surprise at the card which bore a photograph of its owner and then turned to hold up his hand to the guard indicating that the train must wait.
The late arrival moved rapidly down the platform to the second barrier opposite which Howard was standing in the open doorway to get a last-minute breath of fresh air. As he saw the passenger his face went rigid and he stepped down on to the platform.
'Tweed! I don't know what the hell you are doing here but I'm forbidding you to board this train
'I don't think you have the power.' Tweed showed his card with green and red stripes running across it diagonally. 'And you are holding up the train…'
'Say, what the devil goes on here?'
O'Meara had appeared behind Howard. Now Flandres stepped down from the other end of the coach and ran along the platform to join them. O'Meara peered over Howard's shoulder.
'Jesus Christ! She signed the pass herself!'
'This is outrageous!' Howard exploded. 'I was not informed..
'You were not informed for security reasons,' Tweed replied. 'If you are worried, why not wake up the lady and check? But I doubt whether she will appreciate the interruption…'
'Get aboard, my friend.' Alain Flandres had grasped Tweed's arm and was ushering him up the steps. 'You are most welcome.'
Tweed waited in the corridor as Flandres waved his hand towards the guard, climbed the steps and closed the door.
'Alain, there is one I would like checked as a matter of top priority. At the barrier the passport controller told me the lady who came on board at the last moment is travelling on a Swiss passport, that her name is Irma Romer. Can you use the communications set-up to radio her details to Ferdy Arnold in Berne? Ask him to confirm whether their people have issued Irma Romer with a passport – that she does in fact exist…'
'Why bother about her?' Howard demanded.
'Because her car was parked in a side street for some time before it drove into the station. I arrived earlier myself, you see…'
The train was moving now, the huge wheels of the locomotive revolving faster as the Summit Express emerged from under the canopy of the Gare de l'Est and headed east on its historic journey for its final destination, Vienna. Seven hundred miles away.
CHAPTER 27
Wednesday June 3: 0100-0810 hours
'Has anything unusual happened yet, Haines?' Tweed asked. 'Unusual?' Howard's deputy enquired cautiously. At one o'clock in the morning he had a haggard look.
'Unexpected, then.'
They were sitting at one end of the communications coach where two bunks had been installed for security chiefs off duty. Haines glanced towards the far end of the coach where the three security chiefs were gathered round the teleprinter.
The express was ninety minutes away from Paris, moving at over eighty miles an hour as it thundered through the dark. The coach swayed round a curve. No one felt like sleep.
'I'd sooner you addressed that question to Howard,' said Haines.
'I'm addressing it to you.' Tweed reached towards his pocket as he continued. 'Perhaps you are unaware of my authority?'
'There was something, sir,' Haines began hastily. 'While he was at the Elysee Flandres had a message from Bonn warning us to await an urgent signal aboard the express. Stoller has disappeared…'
'Disappeared?'
'Yes. We don't know where to communicate with him. The secrecy of the whole business is worrying Flandres…' He looked again at the far end of the coach. 'I think something is coming through on the teleprinter.'
It was Howard, beginning to look strangely dishevelled, who came with the telex strip which he waved at Tweed with an expression of satisfaction.
'Signal from Ferdy Arnold in reply to your query. The Swiss can be damned quick. Irma Romer was issued with a passport four years ago. Widow of an industrial magnate – engineering. She's travelling outside the country somewhere in Europe. So can we now forget about your paranoid aberrations?'
'Can I see the telex, please?'
'I've just read the damned thing out to you!' Howard threw the strip into Tweed's lap. 'Admit it,' he snapped, 'it's a wild goose chase.' He turned and stepped on the right foot of O'Meara who had come up behind him. `Do you have to follow me everywhere?' Howard demanded.
'People apologise when they bump into me,' O'Meara rasped.
Tweed watched the two men over his spectacles. Already they were getting on each other's nerves – because under the surface there was a terrible suspicion that one of the security chiefs was the enemy. And with the windows closed tightly for the sake of the communication experts the atmosphere was growing torrid. Something had gone wrong with the air-conditioning.
Flandres, who had witnessed what was happening, came rapidly to their end of the coach. 'Gentlemen, we have the most nerve-wracking assignment any of us has probably faced – let us face it calmly and help each other…'
'What I'd like to know,' O'Meara demanded, 'is who is in charge of British security – Tweed or Howard…'
'I would say Alain is in supreme control for the moment,' Tweed said quickly. 'We are passing across French territory..'
'Still nobody answers my Goddamn question,' O'Meara persisted.
Tweed read through the Berne signal and looked at Howard. 'You left out a bit, didn't you? Arnold ends his message with the words further details to follow as soon as available.' `What further details do we need?' asked Howard wearily. `Her full description,' Tweed replied.
Nobody slept inside the communications coach as the express sped on through the night. The atmosphere grew worse as the air became more clammy and oppressive. Conditions were not improved by the cigar O'Meara smoked as he lay half-sprawled in the lower bunk.
Tweed moved away and sat in a swivel chair screwed to the floor, his head slumped forward, apparently asleep. But he was aware of everything going on as the thump-thump of the train's wheels continued its hypnotic rhythm. The factor he found most disturbing was Stoller's disappearance.
They had arranged a duty roster for one security chief to patrol the corridors of the four coaches where the VIP's were presumably asleep. This was at Flandres' suggestidn despite the armed guards from each contingent occupying the corridors of their respective coaches. At the moment Flandres himself was on duty.
The Bonn signal arrived at the ungodly hour of 0435 – after the express had left Strasbourg and ten minutes before they were due at Kehl on the German border. Tweed sat up in his chair because he saw the cypher clerk decoding the signal which had arrived. He held out his hand as the clerk walked towards O'Meara who appeared to be asleep.
`I'll take it…'
`What the hell is it now?' O'Meara suddenly demanded.
The American – who had obviously not been asleep – was stripped to his shirt-sleeves, exposing the holstered gun strapped under his left arm. He leaned over Tweed's shoulder and the Englishman caught a whiff of stale sweat from his armpits. Howard, who had just entered the coach, joined them as all three men perused the signal.
`Christ Almighty, what is going on?' O'Meara growled and lit a fresh cigar. Howard's reaction was a tightening of the muscles of his jaw, Tweed noted.
Urgent change of schedule. Chancellor Langer will board Summit Express at Kehl, not Mtinich. Repeat Kehl not Munich. Stoller.
