perched precariously on the scaffolding of the tower midway between the first and second levels, put the finishing touches to her bracket welding. From the landing below, Mike peeped out and saw her. He signalled to C.W., who ran to join him. ‘There she goes,' Mike said, and he and the black man took the Lap-Laser over the rail and knotted the rope round it. A commando team from above began to haul it on its long trip up the side of the tower.

Police and bystanders stood in anxious groups watching with mounting curiosity as the slim black gun rose into the air, hugging the girders. Sabrina looked down on the swaying Lap-Laser with equal concern. She knew what the crowd didn't know: that any hard knock from the metal struts to the delicate firing mechanism – particularly to the circular, side-mounted radar detectors – could put the wonder-weapon out of commission. Sabrina muttered a silent prayer that if it was going to happen, it should happen quickly – before the need arose for her to fumble the bolting of the laser-gun to its bracket.

For that was the plan she had in mind: a last, desperate bid to immobilize at least one of Smith's toys and even up the odds for Philpott.

But the gun reached Sabrina safely, and as the commandos detached it from its sling, she steeled
herself to drop it back down the tower. Then Smith's voice floated down to her. ‘No slips now, Sabrina. I shall hold you personally responsible if anything happens to that gun.'

In the maintenance areas, Pei and his band of electronic specialists were tapping into the main power cables supplying the tower, as Pei had shown them in the practice sessions at the Château Clérignault. This time, there were no accidents, and within minutes, stewardship of the electricity supply to the entire tower and its environs had passed into Pei's capable hands.

The first trippers were leaving the tower. They streamed away, ignoring the incoming policemen brought there by the sudden lack of communication with the tower, by isolated bursts of gunfire, and by the fact that the security men augmenting Mrs Wheeler's guards had failed to report. Women in the crowd sobbed as they tried to cope with hysterical children. Men looked back grimly, and talked excitedly among themselves of their good fortune in getting away. The policemen pushed impatiently at the elevator buttons, but there was no response. Pei had seen to that. He was now the Eiffel Tower's sole liftman.

The steel-helmeted Riot Police arrived, all shields, blast-guns and machismo. They listened to the tragic tales of the common flics, then grouped in a spear-head at the entrance to the tower, and rushed the stairs. Their shields, however, proved
not to be impervious to high-velocity, armour piercing bullets, and they retreated in disorder, leaving dead and wounded littering the steps.

Smith heard the shooting as he descended to his command position near the first landing elevators. ‘Keep it to the minimum,' he yelled through the loud-hailer to the group manning the stairs. ‘Tell that to the Riot Cops,' called out a commando.

Smith turned inquiringly to one of his principal lieutenants, who supplied the commando's name. ‘He did not address me correctly,' Smith said, in a voice so urbane that it chilled his subordinate, ‘and he was impertinent. When the operation is concluded, shoot him. Through the spine. Make sure he lives.'

The tower was clearing fast now. The only people Smith kept there under lock and key were the more daring among the guards – those who still lived, that is – and the security men of both nationalities, who were beaten senseless as a precaution.

On the rusty-red iron scaffolding members, Sabrina Carver and C.W. Whitlock clamped a third Lap-Laser-gun into place. Another team, led by Pei, handled the fourth and last dreaded super-weapon on the opposite flank. Smith assembled his entire task force on ‘level one', and handed over temporarily to Leah. She took a large bundle of metal tags from a box.

‘You all know what these are,' Leah said. ‘They're laser safety tags. Wear them at all times,
please. It's probably unnecessary to caution you about this, since you all know what will happen to you if you don't wear them. We'll be arming the Lap-Lasers in a very few moments. In case you have any remaining doubts about their powers, let me assure you that they will automatically destroy anything that moves on this tower, or near it, which doesn't have one of these metal protective code-tags. I'll hand out the tags now. After that, it's up to you.'

‘Thank you, Leah,' said Smith, taking the tag she offered him, and pinning it ostentatiously to his breast on the lapel of his suit. ‘I'll see you in the restaurant when we've set up?'

‘I wouldn't miss it for the world, Mister Smith,' she replied.

The last load of trippers left the tower, and scampered away to join the crowd, now held in check by a police cordon at a respectful distance. On his way back to the restaurant, Smith peered over the side cautiously. He had instructed his commandos to keep well out of sniping range; once the laser-guns were operative, they would, of course, have no need to observe such caution.

The scene was bizarre, looking upwards or downwards. Going up, the sole occupants of the Eiffel Tower above the first level were pigeons, gulls and smaller birds. They wheeled in and out of the stanchions and cross-members, and buzzed the top observation platform like Macbeth's temple-haunting martlets.

Below, there was a cordon sanitaire around the tower. Nothing inside it moved. Traffic had been halted, the access roads and main junction were sealed off, the walkways from the Champ de Mars and the Palais de Chaillot cleared, even of animals. The fountains were stilled, and every eye in the vast and growing crowd turned upwards in tribute, Smith's mad brain told him, to his remarkable genius.

He withdrew, and walked towards the restaurant. As he reached the door, Pei stepped forward and delivered the crucial message. ‘The Lap-Lasers are fully armed and functioning, Mister Smith.' Smith replied, ‘Excellent, Pei, excellent.'

The central command post had been set up in the restaurant, and apart from the busy commando leaders, probably the most valued people there were the French television crew, who were destined to play in the drama a role of which none of them had dreamed when they left that morning on a routine assignment.

Under Pei's direction, and to Mike Graham's secret amusement, cables had been dragged in bunches into the cleared dining area, and the little bandstand was now the setting for a bank of TV monitors, covering every aspect around the tower. A group of three colour monitors stood to one side, showing, for the moment, RTF test cards. Smith looked appraisingly at the scene, occasionally glancing at his stop-watch.

Finally, he summoned the French TV cameraman
who, like most continental network operators, used a small, portable ENG (Electronic News Gathering) camera, rather than the unwieldy Arrieflexes and other film cameras of old.

‘You will operate the ENG camera at my direction, and inject straight into the network, as you have been instructed?' Smith asked.

‘Oui, Monsieur,' the man replied.

‘If you do not,' Smith warned, ‘or if in any way you attempt to cross me … I have no need, I am sure, to tell you what will happen to you.'

The cameraman assured him hastily that he would do as he was told. ‘No tricks, Monsieur,' he added, ‘I have a wife and kids, and RTF does not pay me enough to die for them.'

‘Good,' Smith returned. ‘Then make the preparations.'

‘What exactly is it you wish me to do, Monsieur?' queried the technician.

‘That's simple,' Smith said. ‘I want to make a broadcast to the world. I want to tell them that I have stolen the Eiffel Tower, and that I am holding as my prisoner the mother of the President of the United States of America.'

Sonya ordered lunch to be sent up to Suite 701, and the Ritz's room service obliged with omelettes, side salads, light desserts and a bottle of Chablis. Neither she nor Philpott were in the mood to sample the celebrated déjeuner mondain or the delights of the Espadon Grill.

They had not been idle during the morning. Philpott maintained a steady contact with the message drop points in Paris, with INTERPOL and the Sûreté, with the Élysée Palace, and with the CIA and the duty monitor at UNACO. So far, they had drawn blanks.

As he forked the first slice of omelette into his mouth, the telephone rang again. ‘Always happens,' he grunted, ‘usually when I'm in the shower.'

Philpott picked up the receiver, announced himself, and listened for perhaps three minutes in total silence.

Then he said, ‘God in Heaven, François, I expected it to be bad, but nothing like this. Hang
on a sec.' He gestured towards the corner of the lavishly decorated room, where vast windows offered breath-taking views of Paris. ‘Sonya, switch on the television set,' he said, urgently. Then back to the telephone. ‘Go on please, François.'

Philpott listened again, fired a couple of quick questions, made notes on a scribbling-pad next to the telephone, and finally said, ‘Me? I'll get hold of the Ambassador straight away. I know more about Smith than probably anyone else alive. I shall be pleased to help. Indeed, I insist on offering my services. Thank you, Au revoir.'

He replaced the telephone as the colour TV screen flickered into life. ‘For God's sake, Malcolm, tell me what's happened,' Sonya cried in exasperation. ‘The worst,' Philpott answered. ‘The very worst. Smith, would you believe, has hi-jacked the Eiffel Tower – or so the police say … that was François LeMaitre, from the Sûreté.'

‘Hi-jacked the Eiffel Tower?' Sonya echoed, incredulously.

‘Taken it with an armed force. But that's not all. By Christ, that's in no sense everything.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘He's got a hostage, Sonya, and I have no doubt whatsoever that in his insanity, he will not hesitate to sacrifice the hostage if things go against him.'

‘Who is it, Malcolm?'

‘Someone whose life we cannot afford to hazard,' Philpott said, dully. ‘It's Warren's mother, Sonya.
Adela Wheeler, mother of Warren G. Wheeler, President of the United States of America.'

The colour drained from her face. ‘Wh-what – what –'

‘What's she doing here?' Philpott supplied. ‘She's over on invitation from the International Children's Relief Fund – you know, it's her pet charity. There's a beano, a fund-raising lunch, at the Eiffel Tower – today.

‘God –' he smashed his fist into his palm, ‘– how could I have overlooked that? How could I have been so stupid as not to check that, when Lorenz van Beck as good as told me it was the Eiffel Tower?'

‘Van Beck did?' Sonya queried.

Philpott nodded, and ran his fingers through his hair. He wrenched open his top collar button and pulled down his tie. ‘Yeah,' he murmured, disconsolately. ‘As van Beck said: what else has two and a half million rivets? I believed him, of course … that's why we went to that little café this morning – just on the offchance that I might see something, or someone, which would give us a lead. But some hopes,' he snorted in self-disgust. ‘Even if I'd tripped over Smith himself, I would probably have dusted him down and bought him a beer.'

Sonya rose and went to him. ‘Quitting?' she asked. ‘Self-pity's not your line, Philpott. Fight back, or we're lost. Please?' She straightened his tie, and smoothed back his hair. Then she
noticed, past his shoulder as he held her and kissed her cheek, the TV set purring away in the corner.