No Mercy (41 page)

'It will be locked after dark. And at this time of year . . .'

'The gate will be unlocked. You waste the time . . .'

The connection was broken. Tweed gently handed the
receiver back to Monica. He looked round at anxious faces.

'He's holding her at Stonehenge.'

'What?' exclaimed Marler.

'Yes, Stonehenge. Of all places. But it has an advantage.
Along the route the rest of you have to follow, you pass Stonehenge . . .'

'We'll sort out the bastard for good.' growled Harry.

'You'll do nothing of the sort. Charmian was very clear I
travel in my own car and alone. He sees anyone else and
immediately kills Paula. You leave before me and you do not
even look at Stonehenge as you pass it. Near Wylye just
beyond the dual carriageway you wait in a lay-by. I will join
you later.' He paused. 'I will sack anyone who disobeys my
order.'

Monica was appalled. She had never heard Tweed speak
in such a way before. She jumped up quickly.

'A quick cup of tea before anyone leaves.'

She was out of the room as Marler leaped to his feet. He ran to Tweed's desk. His tone of voice was commanding.

'Give me Loriot's private number in Paris.'

Tweed, his mind on his recollection of Stonehenge and its
layout, wrote down the number. Marler snatched the piece
of paper, ran to Monica's empty desk, sat down and dialled
the number. He hoped to God Loriot was in his office.

'Who is this, please?' Loriot enquired in French.

'Marler. You remember me?'

'My dear chap, of course I do. When are we going to have
the pleasure . . .?'

The chief of French counterespionage had reverted to
speaking in perfect English. Marler cut off
his greetings.

'Listen. This is a major emergency. I must know
everything you know about Charmian, the assassin.'

'Cold-blooded hired killer. The best. We still have no description of him. He is like a fox.'

'Is he religious?' Marler asked quickly.

'He is a Catholic. A lapsed one. But we believe that
although not a churchgoer he does attend confessional. We
think he is in Britain.'

'Would he kill a priest if the money was right?'

'Oh, no!' Loriot sounded horror-struck. 'Not for all the gold in Fort Knox.'

'Thank you. I must go. Time is running out.'

'What was all that about?' asked Newman.

Marler ignored him. Slipping on his raincoat, he headed
for the door, speaking to Tweed as he ran.

'I need fifteen minutes, Tweed. You wait until I get back.
He'll wait for you to arrive. It's you he wants.'

Once outside in the drizzle, Marler dived down the steps
into the front area below ground, unchained the Harley
Davidson, hauled it up the steps by sheer brute strength and
was skidding out of the Crescent in no time.

He headed for a nearby theatrical costumier's that boasted it could dress an actor in any clothes required. He walked in
with a bin liner in one hand, a sheaf of twenty-pound notes
in the other.

He told the proprietor what he wanted and asked if he could have them in five minutes, including checking the
fitting. The man knew his stock, knew where everydiing was.
Marler stripped off his raincoat, tried on what he had
ordered. Perfect fit.

He asked the price, threw twenty-pound notes on the
counter. His purchases went inside the bin liner. Then he
was out of the shop, stuffing the bin liner inside his pannier
and on his way back to Park Crescent.

Arriving, he took out the bin liner and dumped the
machine back into the area. Entering the building, he
dashed through to the back, scribbled a note for Harry and
attached it to the first Land Rover, then got behind the
wheel of its twin.

Tweed had swallowed his last mouthful of tea when Harry
ran into the office, waving a piece of paper and in an
unusually agitated state. He stopped in front of Tweed's
desk, catching his breath.

'Marler has driven off in one of the Land Rovers. The so-
and-so left me this note.'

Tweed picked up the note Harry had dropped on his desk. . It was clearly written in a great hurry but was still legible:
'Sorry, Harry. Am following up a tip. Marler.'

'Doesn't even say a tip about what,' Harry raged. 'And
now we have only one Land Rover to take us all to
Wylye

'Calm down,' Tweed said quietly, swiftly adjusting to the
new situation. 'Harry, you will be driving. There'll still be
plenty of room for Newman and Nield. You still have plenty
of weapons in the Land Rover, don't you? Good. When you're
passing Stonehenge everyone except yourself will crouch
down and cover themselves with canvas. You can leave now?
Then leave. Now!'

Monica spoke when the team had dashed out of the office,
a puzzled expression on her face.

'I saw you take Paula's mobile before Marler rushed off.
So what's the use of that with your team miles further on at
Wylye? I've looked at the map.'

'You never know,' said Tweed as he slipped on his
overcoat. 'One more thing. It's unlikely, but if Charmian
phones and asks to speak to me you reply that I left for an
unknown destination some time ago. Be vague.'

'Good luck,' Monica wished him with a tremble in her
voice.

Tweed's mind was a tumble of different scenarios as he
drove out of London on to the M3. He seemed to have
missed rush hour by minutes although it was now dark. Was
Paula still alive? He suppressed the flood of emotion that
threatened to fill his brain. He had visited Stonehenge
several years before and his excellent memory could visualize
the extraordinary and vast prehistoric circle of megalithic
stones, reputed once, ages ago, to have been a place of
worship to strange gods.

Stones? They were immense blocks standing vertically, some at least eighty feet high. To keep out vandals a high
wire fence had been erected round the whole area. They
were located on a hill just beyond where two roads forked.
The A344 to the right headed northwest while the A303
continued to the southwest.

The only entrance was off the A344, a heavy gate you
paid to enter through. At this time of day after dark it
would be closed - probably closed anyway at this time of
the year. Yet Charmian had ordered him to use this
entrance. He'd probably by now have broken the lock. If I
use that way in, Tweed thought, he'll be waiting for me
with a bullet.

Recalling some of this before racing out of Park Crescent,
he had obtained from George, the guard, a strong pair of
metal clippers. He was sure Charmian would, perched up on the hill, be watching for his arrival. So, he'd think Tweed had
made a mistake when, reaching the fork, he continued a
short distance along the A303.

He'd park a short distance beyond the fork. He also
recalled that on this side a steep grassy slope climbed to the
top where the megaliths were standing. Using the metal
clippers, he would cut a hole in the fence, crawl through,
slowly make his way to the top.

He pulled in to a services on the M3, checked the working
mechanism of his Walther, slid back the full magazine. He thought he would probably die as he appeared over the top
of the hill, but he hoped he'd fire one deadly shot at
Charmian at the same moment that the assassin fired to kill him.

Later, turning off the M3 at Junction 8, he saw a clear
road ahead, pressed his foot down. His mind switched to the
West Country. Earlier, at the office, he had phoned a friend
who was a retired marine expert. Without giving too much detail, he had asked him to calculate the probable progress
of the
Oran.
With details like the tonnage of the freighter, its
probable speed, date and likely time of passing through the
Straits of Gibraltar, the marine expert had given him his
estimate of when it was likely to reach the West Country.

Sometime tonight had been the expert's rough forecast.
What had given Tweed more confidence in this estimate was
when he had heard from Lucinda that all the executives of Gantia were travelling to Abbey Grange.

Larry, Lucinda, Michael and Aubrey Greystoke. One of
them, he was convinced, was the Skeleton Murderer. And
the same person was behind the missile plot. They had
needed £400 million to make up for their losses on the
dotcom Orlando Xanadu, to replace the huge sum they had transferred from the reserves of Gantia, had
stolen.

Tweed had included Michael among the suspects because
he had never been completely convinced that he was
suffering from amnesia. Professor Saafeld, now the top
postmortem expert in the country, had once told Tweed
what he thought of the people Churchill once described as
trick cyclists. 'I've known a lot of them. They're all nutcases.
Why? Because they spend so much time dealing with
unbalanced patients they end up like them. Nutcases.'

Absorbed by his swirl of thoughts, trying to blot out of his mind his terrible anxiety about Paula, Tweed was driving on
autopilot. He was surprised when he saw the signpost to
Andover off to his right. He was less than twenty miles from
Stonehenge.

26

At Stonehenge the twenty or so megaliths reared up
massively in the moonlight like sentries out of a horror film.
Their huge bulk seemed to signal they would be there for
ever. A few had fallen and lay on the scrubby hilltop like immense seats. A chill wind blew from the west.

Paula did not like the ominous silence that hung over this
weird, menacing place. She was only thankful she had thrown
her overcoat on before she'd dashed out of Park Crescent on
her way to the deli. She still felt frozen with fear, with the cold.

On arrival, Charmian had parked his car behind a hedge
a short distance up the A344. He had then carried Paula,
wrists and legs bound, a gag across her mouth, to the
entrance gate. One bullet from his 5-mm Glock had dealt
with the lock. Picking her up again, he had found the perfect
place to secure her.

After perching her on one of the fallen megaliths, he had
used more rope to fasten her to it. She was sitting up and her
feet just reached the ground. He wanted Tweed to see her
before he killed him with the first bullet. Then he would kill her.

From her perch she had a clear view of the road from
London until Charmian, anxious to conceal her from
passing motorists, pushed up a large rock and blocked her view. She knew that Tweed would come to rescue her and this was her greatest fear. Her captor dominated the whole area from the hilltop.