Rhinoceros

Paula was looking at Milo, still smoking the last of his cigar. He had a faint, almost quizzical, smile on his face. He stubbed out his cigar butt.

Rondel waved both hands in a confused gesture, as if to say I don't see where you're going. Then his right hand had whipped out an automatic from under his arm. He levelled it at Lisa.

'Everyone except Milo stand up. Now! Or I'll shoot Lisa. And place your hands at the back of your necks. Lisa has five seconds to live.'

They all stood up quickly. They placed their hands behind their necks. Newman had thought of reaching for his revolver, but the automatic Rondel was gripping in both hands was a. 32 Browning. A gun like the one Paula carried inside her shoulder bag. The magazine had a capacity to hold nine rounds. More than enough to kill them all. A bullet for each of them. On top of that, his professional eye noted the way Rondel held the weapon. He could use it swiftly, swinging it from one target to another as he pressed the trigger.

'How is Mr Blue, or M. Bleu if you prefer it? Or Herr Blau as you are known in Germany?' Tweed asked Rondel.

Surprise, followed by astonishment, flickered in Rondel's eyes. He looked taken aback, but still the Browning remained steady, aimed at Lisa. He spoke to Milo out of the corner of his mouth.

'Old man, you sit still,' he sneered insultingly. He spoke to Tweed, still staring at Lisa. 'What the hell are you talking about?'

'You are Blue, Bleu and Blau. I took the trouble to phone my assistant in London, asked her to get my friend, security chief at Heathrow, to check passenger manifests. Computers enable him to do that amazingly quickly. He came up with flights for M. Blon. That was audacious…' He had nearly said 'arrogant', but decided it would be too provocative with Rondel now living off his nerves. '-First on a flight to Washington, a week before Jason Schulz, aide to the American Secretary of State was murdered. Second, M. Blon was flying to Paris five days before Louis Lospin, aide to the PM of France was murdered. Third, M. Blon is off again flying to Berlin from Hamburg a day before Kruger, aide to the Deputy Chancellor of Germany was murdered. Killing Jeremy Mordaunt can't have posed any problems – lure him down to Alfriston, near where you have a house, and he is murdered inside the tunnel. Why?'

'You've been a busy little bee,' Rondel sneered again.

'Why were they a danger to you?'

'Because they carried confidential and compromising messages to their chiefs. I decided the time came when diey knew too much. And their chiefs were nervous.'

'So we had a unique case of an assassin who hired himself.'

'That's rather a good way of putting it,' Rondel agreed, with a hint of hideous pride.

'But at least you got a lot of the money needed to finance the murderous bandits who would create chaos. Not all of it.'

'What the hell are you talking about?' Rondel demanded.

'Some money had to be sent, otherwise you would have become suspicious. It was sent from a deserved quarter.'

'What quarter?'

'An accountant friend of mine…' He was careful not to name Keith Kent. '… Burrowing into the Zurcher Kredit statements found Gavin Thunder had a secret and substantial deposit. To evade tax, no doubt. His money was sent.'

'Who by?'

'Irrelevant.'

'By me,' Lisa said quietly. 'I cleaned out his account.'

'You did what?'

Rondel's hands gripped the Browning just a little tighter. For an awful moment Tweed thought he was going to press the trigger.

'Clever little lady,' Rondel sneered.

'And also,' Tweed continued, 'I'm convinced you are the fifth man.'

Tweed was desperately keeping Rondel talking. In the faint hope that something would happen to make him drop the gun. Anything, he prayed, although his brain told him a diversion was hardly on the cards.

'The fifth man?' Rondel queried.

'Yes.'

Tweed then recalled the scene he had witnessed at the windmill near Sylt – when the FBI man had been told by a civilian that the fifth man had not arrived.

'The fifth member of the Elite Club,' he concluded.

Rondel's expression changed in a way that startled, disturbed Paula. He grinned, one side of his mouth twisted down. There was no mirth in the satanic grin. Only arrogance and triumph. For brief seconds he held the Browning with only his right hand, using the left hand to flick back the lapel of his jacket. Pinned to it was the Elite Club's symbol, the letter 'E' reversed so it had a Greek look.

Then he was again gripping the Browning with both hands, and again it was aimed point-blank at Lisa. Newman had been calculating whether he could rush at Rondel. Reluctantly he decided it would be committing suicide to no purpose. The distance between where he stood and Rondel, standing in front of the picture window, was too great. Everyone would end up dead.

'We know what you plan for the Western world,' Tweed informed Rondel. His brain was running out of subjects to talk about which would hold Rondel's interest. 'I have Thunder's outline of the plan in my pocket. It is even initialled GT. Gavin Thunder.'

'I don't believe you,' Rondel snapped. 'You're just talking for the sake of talking. Hoping for something - something which will not occur.'

'I can show you the document if you will permit me to take it out of my breast pocket. Slowly.'

' Very slowly,' Rondel ordered him. 'Any trick and Lisa will have departed this world with one bullet.'

Tweed moved his hand in slow motion. He pulled the corner of the folded sheet out inch by inch. Rondel's eyes were watching him but kept switching to the others. Tweed pulled the sheet clear of his pocket. He screwed it up into a ball and lobbed the ball of paper on to Milo's desk.

'Let Milo read it and then give it to you,' suggested Tweed.

'Yes, read it, Milo,' Rondel agreed. 'You always said what a master planner I was.'

'And a lot of it came from your brain, I suspect,' Tweed added, playing on Rondel's vanity.

'Oh, it did. The other members of the Elite Club made a few alterations but they were only minor changes. Basically, it is my plan. Go on, read it, Milo.'

The hunched figure put a fresh cigar in his mouth. Then, moving slowly, he unscrewed the paper, smoothed it out, began reading it, far more slowly than he normally absorbed a document. He picked up his lighter fashioned in the shape of an automatic. He finished reading it and nodded his head.

'Truly, it is brilliant. It should do the job, I'm sure. I congratulate you.'

Paula felt sick. They had got it wrong again. They were in this together. Of course they were. They were partners in the gigantic crime which was about to be committed against the world. Milo raised the lighter close to the tip of his cigar. In a lightning movement that Paula hardly saw he turned the lighter so the muzzle pointed at Rondel, pulled the trigger. Four bullets from the muzzle were embedded in Rondel's chest.

Rondel threw up both arms, dropping the Browning, fell back against the picture window. His body crashed straight through the glass, disappeared. Left behind in the special glass was a perfect silhouette of Victor Rondel, arms upraised. Paula thought it the most macabre epitaph she had ever seen.

Only Harry saw the final end. He heard the glass crack and a body flew out into space. He watched as it dropped down the side of the mountain, turning in the air like a cartwheel.

He watched as it reached the Baltic far below. The body hit the surface head first, sank below the surface, left behind a white circle of surf, which quickly vanished. The water closed over where Rondel had plunged into the calm sea.

Although the place was well soundproofed, Harry thought he had heard the crack of four shots. With the Uzi in his hands he burst into the study. Tweed shouted at the top of his voice.

'OK, Harry. It's OK. OK.'

Milo was still holding the silver-plated automatic so Tweed was scared stiff Harry would open fire on him. He