‘Are you all right?’ Whitlock asked as he helped her to her feet.
‘I’m okay,’ she replied in a shaky voice. ‘How about you?’
‘I’ll survive,’ he replied with a grim smile. ‘Have you ever seen that car before?’
‘Never. Did you get a look at the driver?’
‘No, it was all too quick,’ he lied.
Not that he had seen much. A Caucasian face partially shaded by a trilby. It wasn’t much to go on but he was determined to keep the information to himself.
‘And the number plate?’
‘Blacked out with masking tape,’ he replied. ‘There’s no point in us hanging around here any longer. The last thing we need is to have the police involved.’
‘I’ll make you some coffee at my place,’ she said, taking her car keys from her handbag.
‘Thanks anyway but I want to get back to the hotel and soak my shoulder in a hot bath. It’s already getting a bit stiff. Anyway, you’ve got that list to prepare. The car won’t be back tonight.’
She kissed him lightly on the cheek. ‘I owe you one.’
‘You don’t owe me anything. Now, go on. I’ll see you in the morning.’
As he walked to his car he was already planning his report for Philpott. Top priority would be a thorough screening of Karen Schendel. As he left the underground car park, the driver of the black Mercedes parked in the shadows of a driveway opposite pulled out into the road, and followed the Golf Corbio at a safe distance.
Six
Largo Antiks was a small, nondescript antiques shop on the corner of Beethoven and Dreikönigstrasse in Zurich. It was run by two balding, bespectacled men in their late thirties, neither of whom was called Largo, whose extensive knowledge of antiques had made it one of the most popular and profitable shops of its kind in the whole canton. Both men worked for UNACO. The shop was a front for UNACO’s European headquarters. It had been bought with a United Nations grant of 1980 on the understanding that all the profits would be channelled discreetly into a numbered Swiss bank account to be used exclusively by UNICEF.
A bell jangled above the door when Philpott entered the shop, followed by Sabrina and Kolchinsky. The assistant behind the counter acknowledged them with a curt nod and his eyes flickered towards an area of the shop hidden from the entrance. Philpott understood the gesture and browsed through the antiques until the lone customer had left the shop. The assistant then ushered them through the doorway behind the counter, removed a sonic transmitter from his pocket and pointed it at the empty bookcase against the opposite wall.
He activated the transmitter and the bookcase swivelled outwards to reveal a concrete passage behind. Sabrina always got a kick out of the swivelling bookcase; it was like something out of a Boris Karloff film. So much more interesting than Philpott’s drab wall panels at the United Nations headquarters. They set off down the passage and the assistant sealed them in before returning to the shop.
Half a dozen unmarked doors lined the passage, behind each of which was a soundproofed room where highly skilled UNACO personnel operated some of the world’s most advanced and sophisticated computer systems in the struggle to put a stop to the alarming rise in international crime. Philpott led them to a pale-blue door at the end of the passage. He pressed a buzzer. An overhead camera panned each face in turn before the door was opened.
It led into the plush office of Jacques Rust, head of UNACO’s European operation.
Rust closed the door by remote control then activated his mechanized wheelchair and approached them. He was a forty-two-year-old Frenchman with a distinctly handsome face and sparkling blue eyes. He had spent fourteen years with the French Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage before becoming one of Philpott’s first field operatives when UNACO was founded in 1980. He had been paired off with Whitlock. When Philpott received official permission to increase his field operatives from twenty to thirty he put Sabrina with them to form the original Strike Force Three.
Less than a year later Rust and Sabrina were on a routine stakeout at the Marseilles docks when they had come under heavy fire from a gang of drug smugglers and Rust was hit in the spine, leaving him paralysed from the waist down. He was initially given a senior position at the Command Centre in the United Nations but when the head of the European operation died in a car crash (which was subsequently proved to have been an accident and not sabotage as originally thought) Philpott surprised many of his team by appointing him, and not Kolchinsky, as the dead man’s successor. It had been a shrewd, but wise, choice and the ties between Zurich and New York had never been stronger.
‘Colonel, I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow,’ Rust said as he shook hands with both men. ‘You should have let me know you were coming earlier, I’d have had a car waiting at the airport for you.’
Philpott eased himself into an armchair, leaning his cane against the wall. After graduating from Sandhurst Military College with the coveted Sword of Honour he had first seen active duty in Korea where he suffered a serious leg injury while attempting to rescue a wounded colleague. It had left him with a pronounced limp in his left leg. ‘We took the morning flight on SwissAir. Sabrina was there to meet us.’
Sabrina kissed Rust on both cheeks then ran her hand lightly over his hair. ‘How many times must I tell you, don’t cut your hair so short. It shows up your receding hairline.’
‘Still as complimentary as ever,’ Rust added drily.
‘Oh, I’ve got something for you,’ she said, handing him the FN FAL magazine clip now sealed in a plastic bag. ‘There’s a set of prints on it. Your boffins shouldn’t have too much trouble in coming up with a name.’
Rust phoned out on his internal line for someone to fetch the clip. He replaced the receiver and looked up. ‘Anyone for coffee before we start?’
All three declined.
‘There’s been a new development since I received your telex yesterday. An avalanche’s blocked the track outside Sion and first reports say it won’t be cleared before daybreak. That means the train’s going to be delayed there overnight.’
‘Why do I get the feeling this is more than just coincidence?’ Philpott asked as he tapped the dottle from his pipe into the ashtray beside him.
Rust smiled. ‘The snow’s very loose on the Wildhorn at this time of year and all it took was a small charge to start the ball rolling, if you’ll excuse the pun. I thought we might need the extra time to help consolidate our position. Although judging by the telex you’ve already tracked down the plutonium.’
‘Perhaps,’ Kolchinsky said, entering the conversation for the first time. ‘The Geiger counter picked up levels of radiation but we already knew those kegs had been stored in that particular freight car. Now it contains a sealed crate belonging to Werner Freight. What we don’t know is whether that crate contains the kegs. If we jump the gun and point a finger at Stefan Werner without sufficient evidence and it turns out we were in the wrong he’s got enough sway to splash UNACO across the front page of every newspaper in Europe.’
A light flashed on the desk and after checking the video camera Rust activated the door. He handed the plastic bag to the white-coated technician and asked to be told the moment the fingerprints were identified.
‘I don’t think he would,’ Sabrina said after the technician had left.
‘What?’ Philpott asked, the lighter poised over the mouth of his pipe.
‘Stefan. He’s not a vindictive person. If he knew it was a matter of international security I’m certain he wouldn’t object to having the crate opened.’
‘Stefan?’ Rust said raising his eyebrows. ‘I didn’t know we were on first-name terms.’