The Savage Gorge (36 page)

'You're so insulting. No, I did not murder her. I
came to see what sort of a life she had led. That hor
rible Sable has upset me. She drinks brandy. She was
a walking barrel of it tonight. I saw the tables she
passed smell it.'

'She was, of course, summoned here. Someone

phoned Hobart House. Two candidates for the crime,
Falkirk and Lance. Unless you told her yourself to
break up our interview.'

'You have the most devious mind . . .'

'I admit it.' Tweed called for the bill. Then he
accompanied her safely to her Renault.

She said not a word. Slamming the door, she revved
up the engine, drove out too fast without a glance in
his direction. When he re-entered the hall, Newman
had just returned with Paula from dinner. They were
talking to Marler, who spoke to Tweed.

'Harry has returned to his watching post near
Hobart House. I called him when I saw Sable stag
gering out of her car. I've a nose for trouble.'

'Thank you both,' Tweed said. 'It was beginning to
look like a dog fight.'

'D-Day tomorrow,' Marler said cheerfully. 'Lepard
has his thugs in position inside the caves on the other side of the Falls.'

'I see nothing to be cheerful about,' Paula com
mented.

TWENTY EIGHT

When Tweed climbed the stairs to get some sleep,
Paula came up close behind him. She waited while he
unlocked and opened his door.

'May I have a few words with you?' she asked.

'Of course.'

He thought she wanted a brief resume of his
encounter with Mrs Shipton. Or she wanted to pass
on information obtained during her dinner. She
closed the door, stood with her arms folded.

'I'm coming with you in the Audi.'

'No! You are not.'

'We
always
do things together,' she insisted.

'Not this time. They expect to see only one person in the car with me.'

'So I'll huddle down out of sight in the back.'

'No, you won't, because you won't be there.'

'Snapping at me will get you nowhere,' she retorted.

Tm telling you, Paula, it's not on.'

'And I'm telling you it is on, so accept it.'

'I could give you a direct order.'

'Give it, then, if it'll make you feel better.'

'As Deputy Chief of the SIS I am giving you a direct
order. You will obey it.'

'All right. Better get to bed. You won't get much
sleep.'

Her stubborn mood seemed to have vanished. She kissed him on the cheek, went along to her room.

Once inside she phoned room service, ordered a
large breakfast to be served in her room at 4 a.m, then
requested a wake-up call for 3.30 a.m.

Before a quick shower she took from the wardrobe
a dark jacket and trousers. She had never before worn
them. They were so sombre they merged with the
dark.

TWENTY NINE

The following morning at nine thirty the air was intol
erably humid. The sky was a solid grey. Just north of
the bridge beyond the Falls a vast storm moved slowly
south.

In the garage, Marler was having a last word with
Tweed, who sat behind the wheel of the Audi. As they
talked a shadow moved in the darkness.

'They're in position in the caves,' Marler drawled.
'Lepard is with them as leader. So are we - in position on this side. With a bit of luck we'll have wiped them
out before that king of a storm breaks. It's a monster.
I'd better get into my position.'

Tweed started the engine, began to crawl out of
the garage. A rear door was opened, shut. In his rear-
view mirror Tweed saw Paula crouching down in the
back.

He swore inwardly. There was nothing he could do. He had to keep moving to meet the delicate timetable.
He said not one word. Neither did Paula.

She was checking the Browning she'd extracted
from her shoulder holster. At the training mansion
hidden in deepest Surrey they had been taught to do
this in darkness.

As they proceeded along the High Street they
passed noticeboards Marler had had erected in the
middle of the night.

KEEP OFF STREETS, PAVEMENTS THIS
MORNING. ABOUT TO BE TARRED. OK
TO WALK ON AFTER 3 PM TODAY.

It was the only way to protect the inhabitants of the
town when the bullets began to fly.

There was a sinister rumble of thunder. No rain
drenching down yet. Paula opened the roadside
window, looking out on the steep-stepped roads
mounting the hill overlooking the High Street. No
more thunder. It was ominously quiet.

On the far side of the Falls, Lepard was struggling
with a special weapon. The bazooka was like a drain
pipe. The sticky atmosphere was making his hands
moist. It was not easy to manoeuvre the heavy unfa
miliar weapon.
In front of him, lying down below the low rampart

wall at the rim of the cave, three of his elite men
perched the barrels of their rifles, aimed at the oncom
ing Audi. They found themselves exposed with
shoulders and heads above the parapet. It was the only
way they could see down at the oncoming target, the Audi crawling closer by the minute.

Below them at Level Two their compatriots faced
the same problem. They were nervous about their
exposure. It was a difficulty Lepard had not fore
seen.

The men below them in the cave at Level Three
were equally nervous. Lepard had told everyone the
signal to open fire would be when he fired the rocket
from his own weapon, the deadly bazooka. One hit
from his weapon and Tweed would be eliminated in a
burst of fire.

Marler, perched high up on the roof of a house, had
also spotted the weapon, through the cross-hairs of his
Armalite. Beside him Harry had his automatic aimed
at the cave in Level Two.

'What do you think?' Harry asked.

'It's going to be tricky. At Level One, Lepard has a bazooka.'

'Lord help us . . .'

'One rocket hitting the target and it's all over. I'm
happy to see Lepard is unfamiliar with the weapon. It
keeps wobbling all over the place. When I open fire so
do the rest of our people.'

'Well, Pete Nield has arrived from the training
mansion in Surrey, and he and Newman are covering
that lot at Level Three . . .'

Lepard inserted his deadly rocket. It coincided with
the storm breaking over the Falls with a tremendous
thunderclap. An incredible cascade poured down
from the sky, millions of gallons flooded down over
the Falls.

Marler fired his first shot. The bullet took half
Lepard's face away. Blood poured down. Marler's first bullet had hit as Lepard was about to press the trigger.
He lost control. The barrel was aimed up at the roof
of the rocky cave, brought it down.

Lepard was sliced in half at the waist as a huge
knife-like rock caught him. Marler's bombardment
was nonstop as his men sprayed the caves. The top
half of Lepard's body, streaming with blood, fell
into the surge of water, which was now a small
Niagara. The rest of his body went over the edge,
followed by his compatriots blasted by the shock-
wave.

Inside the Audi, Paula stared in amazement. The
immense surge of water was no longer white. It was
blood-red as other enemies toppled out of the caves at
Levels Two and Three. The Falls had taken on the
look of a huge rainbow.

Paula stared down at the large pool at the base of the
Falls. Enemy bodies floated on its crimson surface,

rushed on downriver as they were caught up in the
swift surge of the central current, much enlarged. She
averted her gaze.

The action was taking on the atmosphere of a
pounding operatic drama - but one never seen in the
theatre. Vast sheets of rain hammered the roof of
the Audi. A deafening inferno swept Gunners Gorge.
The foetid atmosphere was creating a mist creeping
up over the Falls.

Marler, now clad in a green sou'wester, was searching
the area. He was perched on a flat rock to evade the
streams of water sluicing down the ridge.

'Harry,' he shouted, 'something's wrong. There
were ten of them. I counted. No sign of the tenth
man. Where is he?'

Inside the Audi, where Tweed was slowly turning the
vehicle to face the Nag's Head, Paula caught motion
out of the corner of her eye. The tenth man was clam
bering fast down a water-logged gulley. His target was
the Audi.

In his right hand he held a grenade. Paula tensed. If he got closer he only had to remove the pin and roll it
under the Audi's petrol tank. One flash, one explosion
and they'd be roasted, liquidated.