be seen from the outside road either. It’s around the first bend in the drive. There’ll obviously be someone there, checking arrivals. We wouldn’t even clear the trees before they were warned, inside. OK, so we go in a different way. There isn’t one that isn’t wide open, for hundreds of yards. All they’d have to do is see us coming – which they will – to lock and bar the doors. Which according to Doorn are about a foot thick. By the time we got past them there wouldn’t be a person in the place.’
‘Surely all you’ve got to do is guard the tunnel and passage exits?’ protested Hillary McBride.
‘We could if we knew where they all were,’ agreed Harding. ‘Doorn told me of three and we’ve already got them covered but he thinks there’re more. He says there’re no reliable maps and that he doesn’t know of the existence of any.’
‘This is ridiculous!’ said Hillary. She was ignored.
‘The local legend is that some of the escape routes lead into the cave systems,’ offered the local police chief. ‘And that there are a lot of ancient skeletons at the bottom of the oublier wells. It’s supposed to be haunted, of course.’
‘If we know the entrances to three passages why can’t we go in along them?’ persisted the woman.
‘We’re trying that,’ sighed Harding. ‘The people who built the chateau thought of it, too. According to Doorn the doors are iron-ribbed on the inside and secured by iron crossbars, as well as by locks. The idea is to get out but not to get in.’
‘There are no cars. Not even Lascelles’ Jaguar,’ said Blake. ‘The party obviously hasn’t started but maybe Felicite hasn’t arrived with Mary Beth yet, either.’
‘Telephone!’ demanded Hillary. ‘If someone answers say it was a wrong number. At least we’d know someone was inside.’
This time Blake didn’t ignore the woman. Instead he looked at her, head to one side, and said: ‘We couldn’t get away with a wrong number excuse: she’s been told for days by Smet we’re getting closer and closer. That’s been her buzz. But a genuine call could work…’
‘Doorn’s office is five minutes away,’ anticipated Harding. ‘I left Ritchie with him.’
The FBI man brought the estate agent running in four, although the man arrived breathless. He kept breathing heavily as Harding talked, long after he should have recovered.
‘I don’t think I can do it!’ he pleaded.
‘You will,’ insisted Harding. ‘You’re the best realtor in town. She knows that. You take trouble over your clients. She knows that, too. She told you she didn’t want any of the staff which are normally available. You’re doing your job. You’re calling to see if she’s changed her mind about that: there are people you could send in at an hour’s notice. You want to know if everything’s all right or if there are any problems that need sorting out. If there’s a drain or a john that’s blocked or a fuse that’s blown anywhere, we’re in.’
‘And if there’s no reply, I’m going to become your assistant,’ announced Blake. ‘You’ve got the right to get past anyone at the gatehouse. She wouldn’t panic if it was you, with someone else from the agency. She’d open the door. Which is all I’d need.’
‘Why bother with the phone at all?’ demanded Ulieff. ‘Why don’t one of you go up with Doorn?’
‘She was adamant she wanted privacy,’ said Doorn anxiously. ‘Repeated over and over again that she didn’t want any staff. I promised to leave her entirely alone.’
‘By yourself it could be explained away: the diligent realtor,’ Harding reluctantly conceded. ‘A stranger would make her suspicious.’
‘I think it’s worth a chance,’ said Rampling carelessly.
‘Isn’t chance what we’re trying to avoid?’ said Sanglier.
‘We can’t just sit here, doing nothing!’ said Hillary.
Blake said: ‘I think I should go up with Doorn. I could wear a wire: you’d know the minute I was through the door. Be right behind me.’
‘The place has got twenty bedrooms alone!’ pointed out Harding. ‘There are ten rooms on the ground floor and that’s not counting the kitchen and servant accommodation. Or whatever the hell’s below ground apart from the storerooms and dungeons and holes that people disappear in which aren’t even on the plans we’ve got here!’
‘Somebody make a decision!’ demanded Hillary and everyone looked at Henri Sanglier.
No! thought Sanglier, although not in answer to the choice. Whatever decision he made could ruin his grand exit triumph from Europol. Couldn’t do that. It was going to be his electoral launch. Why wasn’t Claudine Carter here! He couldn’t call her: show his indecision.
‘It’s an operational judgement,’ prompted Ulieff.
Bastard! thought Sanglier. Still almost three hours before the woman’s deadline expired. Something – anything – could happen in three hours. There’d be a reason to speak to Claudine Carter before then. Sanglier said: ‘We phone.’
Felicite answered.
Even Claudine was affected by the sense of isolation. It was physical within the embassy – with only McBride, Harrison and Rosetti with her in the ambassador’s study, Volker moving between there and the radio room – and actual over their link with the mobile communication centre. Duncan McCulloch was maintaining voice contact from a tree-shielded track off the Namur to Gembloux road close enough to the St Marc turn-off to monitor the passage of cars with French and Dutch registrations, with the number of Lascelles’ Jaguar the highest priority. As irrationally as everyone else, Claudine had expected the verbatim two-way exchange of Smet’s bugged telephone. What they were getting was McCulloch’s overall commentary on what was happening, comprehensive in itself but devoid of any back-and-forth discussion essential for the special pictures Claudine had to draw.
Without the closely defined maps of the area from which they were working at Namur there was no way for the five of them in the embassy to follow the dispersal of Belgians, Europol officers and Americans around the chateau, although Claudine visualized the same encirclement they’d imposed around the very centre of Brussels trying to scan Felicite’s phone calls. They even had to imagine the impossibility of approaching unseen the towered chateau and it was only when Claudine impatiently spoke herself to McCulloch that she realized he was in turn relaying decisions being reached not on the ground, which she’d imagined, but in Namur, twenty-five kilometres away.
While they were speaking McCulloch hurriedly broke away for a muffled conversation with Namur, returning to her just as quickly. ‘Felicite’s inside! They had the agent call the chateau and she answered…’ He broke away again for another mumbled conversation before coming back to her. ‘A car with French licence plates has just turned off on the St Marc road. I’m sure it had a kid in it… and there’s another just behind, Dutch car with two guys inside… They’re starting to arrive.’
‘When are we going in?’ demanded Claudine.
‘They haven’t decided how.’
‘Tell Namur I’m calling them.’
‘Will there be other children?’
‘Yes, darling.’
‘Dressed like this?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s silly.’
‘It’s a fairy castle, isn’t it?’
‘Were the other children taken like me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are they going back home?’
‘Yes. That’s what the party’s for. Because you’re all going home. But we’re going to play games first.’
‘What sort of games?’
‘You’ll see.’
‘Are you dressing up?’
‘Probably.’
‘In those funny masks?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re not going to hurt me, are you?’
