threw a paperweight through it all you would see would be the exact hole, the shape of the paperweight. So repairing it would be simple – using the same type of glass.'
'I thought it had great clarity.'
'We have serious matters to discuss immediately,' interjected Milo. 'Tweed has told me the final messages informing the bandits when to wreck major cities will be sent out within hours.'
'Really?'
There was a sceptical note in the way Rondel spoke.
'You don't believe it, then?' Milo suggested.
'I do believe you have shown him the system you designed inside the chimney. The diabolical system.'
'Diabolical?' Tweed enquired.
Everyone, including Tweed, was now seated on the banquette that ran under the wall at the far end of the room, the wall opposite the special window. They had been ushered to the banquette by Rondel when they re- entered the study. In front of the banquette was a long table. On it were Meissen gold-rimmed plates with gold knives, forks and spoons. Each plate contained mouth-watering food. There were various glasses, buckets of ice with bottles of champagne, bottles of chilled white wine, wicker baskets with bottles of red wine resting at an angle, carafes of water.
'Diabolical,' Rondel repeated. 'He probably told you it was a system designed to destroy the Internet. He didn't, I am sure, tell you it is something different. Milo thinks the world has become a rotten place. The system inside the locked room is equipped with long-distance missiles. One is aimed at London, another at Paris, another at Berlin, and a fourth is aimed at Amsterdam. Each missile contains a huge quantity of poison gas.'
Paula stared at the place next to her which was unoccupied. Obviously meant for Harry Butler. She felt chilled by what Rondel had told them. She looked at Milo. He was sitting hunched behind his desk, his large body very still, his eyes gazing straight ahead at the blank wall opposite him. Oh, my God, she thought. We've got it all wrong.
CHAPTER 43
Outside the study in the open air Harry stood leaning against the end wall. Beyond it was the special window, which he was not able to see. Below a rail which he rested his hands on the mountain wall fell sheer to the Baltic far below. At his feet was the hold-all containing the Uzi.
Harry had been bored by the conversation. He preferred action, or words concerned with what they would do next. He could hear nothing from inside the soundproofed study and was glad of it.
Harry had never suffered from even a hint of vertigo. So he looked down the precipitous drop frequently, watching the thin white line of surf breaking gently at the base of the cliff. A faint breeze had blown up. He thought the vertical drop was impressive.
Earlier he had worried when he saw the quay they had berthed at was empty. The steamer had gone. Later he saw at the far end of the castle Tweed and Paula emerging along the footpath with their host and Lisa.
He had seen both Tweed and Paula in turn glance down at the empty quay and then continue to walk away. As Tweed must have seen the empty quay and appeared to be enjoying himself, Harry stopped worrying. There must be some other quay on the north side he couldn't see, some other ship to take them home.
The sun was still very hot and he soaked it up. At times his eyes closed and he was almost asleep, standing up.
Milo took another puff at his cigar. He was still gazing at the far wall. He tipped ash into a crystal ashtray, took another puff. The silence inside the room was dreadful. It was as though no one dared to be the next to speak.
Paula glanced at Tweed. He sat very still, his eyes half closed. In her agitation she wanted to nudge him, to make him pay more attention, to speak, to say something, anything. She looked at Milo. He also sat very still except for the movement of one hand to tap ash from his cigar. How could they have made the fatal mistake of trusting this weird man? She remembered seeing Oskar on the Traverminde shore, how he had given a small wave which had seemed so final. Goodbye, for ever. Oskar had known the truth.
She switched her gaze to Rondel. He stood with his arms folded. His tall trim figure, his handsome face, were silhouetted against the huge picture window. Why didn't he say something?
Then she had another frightening thought. The key Milo had given to Tweed. A duplicate? It was a fake key that would never open that ghastly door. Milo was intelligent, highly intelligent, and wily. He had lulled any suspicions Tweed might have harboured.
It all added up as her thoughts raced through her mind. A rotten world that had to be destroyed. That had been the gist of what Milo had said to Tweed's face. Alone on this grim rock, Milo had brooded on the state of the world, had decided it no longer deserved to exist. Yes, it all made sense.
'Poison gas?' Milo said suddenly in a quiet voice,
'Worse, I suspect,' Rondel said savagely. 'Some of your scientists have been experimenting with bubonic plague. I wondered why they were ever engaged on such a project.
Now I see it all, too late. Some, maybe all, the missiles will be filled with bubonic plague.'
Paula's mind reeled with horror. Milo still sat calmly smoking his cigar. The sheer callousness of the hunched man appalled her. He must be the most evil man in the world, she thought. When the missiles fell, aircraft would take off to escape doom – carrying with them the plague to America, the Far East and God knew where else. She felt she couldn't move. Maybe that was why Tweed was sitting so motionless. The same terrible thoughts had been running through his mind.
Then she remembered the Slovak guards they had seen with rifles. They would be under the command of Milo. Maybe he spoke their language fluently. He had said he came from Slovenia. That was not very far from Slovakia. Milo Slavic. A very Balkan name. Apparently none of his missiles were aimed at the Balkan region. Then Milo, who had smoked half his cigar, spoke, the words spaced out more than usual, as though his mind had left the realm of sanity.
'Blondel is very good at telling amusing fairy tales.'
'Of course he would say that,' Rondel shouted. 'He has fooled all of us. Even his own daughter, Lisa.'
Paula turned her head slightly, looked for the first time at Lisa. She also sat very still, her gaze blank as she looked at Milo. She's in a state of shock, Paula decided. No wonder. She saw Lisa lick her lips briefly as she stared at her father.
Suddenly, it seemed to Paula that she was watching a nightmare tableau. Everyone so still. So little talk. And no one moving a muscle. She recalled her reaction when, at the quarry, the white-haired giant had aimed the gun at her, the gun with a mouth like a cannon. She had frozen then as she was frozen still now.
'One of them is wrong,' said Tweed, speaking for the first time. 'The question is, which one?'
'You can decide that for yourself,' Milo replied blandly.
Too bland, Paula observed. He sat behind his desk like a man in total command of the situation. An attitude that frightened Paula even more. A man out of his mind would react like that. Up here on this mountain he thinks he's a god on Olympus, she realized. You can't argue with insanity.
'Blondel always was clever at persuading people round to his way of thinking,' Milo observed, still gazing at the blank wall opposite him.
'Rondel, not Blondel,' the tall figure said in a controlled tone of voice.
'It is his blond hair,' Milo explained, as though discussing a minor detail.
'I am puzzled,' Tweed said in a calm voice.
'By what?' asked Rondel.
'How missiles could be fired from such a device as we have here. There was no sign of such a system when it was elevated.'
'Elevated?' Now Rondel sounded puzzled. 'You don't mean Milo elevated it while you were in the locked room?'
'Yes. I'm not an expert on missiles. Far from it. But the complex of dishes we saw did suggest to me some kind of radio and electronic system. But missiles? Never.'
