The Valhalla Exchange - Jack Higgins [77]
Ritter said calmly, 'What now?'
'The plan still stands. My agent will make another attempt.'
Ritter selected a cigarette from his case and lit it with a splinter from the fire. 'One thing puzzles me. Why didn't this contact of yours make the attempt in the first place? Why the elaborate charade with Jackson?'
'It's really very simple,' Strasser said. 'You see, she's a woman.'
Meyer went up the stairs from the kitchen carrying a tray containing sandwiches, a pot of coffee and a cup. The big Finn on the door regarded him impassively, one of the few who didn't speak a word of German as Meyer well knew. In fact, communication had proved impossible. He spoke fair English, but that had provoked no response, neither had the few phrases of French that he knew. He raised the tray and gestured inside. The Finn slung his Schmeisser, unlocked the door and stood back.
Gaillard was sitting beside the bed, wiping Arnie's damp forehead. The boy, obviously still in high fever, moaned, tossing and turning, clutching at the blankets.
'Ah, there you are, Johann,' Gaillard said in German. 'I'm about ready for that.'
'How is he, Herr Doktor?'
'A little better, though you might not think it to look at him.'
Meyer put the tray on the bedside locker and started to pour the coffee. 'I was in the passageway that leads from the bar to the kitchen just now,' he said in a low voice. 'Don't worry about this one. He can't understand me.'
'So?'
'I heard Herr Strasser and Major Ritter talking. Something about the castle. Strasser said he had a contact in there. A woman.'
Gaillard looked up at him in astonishment. 'Impossible. There are only two women in the place. Madame Chevalier and Claire de Beauville. Frenchwomen to the core, both of them. What are you saying, man?'
'Only what I heard, Herr Doktor. I think they're waiting for something to happen.'
The Finn said something unintelligible, strode into the room and grabbed Meyer by the shoulder. He shoved him outside quickly and closed the door.
Gaillard sat there, staring into space. Impossible to believe. Meyer must have got it wrong. Must have. The boy cried out and Gaillard turned quickly, squeezed out his cloth in the bowl of water and wiped the forehead gently.
Claire de Beauville paused in the shadows at the bottom of the back stairs, listening. All was still. She opened the door on her left gently and stepped into the cloakroom. When she slipped out a few seconds later, she was wearing a military greatcoat and a steel helmet, both far too large for her, but that didn't matter. In the darkness, it was only the general impression that was important.
It was snowing lightly when she went outside and the entire courtyard was shrouded in darkness, no one working on Big Bertha this time. She took a deep breath to steady her nerves, went down the steps and started across to the gate.
There was a murmur of conversation up on the wall where the sentries talked in subdued voices. In the tunnel itself, silence. She hesitated at the door of the winding-gear room, then tried the handle gently. The door opened with a slight click. It was dark in there. With a tremendous surge of relief, she stepped inside. Her groping hand found the switch and she turned on the light.
Canning was standing there with Hesser and Birr, Howard and Finebaum against the wall. She stood there, very pale, looking suddenly like some little girl in a macabre game of dressing-up that had gone wrong, lost in that ridiculous greatcoat and steel helmet.
'How did you know?' she said tonelessly.
'Well, I'll tell you, miss, you'll have to blame me for that.' Finebaum slung his M1, crossed to her side and searched her pockets, finding the explosive and detonators instantly. 'You see, the general here, being highly suspicious of our old pal Bannerman, put me on his tail. I was sitting it out up there in the passage by his room when he came out, and the plain fact is, miss, he called on you. The rest, as they say in the movies, you know. I didn't get a chance to tell the general about