Age: 45.
Nationality: American.
Marital status: Wife, named Samantha.
Salary: $400,000.
Children: None
Address (home)…
Weakness: Samantha an alcoholic
Expertise: sabotage, communications.
Sabotage?
The word stopped Eve. And earning that kind of money he had to be tops. She got out the notebook she always carried in her shoulder bag, scribbled down the wording about Reynolds.
She then checked other sheets. Irina Krivitsky. Her speciality was laser control of satellites, whatever that might mean. She scribbled down more details. As she examined more sheets she noted down several other names, none of which meant anything to her.
'You'd better get the hell out of here,' she told herself. 'You've got enough and Gustav might come back early.'
She was careful to leave the files as she found them. Then she locked the cabinet, put the bunch of keys where she had found them. As she opened the door she heard footsteps approaching. She froze with terror. If she closed the door the sound might be heard. A waiter, carrying a tray of food, walked past, never glanced at the partly open door. She went back to her room.
Locking the door, she opened a secret compartment in her shoulder bag, took out a folded newspaper cutting going brown. Pouring herself a vodka, she lit a cigarette, sprawled on the couch, read again the newspaper cutting she had rescued from Brazil's wastepaper basket in his Berne office. She had overheard what he had said and had slipped into the office after he had left it. The cutting had been screwed up before being tossed into the basket. The text under the small headline was brief.
Strange rumours are circulating that top scientists are abandoning their jobs with private outfits. For bigger pay they are joining some international organization located abroad. Among those mentioned are the brilliant Ed Reynolds, Irina Krivitsky (from Russia)…
Several other names were listed, all of them with sheets in the file Eve had examined. She carefully folded the cutting, put it back in the secret pocket.
'Come back to Zurich, Mr Bob Newman,' she said aloud.
After they had repaired the limousine at the airfield Brazil surprised Jose.
'I'll drive. I just feel like some action after being cooped up in that plane.'
'Are you sure, sir?'
Tut Igor in the back, then get into the front passenger seat.'
'I feel I'm not doing my job, sir.'
'Just do as I tell you. Get on with it.' Brazil checked his watch again. 'We'll arrive at the villa in good time in spite of the delay, so I won't be hurtling up that mountain road, if that's what's making you nervous.'
'I'm not nervous, sir.'
Jose was telling the truth. Brazil was a superb driver. Once, while in America, he had competed in a racing car on the West Coast. He had won, being proclaimed Champion of the Year.
'Igor will be quite happy on his own in the back.' Brazil continued as he drove away from the airfield. 'He likes looking out of the window. Incidentally, I think it is time we considered giving you more money. We will discuss it after we have got to the villa…'
Brazil was driving up a steep road which reproduced many of the features Philip and Paula had encountered during their journey to the Kellerhorn. On Brazil's side a rock wall sheered up vertically hundreds of feet above them. On Jose's side an ever-deepening abyss fell away and the drop was not guarded by a barrier.
The road turned and twisted as it climbed ever higher and its surface was covered with hard-packed snow. Brazil observed this with a sense of some relief – he knew that under the snow there would be a sheet of ice.
'There's a helicopter.' Jose remarked. 'It's not one of the Swiss weather planes.'
'No, it isn't, Jose. You probably saw it with another one waiting on the airfield. That machine has Marco aboard. He will arrive to make sure everything is ready for me at the villa before we get there.'
'You didn't tell me.' Jose replied.
'I don't tell you everything.' said Brazil and chuckled.
'Now it's hovering. I wonder why?'
'Obviously he is checking our progress up the mountain.'
Aboard the helicopter Marco, sitting next to the pilot, was not interested in Brazil's progress. What had caught his attention was a four-wheel-drive proceeding up the mountain some distance behind Brazil. In the vehicle Marler also saw the chopper hovering and knew the reason why.
'Well.' he said aloud, 'I've been spotted. That means a reception committee will be waiting for me. I think I can handle that.'
As soon as the helicopter disappeared he slowed down, braked beyond a bend. He unzipped the canvas hold-all nestling on the seat beside him, took out several objects, slipped them into each of the pockets of his fur- lined, thigh-length coat. Then he continued his arduous drive up the mountain, constantly turning the wheel to take another bend.
'Jose,' Brazil said as they reached a great height, 'I think we are being followed.'
It was a lie. Brazil had no idea that Marler was coming up behind him. Jose peered back, shook his head.
'I think you are wrong. I have been keeping a close eye on my wing mirror and I have seen nothing.'
'Call it instinct.' Brazil said cheerfully. 'You know the turn-off we shall soon come to – the one taking us up on to a plateau?'
'I remember it well. It is a good viewing point.'
'For a certain distance, anyway. I think we will drive off up the turn-off. We have the time. Then you can check to see if I am wrong. Am I usually wrong?' he enquired breezily.
'No, you are nearly always right.'
'Not sure I like the phrase 'nearly always', but I will overlook it.'
Jose glanced sideways at his chief. Brazil seemed to be in an exceptionally good humour. He decided it must be because soon they would be at the villa where something – he had no idea what it might be – was going to happen.
They reached the turn-off, little more than a wide gash in the rock wall, and Brazil swung off the mountain road, easing the large car up a steep track with inches to spare on either side. At the top they emerged on to a flat, arid, rock-strewn plateau, layered with snow. Brazil drove across the plateau, did a U-turn about fifty yards from where the ravine he had driven up ended. He looked at Jose.
'Now, go and stand on the overhang and look back as far as you can down the road. Watch it for a few minutes until I call you back. If you see another vehicle you raise your right hand and run to the beginning of the ravine. I will pick you up there. Then we drive down almost to the mountain road and wait. A perfect ambush point. There is a machine-pistol on the floor at the back under the travelling rug.'
'I take the weapon with me,' Jose suggested. 'Then I can kill the people in the car.'
'No, you can't. If they reach the overhang they will be hidden from you. Just do as I say, Jose.'
Brazil waited until Jose was away from the car before he gave Igor a one-word command. The wolfhound jumped over into the passenger seat previously occupied by Jose. It began to get excited as Brazil opened a compartment, took out a black glove, pulled it over his right hand.
He had had Igor trained, when younger, at a special school for dogs in Germany. He had told the master of the school that it was a game he wanted to play – then had given him details. He had stayed, putting on the black glove to activate Igor – papier-mache dummies the size of men had been used.
Jose had reached the brink of the outcrop or overhang which shielded the portion of the road below him. He
