'That's not a bit like him…'
'I thought so. Someone impersonating him turned up while we were at the apartment. I was even suspicious of Lisbeth because she had to look up his number in her notebook – she should have known that backwards if she had been you. The fake Arnold must have phoned her before I arrived and made some excuse as to why she should use that number if the need arose. Who is…' He was very careful still with his use of tenses the girl who impersonated you?'
Before she got married we both worked for David Nagel in police Intelligence. We once played a joke on him – we dressed in exactly the same clothes and went into his office separately, one after the other within the space of ten minutes. He didn't grasp there was any difference and was furious when we told him. It's no wonder you were fooled.'
She showed her renewed confidence in him by slipping her pistol back under the pillow. Smiling by way of apology, she leaned forward and asked the question he had been dreading.
'Where is Lisbeth? Did she wait in the station here to catch a train back to Zurich? As you'll have gathered, she does look terribly like me-although we aren't twins. You realise she is my sister?'
In London Tweed was still at his desk studying a file when he received the frightening news. Rubbing his eyes, he glanced wistfully at the camp-bed he had had set up 'for the duration' as he termed it. Miss McNeil, his faithful assistant, brought in the signal.
A handsome, erect, grey-haired woman – men in the street turned their heads when she passed them – no one knew her age or even her first name, except Tweed, who had forgotten. She was just McNeil – who was always on hand when needed at any hour of the day or night. She also possessed a shrewd brain, a caustic tongue and an encyclopaedic memory.
'This just came in from Bayreuth…'
Bayreuth. Alarm bells began ringing. Tweed unlocked the steel-lined drawer containing his code-book. At the moment the signal read like a perfectly normal business enquiry about the despatch of certain goods.
Bayreuth was in Bavaria. Lindau, the last place Charles Warner had set foot in before being murdered, was in Bavaria. Delta, the neo-Nazi Party, had its power base in Bavaria. He busied himself with the decoding, using a piece of thick paper clipped to a metal sheet so there could be no imprint of what he was writing.
'Would you prefer me to leave you alone?' McNeil suggested.
'Of course not! Just let me concentrate, woman…'
It was a conipliment – that she should be asked to stay, because Tweed felt that when the decoding was completed he might welcome company. She sat down, crossed her shapely legs and watched. It was fortunate that – like Martel – she could manage on two or three hours' sleep. As he finished his task Tweed's expression became blank – which told McNeil a great deal.
'Bad news?'
'The worst, the very worst.'
Tou will cope. You always do.
'I'm not the one who has to cope. Manfred has just crossed the border into Bavaria from East Germany. Oh, Christ…'
Manfred!
Tweed was appalled as he re-read the signal. It had travelled to him along a most devious route he could see in his mind's eye. First, his agent planted inside the Ministry for State Security in Leipzig, East Germany, had radioed the message from his mobile transmitter. The message had then been picked up by Tweed's station in Bayreuth.
From Bayreuth a courier had driven at breakneck speed to the British Embassy in Bonn. There the signal would have been handed personally to the security officer. He, in his turn, had radioed it to Park Crescent. The decoded signal was deadly and un-nerving in its implications.
Manfred today Wednesday May 27 crossed East German border near Hof into West Germany. Ultimate destination unknown.
He handed the signal to McNeil without a word, stood up and went to examine the wall-map of Central Europe he had pinned up when Martel had left for the airport. Tweed was quite familiar with the map. In his head he carried a clear picture of the geography of the whole of western Europe. But he wanted to verify which route Manfred might have taken.
From the Hof area an autobahn ran due south via Nuremberg to the Bavarian capital of Munich. That was the most likely route. And Warner had spent a lot of time in Munich, paying special attention to the Hauptbahnhof for some unknown reason. He went back to his swivel chair, adjusted his glasses and sagged into his cushion.
'We don't know much about Manfred, do we?' McNeil ventured.
'We know nothing – and we know too much,' Tweed growled. He tapped a file. 'I must be getting psychic in my old age – I was looking at his dossier when you brought that signal.'
'He's a top East German agent, isn't he? Some query about his nationality and origins. A top-flight assassin – and a first-rate planner. An unusual combination `But Carlos is an unusual man,' Tweed said and pushed his spectacles back over his forehead.
'You really think he is Carlos? Nothing has been heard of him for ages…'
`The Americans assume so. But there is something very peculiar going on which I don't understand. Delta is the neoNazis. Manfred is a free-lance Communist expert on major subversive operations. So who is behind Operation Crocodile- whatever that might be? And Crocodile – that reminds me of something I have seen…'
'You look really worried. Shall I make coffee?'
Tweed stared at the silent phone on his desk. He spoke half to himself. 'Come in, Martel, for God's sake! I must warn you – before it's too late. You're up against both Nazis and Communists. It's double jeopardy…'
In a darkened apartment in a large building near Munich police headquarters in Ettstrasse a gloved hand lifted a telephone. The man wearing nylon gloves was the sole occupant. The only illumination came from a shaded desk light. He dialled a number. It was 4 am.
'Who the bloody hell is this? Don't you know the time…
Reinhard Dietrich had been woken at the schloss from a deep sleep and his voice reflected his fury. If it was Erwin Vinz again he would blast him to…
'Manfred speaking.' The tone of voice was creepily soft and controlled. 'We hear you have a problem and that we find most disturbing.'
Dietrich woke up very quickly, thrown off balance by the identity of the caller, by his words which suggested he knew something about the Zurich debacle. He sat up in bed and his tone of voice became polite and cooperative.
'Nothing we can't handle, I assure you…'
`But in Zurich, it was mishandled, so what may we expect next in St. Gallen?'
Dietrich, a man accustomed all his life to issuing commands, dreaded the sound of Manfred's sleepy voice. When Manfred had first approached him at his Stuttgart office with his offer to supply arms and uniforms at cut-rate prices he had jumped at the chance. Now he half-regretted the decision – when it was too late.
'You don't have to worry about St. Gallen.' He spoke in a bluff confident tone. 'I have already made arrangements to deal with the situation…'
'We are very pleased to hear it. More arms and uniforms are available for immediate collection at the same warehouse. Where and when will you store this consignment?'
Dietrich told him. There was a click and the industrialist realised Manfred had gone off the line. Arrogant bastard! And he detested his caller's habit of using the plural 'we' – as though Dietrich was taking orders from some all-powerful committee. At least more arms were on the way – God knows they had lost enough. How Erich Stoller of the BND tracked down the locations he had no idea.
In Munich Manfred switched off the desk light. Wherever he was staying in the West he always wore gloves – there would be no fingerprints to trace when he left the apartment. There was a thin smile on his face. Operation Crocodile was proceeding according to plan.
In the bedroom at the Hotel Metropol Claire Hofer was enduring a state of delayed shock after Martel told her of Lisbeth's murder. He omitted reference to the fact that she had been tortured. When she reacted she caught him off guard. .