Romella puts the phone down, turns to Findhorn. 'I said I was from Fort Rucker and needed to contact Albrecht urgently. She gave me his ex-directory number.'
She dials Albrecht's home number. Frau Albrecht answers. My husband is walking the dog. You have missed him by five minutes.
He is not away, then?
Who is this? Suspicion in her voice.
This is Colonel Herzberg's secretary. I'm phoning from the States.
He will be here in two hours' time with a colleague. Then they are going off someplace to discuss a business matter. Thirty-five years and Konrad has never before missed Christmas at home. Do you wish to call back in say three hours?
No. It will wait, thank you.
Ach! And at Christmas too. But he will be back tomorrow.
Merry Christmas. Goodbye.
And you may never see your husband again.
Romella says, 'He's summoning his engineers. We're out of time.'
Findhorn types into the Internet, throws up a map of Switzerland. Davos is on the far eastern edge of Switzerland. Brig is about halfway between Geneva and Davos. Blatten is a tiny village high in the Bernese Alps. A track lies beyond it, a thin line winding into the mountains. Instinctively, Findhorn knows that Albrecht's hideaway is somewhere up there. 'I need to contact Matsumo's killers.'
Romella says, 'You'll need your translator.'
The killers are waiting for them at Geneva Airport. Ms Drindle is wearing a heavy fur coat and a sort of Cossack hat. Dark trousers protrude below the coat. The sunglasses, Findhorn presumes, come from her camera-shy nature. The Korean's face is similarly adorned but he has a black trenchcoat and hat which makes him look like a small, fat jazz player.
There are no handshakes or words of welcome. Findhorn and Romella follow them into the cold air. 'You drive,' Ms Drindle instructs Findhorn. 'Keep strictly to the speed limit.' The car is a black, four-wheel drive Suzuki with French number plates. Findhorn takes the wheel. Romella sits beside him. He has to think carefully about changing gear in a car with a left-hand drive. He takes them carefully through Geneva and over the Mont Blanc bridge, which for some reason is decked out with the flags of the Swiss cantons. The big water jet is off but the paddle steamer restaurant is doing Christmas lunches. He follows the signs for Thonon and is soon taking them along flat white countryside with Lac Leman to their left. He is acutely aware that until now the people in the rear of the car have been trying to find and kill him.
Conversation is zero.
They are through the tongue of France which borders the south of the lake, and back into Switzerland, before Drindle speaks in her mannish voice. 'Tell me how you would go about it, Findhorn.'
The road looks as if it has just been cleared of snow but already a thin fresh layer is beginning to form. Findhorn is driving with excessive care.
'I'm too sick to think about it.'
'Do so anyway.'
Findhorn mumbles, 'Knock on his door and blow his head off.'
In the mirror, he sees Drindle give a quick nod. 'Actually that can work. At least with proper planning and in the right circumstances, such as a quiet suburban area. It has the crowning merit of simplicity.'
'There has to be an alternative to this.'
'Name it.'
Findhorn exhales deeply and shakes his head; he's been over it a thousand times.
Drindle continues, almost leaning over Findhorn's shoulder. 'There are three essentials in an operation like this. Planning, surprise and invisibility. You must leave not the slightest trace of your presence, apart from the corpse itself.'
'Don't try to make this sound like a legitimate military operation, Drindle. You're just a murderer.'
Her voice is icy. 'You are in no position to make facile moral judgements.'
Findhorn has no answer.
How much the Korean understands is unclear, but in the mirror Findhorn sees the man giving him a long, hostile stare. Findhorn turns and looks into the small, bloodshot eyes. He says, 'Screw you.'
The snow is getting heavy. Romella, to deflect tension, says: 'I just hope we get through.'
Findhorn hopes they don't.
'We're about a hundred kilometres from the Simplon Pass,' she adds, unfolding a map.
An old-fashioned Beetle trundles past, its spiky tyres glittering like chariot wheels.
'Consider this car, Findhorn. Foreign plates, four-wheel drive, snow chains, nothing unusual. But we will be off the main highway, climbing a very steep road with no ski slopes or other tourist attractions at the end of it, a road which leads only to the chalets of the rich scattered over the mountainside. We will be noticed.'
'It's Christmas. People have visitors.'
'Good. But what do we do with the car? Park it outside Albrecht's house? What would you do if you were Albrecht, with a trillion dollar secret and a host of enemies, if you saw a strange car waiting unexpectedly outside your empty home?'
'Run a mile.'
'Precisely. Therefore the car will not be there. We will find an empty woodshed, or even park it in his own garage. In this weather there will be no traces in the snow of man or vehicle.'
Findhorn says, 'I think I'm going to be sick.'
Ahead of them they see an oasis of light underneath a blanket of heavy grey sky. At the boundary of the town there is a blue notice with a list of passes which are off en, ouvert, aperto and open. Findhorn notes that the Simplon Pass is one of them and that it's the quickest escape route from Switzerland once the deed is done. Romella tells him to turn left.
He turns left and finds himself on a road running parallel to a railway station. There is a row of bright red carriages with Zermatt marked on their sides. There is a bridge, and Findhorn turns onto it and they drive over the white, tumbling River Rhone, and then he is immediately onto a steeply climbing hill. He drops gear.
And he drops gear again: the road begins to climb seriously. He uses low gears and extreme care.
Picture-postcard chalets, all snow-laden roofs and glittering Christmas trees, are scattered over high white slopes. It seems incredible that there are houses up there. He sees no signs of a road up to them. Grim, icy giants watch his progress through gaps in the clouds. Brig becomes a glow far below them.
They crawl into a small village. There is a handful of cars and a cable car station. Far above them, a little blue cable car is disappearing into the clouds. Findhorn stops their vehicle and they step out, their breath misting in the freezing air. Drindle walks over to a cluster of post boxes. They scan the names. Herr W. Neff lives in a house called Heya.
They split up. Findhorn finds himself wandering along narrow streets, barely a car width. Snow is piled high on either side. There are neat wooden chalets with verandahs and red shutters, and dates and names painted in white Gothic script on their walls. Part of the village is given over to big wooden huts standing on thick wooden stilts. Some are filled with wood, others with hay. He passes a church whose small, crowded cemetery is outlined under a metre of pristine, fluffy snow. There is an air of orderliness about everything. There is, however, no Heya.
A one-track, potholed road leads out of the village: the thin, black line on Findhorn's map. He looks at it, trying to follow its route up the mountain. Here and there he glimpses stretches of the road. Romella is flouncing through the car park snow. She is wearing blue jeans and leather boots; Findhorn thinks there is something vaguely eccentric about the combination of Peruvian hat and Doug's duffle coat. He points upwards. 'I don't think it can be done.'
She looks up. 'You could be right.'
'What the hell are we doing here?'