The Valhalla Exchange - Jack Higgins [87]
Strasser ignored her and menaced Meyer with his pistol, beside himself with rage. 'You helped him, didn't you? Where else would he obtain skis and winter clothing?'
'Please, Herr Strasser. Don't shoot.' Meyer broke down completely. 'I had nothing to do with this business. You are mistaken if you think otherwise.'
Claire poured herself a glass of champagne, perched on one of the high stools and sipped it appreciatively. 'Excellent. Really excellent - and he's quite right, by the way. I was the one who helped Paul. I had the greatest of pleasure in crowning that SS man of yours with a cut-glass decanter.'
Strasser glared at her. 'You?' he said. 'He's dead, the man you assaulted, did you know that?'
The smile left her face, but she replied instantly, 'And so is Etienne.'
'You bitch. Do you realize what you've done?'
'Ruined everything for you, I hope. There must be British and American troops all over the area by now. I'm sure Paul will run across one of their columns quite quickly.'
'No chance,' he said. 'Gestrin and four of those Finns of his have just taken off after him. Probably five of the finest skiers in the German Army. You think it will take them long to run down a sixty-year-old man?'
'Who won an Olympic gold medal in 1924. The greatest skier in the world in his day. I would have thought that would still count for something, wouldn't you?' She raised her glass, 'A votre sante, Reichsleiter - and may you rot in hell.'
He fired several times as the black rage erupted inside him. His first bullet caught her in the right shoulder, knocking her off the stool and turning her round. His second and third shattered her spine, driving her headlong into the wall, the woollen material of her jacket smouldering, then bursting into flame. He moved forward, firing again and again until the gun was empty.
He stood looking down at her and Meyer, his face contorted with horror, backed away quietly, then turned and rushed upstairs. When he reached Arnie's room, the boy was still asleep. He closed the door, bolted it, then dragged a heavy chest of drawers across as an additional barrier.
He went into the dressing room, lifted the carpet in the corner and removed a loose floorboard. Inside, wrapped in a piece of blanket, was his old sawn-off shotgun from the poaching days of his youth and a box of cartridges, hidden since before the war. He loaded both barrels and went back into the bedroom. He placed a chair in the centre of the room facing the door, sat down with the gun across his knees and waited.
It had been a long time, but some things you never forgot. Gaillard moved out of the trees and started into a flat plateau perhaps two hundred yards across, more trees on the other side. He was using the sliding forward stride much favoured by Scandinavians; a technique he had picked up in his youth and which ate up the miles at a surprising rate.
If you were fit, of course, always that, though at the moment, he felt better than he had for years. Free, yes, but more than that - the knowledge that they'd come to the end of something. That freedom was just around the corner for everyone.
But this was no time for such considerations. He needed a destination and didn't have one. On the other hand, it seemed reasonable to assume that the help he was seeking was more than likely to be found on the main roads, which meant climbing higher, traversing the eastern shoulder of the mountain and then descending.
Something made him glance back, some sixth sense. The Finns were half-way across the plateau, moving in single file, Gestrin leading. He was not afraid, but filled with a fierce delight and started into the trees, moving at a fast, loping rate. He was already a hundred feet up the side of the mountain when the Finns reached the edge of the trees and Gestrin called them to a halt.
'All right,' he said, 'the party's over. He's good, this one. Too good to play with. From now on, it's every man for himself, and remember - we want him alive.'
He started up the slope and they