In his right hand he held an object like a felt-tip pen – the needle-blade was already projecting ready for action. The click Martel had assumed to be the door-handle had been the pressing of the button which projected the blade.
When he appeared the bony-faced man was only a few feet from Martel. Stiffening his hand, he lunged forward, the needle-point aimed at Martel's stomach. The Englishman remained exactly where he was, jerked up the Colt and fired twice in rapid succession. The phut-phut of the silenced gun sounded unnaturally loud in the hushed atmosphere.
The bony-faced man dropped his hypodermic weapon and reeled backwards. He slammed into one of the display cases, flopped sideways and his head crashed down thtough the glass lid. As his legs gave way he slithered to the floor, his heels making runnels across the polished surface. A stream of blood gushed from his torn face.
Martel left the museum without being seen. As he slipped past the ticket window he glimpsed a woman's back. She was drinking from a cup. The Colt was rammed inside his belt. They closed in less than five minutes. He had to get out on the street. But they were waiting for him out there. Delta.
They had sent in a single man to do the job but they would have people outside as back-up. It was that kind of thorough organisation. Martel had not forgotten the nightmare in Bahnhofstrasse. The audacity, the ferocity. He opened the door and stepped out into Vadianstrasse.
Everything seemed normal. Housewives out shopping, singly or in couples. A man wearing yellow oil-skins and a cap, carrying some kind of bag, leaned against a wall on the opposite side. He was trying to light a cigarette: the lighter seemed to be defective.
Claire! He had to protect Claire, to lead them away from her. Already one Hofer – Lisbeth – had been killed. And they were out here somewhere. He could see Claire's legs below the closed curtain inside the photo booth. He began walking.
He timed it carefully. Taking out his holder to make himself conspicuous he inserted a cigarette. He stopped alongside the booth and cupped his hand to use the lighter, to conceal the fact that he was talking. The curtain was open a fraction of an inch He didn't look towards the booth as he spoke.
`They sent a Delta operative. He's dead inside the museum. I am giving you an order. Stay there, give me two minutes to lead anyone out here away, then get to hell back to the Metropol and wait till I contact you…'
Then he was moving away, heading into the Old Town where the road surfaces were cobbled, the buildings ancient, the shops new. He turned into Neugasse and followed the curve of the street.
Neugasse 5, Claire had said. Police headquarters. Five minutes' walk, two or less by car. He had to pinpoint the opposition and this should give him more time. The bastards could hardly start something in close proximity to a police station. He stopped to look in a window.
He had no idea what the shop sold. He was concentrating on a reflection. The man in yellow oil-skins had stopped on the other side of the narrow street. He was staring into another window, holding a large carrier bag and puffing at his cigarette. His lighter had conveniently worked as soon as Martel began moving.
The Englishman sucked at his holder. Something was wrong. Something more than the fact that it appeared he was being shadowed by Yellow Oil-skins. He resumed his walk. Stadtpolizei. Walls a muddy grey roughcast, grey shutters almost merging into the walls. An archway entrance wide enough for a single car. He walked on.
He was approaching an intersection, a more spacious area which, he remembered from the street map Claire had shown him, was the Markt-Gasse. He turned left and stopped to drop his half-smoked cigarette which he stubbed under his heel. The possibility of a coincidence ended. Yellow Oil-skins was looking in yet another shop window. Something was very wrong indeed.
It was too damned obvious: using as a shadow a man clad in an outfit which could be picked out hundreds of yards away. It was as though he were making his presence as conspicuous as possible – to divert Martel's attention from someone else. The danger was going to come from another quarter.
He stood on the kerb gazing at a curious spectacle. In the middle of the street stood a small train for children made up of wooden, open-sided coaches with canvas canopies. At the front was a black railway engine with a gold trim and the driver, a man, was operating a whistle 'to signal imminent departure. Each of the coaches carried four children, two facing each other. A couple of coaches were occupied by mothers sitting with their offspring. The trolley-car train was large enough to carry adults.
Yellow Oil-skins remained staring into a window displaying ladies' underwear, for God's sake! Martel moved quickly, leaving the train still stationary. If there was to be havoc – Zurich-style – it must not happen near those children. Ahead he saw a buff-coloured building which was the Hotel Hecht – where Claire had originally been staying. Crossing the road, he concentrated his attention on everyone except Yellow Oil-skins.
The attack came from the least-expected quarter at a moment when his alertness was briefly distracted by an astonishing sight. He was walking past the Hecht when he heard a piercing shriek, the train's whistle. It had followed him as it proceeded confidently amid the traffic to pass alongside the Hecht. In the last coach on the side nearest to him sat Claire Hofer.
The seat next to her was occupied by a small girl and two more children faced them. They were all looking away from the Hecht while Claire stared straight at him. Under cover of her handbag, the flap open, she was holding her pistol, the barrel aimed towards him.
He sensed rather than felt someone close to his left. Glancing away from the train he saw a tall woman wearing a dark hat with a veil concealing her face. Her shoulder-bag was supported by her left arm. In her right hand she held a familiar object – the needle-pointed hypodermic weapon.
This was the back-up Yellow Oil-skins had tried so very hard to conceal from him. Martel had a vague memory of seeing this veiled, elegantly-dressed woman in Neugasse and for a second he was taken off guard. He almost put out a hand to ward her off, which would have been his last movement since she would have jabbed the weapon into his hand and injected its contents.
Somewhere close by a car backfired, a sound cut off by the blare of a car's horn. The elegant woman wore a dress with a deep V-cut which exposed a generous portion of her bosom. Another distraction? Then she leaned back against the wall of the hotel. A small hole had appeared in the V of her bosom, as though drilled by a surgeon. The hole began to well redness as she sagged to the ground.
In falling her hat had tipped sideways, removing the veil from her face. Martel forced himself to walk on, threading his way among the morning shoppers. The face now exposed to view was not unfamiliar. It was the dead face of Gisela Zobel.
He saw the train moving on towards an ancient gateway in a wall which had probably once protected the town. Claire was still on board, clasping her closed handbag as she chatted to the girl next to her. The Swiss girl had shot his would-be killer from a moving vehicle. Marksmanship of that order he had never encountered before. And Yellow Oil-skins had now vanished as a crowd began to gather in front of the Hecht, huddled over something lying on the ground.
CHAPTER 9
Thursday May 28
In her bedroom at the Metropol Claire was shaking with fright. She held herself in check until Martel arrived back a few minutes after she had returned. Now reaction set in and she broke down. He sat on the bed beside her and she pressed her face into his chest and quietly sobbed. He stroked her soft black hair, saying nothing until he felt the tremors easing.
'You can rest on the train. We're heading east for Bavaria…' 'What's the Goddamn rush?'
'The Goddamn rush is the police. They'll soon realise they ' have two murders on their hands. Two! The man I killed in the museum, the woman you shot outside the Hecht. Then they'll be watching every train leaving St. Gallen…'
Martel concealed one fact from Claire as they sat in a first-class compartment which they had to themselves aboard the Munich express. He was convinced they were moving into the zone of maximum danger – Bavaria. Somewhere in that scenically glorious part of Germany Delta had its headquarters.
Switzerland, the most neutral, stable country in Europe had almost been a death-trap. But the risks encountered in Zurich and St. Gallen were nothing compared with what lay ahead of them.
