Prelude to Terror (28 page)

“Good brakes,” said Grant. Good split-second reaction, too.

“God,” Renwick said, and drew a long breath, “I was about to pass the bus. We’d have run full tilt into them. What took them so long, anyway?”

“Must have been some hold-up on their route.” There were several cars closely following the Fiat out of that road, an angry bunching together which was the usual sign of a traffic delay. “Rupprecht didn’t see us, Bob. The bus blocked a clear view. Those cars behind him were what he was worrying about.”

Could be true, thought Renwick. He backed off slightly from the bus, but held his position behind it. “You big beautiful monster,” he told it.

“You were cussing them out only half an hour ago,” Grant reminded him.

“I’m converted. I’ll love them for ever and ever.”

“How long do we wait here?” Other cars were passing; one honked derisively at the timorous driver who wouldn’t risk flanking a stationary bus. “Rupprecht must be half-way up Neustrasse.”

“Suits me.” Renwick was still a little shaken. “Just three more seconds, and he would have seen us. If he remembered the brown Porsche parked on the Schotten Allee—” He tightened his lips, glanced at his watch. Three thirty-three. Twenty-seven minutes to go.

Still thinking of that four o’clock deadline. “Let’s look at the good news,” Grant suggested. “They have entered Neustrasse. Mandel’s cottage could be their destination. Frank may have been right after all.”

“So you thought he could be wrong?” Renwick was amused.

“Didn’t you?”

“Let’s put it this way: he is often right, but when he’s wrong—he can equal the worst of our mistakes.” Then Renwick looked at the blue button faintly glowing on the dashboard, and laughed. “Still there, Frank?” No answer came. “He’s off rounding up some support. I hope.” Renwick reversed the car until it could sweep easily around the bus, and started up Neustrasse.

It was lined with more vintners’ cottages, their window-boxes laden with bright petunias. Each had its walled courtyard, whose wide entrance doors stood partly open to show barrels and tables and more flowers. All of them had their own individual vineyards, long and narrow, stretching like a spread of stiff fingers up the sloping fields. Everything was precisely measured: mine and yours clearly marked off; no doubt about who owned what. As the neat houses thinned out and the vineyards were drawn further apart, Renwick could risk more speed. Grant exchanged the map for the binoculars. “Just preparing for the bad news,” he told Renwick.

“Ah yes. There’s always that. Let’s have it.”

“Frank could have over-guessed—he’s dead set on nailing Mandel. But what if the Fiat kept on going, never stopped at Mandel’s place?” We wouldn’t have a chance of tracing them if they continued on Neustrasse until it reached Höhenstrasse. Not far off, either. That long highway wandered around the crest of the adjacent hills, plunging deeper into the Viennese woods. How many hidden cottages and chalets could be scattered through there? Grant’s lips tightened angrily. He tested the binoculars. “Damn it, they won’t be any use,” he said as he found that the trees, beginning to replace the fields and vineyards, were even now, sparse as they were, blocking any view of the road above.

You won’t be any use either, thought Renwick, if you let bad news begin to look like disaster. He said, “We’ll have a quick look at the Höhenstrasse.” The Porsche went into high speed.

“Special souped-up job?” Grant’s brief attack of astonishment gave way to approval. “Trust Frank to have the best.”

Frank’s voice broke in, faint but definitely pugnacious. “You’re damn right.”

“Where are you?” Renwick asked.

“Like you said, rounding up support. And next time, buddy boy, have a Little more faith in me. You’ll find the Fiat at Mandel’s. Want to bet?”

“Next time,” Grant told him, “I’ll remember big uncle is listening.”

“Bob, have you a transceiver—once you leave the car?” Frank asked quickly.

“Yes. But if you’re further off than five miles or so, I won’t reach you.”

“Then one of you stays with the car and keeps in touch. See you!”

“Hey—one moment! When do we expect you?”

“Working on that problem right now. Five o’clock?” Frank settled any objections by switching off, temporarily at least.

Five o’clock... “We’re not waiting until then,” Grant said. “Or are we?” he asked angrily.

Renwick didn’t answer. “There’s that French name,” he said as they passed a restaurant whose outside terrace was smothered with flowers. “Begin counting the side roads on our left. Duck before we pass the third. They know you by sight, don’t they?”

Rupprecht certainly did. And he might be wary enough to have someone watching the entry to Mandel’s place. “There’s the second road,” Grant said and slid low, head averted.

“Okay,” Renwick told him within a minute.

Grant sat up in time to see a fourth road, narrow and curving, like the other three, back into the woods. He had a glimpse of a small roof, a chalet set among beeches and pines some distance from the highway. “Secluded area,” he observed. “And all so peaceful and innocent. What size is Mandel’s cottage—could you see it?”

“Not visible. He hasn’t cut down any trees for a view of the valley below. He’s blocked in, completely.”

“Did you notice anyone at all?”

“Couldn’t see a thing except a green jungle. It’s secluded, all right. Well—here we are.” They had climbed to the end of Neustrasse, and reached its junction with the roads along the heights. The woods had thickened, too.

Grant took one look, and shook his head. Useless, he thought, as he set the binoculars down. We’ll have to depend on Frank’s judgment. Our only other choice would have been to follow the Fiat so closely that we could have seen where it turned off. And be seen. “Okay,” he said as if to reassure himself, “we know what surrounds Mandel’s place.”

“That was the idea.” Renwick had already reversed the car and was heading downhill. The powerful growl of the engine became a low and gentle purr.

So this had been just a reconnaissance trip, Grant thought. Or was he humouring me? Am I so damned difficult to handle?... Perhaps I’ve been too much on edge. Calm down, calm down... You don’t have the answers to everything. At least Renwick has made sure that no one saw us loitering near the entrance to
Waldheim
, Probably the few minutes spent on this manoeuvre weren’t wasted after all. “
Waldheim
,” Grant repeated with a smile. “Bernie’s little home in the woods. Trust him to choose a name like that. But where do we leave the car? Down at the restaurant, climb back through the trees?”

Not bad, thought Renwick, not bad at all: he has got his brains together again. “We’ll try some place nearer, first. Like here.” He slowed down as they approached the side road that lay above Mandel’s, made a quick turn into it, followed it for a short distance until he found a small clearing between the trees. He edged over the grass, halted the Porsche close to a thick curtain of leaves. He looked around him. The chalet was still out of sight; even its roof was now lost to view. And the highway behind them was hidden by a surge of bushes. Satisfied, he switched off the engine. “Now we think up a good excuse if someone comes asking what we are doing among his beech trees.” Simultaneously they glanced at their watches. It was three fifty-five.

“Well?” asked Grant as they got out of the car.

Renwick gestured at a batch of fir trees. “
Waldheim
should be just south of there. I made a rough check of the distance between its side road and this one. It’s no more than two hundred yards, if that. Then, according to Frank, it is about a hundred yards from Neustrasse itself. So that pin-points it. I’ll scout around.”

“I’m coming with you.”

“Someone stays here for Frank’s next message. That’s you, Colin.” Renwick’s glance took in Grant’s well-cut grey suit, light blue shirt, dark blue tie, all carefully selected for this morning’s appearance at Klar’s Auction Rooms. “You don’t look much like a hiker lost in the woods.”

“We city folks get lost too.” Beyond that. Grant didn’t argue. He had to admit that Renwick’s old tweed jacket, open-necked shirt and scuffed shoes blended better with the country scene. He didn’t like it, but he stayed by the car and watched Renwick disappear behind the cluster of trees. At another time he would have enjoyed the bland sunshine, the crisp air, the dappled shadows cast on the grass by the gentle stir of leaves overhead. There was the rustle of water from a small stream near by, a sense of protection from the surrounding hills. Today, the peace flowing around him only intensified his restlessness.

Renwick, however calm and contained, must have been just as worried as Grant. He hadn’t taken the binoculars—in too much of a hurry. Nor had he examined Frank’s special compartment under the driver’s seat. Grant stepped back into the car and began searching. He found the compartment. Locked, of course. He tried the car key; it fitted. As he turned it carefully, a drawer slid out. It contained a loaded .22 automatic, two clips of extra ammunition, a silencer, a knuckleduster, and—good God, thought Grant as he stared down at a hand-grenade.

Gingerly, he closed the drawer. Next, he examined the glove-compartment more thoroughly to see what other surprises it might contain. They were harmless enough: a small first-aid kit, a thick slab of chocolate, a compass, a flask containing brandy, another road-map—not just for the Vienna area this time, but for Austria and its surrounding frontiers. Frank, the well-prepared traveller... Where the devil was he now? or Bob Renwick?

Five minutes passed. Three more. Grant’s frustration deepened. And then Frank’s excited voice boomed into the car. Grant lowered the volume of sound, said, “Repeat that!”

“All sewed up at this end. Four less to worry about. Taken quietly. One in his office, three in the warehouse.”

“What about the American?”

“No sign of him or his bow-tie.”

So Gene Marck was still free. “Could an alarm have been sent out?”

“Don’t think they had time. Everything was quick, efficient.”

“There still could have been someone around to warn him. What happens to Sweetheart, then?”

Frank didn’t answer that “Are you alone there?”

“Yes. Our friend went ahead.”

“Damn fool. We’ll be at the place by five fifteen. Sorry—that’s the best time we can make. We’ll approach from the south. What’s your position?”

“To the north—on a side road above the one you described.” Tell your friend his two boys will join you—where you’re parked.”

“Tell them I’m leaving,” Grant said. “Right now.”

“Secure everything.”

“I’ll take most of it with me.”

Frank laughed. “Okay, buddy boy. You’re a fast learner.” Silence came back to the car. Grant switched off the blue button. Quickly he pulled open the drawer and began packing Frank’s little arsenal. To make it easier, he stepped out of the car. The small automatic he slipped into his belt after checking the safety-catch; the extra ammunition went into one jacket pocket, the other bulged with the grenade; knuckleduster and silencer were stowed in trouser pockets. He lifted the binoculars—these would have to be carried in his hand—and began locking the doors. All secure, he thought, and tucked the car keys safely into his breast pocket. Behind him, a thin high voice said, “Hands up! Or you’re dead.”

Grant turned slowly. A small boy, wooden gun pointed, stared at him intently. Grant raised his hands and said, with equal seriousness, “You’ve got me, partner.”

The boy began to smile. He lowered the gun. “You talk funny,” he said.

“Not as funny as I look,” Grant told him, and dropped his hands. The boy—if sizes were the same here as in America—could be ten years old.

“What have you got in your pockets?”

“The crown jewels.”

“Where are you going?”

Grant held out the binoculars. “Bird watching.”

Another boy, older, perhaps twelve or thirteen, came out from behind a tree. A third, no more than nine, followed. Brothers obviously, with the same blue eyes and the same fair hair cut short, all three wearing grey lederhosen and checked shirts made from the same cloth. They stood there, thinking up their next questions. Grant jumped in ahead of them with some of his own. “Is that your house?” He pointed in the direction of the chalet. It seemed a safe beginning to the answers he needed. Boys roaming these woods kept their eyes open.

“No,” said the oldest boy. “We live down there.” He pointed vaguely to the south.

“Oh, at
Waldheim
?”

There was a chorus of “No,” and a laugh.

“Who lives there?”

They looked at each other. The oldest boy said, “Old Gruber and his dog. They live there.”

“Don’t you like old Gruber?”

“Oh, he’s all right. He doesn’t shoot us with his rifle, or set the dog on us. Just gets angry and shouts.”

“And chases us,” the smallest boy piped up. Again there was the shared laugh, covering their own secrets. He stared at the car. “What is that?”

“A Porsche, silly,” his oldest brother said. He scrutinised it critically. “Doesn’t look much.” He walked over to the window, tried to see the dashboard. “How many kilometres?”

“Thousands and thousands—it’s old,” Grant said. “Next time I’m going to get a Fiat, a nice new Fiat. Black.”

“Like the one we saw?” the youngest boy asked.

“Where did you see it? At
Waldheim
?” Grant kept his voice easy. “When old Gruber chased you?” he added with a smile.

“It wasn’t at
Waldheim
,” the oldest boy corrected Grant. “It was over at the little house.”

“
Not
a house,” said the boy with the wooden pistol, taking aim at a tree. “A barn.”

“It’s a house!”

“It isn’t!”

“People live in a house. Not a barn, stupid!”

Grant decided on one last probe. “And it belongs to
Waldheim
? Is it near the big house?”

The boy nodded. Questions bored him unless he did the asking. “Fritz!” he called to his younger brother who was heading for the woods further north, his gun banging away at some invisible quarry.

“How near?” Grant persisted.

“On the hill behind it. In the trees.” The blue eyes were studying him closely. “Why do you ask? What are you doing here?”