Prelude to Terror (27 page)

* * *

Their position, Grant had to admit, was excellent. Renwick parked in front of two other cars, a short distance away from the Two Crowns, yet near enough for a clear view of the hotel and its neighbour. Could the black Fiat have arrived and left, wondered Grant, while Renwick had been making his cautious approach? Then he realised that Frank’s men would have ’phoned in the alarm, and Renwick would have been alerted. “He’s well organised.”

“Frank? He has to be. This is his field of operation.”

Frank’s voice came over the speaker. “You can bet on that.” Renwick gave an amused glance at Grant’s startled face. “Just remember you’re on candid radio,” he told him. “Frank—I press the green button for your no-see magic?”

“That’s right. And there’s a map and a magnifying-glass in the glove compartment. Binoculars, too. Better check now.” Quickly Grant did so, and found them all in place. He looked up, as he heard a whirring sound. Renwick had pressed the green button: the sound came from inside windows, moving up into place around the car. “Storm windows, or bullet-proof?” Grant asked with a smile.

“One-way. Opaque glass, light blue—as if for anti-glare. We can see out. No one can see in. From the street, this car now seems empty.”

“What if someone walked right up to us and tried to peer in at the dashboard?” Grant’s smile was back.

“Thank God that hasn’t happened so far. But remind me to switch off the green glow before I start driving, or we’ll have old ladies fainting on the sidewalk. A car being driven with no one at the wheel—that’s enough to start a riot.” Renwick noted Grant’s amusement. Much better, he thought: the tension was gone; Grant had even stopped looking at his watch. Keep talking, Renwick told himself: get him out of the glum silence that was smothering him back at the garage. “I expect you’ve been wondering why we don’t jump them when they bring Avril out of the house.”

“I’ve thought of it,” Grant admitted. Rupprecht would stay in the car—he wouldn’t risk being seen and recognised, certainly not near the hotel where he worked. That left two of them: one was solid, the other a pushover. “We could take them.”

“A knock-down, drag-out brawl, Hollywood style? Yes, that has its attractions. It would relieve our feelings, for one thing. But we’ll pass it up meanwhile.” Renwick was watching Grant’s face. “Can you guess why?” he prodded.

“Because of Mittendorf. If we intercepted that Fiat, he would know about it five minutes later. He’d be out of Austria and across the Czechoslovakian frontier in less than an hour. If he decided on Hungary, just over an hour. But we need him right here in Vienna, sitting at his office desk at four o’clock this afternoon.”

Grant shifted his attention from the street—a few pedestrians, an occasional car—and looked sharply at Renwick.

Renwick said, “He will be arrested then. On charges of misappropriating company funds. Yes, everything’s beginning to move, Colin. Gudrun Klar and her husband will be picked up by the police at the same hour. The charge against them is fraud—attempted substitution of a reproduction for a masterpiece. And Sigmund, the expert packer, will be detained: he’ll be scared enough to testify that they ordered the substitution. He doesn’t know much else, I think: did as he was told, for money, or promotion to foreman.”

“So four o’clock is your deadline. After that, you’ll feel free to tackle Avril’s problem,” Grant said bitterly.

“Hey, hold on there! What do you think we are doing right now?” Renwick was angry.

True enough. This was one way of dealing with her abduction. Perhaps the only way, Grant admitted reluctantly. “Sorry,” he said awkwardly. “It’s one hell of a time for them to stage a kidnapping.”

Renwick checked his watch. “Rupprecht is late. Must have taken a few detours, played it safe.” He was getting restless. “Frank,” he tested, “are you still getting us?”

“Loud and clear.”

“Has something gone wrong, d’you think?”

“Like a head-on collision, and Rupprecht breaking his bloody neck?”

“Too much to hope for.” Renwick was smiling again. “What about that house—no more conversation heard?”

“Some bickering. And a lot of talk about their own troubles. The one with the thin voice has ulcers; the deep voice has piles, and a mother-in-law who won’t move out. They had some difficulty with Avril. Had to drug her again. They’ve been arguing whether they gave her enough or too much. They want her able to walk.”

Grant and Renwick exchanged glances and said nothing at all.

“Hold on, hold on!” Frank’s voice called out. “There’s a message coming through.”

Grant kept watching the narrow street. More people were out there now. Placid and well fed, with no thoughts beyond the opening of their shops and businesses after a long midday dinner. Tomorrow they’d be heading into the country—what had been Helmut Fischer’s words?—everyone rushing off in their little white cars. Fischer, he thought, Fischer and Grünau... “We’ll need some place safe—” he began, and was cut off by Frank’s excited voice.

“Hear this!” Frank was saying. He began repeating the conversation that had just been relayed to him, pausing between the two men’s remarks to keep their dialogue clear. “Get her ready. It’s almost time now.—What kept Rupprecht so long?—Just making sure he wasn’t followed.—Is he driving us all the way? He won’t like that.—He has no choice; he’s the only one available who knows the road. Think you could get us there? You’d lose us (
two words blurred
) woods.—I know that area. Used to visit the
Heuriger
(
two words unintelligible
) damned ulcer.—But you don’t know the cottage, and Rupprecht (
several unintelligible words
).” Frank ended his quotes. “Got that?”

“Woods,” Renwick said, “and the
Heuriger
... Yes, they go together.” For Grant’s benefit, he expanded it. “In the Vienna woods the
Heuriger
are the taverns beside the vineyards.”

Where, thought Grant, a green pine-branch is hung over the
Heuriger
door to tell everyone the new wine is being served. He nodded, didn’t say, “I know.”

“Could be Grinzing or Sievering. Or Nussdorf. That’s a lot of country.”

Frank’s voice said, “Well, how’s this? My file on Bernard Mandel says he once owned a small tavern in the Vienna woods—near Grinzing. Still keeps it as a summer cottage. Is that how Rupprecht knows the road so well?”

“Could be. But Grinzing stretches far. Got the address?” Grant caught Renwick’s arm and pointed. A Fiat, four-door, black in colour, W531-735, was passing at a leisurely pace. It didn’t slow up, it didn’t stop. It continued to the end of the street, turned the corner.

Renwick said, “He’ll be back. He’s just scouting.”

“Who?” Frank sounded annoyed.

“Rupprecht. Careful bastard. He’ll be difficult to tail. What’s that damned address?”

“It’s on the left of Neustrasse, far up the hill toward Höhenstrasse—no number, just a name:
Waldheim
.”

“Displayed?”

“Are you kidding? Take the third roadway into the woods once you pass a restaurant with a French name.”

“Left of Neustrasse, French name, third road into the woods,
Waldheim
. How far into the woods?”

“One hundred metres or less.”

“That’s—” Renwick cut off his calculations. “Here’s Rupprecht again, just passing us. And this time he’s stopping. Frank—get hold of Prescott Taylor. Tell him to contact Braun and Slevak for me: he knows where. We’ll need support.”

“You’ll get it. Look in the compartment under the seat. You may need that too.”

Grant’s eyes were on the house before which the Fiat had halted. The men must have been ready to leave. The minute the car stopped, they were already through the door, with a woman supported between them. She was huddled into a shapeless grey cape, a scarf around her head. She could have been anyone: they had disguised her efficiently. They looked neither right nor left. One of them had his arm around her shoulders, the other had a grip of her wrist as they hurried her down the steps to the pavement. Then two boys came running towards them. Avril drew her free hand out from the cape, pulled off the scarf around her head. She stumbled with the effort it had cost her. But the boys, perhaps ten or eleven years old, only stopped for a few moments to stare at the girl, and ran on. If questioned, they might remember a girl with dark hair, who nearly fell, and two angry men.

“She tried,” Renwick said softly. “And look at those people across the street—did they even notice?”

“The boys have stopped again,” Grant said. They had turned to look back at the car. Avril had been half-pushed, half-lifted inside. The taller and heavier of the two men faced the boys, like a bull about to charge. His lips moved—swearing at them, no doubt—and they ran on. “They’ll remember him.”

“A mistake,” Renwick agreed. “Never antagonise any eleven-year-old boy.” He was watching the Fiat. It was beginning to move. The Two Crowns had no one at its entrance. The house next door looked totally unoccupied once more.

Grant opened the glove compartment, and drew out the map. It had several sections, and he chose the one that dealt with Vienna, and its surrounding countryside. Carefully he folded it to show the area around Grinzing. “Remember that green button,” he told Renwick, who had slipped the gear into drive.

“And you duck out of sight, until we’ve passed the hotel.” Gently he eased the Porsche out into the street. But at the Two Crowns there was no face at the window, not one tremor of a curtain. The Porsche picked up speed, and they were safely out of Schotten Allee.

It was, as Renwick had predicted, a difficult job to keep track of the black Fiat. It had headed north as soon as it left the inner city, and followed the long stretch of busy thoroughfares, one threading into another, stitching old-time villages and country outskirts into the spread of Vienna. Early afternoon traffic was heavy, often blotting the Fiat momentarily from sight. Renwick wasn’t chancing any close tail—Rupprecht had already proved himself to be a wary type who’d be keeping constant watch for everything that followed too persistently. One small consolation, thought Renwick: the number of cars, buses, trucks on this route was an advantage as well as a drawback; he could conceal the Porsche very nicely from Rupprecht’s watchful eye. It was a strain, though: he had to admit that, as the Fiat well ahead of him dropped again out of sight, stayed unseen for three nervous minutes, and then reappeared.

“At least,” Grant said, “he’s travelling in the right direction for Grinzing.”

“So far.”

“Have you doubts about the address Frank gave us?”

“No. His files are usually accurate, and he’s been working on Bernard Mandel’s case for months. If he says Mandel has a cottage in the country, then Mandel has a cottage in the country. But we don’t know if Avril is being taken there. It’s a good possibility, that’s all. So—we’ll keep following that Fiat. By guess and by God,” Renwick added as the Fiat disappeared from view. “These damned buses,” he said, gritting his teeth. Another anxious minute, and the Fiat was again in sight.

Now they were driving through Heiligenstadt. Later, thought Renwick, if we get through this day, I’ll remember to laugh. For the Fiat was passing the little house where Gyorgy Korda, defector, had been hidden for the last six weeks. Briefly, he had the impulse to tell Grant, brighten this part of the journey for him. Later, he told himself again—once Korda is on that plane for America. His own spirits lifted.

“I know this place,” Grant was saying. “I came out here seven years ago to visit the house where Beethoven wrote the ‘Pastoral’ Symphony. I found a small tavern. Had a garden at the side, though. Sort of eased the blow. Everything changes, I suppose. Nothing stays the same.”

Suddenly, he thought of Jennifer. Not even grief stayed the same. In these last few days, so much had filled his mind, so much had kept him moving, that no time had been left for bitter memories, or—let’s face it, he told himself—for self-pity. Was that really what intense preoccupation with private sorrow could degenerate into? Grief for the past that overwhelmed the present, cut off the future? Perhaps that imbalance could only end as a perversion of honest emotion. There were some who began to mourn more for their own loss than for those who had been snatched away from them.

“These roads change too damn much, that’s for sure,” said Renwick. They had been passing along a suburban street lined with gardens and trees that shielded wide-eaved houses from the traffic’s noise and dust. No longer was there a flat broad thoroughfare with a steady stream of cars and buses, but roads that branched, or twisted, or climbed a gentle curve. The problem of tailing the Fiat had changed too; now it was an unexpected crossway, or the turn of the street around a cluster of heavy trees, that made surveillance at a discreet distance almost impossible. “We’ll chance this one,” he decided as they reached a division of Grinzingerstrasse and took the right fork. The Fiat was out of sight, could have chosen either of the two roads.

Grant scanned the map. “They both lead to Grinzing, anyway—keep apart until they meet west of the village. When they join up again, that’s the start of Neustrasse. We’re there, Bob!”

And a long way to go, Renwick thought, but he smiled and nodded. One mistake even now—for it was barely three thirty—and Rupprecht would alert Mittendorf. They were bound to be keeping in touch with each other. If so, that wily old buzzard wouldn’t be found in his office at four o’clock. He might not make a dash for the frontier, not until something stronger than a suspicion of danger was verified, but he’d take himself to some safe address until the final report came through from Rupprecht. Even if the alert was cancelled, there would be no return to his office. For by that time he would have been warned by one of his trusted employees at Allied Electronics that the police had come visiting at four o’clock. Yes, a mistake even now, thought Renwick—and almost made one.

They had come through the quaint street of vintners’ houses, squeezed past the parked cars around the old church on the village square, taken the cut towards Neustrasse. Suddenly, there—just ahead of them where the two roads through Grinzing came together again—was the Fiat. Renwick swung the Porsche behind a stationary bus, almost rear-ended it. He stopped less than two feet from its broad back.