“They’re Frenchmen, or Corsicans, depending on what mood you catch them in. Do you understand?”
“I got you, but I still have my job to do.”
McGarvey patted him on the arm. “I won’t tell them anything they don’t already know.
But at the moment they’re risking their lives to help rescue my family. I owe them, wouldn’t you say?”
“Ah… yes, sir.”
Marquand was checking his wristwatch again. “Six minutes,” he said, looking up. “Time to go.”
“Any movement in or around the chalet?” McGarvey asked, following the Action Service colonel off the bus.
“None,” Marquand replied tersely.
His troops had taken eleven small motorbikes from the coach’s cargo spaces, and started them all. The small engines were so highly muffled that almost nothing could be heard head on, and only a light purring noise from the rear.
“Ten of my people have been in position behind and to the east of the chalet since early this afternoon. In about five minutes they’ll start moving in. In the meantime, we’ll go down the mountain, secure the barn and the truck on one; proceed to and secure the front approaches to the house on two; neutralize the package, if need be, on three; and make entry through the windows and main door on four. Questions?”
There were none.
The Action Service troops were armed with stun grenades and silenced MAC 10s. Littel carried a.44 magnum, not silenced, of course, and McGarvey stayed with his Walther.
The troops were watching him as he took it out and checked the action. Marquand shook his head. “If it was anyone else but you, Monsieur, carrying such a toy, I would say he was a fool.”
“It’s an old friend.”
Marquand smiled faintly. “So I’m told.” He turned abruptly to his troops. “Allons-y, mes copains.”
They all mounted and peeled out onto the highway from behind the bus in pairs, the throttles wide open, the bikes hitting sixty miles per hour down the hill.
If there was to be trouble here, these men plus the force coming up from the rear would be more than enough to handle it. But racing down the hill McGarvey was certain of two things: That Kathleen and Elizabeth were not here, and that a message would be waiting for him and him alone.
Spranger’s purpose was to lure McGarvey out of Tokyo, and then meet head-to-head but only at a time and place of the East German’s choosing when the odds would definitely be against McGarvey.
The road flattened out for about twenty yards, a field of mountain grasses and flowers protected by a split rail fence to the right. A gravel driveway led past the field and up the side of a very steep hill to the chalet in the distance. A large stone barn with a sharply pitched shake roof sat just off the driveway about fifty yards from the road.
The mountainside was in complete darkness. Only Grenoble down in the valley was lit like phosphorescent points in a black sea.
Two of Marquand’s force continued straight up the driveway to act as advance scouts on the chalet’s front entrance, while the others quickly surrounded the barn.
On Marquand’s signal one of them used a bolt cutter to remove the heavy padlock from the main doors, and hauled them open.
On signal, their MAC 10s sweeping from the center outward, two Action Service officers rushed into the barn.
For several long seconds there was absolute silence, until one of them came to the doorway. “Clear,” he called softly.
“Hold up, I want to check out the truck before we proceed,” McGarvey said.
Marquand motioned for his people to hold their positions, and he went with McGarvey into the barn where the large white semi-truck had been hidden. The markings on the side were for PIROKKI SHIPPING, LTD., ATHINAI.
“The truck was reported stolen from Amsterdam,” Marquand said.
“Pirokki?”
“No such company.”
The side door in the trailer was open. One of Marquand’s troops shined a flashlight inside, but the trailer was empty except for a few pieces of cardboard.
“Nothing here,” Marquand said, and McGarvey followed him out of the barn, glancing back for another look at the markings on the side of the truck.
At the top of the hill Marquand’s other people were already in position at the rear and to the east of the chalet. He gave a signal and two of his people ran, dodging across the grassy area beside the driveway, and silently mounted a low entry area at the front door.
One of them held a narrow beam penlight on the package, while the other began to work on it, shielding it with his body to minimize the effects of a possible explosion to his partner.
A full ninety seconds later, he picked up the package and gingerly carried it well away from the chalet where he carefully laid it on the ground, then he turned and moved away from it, signaling the all clear.
“Do your people have a clear identification on the non-targets?” Littel asked.
The Action Service colonel glanced back at him, then McGarvey, and nodded. “But it will be for the best if you do not get ahead of me. My boys might mistake you for one of the perpetrators.”
“All right.” Six of Marquand’s men flattened themselves against the front of the house, two each on a pair of ground-floor windows and two with a small battering ram on the door. On the count of three they smashed in the door, busted out the window glass and made simultaneous entry, their MAC 10s up and ready to fire.
From the rear they could hear the sounds of breaking glass and splintering wood, and seconds later McGarvey and Marquand, acting as backup in case the situation inside became critical, raced up onto the stone entry area and took up positions on either side of the door.
On the count of three they rolled inside, spreading left and right, their weapons up.
“Red clear,” someone shouted.
“Vert, aussi,” someone upstairs responded.
Marquand held his position, motioning for McGarvey to do the same.
For several long seconds the chalet was deathly still, but then from somewhere at the back of the house, a third team leader shouted the all clear, and the lights came on.
“Looks as if you were correct,” Marquand said, straightening up and switching his weapon’s safety to the on position.
McGarvey did the same, and holstering his pistol, went into the expansive living room, the sloping ceiling open to a loft above, a natural stone chimney rising up from a massive fireplace in the middle of the room.
Littel entered the chalet, and moments later Marquand was issuing orders that the house and grounds be thoroughly searched.
The chalet was a typical rental unit, with the same sterility as a hotel room, and yet McGarvey had a sense that Kathleen and Elizabeth had been here, however briefly.
Spranger wouldn’t have gone to this much trouble for nothing. The truck was here.
It meant something. Greek, perhaps. Toward Greece.
But what else?
“Nobody home?” Littel asked, crossing the living room to the fireplace.
No one paid any attention to him. Marquand’s men from front and back were swarming all over the house, from the root cellar to the attic crawl space above the servants’ quarters off the kitchen. There was no fire on the grate, but there had been, and Littel took a poker from the hearth rack and began idly poking through the ashes.
Marquand left the room and McGarvey was alone with his own thoughts for the moment.
On first coming into the chalet he’d thought he smelled perfume. Faintly, but there.
He tested the air again, but if anything the house now smelled neutral to him.
“McGarvey,” Littel said softly.
Kathleen had always worn perfume, of course. But she’d been subtle about it. This had been different.
“McGarvey,” Littel called, still softly, but more insistently.
