The Power (4 page)

'The postman's on his way here,' she said to Amberg.

'Mounce will attend to him.'

Amberg was slowly drumming his clenched knuckles on
the table. Intuitively she guessed it was not with
impatience but with nervousness at the non-arrival of
Tweed and his men.

As she left the dining-room and crossed the wood-block
floor the front doorbell rang. Mounce appeared, used
both hands to pull down the edges of his jacket, walked
erectly to the door. Paula, carrying her shoulder bag,
entered the toilet, walked down two stone steps, closed and locked the door. It was heavy wood, insulating all sound from the rest of the manor.

Mounce opened the door and stared at the postman.
Wrong time of the day. Also it was not the usual postman
who stood with a heavy bag looped over the left shoulder.
The postman held a parcel in the right hand which was extended to the butler.

As Mounce glanced down, noticed it was addressed to
Julius Amberg, the postman's right hand slid swiftly
inside the uniform jacket, emerged holding a long stiletto knife. It was rammed upwards into Mounce's body, care
fully aimed to penetrate with great force between two
ribs. Mounce grunted, an expression of amazement creased his face, then he slumped to the floor, still
clutching the parcel.

The killer stepped inside, hauled the body clear of the
threshold, quietly closed the front door. Stooping, the
figure checked the neck pulse. Nothing. Straightening up,
it whipped off the cap, shoved it into the bag, grabbed a Balaclava helmet from inside, pulled it over its head,
adjusted the eye slits.

It next extracted a pistol with a wide short barrel from
the bag, walked over to the closed kitchen door, opened it wide. The 'postman' was inside, door closed again, before
the four occupants - Cook and three local girl helpers -
had time to react. Grasping its nose with its left hand, the
intruder fired the pistol, the tear-gas shell aimed at the
flagstone floor. The gas filled the sealed room - all the
windows were closed against the cold.

The four women were choking and reeling as Balaclava
produced a leather sap like a small truncheon.
Methodically Balaclava ran round the kitchen, coshing
each one on the head. Up to this moment the 'postman'
had worn leather gloves. For the next weapon sensitive finger control would be needed. Stripping off the leather
gloves carefully, hands encased in surgical gloves were exposed.

The 'postman' checked the time. Two minutes since the
butler had been dealt with. On the central table lay a silver
tray with mousse in individual glass bowls. Venison and
other items were cooking
in a modern oven against a wall. A hand switched off the cooker - no point in risking a fire.
Glancing round at the unconscious forms slumped on the
floor, Balaclava extracted an Uzi machine-pistol from his
bag. A firing rate of six hundred rounds a minute. Balaclava left the kitchen, closed the door.

Able to hold a breath for a minute, the 'postman' sucked
in air. Rubber-soled shoes made no sound as Balaclava
approached the dining-room door. A hand hovered,
grasped the handle, threw the door open.

Seven men stared at the Balaclava-clad figure holding the Uzi. For a brief second in time they froze. They had been expecting the butler whom Amberg had summoned
by pressing a wall bell. That brief second was fatal. Bala
clava pressed the trigger, aiming first at the guards,
spraying them as Amberg jumped to his feet. The last six
bullets stitched a neat row of red buttons down his shirt front, buttons which rapidly enlarged. The banker fell backwards, sagged into the seat, hit the rear of the chair
with such force the top half broke. He was grotesquely
sprawled at a reclining angle, supported by the intact lower
half. His face stared sightlessly at the ceiling.

The assassin extracted the empty magazine, which had
held forty rounds, and shoved it in a pocket, then inserted a
fresh mag. Walking round the table, he emptied it into already inert corpses. Best to be sure.

Cradling the Uzi, Balaclava brought out a glass spray bottle two-thirds full of sulphuric acid. The spray was
aimed at Amberg's face, the plunger pressed. A jet of acid enveloped the face from the bridge of the banker's nose to
the chin. Replacing the cap, the assassin thrust it into a
pocket, shoved Uzi and empty mag into the bag still looped
from the shoulder. After leaving the dining-room, the door
was closed.

In the hall the Balaclava helmet was removed, dropped
inside the bag, replaced by the 'postman's' official cap. The
front door was opened with gloved hands, closed from the
outside, the bag was placed on the front rack of the cycle
propped against the wall. The 'postman' rode off down the
drive.

'Well, I delivered the parcel,' the assassin commented
aloud with cold-blooded indifference.

2

Paula checked her appearance in the toilet mirror. She was
feeling better, stomach settled, but rather weak. 'Not bad,'
she said to her reflection. 'A bit white round the gills.'

Her image stared back. An attractive girl in her early thirties, long raven-black hair, good bone structure, calm
eyes which missed nothing, a firm shapely chin. She wore a
cream blouse with a mandarin collar, a navy blue suit,
pleated skirt, flesh-coloured tights and soft-soled loafers.

Paula had been sick. Which left her with a washed-out f
eeling, she had cleaned up the basin. She suddenly felt
empty, hungry.

'Maybe I could tackle a little venison,' she said to herself
as she mounted the steps, unlocked the door.

She took two paces into the hall, stopped. Mounce lay
flat on his back near the closed front door, the handle of a
knife protruding from his midriff. A red stain discoloured
his white shirt. The Browning .32 automatic was already in
Paula's right hand. She edged against the wall, listened, looked.

All doors closed, including the dining-room and the
kitchen. She forgot her weakness, glanced up the staircase.
Was the killer still in the house? Her loafers made no sound
as she crossed the floor, bent over the butler, whose hand
was still clutching the package. The 'postman'. . .

Her mind was racing as she quickly checked his carotid
pulse. Dead. What the hell was going on?
She straightened
up, approached the dining-room door. She listened before
her left hand reached out for the handle. Another solid
door which shut out all sound. She revolved the handle
slowly, using
her handkerchief to avoid leaving finger
prints, opened the door suddenly, stepped one pace inside,
her gun ready to swivel on any target.

'Oh, my God!'

She had the presence of mind to whisper the words. Her
mind struggled to take in the macabre horror. It was a
massacre. Two guards were still seated, sprawled across
the table in lakes of dark red blood. Some security, she
thought bitterly. Four other guards had toppled out of
their chairs, lay on the floor in pools of blood. She closed
the door quietly, still wary that the killer might be inside
the manor. Facing the door, she bent down again and
checked the pulses of the two men on her side of the table.
Nothing. Corpses ready for the morgue.

Sucking in her breath, she moved to the top of the table
where Amberg's body was bent over the broken-backed
chair. Paula was about to check his neck pulse when she
suddenly saw his head. She gasped,
trembled with shock.
Julius Amberg was faceless. Large parts of the flesh had
been eaten away. Even as she watched, the original face
was rapidly being converted into a skull.

Forcing herself to stoop closer, her acute sense of smell
caught a sharp whiff. Some kind of acid? Why? Why this
extra barbarity? She stood up, looked round the walls of
the panelled dining-room - panelled from floor to ceiling. A beautiful room - which seemed to emphasize the horror
of what she was witnessing.

Her eyes whipped up to the ceiling, then gazed at it. Like
the Great Hall, where they'd had drinks, the plasterwork
was sculpted in an artistic design of scrolls and ripples. But
what caught her attention was a disfigurement. A vivid
splash of blood spread immediately above the banker. One of the bullets must have hit an artery, sending up a spurt of
blood. As she watched, a drop fell, landed on the relics of
Amberg's skull-like head.

She looked at the table. In front of where she had been
seated she had thrown her napkin over her place setting -
which was probably why the killer hadn't noticed the
absence of a guest. In any case it was clear he had moved
with great speed to complete his devilish work.

'Get a grip on yourself,' she said under her breath.

She felt terribly alone but she went back into the hall.
The staff!
Inside the kitchen. She paused before opening
the door, fearful of what she would find.

'Not them, too,' she prayed.

Another faint whiff met her sensitive nostrils when she
eased the door open. Tear-gas. Four bodies sprawled on
the stone-flagged floor. Swiftly she checked their pulses.
She was startled to find they,were all alive. Unconscious, but
alive.
She assumed the plump older woman, clad in
white overalls and a white cap slumped near the venison,
was Cook. Paula took a cushion off a chair, eased it gently
under her head. The younger girls, also clad in white
overalls, were less likely to have suffered serious damage.

It was then she noticed the cooker had been switched
off, which puzzled her. She was careful not to touch the
dials. Fingerprints. She opened a window to let in fresh air
to clear the remnants of tear-gas and, warily, explored the rest of the ground floor.

One door led to a study furnished with expensive
antiques. Another opened on to a large living-room with
french windows at the back facing a gap in the firs framing a
view of the bleak moor beyond. The sight emphasized her
solitariness. Paula ploughed on, entering the Great Hall.
Empty, like the other rooms. The long stretch of windows looked out on to the drive. Two cars were approaching.

Tweed climbed out from behind the wheel of the Ford Escort followed by the sturdy Harry Butler dressed in a
windcheater and corduroy trousers. Behind them Pete
Nield and Philip Cardon left the Sierra.

'Sorry we're so late,' Tweed began and smiled. 'We were
held up by running into a convoy of those travellers -gypsies, whatever. I hope Julius will excuse ...'

He had spoken rapidly and stopped as he saw Paula's
expression, the gun she was still holding in her right hand.
His manner changed instantly.

'What's wrong, Paula? Trouble? What kind?'