Welter nodded brusquely. The glasses were friendly; Welter definitely was not.
"I'm not happy. Mr. Carter," Southby went on, motioning to the bartender to bring Carter a drink and freshen his own. "You're better than the combined police forces of France, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria because you're going to do the impossible. You're going to get my train back."
"Sometimes one man can do what many can't," said Carter. "As for getting your train back, let's put it this way. You and I both have an interest in seeing Nikolai Kobelev removed from the picture."
"Did you hear that, Sidney?" Southby asked in a loud voice, turning to Welter. "We have a mutual interest. Mr. Carter and I. A ten-million-dollar train at stake, not to mention the lives of a hundred and fifty fare-paying patrons for whom I am legally responsible, and Mr. Carter wants to talk about our mutual interest. Go away, Mr. Carter," he said angrily, turning back around. "I'm not interested in a man whose interests don't coincide exactly with mine. I don't trust a government stooge. You people are always looking to protect your precious state secrets. I buy and sell your kind all the time. I want a man on my payroll who will do exactly as I tell him."
Carter calmly swished the ice in his drink and laid the swizzle stick on the bar. "I'm afraid you 're stuck with me."
"I am not stuck, sir! I may be tired, overwrought, even half-drunk, but I am not stuck. We have ways of dealing with this kind of terrorism in Europe — men trained by the terrorists themselves who are enlightened enough to realize money is more important than ideals. I can afford to buy several of these men and have the OE back on schedule before she reaches Belgrade."
Carter took a close look at Southby over the rim of his glass. The man was obviously on the brink of nervous exhaustion. "Apparently they didn't tell you who we're dealing with," he said, putting his drink back on the bar. "Nikolai Kobelev is no ordinary terrorist. He's Russian. KGB. The men around him are all handpicked, I'm sure. Efficient killers, each one of them. Handling this sort takes a certain talent, shall we say, a talent you can't buy, Mr. Southby, at any price. I don't think Kobelev is interested in your train as such. It merely provides a means to greater ends, namely to recover his daughter — who is in our custody — and to give him the opportunity to wreak vengeance on me. He will take your train to Istanbul, where he has no doubt made additional arrangements for his transportation into Russia, then leave it. On the other hand, if it suits his purpose to blow up your ten-mill ion-dollar toy, he will do so without a moment s hesitation. If Kobelev manages to recover his daughter and eliminate me, he will have gone a long way toward capturing what he really wants."
Southby's stern expression softened. Like many a man who has spent hours in a bar wallowing in his trouble, his moods changed rapidly from anger to maudlin self-pity. "I'm sorry, Mr. Carter, truly I am, but the Orient Express is my life. When I first bought her she was a broken-down rusted mess, headed for the scrapyards. I reclaimed her from oblivion. I painstakingly restored every inch of her, put new leather on her seats, new drapes; I hired the finest wood-crafters in Europe to repair her interior. There are no new cars on that train. She's exactly as she was in 1929 in her heyday. I put a fortune into her and built a fortune with her. She's my baby."
"All this is very touching," said Carter dryly, "but beside the point. What I need from you, Southby, is a way to board her without being immediately recognized."
Southby quickly drained his drink and put his glass on the bar with a heavy sigh. "Welter and I have discussed that," he said. "Vienna is a dinner stop. We thought there might be some way to poison the food."
"Highly unlikely," said Carter, "unless you want to poison everyone on the train and they all start eating at exactly the same moment. But what do you mean by dinner stop? I thought there were dining cars."
"There are. You see, the Orient Express isn't a passenger train as such anymore, in the sense that people get on and off at different stops. It's a package tour. You buy a ticket in Paris and ride all the way through to Istanbul. Of course, there are extras along the way. Tonight was supposed to have been dinner here at the hotel for all the passengers, then an evening at the opera. Naturally, in view of recent developments, all this was canceled. But we've contacted Wagon Lits, who does our catering, and they've consented to send down one of their chefs from the Paris office. We have to keep up appearances. We've arranged to have him board here and cook a gourmet meal right on the train."
"And Kobelev is going along with this?"
"Oh, he's been very accommodating. Said he'd be perfectly willing to let us wine and dine him in the best style Europe has to offer if that's what we want."
"I can imagine. This chef, when does he arrive?"
"He's here now, at our branch office. He's due to board at four."
"Call him. Tell him he can go back to Paris. I'll be taking his place tonight."
"If you insist." Welter put a commiserating arm around Southby's shoulder.
"Don't worry about a thing," said Carter.
Southby groaned.
Carter found the chef, a rotund, genial little man, sitting in a straight-backed chair in the front office of Special Tours, Inc., a black overcoat draped over his shoulders and a battered suitcase at his feet. He told Carter he'd been ordered home, a circumstance to which he seemed resigned, as though his world consisted of contradictory orders to do one thing, then to turn around and do the opposite with no explanation whatever.
From him Carter learned things the tour staff had known from the beginning but which had never penetrated the upper echelons of management. The train engineer, for example, belonged to several Communist Party organizations in Paris; and the night before, when Kobelev had flagged the train at a crossing outside Dijon, it was thought the engineer was in league with them. He had since disappeared, and one of Kobelev's men was running the train. Carter made a mental note to have the man picked up and questioned.
He learned, too, that Cynthia was still in the wheelchair, and when she boarded the night before, she'd seemed dazed or drunk. Carter assumed drugs. The chef had heard this from the woman in the office who had been in radio contact with the train before the Russians had commandeered all communications aboard. Carter added another note to talk with her before he left.
The chef went on to say that Cynthia was being guarded by Kobelev and two of his men in the salon car, which was in the middle of the train, and that four others, two with machine guns, were circulating among the other passengers. This meant eight Russians in all, including the man at the controls.
When he felt he'd found out all he could from the chef. Carter excused himself, went outside, and ducked into a small bistro down the street. He purchased a bottle of cognac and two glasses. When he returned he and the chef toasted one another's health and the health of President Mitterand and most of the French parliament before the chef had to leave for the train station to make his connection for Paris. Before he left, the chef thanked him effusively, and Carter made him a present of the rest of the bottle.
Carter watched the taxi round the comer out of sight, men he went in to talk with the woman behind the desk. It was she who had talked with the train staff by radio, and although her distaste for the Russians and what they'd done was admirable, she wasn't able to add anything to what the chef had already told him. Finally she said that if he were going to be a chef, he'd need a uniform, and she gave him the address of a store in Schillerstrasse.
The store's tailor turned out to be tight-lipped and efficient, like most German professional people; a slash of chalk along the sleeve and another across the from sufficed for altering the jacket, but the trousers were another matter. Carter took the man aside and explained his rather special problem.