'I've said I will. Have you any solid ideas?' Howard pleaded.
'One or two. Give me a little time…'
Tweed's expression was grave as he left the box-with Paula. Butler strolled across the road to meet them. The alert bodyguard was smiling.
'Cheer up! We'll break this thing sooner or later. Oh, while you were on the phone Newman came back for a moment on foot. Full of apologies. He forgot to mention that Monica took a call from Cord Dillon earlier in the afternoon before the fireworks display. Dillon is somewhere in London.'
Tweed stared. Cord Dillon was Deputy Director of the CIA. A very tough, able man – what was he doing in London at a time like this?
'Dillon wants to talk to you urgently.' He handed Tweed a folded piece of paper. 'Newman gave me that to hand on to you. The number of some London phone box. You can reach Dillon between 9.30 a.m. and 10 a.m. at that number tomorrow morning. Monica said it sounded as though he was keeping under cover. Wouldn't say where he was staying.'
'Let's get back to the Metropole…'
Tweed walked beside Paula, told her the gist of his talk with Howard. They turned up St Edmund's Lane. Butler was following several paces behind them, reeling as though he was drunk. His right hand gripped the Walther inside his windcheater as they plodded uphill and took the long way back, ignoring the short cut to the hotel. Paula was relieved: the path which turned off the lane was a tunnel of eerie darkness.
'What on earth is going on?' she asked. 'That business about not being able to reach the PM. I'm scared.'
'With good reason. Interesting that Washington business – and now Dillon turns up out of the blue. My thoughts are turning towards America.'
'Why America? Because of Dillon's arrival?'
'Not entirely. Something rather more sinister.'
'Sorry. Perhaps I'm being rather thick. Probably fatigue. And I do want to drive with Bob Newman back to Bodmin Moor tomorrow to talk again to Celia Yeo. What is it about the States which has suddenly grabbed your attention?'
'America,' Tweed repeated, half to himself, 'where there is so much money and power. '
'Power?' Paula queried.
'Work it out for yourself.'
7
Feeling dopey when she woke the following morning in her double bedroom, Paula bathed, dressed for the moor, fixed her face in two minutes and only then pulled back the curtains. She stared at the view in disbelief. Something very weird had happened overnight. The River Camel had disappeared!
She stared at the vast bed of sand, rippled in places, stretching from shore to shore. When she phoned Tweed he said he was just ready for breakfast, so why didn't she come down to the suite?
She was closing her door when another door opened and Pete Nield appeared. He fingered his moustache and grinned.
'Good morning. Just checking to make sure you're not wandering off on your own.'
'Makes me feel like a ruddy prisoner,' she mocked him. She liked Pete. 'I'm on my way to Tweed's suite. Come and join us.'
'What on earth has happened?' she asked as Tweed unlocked his door and ushered her inside. She went over to his extensive bay window which gave a better view. 'The river has vanished.'
'Leaving behind a vast sandbank,' he explained as he joined her. 'There's a very high tidal rise and fall here. The tide is out now.' He pointed to his left through a side window. 'That rocky cliff protruding at the edge of the town blots out a view of the open sea. Straight across from us is Porthilly Cove. No water there at all at the moment. There is a narrow channel which remains along the shore of that weird village over there.'
'Where is that?'
'Place called Rock. A small ferry shuttles back and forth between Padstow and Rock. At low tide – now – the ferry departs from a small cove at the base of the rocky cliff. When the tide rises it departs from the harbour.'
'What a strange place. This is my idea of Cornwall.'
She gazed to her left, beyond Rock towards the invisible Atlantic. The far shore was forbidding. Climbing up steeply was a wilderness of boulders, scrub and heathland. A sterile, inhospitable area. Yet further in past Rock there were green hill slopes undulating against the horizon as the sun shone out of a clear blue sky.
'You haven't heard that tape on the recorder I had hidden in my pocket when I talked to Cook,' Nield pointed out. 'It doesn't add much to what Buchanan later told us.'
'Let's hear it quickly, then get down to breakfast,' Tweed urged.
He stood with Paula staring out at the endless sandbank. Nield placed his small machine on a table, ran throug h the first part, then pressed the 'play' button.
'I spent time putting her at her ease,' Nield explained. 'Now, listen…
'Cook, can you tell me what you saw when the kitchen door was opened and closed again?' Nield's voice.
'It was an 'orrible shock, I can tell you…' Cook's voice quavered, then became firm. 'He was standin' there with this awful gun. A short wide barrel – bit like a piece of drainpipe. He aimed at the floor, something shot out and the place was full of a greyish sort of vapour.'
'The tear-gas,' Nield's voice broke in gently. 'But you probably had a good look at him?'
'Like a nightmare. That woollen hood over 'is 'ead with slits for the eyes. He moved gracefully, like a ballet dancer. But those eyes – without feeling, without any soul. A chill ran down my spine. Those eyes were blank – like a ghoul's eyes.'
'What happened next?' Nield pressed, still gently.
'We're all choking. Tears running down our faces. Then this beast walks straight up to me and 'its me on the 'ead with something. I just dropped to the floor and didn't know what was 'appenin' till I came round…'
'That's the relevant part,' Nield said. He switched off the recorder. 'There's more but nothing informative.'
'Interesting that reference to moving with the grace of a ballet dancer,' said Tweed. 'Time for breakfast.' He picked up a copy of the Daily Telegraph which had been slipped under his door. The late edition. They must fly them down.' He showed them the headline.
HUGE IRA BOMB DESTROYS LONDON BUILDING
That's not the significant item. I'll show you in the dining-room.' Butler joined them outside and they took the lift to the ground floor. Tweed held on to Paula's arm, keeping up the fiction that she was an invalid.
In the dining-room Tweed sat with Paula at a table with a panoramic view of the harbour over the grey slate rooftops of the small port. After ordering a substantial breakfast of bacon and eggs he folded the paper, handed it to Paula.
That's the intriguing bit,' he told her, keeping his voice down.
'GHOST' ROADBLOCKS IN WEST COUNTRY LAST NIGHT
Paula read the text below the headline. The gist was that a series of roadblocks had been established on all the main routes out of Cornwall. Motorists had been stopped and told it was a census to check the amount of traffic passing through. The strange twist was that no police force or council office had any knowledge of them.
'What is this weird business?' she asked Tweed.
'Not reassuring,' Tweed replied quietly. 'They – whoever they are – were looking for us. Again it confirms my fear about the extent of the vast network we're up against. To be able to organize something like that so rapidly.'
