Ten years she had given him, and there was not a moment he was sorry for. Grazie,’ he said softly. ‘ Tante grazie.’
He leaned over and kissed her gently on the cheek, and then, after one final look at the blazing sunrise, went in to take a shower and dress. And before he left he went back and leaned over her and kissed her once more on the cheek and she opened one eye and smiled up at him and said, it, her imperfect English, Doan drive too fass.’
II
When Falmouth was first assigned the job by his section chief he made a list. It took him several days. First he wrote out his objectives, then he broke the job down into segments: on one side of the paper he listed the segments in chronological order; on the other side he listed the same segments in the order of the risk involved, starting with the high risk first. Then he very carefully edited them, combining both lists into what he felt was the safest and best way to execute the assignment.
They had provided excellent intelligence reports. Everything he had asked for. Plans of the car. A detailed map of the plant showing all the security positions. Photographs of the track itself. MO sheets on Marza, Noviliano Di Fieri and the three relief drivers, sheets which emphasized their personal as well as their work habits. And a rundown on the town of Padua: picturesque, highly provincial, known riot only for the Aquila Motor Works but also for the basilica of Sant’ Antonio and the Giotto frescoes, which attracted visitors from all over the world.
That was good. A tourist place. And there would be pilgrimages there, to start the New Year right. Much easier to operate, and it provided good opportunity for a cover.
It had taken them a month to put all that together. He planned the operation in Paris, in a small tourist hotel on the rue Fresnel, just below the rue de Longchamp and half a block from the river. It was near the heart of things but still quiet. He converted the flat into a private war room, with maps on the walls, train and plane schedules, photographs of the principals, plans of the car and the factory and the town.
He began by studying his road maps and transportation schedules. Falmouth put first priority on getting in and out of a place. Like any good intelligence agent, he put self-preservation on top of the list. After that he would concentrate on the job itself.
From Paris he could fly to Nice, then take the night train along the coast and across to Milan. There he would get a car and drive to Padua, a distance of perhaps one hundred and twenty-five miles.
Getting out would be more ticklish. Once the job was done, he would have to move fast without attracting too much attention. He would drive to Verona, take the train north through Trento and the Brenner Pass to Innsbruck and from there to Munich. Then he would fly back to Paris.
The only risky part would be the drive from Padua to Verona. But that was only forty-five miles, an easy hour’s drive. Hell, it would be an hour before the shock wore off, and If the job went the way he planned, nobody would be looking for him anyway.
He fed it all into the computer in his head, letting it simmer. revising the list each night, then memorizing it and destroying the written copy, and starting his emendations in the morning. Each time he revised the list, he memorized it and then destroyed it. Falmouth had been in the business a long time; he did not make mistakes.
It took ten days to devise what he felt was the perfect plan.
The toughest part of the job was getting to the car; plant security at Padua was impossible. Oh, it could be done, but the risk factor was high. There had to be a better way. He sat for hours studying the blueprints of the factory, then poring over the plans of the car itself, examining every part of the machine and the list of subcontractors.
And suddenly there it was, the perfect answer. An elaborate electronic computer system had been devised for the test runs. Instruments built into the dashboard would immediately provide digital readouts on every key part of the automobile, with the same readings transmitted to a board in the control tower at the track. Memory for the system was contained in a mini-computer the size of a small stereo tape deck located between the firewall of the car and the cockpit. At the press of a button, the digital readout would reveal speed which could instantly be converted into miles per gallon, miles elapsed, average speed per mile, gallons remaining, oil pressure, even stress on certain parts of the car, like the suspension system, the transmission and the front and rear axles.
It was a sophisticated system but not particularly revolutionary. General Motors had offered similar digital readout computers on its larger cars for more than a year. This computer was being modified to provide specific information on the Aquila Milena and was subcontracted to a small electronics specialist in Marseilles. There was little security in Marseilles. Nothing the firm was doing was a secret. It was relatively easy to get a schematic of the General Motors system from a dealer in Paris. For weeks, Falmouth pored over these plans until he knew the system perfectly.
The memory was contained on wafer-thin boards eight inches high and thirty inches long. Each of these boards contained dozens of electronic chips no larger than a fingernail. Now Falmouth put his knowledge of explosives to use. He designed and then made a series of tiny C-4 bombs, of what the French call plastique, which were no larger than the head of a match and flat and could be attached to the memory boards, and dabbed with paint. He interconnected the explosives by thin wires to the wires leading to the digital counter. He made up several long strands of wire containing a very thin phosphorus fuse that would run from the mini-computer to the gas tank and to the sensors in the roll bar and tie rods of the front axle. They were set to explode when the speedometer hit 90 miles an hour. At that speed the tie rods, which kept the front wheels in line, would be blown apart and the car would go out of control. The gas tank, too, would go a second or two later.
It took Falmouth more than a month to get the explosives ready. It was dangerous business, even for an expert like him. But getting into the small factory and planting the bombs on the memory boards was a piece of cake. He flew into Marseilles on the evening plane; shortly after midnight he picked the lock on a skylight, lowered himself into the plant and found the boards, lined up neatly in the testing room. The check slips told him what he needed to know: all of them had been approved and were ready for delivery but one, and it was not critical to his operation.
It took him hours to complete the job. He left the plant at a few minutes before five and returned on the morning flight back to Paris.
So far, so good.
He settled down to refine the overall plan. He had three more weeks. He grew a moustache and had his hair restyled, but he did not like it. Not long enough. He bought a shaggy black wig to cover his red hair, and the night
