Cross of Fire (51 page)

'You think I'm a raving lunatic?' Butler continued in
French. 'Take this for all three rooms for the night.'

'I will see you are not disturbed.'

The clerk leered. He was convinced the three rooms were
a ploy - that Paula would be sharing a bed with Butler.
Which was exactly the impression they wished to create.

Butler carried Paula's case into the middle room, so she
would be flanked by Nield and himself in the other two
rooms. He was leaving the cramped room when Paula
spoke.

'Thank you, Harry. For looking after me.'

'Which reminds me,' Butler responded. 'No slipping
away without us.'

'I promise. In the morning I'll phone Isabelle and hope I
can go see her with my two escorts. Then in the afternoon
we'll drive to the Villa Forban so I can renew my acquain
tance with Jean Burgoyne. After phoning her first.'

'Should be OK. Just so long as we remember we're
right in the danger zone. Anything could happen. Good
night ...'

In a small apartment near the rue du Bac on the left bank in
Paris, Marler sat up in bed smoking a king-size. He was
fully dressed in French denims and a French shirt, and his only concession to brief relaxation was his open-necked
collar.

By his side was one of the most sophisticated mobile
telephones in the world, engineered by the basement crew
at Park Crescent. It was equipped with a powerful transmit
ter and a very long aerial which extended at the press of a button. He was in frequent communication with Tweed at
Navarre's Ministry of Defence. But its potential
range was far greater.

Inside a ready-packed suitcase was an assortment of
items apart from a change of clothes. Marler was posing as a cosmetics salesman: inside the small case were 'samples' of his trade - certain articles of equipment disguised by the
Engine Room at Park Crescent to look like cosmetics.

Inside a large hold-all under a woollen scarf was a
dismantled Armalite rifle complete with sniperscope and
ammo. The weapon had been delivered to him inside the
hold-all by one of Lasalle's trusted couriers in a dubious
Montmartre club. Marler had then travelled aboard the
Metro to return to his base. The only person in the world
who knew his whereabouts was Tweed.

Marler was also carrying a very large sum of money and a collection of open-booking Air Inter tickets. Some had
already been used. Checking the time, Marler closed his
eyes and fell asleep. He had the ability to catnap at any
hour. The mobile phone tucked on the pillow close to his
ear. He'd hear the beep instantly. He was expecting fresh
instructions.

Chapter Thirty-Three

'Here we are. My little home in the forest.' said Moshe.

Newman stared grimly at the Villa Jaune. It was large -
but little more than an old wooden cabin. Located in a
clearing, it was encircled by a dense palisade of firs which
seemed about to advance on it in the night, to swallow it
up. Where the hell the 'Jaune' - the 'Yellow' - came in was more than Newman could fathom, but he felt disinclined to
ask Moshe.

He checked his watch. Well over an hour to dawn yet. As Moshe carried both cases to the verandah and opened the heavy front door, Newman gathered his own load. He
took the sack containing twenty empty mineral water
bottles, Isabelle's metal funnel, and the jerrican of spare
petrol out of the car.

The vehicle was parked near the side of the 'villa', and
was partly concealed by the bank of undergrowth Moshe
had driven it into. Newman arrived on the verandah as Moshe switched on lights. Dumping his load, Newman
called out: 'Moshe, I'm going to take a look round the
outside. Be back in a minute.'

'A glass of wine will be waiting...'

A high wind was blowing spasmodically. As Newman prowled round the area he heard a sound like the surge of the sea, realized it was the wind in the treetops. The wind dropped suddenly and a similar sound continued. A crash
ing of breakers on the nearby shore.

Newman studied all the approaches. He went to the rear
of the cabin, found the deep gully Moshe had told him
about. Masked by last autumn's dead bracken, it ran a
distance
away from the back of the Villa Jaune. A man
crawling along it would be completely concealed from any
one standing at ground level. Halfway along it ran through
a culvert, then continued on the other side.

Newman found the atmosphere of the Landes claustrophobic. He felt hemmed in as he moved silently over the spongy ground, his Smith & Wesson in his hand. He felt a need to get into the open and walked towards the sea.

The forest ended abruptly. Ahead of him was the vast
ness of the Atlantic, huge rollers sweeping in slowly, thump
ing down on the shore, spreading a carpet of surf on the beach. His night vision was good and he was aware sud
denly of movement on the beach.

He was perched up where he stood and between where he waited and the beach was an area of Sahara-like sand
dunes. Further south the dunes rose to a great height. The
figure crouched by the shore, picking up something, was an
old woman wrapped in a black shawl.

He moved back into the forest slowly, then walked
rapidly to the cabin. Easy to find - from a distance it was a
beacon of lights. Was Moshe crazy? He opened the front
door and his companion was sitting in front of a large
wooden table, sipping from a glass of wine. He gestured to
a second glass.

'That is for you.'

'Are you mad? This place is lit up like a Christmas tree.
If they are coming for you, you're making it so damned
easy for them.'

'If they're coming, I am ready.'

'Well, I'm not. And there's a weird old woman fooling
around on the beach. At this hour.'

'Good!' Moshe jumped up. 'Old Martine. She is the one who will tell you what has been happening here. We go to
her now...'

'After you've switched off the bloody lights and locked
the door ...'

Together they hurried to the sea. Newman had trouble
keeping his balance as he plunged after a more sure-footed
Moshe down the sand dunes. Moshe called out to the old
woman, then warned Newman.

'Old Martine is suspicious of strangers. She has reason to
be, as you'll hear. I will introduce you as a security agent
from Britain - which in a way you are. She thinks all French
security personnel are in league with de Forge.'

Newman now saw what the crone had been doing. Close to where the surf carpet covered the sand she was collecting
brushwood washed ashore. Her lined face with a beaky
nose and a strong jaw peered out at Newman from under
the shawl as Moshe made the introduction.

'I am here on an official mission.' Newman told her
frankly in French. 'To investigate the crimes of General de
Forge.'

Her alert eyes studied him. 'Your French is very good for an Englishman,' she observed.

'I have been told that I can pass for a Frenchman...'

Newman spoke the words slowly in English, waited a
moment, then reverted to French.

'You have information which would be useful to help me bring him to justice?'

The dam broke. She spoke rapidly, brandishing her
sheaf of brushwood like a weapon. Her eyes glittered with
hatred.

'My nephew was in the Third Corps. De Forge had him
shot as a spy. Just as he had many others shot here. This is
de Forge's cemetery - the Landes. Come with me. Come! I will show you. Come!'

Her free gnarled hand grasped Newman's arm. He was
surprised at the strength of her grip as she hurried him back to the sand dunes, released her grasp, scrambled in front of
him up the dunes with great agility. The wind had dropped and as she led them into the forest away from the surge of
the Atlantic an eerie silence closed in on the group.

She was heading towards the Villa Jaune and then turned south away from it, following a path between the trunks of
the giant firs. Newman checked his watch. He hoped this
wouldn't take long. He was anxious to return to the cabin. As they'd passed through sleepy St Girons he'd noticed a car parked in a side lane with two men inside. He had the
strongest instinct the maximum danger hour was close to
dawn.

The crone led them down a shallow slope into a clearing
littered with low humps shrouded with dead undergrowth and rotting bracken. Old Martine brandished her
brush
wood like a wand.

'De Forge's burial ground.' She peered up at Newman.
'You have strong nerves, sir?'

'I've seen some grim things in my time.'

'Then use your foot to dig into one of those humps. If you like, use your gloved hands - although you may not like what you find ...'

Newman crouched over the nearest hump, thrust aside a deep mass of matted bracken, swept soil damp from recent
rain to one side. His hand encountered something hard. He
dug deeper, stopped. He was staring at a skull, part of a
skeleton stretched out and which, he guessed, must have
lain there for at least two years.

But what fixed his gaze was the third eye in the skull. A hole which could only have been made by a bullet. No trace of clothes. Removing his gloves, he took out the small camera supplied by Park Crescent, pressed the button for night shots, took three. Putting on his gloves, he then replaced the soil, hauled the undergrowth back in roughly its original position.

'Now here!'

The crone had taken charge. She stood, erect now, her
bony finger pointed at another hump which showed signs
of recent disturbance. He walked over to it, crouched again,
gritted his teeth, removed the covering of bracken and soil.
Underneath lay the body of a French soldier in the early
stages of decomposition. This time there was no doubt that
he had been dispatched by a bullet fired into the forehead.
Newman knew he was a French soldier because he still
wore his uniform of a private.

He used his camera to take ten shots of this corpse. It
was the body of a young man who had joined up to serve
the Army and this was his fate. Newman then forced
himself to search the corpse's pockets but all traces of
identification had been removed. He looked at the man
before he rebuilt the grave. The victim gave a macabre impression of being asleep.

'Now here!'

The crone again. The bony finger pointing at death, at
another hump. Newman was experiencing a feeling of nausea. He shook his head, glanced slowly round the clearing, counted twenty makeshift graves. A horrific crime.

'Why?' he asked the crone.