Geneva would not tolerate that attention; the covenant would be destroyed. Miles had to be contained. But how?
His unfamiliar forest was lined with traps; every protective instinct he possessed told him to turn back. Geneva needed a man infinitely more cunning and experienced than he. Yet he could not turn back. The survivors of Wolfsschanze would not permit it. And deep in his own consciousness he knew he did not want to. There was the face that came into focus in the darkness. He had to find his father and, in the finding, show the world a man in agony who was brave enough and perceptive enough to know that amends must be made. And brilliant enough to make that credo live.
Noel walked to the kitchen door. Ellis was at the sink, washing teacups.
«I’ll pick up my clothes in a couple of weeks, Willie. Let’s go to the airport.»
Ellis turned, concern in his eyes. «I can save you time,» he said, reaching for a china mug on a shelf. «You’ll need some French money until you can convert. I keep a jarful for my bimonthly travels to the fleshpots. Take what you need.»
«Thanks.» Holcroft took the mug, looking at Willie’s exposed arms beneath rolled-up sleeves. They were as powerful and muscular as any two arms he’d ever seen. It struck Noel that Willie could break a man in half.
The madness started at Heathrow and gathered momentum at Orly.
In London he bought a ticket on KLM to Amsterdam, on the theory that the story he gave MI Five had been checked out and considered plausible. He suspected it had been both, for he saw a bewildered man in a raincoat watch him in astonishment as he raced out of the KLM departure gates back to Air France. There Willie was waiting for him with a ticket for a crowded plane to Paris.
Immigration procedure at Orly was cursory, but the lines were long. As he waited, Noel had time to study the milling crowds in the customs area and beyond the swinging doors that led to the terminal proper. Beyond those doors he could see two men; there was something about them that caught his attention. Perhaps it was their somber faces, joyless expressions that did not belong in a place where people greeted one another. They were talking quietly, their heads immobile, as they watched the passengers walk out of customs. One held a piece of paper in his hand; it was small, shiny. A photograph? Yes. A photograph of him.
These were not the men of Wolfsschanze. The men of Wolfsschanze knew him by sight; and the men of Wolfsschanze were never seen. MI Five had reached its agents in Paris. They were waiting for him.
«Monsieur.» The customs clerk stamped Holcroft’s passport routinely. Noel picked up his luggage and started toward the exit, feeling the panic of a man about to walk into an unavoidable trap.
As the doors parted, he saw the two men turn away to avoid being noticed. They were not going to approach him; they were going to … follow him.
The realization gave painful birth to an unclear strategy. Painful because it was so alien to him, unclear because he was not sure of the procedures. He only knew that he had to go from point A to point B and back again to A, losing his pursuers somewhere in the vicinity of B.
Up ahead in the crowded terminal he saw the sign: LIGNES AÉRIENNES INTÉRIEURES.
France’s domestic airline shuttled about the country with splendid irregularity. The cities were listed in three columns: ROUEN, LB HAVRE, CAEN … ORLÉANS, LE MANS, TOURS … DIJON, LYON, MARSEILLES.
Noel walked rapidly past the two men, as if oblivious of all but his own concerns. He hurried to the Intérieures counter. There were four people ahead of him.
His turn came. He inquired about flights south. To the Mediterranean. To Marseilles. He wanted a choice of several departure times.
There was a flight that landed at five cities in a southwest arc from Orly to the Mediterranean, the clerk told him. The stops were Le Mans, Nantes, Bordeaux, Toulouse, and Marseilles.
Le Mans. The flight time to Le Mans was forty minutes. Estimated driving time, three, three and a half hours. It was now twenty minutes to four.
«I’ll take that one,» Noel said. «It gets me to Marseilles at just the right time.»
«Pardon, monsieur, but there are more direct flights.»
«I’m being met at the airport. No point in being early.»
«As you wish, monsieur. I will see what is available. The flight leaves in twelve minutes.»
Five minutes later, Holcroft stood by the departure gate, the Herald Tribune opened in front of him. He looked over the top of the page. One of the two somber-faced Britishers was talking with the young lady who had sold him his ticket.
Fifteen minutes later the plane was airborne. Twice Noel wandered up the aisle to the lavatory, looking at the passengers in the cabin. Neither of the two men was on the aircraft; no one else seemed remotely interested in him.
At Le Mans he waited until the departing passengers got off the plane. He counted; there were seven of them. Their replacements began coming on board.
He grabbed his suitcase from the luggage rack, walked quickly to the exit door and down the metal steps to the ground. He went inside the terminal and stood by the window.
No one came out of the plane; no one was following him.
His watch read seventeen minutes to five. He wondered if there was still time to reach Helden von Tiebolt. Again he had the essence of what he needed—a name and a place of work. He walked to the nearest telephone, thankful for Willie’s jar of franc notes and coins.
In his elementary French, he spoke to the operator. «S’il vous plaît, le numéro de Gallimard à Paris…»
She was there. Mademoiselle Tennyson did not have a telephone at her desk, but if the caller would hold on, someone would get her on the line. The woman at the Gallimard switchboard spoke better English than most Texans.
Helden von Tiebolt’s voice had that same odd mixture of Portuguese and German as her sister’s but it was not nearly so pronounced. Too, there was a trace of the echo Noel remembered so vividly in Gretchen’s speech, but not the halting, once-removed quality. Helden von Tiebolt—Mademoiselle Tennyson—knew what she wanted to say and said it.
«Why should I meet with you? I don’t know you, Mr. Holcroft.»
«It’s urgent. Please, believe me.»
«There’s been an excess of urgencies in my life. I’m rather tired of them.»
«There’s been nothing like this.»
«How did you find me?»
«People … people you don’t know, in England, told me where you worked. But they said you didn’t live at the address listed with your employer, so I had to call you here.»
«They were so interested they inquired where I lived?»
«Yes. It’s part of what I have to tell you.»
«Why were they interested in me?»
«I’ll tell you when I see you. I have to tell you.»
«Tell me now.»
«Not on the phone.»
There was a pause. When the girl spoke, her words were clipped, precise … afraid. «Why exactly do you wish to see me? What can there be that’s so urgent between us?»
«It concerns your family. Both our families. I’ve seen your sister. I’ve tried to locate your brother—»
«I’ve spoken to neither in over a year,» interrupted Helden Tennyson. «I can’t help you.»
«What we have to talk about goes back over thirty years.»
«No!»
«There’s money involved. A great deal of money.»
«I live adequately. My needs are—»