'Tell me later, we're coming to the turn-off. There are things you should know…'
Tweed talked non-stop, providing Newman with all the data about Lisa at Lord Barford's mansion, his arrival in Alfriston, what he had found there.
As he was talking, Newman's skill as a driver was tested to the limit as the track they had turned on to kept switching back and forth on itself in a series of bends.
Left, then right again, then left. All the time they were ascending rapidly, along a potholed track where many cavities had not been filled in.
Behind them Paula too drove with ease and skill, revelling in the warmth inside her car. Using a gloved hand, she cleared a hole in the steamed-up glass of her side window. The view she looked down on was staggering.
From the base of the Downs flatlands of frost-covered fields stretched away endlessly to the north. Then she saw a caterpillar of lights crawling westward, realized it was a local train which had to be returning to its depot. She felt the whole of England was spreading out before her.
Tweed was telling Newman he had found Lisa an extraordinary personality. He described her, emphasized her intelligence, voiced his puzzlement as to what her real role was and why she was so anxious to meet him again.
'Nearing the summit,' Newman warned. 'Didn't you tell me Pole said that the road levelled out, started to go down and Rondel's house was on the left?'
'He did,' Tweed confirmed.
They crested the rise suddenly. Newman slowed down and behind them Paula, gazing through her windscreen, almost gasped. On the other side of the Downs a vast panorama came into view. To east and west were vast slopes of rolling hills. A distance away to the south the sea, caught in the moonlight, glittered like an immense lake of mercury sweeping into the Channel. The road began to drop. They pulled up. Newman freewheeled a few more yards, stopped. He left the engine purring to keep the interior warm, jumped out after Tweed and joined Paula, who had already left her car.
'There it is,' said Newman. 'Weird-looking. Expensive.'
'Look at the name,' said Paula.
A large aluminium plate was engraved with the name in front of a high wire fence. Eagle's Nest. Two high wire gates barred the entrance to the curving drive beyond. At the far end of the drive it turned towards a very large white house built of stone. The architecture was surreal, like a collection of white blocks or cubes perched at different levels on top of each other. To one side rose a tall round tower. The entire edifice was located deep inside an old quarry, its steep sides overhanging the house.
'Look!' Paula called out. 'There's something emerging from the round tower.'
'I've seen it,' Tweed replied.
Somewhere behind them was the muffled sound of a machine. Paula glanced back – just in time to see the crouched figure of a rider on a motorcycle. The machine was steadily negotiating its way up a steep path which, she guessed, led to the top of the Down overlooking the house.
'That's Harry Butler,' Newman reassured her. 'He insisted on guarding my rear all the way from London…'
He stopped speaking as a slim mast, like a submarine's periscope, its top a tangle of wired dishes, continued elevating until it was about twenty feet above the rim of the Down. Paula nudged Tweed.
'Someone's coming along the drive at a rate of knots. Looks like an old woman carrying a rifle.'
The hurrying figure appeared with astonishing speed on the far side of the closed gates. She stopped, her weapon, actually a shotgun, aimed at them. Her voice was harsh.
'Who are you? Private property. Why are you here?'
'Which question would you like me to answer first?' Tweed enquired mildly.
She was wearing an old heavy 'dark coat. It almost reached her ankles and Paula wondered how she'd moved so fast in such a garment. She was hawk-nosed, bony-faced, in her sixties, a menacing figure.
'Stop pointing that thing at us,' Newman ordered. 'Shotguns can go off almost by themselves. Want to spend the rest of your life in prison for murder?'
'Can't frighten me,' she snarled, but she swivelled the gun to a port position and it fired harmlessly into the air.
'See what I mean,' Newman shouted at her. 'Who are you?'
'Mrs Grimwood. The… 'ousekeeper… if you must know.'
The shot had echoed a long distance in the cold night air, would have been heard inside the strange house. Tweed was ignoring the verbal confrontation, his eyes glued to the tall mast. Seconds after the shotgun went off the mast began to withdraw swiftly. It disappeared inside the tower, was gone.
'Private property,' Airs Grimwood yelled.
It was becoming like the repetition of an old gramophone when the needle had got stuck. Tweed shrugged, wondering why Paula had slipped behind him earlier. The old crone opened up a fresh barrage.
'That girl with you – 'as a camera. I want the film.'
'No, I haven't,' Paula lied. 'Can't you recognize a pair of binoculars? Get your eyesight tested.' Silly old cow, she added to herself as Tweed went back towards the cars.
They stood staring at the sea for a few minutes. Now it was like a sheet of crystal, flat, motionless. Paula heard the muffled sound of Harry Butler's machine return slowly down the path from the Down.
'I've got a suggestion,' Newman said as he joined them. 'Harry's had a long tiring ride. I could squeeze his small motorcycle in my hatchback, let him drive your car, Tweed – then the three of us could drive back together and talk.'
'Good idea,' Tweed agreed. 'Get your photo?' he asked Paula.
'Photos. Half-hidden in the shadow beyond the house I saw a helipad – with a chopper on it. I got that as well as the mast. They certainly want to keep that thing – whatever it is – secret…'
They were driving back along the A27, heading for the distant turn-off towards Petworth. Newman was driving the hatchback with Tweed beside him and Paula in the rear. Behind them Butler was driving Tweed's car. Unsettled by their visit to Eagle's Nest, the atmosphere up on the Downs, they were silent for a few minutes. It was shortly after they had moved on to the A27 when Paula peered through the rear window.
'There's a helicopter flying fairly high up behind us. The odd thing is it looks as though it came from Lord Barford's estate. Has he got a chopper?'
'No idea,' Tweed replied, his eyes half closed.
'Bob, what did you think of Mark Wendover?' Paula went on.
'Calls himself a freelance, which struck me as odd. What is he like? Only a slight American accent. His mother was English. Has a first-class brain, really knows his stuff. And he doesn't miss much. He's convinced Jason Schulz was murdered, then it was mocked up to make it look like suicide.'
'Two fake suicides,' Tweed mused. 'Three and a half thousand miles apart. Both men in top government posts – so both had access to top secrets. What's the link? I've no idea, but as you know I don't believe in coincidence. Could the assassin be the same person?'
'Easily,' Newman replied. 'The deaths took place roughly five days apart. Plenty of time for someone to do the job in Washington, then catch a flight over here from Dulles Airport.'
While they were descending the switchback road towards the A27 a quiet voice spoke by radio-telephone to the pilot of the chopper waiting by his machine.
'Follow two cars leaving Eagle's Nest. Report their route. They are probably heading for Park Crescent in London. Give regular reports of their position to Bronze…'
The owner of the same quiet voice then pressed fresh numbers.
'Listen to me carefully. And don't make mistakes or you know what will happen to you. A chopper pilot will tell you at regular intervals the location of the two cars. I'm sure their destination is Park Crescent. Bronze, move fast. Steal an unusual vehicle – the target is smart. You have his description. Tell Zero to kill Tweed.'