He leaned over and began prodding carefully, like a doctor. The wound was just behind the man’s ear. It was only a small hole — a hole made by a .22, at the most. A lady’s gun.
He climbed thoughtfully back into the driving seat, switched off the interior light, and started the engine. There were no reversing lights, so he had to move slowly, guided by Ryderbeit’s tall figure waving him impatiently on. Beyond the bend was a short path leading up to a clearing surrounded by trees: evidently a layby for picnickers wanting to enjoy a view of the lake. The ideal spot. While darkness lasted they would be invisible from the road — unless someone were looking for them.
Ryderbeit joined him in the passenger seat and tapped out a cigar. Packer nodded towards the back of the truck. ‘What made you think he was still alive?’ he said casually.
Ryderbeit bit the end of his cigar and spat out the leaf. ‘It’s like with certain animals, soldier — snakes in particular. You think you’ve killed the little bastards, then half an hour later they come twitching back to life.’
‘So you shot him?’
‘I shot him.’ Ryderbeit leaned back and grinned over the flame of a match. ‘Something troubling you, soldier? Your conscience, maybe?’
‘Yes, something is troubling me. But it’s not my conscience — though it does have something to do with our friend back there. I don’t like his having been alone.’
‘Shit, if he’d had anyone with him, he’d have shown up by now.’
‘Now just think for a minute, Sammy. We’ve run into a carefully staged ambush, timed to the second —’ he pointed to a large metal box under the dashboard, beside Ryderbeit’s knee — ‘using a powerful UHF R/T, certainly strong enough to pick up Klosters. Even in the mayhem of the avalanche, someone must have seen us leaving, while they probably had a “lamplighter” — “watchdog” to you — back up the road to signal our approach. And our friend in the back knows how long it takes for a car to get here, and he has the Fiat’s full description, waits till we come round the bend, then chucks out his spiked chain.’
‘What the hell are you getting at?’ Ryderbeit drawled. ‘I’m not a babe in arms — I can figure how an ambush is set up. I’ve set up dozens myself.’
‘Alone?’
Ryderbeit was silent for some time, sucking steadily at his cigar, which gave off a dull glow, like the cockpit lighting of an aircraft at night. ‘So what do you figure?’ he said at last. ‘You’d think that if the Ruler’s boys had rumbled us back there in Klosters, they’d have done better going to the Swiss police? Or maybe the Ruler’s fussy about other people clearing up his own shit?’
‘The Ruler’s dead,’ Packer said.
Ryderbeit’s eye flashed at him. ‘Yeah. And he’s not got a long arm, but it reaches out from under the winding-sheet!’
There was another pause. ‘All I know,’ said Packer at last, ‘is that you don’t set up an ambush with an elaborate radio link-up, on a busy international road, with just one man against two.’
‘What do you expect from a bunch of wogs? The Ruler’s people may be getting fat on oil, but they’re still a load of desert rats with crabs up their arses. They don’t have the same refined techniques as you and me, soldier.’
‘Hell they don’t. Their Intelligence boys were trained by the West, only without Western scruples. They certainly know enough not to set up an ambush with odds like this one.’
Again Ryderbeit was silent. During the drive up to the layby, Packer had had the heater turned on full; but now the engine was off, it was growing bitterly cold. He climbed over into the back again and got his anorak, gloves, and an extra sweater out of his case and put them on. Then he paused, looking down at the half-hidden body of the gunman; took off his gloves and began going through the dead man’s pockets.
There was very little: a crumpled packet of Swiss cigarettes and a ‘cricket’ lighter, a cheap plastic wallet containing a few hundred Swiss francs, and a cracked, dog-eared photograph of a stout woman standing beside a small boy. He searched the wallet again, but it was unnaturally empty, like that of a man preparing for suicide. Packer removed the money, stuffed it into his trouser pocket; then returned to his seat.
‘Who was he?’ said Ryderbeit.
‘Nobody. No passport, credit cards, driving licence — nothing.’
Ryderbeit yawned. ‘Well, at least we’ve knocked off one of the biggest bastards of them all. That’s a nice thought to sleep on.’
He stamped out his cigar, then curled up like a cat with his head on one side and his good eye closed, while his glass one stared at the dashboard.
Packer could not sleep. His body was stiff with cold, and the gruesome events of the last half-hour became a blur, giving way to a parade of provocative images: dinner by candlelight, fondue bourguignon, plump shiny men in dinner-jackets, fragile women with sharp eyes and brittle voices. He looked at his watch. It was going to be a long night.
He tried again to unravel the puzzle of the ambush: the speed and ease with which he and Ryderbeit had been picked up in Klosters, despite the confusion following the avalanche. Then this solitary gunman, operating in the dark against two targets, without knowing whether they were armed or not.
The problem did not resolve itself, but at least it concentrated his
