Rhinoceros (59 page)

'That improves our situation enormously. I was worried
that again we'd all be crammed in one car.'

'Like to go now. Want to soup up the engine a bit. Six in the morning.' He turned at the door. 'Oh, I'll have the
Uzi with me . . .'

Tweed decided it was time to take a shower, then get into
bed. As he switched out the light and rested his head on the pillow, his brain was still hurtling over various questions to
which he didn't know the answers.

Who was Number Five - the man referred to in the
exchange between the FBI agent at the windmill and the man who had run out of the wood? Was the dire warning
he'd received on his mobile to frighten or in deadly earnest? Who could have called him, using his mobile number? It all
went back to Monica, who had insisted once that it should
be given to key people. She'd shown him the list and reluctantly he'd let her go ahead. But he was so tired he couldn't
recall all the names on that list. Who was Rhinoceros?

His brain suddenly switched off and he fell into a
deep sleep.

In the middle of the night Oskar was woken by the buzzing
of his mobile phone. Swearing, he switched on his bedside
light, picked up the phone.

'Yes? Who the hell is it at this hour?'

'Gavin Thunder. And when you are addressing me I like
some polite acknowledgement of who I am.'

'You're Gavin Thunder.'

Oskar was in no mood to be conciliatory, to kowtow.
Not if it had been the President in the Oval Office.

'I'm emphasizing the importance of not losing Tweed.
I'm sure he will leave Tonder in the morning. You must
tail him. Now do you understand my order?'

'Already dealt with. Barton and Panko will follow him
from the air . . .'

Oskar switched off the mobile. Thunder was a man given
to issuing the same order three times.
He'd better damn
well take a sleeping pill, Oskar thought, switched out the light and fell fast asleep.

Early in the morning he knocked on Barton's door. No
reply. He tried the handle, walked in. No one there. Bed
left like a rubbish dump. Nothing in the bathroom. Then
he noticed the absence of a case. He went downstairs to
enquire at reception about his two friends.

'They had asked for packed breakfasts and a flask of
coffee to be ready very early. They left the hotel some time ago.' The receptionist stood straighter. 'They said
you would be settling their bill.'

'And so I will . . .'

Oskar went into the dining room and deliberately had a
leisurely full English breakfast. He had been up very late
- or very early - and still felt sleepy. He drank two large glasses of orange juice and they seemed to start to get him
going. He paid the bill, went upstairs to pack.

An hour earlier, just after dawn, Barton and Panko had left for the airfield. Not wishing to have Oskar chauffeuring
them to the airfield, Barton had bribed the porter to drive them there. They travelled in an old Skoda which rasped and groaned but got them to their destination. As the car drove off, Barton approached the light aircraft.

It was surprisingly cool in broad daylight. A hint of mist
like a flimsy tablecloth hung above the trees. That would go quickly when the sun climbed higher. Barton, thickset
and muscular, scanned the deserted airfield. Holding a .45 Colt in his large right hand he crept up to the hut.
He liked the weapon. It was self-loading and the magazine
carried seven rounds.

Barton was a cautious killer. He checked out everything.
He had once stalked a man for ten weeks before completing
the job. He turned the handle of the hut's door slowly,
then threw the door open and dived inside, swinging his automatic in all directions. The place was empty. He had
thought it would be but he never took a chance.

Panko, who had carried both their bags from the Skoda,
stood watching this performance from a distance. To him
it was all unnecessary. He waited while Barton walked over
to the plane. The previous evening, when they had left the machine, he had shut the door and attached a piece
of sticky tape near the bottom, covering the edge of the door and a small part of the fuselage. The tape was still
there but was curling up a fraction. Sticky tape did that
in the sort of heat they'd endured the evening before. He
removed it, opened the door, climbed inside, sat behind the pilot's controls.

Panko followed him, hoisting the two bags inside, climb
ing in after them, securing the two cases. He sat next to
Barton. He guessed that his chief was glad to be rid of Oskar and have his independence again. Barton reached
to turn on the machine. His hand froze in mid-air.

Glancing around, he had noticed a small black object
tucked under the pedal, an object that shouldn't have been there. He took a small torch out of his pocket, bent down,
examined the object with the aid of his torch beam. He
straightened up, looked at his companion.

'Isn't it time we took off?' Panko grumbled impa
tiently.

'Oh, we'd take off all right when my foot pressed that
pedal. Take off about a hundred feet into the air in
small pieces. Someone during the night put a bomb on
board . . .'

'A bomb!'

Panko had opened the door, dropped to the ground, fled at top speed until he was behind a wide tree trunk. Barton
grinned without any mirth. It suited him that Panko had
run like a scared rabbit. Now he could concentrate.

He had seen on the Internet how to make a bomb. So
had someone else. It was a crude device but it would
have detonated. Remembering the Internet programme
which had also showed how to dismantle such a device,
he looked for the switch. Behind the bomb a small red light
was glowing. Taking a deep breath, he pressed the switch.
The red light went out.

Several minutes later he climbed out carefully, holding
the black box which had wires protruding at different
angles. He carried it into the wood, hid it gently under
a tangle of undergrowth, returned to the plane.

'You can come out now. Gutsy,' he called. 'The bomb is no longer on board.'

Panko slouched forward slowly, hesitantly. An ugly look
came over Barton's tough face. He pulled out the Colt,
aimed it as he shouted.

'Move faster or I'll shoot you.'

Panko ran. Barton was again behind the controls as
Panko climbed aboard, shut the door. Barton glanced at
him with an expression of disgust.

'You know something?' he began. 'There are people who
would thank God I was the pilot.'

'You do great job. You great pilot. You best pilot flying
in world. You great.'

'Don't overdo it,' Barton growled as he reached to
switch on the engine. He paused. 'What I want to know
is, who planted that bomb? When I find out whoever it was, he's going to die. Die very slowly . . .'

The propeller started whirring, built up power. The
aircraft moved forward, left the ground well before it
reached the end of the airstrip, gained height. Barton's
plan was to fly a distance from Tender, keeping south
until he observed Tweed's blue Mercedes on the move.
He was convinced the car would leave Denmark, heading
south into Germany. Then all they had to do was keep
their distance, follow it to its destination. He wouldn't
contact Thunder to tell him where it went to. They could do the job themselves, wipe out Tweed and his team and
earn another load of money.

CHAPTER 35

Who was Mr Blue, as he was known in Britain and the
States, or M. Bleu in France and Herr Blau in Germany?
Tweed woke in the morning and blinked. He realized
the questions had been surging through his mind while
he slept.

He checked the time, forced himself out of bed, had a shower, shaved, got dressed. He packed in less than five
minutes - he could pack faster than Paula. It came from
years ago when he'd had to pack and leave in minutes to
save his life.

Downstairs he found everyone else having breakfast in
the dining room, except for Harry. He had just ordered
full English when they all heard the gentle purring of a
motorcycle pulling up outside. Harry, carrying a crash
helmet and pulling off gloves, bounded into the room,
sat down.

'I'll have the lot,' he told the waitress.

'Where on earth did you get hold of that machine?'
Paula asked.

Harry told the story, making a joke of it. Then went on
to explain how he'd just persuaded a garage proprietor to
open up so he could get the tank filled with fuel.

'The Danes wake early,' he concluded.

'Not that early,' Nield objected. 'How did you persuade
him? Half strangle the poor blighter? Knowing you, I guess
you did.'

'And the crash helmet?' Tweed enquired.

'Bought that last night off the chap who sold me the
bike.' He looked at Tweed. 'Hadn't you better explain the
tactics?'

Tweed explained that Harry would be both advance
guard and rearguard at a distance from the car. Then,
for the benefit of the others, apart from Harry, he told them about the grim warning he'd received over his
mobile in the night. He said he'd decided to take it
very seriously.

'And I thought it was going to be a joyride,' Newman commented humorously. 'Instead it sounds as though the enemy is revving up.'

'Seems to me they always know where we are,' Lisa
chimed in.

'Yes, they do,' Paula replied, giving her a look.

'We must be prepared for a really violent assault,' Tweed
warned.

'Well,' Paula added on a more cheerful note, 'I arranged
last night for cartons of food and fruit to be prepared for all of us. Plus umpteen litre bottles of water.'

'Maybe it will be a picnic after all,' Lisa suggested.

'It could be,' Tweed agreed. 'We mustn't let fear dominate our outlook. That could be our opponent's aim
..."

Breakfast over, Tweed spread a map on the table. For
Newman's sake he indicated the route they would follow to Traverminde. Even more important, he showed Harry, who said it seemed pretty straightforward.

'It's anything but that,' Tweed told him. 'A lot of
country lanes — and we purposely cross over the autobahn
at this point and continue on secondary roads . . .'

They could feel the heat starting to build up as they settled into the blue Mercedes. Everyone sat in the positions they'd occupied the previous day. Newman was
behind the wheel with Marler alongside him. In the sec
ond row Tweed sat with Paula while behind them the
rearmost seats were occupied by Nield and Lisa. It struck
Paula that Nield was beginning to get very attached to
Lisa.