going to like St Ursanne.'
Aboard the helicopter Leo Madison – or Moonhead, as Ronstadt sneeringly called him – grasped hold of the powerful binoculars hanging from a strap round his neck. He glanced at the pilot in the seat next to him.
'From now on we must change our flying tactics. Don't want to make the targets suspicious. Train's comin' in to Delemont. Can you hold us still while I check the platforms?'
The pilot slowed the machine, hovered. Through his binoculars Leo clearly saw Paula Grey, Tweed and Newman alight. Two more men appeared to be with them but they were strangers to him. In the lenses he could see the faces of the trio he recognized. He saw them hurry across the platform, climb aboard a smaller train. He lowered his binoculars, waited until the little train started moving.
'Now you follow that little job. But do change your angle of flight.'
Again they had a coach to themselves. As the small train moved on into open country Paula had her eyes glued to the window. The scenery was superb, with large fields showing a froth of green sweeping up the slopes of high, hump-backed hills. She was looking out at a panorama as far as the eye could see – with here and there a lonely village of wooden houses clustered together and the tiny spire of a church. The helicopter had disappeared.
'You see,' Newman reassured her, 'that machine in the sky has gone.'
The next moment they entered a long tunnel. The wheels of the train made a quiet drumming sound. The lights had come on, Paula relaxed, looking forward to seeing the village Tweed had recalled with such enthusiasm. Her eyes closed and she almost fell asleep. Suddenly they emerged from the tunnel. She was alert instantly.
In the near distance the hills were higher, the slopes steeper. There were no villages anywhere. She saw a car driving along a road which seemed to follow the railway. They were climbing.
'It's back,' she said.
'What is?' Marler asked.
'The chopper. Can't you hear the beat-beat of its engine? I think it's flying directly above the train.'
'And I think you're right,' Marler agreed.
'I don't honestly see how they could have known where we are going,' Nield interjected.
'Pete has a point,' Tweed agreed.
He was anxious to reassure Paula. But he didn't believe what he said. He was beginning to think that it had been a good idea of Marler's to distribute weapons from his canvas satchel earlier. A chopper near Romney Marsh. Now another one out in the wilds of the Jura. The Americans, as he'd pointed out earlier, certainly had unlimited resources. He checked his watch. They were almost arriving at St Ursanne.
'We'll soon be there,' Tweed said. 'A good job it's such a perfect day. As I mentioned earlier, we have a good ten-minute trot along a road before we reach the village. Maybe fifteen minutes…'
The helicopter swung away from the train after climbing directly above it. By this tactic the pilot hoped the targets aboard the train would not think he had been following them. A minute before giving the pilot his instructions Leo had focused his binoculars on the small station – just one platform – the train was nearing. The signboard read St Ursanne.
'Let's get clear away from the train,' he began. 'See that small village in the distance?'
'Got it.'
'I want you to land me as close to it as you can – within close' walking distance of the place. You should be able to drop me somewhere. Then wait until J return to take me back to Basel.'
'Will do.'
The chopper was already climbing vertically. The pilot became aware that his passenger was wriggling around a lot, that he had removed his safety belt. He had no time to look at him as he concentrated on his manoeuvre, then high in the sky swung away from the railway. Now he was searching for a landing point. He saw one at the edge of the village.
'Here we go.'
'Try and land before the train stops at the station. I'll tell you when.'
'Will do.'
It was then that he glanced at his passenger and had a shock. He would never have recognized the man seated next to him as Leo.
25
'Back of beyond out here,' Tweed remarked as they alighted on the deserted platform.
'Nobody else has got off except us,' Paula observed. 'Who would? At this time of year? At this time of day?' Marler replied.
Tweed was hurrying. They followed him as he went down a ramp and started walking along a narrow road alongside the station. The road led steeply downhill with a high rock wall on one side. No traffic. They turned a bend and for a moment Tweed stopped and pointed.
`St Ursanne.'
Paula almost gasped with pleasure at the beauty of the scene in the sunlight. In the distance, where Tweed had pointed, way below them, an ancient village was huddled inside a valley, the old houses close together, with the spire of a church spearing up amid the dwellings which must have existed like this for centuries. It was idyllic. To their left, beyond the empty road, the ground fell steeply for quite a depth. At the bottom a small river meandered through meadows until it passed the edge of the village. Paula gestured down.
'Any idea which river that is?'
'The River Doubs,' Tweed told her. 'It figures in. the famous and controversial novel, Le Rouge et Le Noir – The Red and the Black, by Stendhal. Now we must keep moving. I have a growing sense we have very little time left.'
Almost before he had finished speaking Tweed was hustling ahead down the road which had become even steeper, his legs moving like pistons. The others had to increase pace to keep up with him.
'Where's the fire?' called out Nield.
Tweed didn't reply. He seemed intent on reaching their destination in the shortest possible time. Lower down there was a pavement on the left side but he ignored it, keeping to the road. Paula caught up with him. If she had to move any faster she would be running. It was only when they were very close to the village, and old houses appeared to their right, each with plenty of land and perched on a slope, their entrances small gates in their garden walls positioned well below them, that Tweed stopped.
'We'll be cautious now,' he said as the others arrived.
'Well, at least the chopper has vanished,' Paula remarked. 'And I am wondering whether we ought to have phoned Juliette Leroy before coming all this distance.'
'That would have been a mistake. Like Irina, I think Leroy has to see us before she will talk.'
'Hear it?' Marler asked. 'Behind us?'
Tap… tap… tap…
It was a weird sound in the serene silence of the sunny afternoon. As one, they all turned to look back. A man was emerging from one of the gardens they had passed, his stick tapping on the stone steps leading down from the house. Arriving at the gate, he fumbled with the catch, opened it, came out slowly, closed the gate and came trudging slowly towards them.
Tap… tap… tap…
He wore an old coat, which Paula thought must be too heavy for a sunny day. But he was old. He wore a floppy brimmed Swiss hat and beneath it very dark glasses were perched on the bridge of his nose, his head bent. In his right hand he carried a white stick, ringed at intervals like a bamboo cane. It was tipped with a rubber at the end. He was tapping the stick against the edge of the pavement.
'Poor devil. He's blind,' Paula whispered.
'Better let him pass us, Tweed suggested. 'We'll move out of his way.'
They crossed to the far side of the road and waited. The man with the dark glasses trudged on. They kept quiet as he passed them, seemingly unaware of their presence.
