when they see me taking this envelope from the hotel safe, rip it open, throw the envelope away,’ examine the cassette and stick it in my pocket. They know they’ve been fooled once. You can bet your life that they’ll be more than prepared to believe that they’ve been fooled twice.’
For long seconds Dunnet stared at Harlow in total disbelief. When he spoke, his voice was a whisper. He said: This isn’t just asking for trouble. This is ordering your own pine box.’
‘Only the best of oak for world champions. With gold-plated handles. Come on.’
They went down the stairs together. Dunnet turned off towards the bar while Harlow went to the desk. As Dunnet’s eyes roved round the lobby, Harlow asked for and received his envelope, opened it, extracted the cassette and examined it carefully before putting it in an inside pocket of his leather jacket. As he turned away from the desk, Dunnet wandered up almost casually and said in a quiet voice. Tracchia. His eyes almost popped out of his head. He almost ran to the nearest phone booth.’
Harlow nodded, said nothing, passed through the swing doors, then ‘halted as his way was barred by a leather-coated figure. He said: ‘What are you doing here, Mary? It’s bitterly cold.’
‘I just wanted to say goodbye, that’s all.’
‘You could have said goodbye inside.’
‘I’m a very private person.’
‘Besides, you’ll be seeing me again tomorrow. In Vignolles.’
Will I, Johnny? Will I?’
‘Tsk! Tsk! Someone else who doesn’t believe I can drive. ‘
‘Don’t try to be funny, Johnny, because I’m not feeling that way. I’m feeling sick. I’ve this awful feeling that something dreadful is going to happen. To you.’
Harlow said lightly: ‘It’s this half-Highland blood of yours. Fey is what they call it. Having the second sight. If it’s any consolation to you the second-sighters have an almost perfect 100 per cent record of failure.’
‘Don’t laugh at me, Johnny.’ There were tears in her voice.
He put an arm round her shoulders.
‘Laugh at you? With you, yes. At you, never.’
‘Come back to me, Johnny.’
‘I’ll always come back to you, Mary.’
What? What did you say, Johnny?’
‘A slip of the tongue.’ He squeezed her shoulders, pecked her briskly on the cheek and strode off into the gathering darkness.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The giant Coronado transporter, its vast silhouette outlined by at least a score of lights on the sides and back, not to mention its four powerful headlamps, rumbled through the darkness and along the almost wholly deserted roads at a speed which would not have found very much favour with the Italian police speed patrols, had there been any such around that night which, fortunately, there weren’t.
Harlow had elected to take the autostrada across to Turin then turned south to Cuneo and was now approaching the Col de Tende, that fearsome mountain pass with the tunnel at the top which marks the boundary between Italy and France. Even in an ordinary car, in daylight and in good dry driving conditions, it calls for the closest of care and attention: the steepness of the ascent and descent and the seemingly endless series of murderous hairpin bends on both sides of the tunnel make it as dangerous and difficult a pass as any in Europe, But to drive a huge transporter, at the limit of its adhesion and road-holding in rain that was now beginning to fall quite heavily, was an experience that was hazardous to a degree.
For some, it was plainly not only hazardous but harrowing to a degree. The red-haired twin mechanics, one curled up in the bucket seat beside Harlow, the other stretched out on the narrow bunk behind the front seats, though quite exhausted were clearly never more wide awake in their lives. Not to put too fine a point on it, they were frankly terrified, either staring in horror at each other or closing their eyes as they slid and swayed wildly on each successive hairpin bend. And if they did leave the road it wouldn’t be just to bump across the surrounding terrain: it would be, to fall a, very long way indeed and their chances- <of survival were non-existent. The twins were beginning to realize why old Henry had never made it as a Grand Prix driver.
If Harlow was aware of the very considerable inner turmoil he was causing, he gave no signs of it. His entire being was concentrated on his driving and on scanning the road two, even three hairpin bends ahead. Tracchia and, by now, Tracchia’s associates knew that he was carrying the cassette and that they intended to separate him from that cassette Harlow did not for a moment doubt. When and where they would make their attempt was a matter for complete conjecture.
Crawling round the hairpins leading to the top of the Col de Tende made them the perfect target for an ambush. Whoever his adversaries were, Harlow was convinced they were based in Marseilles. It was unlikely that they would care to take the risk of running foul of the Italian law.
He was certain that he hadn’t been trailed from Monza. The chances were that they didn’t even know what route he was taking. They might wait until he was much nearer their home base or even arrived at it. On the other hand they might be considering the possibility that he was getting rid of the cassette en route. Speculation seemed not only unrewarding but useless. He put the wide variety of possibilities out of his mind and concentrated on his driving while still keeping every sense alert for danger. As it was they made the top of the Col without incident, passed through the Italian and French Customs and started on the wickedly winding descent on the other side.
When he came to La Giandola, he hesitated briefly. He could take the road to Ventimiglia thus taking advantage of the new autoroutes westwards along the Riviera or take the shorter but more winding direct route to Nice. He took into account that the Ventimiglia route would entail encountering the Italian and French Customs not once but twice again and decided on the direct route.
He made Nice without incident, followed the auto-route past Cannes, reached Toulon and took the N8 to Marseilles. It was about twenty miles out of Cannes, near the village of Beausset, that it happened.
As they rounded a bend they could see, about a quarter of a mile ahead, four lights, two stationary, two moving. The two moving lights were red and obviously hand-held, for they swung steadily through arcs of about ninety degrees.
There was an abrupt change in the engine note as Harlow dropped a gear. The sound brought the dozing twins to something like near wakefulness just in time to identify, a bare second after Harlow, the legends on the two stationary lights, red and blue and flashing alternately: one said STOP, the other POLICE. There were at least five men behind the lights, two of them standing in the middle of the road.
Harlow was hunched far forward over the wheel, his eyes narrowed until even the pupils seemed in danger of disappearing. He made an abrupt decision, arm and leg moved in swift and perfect unison, and again the engine note changed as the big diesel dropped another gear. Ahead, the two moving red lamps stopped swinging. It must have been evident to those wielding them that the transporter was slowing to a halt.
Fifty yards distant from the road-block Harlow stamped the accelerator pedal flat to the floor.
The transporter, designedly, had been in the correct gear to pick up maximum acceleration and it was in that gear that Harlow held it, the engine revolutions climbing as the distance between the transporter and the flashing lights ahead steadily and rapidly decreased. The two men with the red lights moved rapidly apart: it had dawned on them, and a very rude awakening it must have been, that the transporter had no intention of stopping.
Inside the cab the faces of Tweedledum and Tweedledee registered identical expressions of horrified and incredulous apprehension. Harlow’s face registered no expression at all as he watched the shadowy figures who had been standing so confidently in the middle of the road fling themselves to safety towards either verge. Above the still mounting roar of the diesel could be heard the sound of the splintering of glass and the screeching of buckling metal as the transporter over-ran the pedestal-mounted flashing lights in the middle of the road. Twenty yards farther on there came a series of heavy thuds from the rear of the transporter, a drumming sound that continued for another thirty or forty yards until Harlow swung the swaying transporter round a forty-five turn in the road. Harlow changed up once and then again into top gear. He appeared to be quite unconcerned which was considerably more than could be said for the twins.
