The results were dizzying. Wind rushed past him as he slid down the cable, helped along by the grease that eliminated any friction from leather scraping against steel.
Another car came up fast and Chris knew there was no way he could steer past it. He slammed into it feet first and absorbed the rest of the shock on his thighs and stomach. His breath exploded out and his left hand started to let go but he recovered in time to grab the belt at the buckle, steadying himself on top of the car.
More bullets, a whole series of them, rang out, clanging against steel, whizzing past his ear.
Locke lowered himself down and placed the belt over the wire again, pushing off. He kept his speed lower this time and learned quickly how to manipulate body and belt to slow his pace before reaching each of the cars. He negotiated the next one easily and required barely any time to climb over it and continue on. The next one came even easier. That left eight more to go. Peale and his men were still racing down the slope beneath the tramway but Locke was holding his lead now.
With three cars left and a thirty-foot drop beneath him, Chris’s hands became his greatest enemy. The flesh had turned raw and sweat made a sufficiently tight grip impossible. Each pass between cars became a maddening exercise in nerves as his fingers started to slip down the leather, flirting with the tips as the next car came near. He couldn’t afford to slow down, couldn’t afford the time to even wipe his hands dry. Peale’s men were too close, their bullets even closer.
After the last car came a long forty-yard segment during which the line leveled off before reaching the base platform. He tried to gather up enough momentum to make it all the way but felt himself slowing still quite a way from his target. His hands could take no more. They finally slipped off the belt with fifteen yards left to go, when the drop was twenty feet. Chris tried to tuck into a roll as he landed but one of his legs twisted and he tumbled out of control down the hill toward the loading platform. The sky had clouded up, so there were few tourists at the base.
Locke’s roll finally came to an end and he struggled to his feet, coming up lame on a right ankle full of knifing pain. He limped forward, tripped and fell, then rose with a glance to his rear to find his pursuers just fifty yards back and closing.
Chris dragged himself forward, doing the best he could to run with his bad leg like a ball and chain behind him. Bullets rang out. The pursuers were almost on top of him. He dove to the ground, turning as he tore the pistol from his pants. From his prone position, he fired a pair of shots.
Three figures sprawled for cover twenty yards away. He knew where they were now. That was something. The deserted platform was just ahead but too difficult to climb onto. Chris made it back to his feet, ducked low to use the wooden rise and steel supports as cover, and hustled around the outside of the tram complex.
Please God, let there be a cab!
Locke swung around the front corner of the building. Cement chips exploded just over his head.
A cabdriver, frustrated by the lack of fares, was inching away from the zone in front of the building.
“Stop!” Chris screamed, and then scampered into the street, fueled by the last of his adrenaline.
The taxi continued on for a few yards, then its brake lights flashed.
Locke made it to the door just as Peale and his men cleared the corner. He hurled himself inside before they could take aim.
The driver started away before speaking, accepting Locke as just another crazy tourist.
“Where to?” he asked in poor English.
Chris almost said “Out of this nightmare,” but settled for the train station.
Chapter 14
Locke had the driver drop him at the station but he didn’t enter. Felderberg knew he’d left something there, which meant Peale did too. They’d be watching for him. He needed a plan. He saw a cab of a different make and color waiting at the head of the line and limped over to it.
“Drive around for a while,” he instructed the man behind the wheel, flipping him ten Swiss francs.
The man grunted an acknowledgment.
Chris leaned back and hunched himself low so his head was out of sight from outside the cab. His ankle was throbbing and swelling too, but he could tell that the sprain was relatively minor.
Locke again tried to make sense of what he had learned from Felderberg. He was certain now the key was food. Somebody was buying huge masses of arable land in South America for a reason that Lubeck had stumbled upon in San Sebastian. The party behind it was based in Austria, and somehow the Sanii Corporation’s high-tech plant in Schaan was connected.
They‘re everything, everywhere….
Charney’s words rang more prophetic than ever. They had killed Felderberg ingeniously with a poisoned cork, but not before he had the opportunity to pass on Lubeck’s next stop: the Dwarf in Florence. They had set Locke up to kill Alvaradejo in London, allowed him to reach Felderberg only so they could kill him as well. Now they would follow him to Florence and the Dwarf.
Chris told the driver to stop at the next bar where there would be a phone. He needed to share his thoughts with Burgess. Five minutes later he found himself going through the complicated procedure of making a long-distance call halfway across Europe. Depositing the proper amount of change would have aroused too much attention, so he charged the call to his credit card number.
“How long will it take to get your uncle to the phone?” he demanded, after the girl answered.
“Thirty minutes. A little more maybe.”
“Say thirty. It’s an emergency. I’ll call back then. And tell him to be careful, tell him nothing’s safe.”
Locke replaced the receiver. He left the pub with a package of ice purchased from the barman. He reclined as best he could in the taxi’s backseat with his head pressed against the left door and his ice-covered ankle propped up against the right.
“Take me on a tour of Vaduz and the surrounding area,” he told the driver. “Try not to pass down the same road twice.”
“In Vaduz, that will not be easy.”
Chris settled back to think. The ice was already numbing his ankle. The decrease in pain helped him clear his mind. The train station was his next logical stop to retrieve his passport and call Colin. Peale’s men, though, would be everywhere by now, and a long phone conversation in an exposed booth was out of the question. He would just have to drive around for the next thirty minutes and call Burgess from another pub. Then he could make his way to the train station, which, at midevening, would probably be crowded.
Beyond the taxi, the sky had lost its brightness, and Locke noticed passing cars had their lights on. By the time he reached the Vaduz Station it would be dark, which would also work to his advantage. If not for the mandated retrieval of his passport, he could have taken the taxi all the way to Schaan. The strategy that earlier in the day seemed the safest route had ended up only complicating matters. Chris cursed himself for electing it.
They had moved into the countryside beyond Vaduz and Locke had the driver pull up to a mountain inn that was isolated enough to suit his purpose. Almost a half hour had passed since his call to the girl. He stepped inside and addressed himself to an elderly woman behind a counter.
“A room, sir?” she asked hopefully.
“How much do they cost?”
“One hundred twenty francs for three days.”
Locke pulled fifty from his pocket. “This is only to let me use a room for the next few minutes. I need to make a phone call. I’ll give you fifty more to dial the number direct and absorb the charges.”
“You are officially our guest,” the woman said, taking the bill Locke had slid across the counter and handing him a room key in its place. “Room eleven right down the corridor, one of the few with its own phone.”