This United State (52 page)

Newman increased speed — the gap between his and Marler's car had grown. Tweed closed the window and Paula started gazing out. Here and there she saw an isolated house made of wood, standing well back from the road, with welcoming lights. The houses had very steep roofs, presumably to slough off an accumulation of heavy snow.

In the distance was a sweeping panorama of far-off summits, white with snow, of deep valleys inside which she saw tiny colonies of houses huddled at the bottom. One panorama succeeded another and in the moonlight it looked like paradise.

'It's so peaceful,' she commented.

'It is, so far,' Tweed warned.

'The red light is growing fainter,' called out Newman. 'Same direction, but for some reason Ronstadt has speeded up.'

'So has Marler,' Keith Kent said, speaking for the first time.

'I'm doing the same,' Newman replied as he accelerated.

'We're getting close to the Höllental,' Paula announced after checking her map with the aid of her torch. 'Very close, I'd say.'

A few minutes later they entered a vast gorge. On both sides steep rugged slopes closed in on the highway. Paula felt a return of a sense of tension. The slopes, almost vertical in places, seemed to hem in the car. And now their height hid the moon, still shining on the upper slopes, but plunging the gorge into deepest shadow. No more cosy little houses with their welcoming lights. Just the dark remote gorge, cutting off all contact with the outside world.

'I wonder how Marler's getting on?' Newman speculated. 'For some reason he's slowed down again.'

'Keep a close eye on the heights,' Marler said to Nield. 'I am doing just that.'

'If they're up there they have to have found somewhere they could drive up, I don't think they'd go in for any mountaineering if they could help it. In any case they'd have to park the car on the highway.'

'Why are we going so slowly?' Butler called out from the back.

'So we can see if they have turned off,' Marler told him.

He had his lights on full beam, so he could look as far ahead as possible. Glancing up, he detected enormous snow-covered boulders poised high above them. Not a sight he welcomed. He checked his screen. The red light, which was Ronstadt's car, was fainter, telling him the American had increased his speed considerably. Why?

He leaned forward, staring at the precipitous slope to his left. Could he be wrong? He drove on, still staring hard. Then he saw it wasn't his imagination. Ahead, climbing up the slope to his left, he made out the double tracks of a car's wheels, deep ruts in the otherwise virgin snow. He increased his speed.

'Hold on to your seat belts. We're going up that slope. That's where they are. Lord knows how high above us.'

Butler held his breath as Marler swung the car at speed — skidding as his rear wheels swung round. He rammed his foot down and began climbing what turned out to be a curving gulley with high banks of snow on either side. The snow tyres gripped the hard-frozen ground as he plunged higher still.

Perched on the heights way above where the gulley left the highway, Brad, squat and ugly, but powerful, had earlier watched the highway far below through his night glasses. He had seen Ronstadt's convoy of three black Audis pass, heading deeper into the Höllental. Brad was in charge of the unit of four men, given the task of destroying Tweed and his team.

'Dan,' he called out to a big man with a down-curving moustache, 'you've got an automatic rifle. Climb that tall tree over there. Do it now - before the bastards arrive.'

'Buster,' he shouted to a fat man with a face like a slab of stone, 'you've got your machine-pistol. Get down behind that 'boulder so's you can cover the exit from the gulley. Just in case.'

'And you, Bruce, he shouted again, 'you got your boulder ready to go down with mine?'

Bruce, heavily built with a scarred forehead, like Brad stood at the edge of the ridge with a steep rolling slope below, but further along. He held a crowbar he'd used to lever the rock loose. Now he only had to heave on the crowbar inserted under it to send it down at murderous speed onto the highway.

Brad was standing behind an enormous snow-covered boulder. It had taken all his considerable strength to lever it out so now it was poised on the brink. He stood with his crowbar shoved well underneath it. Like Bruce, he had only to exert enough pressure to send it flying into space. He called out again to Bruce.

'T'ain't just the boulders which will kill Tweed's cars and everyone inside them. When the boulders go down they'll start an avalanche. Slope below us is unstable...'

When Marler suddenly swung off the highway up the gulley at speed he had no way of knowing he had averted - at least temporarily - their doom.

About to lever the boulders, Brad was taken by surprise at Marler's unexpected and swift manoeuvre. Earlier he had used his glasses to check who was in Marler's car. No sign of the girl Ronstadt had described to him, no sign of Tweed, also described to him. He decided to take the car out anyway - until the last second.

'
Bruce!
' he screamed. 'Not yet! They're in the gulley, comin' up.' He switched his attention to the man with the machine-pistol behind a boulder. 'Buster! They's drivin' up the gulley. Blast the car to hell soon as it appears...'

Marler was making steady progress, swinging the wheel quickly as one curve succeeded another and blotted out any view of the top. The snow tyres saved him, kept the car moving up and up and up. It was still deep in the gulley with the high snow-covered banks on both sides.

'Damned gulley goes on for ever,' Butler called out.

'It has to end somewhere,' Marler called back.

He had just spoken when the car swung round another curve and he saw, beyond a very steep stretch of track, moonlight glowing at the top.

On the highway Newman, worried that the red circle on the screen which was Ronstadt's car was fading, had accelerated. He was now moving at speed as Paula looked up at the steep slope on her left. High up along the rim in the near distance she saw boulders perched - boulders which had been there probably since prehistoric times.

'We're catching up with Ronstadt,' Newman told them. 'The red light is stronger. Can't see any sign of Marler's rear lights. Don't understand that.'

'Just keep moving,' Tweed urged.

'What do you think I'm doing!'

Near the top of the gulley Marler braked at the foot of the last steep stretch. He left the engine running. No profit in finding themselves without transport out here in the middle of nowhere. His mind was racing as he Inside their Audi, Paula saw the massive boulder roaring down. She calculated it would hit the highway just ahead of them — or hit them.

'Brake!
' she screamed.

Newman reacted, not knowing why. He brought the car to an emergency stop. In the back Tweed and Kent had braced themselves but they were, thrown forward against their seat belts, which saved them. The boulder hit the highway, bounced, seemed to pass across their windscreen. It continued its passage of tremendous velocity across the highway, dived down into a gulch, clear of the other lane.

'Thank you,' said Newman.

'Any time,' said Paula.

He began moving forward at speed. Paula peered out of the window again, gasped. Ahead of them another huge boulder was starting to come down. For a moment she was stupefied, unable to speak. Then she screamed again.

'
Speed!
As fast as you can!'

Newman pressed his foot through the floor. The Audi took off as though flying, sending up bursts of powdered snow. Paula, hands clammy, gripped together, watched the projectile coming. She also saw that the whole slope now was on the move, a tidal wave of snow and rock descending. The second boulder had triggered an avalanche. She prayed, which she rarely did. Newman was fighting to keep the car on the road.

Looking back, she saw the boulder hit the highway behind them. Like its predecessor, it bounced, then tore across the other-lane and disappeared. The avalanche had now landed on their lane of the highway, quietened down suddenly, leaving the lane in the opposite direction comparatively clear.

'You'd better take over the bloody wheel,' Newman told Paula amiably.

'We must be getting close to Ronstadt,' Tweed's calm voice called out. 'The red light is very strong now…'

Bruce, the man with the scarred forehead, had levered down the second boulder and immediately snatched a pistol from his belt. He had heard Butler's three shots. He could see no sign of Brad, but he could see two men crouched in the snow on his side of the gulley. He raised the pistol, gripped it in both hands. There was another shot. Marler had had the cross-hairs of his Armalite aimed, had fired. A red disc appeared on his forehead in the middle of the scar. He stood quite still for a moment, his arms falling, letting go of the pistol, then he fell over backwards, staring sightlessly at the moonlit sky.

'Be careful,' Marler warned. 'There are two more of them somewhere.'

'I thought I saw movement in the forest. I'm going to fan out,' Nield replied in a whisper.

'Good idea.'

Marler began crawling along a dip in the ground towards where the gulley they had driven up ended. Nield moved in a different direction, crouching low and running in spurts from boulder to boulder. He'd noticed one of the tall trees had dropped some snow. Why this tree?

In a roundabout way he approached closer, went into the forest. The particular tree which had caught his attention had a thick trunk with small lower branches which provided a natural ladder for anyone who wanted to climb high. He found his own tree trunk, not too close, not too far away from the tree attracting his curiosity. He saw Marler beginning to get exposed in the open. Three huge clots of snow fell from the tall tree.

Now he was sure, and with Marler in the open he had to act at once. He studied the tree, took a grenade from his pocket, lobbed it about fifteen feet up through a gap in the snow-covered foliage. The grenade detonated, Nield thought he heard a muffled scream. Then the body fell, Dan catapulting from branch to branch until he hit the ground and lay still. His rifle came down a second later.

At almost the same moment Buster stood up from behind his large boulder, swivelling his weapon for a quick burst. Marler shot him twice. Buster sagged to the snow, on top of his gun.

'That's four of them,' Nield called out. 'I've found their car.'

'Lose it,' Marler ordered.

'Both of you get down into the gulley near our car, then.'

Nield had found the car easily. He had simply followed the twin tracks of wheel marks in the snow. Ronstadt's thugs had parked it out of sight behind a large copse of frosted shrubbery. Above it loomed a large tree.

Nield found a deep dip in the ground behind one of the boulders strewn everywhere. He stood in the dip, took out a grenade, lobbed it carefully so it would land under the car's petrol tank and dropped behind the boulder. He heard the grenade detonate.. Then there was a roar. The petrol tank had blown. A spectacular shaft of flames soared up. Snow on the tree melted instantly. He peered over the boulder. The black Audi was a total wreck, looked as though it had been through a car crusher. He walked down the gulley and Marler was behind the wheel of the white Audi with Butler in the back. Nield sat again in the front passenger seat and Marler revved up to take it to the top, turn it round and drive back down the gulley.

'Funny,' Butler said, 'we could all be dead by now.'

'Not really,' Marler replied, 'not when the Americans are such amateurs when it comes to tactics.'

39

'We're in danger of losing Marler, Newman warned, 'moving at this speed.'

'We'll have to risk that,' Tweed replied from the back of the car. 'The man we mustn't lose is Ronstadt. If the Americans are planning what I suspect they are, then they'll win. Britain will be plunged into turmoil - from which it may not recover.'

'There are four of us, eleven of them,' Newman persisted. 'The odds are lethal.'

'Keep going,' Tweed ordered. 'What I can't understand is that we've passed the Höllental. The base has to be somewhere else. Kurt Schwarz missed something. At least, I think he did.' He took out the little black notebook they had found behind the loose brick when Irina had been rescued in Basel. 'Paula, let me borrow your torch.'

'What's worrying you?' she asked.

'Kurt wrote down H011ental on one page, then that was followed by a blank page. I don't understand it.'