Nothing. He turned it again. And again and again. Nothing!
He released the hood and raced to the front of the car, not worried about the noise; worried about something far more serious. There was no reason for the rented car’s battery to be worn down, but even if it were, there would still be a faint click in the ignition. The light of the street-lamp spread over the exposed engine, showing him what he was afraid he might find.
The wires were cut, severed at their source with a surgeon’s precision. No amount of simple splicing would start the car; it would have to be towed away.
And whoever was responsible knew that an American would be without means of travel in an unfamiliar area in the middle of the night. If there were taxis in this outlying suburb, it was doubtful they’d be available at that hour; it was past three o’clock. Whoever immobilized the car wanted him to stay where he was; it had to follow that others would come after him. He had to run. As far and as fast as he could … reach the highway … hitch a ride north, out of the area.
He closed the hood. The sharp, metallic noise echoed throughout the street. He was grateful it had done so before.
He started up the block toward the traffic light; it was not operating now. Crossing the intersection, he began walking faster, then broke into a run. He tried to pace himself; there was a mile and a half before he reached the highway. He was sweating, and he could feel the knot in his stomach forming again.
He saw the lights before he heard the furious pitch of the engine. Up ahead, directly ahead on the straight road, the glare of headlights came out of the darkness, drawing closer so rapidly that the automobile had to be traveling at tremendous speed.
Noel saw an opening to his right, a space between a line of waist-high privet hedge, an entrance to another path to another doorway. He dived through it and rolled into the dirt beneath the shrubbery, wondering if he’d been seen. It was suddenly very important for him not to be involved with Gretchen Beaumont. She was a dismissable enigma, an unhappy, highly erotic … beautiful woman. But in herself a threat to Geneva, as was her brother.
The approaching car raced by. He had not been seen. Then the sound of the roaring motor was replaced by the screeching of tires. Holcroft crawled halfway through the break in the hedge, his face turned to his left, his eyes focused on the block behind him.
The car had stopped directly in front of the Beaumont house. Two men leaped from the car and raced up the path. Noel could hear the squeaking of the gate hinges. There was no point in remaining where he was; it was the moment to run. Now he heard the tapping of the door knocker a hundred yards away.
He moved to his right on his hands and knees, along the sidewalk, by a privet hedge, until he was in the shadows between the streetlamps. He got to his feet and ran.
He kept running straight ahead, up the dark, tree-lined street, block after block, corner after corner, hoping to God he would recognize the first turn to the highway when he came to it. He cursed cigarettes as his breath became shorter and turned into pain-filled gasps; sweat poured down his face and the pounding in his chest became intolerable. The rapid cracks of his own footsteps on the pavement frightened him. It was the sound of a man running in panic in the middle of the night, and that man in panic was himself.
Footsteps. Racing footsteps. They were his, but more than his! Behind him, steady, heavy, gaining on him. There was someone running after him! Someone running in silence, not calling his name, not demanding that he stop!… Or was his hearing playing tricks on him? The hammering in his chest vibrated throughout his entire body; were his footsteps echoing in his ears? He dared not turn, could not turn. He was going too fast—into light, into shadow.
He came to the end of yet another block, to another corner, and turned right, knowing it was not the first of the turns that would take him to the highway, but turning anyway. He had to know if there was someone behind him. He raced into the street.
The footsteps were there, the rhythm different, not his own, closer, ever closer, shortening the distance between them. He could stand it no longer; and he could run no faster. He twisted his waist, trying to look over his shoulder.
It was there; he was there! The figure of a man silhouetted in the light of a streetlamp on the corner. A stocky man, running in silence, shortening the gap, only yards away.
His legs aching, Noel hammered his feet on the surface in a final burst of speed. He turned again, his panic complete.
And his legs gave out, tangled in the chaos and the terror of the chase. He plunged headlong onto the street, his face scraping the asphalt, his extended hands icelike and stinging. He twisted over on his back, instinctively raising his feet to ward off his assailant—the silent, racing figure that shot out of the darkness and was suddenly over him.
Everything was a blur; only the thrashing outlines of arms and legs silhouetted in the darkness penetrated his sweat-filled eyes. And then he was pinned. An enormous weight was crushing his chest, a forearm—like a heavy iron bar—was across his throat, choking off all sound.
The last thing he saw was a hand raised high, a dark claw in the night sky, a curved hand that held an object in it. And then there was nothing. Only a huge chasm filled with wind. He was falling toward unseen depths in darkness.
He felt the cold first. It made him shiver. Then the dampness; it was everywhere. He opened his eyes to distorted images of grass and dirt. He was surrounded by wet grass and mounds of cold earth. He rolled over, grateful to see the night sky; it was lighter to his left, darker to his right.
His head ached; his face stung; his hands were in pain. Slowly he raised himself and looked around. He was in a field, a long flat stretch of ground that appeared to be a pasture. In the distance he could see the faint outlines of a wire fence—barbed wire strung between thick posts ten or twenty yards apart. It was a pasture.
He smelled cheap whiskey or rancid wine.
His clothes were drenched with it, his shirt sopping wet, sending the awful fumes into his nostrils. His clothes … his wallet, his money! He rose unsteadily to his feet and checked his pockets, both hands stinging as he plunged them into the moist cloth.
His wallet, his money clip with the bills in it, his watch—all were there. He had not been robbed, only beaten unconscious and taken away from the area where the Beaumonts lived. It was crazy!
He felt his head. A bump had formed, but the skin was not broken. He had been hit with some kind of padded blackjack or pipe. He took several awkward steps; he could move, and that was all that mattered. And he could see more clearly now; it would be morning soon.
Beyond the fence there was a slight rise in the ground, forming a ridge that extended as far as he could see in both directions. Along the ridge he saw highway lights. He started across the field, toward the fence and the ridge and the highway, hoping to convince a driver to give him a ride. As he climbed over the fence, a thought suddenly occurred to him. He checked his pockets again.
The photograph was gone!
A milk truck stopped and he climbed in, watching the smile of the driver fade abruptly as the stench filled the cab. Noel tried to make light of it—a predicament brought on by an innocent American’s having been taken in by some very sharp British sailors in Portsmouth—but the driver found nothing amusing. Holcroft got out at the first town.
It was an English village, the Tudor architecture of the square marred by a profusion of delivery trucks in front of a roadside stop.
“There’s a telephone inside,” said the milkman. “And a gents’ room, too. A wash would do you no harm.”
Noel walked into the sight and sounds of the early-morning truckers, the smell of hot coffee somehow reassuring. The world went on; deliveries were made and small comforts accepted without particular notice. He found the washroom, and did what he could to minimize the effects of the night. Then he sat in a booth next to the pay telephone on the wall and had black coffee, waiting for an angry trucker to conclude an argument with an angrier dispatcher on the oth
er end of the line. When the call was finished, Noel got out of the booth and went to the phone, Gretchen Beaumont’s telephone number in his hand. There was nothing to do but try to find out what happened, try to reason with her, if, indeed, she had returned.
He dialed.
“Beaumont residence.” A male voice was on the line.
“Mrs. Beaumont, please.”
“May I ask who’s calling?”
“A friend of the commander. I heard Mrs. Beaumont was leaving today to join him. I’d like her to take a message to him.”
“Who is this, please?”
Noel replaced the receiver. He did not know who had answered the phone; he knew only that he needed help. Professional help. It was possibly dangerous for Geneva to seek it, but it was necessary. He would be cautious—very cautious—and learn what he could.
He rummaged through his jacket pockets for the card given him by the MI-Five man at the Belgravia Arms. There was only a name—Harold Payton-Jones—and a telephone number. The clock on the wall read ten minutes to seven; Noel wondered if anyone would answer the phone. He placed the call to London.
“Yes?”
“This is Holcroft.”
“Oh, yes. We wondered if you’d ring up.”
Noel recognized the voice. It was the gray-haired intelligence agent from the hotel. “What are you talking about?” Noel said.
“You’ve had a difficult night,” the voice said.
“You expected me to call! You were there. You were watching!”
Payton-Jones did not respond directly. “The rented car’s at a garage in Aldershot. It should be repaired by noon. The name’s easily remembered; it’s Boot’s. Boot’s Garage, Aldershot. There’ll be no charge, no bill, no receipt.”
“Wait a minute! What the hell is this? You had me followed! You had no right to do that.”
“I’d say it was a damned good thing we did.”
“You were in that car at three o’clock this morning! You went into Beaumont’s house!”
“I’m afraid we weren’t and we didn’t.” The MI-Five man paused briefly. “And if you believe that, then you didn’t get a very good look at them, did you?”
“No. Who were they?”
“I wish we knew. Our man got there closer to five.”
“Who ran after me? Who bashed my head in and left me in that goddamned field?”
Again the agent paused. “We don’t know anything about that. We knew only that you had left. In a hurry, obviously, your car immobilized.”
“It was a setup! I was the pigeon!”
“Quite so. I’d advise you to be more cautious. It’s both tasteless and dangerous to take advantage of the wife of a commander in the Royal Navy while her husband’s at sea.”
“Bullshit! The commander’s no more at sea than I am! He was on a plane to Rio less than two weeks ago. I saw him! He’s got something to do with the Von Tiebolts.”
“Most assuredly,” replied Payton-Jones. “He married the oldest daughter. As to his being on an aircraft two weeks ago, it’s preposterous. He’s been in the Mediterranean for the past three months.”
“No! I saw him! Listen to me. There was a photograph in the bedroom. I took it. It was him! And something else. There was writing on the back. In German.”
“What did it say?”
“I don’t know. I don’t speak German. But it’s goddamned unusual, don’t you think?” Holcroft stopped. He had not meant to go this far. In his anger, he had lost his control! Goddamn it!
“What’s unusual?” asked the agent. “German is Mrs. Beaumont’s native tongue; the family’s spoken it for years. An endearing phrase, words of devotion to or from her new husband? Not unusual at all.”
“I guess you’re right,” said Noel, backing off. Then he realized he had retreated too quickly. The MI-Five man was suspicious; Noel could sense it in his next words.
“On second thought, perhaps you should bring the photograph to us.”
“I can’t. I don’t have it.”
“I thought you said you took it.”
“I don’t have it now. I … I just don’t have it.”
“Where are you, Holcroft? I think you should drop in and see us.”
Without consciously making the decision, Noel pressed down the lever, severing the connection. The act preceded the thought, but once it was done, he understood clearly why he did it. He could not ally himself with MI Five, he could not solidify any relationship whatsoever. On the contrary, he had to get as far away from British Intelligence as was possible. There could be no association at all. MI Five had followed him. After they had told him they would leave him alone, they had gone back on their word.
The survivors of Wolfsschanze had spelled it out: There are those who may learn of the work in Geneva … who will try to stop you, deceive you … kill you.
Holcroft doubted that the British would kill him, but they were trying to stop him. If they succeeded, it was as good as killing him. The men of Wolfsschanze did not hesitate. Peter Baldwin, Esq. Ernst Manfredi. Jack. All dead.
The men of Wolfsschanze would kill him if he failed. And that was the terrible irony. He did not want to fail. Why couldn’t they understand that? Perhaps more than the survivors of Wolfsschanze, he wanted to see Heinrich Clausen’s dream realized.
He thought of Gretchen Beaumont, follower of instincts, opportunities, and men. And of her brother, the arrogant, brilliant multilingual newspaperman who was suspected of being an assassin. Neither would be remotely acceptable to Geneva.
There was one child left. Helden von Tiebolt—now Helden Tennyson—currently living in Paris. Address unknown. But he had a name. “Gallimard.”
Paris.
He had to get to Paris. He had to elude MI Five.
13
There was a man in London, a stage designer, who’d had a brief vogue as a decorator among the wealthy on both sides of the Atlantic. Noel suspected that Willie Ellis was more often hired for his outrageous personality and his talents as a raconteur than for any intrinsic abilities as an interior decorator. He had worked with Willie on four occasions, vowing each time never to do it again but knowing each time that he probably would. For the truth was that Noel liked Willie immensely. The mad Englishman was not all artifice and elegance. Underneath, in quiet moments, there was a thinking, talented man of the theater who knew more about the history of design than anyone Holcroft had ever met. He could be fascinating.
When he was not outrageous.
They had kept in touch over the years, and whenever Noel was in London, there was always time for Willie. He had thought there would be no time this trip, but that was changed now. He needed Willie. He got the number from London information and dialed.
“Noel, my friend, you’re out of your mind! No one’s up but those stinking birds and street cleaners.”
“I’m in trouble, Willie. I need help.”
Ellis knew the small village where Holcroft was calling from and promised to be there as soon as he could, which he estimated would be something close to an hour. He arrived thirty minutes late, cursing the idiots on the road. Noel climbed into the car, taking Willie’s outstretched hand as well as his characteristic abuse.
“You’re an absolute mess and you smell like a barmaid’s armpit. Keep the window open and tell me what the hell happened.”
Holcroft kept the explanation simple, giving no names and obscuring the facts. “I have to get to Paris, and there are people who want to stop me. I can’t tell you much more than that except to say that I haven’t done anything wrong, anything illegal.”
“The first is always relative, isn’t it? And the second is generally subject to interpretation and a good barrister. Shall I assume a lovely girl and an irate husband?”
“That’s fine.”
“That keeps me clean. What stops you from going to the airport and taking the next plane to Paris?”
“My clothes, briefcase, and passport are at my hotel in London. If I go there to g
et them, the people who want to stop me will find me.”
“From the looks of you, they’re quite serious, aren’t they?”
“Yes. That’s about it, Willie.”
“The solution’s obvious,” said Ellis. “I’ll get your things and check you out. You’re a wayward colonial I found in a Soho gutter. Who’s to argue with my preferences?”
“There may be a problem with the front desk.”
“I can’t imagine why. My money’s coin of the realm, and you’ll give me a note; they can match signatures. We’re nowhere near as paranoid as our cousins across the sea.”
“I hope you’re right, but I’ve got an idea the clerks have been reached by the people who want to find me. They may insist on knowing where I am before they let you have my things.”
“Then I’ll tell them,” said Willie, smiling. “I’ll leave them a forwarding address and a telephone number where your presence can be confirmed.”
“What?”
“Leave it to me. By the way, there’s some cologne in the glove compartment. For Christ’s sake, use it.”
Ellis made arrangements for the whiskey-soaked clothes to be picked up by the cleaners and returned by midafternoon, then left the Chelsea flat for the Belgravia Arms.
Holcroft showered, shaved, put the soiled clothes in a hamper outside the door, and called the car-rental agency. He reasoned that if he went for the car in Aldershot, MI Five would be there. And when he drove away, the British would not be far behind.
The rental agency was not amused, but Holcroft gave them no choice. If they wanted the automobile back, they would have to pick it up themselves. Noel was sorry, but there was an emergency; the bill could be sent to his office in New York.
He had to get out of England with as little notice as possible. Undoubtedly, MI Five would have the airports and the Channel boats watched. Perhaps the solution was to be found in a last-minute ticket on a crowded plane to Paris. With any luck, he’d reach Orly Airport before MI Five knew he had left England. The shuttles to Paris were frequent, the customs procedures lax. Or he could buy two tickets—one to Amsterdam, one to Paris—go through the KLM gates, then on some pretext come back outside and rush to the Paris departure area, where Willie held his luggage.