'Stay very still. Hands in sight,' rasped Seton-Charles, dressed in overalls. 'Wait like that till the biker has gone.'
Marler raised both hands in the air. 'Drop them!' screamed the professor. 'In your lap.' Marler let his hands drop. The BMW was very close. He hoped Butler had seen his gesture. The BMW slowed down, turned out to pass Marler's stationary Land Rover.
As he cruised slowly past Butler tossed the grenade he'd extracted from his saddlebag into Seton-Charles' lap. Marler ducked, fell crouched on the floor. There was an ear-splitting crack! Marler's windscreen shattered.
He looked up, grabbing his rifle. Seton-Charles was plastered all over the furniture. Blood and flesh strips everywhere. Marler saw movement high up at the front of the van. The mass of ancient furniture had saved Sully. His head peered over the top. Marler shot him through the forehead.
He leapt out and ran to the right side as Butler ran to the left. They met on opposite sides of the cab. Empty. Somewhere beyond the trees a vehicle's engine started up, moved off. Marler ran to the rear, pushed his way inside, leapt up the steps. Sully, flopped over the back of the chair, was dying but not dead. He looked into Marler's eyes as the Englishman bent over him. His eyes were glazed. The bullet had missed the brain and his expression showed a glimmer of hatred.
'Anton,' he whispered. 'Bastard ran for it. In Post Office van. Ex
…' Then he died.
Foster aimed his launcher to take out Ilyushin Number Three, the plane carrying Gorbachev. He waited for the first two machines to disintegrate. Then decided he could wait no longer. In his concentration he failed to hear the sound of the chopper.
Aboard the Wessex Tweed was scanning the countryside below. He swept over a chalk quarry, then swung his glasses back again. The van came up clearly in his high-powered glasses. So clearly he could see the open panel in the roof, the man seated inside holding something rammed into his shoulder.
'The chalk quarry!' he shouted into his mike. 'It's there…'
The airborne soldier swung open his door. Icy air blasted into the chopper. Newman aimed his gunsight, pressed the trigger, swept the opening in the roof with bullets. Inside Foster was training the Stinger's sophisticated gunsight on the third Ilyushin. The chopper pilot – at Tweed's urgent request – had earlier ignored regulations, descending to one hundred feet, and now he hovered. In response to Newman's shouted request. He held the trigger back in the firing position. A stream of bullets laced Foster's back and chest. Blood splotches burst out of his overalls. He sagged in the chair. His last reflex action was to fire the launcher's missile.
But as he'd slumped the barrel had dropped, was now aimed inside the vehicle. The heat-seeking missile whooshed from the launcher, sped the few feet towards the vehicle's engine, which was still warm.
'Climb!' Newman shouted.
The pilot reacted instantly, began to ascend vertically. Tweed was staring at the quarry. As the missile detonated there was a blinding flash, a low rumble like thunder. The climbing chopper rocked from side to side as the blast hit it, then steadied. Tweed and Newman gazed down.
The furniture van had disappeared, blown into a million fragments. A cloud of white chalk dust rose from the quarry. Tweed searched in vain for any debris which might be a relic of the van. His hands were sweating and he wiped them on his handkerchief as the airborne soldier hauled the door shut. The interior of the machine was like an ice box from the raw wind which had penetrated inside.
'Fairoaks reporting,' the pilot said, his tone calm. 'Marler has intercepted Vehicle One.'
'Thank God! Tell Fairoaks Vehicle Two also intercepted. Pass the message to Mailer,' Tweed told him
Overhead the four Ilyushin 62s were continuing their descent to Brize Norton. Tweed finished wiping his hands, put on a pair of gloves. He spoke again to the pilot.
'Please return to Fairoaks. We have unfinished business to attend to.'
54
Monday, 7 December.
'I will be driving down to interrogate Colonel Winterton,' Tweed told Monica, Newman, Butler and Nield in his Park Crescent office. 'Before he leaves the country.'
'On Exmoor?' Butler queried. 'You know who he is?' 'Yes. Monica has heard from Roberts at Lloyd's. The Shipping Index shows the only Iron Curtain vessel off our shores is an East German freighter, the Stralsund. At this moment it is unloading timber at Swansea. It sails for Rostock in the Baltic before the end of the day. That means it could heave to after dark at the mouth of the Bristol Channel. Ready to take aboard Wintertoh.'
'You really know who he is?' Monica asked. 'And he is one of the three ex-commandos?'
'Yes to both questions.' He turned to Butler. 'We left Fairoaks in a hurry. You talked with Marler. Why did he wait instead of coming with us?'
'Apparently just before Sully died he told Marler Anton had fled in a Post Office van. Heard the grenade I threw, then the shot Marler fired, I suppose. Ran for it. Headed for Exmoor, according to Marler. He's going after him. Trouble was the chopper we didn't use had a mechanical defect. And the pilot of our machine insisted on a thorough check-up before he'd fly Marler anywhere. That blast from the quarry really hit us.'
'Up to Marler, then. You heard me call Paula. She'll wait to meet us in the Mercedes by the call box in Minehead. Newman, you can come with me. Butler and Nield, you stay here. We're desperately understaffed if something else breaks.'
The phone rang. Monica said it was the call Tweed had booked to Arthur Beck at Federal Police headquarters in Berne. Tweed took the phone.
'Arthur. Check with Sarris, I suggest. But I think it's safe to send Christina back to Athens. Send me the bill.'
'No bill.' Beck chuckled. 'But now you owe me one. And don't think I won't call in the debt when it suits me 'Bye.'
Newman stood up. 'I'm ready to leave when you are. As it is, we won't reach Exmoor before dark. Winterton could be aboard the Stralsund if we don't move. I'll drive the Cortina.'
'We need to be armed.' Tweed opened a drawer, took out from it a Smith amp; Wesson short-barrelled. 38. Plus a shoulder holster. The armourer recommended this for me. You agree?'
'You never normally carry a gun. I'll give you some practice at a quiet spot on the way. Yes, that's OK. A hip holster would have been better. But it's short-barrelled, shouldn't snag if you have to snatch it out. I'm keeping the Magnum. 45.'
'That blows a hole as big as a cave through your target.'
'Which means it does the job.'
Newman had become harder since he first knew him, Tweed reflected. His experience behind the lines in East Germany. Newman seemed to read his mind.
'Why is Winterton boarding an East German vessel?'
'Because the East Germans are not sympathetic to glasnost. And I doubt he'll report precisely what he was involved in. We'd better go.'
'Do give us a clue,' Monica begged. 'About the identity of this Winterton.'
'He must have needed to keep contact with the Spetsnaz group when it moved to a new base close to Brize Norton, wherever that was. So, he needed a phone he could use which wasn't his own – in case we'd put a phone tap on it. Which I wouldn't risk. A phone, Monica…'
It was early evening, just before dark, when the Wessex carrying Marler approached Dunkeswell Airfield south of Exmoor. On his lap Marler nursed his rifle with the telescopic sight as he peered out of the window. 'Can you land somewhere close to Dunkeswell, but not on the airfield?' he asked the pilot.
'Might manage it. You spoke in time. Not yet dark. How long a walk do you fancy?'
'No more than five minutes. It's an emergency.'
