“No other way in or out?” McGarvey asked.
“Not by car or truck,” Belleau said.
“How about with a four-wheel drive, like a jeep?”
“Not possible. This area is all very rugged. One would need to be a mountaineer to move off the road.”
Helicopter?”
“The wind currents in the mountains are formidable.”
McGarvey sat back. “Of course there’s no guarantee they’re still there.”
Belleau shook his head. “If they are, however, then they are cornered.”
“I think it’s unlikely they’re still there,” McGarvey said, reaching for his overnight bag. He took out his toiletries kit and removed the components of his Walther PPK
as Belleau and Littel carefully watched.
“But you’re going in armed, just in case,” Littel said.
“I hope they are there,” McGarvey said, looking up. Both Littel and Belleau shivered.
Chapter 42
The Action Service helicopter touched down on the police barracks parade ground on the western outskirts of Grenoble, the city’s modern skyscrapers rising against the mountain backdrop. The wind was gusty but the weather was much clearer here than in Paris. And much colder.
Marquand was waiting for them aboard an Italian touring coach marked Lake Geneva.
Its windows were mirrored so that from the outside nothing could be seen of the interior.
He and McGarvey shook hands.
“You’ve arrived just in time, Monsieur,” the short, heavily built colonel said. “We were just about to leave.”
“Has the situation up there changed in the past few hours?” McGarvey asked. It was obvious Marquand knew Littel, so there’d been no need for introductions.
“At five o’clock a package was delivered to the front door of the chalet where it remains.” Marquand looked at his wristwatch. “That was nearly two hours ago. It was addressed to a D. Schey… we’re assuming for the moment that the D stands for Dieter. ’. from the Georges Cinq Hotel in Paris.”
“Was there a name?”
“It was a little joke. The sender was marked as E. Spranger.”
“You checked with the hotel?”
“Naturally. And with the delivery service. Of course Spranger is not at the hotel, and so far as the delivery service clerk in Paris can recall the package was dropped off at their office by a middle-aged, matronly looking woman, who paid in cash.”
“How much does it weigh?”
Littel and Belleau looked puzzled, but Marquand understood. “It was heavy. Slightly more than ten kilos.”
“Then I would hope that you have instructed your people to treat that package with extreme respect.”
“Yes,” Marquand said. “It would seem now that the chalet is deserted.”
“But we cannot be one hundred percent sure,” McGarvey said, thinking of something else. “We’ll have to find out.”
Marquand looked sharply at him. “What is it?”
“You were right in the beginning, there is a Japanese connection. I’ve just come from Tokyo where our chief of station and his assistant have both been assassinated.”
“Mr. McGarvey, may I have a word with you outside?” Littel interrupted.
“No,” McGarvey said. “A pair of walkie-talkies like the one found at Orly were used in Tokyo.”
“Are the Japanese authorities working with you?”
“No one knows I was there except, apparently, for Spranger and whoever he’s working for.”
“But why?” Marquand asked. “What the hell do they want?”
“McGarvey,” Littel cautioned.
“I don’t know yet,” McGarvey lied. “But obviously I was getting close, or else Spranger wouldn’t have tried this move.”
“I think you’re lying now,” the Action Service colonel said, but then his expression softened. “You understand that the outcome of this… situation, might not be very pleasant for you.”
“They’re not dead,” McGarvey said flatly.
“In cases like these…?
“They’re not dead,” McGarvey repeated, looking into Marquand’s eyes. “Spranger means to trade with me.”
“For what?” Littel asked.
“My life for theirs.”
“Then why the package bomb, that doesn’t make any sense.”
“It’s there to let us know they’re serious,” McGarvey said. “If it kills me, so much the better.”
“The bastards,” Marquand said, tight-jawed. “We would have walked right into the middle of it.”
“Spranger’s one of the best.”
“Yes. And well-funded. But why the Japanese?”
“When I find out, I’ll let you know.”
“Do that,” Marquand said. “In the meantime, they will have left something up there for you to find. Some clue as to their whereabouts.”
“Maybe not,” McGarvey answered. “They’ve lured me away from Tokyo. Maybe there’ll be nothing up there.” “Except death,” Belleau said grimly.
A half-dozen of Colonel Marquand’s Action Service operators came along on the bus, which passed the entrance to the Chalet’s driveway shortly after dark, and pulled off the highway onto a scenic overlook area at the crest of the Col de Porte pass.
Their driver switched off the coach’s lights just as they crested the hill so that from below it might seem as if the bus had simply disappeared from view as the road started down the other side.
One of the men immediately opened a window, and set up a light-intensifying scope on a tripod. He trained it on the chalet about a mile below them.
“Anything?” Marquand asked.
On the way up they’d all changed into dark jumpsuits, and had blackened any exposed skin.
“There is a very dim light in the upstairs corridor,” the scope operator said softly without looking up. “Stationary. Maybe a night light. No movement.”
“Outside?” Marquand asked.
The others had left the bus and were opening the cargo bays, leaving Littel and McGarvey alone for a moment. The Texan pulled McGarvey aside.
“Look here, I don’t know what you’re up to, but my instructions were specific. You’re not to breathe a word of your Tokyo operation to the French.”
“Just what is it I’m doing in Tokyo?” McGarvey asked.
“I don’t know…?
“You haven’t been told my assignment?”
“No, sir. Just that you were coming to France and to provide you with whatever help I could, but to make damned sure you didn’t say anything of importance to the Frogs.”
McGarvey had to smile despite the situation. “How’s your hand-to-hand combat skills?”
Littel was taken aback by the question. “Fair,” he said.
“I’m told Marquand is an expert. I would assume his men are pretty good too. I don’t think they’d like to hear you call them names.”
Littel glanced over at Marquand and the scope operator. “I didn’t mean anything.”
