Текст книги "The Unfair Fare Affair "

Автор книги: Peter Leslie

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"I said there's no organization as such," Kuryakin interrupted. "I said the organization, the network itself, was a one-man show. I didn't say nobody ever helped him."

"Then...?"

"But he never uses professional underworld help. There's no recognized gang. That's why there's no underworld gossip, as I said. He recruits his help from all over... and the extraordinary thing is, they have no idea what they are doing! None of them knows he is part of an escape organization carrying international crooks beyond the reach of justice!"

"How can that be?"

"He has invented clever and often involved reasons. He has painstakingly built up elaborate covers to account for the presence of the escapees. And the helpers never realize who they are!... The proprietors of the junkyards, for example, mostly think they are turning a blind eye to some minor racket involving the reregistering of stolen cars; those whose yards are near frontiers think they are being paid to help with the smuggling of a few bottles of liquor or a few cases of cigarettes in an untraceable vehicle; the helpers on each side of the Iron Curtain believe they are assisting political refugees. The plane to Corsica would have been no problem because Bartoluzzi himself is a Corsican, and so was Mathieu."

"And Waverly's little lot? If I remember rightly, they spoke of a series of people using that route. Doesn't that sound professional?"

"It is professional. But they still don't know. Bartoluzzi was using an existing network there. The Minerva was probably his own, but the rest of the routine belonged to an ultraright-wing group that occupies itself with clandestinely returning ex-Nazis to Germany, using a few of the more venal Dutch for additional staff on the way. I expect he offered to contribute handsomely to their funds if they would allow him to use their facilities this once. From Denmark, it was very convenient, you see."

"Remarkable!" Solo said admiringly. "I suppose it's just possible. If he planned very carefully and spaced out his clients right, choosing only those he knew he could handle, he could dodge around doing one after the other, rather like a tramp steamer taking cargo from port to port as it goes along."

"Exactly. And as an ex-haulage man, he's known to a lot of the people along the route anyway. Half the customs and immigration personnel at the frontiers seem to be old friends for a start!"

"And this, no doubt, is why nobody knew how to get in touch with the organization in the underworld, why nobody ever knew if they were acceptable as clients until he contacted them—there was nobody to contact unless he himself happened to be in the area; and he'd make contact only if he thought the case was worthwhile and if it worked in with his other commitments geographically."

"Exactly," Illya said again, peering through the crack he bad left between the rusty back doors of the truck. "Napoleon, I have to go now—I can see Bartoluzzi through the trees. He's coming back with the food."

"Okay," Solo's voice said cheerfully. "I'll listen again around nine. In the meantime... bon appetit!"

Bartoluzzi had produced—from heaven knew what secret source!—a large, round peasant loaf, a carton of hot sauerkraut with four huge wursts, a great wedge of Emmenthaler cheese, and two bottles of Schluck.

As he poured the wine, he told Illya of what he had discovered at the back doors of the little town—speaking in the bragger's third person so often adopted by monomaniacs. "Bartoluzzi saw," he said, "in the local newspaper that they have suspected your getaway from Paris. He has been cunning enough to have got you thus far without them once seeing you. But he has to be careful. Bartoluzzi must use all his skills, for the paper says that they suspect you are heading southwest. They suspect!" He laughed contemptuously. "They will need more than suspicion to match the guile of Bartoluzzi!"

In his turn, Illya laughed too. He elbowed the door open and spat realistically into the night. "I'd like to see the frontier guards who could stop me getting through once I'd made my mind up!" he rasped.

"Fortunately, the question will not arise. Bartoluzzi has arranged all so that no guard will see you."

"Bartoluzzi arranges things well; he has a talent for it," Illya said in a conciliatory tone. (The style of speech was catching!) "But tell me—such things cannot be arranged in a day. It takes time to organize. Bartoluzzi could not do all this without planning. Even I could not. Tell me... how did this thing begin?"

Over the outthrust of the huge chin, eyes gleamed in the dusk. "To many, I would say, 'Mind your business.' But you are a man. You have done things such as a man might do…" He paused, swallowed the remainder of a mouthful of sausage, and shot the Russian a glance before he continued.

"I will tell you. I was born in a small village near Venaco, right in the center of Corsica. My family was very poor. They never took vacations or left the village. But sometimes, once every two or three years, I was asked by the local curé to go with other children to the coast, to see the sea. We would get in an old bus and go for the day to Aleria, to Folelli, or even perhaps to Corso, near the Capo Russo—the red cape. It was very beautiful. And all the time I was a child I wanted nothing more than to be near the sea all the time.

"I would have liked to be a fisherman or to work on the boats that went from Bastia and Ajaccio to Nice and Marseille. But for people like us it was impossible. One had to work all day long on the land to get enough to eat. And so as a young man I became just another peasant in the mountains. But I never forgot the sea. Always in my heart I wanted to live beside it—to see the sun rise over the horizon, to watch how the colors changed all the day long, to listen to the fury of the waves in the wintertime. And then, when my parents died, I went to the coast, but I could get no work. And so I stowed away on a boat and I got to Marseille. But still I could not get work on the sea—I had no experience, I did not know the right people. All I could manage was to work as a mate on the poids lourds, the huge transport trucks that went between Marseille and the north.

"By and by I became a driver, and then I had my own trucks and I made a little money. And I saved. But still I could not find what I wanted. It is not much, you would think, for a man to want. I did not desire riches. All I wanted was a cottage from which I could regard the sea, a place to retire.

"But the sea has become a preserve for the rich. Every inch of coast is parceled out, each stone has its price—and the price is too high for people such as us. But I determined, nevertheless, that I too would have my rich man's morsel. I swore that I would get my cottage on a cliff."

Bartoluzzi stopped talking and stared unseeingly into the tenor of the dark truck. He drained the enamel mug beside him and poured more wine.

"Three years ago," he went on slowly, "I found the piece of land I wanted. It was secluded, it was covered in olive trees, it looked out to sea. It was on the Corniche d'Or. There was already a cabanon there where I could live—but I could also build more if I wished. It was of course very expensive–unbelievably expensive. I put down every penny I had saved, and that only bought me an option.

"And then I realized that however hard I saved, however hard I worked, I would never be able to raise enough to complete the purchase. Or if I could persuade them to wait, I would be too old to enjoy the place by the time I could take possession of it. And so I decided—quite suddenly—to find other means. If a man's work was not enough to gain him the small thing he wanted out of life, then life must be maneuvered and manipulated in such a way that the thing could be done."

"What made you decide to do... this?" Kuryakin asked in a curiously gentle tone.

The determined jaw swung around toward him like the prow of a ship. "It seemed right that I should help others, the less fortunate ones, such as I had been," Bartoluzzi said simply. "It was right that my own salvation should be through the salvation of others. Also, through my experience in transport, I already had the knowledge and the means to carry it out."

"You were not worried about the law?"

"The law?" The nut-faced little man spat scorn. "The law is an abstraction! Which side of the law you are on is a matter of chance. If you are on the right side, you cheat and lie and steal and they call you a smart businessman. If you do the same things and you are on the wrong side, they call you an embezzler and they put you in prison. If you are on the right side and you kill, they give you medals; if, like yourself, you are on the wrong—then again they execute you or they shut you up forever. Don't speak to me of the law…"

"Yes, a curse on it. Let a man take what be needs—and the devil take those who would thwart him!" Illya growled, suddenly remembering that he was supposed to be a bank robber and a killer. He changed the subject. "And have succeeded this way in... raising... the necessary capital?" he asked.

"Not yet," Bartoluzzi replied. "Two years have passed since I made my decision; fifteen months since I did the first job—for I had to spend a great deal of time planning and making contacts. But if I kept up a flow of operations like yours, my friend"—he glanced at the briefcase lying by Illya's feet—"I could probably make it in another three or four years."

"So long? At the prices you charge? It must be expensive land indeed!"

"It is. And do not forget, a fortune has to be dispensed to those helping me. They may not comprehend exactly what they are doing, but they know well enough that it is against the law. And silence comes expensive!"

"True. It is a long time, even so."

"It would have been twenty years, had I not started in this business. But do not worry on my account. If things go well in certain directions I shall in fact not even have to wait the three or four years."

"But you said…"

"I said it would take three or four years with cases like yours. In the case of people paying more, much more, evidently it would take less."

"Impossible! Nobody would pay more than I have! No one!"

"No one, perhaps," Bartoluzzi agreed craftily. "But an organization might—an organization that was all-powerful."

"An... organization?" Kuryakin repeated, trying to mask his interest.

"Certainly. An organization with an interest in helping such unfortunates avoid the spitefulness and malice of the fellowmen. An organization that might have an interest in contacting certain clients and making use of their talents, furthering their careers instead of just removing them from danger temporarily. Such people would pay more."

"And such an organization has already contacted you? On those lines?"

"Ach... it is better not to speak of these things," Bartoluzzi said, becoming suddenly evasive. "Come—it is time we were on our way..."

Kuryakin tried once more to draw the little man out on the subject of whoever was trying to buy into his organization. "One would be interested to hear more of such a group," he said, "if it existed; particularly if it was, as you said, all-powerful

"You don't want to bother yourself about that, friend," Bartoluzzi said. "A man like you. What need does a strong man have for others?"

"True," the Russian said hoarsely. "I manage my own affairs at that. And I'd like to see the organization that can stop me!" He climbed back into the van and pulled the doors shut. Bartoluzzi returned to the drivers' cab—and a moment later they were winding up the hill past the Gasthof toward the main road leading to Munich and the west.

Three hours later, the Corsican pulled up in a deserted parking area not far from Wangen. There were several rolls of carpet and linoleum in the van, and they had decided that Illya was to travel through the tunnel incarcerated in one of these. According to a spurious bill of lading, they were consigned to a decorator in Zurich. This last stop before the frontier was to enable him to get properly lost inside one of the rolls!

As soon as the engine cut out, he was aware that the weather had changed for the worse. There was a regular pattering on the top and sides of the vehicle, and every now and then it lurched in a gust of wind. When Bartoluzzi came around to open the doors, the Russian saw that the night was full of driving sleet.

Turning up his collar, he helped the Corsican manhandle the heavy rolls into a suitable position in the back of the van. It didn't take them long, but by the time they had finished, Illya was drenched from head to foot. Grasping his jacket by the lapels, he shook the material violently in an attempt to get rid of some of the moisture. At the same time he tossed his head to clear his face of the streams of water running down from his hair.

A heavy truck rumbled past, the beams of its headlamp, brightly illuminating the driving sleet, the parked van, and the two men standing by the open doors. In the vivid light Bartoluzzi's face, with its staring eyes and jutting chin, was abruptly changed into a mask of murderous hate!

Before he realized what was happening, Kuryakin found himself hurled backward into the body of the van as the Corsican shoulder charged him with brutal force. The doors of the vehicle slammed, and a bar dropped into place. A moment later, they roared out onto the main road.

Astonished, the Russian drew the transceiver from his pocket and tried to call up Solo. But either his teammate was otherwise occupied, or he was calling a little too early. There was no answer to his signal.

Not long afterward, the van shuddered to a halt. He could hear running footsteps, voices shouting commands.

Light flooded into the dark interior as the doors were jerked open. Facing him by a roadside police post were half a dozen German militiamen with leveled rifles. Behind them, he could dimly see an officer and Bartoluzzi, waving his arms.

"There you are!" the Corsican was shouting. "Stowing away in my van, he was! There he is. That's Kurim Cernic, the murderer who escaped from Prague… I'd know that face anywhere. Arrest him! Take him away! He was trying to get across the border in my van!"

Keeping out of the line of fire of the rifles, the officer motioned Kuryakin to descend. Cold steel embraced his wrists as handcuffs clicked shut.

Still stupefied with astonishment, the Russian allowed himself to be led into the guardroom. What had happened? What had given him away? For if Bartoluzzi had denounced him as the killer Cernic, it could only be for one reason—because he had in fact discovered that Kuryakin was an imposter!

At that moment he caught sight of himself in a mirror hanging over an old-fashioned mantelpiece behind the duty officer's desk. And at once he realized what had betrayed him to the Corsican.

Soaked by the storm of sleet, the dye that had darkened his blond hair to Cernic's color had run—and now his face was grotesque, streaked from one side to the other with the stain!

Chapter 15

Ambush In The East!

NOW THAT THE mechanics of Bartoluzzi's one-man escape network were known, now that he was morally sure that he had in fact been approached by THRUSH on the lines that Waverly had feared, Kuryakin felt justified in throwing the Corsican, as it were, to the wolves. On the other hand, he could hardly do this in his role as the Czech Kurim Cernic, for the wily Corsican would probably manage to talk his way out of it—especially since the military would be unlikely to take the word of an escaped convict, and Illya had no proof of his allegations. Moreover, as a recognized criminal rather than a political refugee, Kuryakin himself would probably simply be handed over to the East German authorities, who would in turn send him back to Czechoslovakia. Establishing his true identity then might take days, for he was deliberately carrying no papers, and in the meantime Bartoluzzi would have vanished and the trail would be cold.

He would therefore have to come out into the open and tell them now who he was. But this turned out to be more difficult than he had anticipated.

As soon as the Corsican had gone outside the guard room, Illya turned to the officer and said in German: "Now I can speak. You have the opportunity of pulling off a personal coup that will undoubtedly gain you much prestige with your superiors."

The young man stared at him. "What are you talking about?"

"I am not Kurim Cernic. I am an enforcement agent of—"

"Be quiet. Of course you are Cernic."

"I tell you I am not. I am impersonating Cernic—why do you think there is dye running down my face?—and this man thinks he is illegally taking Cernic out of reach of the authorities."

"You are talking rubbish. If he was doing that, why would he call us in and hand you over to us? Why would he seek the help of the military, of all people?"

"Because he discovered I was an impostor; that I am not Cernic."

"Now you are talking in riddles. That is enough."

"He is running an escape service for criminals. Now that he knows I am not a criminal, his organization is in danger so he wants me out of the way—don't you see?"

"I see it is time you were taken to the cells. Sergeant!"

"But you are making a mistake. I tell you—"

"Silence!... Sergeant, take this man to the cells and place a close guard on him. Transport will be arriving soon with an escort to take him to the East German frontier. Until then he is not to be left alone."

And so, until some time after midnight, Illya languished in a brightly lit room with barred windows and a peephole in the door through which young soldiers curiously and constantly peered. Judging from scraps of dialogue he could hear through the door, the place was an adjunct to a big frontier post some way down the road. But his escort was clearly coming from farther afield.

At last, nevertheless, he was once again standing handcuffed before the shabby desk in the guardroom. The stain on his face had dried, and now, in the mirror over the fireplace, he looked like nothing so much as a Maori warrior!

An escort of half a dozen soldiers with machine pistols– Belgian FNs, he thought—was drawn up outside the door, and beyond them he could see a vehicle like an Austin Gypsy, its canvas top silhouetted against the lamps bordering the road. The young lieutenant in charge of the escort was receiving his orders from the officer Illya had seen before.

"You will proceed directly northeast through Bayreuth after you have reached Nurnberg. It has been arranged that an escort of East German militia will rendezvous with you at the frontier post just north of Hof, on the new Autobahn. You will deliver this envelope to the officer commanding at the same time as you hand over the prisoner. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Captain."

As the young lieutenant saluted and reached out for the brown manila envelope, Illya exploded into action.

He had caught sight of the baton transceiver, which had been taken from him when he was searched. It lay on the desk next to the briefcase containing the remainder of the money that was to have been paid to Bartoluzzi as soon as they reached Zurich.

The Russian twisted away from the guards on either side of him and dived for the table. Snatching up the baton in his manacled hands, he hurled himself into the corner of the room as his fingers felt for the controls.

"Channel open," he gasped. "Listen, Napoleon... listen: the plan has misfired... Bartoluzzi has spotted me, and I have been handed over to the authorities as Cernic—"

Men flew at the Russian from all directions. Gun butts thudded into his back, hands tore at his shoulders, and an arm encircled his neck from behind as he crouched down facing the wall in a desperate attempt to reach his teammate. "…taken with military… East Germany... back to Prague..." he panted between efforts to beat off the soldiers.

But the sheer weight of numbers was too much for him. The transceiver, wrenched from his hands, fell to the ground and was smashed under a heavy boot; Kuryakin, heaving manfully against the overwhelming odds, was finally subdued.

A few minutes later, bruised, bloodied and only half-conscious, he was dragged out to the truck and pushed into the back with the escort, and they took off for Munich, Nurnberg and the north.

Napoleon Solo was worried. Having failed to find anyone to talk to in the office of the junkyard, he had traversed the chalet-and-pine-tree fringe of the Vosges, cut through the bare slopes on which in summer the magnificent vines of Alsace grew, and sped down the long, shallow Rhine valley between Strasbourg and Mulhouse. He was now approaching the outskirts of Basle... and he didn't know what to do.

He had waited until eleven o'clock for Illya's call, and nothing had happened. He had, on the other hand, been a few minutes late coming in himself; he hadn't turned the tiny indicator to RECEIVE until ten or eleven minutes after the hour, and it was possible that Kuryakin had transmitted during those few particular minutes.

But unless he was certain that the Russian had in fact reached Zurich, it would not be worth going through the customs and immigration formalities and entering Switzerland via Basle; any other rendezvous would be quicker to make driving around the back of the mountains. Since he had no idea where such a rendezvous would be, however, there was no point actually starting in that direction. Nor was it worth heading for Zurich if he was going to have to waste time coming back again.

The only thing to do, he decided finally, was to wait where he was until Illya came through again. He would lose three hours, but if he pressed on and then discovered it had been in the wrong direction, he might find he had lost even more.

Catching sight of the blue and red neon surrounding the entrance to a roadside restaurant, Solo suddenly realized he was hungry. He had not eaten since his picnic lunch in the Ardennes almost ten hours ago.

He swung the DS off the road and crunched onto the graveled parking lot at one side of the building.

An illuminated sign over a glassed-in portion announced that the place was open from 8 A.M. until 2 A.M., and there was a board at one side on which the bill of fare was displayed in two-inch lettering. Judging from the number of cars still in the lot, business was good.

Solo walked past cars registered in Germany, Switzerland and several departments of France. He was negotiating a group of puddles left by the evening's rain, when he came to a dead stop. His eye, ranging across colored reflections of neon in the pools of moisture, was arrested by the inverted image of a car's license plate. He looked up. The letters NL on an oval white plaque surmounted the letters and figures of a Dutch registration.

And the car bearing them was a Fiat 850 coupe in a flamboyant shade of mustard.

The girl was sitting alone at the back of the restaurant. Solo didn't see her at first; he was momentarily swamped by the tide of warmth that submerged him as soon as he pushed through the door. The place had lost the hectic air of early evening—there was just the murmur of voices and the discreet tinkle of cutlery to complement savory aromas spiced with garlic and the background tang of coffee and dark cigarettes. The tables, clothed in red checks, were set in waist-high wooden booths arranged around a vast central cheminée bright with copper pans. The agent gave his coat to a waiter in a white linen jacket and looked around for a table.

Only when he glanced past the flames leaping on the great hearth did he see Annike, her blonde head gleaming below the oak beams.

He crossed the room and slid into the vacant seat on the other side of the table.

Her elbows were planted on either side of her coffee cup and her chin was resting on crossed hands. "The truite aux amandes is quite good," she said without looking up, "and they have Gewürztraminer in pichons, which is a must."

"Sold to the gentleman with the hungry eyes," Solo said. "Though I shall take leave to have a steak after that trout and an avocado with huge prawns before. What are you doing here—if the question is not indiscreet?"

"Waiting for a gentleman to buy me an armagnac."

"No sooner asked than granted. Waiter!"

"Thank you, kind sir. Now, I'll answer your question if you'll answer mine first—what are you doing here, Mr. Solo?" the girl said brightly. Her uptilted nose was slightly red at the tip. She looked as though she had been crying.

"You know what I'm doing here. I'm trying to catch a man who runs an escape service for criminals."

Annike caught her breath. A tear welled from her left eye and rolled slowly down her cheek. She smiled.

"It's him, isn't it?" Solo said with a flash of inspiration. "He's let you down."

"How do you know?"

"It's a fair deduction. Somebody had been asking questions about me in your office. You knew who I was, and you engineered it so I should go back to my hotel. Nice girls like you don't usually arrange for total strangers to be knocked on the head... unless a man they're in love with asks them to. Ergo, you are in love with someone from the organization. And now, since I know it's a one-man show, obviously you were in love with the one man. You went to see him on your off days—and evidently, something has gone wrong."

"The bastard!" the girl said venomously. "Oh, the salaud! After all he promised me... and it's only with some thin-faced cow from Czechoslovakia. I could kill him!"

A waiter was standing at Solo's side. "Would you care to order, sir?"

"Yes, please. Bring a double armagnac for the lady. I'll take the avocado with prawns, the trout with almonds, and a porterhouse steak, medium to rare, with salad."

"Very good, sir. And to drink?"

"I'll take a pichon of the Gewürztraminer."

After the man had tucked the carbon copy of the order under their tablecloth and gone away, Solo asked, "Tell me, Annike—how did you get me out of the hotel?"

She rubbed her thumb against her fingers in the universal gesture to indicate money changing hands. "They have very large laundry baskets," she said, "that go down in the service elevator and then get dumped in the yard."

Solo finished his meal, and they went out to the parking lot. Annike was wearing blue slacks and a ribbed sweater that clung to the supple outlines of her figure like a second skin. She looked young, desirable, and very vulnerable. "Where's your boyfriend now?" the agent asked as they reached her car.

"I've no idea. He had some job—taking someone from Praha to Zurich, I believe. If that wasn't just a stall to hide the fact that he's with that woman."

"That was no stall. The someone is a friend of mine," Solo said, taking the baton from his pocket and showing it to her. "I'm expecting to hear from him later on this little gadget. Then we'll really know where he is." Absently be thumbed the button.

To their astonishment a confused sound burst from the tiny speaker, and a moment later—distorted but understandable—Illya Kuryakin's agitated voice: "... misfired …Bartoluzzi has spotted me, and I have been handed over to the authorities as Cernic... taken with military… East Germany... back to Prague..."

The line abruptly went dead.

"That's smart!" Solo said admiringly. "He must have denounced him as Cernic the moment he found out he wasn't Cernic! That way, he roped in soldiers to take the impostor out of his hair."

He paused and then added reflectively, "The only thing is, what do I do? Illya will be able to identify himself in time in Prague... but where has your boyfriend got to in the meantime?"

"Bart would never do that," the girl said decidedly. "Never."

"Never do what?"

"Let them take away a possible witness against him. I know Bart. And I know the way his mind works. If you ask me, he's just using the military to get the man across a frontier for which he hasn't any papers or something. As soon as it's convenient to him, he'll contrive to get your friend back again—and after that I wouldn't rate his chances very high."

"What do you mean?" Solo asked uneasily.

"He'll take him to that place of his and kill him. You'll see."

"Place? What place?"

"His headquarters. He has a fantastic place in a forest somewhere south of Dresden—a cross between the world's most comprehensive junkyard and a medieval castle!"

"And you think he'll hijack the prisoner and take him there?"

"I'm certain of it. The swine," the girl said vehemently. "The rotten swine... and the woman's years older than me!"

"Do you know the way to this place? Could you take me there?... You'd like to get your own back, wouldn't you? Do you know the way?"

The girl stopped and turned to face him. "Of course I know," she said.

"Crazy!" Solo cried, taking her elbow and turning her toward the row of parked cars. "We're on our way!"

Emilo Bartoluzzi was not a man to work himself if he could persuade others to do it for him. Having no forged papers suitable for a west-east crossing of the East German frontier with Illya, he had therefore decided to denounce the character he was impersonating and allow the authorities to convey the Russian there for him.

Once he was some way into the country, a rapid change of ownership would have to be effected—because Bartoluzzi had to get hold of the impostor for himself... fast.

There were three reasons for this. The first was to prevent others' hearing the man's story. It would not be long before he was able to gain at least some credence for his protestations that he wasn't really Cernic. Secondly, he had to have the fellow to himself so that he could employ the gentle arts of persuasion and find out who he was and for whom he was working. The tough little Corsican had not worked all this time just to see his carefully planned empire collapse at the first push of the first person to penetrate it.

And thirdly, the man bad to be silenced—for good. He knew far too much about the network to stay alive even in a Czech prison.

Stop him opening his mouth; find out who he was; shut his mouth. Those then were the objectives. And since none of them could conveniently be carried out in the middle of Austria, Switzerland or Western Germany, he had arranged for the military to kindly ferry the victim to a place of his own choosing; his own place.