'Alain, there is one I would like checked as a matter of top priority. At the barrier the passport controller told me the lady who came on board at the last moment is travelling on a Swiss passport, that her name is Irma Romer. Can you use the communications set-up to radio her details to Ferdy Arnold in Berne? Ask him to confirm whether their people have issued Irma Romer with a passport – that she does in fact exist…'
'Why bother about her?' Howard demanded.
'Because her car was parked in a side street for some time before it drove into the station. I arrived earlier myself, you see…'
The train was moving now, the huge wheels of the locomotive revolving faster as the Summit Express emerged from under the canopy of the Gare de l'Est and headed east on its historic journey for its final destination, Vienna. Seven hundred miles away.
CHAPTER 27
Wednesday June 3: 0100-0810 hours
'Has anything unusual happened yet, Haines?' Tweed asked. 'Unusual?' Howard's deputy enquired cautiously. At one o'clock in the morning he had a haggard look.
'Unexpected, then.'
They were sitting at one end of the communications coach where two bunks had been installed for security chiefs off duty. Haines glanced towards the far end of the coach where the three security chiefs were gathered round the teleprinter.
The express was ninety minutes away from Paris, moving at over eighty miles an hour as it thundered through the dark. The coach swayed round a curve. No one felt like sleep.
'I'd sooner you addressed that question to Howard,' said Haines.
'I'm addressing it to you.' Tweed reached towards his pocket as he continued. 'Perhaps you are unaware of my authority?'
'There was something, sir,' Haines began hastily. 'While he was at the Elysee Flandres had a message from Bonn warning us to await an urgent signal aboard the express. Stoller has disappeared…'
'Disappeared?'
'Yes. We don't know where to communicate with him. The secrecy of the whole business is worrying Flandres…' He looked again at the far end of the coach. 'I think something is coming through on the teleprinter.'
It was Howard, beginning to look strangely dishevelled, who came with the telex strip which he waved at Tweed with an expression of satisfaction.
'Signal from Ferdy Arnold in reply to your query. The Swiss can be damned quick. Irma Romer was issued with a passport four years ago. Widow of an industrial magnate – engineering. She's travelling outside the country somewhere in Europe. So can we now forget about your paranoid aberrations?'
'Can I see the telex, please?'
'I've just read the damned thing out to you!' Howard threw the strip into Tweed's lap. 'Admit it,' he snapped, 'it's a wild goose chase.' He turned and stepped on the right foot of O'Meara who had come up behind him. `Do you have to follow me everywhere?' Howard demanded.
'People apologise when they bump into me,' O'Meara rasped.
Tweed watched the two men over his spectacles. Already they were getting on each other's nerves – because under the surface there was a terrible suspicion that one of the security chiefs was the enemy. And with the windows closed tightly for the sake of the communication experts the atmosphere was growing torrid. Something had gone wrong with the air-conditioning.
Flandres, who had witnessed what was happening, came rapidly to their end of the coach. 'Gentlemen, we have the most nerve-wracking assignment any of us has probably faced – let us face it calmly and help each other…'
'What I'd like to know,' O'Meara demanded, 'is who is in charge of British security – Tweed or Howard…'
'I would say Alain is in supreme control for the moment,' Tweed said quickly. 'We are passing across French territory..'
'Still nobody answers my Goddamn question,' O'Meara persisted.
Tweed read through the Berne signal and looked at Howard. 'You left out a bit, didn't you? Arnold ends his message with the words further details to follow as soon as available.' `What further details do we need?' asked Howard wearily. `Her full description,' Tweed replied.
Nobody slept inside the communications coach as the express sped on through the night. The atmosphere grew worse as the air became more clammy and oppressive. Conditions were not improved by the cigar O'Meara smoked as he lay half-sprawled in the lower bunk.
Tweed moved away and sat in a swivel chair screwed to the floor, his head slumped forward, apparently asleep. But he was aware of everything going on as the thump-thump of the train's wheels continued its hypnotic rhythm. The factor he found most disturbing was Stoller's disappearance.
They had arranged a duty roster for one security chief to patrol the corridors of the four coaches where the VIP's were presumably asleep. This was at Flandres' suggestidn despite the armed guards from each contingent occupying the corridors of their respective coaches. At the moment Flandres himself was on duty.
The Bonn signal arrived at the ungodly hour of 0435 – after the express had left Strasbourg and ten minutes before they were due at Kehl on the German border. Tweed sat up in his chair because he saw the cypher clerk decoding the signal which had arrived. He held out his hand as the clerk walked towards O'Meara who appeared to be asleep.
`I'll take it…'
`What the hell is it now?' O'Meara suddenly demanded.
The American – who had obviously not been asleep – was stripped to his shirt-sleeves, exposing the holstered gun strapped under his left arm. He leaned over Tweed's shoulder and the Englishman caught a whiff of stale sweat from his armpits. Howard, who had just entered the coach, joined them as all three men perused the signal.
`Christ Almighty, what is going on?' O'Meara growled and lit a fresh cigar. Howard's reaction was a tightening of the muscles of his jaw, Tweed noted.
Urgent change of schedule. Chancellor Langer will board Summit Express at Kehl, not Mtinich. Repeat Kehl not Munich. Stoller.
'It's a nightmare,' Howard said. 'What does it mean?'
There were pouches under his eyes betraying his fatigue. The underlying strain of mutual suspicion and mistrust was beginning to take its toll on the three security chiefs. Flandres had flow joined them and was mopping moisture off his forehead with a silk handkerchief. The atmosphere was becoming claustrophobic. Each man was conscious of being cooped up inside a confined space he could not escape. Only Tweed seemed relaxed as they re-examined the signal.
'He has given us less than ten minutes' warning. It's just not good enough. What does it mean?' Howard repeated.
`It appears to mean,' Tweed suggested, that Stoller is using his considerable ingenuity to protect his leader. That is,' he added, `assuming Chancellor Langer is the assassin's target…'
He was watching the three men as he spoke, searching for a clue in his blunt reference to the assassin. The American chewed at his cigar and spilt ash down his front.
`You're not making sense,' he complained irritably.
The timetable of the western leaders for their journey to Vienna has been widely publicised,' Tweed-explained patiently. 'Including the fact that Langer was scheduled to board the train at Munich when he had made his brief speech outstide the Hauptbahnof. By coming aboard much earlier this unexpected change may throw the unknown assassin off balance.' He stared round the trio hovering over him. 'It has already thrown you off balance…'
'You're assuming Langer is the target,' Howard pointed out. `True,' Tweed agreed. 'The target may already be on board. I am not sure…'
Just as you're not sure of any of us,' Flandres said amiably. 'True again. And the train is slowing down – we are at Kehl.
So the fourth suspect, Stoller, should join the happy band…'
There was a further surprise when the express drew into Kehl and Flandres opened the door of Voiture Four to find Chancellor Kurt Langer staring up at him, his lean face wearing an expression of amusement. Like the French security chief, the German spoke fluent English and, wearing his well-cut business suit, could have passed for an Englishman.